Free Firestar's Quest by Erin Hunter

of blood on the grass. Another staggered to a halt, then fell on one side and didn’t get up again.
    At the head of the journeying Clan Firestar spotted the gray-and-white cat. Thin, hungry-looking warriors clusteredaround him. Even though Firestar still couldn’t catch up to them, their voices came clearly to him.
    â€œWhere are we going?” one of them meowed. “We can’t live here…there’s no prey, and nowhere to camp.”
    â€œI don’t know where we’re going,” the gray-and-white cat replied. “We just have to keep on until we find somewhere.”
    â€œBut how long?” one of the other warriors asked. No cat replied.
    Firestar saw a small, light brown tabby she-cat shouldering her way through the warriors until she reached the gray-and-white cat. “Let me speak to StarClan,” she begged. “They might know of a place for us.”
    The cat rounded on her. “No, Fawnstep!” he spat. “Our warrior ancestors have failed us. As far as we’re concerned, StarClan no longer exist.”
    He must be the Clan leader! There was authority in his voice, and the small tabby—SkyClan’s medicine cat, Firestar guessed—bowed her head, and didn’t try to argue.
    Firestar called out to the SkyClan cats again and made one last effort to catch up to them, but he was falling farther and farther behind. Mist swirled around him again, cutting him off from the fleeing Clan. At last his paws wouldn’t carry him any longer. He sank down, and opened his eyes to find himself in his own den.
    Gradually he became aware of another cat sitting in the shadows. “Sandstorm?” he murmured, longing for the warmth and comfort of his mate’s presence.
    The cat turned toward him, and the light from the denentrance fell onto a soft tortoiseshell pelt.
    â€œSpottedleaf!”
    The former ThunderClan medicine cat rose and came toward him, gently touching her nose to his. Firestar drank in her familiar sweet scent. He couldn’t think of her as one of the warrior ancestors who had betrayed him; no matter what the rest of StarClan might do, he would always trust Spottedleaf.
    Gazing at the shape of her head and her slender, graceful body, he found himself thinking of the gray-and-white cat, the SkyClan leader he had seen in his dreams.
    â€œHave you come to tell me about SkyClan?” he asked.
    â€œYes,” Spottedleaf replied gravely. “When I lived in ThunderClan, I never knew there had once been five Clans living in the forest. I learned their story after I joined StarClan.”
    â€œI don’t understand.” Firestar scratched restlessly at a piece of moss. “How could StarClan allow a whole Clan to leave the forest?”
    Spottedleaf crouched beside him. He could feel the vibrations of her soothing purr. “I know it is hard for you,” she mewed. “But StarClan do not control everything in the forest. We could not banish the dog pack that threatened you, or drive out Scourge and BloodClan.”
    Firestar sighed; he knew that was true. But it didn’t explain why StarClan had lied, and pretended that SkyClan had never existed. “Have you met any of the SkyClan cats?”
    Spottedleaf shook her head. “We do not walk the same skies.”
    â€œI spoke to Bluestar,” Firestar meowed. “She told me my duty is to ThunderClan. She said there is nothing I can do for SkyClan. But if that’s true, why do I keep seeing them?”
    â€œIf the SkyClan leader has appeared to you in dreams,” Spottedleaf replied, touching his shoulder with her tail, “then he must believe you can help him.”
    â€œBut how?” Firestar persisted. “What can I do? It all happened so long ago.”
    â€œThe answer will be shown to you,” Spottedleaf promised. “Rest now.”
    She pressed closer to his side, and Firestar drifted more deeply into sleep, comforted by her warm