Эрин Хантер - Shattered Sky

Alderheart looked down at him for a moment until raised voices distracted him. He turned and let out a groan as he spotted Rowanstar and Bramblestar, nose to nose and in the middle of an argument.

“Not again ,” he muttered.

“It’s obvious what we have to do now!” Rowanstar snapped. “We must organize another attack, and take back ShadowClan territory.”

“I don’t disagree with that.” Bramblestar sounded as if he was finding it hard to hold on to his temper. “But we have to take our time and make a plan, instead of just dashing in like foxes after a rabbit.”

Rowanstar glared at him. “You’re just making excuses.”

“Excuses?” Bramblestar’s tone grew cold. “Have you forgotten that WindClan has closed its borders, and that RiverClan has refused to commit to more fighting, at least for now? You’re expecting ThunderClan to carry this battle alone.”

As the leaders spoke, Alderheart noticed that Jayfeather was sitting close by, with his brother, Lionblaze, and Lionblaze’s mate, Cinderheart. Jayfeather and Cinderheart were openly following the argument, their ears pricked with interest, while Lionblaze simply looked embarrassed; the golden-furred tom was pretending to groom himself, though Alderheart could tell from how he would break off after every tongue stroke that he was paying close attention to the two leaders. Tawnypelt, too, was listening, a couple of tail-lengths away from the others.

Alderheart padded over to join his Clanmates, and Cinderheart brushed a friendly tail over his shoulder as he sat next to her.

“I would never have thought that ThunderClan could be such cowards ,” Rowanstar hissed nastily.

At once, Lionblaze stopped his grooming and half rose to his paws, glaring furiously at the ShadowClan leader. He only sat down again when Cinderheart leaned closer to him and murmured something into his ear.

“And I would never have thought I’d hear that from you, Rowanstar,” Bramblestar retorted. “If you and the other ShadowClan cats hadn’t hesitated to attack your former Clanmates, maybe the battle would have gone better.” Whirling to face Alderheart and Jayfeather, he added, “Tell this excuse for a leader that my warriors are too badly injured to stage another attack.”

Alderheart nodded, while Jayfeather replied, “Send them into battle again before their wounds are healed, and you will have dead cats on your conscience, Rowanstar.”

Before Rowanstar could retaliate, Tawnypelt rose to her paws and took a step forward. “There must be another way… ,” she began.

Both her brother and her mate glared at her. “Keep out of this,” Rowanstar snapped.

“Yes, this is leaders’ business,” Bramblestar added.

Tawnypelt gave a single lash of her tail. “Are you complete mouse-brains?” she snarled. “This is every cat’s business. I still have kin in that camp, in case you’ve forgotten!”

By now, Alderheart realized, more of his Clanmates were gathering around to listen. Most of them looked furious: he guessed this was because they had heard Rowanstar accuse them of being cowards.

As his gaze passed over them, Alderheart spotted one cat who was glaring in another direction: Ivypool was watching Tigerheart and Dovewing, where they were sitting together, and she looked both irritated and anxious.

I wonder what that’s all about.

“Rowanstar’s got a lot of nerve,” Cinderheart mewed quietly to Lionblaze, “expecting ThunderClan to fight his battles for him.” With a flick of her tail she added, “If most of the ShadowClan cats want Darktail to be their leader, maybe ThunderClan shouldn’t be fighting for Rowanstar at all. Is it really our business?”

Shock and confusion spread through Alderheart from ears to tail-tip. StarClan chose Rowanstar to be leader, and gave him nine lives, he thought. To refuse to defend that would be a violation of the warrior code.

The camp began to blur in front of Alderheart’s eyes. He blinked to clear his vision, realizing how weary he was.

“Jayfeather, Leafpool wants you in the medicine cats’ den,” he meowed, and added to the other cats, “I’ll see you later.”

Then he headed to the quiet of the apprentices’ den, behind its barrier of ferns, where he settled into his nest and closed his eyes. He sank at once into sleep, as if he were gently falling into a dark lake.

Alderheart opened his eyes and found himself on the edge of a large group of cats.

The other cats were thin, their pelts ragged, and they lay stretched out or curled up, sleeping, as if they were all exhausted. Suddenly Alderheart recognized them.

These are the cats of SkyClan. I’m having another vision!

Although he looked closely, he could not see Echosong among them. Sorrowfully, he realized that she must really have died when he’d seen her in the hollow beside the pool.

Glancing around, Alderheart tried to work out where they were. At first he was confused. Walls of gray stone rose up all around him, with light slanting in from narrow openings near the top. The floor was hard stone, too, covered with heaps of straw.

This must be some kind of Twoleg den.

Then he remembered the place where he and Needletail had sheltered from the rain on their way back from the gorge, where Sandstorm had visited him in a dream and told him to find a different path. This could be the same yellow barn. There were no horses here now, but the wooden barriers dividing the den into sections were in the same place.

If this is that barn, then the SkyClan cats aren’t so far away!

Movement in the shadows caught Alderheart’s eye, and he saw a gray tom emerge from behind one of the heaps of straw, the limp body of a mouse in his jaws. He padded across the stone floor and laid the mouse down beside a queen whose belly was swollen with kits.

Alderheart had never noticed this particular cat before. He must have overlooked him, distracted by Echosong’s suffering, in his previous vision. He had the same gray pelt as Twigpaw, and when he looked up after laying down the mouse, Alderheart saw that he had amber eyes the same size and shape as Violetpaw’s.

Excitement tingled through Alderheart’s fur, his heart beating harder.

Every cat is sure that Twigpaw and Violetpaw’s mother must be dead, he thought. But could this cat be their kin? Are the two kits lost members of SkyClan?

Alderheart sprang to his paws, wanting to observe the gray tom more closely. But at the same moment, harsh sounds fell on his ears, and he startled awake to find himself back in the apprentices’ den.

He let out a hiss of annoyance at the raised voices coming from outside. This time they belonged to Ivypool and Tigerheart, but the topic was still the same: whether ThunderClan should attack the rogues again.

Frustration coursed through Alderheart at the sudden interruption of his vision, especially when he felt he had been on the verge of discovering vital information. He squeezed his eyes tight shut, committing every detail of the vision to memory so that he could be sure not to forget a single thing.

Then he opened his eyes again, already knowing what his next move must be.

Could Twigpaw and Violetpaw be SkyClan cats? I need to talk to Bramblestar!

Twigpaw lay in her nest in the apprentices’ den. Daylight still filtered in through the screen of ferns, but her leg was aching and she felt like going to sleep.

It’s not like I’ve got anything better to do, she thought. She had been excused from her apprentice duties until her leg was stronger, and she couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for finding something to eat or talking to any of the other cats.