The Blazing Star by Erin Hunter

Author:Erin Hunter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

CHAPTER 17

Thunder crouched behind a tussock of grass and narrowed his eyes as he stared at the rabbits feeding outside their burrows. The sun was slipping down in the sky, and a chilly breeze whispered across the moor. On either side of Thunder, Owl Eyes and Lightning Tail waited, looking stiff and tense. Owl Eyes’s tail-tip flicked impatiently to and fro.

“Don’t you dare move before I tell you to,” Thunder warned him. “This is what we’re going to do. You see the rabbit over there by that rock?” He angled his ears toward the rabbit that was farthest away from the burrows. It was nibbling the grass, unaware that the cats were watching it.

Lightning Tail nodded. “I see it.”

“Right. Lightning Tail, I want you to run out between the rabbit and the burrows. Make it run the other way. Owl Eyes, you stay here and leap out at it if it doubles back this way.” Thunder swiped his tongue around his jaws. “And I’ll kill it. It looks nice and plump.”

“I’m ready, Thunder,” Owl Eyes mewed, his whiskers quivering with excitement.

“Okay. Lightning Tail, go!”

Pushing off with powerful back legs, Lightning Tail launched himself out of cover. The rabbits closer to the burrows jumped up in alarm and fled, their white tails bobbing as they vanished into safety. The cats’ chosen prey tried to follow, but Lightning Tail intercepted it, his teeth bared. For a moment the rabbit seemed not to know which way to run, then dashed off in a panic. As Thunder bore down on it, the prey dodged his pouncing paws and headed straight for Owl Eyes. The kit leaped out of hiding, his tail lashing and his claws tearing at the grass. Letting out a terrified squeal, the rabbit crouched trembling in the grass, not even trying to flee any longer. Thunder brought down one huge paw on its neck—a killing strike.

“Great catch!” Owl Eyes exclaimed, coming up to look at the limp body.

“You both helped,” Thunder meowed, with a nod to Lightning Tail as he came padding up. “Owl Eyes, you looked really scary!”

But Thunder’s satisfaction with the hunt ebbed away rapidly as he took a closer look at what they had caught. The prey was not succulent and plump—it was actually just bloated and swollen from the sickness. There was froth around its jaws, and a faint, rank smell rising from the body.

“Owl Eyes, keep back,” Thunder ordered sharply. “Lightning Tail, we’d better find some leaves to wrap it. If we leave it here some other cat might take it.” No wonder it was easy to cut it out from the rest, he added silently to himself.

When he and Lightning Tail had found enough leaves to wrap the rabbit, and shoved it deep into a cleft in a nearby rock, Thunder led the way back to camp.

“It’s getting harder and harder to catch enough prey,” Owl Eyes complained. “It’s like everything is sick.”

“I know,” Lightning Tail agreed. “We decided separating might help, but we couldn’t tell that to the prey.

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