Эрин Хантер - The Ultimate Guide

THE TRIBE OF RUSHING Water has been shaped by the mountains that are our home. We are lithe, quick-moving, and the color of stone, our pelts blending into the rocks. Even our names echo the stark beauty that lies all around us: the sharp peaks outlined against the sky, the dazzle and foam of the waterfall, the clouds that drift high above us or lie heavy on the summits.

As the Teller of the Pointed Stones, leader and healer of all the cats behind the waterfall, it is my duty to share tongues with my ancestors, to read the signs of moonlight on the surface of the pools, in the drip of water and the wind that ruffles it. Clan cats look up to the stars for their omens; we look down into shining water, sheltered in our cave.

The first cats to settle in the mountains came here from the lake. I wonder if the Clan cats know they have come full circle, for it was mountain cats who went to find a new home in the forest, where the Clans lived for so many warm and generous seasons. At first, we struggled to survive in the harsh and lonely mountains, persecuted by the endless wind and the tendency of our eagle prey to kill us before we could pluck them from the air. The cats began to divide according to their talents, the brave and quick fighters taking on the role of protecting those who were skilled at tracking what little prey there was. We named these cats “prey-hunters,” and the sturdy cats who protected them “cave-guards.” Our young we called “to-bes,” because they were to be cave-guards or prey-hunters one day themselves.

In spite of everything, we carved out a life for ourselves and found a way to survive everything the mountains could hurl at us—until Sharptooth came, and we found ourselves helpless as prey, waiting for a silver cat to save us.

THE STONETELLER WHO THE four Clans met on the journey to the lake was an old, old cat who had led his Tribe through many harsh seasons only to face the cruelest enemy of all: a mountain lion named Sharptooth who seemed determined to treat every cat as prey. Stoneteller clung to the hope that his prey-hunters and cave-guards would protect them, but when a party sent out to kill Sharptooth failed to return, he began to despair. If every part of the mountains was set against them—from the snow and cold to the creatures that shared their home—then the Tribe of Rushing Water seemed doomed to extinction.

Then the Tribe of Endless Hunting sent him a prophecy that a silver cat would save them from Sharptooth. When the six Clan cats first arrived on their way to the mysterious sun-drown-place, it seemed as if the prophecy had been fulfilled. The gray tom Stormfur was surely the promised cat! But when Stormfur’s battle tactics failed against yet another attack from the mountain lion, Stoneteller banished the Clan cats and Brook Where Small Fish Swim, the Tribe cat that had befriended them, from the cave behind the waterfall. Stoneteller was resigned to watching his Tribe perish in Sharptooth’s jaws, and he wondered why their ancestors seemed to have given up on them.

But Brook and the Clan cats returned, bringing with them the exiled Tribe cave-guards, and this time it was another silver-furred cat, Feathertail, who killed Sharptooth. Stoneteller’s Tribe had been saved, and proud as he was, he acknowledged the debt he would owe the cats of the Clans for the rest of his life.

When they visited again, having found a new home by a distant lake, Stoneteller had grown weary with age, and the leadership of the Tribe, with no medicine cat or deputy to bear some of the burden, had become too much for him. With the arrival of another group of cats in the mountains who stole the Tribe’s prey and fought them over every paw step of territory, Stoneteller had yet again lost his faith in the Tribe of Endless Hunting. Because of this, he refused to name his successor, wanting his cats to find a different way to survive.

In the last moments of his life, he saw his ancestors standing around him, waiting to welcome him to the Tribe of Endless Hunting, and knew that he had been wrong. He watched, grateful, from his place in the stars as the ThunderClan medicine cat Jayfeather chose Crag Where Eagles Nest to be the next Teller of the Pointed Stones. The debt to these strange Clan cats, it seemed, was not over yet.

BORN IN THE CAVE of Rushing Water behind the waterfall in the mountains, Brook Where Small Fish

Swim knew early on that she wanted to be a prey-hunter for her Tribe. Brook was fiercely loyal to her Tribe, and when the journeying Clan cats arrived on their return from their meeting with Midnight, she was the first to spot Stormfur and ask whether he could be the cat that had been prophesied to save them from Sharptooth. She invited the forest cats to hunt with her and taught them the Tribe’s hunting techniques. She became Stormfur’s mate when he decided to stay with the Tribe, and later gave birth to his kits, Lark That Sings At Dawn and Pine That Clings To Rock. Brook was a cat of great courage, who struggled for many seasons with the conflict between her love for Stormfur and her loyalty to her Tribe.

Stormfur was the son of ThunderClan warrior Graystripe and RiverClan warrior Silverstream, and grew up in RiverClan. When his sister, Feathertail, was chosen by StarClan to make the journey to the sun-drown-place, Stormfur insisted on going with her—never imagining that this journey would lead to an eventual separation from the Clan life he had always known.

Stormfur returned to his Clan in the wake of Feathertail’s death, but felt isolated. He finally admitted to himself that he wanted to spend his life with Brook, and when the Clans reached the mountains on the Great Journey, he stayed with the Tribe because he cared for Brook so much that he couldn’t bear to leave her.

But Brook and Stormfur’s life together wasn’t easy. When a group of strange cats moved into the mountains, Stormfur persuaded the Tribe to fight against them, and in spite of their courage and the fighting skills he taught them, they lost the battle. Stormfur was blamed for the death of many Tribe cats, and exiled from the mountains. He and Brook returned to RiverClan, but Hawkfrost, afraid that Stormfur would be chosen as deputy instead of him, cast doubt upon his loyalty and had him driven out. Firestar then invited Stormfur and Brook to join ThunderClan, but when the Tribe cats came to the lake to ask for help, Stormfur returned to the mountains and supported the Clan cats in persuading