Эрин Хантер - The Apprentice's Quest

So SkyClan didn’t come this way. “Thanks anyway,” Alderpaw mewed, his last hope dying of finding the lost Clan.

Again he was turning to leave, but Needlepaw didn’t seem keen to follow. “Before we go,” she began, “could you help us out with some food? We’re really hungry.”

“Sure.” The ginger tom rose to his paws and stretched. “Follow the wall along to the opening. I’ll meet you there.” With that he leaped down from his perch and disappeared.

Needlepaw bounded eagerly alongside the wall, and Alderpaw followed reluctantly. The kittypet was waiting for them beside a piece of fence made of something shiny and hard, with wide gaps between the bars. Needlepaw and Alderpaw slipped through.

In front of them was a rough, pebbly surface, and beyond it a stretch of grass surrounded by bushes and bright Twoleg flowers. Beyond that rose the walls of the Twoleg den. Alderpaw’s fur began to bristle at the thought of actually standing on Twoleg territory.

“The food’s in here,” the kittypet meowed, pointing with his tail.

Turning in that direction, Alderpaw’s pelt bushed up in horror. The kittypet was pointing to a small den at the end of the pebbly path; a monster was crouching in the opening.

“You can’t go in there!” he gasped to Needlepaw, who was already heading for the small den with the kittypet at her side.

“The monster’s asleep,” Needlepaw replied nonchalantly. “And to be honest—don’t tell them back in camp—I’m kind of curious to taste kittypet food.”

“But what if—” Alderpaw broke off as Needlepaw, ignoring him, disappeared into the monster’s den with the kittypet.

He didn’t attempt to follow. No cat is going to catch me eating kittypet food! Instead he kept watch, in case Twolegs appeared from the den or the monster showed signs of waking up.

All the while he was tearing at the grass with his front claws, flexing them in and out with impatience. With every heartbeat they delayed here, his Clanmates were getting farther and farther away.

At last Needlepaw and the kittypet reappeared from the monster’s den. Needlepaw was swiping her tongue around her jaws with satisfaction. “That was great!” she mewed.

“Thanks, Bob.”

Bob? Alderpaw thought. The kittypet’s name is Bob? Weird!

“Yeah, thanks, Bob,” he repeated. “You’ve been really helpful.”

“Glad to,” Bob responded, touching noses with Needlepaw. “Good luck on your journey.”

Alderpaw headed off down the alley Bob had shown them earlier, and Needlepaw pattered along by his side. “You can thank me later,” she meowed. “My idea totally worked!

Now we know how to cross the river, and we can make our way back home.” She paused for a moment, then added, “What’s the matter with you now? Why don’t you look happier?”

Alderpaw hoped he had managed to conceal the heavy weight that had been gathering inside him ever since Bob had told them that he hadn’t seen any sign of SkyClan. But clearly it was impossible to hide anything from Needlepaw.

Halting, he turned toward her. “Don’t you get it?” he asked bitterly. “It’s because I’ve failed . What kind of a medicine cat am I?”

Needlepaw looked puzzled. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“You know what I mean!” Alderpaw tried to choke back his anger at Needlepaw’s obtuseness. “SkyClan left the gorge after the rogues attacked them, and no cat seems to know where they went. We were supposed to save them! We just got there way too late!”

“How can you be sure?” Needlepaw asked, tilting her head to one side.

“Because the other Clans—our Clans—drove SkyClan out of the forest. That was so shameful, it’s been kept a secret ever since. My visions were telling me to go to SkyClan and bring them back to share our territory by the lake—to clear the sky , like in the prophecy.”

Alderpaw’s voice began to shake as he realized the depth of his failure. “I messed up! I didn’t understand the first vision right away, and then Sandstorm died… We got to the gorge too late. We couldn’t find what lay in the shadows, because SkyClan had already left. Now the sky will never clear! Who knows what will happen to the Clans? And it’s all because I’m a terrible medicine cat!”

He crouched down on the hard Twoleg path and rested his nose on his paws, letting out a desolate whimper. It seemed there was nothing but darkness ahead of him.

Needlepaw said nothing, and when Alderpaw at last looked up again, she was sitting watching him with her tail curled neatly around her forepaws and a skeptical look on her face. “Are you done?” she asked.

Alderpaw flicked an ear, annoyed with Needlepaw and with himself for breaking down in front of her. “I guess so.”

“You’re being stupid and self-pitying.”

Needlepaw’s tone was harsh. “It would have taken the rogues a long time to set up in SkyClan’s old camp. And from the way you described Mistfeather, all ragged and skinny, the attack didn’t happen just yesterday. With the timing of your visions, there’s no way we could have made it to the gorge in time to save SkyClan.”

Alderpaw took all that in, beginning to feel a tiny bit better. “So?” he mewed at last.

“So,” Needlepaw responded, rising to her paws and heading off down the alley, “your visions must mean something else.”

Alderpaw was silent for a moment, thinking everything over. At the end of the alley they spotted the bridge a little way downstream, where Bob had told them it was. To his relief, it wasn’t a huge Thunderpath carrying monsters across the river, but a narrow, wooden structure, a bit like the half-bridges that jutted out into the lake. With no Twolegs in sight, it took only a couple of heartbeats for Alderpaw and Needlepaw to dart across.

On the opposite side of the river, a small stream trickled into the main current, tracking through long grasses with a belt of woodland beyond. Alderpaw’s spirits rose as they headed into the trees, but he still couldn’t stop worrying over the meaning of his quest.

He had to admit that what Needlepaw had said made sense. But if my visions weren’t leading me to SkyClan so I could save them, what were they doing? It was hard for him to feel that anything had been accomplished on the journey. We haven’t saved any cats. We haven’t embraced what we found in the shadows. We barely managed to survive ourselves. And we lost Sandstorm. Is there something else I should have done?

Without guidance from StarClan, Alderpaw felt as helpless as a kit.

Together Alderpaw and Needlepaw trekked across open country for several sunrises, heading toward the setting sun. They crossed Thunderpaths, skirted Twolegplaces, and found their way through fields where strange animals cropped the grass and watched them curiously.

Now, toward the end of another tough day, Alderpaw was weary and cold, tired of sleeping under bushes or in drafty hollows in the ground.

He longed for his comfortable nest in the stone hollow.

At least my hunting skills have improved, he thought grimly. It seems like all I needed was to go hungry a few times, to concentrate my mind on the prey just like Molewhisker wanted me to.

From time to time, he and Needlepaw had picked up the scent of the other questing cats, which reassured them that they were going in the right direction. But each time they found the traces, they were fainter and staler, as if the others were moving faster and drawing farther ahead.