Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8 The sun was rising over the trees as Fireheart and his patrol approached Snakerocks, on the opposite side of the territory to the river. The fire had not reached this far; the undergrowth was still lush and green, though leaves had begun to fall. "Hold on," Fireheart meowed to Thornpaw as the apprentice dashed toward the rocks. "Don't forget there are adders around here." Thornpaw skidded to a halt. "Sorry, Fireheart." Since Bluestar had refused to make them warriors, Fireheart had made a point of spending time with all the apprentices in turn, including at least one of them in every patrol, in an attempt to show them that the Clan still valued them. Swiftpaw's scowl suggested that he was resentful of the delay, but Thornpaw did not seem to mind waiting for full warrior status. Mousefur, Thornpaw's mentor, padded up to him. "Tell me what you can smell." Thornpaw stood with his head raised and jaws parted, drinking in the air. "Mouse!" he mewed almost at once, swiping his tongue around his mouth.

第八章太阳正从树上升起，火心和他的巡逻队正接近领地与河相对的蛇岩。 大火还没有烧到这里；灌木丛仍然郁郁葱葱，虽然树叶已经开始掉落。 “坚持住。”火心对桑爪叫道，见好就收。 “别忘了这附近有蝰蛇。” 桑爪滑了一下，停了下来。 “对不起,Fireheart。”自从蓝星拒绝让他们成为战士以来，火心就轮流花时间和所有的学徒在一起，每次巡逻至少会有一个学徒，试图向他们表明氏族仍然重视他们。 刺爪的怒容表明他对延迟感到不满，但刺爪似乎并不介意等待完全的战士身份。 桑爪的导师鼠毛向他走来。 “告诉我你闻到了什么。” 桑爪昂着头，张着嘴，站在那里，对着空气大口喝酒。 “老鼠！”他几乎立刻叫了起来，用舌头舔了舔嘴巴。

"Yes, but we're not hunting now," Mousefur reminded him. "What else?" "The Thunderpath—over there." Thornpaw gestured with his tail. "And dog." Fireheart, who had been lapping water from a hollow in the ground, pricked up his ears. Tasting the air, he realized that Thornpaw was right. There was a strong scent of dog, and it was fresh. "That's odd," he commented. "Unless the Twolegs were up very early, that scent should be stale. Last night at the latest." He remembered Whitestorm's report of finding trampled undergrowth and scattered pigeon feathers near Snakerocks. The place had smelled of dog then, but that scent would not have survived for this long. "We'd better take a good look around," he meowed. Ordering Thornpaw not to leave his mentor, Fireheart sent the other cats into the trees while he crept closer to the rocks. Before he reached them, he was called back by Mousefur. "Come and look at this!" Skirting a bramble thicket, Fireheart joined the

“是的，但我们现在不打猎。”老鼠提醒他。 “还有什么?”“雷道——在那边。” 桑爪用尾巴做了个手势。 “和狗”。火心一直在地洞里舔水，这时他竖起了耳朵。 他嗅了嗅空气，意识到桑爪说得对。 有一股强烈的狗的气味，很新鲜。 “这很奇怪，”他评论道。 “除非特立格夫妇起得很早，否则那气味应该是不新鲜的。 最迟昨天晚上。” 他记得“白风暴”报告说，在蛇岩附近发现了被践踏的灌木丛和散落的鸽子羽毛。 这地方当时有股狗的味道，但这种气味不可能存留这么久。 “我们最好四处看看。”他叫道。 火心命令刺爪不要离开他的导师，让其他猫躲进树林，自己则爬向岩石。 他还没走到他们跟前，老鼠叫他回来了。 “快来看这个！”火心绕过一丛荆棘，加入了

brown warrior and looked down into a small, steep-sided clearing. There was a stagnant pool of greenish water at the bottom, choked with fallen leaves. The sharp scent of crushed ferns reached Fireheart's scent glands, but it was barely noticeable under the overpowering stench of dog. Pigeon feathers were scattered all around, and scraps of fur that might have been squirrel or rabbit. A little way down the slope, Thornpaw sniffed at a pile of dog dung, and recoiled with a snort of disgust. Fireheart forced himself to take in every detail of the scene. Twoleg dogs didn't usually stay in the forest long enough to leave this many traces, trampling the undergrowth and scattering the remains of prey until the forest reeked like a fox's hole. Seeing it with his own eyes made him realize that something was definitely wrong. "What do you think?" asked Mousefur. "I don't know." Fireheart was reluctant to voice his worries. "It looks as if there might be a dog loose in the forest, free from the Twolegs." Was that what those Twolegs had been looking for? he wondered, suddenly remembering the

棕色的战士，向下看了看一小块陡峭的空地。 池底有一滩死水，泛着绿色，被落叶挤得透不过气来。 碎蕨类植物的刺鼻气味传到了火心的嗅觉腺体，但在狗的刺鼻气味下，几乎察觉不到。 鸽子的羽毛到处都是，还有一些可能是松鼠或兔子的皮毛碎片。 下山不远的地方，桑爪嗅了嗅一堆狗粪，厌恶地哼了一声，往后退了几步。 火心强迫自己仔细观察现场的每一个细节。 两条腿的狗通常不会在森林里呆那么长时间，留下这么多的痕迹，践踏灌木丛，散落猎物的残骸，直到森林里散发出狐狸洞的臭味。 亲眼所见使他意识到肯定出了问题。 “你觉得怎么样？”老鼠问。 “我不知道。”火心不愿说出他的担忧。 “看起来好像有只狗从特立格人那里逃出来了。” 这就是那些特立格人一直在寻找的东西吗？ 他想了想，突然想起了

three who had come in the monster when he was hunting in Tallpines with Sandstorm. But that had been a long way from here, on the other side of ThunderClan territory. "What are we going to do?" Thornpaw piped up, looking unusually serious. "I'll report it to Bluestar," Fireheart decided. "If there is a dog wandering around in our territory, we'll need to do something about it. Maybe we can lead it away somehow." The dog was clearly taking prey that ThunderClan couldn't spare, and Fireheart didn't like to think of what might happen if it met one of the Clan warriors face-to-face. As he turned away from the clearing and led the way back toward the camp, Fireheart could not help feeling that the forest around him had become strangely hostile. He knew every tree and stone, yet there was something in its depths—not quite a scent, nor a sound, more like an echo on the edge of hearing—that he did not understand. Was it just a dog? Or were Bluestar's fears about to come true after all? Did StarClan have some other disaster in mind for ThunderClan?

这三个人是在怪物和沙暴一起在Tallpines打猎时进来的。 但那离这里很远，在ThunderClan领地的另一边。 “我们该怎么办？”桑爪尖声说，显得异常严肃。 “我要向蓝星报告。”火心决定。 “如果有狗在我们的地盘上游荡，我们需要做点什么。 也许我们可以把它引开。” 这只狗显然是在捕食雷霆战队无法放过的猎物，而火心不愿意想象如果它与战队的战士面对面会发生什么。 当他转身离开空地，带头朝营地走去时，火心不禁感到周围的森林变得异常充满敌意。 他认得每一棵树和每一块石头，但在它们的深处有某种东西——不完全是气味，也不完全是声音，而更像是在听觉边缘的回声——他不明白。 它只是一只狗吗？还是蓝星的担忧即将成为现实？ StarClan是否为ThunderClan准备了其他灾难？

The patrol had almost reached the camp when Fireheart scented ThunderClan cats behind him. Turning, he saw Whitestorm, Brightpaw, and Cloudpaw picking their way through the blackened debris on the forest floor. All of them were carrying fresh-kill. "Good hunting?" Fireheart asked as they caught up with him. Whitestorm dropped the rabbit he was carrying. "Not bad," he replied. "But we had to go all the way to Fourtrees to find it." "Still, it looks good and fat," Fireheart meowed approvingly. "Well done," he added to Brightpaw and Cloudpaw, who were both dragging squirrels. "We saw something I think you ought to know about," mewed Whitestorm. "Let's get back to camp." The white warrior picked up his rabbit again and fell in behind Fireheart as he led the way down the ravine. Once they had deposited the fresh-kill on the pile and Fireheart had sent the apprentices off to feed the elders, he took a piece for himself and crouched beside Whitestorm to

巡逻队快到达营地时，火心嗅到身后有雷霆家族的猫。 转过身，他看见“白风暴”、“亮爪”和“云爪”在森林地面上烧焦的废墟中摸索着前进。 他们都带着新鲜的猎物。 “好打猎吗?”火心问道，这时他们追上了他。 怀特斯托姆丢下了他带着的兔子。 “还不错，”他回答。“但我们得一路跑到四树树去找它。” “不过，它看起来还不错，胖胖的。”火心赞许地喵喵叫道。 “干得好。”他对两只都在拖松鼠的亮爪和云爪说。 “我们看到了一些我认为你应该知道的事情，”怀特斯托姆叫道。 “我们回营地吧。”白衣武士再次拾起他的兔子，落在火心的后面，一路带路下了峡谷。 等他们把刚宰杀的肉放在柴堆上，火心打发徒弟们去喂长老们，他自己也拿了一块，蹲在白风暴旁边，开始吃

eat it. Mousefur picked out a blackbird from the heap and came to join them. "So what did you see?" Fireheart asked, when a few mouthfuls of vole had taken the edge off the hunger in his belly. He saw Whitestorm's expression darken and guessed the answer before the white warrior spoke. "More scattered prey," Whitestorm meowed. "Scraps of rabbit fur. And more dog scent. Not far from Fourtrees this time, near the border with RiverClan." "Fresh scent?" "Yesterday's, I'd guess." Fireheart nodded, anxiety prickling in his paws. Clearly the dog had ranged much farther than he had first thought. Gulping down the last of his vole, he told Whitestorm what his dawn patrol had found that morning. "The whole place stank," Mousefur contributed, looking up from her meal. "There's a dog in our territory, isn't there, killing our prey?" "Yes, I think so." Fireheart turned to Whitestorm. "When you told me about the first lot of scent you found, I hoped that the dog

吃它。鼠毛从堆里挑出一只画眉，过来加入他们。 “那么你看到了什么？”火心问，几口田鼠的食物已经消除了肚子里的饥饿感。 他看到白风暴的表情变暗，在白衣战士开口之前就猜到了答案。 “更多分散的猎物，”Whitestorm叫道。 “兔毛碎片。还有更多狗的气味。 这次离四树树不远，靠近河族的边界。” “新鲜的气味吗?”“我猜是昨天吧。” 火心点了点头，焦急的爪子刺痛了他。 很明显，这条狗跑得比他最初想象的远得多。 他一口吞下最后一口田鼠，告诉Whitestorm他的黎明巡逻队那天早上发现了什么。 “整个地方都很臭。”老鼠福从她的饭桌上抬起头来补充道。 “有只狗在我们的地盘上，是吗？它正在杀死我们的猎物？”“是的，我想是的。” 火心转向白风暴。 “当你告诉我你发现的第一批气味时，我希望那只狗