Эрин Хантер - Path Of A Warrior

Skystar’s fur bristled. “We have always been able to adapt,” he said fiercely. “When I came from the mountains, I learned to hunt on the moor and in the forest. SkyClan cats will hunt wherever they need to.”

Windstar rounded on him, showing her teeth. “So many cats fought and died to establish our boundaries,” she hissed. “Do you think changing them wouldn’t lead to new conflict?”

“So would SkyClan being made homeless!” Skystar growled. He turned to Shadowstar. “You said you’d support me with the other Clans if the Twolegs kept patrolling my land,” he reminded her. “Will you speak for me now?”

Shadowstar felt as if she’d missed her footing in the dark. Every cat’s eye was on her. Did Skystar really expect her to agree to redraw ShadowClan’s borders? “I want SkyClan to be safe,” she mewed defensively, “but I never agreed to give up territory.”

Skystar growled at her, a thick, guttural sound, his eyes flashing. “I knew ShadowClan could not be trusted,” he snarled.

The rage in his voice startled Shadowstar. She had thought that time had mellowed the angry, reckless cat Skystar had been when they were young, but maybe he had just learned to hide that fury. She thought again of those eyes watching from the forest as she died… .

Skystar had pale blue eyes, but plenty of his warriors—Acorn Fur, Quick Water, and Birch, for instance—had amber ones. How far would Skystar go? she wondered.

“I agree with Windstar.” Riverstar spoke calmly, interrupting Shadowstar’s worried thoughts. “The borders are as they are for a reason. Any cat who wants to can seek shelter with RiverClan, but we will not give up our territory.”

Skystar snarled furiously at Riverstar, but the long-furred tom blinked at him, unperturbed.

“Well, RiverClan doesn’t have to worry, does it?” Thunderstar said bitterly. “You’re across the river from SkyClan. Whatever affects us in the forest won’t touch you.”

He and Skystar—father and son—had never looked more alike than they did now, their broad shoulders tense and their long tails slashing from side to side. Thunderstar has amber eyes, too, Shadowstar noticed, feeling slightly sick.

Was she making too much of this? No, she decided. My task is to protect my Clan and to make sure they will go on without me. If I have an enemy, ShadowClan has an enemy.

Thunderstar sighed. “So even if the Twoleg threat gets worse, WindClan and RiverClan are against redrawing our borders,” he meowed. “ThunderClan and SkyClan are for it.” He turned to Shadowstar. “You say you never agreed to give up territory, but will you agree now? Your vote can break the tie.”

“It’s not a vote ,” Windstar muttered, but the others ignored her, their eyes fixed on Shadowstar.

Shadowstar tucked her tail around her legs and thought. The clearing was silent, each cat straining to hear her answer. Is redrawing the borders the right thing to do? It was true that changing territories would force the cats of each Clan to learn to hunt in a new way. And there would be less prey if there was less territory.

As well, she still wasn’t sure that there really was a Twoleg threat to SkyClan. Twolegs have wandered through Clan territory before, she thought. Maybe Skystar is seeing danger where there isn’t any.

And what if Skystar or one of his Clanmates had watched the dogs attack her and Sun Shadow? Could she trust them?

She spoke carefully. “I’m not ready to make this decision. There’s a lot I need to consider.”

Skystar’s tail slashed wildly. “Like what ?” he yowled. “Do you have to weigh whether SkyClan is worth saving?”

Snarls came from the SkyClan warriors in the crowd below.

“I want to see for myself what the Twolegs are doing on your territory,” Shadowstar meowed steadily. “If I agree that there’s a threat—”

“There is,” Skystar insisted.

“ If I agree, then we’ll talk about new territory. Maybe there’s somewhere else nearby where SkyClan can carve out a suitable home. We should look around before we discuss shrinking every Clan’s hunting grounds.”

Skystar glared at her silently for few moments. “Three days,” he meowed. There was a yowl of protest from some of his Clanmates.

“We don’t want a new territory,” Dew Petal growled, and some of the other young SkyClan warriors meowed in agreement.

Skystar hissed them into silence. “Three days,” he repeated. “You can send a patrol to see what the Twolegs are doing, and I’ll listen to any new suggestion you—or any other Clan leader—proposes. But understand I’m not agreeing to anything.”

“Of course,” Shadowstar replied. Maybe there was livable territory near Highstones, beyond ShadowClan’s borders. Anything would be better than trying to get the other Clans to give up their territory—that would only lead to open battle.

She gazed out at the cats massed in the clearing. Every cat, no matter their Clan, looked frightened and hostile.

So many of them had amber eyes.

Chapter Four

“Ugh.” Mud Paws wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I hate the way it smells over here. I wouldn’t mind giving this bit of our territory to SkyClan.”

“You’ll be glad of those rats if we have a hard leaf-bare,” Shadowstar reminded him firmly.

Near the edge of ShadowClan’s territory was a spot where Twolegs in yellow monsters left crow-food and debris in rotting heaps behind a shining silver fence. It smelled horrible, but it was crawling with rats. Usually, the ShadowClan cats left them alone—rats were fierce fighters, and hunting them was bound to leave a warrior with bites and scratches—but it was good to have the prey to fall back on in the harshest leaf-bare.

Shadowstar led Pebble Heart, Mud Paws, and Raven Pelt past the fence now, resisting the impulse to wrinkle her own nose.

“Anyway,” Raven Pelt meowed, “we’re not planning to give up any territory. That’s the whole point, right, Shadowstar?”

“I hope so,” Shadowstar murmured. “If there’s a likely looking territory, past our borders but not too far away, maybe we can convince Skystar that it’s an option.”

She had spent the previous day on SkyClan’s territory, watching Twolegs tromp, noisy and careless, through the woods. They had seemed more focused and intent than the few Twolegs she’d seen before, examining the land as if they were in fact marking out territory, leaving bright patches of shiny Twoleg stuff on some of the trees.

She still wasn’t sure what the Twolegs had been doing. But now she understood Skystar’s alarm.

And so she’d brought Pebble Heart and two loyal warriors—ones who hadn’t been fighting or trying to impress her with what good deputies they would be—to help look for unclaimed land that might make a good SkyClan territory.

It doesn’t seem likely that we’ll find it here, to be honest.

“I forgot how bleak this place is,” she muttered to Pebble Heart, looking up at the Highstones ahead as they crossed out of ShadowClan territory. The medicine cats traveled to the cliffs every half-moon to visit the Moonstone, but Shadowstar hadn’t come here since she’d been given her nine lives many moons before. ShadowClan’s own territory was fine, if smelly in places, but once you crossed the border, the grass grew thinner and coarser and the land became more and more rocky. There was little shelter—and very little prey.

The sky was heavy and gray, ominous clouds hanging overhead. The weather didn’t make the territory look any more appealing.