TWILIGHT. Эрин Хантер
a job to do, she reminded herself with a flash of impatience. You’re a warrior, not a moonstruck rabbit!
She and Ashfur finished the squirrel in a few swift bites and set out again towards the WindClan border. Soon they overtook Brambleclaw and Rainwhisker. Brambleclaw had brought down a starling and was tearing into it hungrily, while Rainwhisker was gulping down a vole. He glanced up as his Clanmates appeared.
“I thought you’d got lost,” he meowed.
Brambleclaw took his last mouthful of starling and rose to his paws. Without saying a word, he turned and stalked off. Squirrelflight exchanged a glance with Ashfur, shrugged, and followed.
The trees were thinning out when Squirrelflight began to hear the chattering of water over stones. The patrol emerged at the top of a slope that led down to the stream bordering WindClan. Gusts of WindClan scent drifted across on the breeze, but there was no sign of any cats.
“We must have just missed a patrol,” Ashfur meowed quietly. “Those scent marks are fresh.”
That was a good sign, Squirrelflight thought. If WindClan were organised enough to be patrolling their boundaries, they must be on their way to recovering from Mudclaw’s rebellion. Did that mean Onewhisker had been able to travel to the Moonpool to receive his nine lives and his leader’s name from StarClan?
“Let’s head for the stepping stones,” Brambleclaw suggested. “We might catch up to them.”
He bounded down the slope and headed upstream with the rest of the patrol hard on his paws. The trees soon gave way to open moorland; Squirrelflight turned her head to look at the grey sweep of leafless branches below her. Beyond them, the lake reflected the pale blue sky, where the sun had nearly reached its peak.
The stream tumbled more steeply here, between banks fringed by sedge and reeds. Water foamed around stepping stones that formed a path to the moorland on the other side, easy for a cat to leap, even when the stream was full.
Wind gusted into Squirrelflight’s face, buffeting her fur and making her eyes water. “I don’t know how WindClan puts up with it,” she grumbled to Ashfur. “There isn’t a tree in sight!”
Ashfur let out a small mrrow of amusement. “They probably wonder how ThunderClan puts up with all those branches blocking out the sky.”
“Ask me that when it rains,” Squirrelflight muttered.
A flash of pale brown caught her eye: a rabbit fleeing over the crest of the hill. Squirrelflight’s paws itched to dash after it, but it was well inside WindClan’s territory. Heartbeats later a lean, grey-black cat appeared, racing after the rabbit with his belly brushing the turf. Blinking to clear her watering eyes, Squirrelflight recognised Crowfeather. Like Brambleclaw, he had been one of the cats chosen by StarClan to make the journey to the sun-drown-place.
Hunter and prey disappeared into a hollow and a high-pitched squeal, quickly cut off, told Squirrelflight that the WindClan warrior had made his kill.
“Hunting patrol,” meowed Rainwhisker, nodding to the top of the hill.
Two more WindClan cats followed Crowfeather more slowly over the crest. Squirrelflight made out the dark grey tabby pelt of Webfoot; the smaller cat behind him was his apprentice, Weaselpaw. A third cat, Whitetail, joined them as they stood looking down at the ThunderClan patrol.
Brambleclaw called out, “We’ve brought a message from Firestar!”
Webfoot and Whitetail exchanged a glance, then Webfoot led the way down the slope until all three cats stood on the opposite side of the stream.
“What message?” Webfoot demanded.
Squirrelflight studied the WindClan warrior. He had been one of Mudclaw’s fiercest supporters, and he still showed marks of the battle in a torn ear and a patch of fur missing from one shoulder. But Onewhisker must have decided to trust him again, if he had been put in charge of this patrol.
Brambleclaw dipped his head in greeting. “Firestar sent us to make sure everything’s OK,” he mewed. “He asked us to check that Onewhisker had made his journey to the Moonpool.”
“Onestar,” Whitetail corrected him.
Squirrelflight’s belly lurched. Calling the Clan leader by his ordinary warrior name had been a really bad mistake, as if Brambleclaw didn’t expect him to have received his new name from StarClan.
“Sorry—Onestar.” Brambleclaw twitched one ear, but his voice remained steady. “That’s good news. Congratulate him for us, will you?”
Webfoot’s eyes narrowed. “Why did Firestar send you? Does he think StarClan wouldn’t give nine lives to Onestar?”
Squirrelflight’s eyes stretched wide. Had Webfoot forgotten that Onestar might have been crowfood by now if it wasn’t for Firestar and ThunderClan?
Brambleclaw blinked. “He just wanted to be sure.”
“Perhaps Firestar should concentrate on ThunderClan, and let WindClan get on with their own lives,” Webfoot suggested.
“Onestar wouldn’t be leader if it wasn’t for ThunderClan!” Squirrelflight pointed out hotly. “You know that as well as any cat, Webfoot. You and Mudclaw—” She broke off, choking on a mouthful of fur as Brambleclaw flicked his tail across her mouth.
Webfoot’s eyes burned. “I wasn’t the only cat to believe Mudclaw was our rightful leader,” he snarled. “But since StarClan killed him with the falling tree, and gave Onestar his nine lives and his name, I know that I was wrong.”
“If Onestar trusts him he’s got bees in his brain.” Squirrelflight dropped back to mutter in Ashfur’s ear. “If I was Onestar, I’d watch my tail.”
To her relief, she spotted Crowfeather appear over the rim of the hollow, dragging the rabbit’s body. Even though the WindClan warrior was as prickly as a holly bush, he wouldn’t be as cold and suspicious as Webfoot among his old friends.
“Hi, Crowfeather,” she meowed. “Good catch!”
To her surprise, the dark grey warrior gave her a curt nod and glanced away without saying anything. He kept his jaws clamped on his fresh-kill, his nostrils flaring.
“If that’s all,” Webfoot meowed, “you can all go home.”
“Don’t tell us what to do on our own territory!” Squirrelflight snapped.
“Leave it,” Brambleclaw warned in a low growl. Squirrelflight knew he was right—this was not the time to pick a fight, however hostile the WindClan cats were being.
Webfoot and the other WindClan warriors watched silently from their side of the stream as Brambleclaw turned and led his patrol back towards camp. Squirrelflight felt the WindClan cats’ gaze pricking her pelt all the way down the hill, and when she glanced back at the edge of the trees, the four cats were still there. She bounded forward, not stopping until she had put a thick bramble thicket between herself and WindClan.
“Thank StarClan!” She skidded to a halt in a clearing and shook herself as if she had just climbed out of icy water. “I don’t know what’s got into them.”
“Me neither,” Rainwhisker agreed.
“I would have thought it was obvious,” Brambleclaw meowed. “WindClan don’t want to be allied with ThunderClan anymore. Everything’s different now.”
“After all we did for them!” Squirrelflight’s frustration and anxiety spilled over into anger; she couldn’t believe Brambleclaw was accepting WindClan’s new hostility without question. “I was a whisker from clawing Webfoot’s ears off back there.”
“It’s a good thing you didn’t,” Brambleclaw pointed out dryly. “There’s more than one cat in ThunderClan who’d say that Firestar shouldn’t interfere in another Clan’s business.”
“Mouse