Эрин Хантер - The Apprentice's Quest

“Please,” he responded. “I’ll stay with Sandstorm and fix up some nests.”

He found a gentle hollow sheltered by elder bushes and heaped dead leaves into it before helping Sandstorm across to it. The old cat had stopped insisting that she was fine, and she leaned heavily on his shoulder as she staggered across to her nest.

Cherryfall came back with a mouse as Alderpaw was getting Sandstorm settled.

“Thanks,” Alderpaw mewed. “Sandstorm, eat this. And then you can go to sleep.”

“Bossy furball,” Sandstorm muttered, but she ate the mouse and curled up without protest.

Watching her, Alderpaw was relieved to see that the bleeding had almost stopped. At the same moment he realized how bone-weary he was. He could hardly keep awake until the other hunters returned, and he managed just a few mouthfuls of thrush before he too sank into sleep.

The patter of raindrops on the bushes above his head woke Alderpaw to the light of a chilly morning. Fortunately the bushes were so thick that very little rain penetrated to his nest.

Raising his head, Alderpaw saw that Sandstorm was still sleeping beside him. All the other cats were gone, except for Cherryfall, who crouched with her back to him at the top of the hollow, peering out through the branches.

As Alderpaw sat up, the dead leaves crackling under his paws, she turned around.

“The others have gone hunting,” she mewed.

“I stayed to keep watch. How is Sandstorm?”

Alderpaw examined the old she-cat. She was muttering in her sleep, shifting restlessly in her nest. Her wound had stopped bleeding, but it was more swollen than ever, red and hot to the touch.

Sandstorm’s green eyes blinked open as Alderpaw bent over her. “Hi,” she murmured.

“Have you come to do my ticks?”

Alderpaw realized that Sandstorm thought she was back in the ThunderClan camp. “No, we’re on our quest, remember?” he replied. “Is there anything I can do for you? How are you feeling?”

“I’m perfectly okay,” Sandstorm told him, her voice a little stronger. She winced, gasping in pain, as she tried to sit up, and let herself flop back into the nest. “Don’t worry about me.”

But Alderpaw couldn’t help worrying.

Sandstorm’s green eyes looked glassy, and he guessed that she was just trying to put on a brave front. When he stroked her pelt, she felt warm all over, and already she was drifting back into sleep.

She roused again a few moments later as the hunters returned, dragging a rabbit and a couple of blackbirds into the shelter of the bushes.

“It’s horrible out there,” Needlepaw complained, shaking her pelt so that the drops spattered Alderpaw. “Most of the prey is in hiding.”

“You did well, though,” Alderpaw praised her. “Come on, Sandstorm, do you want one of these blackbirds?”

His misgivings increased as Sandstorm struggled to stay awake enough to eat, and after a few mouthfuls she turned her head away. “I’m full,” she mewed. “You finish it, Alderpaw.”

When the other cats had settled down at the top of the hollow to eat their prey, Alderpaw rose to his paws to talk to them. “Sandstorm is sick,” he announced. “We can’t start traveling again until she’s fit to move.”

“I’m fit now,” Sandstorm protested, though any cat could see she was lying. “Don’t listen to this stupid furball.”

Clearly all the others understood how serious the situation was; they gazed down silently at Sandstorm, their eyes somber. Even mischievous Needlepaw had stopped joking around.

“What can we do?” Cherryfall asked.

“You know we’ll do everything we can,” Molewhisker added, and Sparkpaw nodded eagerly.

“I need marigold, horsetail, or honey,” Alderpaw told them. “They’ll help Sandstorm’s infection. I don’t know what kinds of herbs grow around here, but hopefully you’ll be able to find at least one.”

When his companions had gone, Alderpaw sat beside Sandstorm, gently licking her ears as she drifted in and out of sleep. He hardly noticed when the rain eased off, until a weak ray of sunshine sliced through the bushes. It brought Alderpaw a slight glimmer of hope.

Sparkpaw was the first cat to return, and relief flooded over Alderpaw as he saw that she was carrying a few stalks of marigold. “Good job!” he told her. “Now I can make a poultice.

Can you get the cobweb off Sandstorm’s wound? Very carefully, please.”

Sparkpaw sat beside Sandstorm and began to ease the wad of cobweb away. Sandstorm twitched and grunted in her sleep, as if she was in pain, but when Sparkpaw hesitated, Alderpaw just nodded to her to keep going.

While he was chewing up the marigold, Needlepaw pushed her way through the bushes with a dripping ball of moss in her jaws. “I couldn’t find any herbs,” she meowed, setting the moss down beside Sandstorm, “but I brought this. I thought she might be thirsty.”

“That was a really good idea,” Alderpaw told her, feeling warmer toward the ShadowClan cat than ever before. Needlepaw ducked her head to lick her chest fur, embarrassed at his praise.

“Sandstorm.” Alderpaw gently stroked the old cat’s head. “Wake up and have a drink.”

Sandstorm’s green eyes blinked open. “Oh, that’s good,” she breathed out, lapping at the moss.

While she drank, Alderpaw plastered the marigold poultice to her wound. I just hope it’s enough, he thought. I wouldn’t worry so much about the infection if she weren’t so weak from the bleeding. He let out a long sigh. Oh, I wish Leafpool or Jayfeather were here to help me!

Sandstorm reached out her tail to touch him briefly on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Alderpaw,” she rasped. “I’m going to be fine, and we must set out again soon. The…” For a heartbeat she hesitated. “The others need us,” she finished.

“Which others?” Sparkpaw asked curiously.

Alderpaw’s belly lurched. “Oh, she’s feverish,” he mewed quickly. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” But inwardly he felt worse than ever. Sandstorm must be losing her sharpness, to mention the secret.

“You have to rest,” he told her. “You have to get better. We can’t finish this quest without you!”

But he was not even sure if Sandstorm had heard him. When he looked down at her, he saw that she had drifted back into a fevered sleep.

Alderpaw stood on the grass outside the sheltering elder bushes. Above his head the sky blazed with stars. Although the night wasn’t cold, he was shivering as though he had just clambered out of icy water.

Just ahead, a cat was walking away from him, toward the fence they had crossed the day before. Her head and tail were proudly raised, and she moved with a strong, purposeful gait.

Starlight glimmered at her paws and around her ears.

“But that’s—” Alderpaw cut off his words with a gasp, and he spun around to check on the nest beneath the elder bushes.

But the elder bushes were no longer there.

When Alderpaw turned back, the fence had vanished, too. He stood in the middle of a stretch of lush grass, with whispering groves of trees all around. The starry cat was facing him now, and he saw clearly that it was Sandstorm.

“Oh, no, no… ,” he whispered.

The ginger she-cat looked taller and stronger than he had ever seen her, and her infected wound had disappeared. Her pelt was thick and sleek, and her green eyes gleamed with love for him.

“It is my time to leave you,” she meowed, with no pain or confusion in her voice. “But don’t worry, Alderpaw. StarClan is where I belong now.”