Эрин Хантер - Battles of the Clans

“Cats of all Clans, WindClan is stealing our prey!” Morningstar announced.

“What? How dare you accuse us?” snarled a cat below him; the WindClan leader, Rabbitstar, let out a hiss from the back of the rock.

Morningstar let his gaze fall across all the Clans. “I don’t want WindClan to try to deny it,” he went on. “They know it’s true; we’ve seen their warriors too many times inside our borders, chasing voles and mice instead of rabbits. I’m not challenging them to a battle, either.”

A ripple of surprise rose from the WindClan cats.

“I’m not scared of fighting them!” yowled a ThunderClan warrior.

Morningstar sighed. “I know you’re not, Beechfur. But we are in no position to challenge them.

Our Clan is weaker than we have ever been, weaker than we should be even in the middle of leaf-bare.”

Wails of protest came from his Clan. “No, Morningstar! You can’t say that!”

“Do you want every Clan in the forest to help themselves?”

“Why are you doing this?”

Morningstar pushed on. “We’ve had too many kits born recently, and our elders have started to refuse food for the sake of the queens. We’re surviving on crow-food found by the side of the Thunderpath because we’re too weak to hunt fresh-kill.”

“Morningstar, stop! You’re destroying us!” snarled his deputy, Leafstorm, who was at the foot of the rock. From the shadow cast by moonlight, he could tell she was standing up on her hind legs, craning to see him on top.

“I don’t want my Clan to fight,” Morningstar meowed. “Instead, we should share what prey there is among all the Clans, and help one another through leaf-bare until our hunting grounds are full again.

If we join together as one, we will all survive.”

Willowstar, the RiverClan leader, sprang to her paws. “Why should I care if ThunderClan is starving? My loyalty is to my own cats! You are a fool if you thought we’d agree to this, Morningstar.

RiverClan keeps its own prey!”

Rabbitstar jumped up. “My cats wouldn’t eat your slimy fish anyway! We’d rather go hungry!”

Sedgestar of ShadowClan joined in more calmly. “My Clan is bigger than any of yours, so we can’t spare any fresh-kill. We have enough to feed ourselves, and I won’t let any of my cats go hungry for the sake of our rivals.”

SkyClan’s leader, Fennelstar, nodded. “Our warrior ancestors have given us territories according to our skills. It’s up to us to survive on that legacy. Morningstar, you shame your ancestors if you cannot feed your Clan within your boundaries.”

“Perhaps this is a test from StarClan?” Rabbitstar suggested. “There is too much weakness in the forest, and only the strongest Clans deserve to survive.” He flashed a glance at Morningstar. “I’d say that my Clan was doing pretty well right now.”

Morningstar shook his head. “I cannot believe that our ancestors would willingly let us starve to prove a point.”

“You’re letting yourselves starve if you can’t protect your borders,” Willowstar commented, with a hint of smugness.

Morningstar faced Rabbitstar again. “If you choose to keep stealing prey from my territory, you will be breaking the warrior code. My Clan is too weak to fight you. I’m asking for mercy until our prey starts running again.”

“You’re the weak one, old cat,” sneered Rabbitstar. “Better start sniffing out that crow-food, because you won’t be having any fresh-kill for a while.”

Morningstar began to pick his way down the Great Rock. Normally he would jump down, but his legs were trembling with hunger. He couldn’t remember the last meal he’d eaten. The elders weren’t the only ThunderClan cats giving up their food for the nursing queens. “I have nothing more to say,” he meowed over his shoulder. “Our fate is in your paws.”

He wound through the cats, who parted like rippling grass to let him pass. His Clanmates waited for him at the foot of the slope, their eyes flashing with anger and their pelts bristling. Morningstar pushed past them and led them out of the hollow without giving them a chance to speak. Leafstorm caught up to him, panting.

“Are you out of your mind? You’ve just invited every other Clan to help themselves to our territory and our prey!” She was furious, and for a moment Morningstar saw her unsheathed claws gleam in the moonlight.

“We will not fight WindClan over this,” he repeated. “Tomorrow I want you to take a patrol of warriors to Rabbitstar and speak to him again. We are too quick to use violence to solve everything.

If we fight now, we’ll lose half our Clan with the first strike. Can’t you see I’m trying to protect us?”

Leafstorm glared at him, her green eyes hot. “All I see is a leader who’s too scared to go into battle!”

Morningstar started to protest, but the ginger she-cat leaped ahead of him into the trees. Several warriors followed her, leaving Morningstar padding alone through the frost-dappled forest. A puffing sound behind him made him look back; Mothwhisker, an elder, was hobbling to catch up. Morningstar stopped to wait.

“Thanks,” wheezed Mothwhisker. The two cats walked on slowly, their breath clouding around them. “You meant what you said back there, didn’t you?” Mothwhisker rasped.

“Yes,” Morningstar replied. “The Clan is too weak to fight right now.”

He expected Mothwhisker to agree with him; elders knew better than most cats how fragile a hold warriors had on life, and how dangerous a battle would be on hollow bellies. But Mothwhisker was shaking his head.

“You’re wrong, Morningstar,” he muttered. “Oh, we may be weak, but you should never have let

WindClan know. They must be hungry, too, or they wouldn’t be stealing our prey. We should strike them by surprise, take the battle right to their camp, and show them that ThunderClan borders are as strong as they ever were.”

Morningstar stopped and rounded on the elderly tom. “I will not lead my Clan into a needless battle!” he spat. Memories filled his mind of a light brown tabby with amber eyes and white front paws, as if she had stepped up to her knees in snow. The last time he had seen her, she had been so drenched in her own blood that he couldn’t see a fleck of white fur underneath. She had died curled protectively around her belly, which was just beginning to swell with her kits—his kits, too.

Morningstar had never known which ShadowClan warrior struck the killing blow. Anyway, what good would vengeance do? It wouldn’t bring her back.

“We lost Songbird in a battle that should never have been fought,” he hissed. “We had no proof that ShadowClan chased that fox into our territory. Getting rid of it used up too much of our strength; I was stupid to let my pride send a patrol after ShadowClan as well.”

“Leaders have to be proud of their Clans,” Mothwhisker murmured. “Would you rather be ashamed of us? Tell every Clan that we’re too feeble to defend our borders anymore?”

Morningstar started walking again. “I’m not ashamed of any cat,” he growled. “You don’t understand. I’ve made my decision, and that’s the end of it.”

Leafstorm returned the next day with a slash along her flank that the medicine cat, Pearnose, struggled to close. The warriors who had gone with her to WindClan bore their own wounds. The patrol had barely crossed the border when WindClan cats attacked them; Leafstorm suspected they’d been lying in wait.

“Of course, we couldn’t fight them off,” she spat, clenching her teeth as Pearnose pressed another pawful of cobweb against her injury. “They outnumbered us and were fat from feasting on our prey!”