Creatures of the Flood by Erin Hunter

Author:Erin Hunter [Hunter, Erin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2021-07-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

LEAF STRETCHED OUT, MAKING sure that her paws were firmly braced on a thick branch. Her back and neck crunched and clicked where they had stiffened from a cold night sleeping in the high crook of a gingko tree. It was satisfying, but she still ached afterward.

There were grunts and snorts from the other branches, and the leaves bounced and shook. All around her, the trees were full of stirring, uncomfortable pandas.

But they were all still alive. The Slenderwood pandas had made it through the night. In the faint gray light, the trees looked like they had sprouted huge, fluffy black-and-white and red fruits. The red pandas—Swimming Deeps and Digging Deeps, Leaping Highs, Healing Hearts, and others—had all joined the pandas in the trees, along with the Climbing Fars when their vigil ended. Dasher had come to find Leaf and curled up on top of her flank, his long, fluffy tail wrapped around them both for warmth until she had woken at Gray Light.

None of them had been taken by the slinking orange creature.

Tiger.

Leaf shuddered a little. When she and Dasher had returned to tell the Slenderwoods and the red pandas about what they’d seen, Juniper had told them he’d heard old tales of creatures that matched that description. The predator was a tiger.

Dasher’s tail twitched against Leaf’s nose and she looked around.

“You awake?” she whispered.

“Hnn.” Dasher’s eyes blinked open. “I am now.”

“Sorry,” Leaf said. “I need to get up. It’s time for the First Feast.”

“S’okay.” Dasher got stiffly to his paws and climbed into a smaller crook of the tree to let Leaf get up.

“What’s happening?” One of the other red pandas was stirring on a branch just below her.

“It’s the Feast of Gray Light,” Dasher explained. “The pandas need to eat.”

“What, now?” The red panda squinted up at Leaf. “It’s not even dawn yet!”

“No,” Leaf agreed. “That would be the Feast of Golden Light.”

“How many feasts are there?”

“Nine.”

The red panda looked bleakly at Leaf, and then at Dasher, who nodded his confirmation. The other red panda turned around on his branch and curled up again, throwing his tail over his face.

Leaf sighed. The feast might disrupt the red pandas’ sleep a little, but there was nothing she could do about it. They couldn’t not have the feast, after all. That would be madness. Nothing could stop the Nine Feasts, not even a tiger.

Although, as she scanned the ground below, worry crept into her heart. There wasn’t much bamboo in this part of the forest, even less than the Slenderwood’s usual meager crop. If they couldn’t find any at all, they would have to make do with the gingko fruit, and it would be a miserable start to a difficult day. . . .

“I see some!” yelled a high-pitched panda voice. Leaf cringed as red pandas all around her stirred and growled, but followed the voice hopefully. It was little Cane, of course, and by the time Leaf had climbed across the branches to the tree where he

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