The Sun Trail

by Erin Hunter

  Gray Wing stared at Clear Sky in disbelief, then took a pace forward so that he could push his muzzle into his brother’s shoulder fur. “Perhaps it was no cat’s fault,” he murmured, his voice rough with grief. “Just a terrible accident. We can’t both live our lives feeling guilty. Bright Stream wouldn’t want that. She loved you too much to want you to be unhappy.”

  Gray Wing wasn’t sure that he was choosing the right words. He had been sunk so deeply in his own guilt for so long. But knowing that Clear Sky blamed himself, too, made him feel as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

  We’ll still mourn Bright Stream, we’ll never forget her, but our lives will go on. Letting out a gusty sigh, Gray Wing gave his pelt a shake. “Why don’t we explore a bit farther downriver?” he suggested.

  Clear Sky nodded. “Let’s do that.”

  This time Gray Wing took the lead, down the narrow path and then alongside the tumbling torrent. Bright Stream’s death still pained them both, but Gray Wing was comforted to feel that they had recovered some of their old closeness.

  They headed downriver. At first there was a clear path at the water’s edge, but undergrowth gradually encroached on it until the cats had to battle their way through. Gray Wing muttered curses under his breath as twigs and bramble tendrils snagged in his fur.

  Eventually the undergrowth thinned out and they saw a tall outcrop of rocks jutting out from the river, which swept around it in two surging channels. Gray Wing spotted stepping-stones just above the surface of the water.

  “Let’s explore!” Clear Sky exclaimed. Without waiting for Gray Wing’s response, he jumped neatly from stone to stone until he reached the outcrop. “Come on, it’s easy!” he called back to Gray Wing.

  Gray Wing didn’t see the point of crossing to the outcrop, but he heard the hint of challenge in his brother’s voice. More hesitantly than Clear Sky, he leaped over the stepping-stones. Their surfaces were uneven and slick with water, and Gray Wing had a vision of slipping and being carried away by the swift, choppy current.

  “You took your time,” Clear Sky meowed as Gray Wing reached his side. He gave him a friendly butt with his head. “Let’s climb to the top.”

  He set off with a powerful leap, and Gray Wing toiled after him. Finally they reached the summit of the outcrop, made up of several flat rocks at different levels, with deep cracks between.

  Gray Wing glanced warily in all directions. “There’s a lot of cat scent around here.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Clear Sky responded. “These rocks must be great for sunning yourself. And there’ll be plenty of prey in all these cracks.”

  “Quite right,” a cold voice hissed from behind them.

  Gray Wing and Clear Sky both jumped around, startled, to see a strange she-cat standing on the top of a flat rock a couple of tail-lengths away. She was completely black, except for one white paw and a white spot on one shoulder; her green eyes were narrowed, glaring at them with hostility.

  “Hello,” Gray Wing meowed, trying to sound friendly.

  The black she-cat wasn’t impressed. “Get off my rocks,” she snarled, sliding out her claws.

  Clear Sky’s neck fur began to rise. “Who says they’re your rocks?”

  The she-cat took a threatening pace forward. “I’ve heard about trespassers on the moor. You’re not welcome here!” She spun around and, to Gray Wing’s astonishment, jumped neatly into the river. Her sleek dark head reappeared a heartbeat later as she swam strongly for the opposite bank.

  “A swimming cat!” Clear Sky exclaimed.

  Relieved that the encounter had been no worse, Gray Wing let out a mrrow of amusement. “She should meet Falling Feather,” he mewed.

  Together the two cats leaped over the stepping-stones again and bounded back into the trees. A squirrel darted out in front of them and fled for safety up a tree, but Clear Sky brought it down with another massive leap.

  He and Gray Wing settled down side by side to share the prey.

  “You know,” Clear Sky murmured, glancing around him, “I could live somewhere like this.”

  Gray Wing swallowed the mouthful he was eating. “I prefer open sky,” he responded.

  Clear Sky flicked an ear at him. “Well, you have the speed to catch rabbits!”

  When they had finished the prey, the two brothers headed back through the trees. Gray Wing could hear rustling, as if other cats were vanishing into the bushes.

  “I think we’re being watched,” he hissed.

  Clear Sky gave an airy wave of his tail. “So what? They’re not showing themselves, so they must be scared of us. And that’s fine by me. I don’t want to be challenged for every mouthful of prey.”

  Gray Wing couldn’t share his brother’s confidence. “If we stay here, we need to live peacefully with these other cats,” he pointed out.

  The strangeness of this place washed over him again like water surging over a rock. I feel like I don’t know anything about living here.

  Clear Sky led the way back to the moor, veering away from the river to pass through the huge hollow where the four oak trees stood.

  “This is a fantastic place!” he exclaimed, turning around as if he was trying to see all of it at once. Then he leaped up one of the oaks, clawing his way up the bark until he could stand where a branch forked from the main trunk.

  “Come down!” Gray Wing called, not even trying to imitate his brother’s jump. “You’re not a squirrel!”

  “There’s no reason cats can’t live in trees,” Clear Sky responded, waving his tail playfully.

  Gray Wing rolled his eyes. Before he could reply, he felt once again the sensation of being watched. Scanning the slope, he spotted a plump tortoiseshell cat scrutinizing them from the shelter of a clump of fern, her dappled pelt almost invisible in its shadow.

  “We’ve got company,” he told Clear Sky.

  His brother looked where he was pointing, then climbed back to the ground, jumping the last few tail-lengths.

  Before he landed, the tortoiseshell cat turned and bounded off up the slope. Gray Wing watched her go, frustrated that he hadn’t had the chance to speak to her.

  “She seemed really well fed,” he commented to Clear Sky.

  “You’re right,” said Clear Sky. “She was no wild cat. Do you think kittypets come into these woods?”

  Gray Wing wasn’t sure. He knew that some of the others had spotted Twoleg dens through the trees, and the narrow paths carried the scents of Twolegs and dogs, but the moor and the forest were mostly left to wild creatures.

  That’s how it should be. I can’t understand why any cat would want to live with Twolegs, he thought curiously.

  Gray Wing and Clear Sky reached the hollow to hear Moon Shadow’s voice raised argumentatively.

  “I’ve told you over and over again that I’m sick of eating rabbits and getting wet! Why don’t we go and live among the trees?”

  He stood facing his sister, his neck fur fluffed up and his tail lashing.

  “It’s not as easy as that,” Tall Shadow responded, her voice cold.

  As Gray Wing and Clear Sky picked their way down the slope, Turtle Tail padded up to meet them. “Those two are at it again,” she muttered, rolling her eyes.

  “All you ever do is order us around,” Moon Shadow was saying.

  “And all you ever do is argue,” Hawk Swoop interrupted, stepping between Moon Shadow and Tall Shadow. “The rest of us are tired of listening to it. Look, it’s not raining now, so why don’t we try hunting some birds, like we used to?”

  Glancing around, Hawk Swoop pointed with her tail toward a hawk circling over some rough grass below the hollow. “Come on,” she urged. “We know how to catch that kind of prey!”

  Jackdaw’s Cry sprang to his paws at once, followed a heartbeat later by Dappled Pelt and Rainswept Flower. Though Gray Wing’s legs were tired, he stepped forward too.

  Clear Sky padded across to Tall Shadow. “Are you okay with this?” he asked. />
  Tall Shadow shrugged. “You can hunt whatever you like—so long as you stay out of the trees where the other cats are.”

  Moon Shadow looked as if he was going to start arguing again, then turned and stomped off to his nest.

  “Are you coming?” Gray Wing asked Turtle Tail.

  “No,” said the young tortoiseshell. “I’ve already eaten once today. I don’t need to hunt again.”

  With Hawk Swoop in the lead, the mountain cats climbed out of the hollow and ran down the slope toward the hawk, keeping low so as not to alert it.

  “It’s a bit small, isn’t it?” Dappled Pelt murmured. “It looks like a sparrow, compared to the eagles back home.”

  “This is our home now,” Hawk Swoop meowed instantly.

  A heavy silence greeted her words. Is it really our home? Gray Wing wondered. But racing along with the wind in his fur and the sun warming his back, he began to feel content.

  This could be a good place to live.

  The cats surrounded the hawk, instinctively remembering their mountain hunting patterns as they closed in on it from different directions. Hawk Swoop nodded to Jackdaw’s Cry; he could jump the highest, so he was a good choice to make the first leap.

  The hawk was distracted by focusing on its tiny prey in the grass. At the last moment it became aware of the hunting cats, and beat its wings in an attempt to gain height.

  But it was too late. Jackdaw’s Cry hurled himself into the air and brought the hawk down with a yowl of triumph. The other cats rushed in to help hold it down, but Jackdaw’s Cry had already killed it with a bite to its neck.

  That was almost too easy, Gray Wing thought.

  “Great catch,” Rainswept Flower mewed admiringly. “You can keep it for yourself.”

  Jackdaw’s Cry ducked his head, proud and embarrassed.

  While they were talking, Dappled Pelt had pounced into the grass. When she straightened up, the mouse the hawk had been hunting was dangling from her jaws.

  “Two catches in one go!” she mumbled through the mouthful of prey.

  “That would never have happened in the mountains,” Rainswept Flower commented.

  Every cat looked pleased, though Gray Wing felt that their cheerfulness was slightly forced.

  We’re all trying too hard to pretend this is perfect.

  Gray Wing padded through the trees, following Clear Sky’s lead. Jackdaw’s Cry, Falling Feather, and Turtle Tail hunted with them. As always when he left the moor for the forest, Gray Wing felt uncomfortable. He couldn’t hunt down his prey by running when every few paw steps a bramble tendril would trip him, and when the air was laden with so many scents it was hard to follow the one he wanted.

  Falling Feather had just caught a mouse, when a loud screech echoed through the trees. It was followed by crashing in the undergrowth, and the furiously yowling voices of more than one cat.

  Clear Sky froze, his ears flicking forward. “That’s Moon Shadow!” he exclaimed.

  He sprang forward in the direction of the sounds, and the others followed. As Gray Wing wound his way among the ferns he heard Turtle Tail meow behind him. “Wouldn’t you just know that he’d be the one to get into trouble?”

  Gray Wing remembered the Twolegplace and the fight with the kittypets. Moon Shadow shouldn’t go off by himself. But we still have to help him.

  The brothers burst into a clearing, the other cats hard on their paws. At the far side, Gray Wing spotted Moon Shadow locked in a caterwauling bundle of fur with three other cats. The struggle heaved back and forth at the edge of a bramble thicket; a tail-length or so away was the body of a squirrel.

  With an ear-splitting shriek, Clear Sky hurtled across the clearing. He grabbed one cat by the shoulder and hauled him away from Moon Shadow. Gray Wing leaped on top of another and cuffed the cat around the ears until she let go of his friend.

  He wasn’t prepared for the cat to turn on him, or for the ferocity of the attack. Before he could think about defending himself claws were raking down his side. He tried to bring up his hind paws to thrust the cat off, but the cat wrapped her forepaws around his neck and clung tightly. Gray Wing jerked his head away to avoid teeth aimed for his throat.

  He was dimly aware of more yowling and skirmishing around him. The taste of blood was in his mouth. This cat wants to kill me, he thought, his senses fogged with pain.

  Then a heavy weight landed on top of him and his opponent. Gray Wing almost despaired, until he heard a familiar voice raised in an enraged yowl. “Get off him!”

  Turtle Tail!

  The other cat rolled away and Gray Wing staggered to his paws. He saw that all three strange cats had broken off the fight and stood glaring and hissing at the mountain cats. Gray Wing got a good look at them for the first time. One was the black she-cat with the white paw that he and Clear Sky had met on the rocks a few days before. The others were a small yellow tabby she-cat and a black-and-white tom. Fierce satisfaction surged through him when he saw that they all bore the marks of claws.

  Moon Shadow lay panting at the edge of the thicket, a clump of fur torn away from his shoulder. Turtle Tail padded over and helped him to his paws; she had a scratched muzzle, and her fur was ruffled.

  “They attacked me!” Moon Shadow exclaimed indignantly.

  Turtle Tail was unsympathetic. “What did you think would happen when you wandered off on your own, flea-brain?”

  “I told you before,” the black she-cat snapped, glaring at Clear Sky and Gray Wing. “You’re not welcome here. Why don’t you go back where you came from?”

  “Yes, and stop stealing our prey,” the black-and-white tom added.

  “Your prey?” Moon Shadow was outraged. “I caught that squirrel! That makes it my prey!”

  The yellow tabby slid out her claws, her muscles tensed as if she was about to leap at Moon Shadow. Gray Wing braced himself in case the fight erupted again.

  “You fight like half-dead rabbits,” the black-and-white tom snarled. “You only won this time because there are more of you. But just watch your tails if you come back.”

  “Yeah,” the yellow tabby added. “We’ll be waiting.”

  The black she-cat waved her tail and all three forest cats headed off into the undergrowth. At the last moment the yellow tabby darted over to the squirrel, grabbed it, and dragged it away with her.

  “Hey!” Moon Shadow protested, starting after her.

  Clear Sky barreled into him, knocking him to the ground. “Have you learned nothing?” he demanded. “This isn’t the time to start another fight.”

  Huffing indignantly, Moon Shadow got up and followed Clear Sky as he led the way back to the moor. Gray Wing found it hard going; the scratches on his side grew more painful with every step. Jackdaw’s Cry was limping from a torn claw, Falling Feather had lost a pawful of fur, and blood was trickling from Clear Sky’s shoulder.

  This is winning? What happens if we lose? Gray Wing wondered.

  “You’ve been told time and time again . . .” Tall Shadow faced Moon Shadow, her voice taut with fury and her tail lashing, “. . . and still you don’t listen!”

  The hunting party had returned to the hollow on the moor, where Clear Sky had reported the clash with the forest cats.

  “Because it’s a flea-brained order!” Moon Shadow retorted. “This is a smaller space than we had in the mountains. Why do you want us to sit here trembling like hunted rabbits?”

  Gray Wing had to admit that Moon Shadow had a point. The hollow wasn’t comfortable enough for a permanent home, and the prey-rich forest was too tantalizing for every cat to ignore.

  Tall Shadow’s fury ebbed and she twitched her whiskers thoughtfully. “Okay, maybe we should hunt more regularly in the forest. We can’t let those cats think they’ve frightened us off.” She fixed her brother with a fierce green glare. “But you don’t go off on your own again, is that clear?”

  Moon Shadow shrugged. “I wouldn’t have to if you’d let us hunt there properly.”

 
; Cloud Spots padded up with a mouthful of herbs and set them down. “I managed to find chervil,” he meowed. “Let me put some on your scratches.”

  He dabbed juice onto Turtle Tail’s injured muzzle, then turned to Gray Wing, who lay down so that Cloud Spots could treat the scratches on his side.

  “You know,” Cloud Spots murmured as he patted the chewed-up leaves into place, “I’m not happy with the idea that we always have to fight these other cats. Maybe we should think about finding a way to live peacefully near them.”

  “I’m not sure,” Gray Wing responded. “I wish we could do that, but maybe we’re just too different from them.”

  On the following day, the sun had just cleared the horizon when Moon Shadow announced he was going hunting.

  Tall Shadow turned to look at him, her tail-tip twitching. Before she could speak, Clear Sky stepped up beside Moon Shadow. “I’ll come with you,” he offered.

  Jagged Peak, Quick Water, and Shattered Ice jumped up to join them, and after a moment’s hesitation Tall Shadow gave a mrrow of agreement. “Okay. Good luck.”

  “What about you?” Clear Sky asked Gray Wing.

  “Not this time,” Gray Wing replied. His scratches from the fight were still sore and he didn’t think he would be much use at tracking prey under the trees. He tried to convince himself that he wasn’t afraid of meeting the other cats again.

  Once the hunters had gone, Turtle Tail padded over to Gray Wing. “Why don’t we go for a walk?” she suggested. “No catching prey, no getting into fights.”

  “That sounds good,” Gray Wing agreed.

  When they left the hollow they could still see Clear Sky and the other hunters heading across the moor toward the forest. “Are you following them?” Gray Wing asked, surprised.

  “No, I just want to go to the giant oaks again,” Turtle Tail explained. “I like it there!”

  The vast hollow was quiet except for the gentle rustling of the oak trees. Sunlight slanted through their branches, dappling the forest floor. Turtle Tail raced down the slope and over to the huge boulder between the four oaks, clawing her way up it until she stood on top.