Эрин Хантер - The Fourth Apprentice

On the other side, Woody led them in a circle through the woodland until they approached the stream again. “There are no Twolegs on this side,” he explained. “But watch out for the beavers. You won’t be welcome here, you know.”

He stopped halfway down the slope, in a patch of fallen trees, and the cats lined up beside him to stare across the trapped stream above the dam. It had overflowed the riverbank on this side and spread out into a wide, flat pool, reflecting the gray sky. Here and there circles appeared, spiraling outward as if a fish had risen to take a fly.

Toward the upstream edge of the pool was a mound of mud, twigs, and bark, jutting out from the bank but not blocking the stream like the dam. Dovepaw detected strong beaver scent coming from it.

“What’s that?” Whitetail asked Woody, flicking her tail toward it.

“It’s where the beavers live,” the brown loner explained. “It’s called their lodge, and they—”

“Oh, look!” Petalfur interrupted, her voice rising to the squeak of an excited kit. “So much water…it’s wonderful!”

Before any cat could stop her she bounded down to the water’s edge, with Rippletail hard on her paws, and she plunged in, splashing her paws rapturously and ducking her head under the water.

“They’re like furry fish,” Tigerheart grumbled, padding up to stand beside Dovepaw and Sedgewhisker. “Say what you like, it’s not right for cats.”

“They look as if they’re having fun.” Dovepaw felt a little wistful.

She was so busy watching the two RiverClan cats play in the water that she stopped remaining alert to her surroundings. Suddenly she sensed movement on top of the dam. Spinning around, she saw that two heavy brown shapes had appeared on the logs. Their bodies were sleek and rounded like a bird’s egg, with tiny black eyes and ears like furled leaves. Their tails spread out behind them, broad and flat like a solid wing. They were much bigger than a cat, and as broad and sturdy-looking as the logs that they stood on.

“Beavers!” she yowled. “Look—up there!”

“Oh, great StarClan!” Tigerheart muttered. His neck fur fluffed up and his tail bristled to twice its size. “They’re weird! ”

Still happily swimming in the pool, the RiverClan cats didn’t notice the two animals, even when they clambered down the dam and slipped into the water, slapping the surface hard with their tails and sending up a shower of drops.

“Rippletail! Petalfur!” Dovepaw screeched, hurling herself down to the edge of the pool. “Beavers! Get out now!”

The beavers glided across the pool, their huge bodies making scarcely any ripples. Dovepaw could hear their paws churning through the water and felt their massive tails steering them toward the cats.

Rippletail and Petalfur spotted them and began splashing madly toward the edge of the pool. The beavers swerved effortlessly in pursuit, lifting their heads to avoid the waves behind the cats. Dovepaw dug her claws into the ground as she watched the gap between them grow smaller and smaller.

Oh, StarClan, help them!

The two RiverClan cats scrambled out of the water just ahead of the beavers’ noses. Their fur was dripping and plastered to their sides, and their eyes were wild with fear.

“Run!” Lionblaze yowled.

Every cat bolted for the trees at the top of the slope. Glancing back, Dovepaw saw the beavers haul themselves out of the water, raising their muzzles and baring long yellow teeth. On land they were much clumsier than they were in the water; Dovepaw realized the cats could easily outstrip them if they gave chase.

But the beavers stayed where they were on the bank of the pool, gazing after the cats and not making any move to follow them. The patrol gathered close together under the trees, Petalfur and Rippletail shivering and shaking water from their pelts.

“That was close,” Rippletail muttered. “Thanks for warning us.”

“Oh, StarClan,” Toadfoot breathed. “This isn’t going to be as easy as we thought.”

Dovepaw caught Lionblaze’s gaze on her. He didn’t speak, but she could guess what he was thinking.

Why didn’t you tell us it was going to be this hard?

Lionblaze led the patrol away from the water and into the cover of denser trees. He could see his own shock reflected in the wide, scared eyes of his companions. The two RiverClan cats were still trembling, huddling close together, their gaze flickering down the side of the valley as if they expected beavers to burst out of the undergrowth at any moment.

Woody followed them and sat down with his tail wrapped around his paws. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he observed with a yawn.

Lionblaze drew a deep breath, knowing that if some cat didn’t come up with a plan then they would all give up and go home. “Woody, do the beavers sleep at night?”

The loner shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s when I’m asleep, too. The Twolegs would know.”

“Yes, but we can’t ask them,” Toadfoot snapped, curling his lips back from his teeth.

“At least the Twolegs won’t be around when it’s dark,” Lionblaze meowed. “And the beavers might be asleep. I think that would be the best time to attack.”

The air tingled with tension as the cats looked at one another. Petalfur and Rippletail stared through the trees in the direction of the pool.

“That’s ours ,” Rippletail murmured.

Lionblaze knew that they couldn’t leave now. After they had come all this way, they had to do something to get the water back, for the sake of their Clans.

“Look,” he began, scraping up a few twigs into a heap. “This is the dam. Here’s the pool, and this”—he drew a long scrape in the earth—“is the streambed on the other side.”

“We should divide ourselves up,” Toadfoot mewed, touching the ground with one paw on each side of the heap of twigs. “Attack from two directions at once.”

Lionblaze nodded. “Good idea. Once we’re on top of the dam, we start to take it apart until the water can get through. Woody, do you know if the dam is hollow? Would the beavers be hiding inside it?”

Woody shook his head. “No idea. And don’t think that I’m going to take part in this attack,” he added. “This is your battle, not mine.”

“We wouldn’t ask you to,” Lionblaze responded, though he felt a twinge of regret. Woody would be a valuable ally to have on their side.

“Okay, let’s hunt now,” Toadfoot suggested. “Then we’ll get some rest until nightfall.”

“But don’t go off alone,” Lionblaze warned. “And if you see a beaver, yowl to warn the rest of us.”

He padded into the woods with Dovepaw at his side, and he halted after a few tail-lengths to taste the air. “I can’t scent anything except beavers,” he complained.

“Same here,” Dovepaw meowed. “Look at this.” She stopped in front of a large pile of mud mixed with twigs and grass. Large paw prints were set into the dried mud. “I wonder what it’s for?”

Lionblaze padded up and gave it a cautious sniff, recoiling a pace or two at the strong reek of musky, fishy beaver scent. “Maybe it’s a scent marker,” he guessed. “If we get farther away from it, we might be able to pick up some prey.”

To his relief, the beaver scent faded as they stalked farther into the woods and left the last of the felled trees behind. Lionblaze began to recognize the familiar scents of mouse and squirrel. Hearing a scuffling sound from underneath a bush, he pinpointed a mouse and glided up to it, careful to set his paws down lightly. The mouse tried to dart off at the last moment, but Lionblaze trapped it under his paw and killed it with a bite to the back of the neck.