Эрин Хантер - Outcast

“Prey-stealers! This is our territory.” A gray tomcat spat out the words. His neck fur bristled and his lips were drawn back in a snarl. His gaze raked over the group of cats who crouched below him on the steep path. Their claws were unsheathed and their eyes were bright and hungry. One of them had a limp rabbit dangling from her jaws. “ Our territory and our prey.”

A silver tabby tom gave him an insolent stare. “If it’s your territory, why are there no border markings? The prey here belongs to every cat.”

“That’s not true and you know it.” A black she-cat stood close to the gray tom’s shoulder, her tail lashing. “Get out now!”

From the side of her mouth she added in a low mutter, “Crag, we can’t fight them. Remember what happened last time.”

“I know, Night,” the gray tom replied. “But what else can we do?”

On Crag’s other side a huge brown tabby tom thrust his way forward, letting out a hiss of fury. “Take one more paw step and we’ll rip your fur off,” he growled.

Crag touched him on the shoulder with the tip of his tail.

“Steady, Talon,” he warned. “Let’s get out of this without ripping fur if we can.”

More cats appeared around a curve in the path, filling the narrow space behind the silver tabby.

“Sheer.” Crag summoned a small tabby tom with a flick of his ears. “Get back to the cave, quickly. Tell them the invaders are back.”

“But—” Sheer was obviously reluctant to leave his friends when they were already outnumbered.

“Now!” Crag snapped.

Sheer turned and fled up the path.

The sun was going down. Rocks cast long shadows over the rough ground, stained red as blood. The faint sound of tumbling water broke the silence, and from the sky came the harsh cry of a hawk.

“This is as far as you go,” Crag meowed. “Turn back and find somewhere else to hunt.”

“Who’s going to make us?” the silver tabby sneered.

“Try staying here, and you’ll see,” Talon hissed.

Crag’s patrol pressed up beside him, blocking the path.

But the intruders began fanning out, scrambling onto the boulders on either side. Crag crouched, tensing his muscles.

He would fight if he had to, in spite of what had happened last time.

“Stop!”

A brown tabby tom shouldered his way through Crag’s patrol to stand in front of the invaders. Though his muzzle was gray with age, his muscles were still wiry and powerful and he held his head high.

“I am Stoneteller, Tribe-Healer of the Tribe of Rushing Water,” he announced, his voice echoing hoarsely off the rocks. “This is our territory, and you are not welcome here.”

“Territory only belongs to cats who can defend it,” the silver tabby retorted.

“Remember how we drove you out, before the time of frozen water?” Stoneteller growled. “We will do the same again, unless you leave now.”

The silver tabby narrowed his eyes. “Drove us out? That’s not how I remember it.”

“We chose to leave,” a brown-and-white she-cat added from where she crouched on top of a boulder. “We found a better place to spend leaf-bare, with more prey.”

“And now we choose to come back.” The tabby tom lashed his tail. “A few scrawny, flea-ridden excuses for cats aren’t going to stop us.” He flexed his claws, scraping the stones.

“The Tribe of Rushing Water has always made its home in these mountains,” Stoneteller meowed. “We—”

His words were lost in a yowl of fury as the brown-and-white she-cat launched herself from the boulder and fastened her claws in Night’s shoulder. The tabby tom let out a fearsome screech and hurled himself at Crag. As Crag rolled over and over, clawing at his attacker, the air filled with the shrieks of battling cats.

Far above, the Tribe of Endless Hunting looked on helplessly.

Jaypaw stretched, feeling the sun beat down on his fur. A warm breeze whispered around him, full of the scents of green, growing things. Somewhere above his head a bird was trilling, and he could hear the muffled slap of lake water on the shore.

“Jaypaw!”

Light paw steps ruffled the sound of the waves. Jaypaw pictured his mentor, Leafpool, splashing through the shallow water at the edge of the lake.

“Jaypaw!” she repeated, her voice sounding closer. “Come join me. The cool water feels wonderful.”

“No, thanks,” Jaypaw muttered.

For him, water was more than the gentle lapping of the lake against his paws. Instead, the sound of the waves brought back memories of cold water surging around him, the weight of soaked fur dragging him down, water filling his mouth and nose and choking the life out of him. He had drowned once in his dreams, lost in the underground tunnels with the ancient warrior Fallen Leaves, and had almost drowned for real when he and his Clanmates rescued the missing WindClan kits.

I’ve had enough water to last for the rest of my life .

“Okay.” Leafpool’s paw steps retreated, faster now as if she was bounding through the shallows, carefree as a kit.

Jaypaw padded on along the shoreline. He was supposed to be looking for mallow, but when he tasted the breeze he couldn’t pick up any of the familiar pungent scent. As soon as the sound of Leafpool’s paw steps faded, he veered away from the water and scrambled up the bank. He had something more important than herbs to find. He prowled forward, nose close to the ground as he sniffed his way through clumps of grass and around shrubs until he came to the gnarled roots of a tree.

Here it is!

He dug his teeth into one end of the stick and pulled it out from behind the root that held it fast to the bank, away from the hungry waves. Crouching beside it, he ran his paw over the scratches, finding the group of five long and three short that stood for the five apprentices and three kits who had been trapped in the tunnels as the waters rose. All of them were scored through: Every cat had made it out alive. Jaypaw remembered making the scratches with Rock’s scent wreathing around him; he had almost felt as though the hairless paw of the ancient spirit was guiding his claws.

But Jaypaw could also feel the single unscored scratch.

Fallen Leaves, the ancient cat who had guided them, still walked the tunnels alone.

He closed his eyes and listened for the voices that used to whisper to him, but he could hear nothing except the wind in the trees and the ripple of the lake. “Fallen Leaves? Rock?” he murmured. “Where are you? Why won’t you talk to me anymore?”

There was no reply. Jaypaw dragged the stick farther into the open, rolling it down the bank until the lake water could wash over it. He sniffed along its length, but all echoes of the past had vanished.

Jaypaw swallowed hard, almost ready to start wailing like a kit that had lost its mother. He wanted to speak to Rock, to find out more about the cats who had lived around the lake so long ago. He wanted to know why Fallen Leaves had been left to walk the caves when all the other ancient cats, even the others who had died down there, had passed on somewhere else.

He was convinced these were the same cats he had felt around him at the Moonpool, whose paw prints dimpled the spiral path that led down to the water. They were far older than the Clans, older even than StarClan. What wisdom they would be able to share with him! They might even be able to explain the prophecy to him, the mysterious words he had heard in Firestar’s dream.