Эрин Хантер - The Fourth Apprentice

I’ll check the edges of the hollow for snakes. With every cat so excited, they’ll never remember to keep a lookout .

As he padded across the clearing, he remembered the dreadful day when Honeyfern had been bitten by a snake that slipped out of one of the holes at the bottom of the cliff. There was nothing he or Leafpool could do to save her from the poison. Later, as the young cat’s kin grieved for her, he and Leafpool had stuffed a mouse with deathberries and pushed it into the hole in the hope that the snake would eat it and die. But the venomous creature hadn’t taken their bait. Jayfeather suspected it was lurking around, waiting for another chance to strike.

As he worked his way along the rock wall, checking that all the holes were still securely blocked with stones, Jayfeather picked up Purdy’s scent and realized that the old loner was stretched out on the flat-topped rock, near where the snake had appeared. He could hear the old cat’s rhythmic snoring, which ended abruptly in a snort as if Jayfeather’s paw steps had disturbed his nap.

“You want to be careful up there,” Jayfeather meowed, halting beside the rock. “You know the snake—”

“I know all about the snake, young ’un,” Purdy interrupted. “And there’s no sign of slippery creatures around here. I’ve been watchin’.”

“That’s great, Purdy.” Jayfeather bit back a comment about how clever Purdy was to keep watch for snakes in his sleep. “But I’ve still got to check.”

“I’ll help you.” Purdy flopped down from the rock, staggered to find his balance, and padded to Jayfeather’s side. “I reckon you youngsters need some cat wi’ a bit o’ experience to show you what’s what.”

Oh, sure , Jayfeather thought as he went on checking the snake holes, pulling out bits of stone to give each opening a good sniff before he pushed the stone back and checked that the blockage was secure.

Purdy padded alongside him, offering helpful comments like, “You missed a gap there,” just as Jayfeather was feeling around for a stone that would fit the space, or, “Are you sure you gave that hole a proper sniff?”

Jayfeather gritted his teeth. “Quite sure, Purdy, thanks.” StarClan help me not to claw his ears off!

“You’ll miss your brother, I’m guessin‘,” Purdy went on. “But he’ll be back before you know it, mark my words. It was just the same, y’know, when Brambleclaw and Squirrelpaw went off to find Midnight.”

“Squirrel flight ,” Jayfeather corrected the old loner. Don’t you start as well! I’ve just had enough of that from Leafpool!

“I remember the first time I met them,” Purdy rambled on. “They were so young and so brave! I reckoned they all had bees in their brain, travelin’ so far. But see how wrong I was? They found this place to live, after the Upwalkers wrecked their old home.”

Jayfeather, flat on his belly in front of a suspicious-smelling hole, just grunted in agreement.

“Not that I ever had no trouble wi’ Upwalkers,” Purdy continued. “My Upwalker was right friendly. I’d got him well trained, see. He was ’specially good when the weather turned cold and huntin’ was difficult. Always somethin’ tasty to eat, an’ a fire to sit beside…”

Jayfeather let the old loner’s voice fade into the background of creaking branches and buzzing insects. He wished that the older cats would stop going on about the quest to find Midnight. He wanted to yowl out the words of his own prophecy so that every cat could hear it.

This is more important than anything that happened in the past!

“Okay, Purdy,” he mewed, interrupting a long and convoluted story about a fox. “We’re done here. Thanks for your help.”

“Any time, young ’un.” Jayfeather heard Purdy clambering back onto the flat-topped rock and settling himself in the sun. “You don’t get foxes now like the ones when I was young…” he murmured drowsily.

As Jayfeather padded back toward his den, he heard Lionblaze and Dovepaw practicing battle moves beside the thorn barrier. He stopped, listening to Dovepaw leaping at Lionblaze and slicing her claws through the air, barely a whisker from his fur. Suddenly the quest was real. Lionblaze and Dovepaw would be gone the next morning, and the thought terrified Jayfeather more than he would have thought possible.

Just find these animals, and come back , he begged. Whatever we have to do for the prophecy to come true, I can’t do it on my own.

Dovepaw stood on the rocks at the mouth of the stream that marked the border with ShadowClan. Even though the sun had only just cleared the horizon, the stones were hot under her pads, and the island at the far side of the lake was veiled in a shimmering haze of heat. The journey was about to begin—the quest that she had set in motion when she heard the animals that were blocking the stream—but Dovepaw couldn’t push down her misery at leaving her sister behind. Before dawn, when Lionblaze had come to rouse her in the apprentices’ den, Ivypaw had curled up and pretended to be asleep so that she didn’t have to say good-bye.

Beside Dovepaw, Brambleclaw and Lionblaze were mewing quietly together. Not wanting to listen in on their conversation, Dovepaw let her senses range farther. She spotted a patrol of RiverClan warriors circling the pool of brackish water in the middle of the lake; they looked hungry and scared. Listening briefly to their complaints about the heat, she pushed her awareness farther still, and focused on the cats in the RiverClan camp. Soon she managed to identify Mistyfoot, Reedwhisker, and the golden-furred medicine cat, Mothwing, whom she had seen at the Gathering.

“I’ve done everything I can for Leopardstar,” Mothwing was meowing anxiously. “But she still hasn’t recovered from losing her last life.”

Mistyfoot shook her head. “She hasn’t had the chance to get her strength back. But there must be some herbs you can use to help her, Mothwing?”

“The herbs are all dried up.” The medicine cat’s mew was quiet. “I’m afraid Leopardstar is going to lose this life as well.”

There was a stunned silence. How many lives does Leopardstar have left? Dovepaw wondered. At last the quiet was broken by Reedwhisker. “Then we have to hope that Firestar’s plan works, and the cats we send find out what has happened to the water.”

The sound of paw steps on the other side of the stream jerked Dovepaw back to her surroundings. Three cats had emerged from the dried-up grass on the opposite side of the stream and were padding down the stretch of pebbles to join her and her Clanmates.

Brambleclaw stepped forward to meet them. “Greetings, Russetfur,” he meowed.

The dark ginger she-cat just grunted in response.

“She’s the ShadowClan deputy, isn’t she?” Dovepaw whispered to Lionblaze. “She looks really old!”

“She was one of the cats who made the Great Journey,” Lionblaze murmured in reply. “But she’s still a formidable warrior. Don’t let her hear you calling her old!”

“These are ShadowClan’s chosen cats,” Russetfur meowed, waving her tail toward the younger warriors who had followed her down to the stream.

The two cats stepped forward and nodded to the ThunderClan patrol. Dovepaw recognized the golden tabby pelt of Tigerheart, Tawnypelt’s son, from the Gathering, but the other warrior, an older dark brown tom, was a stranger to her.

“Who’s that?” she whispered to Lionblaze.

“Toadfoot,” her mentor told her. “He made the Great Journey, too, but he was a kit then.”