Эрин Хантер - Code of the Clans

The black-and-orange cat lashed his tail. “Hardly the actions of a coward, to take on all four Clans at once!”

Slipping his claws free, Finchstar sprang at Ripplestar, bringing him down on top of the rock with a muffled thud. The ShadowClan leader squirmed around until he was lying on his back, then raked Finchstar’s belly with his hind paws. Finchstar sank his claws deeper into the loose fur around Ripplestar’s neck, feeling the slender bones underneath.

“Call off your cats!” he spat. “This attack is wrong!”

Ripplestar scrabbled to his feet and glared at Finchstar. “I wouldn’t call an easy victory wrong,” he gloated. “Look at your precious cats now.”

Finchstar risked a sideways look. The battle was slowing; many cats were slumped on the silver grass, bleeding and motionless.

ShadowClan warriors paced among them, ready to lash out if any cat stirred.

“No!” Finchstar yowled. “You can’t do this!”

He jumped at Ripplestar but his hind paws skidded on the icy rock, and the ShadowClan leader stepped easily out of the way.

“So you keep telling me,” Ripplestar observed. “But I seem to have done it anyway! Looks like I don’t have to listen to you, Finchstar.”

For a heartbeat, the hollow glowed bright white, outlining every leaf, every blade of grass, every whisker. Then the air cracked, and the two cats on the rock flung themselves down, clinging to the stone as it trembled beneath them. Finchstar pressed his face into the cold surface and waited for the roll of thunder to fade away. A storm in leaf-bare? But there were no clouds. The moon was out…

“Finchstar!” His name was barely a whisper, drowned by another clap of thunder slamming into the forest.

Finchstar forced himself to lift his head. His eyes were still dazzled by the first flash of lightning and he had to blink to see clearly. The clearing was much darker than before, so dark he couldn’t see Ripplestar. The moon had vanished. The sky was covered with thick black clouds.

Finchstar shook his head, waiting for his eyes to adjust. He could make out the trees now and the shape of the Great Rock beneath him. But still no Ripplestar.

“Help… me…”

A scratching sound came from the edge of the rock. Finchstar saw Ripplestar’s yellow eyes staring over the top and his black-and-orange paws.

“Hold on!” Finchstar yowled. He hurled himself across the stone, reaching out with his front paws to grab Ripplestar’s scruff and haul him to safety.

He was a mouse-length away when the sky burst open again, filling the air with blazing white light and letting out a roar that sounded like every tree in the forest was falling at once. Finchstar crashed down onto the rock and pressed his paws into his ears, trying to block the explosion of noise that bounced around the hollow. He heard a thin, terrified wail as Ripplestar lost his grip and plunged to the ground.

The clearing was silent. The cats still on their paws were staring at something Finchstar couldn’t see, at the foot of Great

Rock. Then a heavily scarred gray warrior rushed forward.

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“Ripplestar! No!”

Finchstar bowed his head. The ShadowClan leader must have been on his ninth life. He was young to die as a leader, but perhaps his battle-hungry career had used up the rest of his lives too quickly.

“Murderer!”

The gray warrior—Marshscar, the ShadowClan deputy, Finchstar suddenly realized—was glaring up at him.

“Come down here and let me avenge our leader’s death!”

Marshscar snarled.

“I didn’t kill Ripplestar!” Finchstar told him, feeling the fur rise along his spine.

“Then who did?” the gray cat challenged.

Finchstar looked up at the bubbling clouds that hid the full moon. The truce had been broken the moment Ripplestar told his warriors to attack the unsuspecting Clans. Then the moon disappeared and a storm came, bringing thunder and lightning that shook the forest to its roots.

“StarClan killed him,” Finchstar announced. His paws trembled. Would his warrior ancestors forgive him for accusing them of cold-blooded murder? But the sky stayed quiet.

“StarClan has punished ShadowClan for breaking the truce and attacking on the night of a full moon,” Finchstar went on.

“There is no clearer message they could send.”

A pale brown tabby from RiverClan stepped forward.

“StarClan, forgive us all for fighting!” he yowled.

“From now on, the full moon will be honored by every Clan!”

Dovestar called.

Finchstar stepped to the edge of the rock and raised his voice so every cat could hear him. There would be time afterward to tend to the wounded and carry them home. For now, he had to make sure this would never happen again.

“There will be a new rule in the warrior code!” he declared.

“There will be no fighting at the time of the new moon. The truce is sacred and will be protected for every Gathering.”

StarClan, forgive us.

-

BOUNDARIES MUST BE CHECKED

AND MARKED DAILY. CHALLENGE ALL

TRESPASSING CATS.

Not all parts of the warrior code come from tragedy and conflict. Some, like this one, were needed to clear up a long-running misunderstanding and avoid the need for blood to be spilled.

The air was so still, Poppycloud could hear herself breathing.

She waited with one paw raised, knowing the dried leaves would crackle loud as thunder as soon as she set it down. It was leaf-fall, and in SkyClan, with all its trees and little undergrowth, moving silently was almost impossible. The hair along her spine prickled as she strained to listen.

“Can you hear anything, Poppycloud? Can you, can you?”

Bracken rustled behind her and she turned, resigned, as a small black-and-white cat exploded from the brittle stems.

“Yes, Mottlepaw, I can hear something,” she meowed.

The apprentice stopped dead and stared at her. “Really?

What?”

“You!”

Mottlepaw’s tail drooped. “But I tried to be quiet, like you showed me.”

Poppycloud walked over to him and touched the tip of his ear with her nose. “I think we need to practice some more.”

Mottlepaw wriggled free and padded up to the border.

“Why does Rowanstar make us come this way when he knows

ThunderClan doesn’t like it?”

Poppycloud shrugged and nudged a piece of leaf off her tortoiseshell fur. “I think he likes to know if anything happens in our territory. If we just stuck to the best hunting areas, we’d never visit some places.”

“Like this one.”

Mottlepaw’s voice was muffled as he stuck his head into a clump of long grass. “I can’t smell any birds anywhere !”

“That’s because you’re in ThunderClan territory!” came a snarl.

Poppycloud spun around. A broad-shouldered brown tom stood a fox-length away, his lip curled to reveal sharp yellow teeth.

“What a surprise!” he hissed. “SkyClan cats lurking on the border again. What’s wrong with your own territory?”

Poppycloud felt her hackles raise. “Nothing!” she retorted.

“We have every right to go anywhere inside our borders.”

“Which your apprentice isn’t,” the ThunderClan warrior growled.

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Mottlepaw pulled back from the clump of grass and stood with his head down, trembling.

“Mottlepaw, come over here,” Poppycloud ordered. The black-and-white apprentice shot toward her, swerving around the ThunderClan tom, who hissed as he went past.