Эрин Хантер - Sunrise

He led the way across a stretch of softer grass, and halted in front of a tall fence made out of flat strips of wood. Lionblaze tasted the air; among many smells he couldn’t identify, he picked up the scents of Twoleg and dog.

“Each Twoleg nest has a small piece of territory attached to it,” Brambleclaw explained. “It’s enclosed by a fence made of wood or red stones. I think that’s the Twoleg way of marking their borders.”

“How does he know so much about it?” Hollyleaf muttered suspiciously.

“There was a Twolegplace in the old forest,” Brackenfur told her. “Right up against our territory. Don’t you remember the story of how Firestar wandered away from his Twolegs and met Graystripe in the forest?”

Hollyleaf shrugged. “I guess.”

Brambleclaw led the way alongside the fence, toward a gap that was flooded by orange light. Before they reached it, loud barking exploded from the other side of the fence; Lionblaze jumped as two dogs slammed their bodies against the flimsy wood. He exchanged an alarmed glance with Hollyleaf. What if the fence gives way?

“Run!” Brambleclaw yowled.

The patrol bolted along the fence and swerved through the gap. As soon as he set paw on the hard black stone at the end of the fence, Lionblaze was engulfed in a beam of piercing white light. A monster was charging straight for them!

Some cat let out a screech of terror. For a heartbeat, Lionblaze spotted his Clanmates outlined against the glare from the monster’s eyes. Then he leaped back to the side of the Thunderpath, landing with a thump in the middle of some thorns.

When he dared to look up, the monster had slowed down and was turning into a gap behind one of the Twoleg nests. Sharp orange light shone down from tall stone trees standing in lines along both sides of the Thunderpath. Just opposite, Lionblaze spotted Birchfall sprawled at the foot of the fence, and Brackenfur balanced on top of it, his back arched and his tail straight up and bristling. Hollyleaf and Brambleclaw emerged side by side from the deep shadows under a tree.

“Birchfall?” Lionblaze called softly. “Are you okay?”

To his relief, the young tabby tom scrambled to his paws and gave his whiskers a shake. “I’ve got all the warriors in StarClan inside my head,” he meowed. “That thing was fierce !”

The thorns where Lionblaze had landed grew beside another gap in the Twoleg fence. His belly lurched when he spotted another monster in front of the Twoleg den. Then his breathing steadied and his heart slowed down as he realized that this monster was asleep.

On the other side of the gap, a shiny Twoleg thing had tipped over, spilling out a pile of rubbish. Lionblaze’s nose wrinkled at the scent of crow-food. Then the heap heaved and Hazeltail emerged from the middle of it, shaking debris from her pelt.

“I knocked the thing over,” she complained, “and now I’m covered with all this yucky stuff.”

Lionblaze padded across to help her. Clinging to her pelt were scraps of something that smelled like a plant, but they were cold and slimy, like herbs picked and left in the rain to rot. Cautiously he stretched out a paw to knock them off; Hollyleaf and Brambleclaw bounded up to help.

“They taste vile.” Hazeltail licked her shoulder and swiped her tongue around her lips as if she was trying to get rid of a disgusting taste. “I’d rather eat fox dung.”

Brackenfur padded up and stood at the edge of the Thunderpath, keeping watch for more monsters. His fur still hadn’t settled down; Lionblaze noticed that Brambleclaw looked just as ruffled as he helped Hazeltail clean her pelt.

Seeing the senior warriors’ confidence shaken made Lionblaze feel a bit braver. “There can’t have been dogs in the Twolegplace near the old forest,” he murmured to Hollyleaf. “Even Brambleclaw was surprised.”

“I wonder what else will surprise us,” Hollyleaf responded.

Meanwhile Birchfall had crossed the Thunderpath and was nosing around in the heap of debris that had fallen out of the shiny Twoleg thing. “Hey, look at this!” he meowed. “Brambleclaw, can we eat it?”

Lionblaze wasn’t sure at first what his Clanmate was dragging out of the pile of rubbish. It was smooth and pale and smelled a little like fresh-kill, though it was no kind of prey that he had ever seen before. The stink of Twolegs clung to it as well; Lionblaze knew he didn’t want to eat it, but at the same time his belly growled at the thought of food.

Brambleclaw sniffed the thing carefully and nibbled a bit from one side. “It tastes a bit like blackbird,” he reported after a moment. “I don’t think it will hurt us to eat it, and we need food.”

“I guess that means he doesn’t think we’ll catch much prey around here,” Hollyleaf whispered into Lionblaze’s ear.

Brambleclaw clawed the Twoleg prey into fair shares for each cat. Birchfall checked the rubbish again, but he didn’t find any more prey.

“This isn’t bad,” Lionblaze mumbled to Hollyleaf around a mouthful of the stuff, “if you ignore the scent of Twolegs.”

Hollyleaf was crouched over her share, eating it in neat, rapid bites. “Huh! Give me a good plump vole any day.”

With the edge taken off his hunger, Lionblaze felt stronger, but as Brambleclaw led them farther into the Twolegplace, he started to feel trapped. The red stone nests reared up on either side, closer than the walls of the hollow and higher than the trees in the forest. His pads ached from walking on the hard stone. How can any cat live here?

The orange glare from the stone trees cast the cats’ shadows huge and wavering on the wall beside them as they slunk along the edge of the Thunderpath. Suddenly Hollyleaf stiffened, flicking out her tail to touch Brambleclaw on the shoulder. “There’s something up ahead!” she hissed.

Lionblaze froze as Brambleclaw raised his tail for the patrol to halt. He half expected the roar of another monster, but nothing broke the silence except for the patter of approaching paws.

Hazeltail drew closer to his side; Lionblaze could feel her pelt quivering. “What if it’s a dog?” she murmured.

“Then we fight it.” Lionblaze flexed his claws.

He relaxed with a sigh as a small black-and-white cat appeared from around the next corner. It halted and stared at the patrol in horror, its back arched and every hair on its pelt standing on end.

Almost immediately the newcomer started to back away, its terrified gaze still fixed on the forest cats. Before it could turn and flee, Brambleclaw took a single pace forward.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” he called, lifting one forepaw to show his claws were sheathed. “We just want to talk to you.”

“That’s what he said!” The little cat looked almost frightened out of its fur. “And look what happened!”

Before Brambleclaw could ask what it meant, the black-and-white cat spun and fled back around the corner where it came from. Brambleclaw launched himself after it, with the whole patrol hard on his paws, but when they rounded the corner, the Thunderpath was empty. Nothing moved under the harsh orange light.

“Mouse dung!” Brambleclaw spoke through gritted teeth.

“What in the name of StarClan was he talking about?” Brackenfur asked, looking mystified.

Lionblaze exchanged a glance with Hollyleaf. He could see she shared the idea that had instantly flashed into his mind: Sol!

“I wonder who ‘he’ is,” Brambleclaw mused aloud, his ears twitching as he surveyed the silent Thunderpath. “Could it be Sol, do you think?”

“I bet a moon of dawn patrols it is!” Birchfall mewed excitedly.

“We don’t look anything like Sol,” Brambleclaw continued, his tone thoughtful. “But we’re strangers, just as Sol must have been.”