Эрин Хантер - Lost Stars

Shadowpaw looked at his paws. He hoped the problem would be that simple. He was reassured to learn that Puddleshine thought so.

Outside in the camp he could hear the cheerful voices of his littermates, Pouncestep and Lightleap; they had obviously just returned from a border patrol.

“I’m starving! I thought we’d never get to the end,” Pouncestep announced.

“Me too!” Lightleap agreed. “But we made a good job of those scent markers. SkyClan won’t dare set paw over our borders.”

Shadowpaw sighed. His sisters sounded much more confident as warriors than he felt as a medicine-cat apprentice.

“We’ve done all we can here,” Puddleshine continued. “I’m going on a foraging expedition to see if I can find some catmint. Why don’t you take a break? Talk to your friends, get yourself a piece of fresh-kill.”

“What about Grassheart?” Shadowpaw asked, glancing toward the sick she-cat.

“Grassheart will be fine for a while,” Puddleshine assured him. “Off you go, and have a mouse ready for me when I get back.” He raced off and disappeared down the bramble tunnel that formed the entrance to the camp.

Shadowpaw followed him as far as the pool at the bottom of the hollow, where he paused to lap at the water. Ice was forming on its edges, too, and Shadowpaw wondered how long it would take to completely freeze, like the Moonpool. Then he spotted his mother, Dovewing, weaving twigs into the branches of the den she shared with Tigerstar.

“Hi,” he mewed, bounding over to join her. “Can I help?”

“If you like,” Dovewing replied, pushing a few twigs toward him. “We need every defense we can get against this icy wind.”

“When will this leaf-bare pass?” Shadowpaw asked his mother as he fitted the flexible twigs into place. “It seems to have gone on forever.”

“You’ve lived through a leaf-bare before,” Dovewing told him. “Don’t you remember?”

Shadowpaw shook his head. “Not really. I can remember some of the journey from the big Twolegplace, with Spiresight and the other cats, but nothing about the weather.”

“It was pretty cold, but not as bad as this,” Dovewing meowed. “But this leaf-bare won’t last forever, I promise. Even the worst leaf-bares end. Then we’ll have newleaf, when the snow disappears and the trees begin to bud again. And then, before we know it, it will be greenleaf, when the air is warm.”

“And after that leaf-fall, and then leaf-bare again,” Shadowpaw murmured. He understood the seasons, though they hadn’t been as pronounced in the Twolegplace. Now he wondered what would have happened if Tigerheart and Dovewing hadn’t regretted their decision to leave the Clans and decided to take their family back. We’d be safe and warm inside the big den. How many more times will I have to go through this?

Glancing around the camp, he saw that the early patrols had returned, and that most of the Clan was in the clearing, gathered around the fresh-kill pile or gossiping outside their dens. They all looked thin and bedraggled; every cat was hungry, he knew, and would be until the weather grew warmer again.

Still thinking about the journey from the big Twolegplace where he had been born, Shadowpaw noticed that two of the cats from there, Cinnamontail and Blazefire, were nowhere to be seen.

I don’t think I’ve seen them since yesterday, he realized.

He turned to ask Dovewing if she knew where they had gone, but before he could speak, he was distracted by a bout of furious hissing.

Glancing over his shoulder, Shadowpaw spotted Strikestone and Whorlpelt standing nose to nose with lashing tails and bristling fur, their lips drawn back as they hissed defiance at each other. A heartbeat later Strikestone leaped at Whorlpelt, and the two cats began rolling around on the ground in a snarling, clawing knot of fur.

“Great StarClan!” Dovewing exclaimed, racing across the camp toward them.

Shadowpaw followed, and watched his mother stand poised beside the grappling cats until she could swoop forward and give each of them a sharp swipe over the ear. The two warriors broke apart and sat up, shaking earth and debris off their pelts.

“What’s going on?” Dovewing demanded.

“He put thorns in my bedding,” Strikestone meowed, glaring at Whorlpelt.

“Did not!” Whorlpelt retorted.

Dovewing heaved an exaggerated sigh. “For StarClan’s sake, are you kits?” she asked. “If you have so much energy, you should be using it to help your Clan.”

For a few heartbeats both cats turned their furious glares on Dovewing. Then Whorlpelt hung his head. “Sorry,” he muttered.

“It won’t happen again,” Strikestone promised Dovewing.

“I should think not!” Dovewing snapped, turning and padding back toward her den.

Shadowpaw followed, reflecting how irritable the cold weather was making every cat. Now that the skirmish was over, he remembered his uneasiness about the cats from the Twolegplace, and he veered aside to the fresh-kill pile, where his littermates were sharing a vole.

“Have either of you seen Cinnamontail and Blazefire?” he asked.

Pouncestep gulped down a mouthful of prey. “Not a whisker,” she replied.

“I haven’t, either,” Lightleap added. “Not since yesterday.”

By now Shadowpaw was becoming even more anxious. Glancing around, he saw that Tigerstar had appeared and was talking to Dovewing outside their den. Shadowpaw raced over to them.

“That is worrying,” Tigerstar agreed, when Shadowpaw had told him about his concerns. “I haven’t heard of any foxes or badgers moving into our territory, but in this kind of weather, we can’t be too careful. I’ll send out a search party.”

“I’ll lead the patrol,” Dovewing offered instantly.

“Thanks,” Tigerstar responded. “Choose your cats, and start off by going down toward the lake and the halfbridge. The patrol from the far border just returned, so they’re unlikely to be up there.”

“Can I come with you?” Shadowpaw asked his mother, eager for something to do that would take his mind off the misty StarClan cats at the Moonpool.

His mother shook her head. “It’s too cold, and there could be danger,” she told him. “Besides, you’re a medicine-cat apprentice, and this is warrior business. But you can tell Puddleshine to prepare in case our missing Clanmates have been injured.”

She headed off, calling Whorlpelt and Strikestone with a wave of her tail, and beckoning Snowbird from beside the fresh-kill pile, before leading the way out through the bramble tunnel.

Shadowpaw watched them go with a frustrated twitch of his tail, reminding himself to tell Puddleshine when his mentor returned with the catmint. Then he padded over to join his littermates and choose a blackbird for himself from the pile of prey.

“Cinnamontail and Blazefire are missing. Dovewing has gone to look for them,” he reported.

Lightleap blinked nervously. “I hope she finds them. I can’t think why they would go wandering off in this weather.”

“Tigerstar was talking about foxes and badgers,” Shadowpaw murmured unhappily, imagining how dangerous hungry predators would be.

“But I’m sure there aren’t any on our territory,” Pouncestep meowed, giving her shoulder a quick lick. “Cloverfoot told all the patrols to keep a special lookout, and there hasn’t been so much as a sniff.”

“Then why aren’t Cinnamontail and Blazefire here?” Lightleap asked.

Shadowpaw had no answer to that. He finished his blackbird, then chose a mouse for Puddleshine and carried it to their den, checking on Grassheart while he was there. To his relief, the she-cat seemed to have fallen into a quieter sleep, and he felt confident enough to leave her and head back into the clearing to wait for the patrol to return.