Эрин Хантер – MIDNIGHT (страница 1)

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Warriors
The New Prophecy

MIDNIGHT

ERIN
HUNTER

COPYRIGHT

HarperCollins Children’s Books An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2011

First published in the USA by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2005

Series created by Working Partners Limited.

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Source ISBN: 9780007419227

Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2014 ISBN: 9780007551040

Version: 2016-09-22

DEDICATION

For Chris, Janet, and Louisa Haslum Special thanks to Cherith Baldry

ALLEGIANCES

MAPS

PROLOGUE

Night lay upon the forest. There was no moon, but the stars of Silverpelt shed their frosty glitter over the trees. At the bottom of a rocky hollow, a pool reflected the starshine. The air was heavy with the scents of late greenleaf.

Wind sighed softly through the trees and ruffled the quiet surface of the pool. At the top of the hollow, the fronds of bracken parted to reveal a cat; her bluish grey fur glimmered as she stepped delicately from rock to rock, down to the water’s edge.

Sitting on a flat stone that jutted out over the pool, she raised her head to look around. As if at a signal, more cats began to appear, slipping into the hollow from every direction. They padded down to sit as close to the water as they could, until the lower slopes were filled with lithe shapes gazing down into the pool.

The cat who had appeared first rose to her paws. “A new prophecy has come!” she meowed. “A doom that will change everything has been foretold in the stars.”

On the opposite side of the pool, another cat bowed his tawny, bracken-coloured head. “I have seen this too. There will be doubt, and a great challenge,” he agreed.

“Darkness, air, water, and sky will come together, and shake the forest to its roots,” the first cat went on. “Nothing will be as it is now, nor as it has been before.”

“A great storm is coming,” meowed another voice, and the word storm was taken up, repeated and passed around the circle until it seemed that thunder rumbled through the ranks of watching cats.

As the murmur died away a lean cat with a glossy black pelt spoke from near the water’s edge. “Can nothing change what is about to happen? Not even the courage and spirit of the greatest warrior?”

“The doom will come,” the blue-grey cat replied. “But if the Clans meet it like warriors, they may survive.” Lifting her head, she let her luminous gaze travel around the hollow. “You have all seen what must befall,” she meowed. “And you know what must be done. Four cats must be chosen to hold the fate of their Clans in their paws. Are you ready to make your choices before all of StarClan?”

As she finished speaking, the surface of the pool shivered, though there was no wind to disturb it, then was still again.