Эрин Хантер - The Fourth Apprentice

“I’m going to check it out,” Sedgewhisker announced, bounding into the clearing toward the pelt-den.

“Hey, wait!” Whitetail called, but her Clanmate didn’t reappear.

“I’ll get her,” Petalfur meowed, heading off in the WindClan cat’s paw steps.

“Now there are two of them in danger.” Whitetail lashed her tail angrily.

Dovepaw watched, holding her breath. Sedgewhisker was heading straight for the pelt-den; Petalfur followed, but she was focused so closely on the WindClan warrior that she didn’t spot the Twoleg moving toward her.

“Oh, no!” Dovepaw whispered. She didn’t want to see what happened next, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away.

The Twoleg yowled something, bent down, and scooped up Petalfur in its huge paws. Petalfur let out a startled squeal and began wriggling, but the Twoleg held her firmly. The Twoleg was meowing something to her; Dovepaw didn’t think it sounded hostile.

“I’ll claw its ears off!” Toadfoot hissed, bunching his muscles to leap out into the clearing.

“No, wait.” Lionblaze blocked the ShadowClan warrior with his tail. “Look.”

Petalfur had stopped struggling. Instead, she pushed her face up to the Twoleg’s, and batted gently at its ear with one paw. Dovepaw could hear her purring as the Twoleg stroked one paw down her back.

“I don’t believe I’m seeing this,” Tigerheart meowed gleefully. “Wait till I tell them back home.”

The Twoleg put Petalfur down and made patting motions at her with its paws, as if it was telling her to stay where she was. Petalfur sat down, still purring. The Twoleg strode across to the pelt-den, passing Sedgewhisker, who was watching, frozen with horror, near the entrance.

The Twoleg ducked inside and reappeared a moment later with something in its paw; the Twoleg carried the object over to Petalfur and put it down in front of her. Petalfur picked it up and rubbed herself against the Twoleg’s leg, then darted away, back to the edge of the clearing.

“What are you all staring at?” she demanded, dropping the thing the Twoleg had given her.

“Er… you , being so friendly with that Twoleg,” Toadfoot replied.

“So?” Petalfur challenged him. “It got us out of trouble, didn’t it? Oh, yuck!” she added, scraping herself against the nearest tree. “I’m going to stink of Twoleg for a moon!”

“I’m so sorry!” The undergrowth rustled as Sedgewhisker bounded up to them. “I didn’t think they’d be bothered about us.”

“No harm done,” Lionblaze murmured, while Petalfur was still trying to get the Twoleg scent off. “But let’s be a bit more careful from now on.”

Dovepaw curiously sniffed the Twoleg thing. It smelled like fresh-kill, mixed with Twoleg scents and herb scents, and it was shaped like a fat twig. “I’ve never seen an animal like that before,” she meowed.

“It must be Twoleg prey,” Tigerheart suggested. “Hey, Petalfur, can I have some?”

“You all can,” Petalfur replied. “I don’t know what it is, but it smells tasty.”

Dovepaw crouched down to eat her share. Petalfur was right; it was tasty and felt warm in her belly after the scant pickings that morning.

“Too bad there’s no more,” Tigerheart announced, swiping his tongue over his jaws and looking out into the clearing with a speculative gleam in his eyes.

“If you go out there, Tigerheart,” Toadfoot growled, “I will personally shred your ears and feed them to the brown animals.”

“I never said—”

“You didn’t have to,” Whitetail interrupted, sounding concerned. “The Twolegs already know we’re here, and that’s bad enough without looking for trouble.”

“I wouldn’t worry.” An unfamiliar voice spoke behind them. “The Twolegs are far more interested in the beavers.”

Every cat spun around. Dovepaw found herself staring at a long-legged tom with shaggy brown fur. He looked them over with sharp yellow eyes, his gaze flicking from one cat to the next.

“So who are you?” he asked eventually.

“We could ask you the same thing,” Toadfoot replied, his neck fur beginning to bristle. “And what do you know about these Twolegs?”

The cat seemed unimpressed with Toadfoot’s show of hostility. “My name’s Woody,” he replied. “I’ve been getting food from the Twolegs for the last few moons.”

With a warning glance at Toadfoot, Lionblaze stepped forward and dipped his head. “We haven’t come to steal food from you or the Twolegs,” he meowed. “We’re here because of the blocked stream.”

Woody’s ears flicked up in surprise. “You mean the beavers?”

“Beavers?” Whitetail echoed. “Are those the brown animals? Is that what they’re called?”

The loner nodded. “Big, mean animals with sharp teeth,” he mewed, confirming the impression Dovepaw had received through her senses. “I came across some of them once before, when I was traveling.”

“Have you ever fought one?” Toadfoot demanded.

The brown tom stared at him as if he had taken leave of his senses. “No way! Why would I need to? What do I want with a bunch of fallen trees?”

“We need the trapped water to fill the lake,” Rippletail explained.

Woody looked completely baffled. “Lake? What lake?”

“The lake where we live,” Lionblaze explained. “A couple of days’ journey downstream.”

“And you came all this way to find it?” Woody’s ears twitched. “Why not just go to a different lake?”

Dovepaw examined the cat curiously. He didn’t smell like a kittypet, and he didn’t have the soft, groomed look that the cats in the Twolegplace had. Was he a loner? He seemed quite confident to be in these woods, even though he was badly outnumbered by the patrol. He seemed to know a lot about the brown animals, too. Maybe he’ll help us free the water .

“You don’t understand,” Lionblaze replied to Woody, waving his tail to draw all the cats deeper into the undergrowth, well out of sight of the Twolegs. “There are a lot of us by the lake—far too many to give up our homes and find somewhere else to live.”

“And StarClan told us to come here and find what’s blocking the stream!” Tigerheart put in.

Mouse-brain! Dovepaw thought. Woody won’t understand about StarClan . She was surprised to see that the brown tom just nodded briefly, as if he understood very well. Maybe he’s heard of Clan cats before?

“We’ve got to chase these…these beavers away,” Whitetail meowed determinedly. “Then we can get rid of the blockage and we’ll have our water again.”

Woody shook his head. “Bees in your brain,” he muttered.

“Then you won’t help us?” Lionblaze asked.

“I didn’t say that. I’ll take you down to the river and show you the dam—that’s what they built to block the stream and make a pool deep enough for their den. You might change your mind when you’ve had a good look at it up close.”

“Thanks,” Rippletail purred; he was working his claws in the leaf-mold, as if he couldn’t wait to get close to the sound and scent of water again.

“There’ll be Twolegs around,” Woody warned them, turning to lead the way down the hill. “But you don’t need to worry about them. They’re only interested in watching the beavers. In fact, the Twolegs brought them here.”

“What?” Toadfoot halted, his jaws gaping in astonishment. “ Twolegs brought them? In StarClan’s name, why?”

Woody shrugged. “How do I know? Maybe they wanted some trees chopped down.”

The brown tom led them around more of the black Twoleg things with the trailing tendrils, down into the valley, and across the dry streambed just below the wall of logs. This, then, was the beavers’ dam; the reason the water had stopped flowing into the lake. Dovepaw looked up at the looming pile of tree trunks as she padded past. It’s so big! Can we really shift something that size?