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bramble. “Get out of our camp!”
    Whitewing halted on her way across the clearing, her neck fur beginning to bristle, then carried on with a flick of hertail. Cloudtail thrust his head out of the warriors’ den, blue eyes wide with alarm. When he spotted the two kits he twitched his ears in disgust and disappeared.
    â€œHey, you’re disturbing every cat,” Lionpaw meowed. “And I need this to patch the elders’ den.”
    â€œCan we help?” Icekit asked.
    â€œYes, we’ll be apprentices soon,” Foxkit added, letting go of the bramble.
    â€œOkay, but be careful you don’t get thorns in your pads.”
    Lionpaw went on dragging the tendril across the clearing. The two kits tried to help him tug it along, but they mostly got under his paws and made the task harder.
    When they drew closer to the elders’ den, Foxkit and Icekit seemed to forget about helping. Instead they dashed across to Mousefur and Longtail, who were sunning themselves at the entrance to the den.
    â€œTell us a story!” Foxkit demanded. “Tell us about the Great Journey. Tell us how the Twolegs—”
    â€œNo, I want to hear about the old forest,” Icekit interrupted.
    Mousefur yawned. “You tell them something,” she mewed to Longtail. “Then maybe they’ll settle down and some cats can get a bit of sleep.” She closed her eyes and wrapped her tail over her nose.
    Longtail sighed, then settled into a comfortable crouch with his paws tucked under his chest. He turned his face toward the kits, even though he couldn’t see them. “Okay, what do you want to hear about?”
    â€œTigerstar!” Foxkit’s fur bristled with excitement.
    â€œYes, Tigerstar!” Icekit added. “Tell us how he tried to take over the forest.”
    Lionpaw saw Longtail’s tail tip flick as the blind cat hesitated. Curiosity clawed at him as he began weaving the length of bramble to block up a hole in the honeysuckle fronds that sheltered the den. He wanted to hear about Tigerstar as much as the kits did.
    â€œTigerstar was a great warrior,” Longtail began at last. “He was the strongest cat in the forest and the best fighter. When I was a young cat, I thought he would be the next leader of ThunderClan. I wanted to be just like him,” the pale tabby added awkwardly.
    â€œBut he was evil !” Foxkit burst out, round-eyed.
    â€œWe didn’t know that back then,” Longtail explained. “He killed Redtail, the ThunderClan deputy, but every cat believed that Redtail had died in battle….”
    Lionpaw’s belly churned as he listened to the tale of blood and conspiracy. It was hard to keep his paws moving, fixing the bramble into place, and to pretend that this was just a story to him, no more than it was to the kits. This was the cat who padded beside him through the forest, teaching him how to be a warrior!
    â€œIt was Tigerstar’s ambition that destroyed him,” Longtail concluded. “If he’d been willing to wait for power to come to him, he would have been the greatest leader in the forest.”
    Lionpaw relaxed. There was no reason for him to avoid Tigerstar. The dark tabby couldn’t be ambitious now. He was dead ; there was nothing left to plan for.
    And he had never suggested that Lionpaw should break the warrior code. He had been angry when he discovered the meetings with Heatherpaw in the cave. All he wanted was to make Lionpaw a really good warrior. Perhaps Tigerstar was sorry for what he had done and was trying to make up for it by helping ThunderClan.
    Lionpaw left the kits pestering Longtail with questions and padded thoughtfully out of the camp to fetch more brambles.

C HAPTER 3
    Hollypaw pushed through the brambles into the nursery and set down a blackbird in front of Daisy. Rosekit and Toadkit lay in the curve of their mother’s belly, suckling with their tiny tails stretched out behind