Эрин Хантер - The Apprentice's Quest

“Help us! Help us!”

“I’m here!” Alderpaw gasped out, bounding forward until he stood just outside the circle.

“I’ll help you! Tell me what to do.”

But the cats seemed not to hear him. Not even Echosong turned in his direction. Their terrible wailing continued as if they had no idea he was there.

“I’m doing my best!” Alderpaw tried to draw closer still, but something held him back from touching any cat or entering their circle. “Look, I’m here! I’ll do anything you need me to do.”

Still the cats couldn’t hear him. Their cries grew more and more frantic until, with a jolt, Alderpaw woke.

For a couple of heartbeats he lay trembling among the moss and ferns. Another vision… what did it mean? he wondered. Those cats must really be in trouble!

As he sat up, Alderpaw realized that his Clanmates had vanished. Scrambling out of the nest, he spotted them lounging by the pool, nibbling on the leftover fresh-kill. The sun had dipped low over the trees, filling the hollow with golden light.

Alderpaw dashed down to join them. “We need to get moving as soon as we can!” he exclaimed.

Cherryfall blinked lazily at him. “What’s the rush?” she asked. “It’s not like the place you saw is going to disappear.”

Alderpaw couldn’t explain his sense of urgency. Only Sandstorm will understand.

I’ve got to talk to her. “Sandstorm,” he meowed, “come over here and let me check your wound again before we move off.”

With a twitch of her ears Sandstorm got up and padded beside Alderpaw to where he had left the remains of the comfrey root. He glanced back swiftly to make sure that they were out of earshot of the other cats.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, her brief irritation vanishing. “I can see this isn’t just about my wound.”

“I had another vision,” Alderpaw told her. “I saw the SkyClan cats in a circle, wailing and wailing as if they were in terrible pain. They sounded so frightened! And they didn’t hear me when I spoke to them and offered to help.”

Sandstorm nodded understandingly. “Now I see why you’re so keen to get going,” she meowed. “That’s all we can do, Alderpaw. Just get to the place you saw as soon as we can.”

Thank StarClan some cat gets it! Alderpaw thought. But in spite of his urgency, he reached out a paw to stop Sandstorm as she turned to rejoin the others. “I meant it about looking at your wound.”

Sandstorm sat down with a grunt of annoyance. “If you must.”

Alderpaw’s belly lurched as he scraped away the comfrey root poultice from Sandstorm’s injured shoulder. The wound was slightly red and swollen, and when he laid his paw gently on it, he could feel heat rising from it.

“This could be the beginning of an infection,” he told Sandstorm, trying not to let his voice shake. “You really shouldn’t be traveling until it’s healed. Or at the very least,” he added, as Sandstorm opened her jaws to protest, “you should rest a bit more while I go and look for some horsetail or marigold to treat the infection. Honey would help, too.”

“You sure have learned a lot,” Sandstorm meowed, her approving gaze showing how impressed she was. “But we can’t hang around here while you go looking for horsetail. If we pass some on the way, then you can gather some.”

“But—” Alderpaw began.

“Until then, you have to trust me,” Sandstorm interrupted. “I’m fine . You may be a medicine cat, but I’ve been around a long time.

I’ve had a lot of wounds in my day, and this one isn’t so bad.” Briefly she touched Alderpaw’s shoulder with her tail-tip. “It’s certainly not worth turning aside from our quest, especially after that terrible vision you just had.”

Once again Alderpaw struggled to protest.

“But your wound—”

“You have to trust me,” Sandstorm repeated.

“This is your quest, but I am your elder.”

Although he still was uneasy, Alderpaw didn’t feel that he could argue with Sandstorm anymore. He dipped his head in acceptance; then Sandstorm rose, and the two cats began to walk back toward their Clanmates, side by side.

But before they reached them, Alderpaw spotted sleek silver fur in the midst of a clump of long grass. He realized that Needlepaw was crouched only a couple of tail-lengths away from where he and Sandstorm had been talking.

Her gaze locked with Alderpaw’s, but he couldn’t interpret her expression.

How much did she overhear?

The cats trekked on through the woods as the sun sank lower in the sky. Sandstorm had taken the lead again, with Alderpaw just behind her, Needlepaw stalking along a little way away from the others, and the rest of the ThunderClan cats bringing up the rear.

Alderpaw still felt tired, and he guessed the others did too. Their paws were dragging, and although no cat was talking much, he picked up occasional snatches of complaints from the cats behind him.

“I don’t see why we had to leave so quickly,” Molewhisker grumbled. “What’s the rush?”

“Yeah, we could have stayed the night there,” Sparkpaw added.

Glancing back, Alderpaw wished he could tell them the truth. “I just wanted to get going,” he explained.

Sparkpaw snorted but made no reply in words.

Before long the trees thinned out, and Alderpaw could see open country ahead. In the distance he spotted a huge Twoleg structure built of some kind of yellow stone. I wonder what that is.

As they set out across the open ground, Needlepaw came sidling over to Alderpaw until she was padding close by his side. Alderpaw felt uncomfortable having a cat from another Clan so close to him, even though she seemed to be losing her harsh ShadowClan scent.

“You know when you were talking to Sandstorm back there?” she murmured, leaning close to speak into Alderpaw’s ear. “Well, I overheard everything !”

Alderpaw started, and his neck fur bristled with anxiety and dismay. Oh, no! Now she knows the real reason we’re on this quest.

After Bramblestar told me no other cats should know. And she isn’t even a ThunderClan cat. Then, as he met Needlepaw’s green gaze, he realized that she didn’t look altogether confident. Could she be bluffing?

Well, two can play at that game.

“Oh, really?” he responded, trying to keep his voice casual and forcing his neck fur to lie flat. “Well, it can’t have done you much good, unless you want to know more about comfrey root.”

“Comfrey root!” Needlepaw let out a mrrow of laughter. “Oh yes, and the rest!”

“What ‘rest’?” Alderpaw asked. “It’s not like we were discussing anything important.”

Needlepaw cast a quick glance around to make sure they were out of earshot of the other cats. “It wouldn’t have been anything about your vision , would it?”

“What are you meowing about?” Alderpaw was getting flustered, wondering how much

Needlepaw had worked out for herself, and how much she could only have learned if she had heard the whole of his conversation with Sandstorm. “If you must know, we were talking about cats who might need our help.”

“How noble of you,” Needlepaw purred.

“Which cats would they be?”

“Well… any cats. I’m a medicine cat.

Helping is what I do.”

“Hmm…” Needlepaw twitched her whiskers thoughtfully. “Cats who need help… and your vision… and this quest for what will clear the sky. It’s all starting to add up, isn’t it?”