Эрин Хантер - Legends of the Clans

Spottedpaw cuffed him lightly with her paw. “Don’t tease! Omens are very serious. I don’t think Featherwhisker would see things the same way.”

“Ah, Featherwhisker! Our mighty medicine cat!” Thistleclaw’s voice took on a sharper tone. “We wouldn’t want to contradict him, would we?”

“What do you mean? I think Featherwhisker has done an incredible thing, giving up his life to serve our Clan. He knows so much, yet he never acts as if he is better than the rest of us. I can’t imagine a better medicine cat!”

Thistleclaw bristled. “You sound as if you like him more than me! If he’s so precious, why don’t you go hang out in the medicine den for a few more moons?”

“Don’t be such a mouse-brain!” Spottedpaw forced her fur to lie flat and rested her tail on Thistleclaw’s flank. “I want to be with you.”

Thistleclaw’s amber eyes burned into hers. “Prove it,” he whispered.

Spottedpaw blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Prove how much I mean to you. Come with me tonight.”

“Where? Are we going to cross the border?”

Thistleclaw twitched his tail. “You’ll see. Go to your nest as usual, and I will fetch you. Tell no other cat that you’ll be with me. Do you trust me?”

“Of course,” Spottedpaw mewed.

“Then you have nothing to fear.” The warrior sprang down from the rock and vanished into the ferns, leaving nothing but a few quivering fronds to show where he had been.

Spottedpaw sat back on her haunches. Where in the name of StarClan was Thistleclaw planning to take her?

The sun had never set more slowly. Twitching with impatience, Spottedpaw watched the orange disc as it finally sank below the trees. Would it seem odd if she went to her nest now? The other apprentices were playing a complicated game of chase that seemed to involve circling the tree stump twice and jumping over one of the elders basking in the last dregs of warmth outside their den.

“Get off me, you ridiculous kit!” snapped Larksong, striking out with her foreleg as Willowpaw zoomed over her rump.

“Leave us alone,” growled Mumblefoot.

Willowpaw yowled in triumph as she skidded around the tree stump and leaped on top. “I win!”

Spottedpaw trotted over to the elders. She felt bad for them, having their peace disturbed by her crazy denmates. “Don’t worry, they’ll be going to their nests soon,” she mewed. She licked a patch of ruffled fur on Mumblefoot’s shoulder, trying not to wrinkle her nose at his musty smell.

She lifted her head to find Goosefeather staring at her with his rheumy blue eyes. “Come closer,” he rasped. Spottedpaw edged nearer as the old cat peered at her. “I know who you are,” he muttered. “You’re the one who loves foolishly.”

Spottedpaw blinked. “What do you mean?”

Goosefeather turned away from her, wriggling to find a more comfortable place on the hard earth. “Your heart is blind, Spottedpaw,” he murmured, so quietly she could hardly hear. “That’s a lesson you will never learn.”

“What are you talking about? What lesson?” Spottedpaw spoke sharply, feeling a jolt of panic rise inside her.

Goosefeather let out a faint snore and Spottedpaw resisted the urge to prod him awake.

“Ignore him, little one,” rasped Mumblefoot. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying half the time. Most of us stopped listening to him moons ago.”

Spottedpaw twitched her ears. Goosefeather was still a medicine cat. He knew things no ordinary cat could imagine. Had StarClan sent him a message about her?

She jumped as warm breath tickled the back of her neck. “You look sleepy,” murmured a familiar voice. “Don’t you think you should be heading to your nest?”

Spottedpaw looked up into Thistleclaw’s warm amber eyes. “I was just going,” she whispered.

“I’ll see you later,” he whispered back.

Spottedpaw padded over to the apprentices’ den, waiting for some cat to ask why she was going to her nest so early. But no cat seemed to notice as she slipped through the branches into the shadowy, peaceful den. She curled into her nest and tucked her nose under her tail. Her heart was pounding and she didn’t feel the tiniest bit sleepy, but she closed her eyes and forced herself to take slow and steady breaths, emptying her mind and letting it fill with swaths of green and black and soft, pale gray…

There was a sharp crack, as if something had stepped on a twig. Spottedpaw looked around and felt a moment of terror as she realized she had no idea where she was. She was surrounded by huge tree trunks, the tops lost in drifting mist. It was night and the stars were hidden behind branches, yet there was a strange gray light that seemed to be coming from clumps of fungus that grew on the trees and beneath the limp, half-dead ferns. The air smelled of damp earth and rotten wood.

There was a rapid thud of paws and Thistleclaw bounded out of the undergrowth, his pelt slick from the mist. “You made it!”

Spottedpaw blinked in relief. She leaned close to inhale his scent, but somehow he didn’t smell of anything; the stench of earth and woodrot was too strong. “Am I dreaming?” she whispered.

“Oh no,” Thistleclaw meowed. His eyes were shining and his fur crackled with tension. “This is real. Follow me!”

He whirled around and bounded along a narrow path between the trees. Spottedpaw raced after him, trying not to slip on the cold, wet earth. Something slimy seeped between her pads and she wondered if she had time to stop and lick it off. But Thistleclaw kept running so she gathered her haunches under her and kept going. The trees loomed on either side, dark and somehow threatening, as if they were watching Spottedpaw with unseen eyes. Where was this place? It wasn’t anywhere in ThunderClan territory, she knew that. Had they crossed the border into ShadowClan ?

A tree root caught Spottedpaw’s foot and she stumbled to her knees. “Help!” she gasped.

In a flash Thistleclaw was beside her, nosing her up to her paws.

“I’m scared,” Spottedpaw confessed. “It’s so dark and quiet here.”

“You’re safe with me, I promise,” Thistleclaw murmured. He rested his muzzle briefly on top of her head, then took off again. “Come on, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

Up ahead Spottedpaw saw the bracken quiver and a tortoiseshell-and-white cat stepped onto the path. Her thick fur was ragged as if she hadn’t groomed herself in moons, and scars crisscrossed her broad muzzle. She walked stiffly as if old wounds troubled her, but her amber eyes burned like fire.

“What is she doing here?” the cat snarled, glaring at Spottedpaw.

“This is Spottedpaw,” Thistleclaw mewed. “She’s with me. Spottedpaw, this is Mapleshade.”

Spottedpaw stared at the she-cat, unable to speak. Her whole body was trembling with fear, and her paws seemed frozen to the ground. It’s only a cat! she told herself.

“She doesn’t say much, does she?” growled the ragged cat. “Good.” She turned and stomped along the path. “Come on, you’re late.”

Thistleclaw trotted after her, his tail held high and his ears pricked. Spottedpaw finally unfroze her paws and stumbled after them. If this was ShadowClan, what were they doing here? Her belly flipped over. Was Thistleclaw a traitor ?

The cats ahead of her stopped abruptly and Spottedpaw almost bumped into them. They had reached the edge of a clearing filled with scrubby grass and divided in half by a crumbling, half-rotten tree trunk. Mapleshade jumped on top of the trunk with more grace than Spottedpaw would have imagined.