Эрин Хантер - Sunrise

“I’m not falling for that trick twice!” he hissed.

Tigerstar struggled to get up, but blood was pouring from a gash in his belly; he stumbled down again, rolling onto his back. Lionblaze planted one forepaw on Tigerstar’s chest and held the other, claws extended, against his neck.

The tabby glared up at him; for a heartbeat, fear flashed in his blazing amber eyes. “Do you really think you could kill me?” he growled. “You’d never do it.”

“No.” Lionblaze sheathed his claws and stepped back. “You’re already dead.”

He turned and stalked away, his pelt still bristling and all his senses alert in case Tigerstar followed and leaped on him again. But there was no sound from the dark warrior, and soon he was left behind among the endless trees.

Lionblaze’s mind whirled. He had beaten Tigerstar! Maybe I do have power after all…but how can I, if I’m not one of the Three?

He paused, scarcely seeing the tangling undergrowth and the trees of the dark forest all around him. Do I want to know who my parents really are? he wondered. Does it even matter? Maybe it was best to let his Clanmates accept him for who they thought he was, so he could go on striving to improve his fighting skills.

I’m already the best fighter in ThunderClan. I know I can be a great warrior.

“Ashfur is dead,” he meowed out loud. “And Squirrelflight won’t reveal her secret to any other cats. It would hurt her Clanmates far too much if they knew she’d been lying to them for so long. Why not let everything stay the same?”

Lionblaze woke to the sun on his face. Most of the cats had already left the den; Lionblaze spotted only the gray-and-white pelt of Mousewhisker, who had kept guard over the camp the night before.

Lionblaze’s jaws stretched in a yawn. “Thank StarClan I wasn’t on the dawn patrol,” he muttered.

When he tried to get up, every muscle in his body shrieked a protest; he felt as if his body was one huge ache, from his head to his paws. Down one side, his golden tabby fur was matted with blood.

I hope no cat has noticed that! he thought as he bent his head and began cleaning up his pelt with swift, rhythmic licks.

The fight with Tigerstar had been a dream, hadn’t it? Lionblaze didn’t understand why he should feel just as much pain and exhaustion as if it had really happened. And he had been cut, as if a living warrior had raked his claws across Lionblaze’s flank…. He tried not to think about it. It doesn’t matter, because I’ll never go back to that place, he told himself. It’s over.

He felt better after his grooming, with his fur fluffed up to hide the gash in his side. When he finished, he could hear the voices of several cats just outside the den, though not close enough for him to make out what they were saying. Curious, he rose to his paws, arched his back in a delicious stretch, and pushed his way through the branches into the clearing.

Thornclaw was standing a couple of fox-lengths away; Spiderleg sat close by, while Cloudtail paced up and down in front of them, the tip of his white tail twitching. Cloudtail’s mate, Brightheart, watched him anxiously from where she sat with Ferncloud, Brackenfur, and Sorreltail. Honeyfern and Berrynose were crouched nearby, their eyes fixed on Thornclaw.

“Ashfur was killed by a WindClan cat!” the golden brown tom was declaring. “It’s the only possible answer.”

A few of his listeners nodded in agreement, though Lionblaze saw others exchanging doubtful glances.

“Firestar said he thought that one of us did it,” Honeyfern mewed, sounding nervous to be contradicting a senior warrior.

“Clan leaders have made mistakes before,” Cloudtail meowed. “Firestar isn’t always right.”

“I’m sure none of us would kill Ashfur,” Ferncloud added more gently. “Why would we want to? Ashfur had no enemies!”

I wish that was true, Lionblaze thought.

However much he tried to forget, that night of fire and storm was seared into Lionblaze’s memory. He could hear the roar of the flames on the cliff top, and could see them licking hungrily around him and his littermates as Ashfur blocked the end of the branch they needed to scramble toward safety. Squirrelflight’s confession rang in his ears again: She had told Ashfur that Lionblaze, Hollyleaf, and Jayfeather were not her kits. It was the only way to save their lives, by pretending she did not care what happened to them, but she had handed Ashfur a weapon more terrible than any flaming branch. Lionblaze knew that the gray warrior would have announced the truth to all the Clans at the Gathering; only death had closed his jaws forever and kept the secret safe.

“Lionblaze! Hey, Lionblaze, are you deaf?”

Lionblaze dragged his thoughts back to the hollow to see Spiderleg waving him over with his tail.

“You were Ashfur’s last apprentice,” the black warrior prompted as Lionblaze padded reluctantly up to the group. “Do you know if he’d quarreled with any cat?”

“Especially any WindClan cat?” Thornclaw added, with a meaningful twitch of his whiskers.

Lionblaze shook his head. “Uh…no,” he replied awkwardly. He couldn’t lie and say that Ashfur had quarreled with a WindClan cat, even though he wished with every hair on his pelt that it was true. Letting his Clanmates believe such a thing could cause an all-out war between ThunderClan and WindClan. “I hadn’t seen much of Ashfur just before he died,” he added.

To his relief, no other cats questioned him.

“We’d know if Ashfur quarreled with a ThunderClan cat,” Brackenfur insisted. “It’s impossible to keep a secret around here.”

If only you knew! Lionblaze thought.

“Brackenfur’s right.” Sorreltail touched her nose to her mate’s ear. “But all the same, we can’t be sure that a WindClan cat—”

“Ashfur died on the WindClan border,” Spiderleg interrupted. “What more do you want?”

Sorreltail turned to face him, her neck fur bristling at his scathing tone. “I want a bit more evidence than where his body was found before I start blaming any cat.”

Honeyfern and Brackenfur murmured agreement, but Lionblaze could see that most of the cats were convinced that a WindClan warrior was responsible for Ashfur’s death. However much he worried about what that could lead to, he couldn’t bury a guilty sense of relief.

“Are we going to let WindClan get away with this?” Thornclaw demanded, his ears lying flat as he dug his claws into the earth.

“No!” Berrynose leaped to his paws. “We have to show them they can’t mess with ThunderClan.”

Lionblaze’s belly churned as he saw the warriors cluster more closely around Thornclaw. They were behaving as if the golden brown tom was their leader, and seemed ready to follow him into battle to avenge their Clanmate’s murder.

“It would be best to attack by night,” Thornclaw began. “There’ll be enough moonlight to see by, and they won’t be expecting trouble.”

“We’ll see they get it, though.” Spiderleg lashed his tail.

“We’ll head for the WindClan camp,” Thornclaw continued. “It’ll be best to split up: One raiding party can attack from this direction—”

“What?” The low growl came from just behind Lionblaze.

Startled, Lionblaze glanced over his shoulder to see Brambleclaw; he, along with all the other cats, had been so intent on what Thornclaw was planning that he hadn’t heard the Clan deputy approach.

“We’re going to raid WindClan,” Spiderleg explained, bunching his muscles as if he was planning to launch himself out of the camp right away. “One of them killed Ashfur, and—”

“There will be no raid on WindClan,” Brambleclaw interrupted, a glow of anger springing up in his amber eyes. “There is no evidence that a WindClan cat killed Ashfur.”