Эрин Хантер - Crowfeather's Trial

The stoats whipped around to face the four young cats charging at them. As Crowfeather raced to catch up, they let out their weird chittering cries and flung themselves into the attack.

“Get back!” Crowfeather yowled again. Fear shook him like a leaf in the wind as he realized that he was too late.

CHAPTER 15

Stoats poured out of the tunnels in an unending stream. There are too many of them! Crowfeather realized, his chest tightening with fear. Soon the four apprentices were surrounded. The stoats were smaller than badgers, but they were fast and wily, and Crowfeather knew from the previous skirmish that their teeth were sharper than eagle talons. And in the bright sunlight, their pure white pelts were unnerving.

It’s like being attacked by a blizzard.

Before he could move, the stoats had the apprentices trapped. Oatpaw nervously struck out with one of their battle moves, but the stoats were too fast and too vicious—and there were too many of them.

Crowfeather charged toward the apprentices, with Breezepelt and Gorsetail following. When he was just tail-lengths away, Crowfeather cast one glance over his shoulder to make sure that the rest of his Clanmates were following—they were. Then he hurled himself into the fray.

They disobeyed, and there’s no way of getting them out unscathed, he thought desperately. I hope they’re ready to fight!

“Remember your training!” he yowled. “Be bold and strike out!”

In an effort to obey him, Featherpaw pounced on a stoat at the mouth of the nearest tunnel. Crowfeather batted aside one stoat and had another stoat pinned to the ground, digging his claws into its shoulders, but he caught sight of his apprentice as she rose on her hind paws and gave her opponent two sharp blows around its ears.

The stoat shrieked in pain and fled. Featherpaw let out a screech of triumph, but at the same moment more stoats appeared in the tunnel behind her and leaped on top of her, tearing at her pelt. Featherpaw disappeared under the tide of white bodies.

“No!” Crowfeather yowled. I’ve lost too many cats lately! His heart lurched at the thought of the apprentice he cared for dying under the claws of these filthy invaders.

Tossing his stoat aside, he dived into the tunnel entrance after Featherpaw, lashing out with both forepaws to pull the creatures off her. The young she-cat was crouching on the floor of the tunnel, letting out whimpering cries. Blood was already seeping from her wounds, matting her gray tabby fur.

Crowfeather snarled with fury as he drove the stoats back into the tunnel. He paused, listening, wanting to make sure he had enough time to pull the apprentice to safety. As their chittering cries faded away, he lifted Featherpaw gently by her scruff and dragged her out into the open. Her body was covered with scratches, and there was a particularly deep wound on her back. One of her hind paws was dangling awkwardly.

For a moment Crowfeather’s mind flew back to Feathertail’s death, the sickening crunch as her body hit the floor of the cave. I couldn’t save her, but I will save Featherpaw, he thought grimly.

Battle raged around him as his fellow WindClan warriors clashed with the stoats. He could see several of the white bodies stretched out on the ground, but his Clanmates were still on their paws.

Glancing around, Crowfeather spotted Breezepelt and Heathertail fighting side by side, with Hootpaw close to them. To his relief, none of them seemed to be badly injured.

“Over here!” he called out to them. “Featherpaw is hurt—we have to protect her!”

Breezepelt and Heathertail dashed across to him, while Hootpaw scurried after them, all three gasping in horror as they saw the blood welling from their young Clanmate’s wounds. Together the four cats formed a barrier around Featherpaw, who was feebly trying to rise to her paws.

“Stay still,” Crowfeather ordered. “The stoats aren’t finished. Let us handle this.”

But the tumult of battle was dying down. Crowfeather could hear the scurrying of paws through the tough moorland grass. The fierceness of the stoats’ attack had faded, and they were beginning to retreat into the tunnels. The other WindClan warriors drove them back: Gorsetail and Crouchfoot were in the lead, clawing at the stoats’ black-tipped tails until the last of the white-pelted creatures had disappeared into the darkness.

“Yeah! We won!” Oatpaw yowled. The pale brown tabby was leaping up and down with excitement. His only wounds, Crowfeather was grateful to see, were a couple of scratches on one shoulder.

“It’s over for now ,” he mewed angrily to Oatpaw. “But the stoats will be regrouping down there, and there may be many more of them. We need to retreat and get Featherpaw to the medicine-cat den.”

“I’m okay,” Featherpaw murmured. “I can stay and fight. I did well, didn’t I?” she added, gazing up at Crowfeather. “I struck out swiftly, just like you said.”

Her voice faded and her eyelids fluttered closed as she lost consciousness.

“You have less sense than a newborn rabbit,” Crowfeather told her, even though he wasn’t sure she could hear him. “But you were so brave—and so reckless.”

Breezepelt joined him to help lift Featherpaw. Guilt washed over Crowfeather like a tide of blood as he saw the young she-cat’s body hanging limply between them; only her shallow breathing showed that she was still alive.

“That’s a bad wound on her back, and if her paw isn’t seen to right away, it won’t heal right,” he mewed miserably. I’ll never forgive myself if she doesn’t recover.

Breezepelt was silent as they began to carry Featherpaw across the moor; Crowfeather was aware of his son’s gaze fixed on him, a look that Crowfeather couldn’t interpret. But he said nothing, and Crowfeather had too much on his mind to bother challenging him.

The WindClan camp was in sight before Breezepelt spoke. “You don’t have to worry about Featherpaw’s paw,” he meowed abruptly. “As long as Kestrelflight wraps it with a good clump of comfrey leaves and cobweb, it should be fine.”

Crowfeather gave his son a curious look. “How do you know that?” he asked. “You never trained as a medicine cat.”

“No,” Breezepelt responded. “But I had the same injury when I was an apprentice, and that’s how Barkface treated me. I was up and walking again in just a few days.”

Crowfeather was about to say that he didn’t remember Breezepelt being injured back then, but stopped himself. When he thought about it, he did remember the injury—or, more accurately, he remembered Nightcloud’s worrying over it. Busy with his duties as Heathertail’s mentor, he had just assumed that Nightcloud was being overprotective as usual.

Now Crowfeather understood Breezepelt’s strange look. He was envious that his father had praised Featherpaw and was worried about her injuries.

It wasn’t just my kits from ThunderClan that I wasn’t there for, he realized, shock striking him like a lightning bolt. I paid so little attention to my WindClan son that I hardly remembered that he suffered a major injury. Have I really cared more for my apprentices than my own son?

Crowfeather had a horrible feeling that he knew the answer—or what would have been the answer, until recently. But Crowfeather hoped that however lacking he had been as a father, he could make up for that now. In fact, he had to, now that Nightcloud was gone. He had to accept that he’d been a different cat back then, just as Breezepelt was no longer the cat whose loyalties lay elsewhere.

Now Crowfeather had become the kind of warrior who could pass his experience on to younger cats. He suppressed a wistful sigh. If only my kits had been born later . . . I could be a better father now, but is it too late for Breezepelt?