Chapter 24

Tinyclaw's eyes widened.

"Yellowfang?" he called. The smoke was beginning to choke his voice. "Yellowfang! YELLOWFANG?!"

The fire lapped at the log between he and the medicine cat. Tinyclaw strained his ears to hear beyond the snapping and crackling of flames and the sound of the forest – his home, his world – burning down around him… but there was no reply.

Beside him, Mistykit mewled pitifully, full of fear. Her small body, its blue-gray color darkened by soot, was pressed against him. Tinyclaw couldn't stay here, not with Mistykit. Frustration threatened to boil over in him, punctuated by the burning sensation of his singed flanks. But he took Mistykit by the scruff of her neck and turned away.

Yellowfang would have to wait. She's a strong old cat, he told himself firmly. She won't let a little smoke beat her.

She'll be just fine.

Tinyclaw forced his paws into motion, sprinting up the slope to the flat stone where he'd left Patchpelt. The old tom lay unmoving, his chest rising and falling weakly. Tinyclaw set Mistykit down on her paws. Patchpelt would not be able to make it to the river on his own.

"Follow me," he rasped to Mistykit. It was hard to get his voice to rise above the sound of the flames and the forest crashing and breaking, but Mistykit nodded. She'd heard.

Tinyclaw's jaws were so tired, but he grasped Patchpelt's scruff as firmly as he could make them. He pulled Patchpelt off of the stone, pausing for just a moment to look back down the ravine – was there a chance… no, there was no time – before he set off for Sunningrocks.

Mistykit was keeping up well, thankfully – the terror of burning to death had struck a grim sort of urgency into the kit. Tinyclaw couldn't carry both she and Patchpelt, though by StarClan he wished he could – Mistykit would simply have to follow and be strong on her own. Mistykit's eyes were wide and unfocused but she followed as quickly as her small legs could carry her.

Her legs aren't that much smaller than mine, Tinyclaw thought. An odd thought, amidst the smoke and flame and death, but it flashed into his mind nonetheless. Despite his small size Tinyclaw knew he was far stronger than the kit waddling beside him. This forest had made him strong, and now it was falling apart.

Tinyclaw followed the path the Clan had taken with barely any ability to recognize it. The forest was changing rapidly, and all scents were stifled by smoke and ash. He moved by memory, by trusting his own paws – looking back only to ensure that Mistykit was behind him. StarClan, his neck hurt; but leaving Patchpelt to die was not an option.

Looking back wasn't helping to raise his hopes – each time he expected to see Yellowfang and Halftail following behind, barely visible in the smoke – but each time, there was only Mistykit. Tinyclaw pushed away the thought that he had sacrificed a good friend and Clanmate to save Bluefur's daughter, her very spitting image. She's Oakheart's daughter, too.

Finally they reached Sunningrocks. The presence of his Clanmates, terrified though they were, eased his thoughts. Tinyclaw laid Patchpelt down on the nearest and flattest stone he could find – Brackenfur rushed over to the elderly cat as fast as his hobbled leg could take him. Mistykit ran straight to Oakheart, who sat clustered with the queens and his other kits, Stonekit and Mosskit. Immediately Oakheart pulled Mistykit close and began licking her as fiercely as any queen. Tinyclaw thought he could hear the old warrior purring over the sound of the flames – and when he looked up at Tinyclaw, his eyes were filled with a gratitude that could not be put to words.

Tinyclaw blinked, and looked away. He forced aside the thought of trading Yellowfang for Bluefur's daughter. She's not just Bluefur's daughter, she's her own cat – her own cat! But it was a difficult feeling to shake. He forced himself to instead watch Brackenfur as he tried to rouse Patchpelt – using a strange technique that required pressure from both his paws onto Patchpelt's chest. Brackenfur pressed and pressed, grunting with effort.

"Is there anything I can -" Tinyclaw closed his jaws on the offer as Patchpelt's body jerked – and then lay still. Brackenfur heaved a sigh, his eyes glittering with sadness as he settled on all fours.

"Thanks for the offer," he said quietly, looking at Tinyclaw, "but he is with StarClan now."

Shocked mewls rippled through Sunningrocks. Tinyclaw's heart sank – he'd brought Patchpelt so far, only to have him die? Where is the justice in that? Brackenfur's eyes were shadowed with grief at the loss of his Clanmate as he gently used a paw to close Patchpelt's eyes one last time. He stepped aside as the elders – and Cloudpaw, who had been close with all the elders – went to share tongues for the last time.

"His spirit will guide us," Brackenfur decided, settling next to Tinyclaw. "He will give us the strength to survive. We cannot dwell on the lost when the living are still around us."

"Sounds like Yellowfang," Tinyclaw meowed, before he even realized it.

Brackenfur's ears pricked. "Yellowfang!" he gasped. "Where is she?"

Tinyclaw swallowed, the lump in his throat caught against a sharp, stabbing, hot pain in his chest. "I don't know," he admitted, his voice rasping with smoke. "We found Halftail and Patchpelt but when I found Mistykit… I lost her in… I…"

Brackenfur's eyes were filled with such pain, such sadness. Oh StarClan – how was Tinyclaw supposed to tell him that his mentor, the cat that had given him renewed purpose in life, was still caught in the flames? More and more it was beginning to seem as if StarClan was trying to kill them all. I'm starting to think like Tigerstar, he thought grimly. As much as I don't want to think that, I can't do this to myself. I can't.

Mistykit broke into a fit of coughing. Brackenfur's ear twitched, and he hobbled away to tend to her – thankfully tearing him away from the subject of Yellowfang. Now wasn't the time for mourning, not when the Clan needed Brackenfur more than ever. Brackenfur laid his paws on Mistykit in the same way he'd done Patchpelt, kneading away the smokiness of the kit's cough.

Tinyclaw let himself fall back onto his haunches, letting exhaustion wash over him for a moment. His jaw hurt, his flanks felt seared, and his paw pads stung as he pressed them against the rocks. All around him it looked as if the Clan had been dusted with a black snow, ash and soot clinging to pelts like cobwebs. Sandstorm was there, thank StarClan – Tinyclaw spotted Dustpelt and Cinderpelt pressed together, too. And there was Speckletail, Snowkit… slowly, Tinyclaw picked out each member of his Clan – all the ones that remained.

All the ones he needed to protect.

The wind shifted, and suddenly the smell of smoke became stronger. The air began to cloud before his eyes. Tinyclaw got to his paws and looked back at the treeline – the smoke was growing darker, moving closer… moving towards Sunningrocks. The roar of the fire was beginning to swell in his ears.

"It's coming," he yowled. "It's coming towards us!" He turned to the Clan, his voice hoarse and cracked with smoke. "We have to cross the river – it won't follow us there."

His Clanmates stared at him, eyes glowing in the darkening sky. Fear and terror was reflected in all of them, and some, at the furthest edges of the crowd, had the light of the fire in their eyes. The wind pushed at Tinyclaw's pelt again, stronger this time. He looked up – the sky ought to have been just breaking into dawn, but dark clouds billowed above, dark and heavy and not quite smoke.

To punctuate his thoughts, lightning raced through the sky, a hot white blinding flash. Tinyclaw closed his eyes to it, and thunder rumbled the world as he opened them. Rain was coming, finally! "The storm will put the fire out behind us!" he told the Clan. "But we need to move!"

The cats had flattened themselves against the rocks at the flash of lightning and the peal of thunder, but Sandstorm was the first to stand tall. Her eyes met Tinyclaw's, sending a rush of energy through his limbs. Slowly, the Clan began to understand, rising to their paws and beginning to look for a place to go, waiting for some sign or signal. Their fear of the flames consuming them outweighed the fear of the storm. As the crowds moved, Tinyclaw spotted Tigerstar – the big, hulking cat huddled near Whitestorm, close to the ground, whiskers twitching. Was he praying?

There wasn't time to figure it out.

"This way!" Tinyclaw signaled with his tail as a peal of thunder nearly drowned out his voice. The Clan looked to him, illuminated by the flashing lightning. A rabbit pelted past from the forest, terrified as the flames grew ever closer – the Clan didn't even try to attack the creature. All were fleeing the flames now, and the Clan was picking its way down the slope of Sunningrocks and towards the river.

Tinyclaw followed. They were moving too slowly – the fire was beginning to glow through the treeline. "Hurry!" he called – and they began to run, tails up or streaming behind them. Longtail and Cinderpelt kept with Willowpelt, carrying her kits. Dustpelt and Cloudpaw dragged Patchpelt's limp body down the slope, the old cat's paws dashing against the stones despite their care. Whitestorm and Brindleface had braced Tigerstar up to his paws, guiding him down to the river.

Where was Sandstorm? Tinyclaw turned to look for her – but he saw Speckletail instead, struggling with guiding Snowkit off his paws. The deaf young cat turned his head this way and that out of utter confusion until Speckletail waved her tail just so, and then he followed, eyes wide. A signal for danger. Then he spotted Sandstorm, who ran beside Brackenfur, and Tinyclaw felt relief as he turned back to follow the Clan.

He herded them down to the shore of the river, RiverClan's scent marks strong even in the smoke. But the flames were advancing down Sunningrocks, lapping at the well-worn stones and scorching them black. Tinyclaw urged them along, and no cat seemed to care that they had just pelted across the border.

There was no time to go to the stepping-stones. The flames were consuming the forest as quickly as the cats were crossing it; faster, even – Tinyclaw could feel the heat on his flanks and hear its roaring right in his ears. Louder than a Thunderpath monster, even louder than the thunder of the storm ahead. Paws rasped against the pebbles of the river's shore, and Tinyclaw watching his Clanmates shy and balk away from the rushing water, looking back at the flames and then ahead at the river with conflict in their eyes.

We have no choice, Tinyclaw told himself. We have to cross.