Эрин Хантер - The Apprentice's Quest

“No!” Alderpaw protested with all the strength that was in him. “You can’t leave us now. We need you!”

“This is my destiny,” Sandstorm responded.

“And you do not need me anymore. You are stronger than you know. Listen.” She took a pace toward him. “You must lead the others now. Continue heading toward the rising sun. It is many days’ journey, and you will have to cross a very big and busy Thunderpath. After that, you will come to a river. Follow it upstream, and you will find the gorge where SkyClan has their camp.”

Alderpaw tried to memorize what Sandstorm was telling him. The rising sun… a big Thunderpath… then the river. At the same time, he felt hot with shame that she wouldn’t be there to guide him. He turned his gaze away, unable to go on looking at her.

“I failed you,” he muttered.

“No,” Sandstorm murmured gently. “No cat could have done more to help me. I doubt that even Jayfeather or Leafpool could have kept me alive so long. I knew the risks when I chose to come on this quest,” she reminded him. “I know how important your visions are.”

“But you could have lived for many seasons in ThunderClan,” Alderpaw mewed wretchedly.

“And now I will live for many more in StarClan,” Sandstorm pointed out. “I will get to see Firestar again, and all the cats I have loved and lost. Alderpaw, this is how it was meant to be. You have nothing to feel ashamed of, or guilty about.”

Alderpaw turned in an anxious circle, unable to believe what Sandstorm was telling him. What will I do without her? How will I lead this quest?

“This isn’t a vision!” he insisted, fear overwhelming him. “It’s just a dream. I’m going to wake up, and you’ll be sleeping beside me, just like always. You’re going to be all right.”

Sandstorm’s eyes glowed with a mixture of pity and affection. “I was dying,” she reminded Alderpaw. “You knew that, didn’t you?”

“No—you’re going to get better!” Alderpaw retorted, even though deep within him was the cold certainty that she was right. “I’m going to make sure of it!”

Sandstorm gave a sad shake of her head.

“There was nothing you could have done to save me. It was my time to die. No cat lives forever.

This is one of the most important lessons that you—or any medicine cat—will ever learn.”

On the last few words her voice began to fade, while the starry light around her blazed brighter and brighter, until Alderpaw couldn’t go on looking at the dazzling glory. A moment later he jerked awake in his nest under the elder bushes.

Thank StarClan! It was only a dream.

Sandstorm is right here beside me.

Scrambling to his paws, Alderpaw turned to nudge Sandstorm awake. But as soon as his pads touched her fur, he knew that he hadn’t been dreaming. Sandstorm’s fur was limp, the body beneath it cold, and her ribs weren’t rising and falling with her breath.

It was a vision. Sandstorm is dead.

Alderpaw backed away in horror, his fur pricking up and his belly clenching. He couldn’t keep back a wail of distress. “No! No! It wasn’t her time!”

Cherryfall’s head popped up from her nest.

“Alderpaw? What’s happening?”

The other cats were waking, too, confused and questioning. A shocked silence fell over them as Alderpaw pointed to Sandstorm’s body with his tail. Slowly they all padded over to Sandstorm and stood looking down, a tail-length away from the huddle of cold fur.

Sparkpaw was the first to break the silence.

“She’s… she’s dead, isn’t she? Now what do we do?”

“Sandstorm was the only one who knew the route,” Molewhisker pointed out gloomily. “We were relying on her to help us complete the journey. Is her death telling us that the quest is doomed?”

Murmurs of agreement, with a note of fear, came from the other cats.

In spite of his grief, Alderpaw felt a surge of purpose flooding through him from ears to tail-tip. “Sandstorm wouldn’t want us to stand around like this, wondering what to do,” he told the sad and confused cats in front of him. “She would want us to sit vigil with her, and then bury her, before we decide what to do next.”

“You’re right,” Cherryfall meowed. “Let’s do that.”

Together the ThunderClan cats dragged Sandstorm out of the nest and laid her on the grass, gently stroking her fur and fluffing up her tail. It was dark; the sky was studded with stars, as if all the spirits of their warrior ancestors were waiting to welcome Sandstorm and to honor her.

As they began to settle down around her, Needlepaw padded up to Alderpaw. “I know Sandstorm wasn’t my Clanmate,” she murmured; to Alderpaw’s surprise she sounded almost shy. “But I traveled with her long enough to know what a great cat she was. May I keep vigil with you?”

“Sure,” Alderpaw replied, warming once again to the silver she-cat. “Come and sit by me.”

Sparkpaw crouched down beside

Sandstorm’s head, and gave her ears a lick.

“We’ve come all this way,” she mewed sorrowfully. “We’ve come so close to being killed by monsters or foxes; we’ve fought so hard to survive… It doesn’t seem fair that Sandstorm died anyway.”

“I know,” Cherryfall sighed. “She deserved so much more than this.”

“What do you think, Alderpaw?”

Molewhisker asked, turning to him. “Do you still want to go on?”

Alderpaw bit back a sharp retort. I just told them they could agonize after we laid Sandstorm to rest. “I’ll think about it during the vigil,” he replied.

“Maybe StarClan will send you a sign,” Cherryfall suggested.

The questing cats gathered around

Sandstorm’s body, staying there throughout the night. Sustained by the day spent drowsing in the den, Alderpaw didn’t find it hard to keep awake. He tried to focus on the future, but he couldn’t help wondering if there was anything he could have done to keep Sandstorm alive.

She told me in my vision that it was her destiny to die now, he thought. So why does my heart still ache? And if every cat is going to die eventually, why bother trying so hard to stay alive?

Eventually he dozed, and he roused to hear the voices of the other cats. Blinking his eyes open, he found himself surrounded by the gray light of dawn.

“Back in camp,” Cherryfall was mewing, “the elders bury our dead Clanmates.

Molewhisker and I are the oldest cats here, so we ought to do it.”

“But I want to help,” Sparkpaw protested, raw grief in her voice. “She was my mother’s mother.”

“Okay, you can,” Molewhisker told her comfortingly.

Alderpaw staggered to his paws, his legs stiff after the night spent in vigil. “Let me say the proper farewell to her.” He took a deep breath, looking up at the sky where a few warriors of StarClan still lingered. “May

StarClan light your path, Sandstorm,” he meowed, speaking the words used by medicine cats for season upon season. “May you find good hunting, swift running, and shelter when you sleep.”

All the cats bowed their heads for a moment.

“We need to find a good spot for her burial,” Molewhisker mewed after a moment.

“What about under these bushes where she died?”

Cherryfall shook her head. “She’d be hidden from the stars there. Just beside the bushes would be better.”

Molewhisker nodded agreement. As he and Cherryfall were preparing to move Sandstorm’s body, he said quietly, “I think we should consider turning around and going home. This quest might be doomed.”

“What?” It was Needlepaw who spoke, her neck fur bristling. “Sandstorm died trying to help us complete this quest. If we stop now, won’t she have died in vain?”