Эрин Хантер - Outcast

Suddenly Jaypaw realized the moonlight was fading. The enthusiastic yowls of the Tribe changed to screeches of terror and fury. Icy wind ruffled his fur and he was knocked off his paws as another cat charged past him. The air was filled with the reek of blood.

Blinking, Jaypaw found himself out on the bare mountain-side again. The faint light of dawn drizzled into the sky; clouds hung low over the peaks. He lay on his side on the very edge of a stream, his tail dangling in the gushing water. With a hiss of annoyance he scrambled to his paws, shaking off the icy droplets and struggling to keep his balance on the slick, wet rock.

Around him the narrow valley heaved with the bodies of fighting cats. Close by he spotted Talon, rolling over and over in the grip of a powerful silver tom, battering at the intruder’s belly with his hind paws. For a heartbeat the intruder’s throat was exposed, but Talon was too slow to sink his teeth in.

An apprentice could do better than that! Jaypaw thought.

A few fox-lengths farther down the valley, Stormfur jumped onto a boulder. “Leap onto their shoulders!” he yowled. “Don’t let them pin you down!”

He flung himself back into the battle, raking his claws across the pelt of a tabby she-cat, then whirling to confront a muscular black tom who was shaking a small Tribe cat in his jaws as if she were a piece of prey.

Brook was close by, with Night a paw step behind her, stalking around the side of a boulder to creep up on a couple of the attackers as they would have crept up on their prey.

Jaypaw gritted his teeth. The slender she-cats had never been trained to fight. They sprang bravely at their enemies, but the two invaders were almost twice their size and fought back with slashing claws.

Jaypaw was jostled aside by another pair of fighting cats, snagging his pelt on a thorny bush that grew in the crevice between two rocks. One cat fell on top of him; pushing vainly at the weight of fur and muscle, his jaws flooding with the stench of blood, Jaypaw thought at first that it was dead.

Then it jerked convulsively, pulled itself to its paws, and dragged itself into the shadows behind a boulder.

Jaypaw staggered to his paws, ripping his fur as he tore himself free of the bush. Another Tribe cat fled past him, a powerful gray-black tom, his fur ripped and one shoulder soaked in blood. A black-and-white cat caught up with him, crashing into his side and flinging him to the ground.

“Slit its belly open!” Jaypaw hissed.

The Tribe cat didn’t hear him. He fought with courage, refusing to give up even when the invader slashed open a wound down the length of his flank, but he had none of the skills that would let him throw off his attacker. The invading tom bit down hard on his throat, then sprang away, leaving the limp body of the Tribe cat half in and half out of the water. His gray fur darkened as blood soaked into it.

Jaypaw caught sight of Stormfur again, at the center of a group of Tribe cats, including Talon. The gray warrior was yowling encouragement, trying to force a way through the crowd of intruders and drive them back, but the attackers flowed over them like floodwater.

“Knock them off balance!” Stormfur yowled. “Don’t let them—” Whatever orders he was trying to give were lost as two of the attackers leaped at him from opposite sides; Stormfur vanished in a whirl of teeth and claws.

One by one the Tribe cats broke away, fleeing upstream toward the steeper slopes. One of them halted beside the body of the gray tom and let out a wail of grief and despair, before pelting onward and disappearing into the shadows.

“That’s right, run!” The silver tabby tom bounded to the top of a boulder, jeering at the Tribe cats as they fled. “Run and don’t come back!”

“Rabbits!” a brown-and-white she-cat added, leaping up to the silver tom’s side. “This is our place now!”

“No—stop!” Stormfur screeched, shaking off his attackers with a spatter of blood. “We can still drive them back!”

No cat listened to him except for Brook, standing at his shoulder and begging her Tribemates to come back. Then she glanced over her shoulder and her neck fur bristled as she saw a fresh wave of intruders hurtling up the slope.

“Stormfur! It’s no use!” Brook wailed. “We can’t fight them all.”

“You go.” Stormfur’s voice was a hoarse growl; he touched his mate’s shoulder with his tail tip.

“Not without you.” Brook’s eyes were wide with fear, but she dug her claws into the thin soil.

Stormfur let out a hiss of frustration. “Go!” He gave Brook a hefty shove with one shoulder. “Go on—I’m coming.”

Letting out one last snarl at the invaders, who were now barely a tail-length away, he raced upstream behind Brook.

The attackers didn’t bother to chase them. They just stood watching, their eyes gleaming with triumph, until the last Tribe cat had disappeared.

Jaypaw staggered, and when his vision cleared he found himself in the Tribe’s cave again. His pelt was still sticky with blood, but the noise of the battle had faded away. Silver light trembled on the cave walls as the moon shone through the falling water. The rushing of the river was the only sound.

Stoneteller was sitting on his rock, his fur ruffled and one ear dark with crusted blood. The rest of the Tribe was huddled around him. Jaypaw couldn’t see one of them who didn’t bear wounds from the battle. In the center of the cave several limp bodies were lying; Stormfur was stooping over one of them, and Jaypaw recognized the dark gray tom whose death he had witnessed.

“Jag,” Stormfur murmured. “You were a good friend. May you walk the mountains forever with the Tribe of Endless Hunting.” He bent his head and touched his nose to the matted gray fur. Quietly Brook padded up beside him.

“Come and rest,” she mewed.

But before the gray warrior could move, Stoneteller’s voice rang out from the other end of the cave. “Stormfur!”

The gray tom looked up.

“Stormfur, what have you to say?”

Stormfur’s eyes clouded. “What do you want me to say?

The Tribe fought as well as it could have done. I couldn’t hope to stand beside braver warriors. We must make another plan, so that—”

“No.” Stoneteller’s voice was cold. “No more plans. Not from you. We took your advice, and we were defeated. Many good cats are dead.” His tail flicked once toward the bodies lying on the cave floor.

“I told you what would happen.” Rain was crouched at the foot of Stoneteller’s rock. “But would any cat listen?”

“I’m sorry—” Stormfur tried again.

“There is no place here for the ways of the Clans,” Stoneteller interrupted. “There is no place for Clan cats in the mountains. You will bring only more death and bad luck if you stay here. You must go and never return.”

“What?” Stormfur stared at him in disbelief. “You’re blaming me for this, when I—”

“Enough!” Stoneteller snarled. “Go now.”

Brook stepped forward. “Stoneteller, this isn’t right.

Stormfur did his best to help us. He took the same risks as every cat. He could be lying there now, with Jag and the others.”

“If we hadn’t listened to him, those cats would still be alive.” Stoneteller’s gaze was colder than ice.

“He’s right, Brook.” Talon, standing beside Stoneteller’s boulder, flicked his ears uneasily. “Clan ways aren’t for us.”

Brook’s eyes widened; Jaypaw could feel the distress flooding through her as if it was his own. “But, Talon, you’re my brother.” Her voice quivered. “Can’t you understand?”

Talon scraped at the cave floor with his forepaws. “It’s what’s best for the Tribe.”