Эрин Хантер - Veil Of Shadows

Okay, I stuck my paw in my mouth there, Bristlefrost thought regretfully. But maybe Twigbranch was right. They weren’t so different, and it would help to have another cat on the inside, keeping a close eye on Bramblestar and helping to limit the damage he tried to do.

While she and Twigbranch had been talking, Harelight and Icewing, warriors of RiverClan, had slipped out of the undergrowth to join the group. Clearly the rebels had been waiting for them to arrive. Every cat settled down in the shade cast by the thicket; Tigerstar ordered a couple of the younger ShadowClan warriors to remain standing on watch. Bristlefrost padded over to sit beside Stemleaf and Spotfur, anticipation fluttering in her belly.

Squirrelflight was the first to speak, stepping forward into the center of the group. “There’s something I need to tell every cat,” she began. “Mothwing and Bristlefrost and I have convinced the false Bramblestar that I am dead. It was the only way to stop him looking for me.”

Bristlefrost saw the rebel cats flick up their ears in surprise. “How did you do that?” Conefoot called out.

“Never mind,” Squirrelflight responded. “That’s not important. The point is, for StarClan’s sake, if you meet the impostor, don’t give me away. If he discovers I’m alive, it will cause no end of trouble.”

Bristlefrost suppressed a shiver and felt Stemleaf rest his tail-tip briefly on her shoulder. I don’t even want to think about what Bramblestar would do to me if he found out I lied to him.

“I’m not sure I like the idea of lying to a Clan leader,” Crowfeather meowed thoughtfully. “Especially your own,” he went on, with a glance at the ThunderClan cats.

“We can lie to him, no problem,” Spotfur retorted.

“Yeah, because he’s not our leader,” Stemleaf added.

Crowfeather shrugged. “Good point.”

“Then are we agreed?” Tigerstar asked, his gaze traveling over the assembled cats as he rose to stand beside Squirrelflight. “No cat will even mention Squirrelflight to Bramblestar, and if he should ask you, she’s dead, okay?”

Murmurs of assent rose from the crowd of cats. Squirrelflight dipped her head. “Thank you,” she mewed, and stepped back to sit down again.

“And now we have more news,” Tigerstar went on; to Bristlefrost’s surprise she saw a gleam of happiness in his eyes. “Frecklewish, I think this is for you to tell.”

The SkyClan medicine cat rose to her paws. “Yes, I have news,” she announced. “And for once, it’s good. Shadowsight has been found. He’s alive, but unconscious, in the SkyClan medicine-cat den. Fidgetflake is taking care of him.”

Gasps of astonishment and soft purrs of pleasure greeted the medicine cat’s news. “Thank StarClan,” some cat mewed softly.

Jayfeather’s harsher tones cut across the sounds. “How did a ShadowClan cat end up in the SkyClan medicine cat den?” he asked.

Bristlefrost noticed that Rootpaw was glancing around awkwardly as if he expected some older cat to tell the story. But no cat spoke.

Eventually Frecklewish meowed, “Come on, Rootpaw. Spit it out.”

“I was the one who found him,” Rootpaw explained, still looking faintly embarrassed to be addressing the whole group. “It’s a long story—I can’t tell it all now—but I could see that another cat had attacked him and he’d been terribly wounded.”

“Who attacked him?” Jayfeather asked. “Was it Bramblestar?”

Rootpaw shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s been unconscious since I found him, so he hasn’t been able to tell us anything. But whoever did it nearly killed him.”

“If Rootpaw hadn’t found him when he did,” Frecklewish added, giving the SkyClan apprentice an approving nod, “Shadowsight would probably be dead by now.”

Tree rose to his paws and took a pace forward to stand beside his son. “And now SkyClan is uncertain what to do about Bramblestar,” he meowed.

“What do you mean by that?” Bristlefrost asked.

“At best, Bramblestar lied about Shadowsight just running off,” the yellow tom told her. “Not that any cat believed him, anyway. At worst, he had something to do with the attack.” He paused, letting his gaze travel around the group of cats. “Until Rootpaw found Shadowsight, Leafstar resisted doing anything to support the rebels. But now . . . she’s seriously thinking about it.”

Bristlefrost shuddered. Despite the blood she’d seen coating Bramblestar’s chest that night, she wanted to reject with every hair on her pelt the idea that Bramblestar—or whoever he really was—could do something so wicked. Attacking Sparkpelt was bad enough, but it was far worse for any cat to attack a medicine cat. And why would he want to? But I have to admit it’s probably true.

For a few moments the assembled cats broke up into little groups, anxiously discussing what they had just heard.

“Bramblestar would never attack another Clan cat!”

“No—but the thing inside him obviously would.”

Then Crowfeather’s voice rose above the rest. “Things have gone too far,” he stated, his dark gray fur bristling. “I don’t like it, but it’s clear what we need to do: kill Bramblestar.”

Protests arose from the cats around him, mingled with murmurs of agreement.

“I never thought it would come to this,” one of the RiverClan cats mewed sadly. “Every cat admired Bramblestar so much.”

“But whatever is inside him isn’t Bramblestar,” Breezepelt argued. “And it looks like there’s only one way to get rid of him.”

A jolt passed through Bristlefrost’s chest. She felt like she had been racing through the forest and the ground had suddenly given way beneath her paws.

“There must be another way!” she objected. “We want the Clans back the way we were, but we’re not cold-blooded murderers. If we do that, are we any better than he is?”

“But he obviously tried to kill Shadowsight!” Kitescratch argued, giving Bristlefrost a hostile glare. “We need to kill him before he can hurt any other cat. And if you want to prove you’re really with us now, you’ll go along with it.”

For a few heartbeats Bristlefrost didn’t know how to reply. She glanced around at the gathered cats and saw vague uncertainty in their eyes. It was unnerving how easily the notion that she was working for the impostor could take hold, but she doubted any of them still truly believed that. She knew that Kitescratch had only brought it up as a way to quiet her protests. But he didn’t need to. She couldn’t deny that there was a lot of sense in what Crowfeather and Kitescratch said, and she could see that many cats agreed with them. Even Stemleaf and Spotfur were nodding assent, although they both looked unsure.

In the end it was Squirrelflight who broke the silence. “You’re all forgetting something,” she meowed loudly. “We haven’t been in touch with StarClan in moons. The truth is, not even the medicine cats know what would happen if any leader were to die now.”

Rootpaw blinked in shock as he shifted his gaze to Jayfeather. “Is that true?”

The medicine cat shook his head. “There’s no way to know. But I suspect that with StarClan gone, they might not go on to their next life.”

Squirrelflight was staring at the blind medicine cat, her green gaze filled with horror at the thought of losing her mate. “This means we have to wait,” she pleaded. “At least until we find out for sure what happened to Shadowsight. Surely we can delay until he regains consciousness and we can find out what he knows. There are too many unanswered questions for us to act now.”

“You’re right, Squirrelflight,” Stemleaf mewed, though Bristlefrost thought he sounded reluctant to admit it. “We should wait until Shadowsight wakes up before we do anything.”