Эрин Хантер - The Fourth Apprentice

“It was just a dead deer.” Dovepaw tried to sound as if the sight hadn’t shaken her. She didn’t want Tigerheart to start treating her like a helpless kit. “Look!” she meowed, angling her ears forward in the direction they were traveling. “The trees are thinning out!”

Successfully distracted, Tigerheart bounded ahead to take a better look. The rest of the patrol quickened their pace, too, and climbed out of the streambed to stand in a line on the edge of the trees. Dovepaw gazed out across a field where fluffy grayish-white animals were nibbling at the grass.

“What are they?” Petalfur exclaimed in surprise. “They look as if they’re made of cobwebs!”

“Oh, they’re just sheep,” Whitetail replied. “We see them all the time in WindClan.”

“Their pelts make good linings for nests,” Sedgewhisker added.

Whitetail took the lead as the patrol crept out into the field, following the line of the stream. Dovepaw felt uncomfortably exposed with nothing between her and the open sky, and she was grateful for the experience of the WindClan cats. Then behind her she heard a loud yapping and the scent of dog flooded over her, swamping her senses. Whipping around, she saw a Twoleg walking along the edge of the wood with a small brown-and-white dog trotting at its heels.

As soon as the dog scented the cats, it began racing toward them, yapping even louder. Dovepaw looked wildly around, but there were no trees to climb, except for the forest they had left.

“Run!” Toadfoot yowled.

Their paws pounding on the short grass, the patrol hurtled toward the opposite side of the field. Dovepaw cast a swift glance over her shoulder. “The dog’s gaining on us!” she gasped.

Whitetail glanced back too, then let out a loud caterwaul. “Head for the sheep!”

“What?” Tigerheart almost fell over his own paws as he whirled around. “Why the sheep?”

“Twolegs never let dogs near sheep,” Whitetail panted. “Maybe sheep are dangerous to dogs. Anyway, if we can reach them, we should be safe.”

As she raced toward the sheep, Dovepaw’s heart lurched with fear. But there was no choice, unless she wanted to stay out in the open with the dog. Along with the rest of the patrol, she dived among the legs of the weird animals.

The sheep had bunched together, uttering high-pitched cries that seemed to show the sheep were scared of the dog. Dovepaw caught a glimpse of it among the bulky gray bodies, dancing around a few tail-lengths from the sheep and still yapping its head off. The sheep began to swirl across the field, moving in one giant group. The cats had no choice but to move with them, frantically dodging skinny legs and sharp hooves. Dovepaw was squashed among the warm, greasy cobweb pelts, and she lost sight of the others. Help! Where have they all gone?

Above the noise of the sheep, she heard the Twoleg’s voice raised in a commanding yowl. The dog’s yapping broke off. Dovepaw couldn’t see it anymore, but she heard its paws falter on the grass and then retreat as it trotted reluctantly back to its Twoleg.

Gradually the sheep slowed down, then stopped close to the hedge on the far side of the field, still letting out their piercing bleats. Dovepaw wriggled to the edge of the flock and spotted Tigerheart and Lionblaze emerging together a few tail-lengths away. Toadfoot followed them into the open, with Petalfur and Rippletail behind him. A few heartbeats later Whitetail and Sedgewhisker appeared farther down.

“We need to get out of the field!” Whitetail called. “Go through the hedge!”

Dovepaw obeyed, dragging herself under thorny branches that raked across her back, keeping her belly pressed to the dried leaves and debris on the ground. On the other side was a strip of grass with a stretch of black stone beyond it, where the patrol gathered together again and stood panting.

Dovepaw’s eyes widened as she gazed at her companions. Their pelts were matted in clumps with wisps of sticky sheep-cobweb clinging to them, and a sour smell billowed around them like a cloud of flies. I’m just as bad , she thought disgustedly, pawing at a gray strand that clung to her shoulder. But at least none of us is hurt .

She bent her head to lick her chest fur, wincing at the foul taste, only to look up, startled, a moment later as the sound of thunder rolled around her. The sky was clear blue, with only a few tiny wisps of cloud being tossed by the wind. But the thunderous noise was growing louder still, and a bitter, burning scent swept over her.

Dovepaw glanced from side to side, confused by the noise and the stench and the sense of something huge and shining, solid as stone…

“Get back!” Lionblaze screeched.

He shoved Dovepaw and Petalfur into the prickly hedge. Dovepaw stumbled and half fell among the thorns as a gigantic silver creature roared past on round black paws.

“What…what was that?” she stammered, picking herself up.

“A monster,” Lionblaze told her, his voice tense. “They run along these Thunderpaths.” He waved his tail at the stretch of flat black stone. “We saw lots of them when we went to the Twolegplace to find Sol.”

“We had to cross Thunderpaths on the Great Journey, too,” Whitetail added, “and there was one that went past the old forest. They’re dangerous; we all need to be very careful.”

Dovepaw warily approached the edge of the Thunderpath and gave it an experimental sniff. Her nose wrinkled at the bitter scent. The rest of the patrol stood alongside her; Tigerheart set a paw cautiously on the hard black surface, then drew it back.

“We’d better stop hanging around,” Lionblaze meowed, “and get across while it’s still quiet.” Padding over to Dovepaw, he murmured, “Is it safe? Are there any more monsters coming?”

Dovepaw extended her senses, listening for another of the terrifying creatures, but there was nothing in either direction. “It’s okay,” she whispered.

“Right.” Lionblaze raised his voice. “Follow me as quick as you can, and don’t stop!”

He thrust off from the grass verge and bounded across the Thunderpath. Dovepaw followed, keeping her gaze fixed on him, but aware of the other cats running alongside. They reached the strip of grass on the far side only to be brought up short by a fence of shiny, crisscrossing silver stuff that stretched up far above Dovepaw’s head.

“Now what do we do?” Rippletail wailed. “We can’t go any farther this way.”

“Over here!” Toadfoot called from a few tail-lengths along the fence. “There’s a hole I think we can wriggle through.”

He flattened himself to the ground and pulled himself forward through a narrow gap at the bottom of the fence, standing up a few heartbeats later on the grass on the other side. “Come on, it’s easy,” he urged his companions.

Whitetail followed him through and then Dovepaw did the same, shivering at the touch of the hard Twoleg stuff against her back as she squirmed through the gap. The rest of the cats followed, with Lionblaze keeping watch until they were safely on the other side. Finally he struggled through, grunting with the effort as he pushed himself along.

Dovepaw stood still, looking around. A smooth field stretched in front of her, the grass much greener than she had seen it anywhere else since the heat and the drought began. Beyond it were Twoleg nests built of some kind of red rock. Dovepaw had never imagined that there could be so many Twoleg nests all in one place. Noise poured out from them like clap after clap of thunder; she shook as the din swept around her, flooding her senses. Twolegs were screeching and chattering, banging and roaring, in an endless surge of sound.

Desperately Dovepaw tried to block it out, to focus on the cats around her, and on what she could see directly in front of her. Only then did she realize what she couldn’t see.