Эрин Хантер: The Apprentice's Quest

Sparkpaw stared at Sandstorm with her mouth gaping. “He wouldn’t have!”

“No, of course not,” Sandstorm responded, her green eyes alight with amusement, “but Dustpelt had to be tough with her. He saw how much she had to offer her Clan, but he knew she wouldn’t live up to her potential unless she learned discipline.”

“She sure did that,” Alderpaw meowed.

“Hey!” Graystripe gave Alderpaw another prod. “What about my ticks, huh?”

“And ours,” Millie put in, with a glance at Sandstorm. “We’ve been waiting moons !”

“Sorry…”

Alderpaw began rapidly searching through Graystripe’s pelt, and almost at once he came across a huge swollen tick. That must be making Graystripe really uncomfortable.

Picking up his stick with the bile-soaked moss, he dabbed at the tick. At the same moment, he happened to glance up, and spotted Leafpool and Jayfeather talking intently to each other just outside the medicine cats’ den.

As Alderpaw wondered vaguely what was so important, both medicine cats turned toward him. Suddenly he felt trapped by Jayfeather’s blind gaze and Leafpool’s searching one.

A worm of uneasiness began to gnaw at Alderpaw’s belly. Great StarClan! Are they talking about me ? Have I messed something up already?

Alderpaw scarcely slept at all on his first night in the apprentices’ den. He missed the warm scents of the nursery and the familiar shapes of his mother and Daisy sleeping beside him. The hollow beneath the ferns seemed empty with only him and his sister occupying it.

Sparkpaw had curled up at once with her tail wrapped over her nose, but Alderpaw dozed uneasily, caught between excitement and apprehension at what the new day would bring. He was fully awake again by the time the first pale light of dawn began to filter through the ferns.

He sprang up as the arching fronds parted and a head appeared, but relaxed when he recognized Cherryfall.

“Hi!” the ginger she-cat meowed. “Give Sparkpaw a prod. It’s time for our tour of the territory!”

“Me too?” Alderpaw asked.

“Yes, of course. Molewhisker is here waiting. Hurry!”

Alderpaw poked one paw into his sister’s side, and her soft, rhythmic snoring broke off with a squeak of alarm. “Is it foxes?” she asked, sitting up and shaking scraps of moss off her pelt. “Badgers?”

“No, it’s our mentors,” Alderpaw told her. “They’re going to show us the territory.”

“Great!” Sparkpaw shot upward, scrabbling hard with her hind paws as she pushed her way out through the ferns. “Let’s go!”

Alderpaw followed more slowly, shivering in the chilly air of dawn. Outside the den Molewhisker and Cherryfall stood waiting side by side. Beyond them he spotted Bumblestripe, Rosepetal, and Cloudtail emerging from the warriors’ den. After a quick grooming they set off, with Cloudtail in the lead, and vanished through the thorn tunnel.

“There goes the dawn patrol,” Molewhisker meowed. “We’ll wait a few moments to let them get on their way. If you want, you can take something from the fresh-kill pile.”

Alderpaw suddenly realized how hungry he was. With Sparkpaw at his side, he raced across the camp.

“There’s not much here,” Sparkpaw complained, prodding with one paw at a scrawny mouse.

“The hunting patrols haven’t gone out yet,” Alderpaw pointed out. He took a blackbird from the scanty prey that remained and began gulping it down.

“Wait till we’re hunters!” Sparkpaw mumbled around a mouthful of mouse. “Then the fresh-kill pile will always be full.”

Alderpaw hoped that she was right.

Molewhisker waved his tail from the opposite side of the camp. Swallowing the last of their prey, the two apprentices bounded back to join him and Cherryfall, who took the lead as they pushed their way through the tunnel in the barrier of thorns that blocked the entrance to the camp.

Alderpaw’s pads tingled with anticipation as he slid through the narrow space and set his paws in the forest for the first time.

By now the dawn light had strengthened, and a reddish glow through the trees showed where the sun would rise. Ragged scraps of mist still floated among the undergrowth, and the grass was heavy with dew.

Sparkpaw’s eyes stretched wide as she gazed around her. “It’s so big!” she squealed.

Alderpaw was silent, unable to find words for what he could see. Except for the thorn barrier behind him, and the walls of the stone hollow beyond, trees stretched away in every direction, until they faded into a shadowy distance. Their trunks rose many fox-lengths above his head, their branches intertwining. The air was full of tantalizing prey-scents, and he could hear the scuffling of small creatures in the thick undergrowth among the trees.

“Can we hunt?” Sparkpaw asked eagerly.

“Maybe later,” Cherryfall told her. “To begin with, we’re going to tour the territory. By the time you’re made warriors, you’ll need to know every paw step of it.”

Molewhisker nodded seriously. “Every tree, every rock, every stream…”

Alderpaw blinked. All of it? Surely no cat could ever know all of it?

“This way,” Cherryfall meowed briskly. “We’ll start by heading for the ShadowClan border.”

“Will we meet ShadowClan cats?” Sparkpaw asked. “What happens if we do?”

“Nothing happens,” Molewhisker replied sternly. “They stay on their side; we stay on ours.”

Cherryfall set out at a good pace, with Sparkpaw bouncing along beside her. Alderpaw followed, and Molewhisker brought up the rear.

Before they had taken many paw steps, they came to a spot where a wide path led away into the forest, covered only with short grass and small creeping plants. Longer grass and ferns bordered it on either side.

“Where does that go?” Alderpaw asked, angling his ears toward the path. “And why doesn’t anything much grow there?”

“Good question,” Molewhisker responded. Alderpaw was pleased at his mentor’s approving tone. “That path was made by Twolegs many, many seasons ago. The same Twolegs who cut out the stone to make the hollow where we camp. It leads to the old Twoleg den, where Leafpool and Jayfeather grow their herbs.”

“But we aren’t going that way today,” Cherryfall added.

Heading farther away from the camp, Alderpaw noticed that the trees ahead seemed to be thinning out. A bright, silvery light was shining through them.

“What’s that?” Sparkpaw asked.

Neither of their mentors replied; they just kept walking until they reached the edge of the trees. Then they pushed through a thick barrier of holly bushes. Alderpaw emerged onto a stretch of short, soft grass. Beyond it was a strip of pebbles and sandy soil, and beyond that…

“Wow!” Sparkpaw gasped. “Is that the lake?”

Alderpaw blinked at the shining expanse of water that lay in front of him. He had heard his Clanmates back in the camp talking about the lake, and he had imagined something a bit bigger than the puddles that formed on the floor of the hollow when it rained. He would never have believed that there was this much water in the whole world.

“There’s no end to it!” he exclaimed.

“Oh, yes, there is,” Molewhisker assured him. “Some cats have traveled all the way around it. Look over there,” he continued, pointing with his tail. “Can you see those trees and bushes? That’s RiverClan territory.”

Alderpaw narrowed his eyes and could just make out the trees his mentor was talking about, hazy with the distance.