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That’s no life! Out here it’s wild, and it’s free. We come and go as we please.”
“I guess you’ll never understand.” Graypaw sighed. “You weren’t born wild. It makes a big difference. You need to be born with warrior blood in your veins, or the feel of the wind in your whiskers.
“Bluestar is only offering you training, young kit. There is no guarantee you would become a full warrior. It might prove too difficult for you. After all, you are used to a comfortable life.”
You cannot live with a paw in each world.”
“The Clan may not be able to offer you such easy food or warmth,” continued Bluestar. “In the season of leaf-bare, nights in the forest can be cruel. The Clan will demand great loyalty and hard work. You will be expected to protect the Clan with your life if necessary. And there are many mouths to feed. But the rewards are great. You will remain a tom. You will be trained in the ways of the wild. You will learn what it is to be a real cat. The strength and the fellowship of the Clan will always be with you, even when you hunt alone.”
Bluestar seemed to be offering him the life he had lived so many times, and so tantalizingly, in his dreams, but could he live like that for real?
And as Rusty turned and headed for home, he felt a strange sensation inside him, tugging him back into the depths of the forest.
Could he really abandon this comfortable life?
His black-and-white friend had never shown any interest in venturing into the woods. He was perfectly content living with his housefolk. He would never understand the restless longing that Rusty’s dreams stirred in him night after night.
“I’m sorry, Smudge. I’ll miss you, but I have to go.” Smudge didn’t reply, but stepped forward and gently touched Rusty’s nose with his own. “Fair enough. I can see I can’t stop you, but at least let’s spend one more morning together.”
“That tabby is Longtail. He smells your fear. They all do. You must prove to him and the other cats that your fear won’t hold you back.”
Filled with rage and desperate to prove himself,
he was suddenly aware that he felt no fear, only exhilaration.
today was his first day of training. He leaped to his paws. His drowsiness evaporated as excitement surged through his veins.
“Injuries are a fact of life. He should be able to adapt.
“You speak from your heart, young Firepaw.” Lionheart’s words echoed in his head once more. “This will make you a stronger warrior one day.” Then Tigerclaw’s warning rang in his ears: “Or it might make him give in to kittypet weakness right at the moment of attack.”
“But we were kittens together. I should know your smell like I’d know the smell of my birth mother.”
Firepaw thought for a moment: about last night, sleeping in a damp den. He thought about mouse bile and clearing away Yellowfang’s dirt, and trying to please both Lionheart and Tigerclaw at once during training. He remembered the teasing he suffered about his kittypet blood. Then he remembered the thrill of his first catch, of charging through the forest in pursuit of a squirrel, and of warm evenings beneath the stars sharing tongues with his friends. “I know who I am now,” he meowed simply.
We don’t have room for anyone who isn’t sure whether their heart lies in the past or the present.”
He knew the rats were not as strong as he was, but there were so many of them.
“It’s all right,” Bluestar rasped. “I am still here. I have lost a life, but it wasn’t my ninth.”
“Perhaps a truly loyal cat would have fought at the side of the Clan that raised her.” “But then I’d be fighting for my Twolegs!” Firepaw pointed out.
“The first cold wind always worries me.
“There was a time, when Tigerclaw was a young warrior, that I feared for the strength of his passion. Such energy can need careful channeling.
Firepaw felt something stir within him, a fire that burned in his belly and rang in his ears. He suddenly felt that everything he had done for the Clan so far—all the prey he had stalked, all the enemy warriors he had fought—had been for the sake of this single moment.
