Читать книгу MOONRISE - Erin Hunter, Эрин Хантер - Страница 12

At Firestar’s yowl of command, Brackenfur and the grey ShadowClan warrior broke apart. Greystripe looked up from the tabby, but still kept a paw firmly on his neck.

“Let him go,” Firestar ordered. “We’re not here to fight.”

“It’s hard to do anything else when they jump us like that,” Greystripe hissed. He stepped back, and the skinny tabby scrambled to his paws and shook his ruffled fur.

Leafpaw bounded across the marshy ground to stand beside Cinderpelt, half afraid that Russetfur might still attack the medicine cat. ShadowClan’s deputy was not likely to take orders from the leader of a rival Clan.

Russetfur flicked her tail towards the dark grey tom. “Cedarheart, get back to camp. Warn Blackstar that we have been invaded, and fetch more warriors.”

The grey warrior streaked off into the bushes.

“There’s no need for that,” Firestar pointed out, keeping his voice mild. “We’re not invading your territory, and we’re not trying to steal prey.”

“Then what do you want?” Russetfur demanded bad-temperedly. “What are we supposed to think when you trespass on our territory?”

“I’m sorry about that.” Firestar leaped down from the tree trunk and padded across to her. “I . . . I know we shouldn’t be here. It’s just that I have to speak to Blackstar. Something has happened, something that’s too urgent to wait for the next Gathering.”

Russetfur sniffed disbelievingly, but sheathed her claws. Leafpaw felt her racing heart begin to slow down. The ShadowClan deputy was too badly outnumbered to launch another attack, especially when she had sent away the grey tom, Cedarheart.

“What’s so urgent then?” she growled.

Firestar gestured with his tail through the sparse trees, towards the swath of destruction that the Twoleg monster had left on this side of the Thunderpath. “Isn’t that enough?” he asked desperately.

Russetfur silenced him with a furious hiss. “If you think ShadowClan is weakened . . .”

“I didn’t say that,” Firestar protested. “But you must have seen that we’ve had the same trouble in our territory. Now, are you going to drive us off, or are you going to let us talk to Blackstar?”

Russetfur narrowed her eyes, then gave a curt nod. “Very well. Follow me.”

She led the way through the bushes. The ThunderClan cats bunched together behind her, and the tabby ShadowClan warrior brought up the rear. Leafpaw’s heart began to pound again as the scents of the strange territory flowed around her. Even the day had grown darker, clouds covering the sun so that their path was shadowed. She tried to stop herself from jumping at every sound, or staring around as if there might be a ShadowClan warrior lurking behind every tree.

Soon Leafpaw became aware of a stronger ShadowClan scent coming from up ahead. Russetfur led the way around a thick clump of hazel; following her, Leafpaw stopped dead in front of a long line of cats—lean warriors with their muscles tensed and the light of battle in their eyes. Behind them rose a tangled wall of brambles.

“That’s the ShadowClan camp,” Cinderpelt muttered close to Leafpaw’s ear. “It doesn’t look as if Blackstar is going to invite us in.”

The ShadowClan leader stood in the middle of his warriors. He was a huge white cat with black paws; his pelt showed the scars of many battles. As the ThunderClan cats appeared he stepped forward and faced Firestar with narrowed eyes.

“What’s this?” His voice was rough. “Does the great Firestar think he can go where he likes in the forest?”

Firestar ignored the contempt in Blackstar’s tone, simply dipping his head in the courteous greeting of one leader to another. “I have come to talk to you about what the Twolegs are doing,” he began. “We have to decide what we’re going to do if it carries on.”

“We? What do you mean, we? ShadowClan does not talk with ThunderClan,” Blackstar retorted. “We make our own decisions.”

“But the forest is being destroyed!”

Leafpaw heard the exasperation in her leader’s tone, and knew how hard it was for Firestar to stay calm when the ShadowClan leader insisted on treating him like an enemy.

The ShadowClan leader shrugged his powerful shoulders. “Firestar, you’re panicking over nothing. Twolegs are mad. Even the smallest kit knows that. True, they knocked down a few trees—but now they’ve gone away again. Whatever was going on, it’s over.”

Leafpaw wondered if Blackstar really believed that. Surely he couldn’t be such a fool? Or was this just a show of bravado to convince Firestar that ShadowClan had nothing to worry about?

“And if it’s not over?” Firestar asked steadily. “If it gets worse? Prey has been frightened away from where the Twolegs have been. What if the Twolegs claw up more of our territories? What will you do in leaf-bare, Blackstar, if you can’t feed your Clan?”

One or two of the ShadowClan warriors looked uneasy, but their leader stared defiantly at Firestar.

“We have no reason to fear leaf-bare,” he meowed. “We can always eat rats from Carrionplace.”

Cinderpelt twitched her ears impatiently. “Have you forgotten what happened last time you tried that? Half your Clan died from sickness.”

“That’s true.” A small tabby tom, crouched at the end of the line, spoke up boldly. Leafpaw recognised Littlecloud, the ShadowClan medicine cat. “I was ill myself. I would have died if it hadn’t been for you, Cinderpelt.”

“Be quiet, Littlecloud,” Blackstar ordered. “The sickness was a punishment from StarClan because Nightstar was not a properly chosen leader. There’s no danger in eating food from Carrionplace now.”

“There’s danger if a leader silences his medicine cat,” Cinderpelt retorted tartly. “Or pretends to know more than they do about the will of StarClan.”

Blackstar glared at her, but said nothing.

“Listen to me,” Firestar began again desperately. “I believe that great trouble is coming to the forest, trouble that we’ll survive only if we work together.”

“Mouse dung!” Blackstar snarled. “Don’t try to tell me what to do, Firestar. I’m not one of your warriors. If you have anything to say, you should do what we have always done, and bring it to the next Gathering at Fourtrees.”

Part of Leafpaw felt that the ShadowClan leader was right. The warrior code dictated that the business of the forest should be discussed at Gatherings. There was nowhere else that cats could meet under the sacred truce of StarClan. At the same time, she knew that the Twolegs wouldn’t wait until after the next full moon to continue their destruction of the forest. What else might happen by the time of the next Gathering?

“Very well, Blackstar.” Firestar’s voice was hollow with defeat. It’s happening, Leafpaw thought in panic. He’s giving up. The forest is going to be destroyed. “If that’s the way you want it. But if the Twolegs come back, you have my permission to send a messenger into ThunderClan territory, and we will talk again.”

“Generous as always, Firestar.” Blackstar meowed scornfully. “But nothing’s going to happen that we can’t handle ourselves.”

“Mouse-brain!” Greystripe hissed.

Firestar shot Greystripe a warning glance, but the ShadowClan leader did not reply. Instead, he swept his tail towards Russetfur.

“Take some warriors and escort these cats off our territory,” he ordered. “And in case you were thinking of paying us another uninvited visit,” he added to Firestar, “we’ll be increasing our patrols along that border. Now go.”

There was nothing to do but obey. Firestar turned and signalled to his own cats to follow him. Russetfur and her warriors gathered around them in a threatening semicircle, letting them walk away but keeping them bunched tightly together. Leafpaw was glad when the tunnel under the Thunderpath came into sight, and more relieved still to be through it and heading for their own part of the forest.

“And don’t come back!” Russetfur spat as they crossed the border.

“We won’t!” Greystripe hurled a parting shot over his shoulder. “We were only trying to help, you stupid furball.”

“Leave it, Greystripe.” Now that they were back in their own territory, Firestar let his disappointment show. Leafpaw felt a sharp stab of compassion for him; it wasn’t his fault that ShadowClan had refused to listen to reason.

“Maybe we should try talking to WindClan?” she suggested quietly to Cinderpelt as the patrol headed for camp. “Perhaps they’ve had trouble too. That could be why they’ve been stealing fish from RiverClan.” She was referring to the furious accusations made by Hawkfrost, a RiverClan warrior, at the last Gathering.

“If they have. It was never proved,” Cinderpelt reminded her. “All the same, Leafpaw, you might have a point. Ravenpaw said there were more Twolegs than usual on that part of the Thunderpath.”

“Then perhaps Firestar should talk to Tallstar?”

“I don’t think Firestar will be talking to any more Clan leaders for a while,” Cinderpelt meowed, with a sympathetic glance at the flame-coloured tom. “Besides, Tallstar is a proud leader. He’d never admit that his Clan is starving.”

“But Firestar has to do something!”

“Perhaps Blackstar was right, and he should wait for the Gathering. But if I get the chance”—Cinderpelt interrupted her apprentice’s protest—“I’ll have a word with him.” She lifted her blue gaze to the cloud-covered sky. “And let’s just pray that StarClan has mercy on us, whatever happens.”

“Sorreltail, are you there?”

Leafpaw stood outside the warriors’ den and tried to peer through the branches. It was early the following morning; a thick fog covered the camp and misted her fur with tiny droplets of water.

“Sorreltail?” she repeated.

There was a scuffling sound inside the den, and Sorreltail poked her head out, blinking sleep from her eyes.

“Leafpaw?” Her jaws gaped wide in a yawn. “What’s the matter? The sun’s not up yet. I was having this terrific dream about a mouse . . .”

“Sorry,” Leafpaw mewed. “But I want you to do something with me. Are you due to go out with the dawn patrol?”

“No.” Sorreltail squeezed out between the branches and gave the fur on her shoulders a quick lick. “What’s all this about?”

Leafpaw took a deep breath. “I want to go and visit WindClan. Will you come with me?”

Sorreltail’s eyes stretched wide, and her tail curled up in surprise. “What if we meet a WindClan patrol?”

“It should be OK—I’m a medicine cat apprentice, so I’m allowed to go into the territories between here and Highstones. Please, Sorreltail! I really need to know whether WindClan is having trouble too.” Though she couldn’t tell Sorreltail, Leafpaw knew that a cat from every Clan had been chosen by StarClan for the journey. Because of that, she suspected that every Clan would be invaded by the Twolegs, but she wanted to be sure.

The light of adventure was already sparkling in Sorreltail’s eyes. “I’m up for it,” she declared. “Let’s get a move on, before any cat catches us and starts asking questions.”

She darted across the clearing and into the gorse tunnel. Leafpaw followed, with a last glance back at the silent, sleeping camp. The fog hung thickly in the ravine, deadening the sound of their pawsteps. Everything was grey, and though the dawn light was strengthening, there was no sign of the sun. The bracken was bent double with the weight of water drops, and soon the two cats’ pelts were soaked.

Sorreltail shivered. “Why did I ever leave my warm nest?” she complained, only half joking. “Still, if it’s like this on the moor, the fog will help to hide us.”

“And muffle our scent,” Leafpaw agreed.

But before she and Sorreltail reached Fourtrees, the mist had begun to thin out. It still lay heavy on the stream, but when they climbed the opposite bank they broke out into sunlight. Leafpaw shook the moisture from her fur, but there was little heat in the sun’s rays; she looked forward to a good run across the moor to warm herself up.

As they skirted the top of the hollow at Fourtrees, Leafpaw felt a breeze blowing directly off the moorland. She and Sorreltail paused for a moment at the far side of the hollow, their fur blown back and their jaws parted to scent the air.

“WindClan,” Sorreltail meowed. She put her head to one side, uncertainly. “There’s something odd about it, though.”

“Yes. And there’s no sign of any rabbits,” Leafpaw added.

She hesitated for a couple more heartbeats, then led the way across the border. The two cats darted from one clump of gorse to the next, making what use they could of the scant cover on the moorland. Leafpaw’s fur prickled; her tabby-and-white pelt would show up starkly against the short grass. In the ThunderClan camp she had been confident that as a medicine cat she would not be challenged; now she felt small and vulnerable. She wanted to find out what she could, then hurry back to the safety of her own territory.

She headed for the crest of a low hill that looked down over the Thunderpath, and flattened herself in the grass to peer down. Beside her, Sorreltail let out a long hiss.

“Well, there’s not much doubt about that,” she mewed.

Leading from the Thunderpath on the far side of the territory was a long scar where the moorland grass had been torn away. The track was marked by short stakes of wood like the ones Leafpaw had seen in ShadowClan territory the day before. It gouged a path across the moor and came to an abrupt halt at the foot of the hill where she and Sorreltail were crouching. A glittering monster sat silent where it ended. Leafpaw’s breath came in short gasps as she imagined it scanning the moorland, ready to leap on its prey with a roar.

“Where are its Twolegs?” Sorreltail muttered.

Leafpaw glanced from side to side, but everything was quiet; an air of menace lay thick as fog on the scarred landscape. There was still no scent of rabbits—had they been frightened away, Leafpaw wondered, or had the Twolegs taken them? Perhaps they had moved to a different part of the moor when the monster dug up their burrows.

“Yuck!” Sorreltail exclaimed suddenly. “Can you smell that?”

As she spoke, Leafpaw picked it up too, a harsh tang like nothing she had ever scented before. Instinctively her stomach churned and she curled her lip. “What is it?”

“Probably something to do with the Twolegs,” Sorreltail meowed disgustedly.

A distant yowl interrupted her. Leafpaw sprang to her paws and spun around to see three WindClan warriors racing towards them.

“Uh-oh,” murmured Sorreltail.

Before Leafpaw could decide whether to run or stay to talk, the WindClan cats had surrounded them. With a sinking heart she recognised the aggressive deputy Mudclaw, with the tabby warrior Tornear and another tabby tom she did not know. She would rather have dealt with the Clan leader, Tallstar, or Firestar’s friend Onewhisker, who were both more likely to listen to her explanations.

“Why are you trespassing on our territory?” the WindClan deputy demanded.

“I’m a medicine cat apprentice,” Leafpaw pointed out, bowing her head respectfully. “I came to—”

“To spy!” That was Tornear, his eyes blazing with anger. “Don’t think we don’t know what you’re up to!”

Now that the WindClan cats were up close, Leafpaw could see how thin they were. Their bristling pelts hardly covered their ribs. Fear-scent came off them in waves, almost drowning the scent of their fury. They were obviously short of food, but that didn’t explain why they were so much more hostile than ShadowClan had been.

“I’m sorry, we were only—” she began.

Mudclaw interrupted with a frenzied shriek. “Attack!”

Tornear hurled himself at Leafpaw. The ThunderClan cats were outnumbered and outclassed; besides, she and Sorreltail had not come to fight.

“Run!” Leafpaw yowled.

She leaped back from Tornear’s outstretched claws. Spinning round, she fled for the border, her belly close to the ground and her tail streaming out behind her. Sorreltail raced along at her side. Leafpaw dared not look over her shoulder, but she could hear the shrieks of the pursuing cats hard on their paws.

The border was in sight, but she barely had time to realise that they were bearing too far towards the river when scent markers flooded over her, WindClan and RiverClan scents mixed together.

“Oh, no!” she exclaimed. “We’re in RiverClan territory now.”

“Keep going,” Sorreltail panted. “It’s only a narrow strip between here and ThunderClan territory.”

Leafpaw risked a glance to see if the WindClan patrol was still pursuing them. They were—they must be so furious that they hadn’t noticed the border, or did not care.

“They’re gaining on us!” she gasped. “We’ll have to fight. We can’t lead them on to our territory.”

She and Sorreltail whirled to face their attackers. Leafpaw braced herself, wishing desperately that she had never thought of entering WindClan territory, and especially that she had not brought Sorreltail into danger with her.

As Mudclaw leaped at her, Leafpaw saw a streak of golden fur shoot out from a nearby bush. It was Mothwing, the medicine cat apprentice from RiverClan. Then Mudclaw’s body crashed against her and she was rolling on the ground, squirming to escape the flurry of raking claws. She tried to twist round and sink her teeth into his neck, but there was a wiry strength in the deputy’s lean body that trapped her helplessly like a piece of prey. Leafpaw felt his claws rake across her side and bury themselves in her shoulder. With a massive effort she shook him off, trying to bring her hind paws up to attack his belly.

Suddenly the weight lifted and Mudclaw was scrabbling for a foothold beside her. Leafpaw staggered to her paws to see Mothwing cuffing him hard over both ears. “Get off our territory!” she spat. “And take your mangy friends with you.”

Mudclaw aimed a final blow at her, but he was already backing away. Sorreltail sprang up from where she had Tornear pinned down and bit hard on his tail before releasing him. He fled, yowling after the Clan deputy; the other tabby warrior had already vanished.

Mothwing turned back to the ThunderClan cats. Her golden tabby fur was hardly ruffled and her amber eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “Having trouble?” she murmured.

Leafpaw fought for breath and shook leaves and scraps of twig from her pelt. “Thanks, Mothwing,” she replied. “I don’t know what we’d have done without you.” Turning to her friend, she added, “Sorreltail, have you met Mothwing? She’s Mudfur’s apprentice, but she was trained as a warrior first.”

“A good thing she was,” Sorreltail mewed, with a nod of thanks to the RiverClan cat. “We bit off more than we could chew there.”

“I’m sorry we’re on your territory,” Leafpaw went on. “We’ll go right away.”

“Oh, there’s no hurry.” Mothwing did not try to question them about why they were there, or what they had done to annoy WindClan. “You look pretty shaken. Rest for a bit and I’ll find you some herbs to calm you down.”

She vanished among the bushes, leaving Leafpaw and Sorreltail with nothing to do but sit and wait for her.

“Is she always this careless about the warrior code?” Sorreltail muttered. “She doesn’t seem to understand that we shouldn’t be here!”

“I think it’s because I’m a medicine cat apprentice too.”

“Even medicine cats have to stick to the warrior code,” mewed Sorreltail. “And I can’t see Cinderpelt being so welcoming to other Clans! Of course, Mothwing’s mother was a rogue, wasn’t she? That could explain it.”

“Mothwing is a loyal RiverClan cat!” Leafpaw fired up in defence of her friend. “It doesn’t matter who her mother was.”

“I never said it did,” Sorreltail soothed her, touching Leafpaw’s shoulder with her tail-tip. “But that might be why she’s more relaxed about Clan boundaries.”

Mothwing returned at that moment with a wad of herbs in her jaws. The ThunderClan apprentice drank in the scent of thyme; she remembered Cinderpelt telling her how good it was for calming anxieties.

“There,” Mothwing meowed. “Eat some of that and you’ll soon feel better.”

Leafpaw and Sorreltail crouched down and chewed up some of the leaves. Leafpaw imagined the juices soaking into every scrap of her body, healing the shock of their terrifying encounter with WindClan.

“Are you hurt at all?” Mothwing asked. “I can fetch some cobwebs.”

“No, there’s no need, thanks,” Leafpaw assured her. She and Sorreltail both had a few scratches, but they would stop bleeding by themselves without need for a poultice of cobwebs. “We really ought to be going.”

“So what was all that about?” Mothwing queried, as Leafpaw and Sorreltail swallowed the last of the herbs. She wasn’t quite as uninterested as the ThunderClan cats had thought. “What were you doing on WindClan territory?”

“We went to see what the Twolegs are up to,” Leafpaw explained. When Mothwing still looked mystified, she described how she had seen the monster roaring into the forest two days before, tearing up the ground, and then found evidence that WindClan and ShadowClan were being destroyed in the same way. She was aware of a doubtful glance from Sorreltail; the young warrior was clearly unhappy about revealing ThunderClan’s problems to a cat from a rival Clan. Leafpaw shook her head impatiently; there could be no harm in taking another medicine cat into her confidence.

“Firestar wants to ask the other Clans what they think,” she finished. “But ShadowClan won’t admit anything is wrong, and—well, you’ve seen how WindClan reacted.”

“What can you expect?” Sorreltail broke in. She passed her tongue over her lips as if she didn’t much like the taste of the herbs. “No Clan is going to be in a hurry to tell us they’re starving and losing their territory to Twolegs.”

“We’ve seen nothing of these monsters in RiverClan,” Mothwing meowed. “Everything’s fine here. But it explains one thing . . .” Her amber eyes widened. “I’ve sensed panic over WindClan territory. Their scent markers on the border are filled with fear.”

“I’m not surprised,” Sorreltail mewed. “They’re thin as anything, and there’s no scent of rabbits anywhere.”

“Everything’s changing,” Leafpaw murmured.

“And inside the Clans, as well. An ambitious cat might take the chance of—” Mothwing spoke quickly, urgently, and then broke off awkwardly.

“What do you mean?” Leafpaw prompted.

“Oh . . . no . . . I don’t know.” Mothwing trailed off and looked away.

Leafpaw stared at her, wondering what was going on inside that beautiful golden head. She was too young to remember Tigerstar, the bloodthirsty cat who had plotted to make himself leader of ThunderClan. When his murderous plans failed, he had been prepared to destroy the whole Clan for vengeance. She shivered. Did Mothwing know of another cat with ambition like this? Surely the forest could never produce another Tigerstar?

Her thoughts were interrupted when Mothwing sprang to her paws, her head turned towards the river. “A patrol is coming!” she exclaimed. “Come this way—quickly!”

She slipped between two bushes; Leafpaw and Sorreltail followed. A few moments later they came into the open and found themselves on the slope that led up to the ThunderClan border.

“If your Clan is short of prey, come and see me,” Mothwing mewed. “We can always spare a few fish. Now run!”

Leafpaw and Sorreltail streaked up the slope and plunged for cover into more bushes. Though Leafpaw braced herself for accusing snarls behind her, they reached the border unseen.

“Thank StarClan for that!” Sorreltail exclaimed as they crossed into their own territory.

Leafpaw looked back through the branches. Mothwing was standing where they had left her; a moment later the undergrowth parted and a large, sleek-furred tabby warrior emerged. Leafpaw recognised Mothwing’s brother Hawkfrost; two other warriors followed him. Hawkfrost stopped to talk to his sister, but never once glanced in the direction of the ThunderClan cats.

Looking at the warrior’s massive shoulders and strong muscles, Leafpaw was relieved that he had not caught them trespassing. Unlike Mothwing, he kept strictly to the warrior code, and he was unlikely to listen to explanations. Not for the first time, Leafpaw felt that he reminded her of some other cat, but however hard she stared at him, she could not remember who.

“Come on,” Sorreltail meowed. “Are you going to stare at those RiverClan warriors all day? It’s time we were getting back, and then you can decide how much you’re going to tell Firestar.”