Эрин Хантер - Crowfeather's Trial

Letting out a yowl, Crowfeather desperately lashed out with his hind legs. One paw hit something solid and he raked his claws, feeling them slash across a furry body. He heard a high-pitched screech from the creature that was attacking him, and it released its grip on his shoulder.

A growl sounded beside Crowfeather’s ear and he realized it was Heathertail, flinging herself into the battle.

“Got it!” she gasped. “It—” She broke off with a shriek of pain.

Crowfeather hurled himself in the direction of the sounds. His outstretched paws clamped down on a long, thin body, pinning it to the ground. It writhed under his claws, but for a moment he managed to hold it.

“Heathertail, are you okay?” he asked.

“Fine.” The answer came out of the darkness. “The fox dungeating mange-pelt bit my tail!”

As Heathertail spoke, the creature under Crowfeather’s paws gave a massive heave, throwing him off. For a moment he tottered, his paws sliding on something sticky and rank-smelling.

“Crowfeather, this way!” Heathertail’s voice was urgent. “We have to get out of here.”

“I’m with you.” Crowfeather stumbled after the sound of her paw steps and realized they had reentered the tunnel. For a few heartbeats he heard the skitter of claws on the tunnel floor as the animal followed them, and then the sound died away behind.

“Thank StarClan!” he panted.

He was thankful too for Heathertail’s knowledge of the tunnels; he would never have found his way out if he had been alone. Sooner than he would have thought possible he saw a faint light filtering down the passage, and he burst out after Heathertail into the first cave. Heartbeats later they emerged into the open air, to see the sun casting long shadows across the moor, and Harespring and Furzepelt waiting for them.

“What happened to you?” Furzepelt asked, her eyes stretching wide with amazement as Crowfeather and Heathertail padded up. Her nose wrinkled. “Great StarClan, you stink!”

“Thank you for that insight,” Crowfeather mewed dryly. “You would stink too if you’d been where we’ve been.”

“There was a cave full of crow-food,” Heathertail explained, and went on to describe the pile of rotting prey and the vicious creature they had encountered in the tunnels.

“What was it?” Harespring asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Crowfeather replied sourly. “We couldn’t see it, and we couldn’t smell anything but that disgusting prey-pile. But I can tell you one thing: It wasn’t a ghost cat. Not unless ghosts have teeth and claws.”

“You’re both hurt,” Harespring meowed, sniffing at the bite on Crowfeather’s shoulder. “Kestrelflight should have a look at that. You might need some burdock root.”

“I’ll see him as soon as we get back to camp,” Crowfeather agreed. “Did you find anything?” he asked Harespring.

The Clan deputy looked slightly embarrassed. “We got lost in the tunnels,” he admitted. “It took us a long time to find our way back to the entrance, and to be honest, once we did, we weren’t too keen on going back in. But we didn’t come across any animals—not even any ghost cats.”

“I wonder what Nightcloud and Breezepelt found,” Furzepelt mewed. “They should be back soon.”

The cats waited as the sun went down and twilight fell over the moor. They were too alert to sleep, but they remained in watchful silence as the wind swept through the trees and stars burned brightly against the darkening sky. It was a long time before Harespring shifted his paws uneasily. “They should be back by now. Maybe they got lost like we did.”

Anxiety prickled Crowfeather like a thorn as he remembered Breezepelt’s fear of the tunnels. I hope he didn’t panic and do something stupid.

Finally it was Heathertail who spoke, her blue eyes worried. “What if something has happened to them? What if they met the same creature that we did?”

“They’re both experienced warriors.” Harespring was trying to reassure her, although it was obvious that he felt just as uneasy. “They should be able to cope.”

“But they might—” Heathertail began, then broke off, flexing her claws and tearing at the springy moorland grass.

Each moment seemed to drag out like a moon. When he looked up, Crowfeather saw that all eyes were on him. He could not tell, though, if his Clanmates were waiting for him to suggest they should go after his son and former mate, or whether they expected him to go in by himself.

“Maybe . . . ,” Crowfeather suggested at last, “maybe we should go and look for them. Heathertail, you could lead us—”

A loud, terrified yowling interrupted him. Every cat spun around to stare at the tunnel entrance. A heartbeat later the yowl sounded again, and Breezepelt exploded into the open from another entrance a few tail-lengths farther along the bank. His eyes were wide with fear, and every hair on his pelt was bristling.

Behind him Crowfeather saw what looked like some kind of white cloud surging from the tunnel entrance. But in the next heartbeat he realized the cloud was actually a pack of furious animals, snarling and hissing as they chased the fleeing Breezepelt. Their eyes glittered with malice as they poured out of the tunnel and up the slope after him. They weren’t ghosts or wayward kittypets. He’d never seen white ones before, but there was no mistaking the creatures that were about to overtake his son.

“Stoats!” Crowfeather gasped. Snow-white stoats!

CHAPTER 4

Briefly Crowfeather stood frozen in confusion. He’d never seen a white stoat before. But a moment later he had to push his astonishment aside. The crowd of stoats split in two, like a river breaking on a rock in midstream. Some of them still raced after Breezepelt, while the rest flung themselves at Crowfeather and his Clanmates, who remained still, stupefied by what they were seeing.

“Keep together!” Harespring’s yowl focused Crowfeather’s mind, and he tensed his body, ready to fight.

The stoats were smaller than the cats, but they were fast and nimble, their long, wiry bodies easily dodging the blows the cats aimed at them. Crowfeather found himself fighting beside Harespring, trying to drive the brutes back into the tunnels. But there were too many of them; when Crowfeather lashed out at one stoat, two or three others would hurl themselves at him, trying to climb onto his back or knock him off his paws. He knew that if he lost his balance and fell, he would not get up ever again. He shuddered inwardly at the thought of those thorn-sharp teeth meeting in his throat.

Now I know what it was that Heathertail and I fought in the tunnel!

After a few moments, Crowfeather lost sight of Harespring, and he had no idea where the rest of his Clanmates were. Occasionally a screech rose above the snarling and chittering of the stoats, but he couldn’t tell if they were cries of pain or of defiance. Blood was dripping from a scratch on his forehead, so he could hardly see.

At last he heard Harespring’s voice raised high above the clamor. “Retreat! Retreat!”

At first Crowfeather thought he wouldn’t be able to obey. Too many stoats were pressing around him, the air now so full of their scent that it made him choke. He struck out with his forepaws at the white bodies that gleamed eerily in the gathering darkness, trying to force his way up the slope.

What if we fail to escape them?

Dazed with pain and exhaustion, Crowfeather thought it would be better to go down fighting than show these ferocious enemies the way to WindClan’s camp.

Then he heard Heathertail’s voice, calling to him from close by. “Crowfeather! This way!”