Read Online Outcast by Erin Hunter - Free Book Online Page A

disfigured face. With an unexpected quiver of fear, Jaypaw wondered if Rock could see him or if he only sensed his presence.
    â€œWhy did you stop talking to me?” Jaypaw asked. “I tried and tried, but you wouldn’t answer.”
    Rock dismissed the question with a flick of his ratlike tail. “I’m here now,” he rasped. “Say what you have to say.”
    â€œAre you part of StarClan?”
    Rock blinked. “No. I share tongues with the ones who came before.”
    â€œYou mean the cats like Fallen Leaves, who went into the tunnels to prove themselves?”
    â€œNo.” Rock’s voice grated like shifting stones. “More ancient even than those.”
    â€œThen where did they come from?” Jaypaw meowed, exasperated. “Is there a set of ancestors who are older than all the others? Did we all come from them—Fallen Leaves’s cats, and the Tribe cats, and the Clans?”
    Rock turned his silver gaze on Jaypaw. “There will always be stories older than any cat remembers,” he rumbled.
    That’s not an answer! “Then where did you come from?”
    The old cat stood silent for many heartbeats, staring out across the Moonpool as if he could look back across the abyss of time that separated Jaypaw from those ancient cats.
    â€œYou will find your answers in the mountains,” he murmured at last. “Though they may not be the ones you most want to hear.”
    â€œWhat do you mean? Tell me now!” Jaypaw insisted.
    But Rock was beginning to fade. The patches of reflected moonlight on his skin, the silver gleam of his bulging eyes, thinned out like mist until Jaypaw could see nothing but the shimmer of starlight on rock and water. He shivered in a sudden cold breeze.
    â€œCome back!” he yowled.
    There was no reply. The starshine faded, and scents of tree and bracken filled his mouth. He was standing in adusky forest, in the midst of fern and grasses. Moonlight dappled the ground as it shone through gaps in the branches above his head. The air was warm, full of the tempting scents of prey.
    Just ahead of him, Leafpool was following a narrow path that wound between clumps of bracken. She paused and glanced back over her shoulder. “I wondered if you’d join me,” she mewed.
    Jaypaw was about to reply when the bushes just ahead of Leafpool rustled and a group of StarClan cats burst out into the open. Jaypaw spotted prey scurrying away from their claws.
    A blue-furred she-cat halted briefly to mew, “Greetings, Leafpool.” Leafpool dipped her head, but the she-cat bounded onward before she could speak. Another cat, a powerful white tom, gave Jaypaw a friendly flick over the ear with his tail as he sped past.
    Most of the StarClan warriors were intent on their prey. Their eyes were bright with delight in the hunt; their pelts gleamed and their muscles rippled in the moonlight. Jaypaw watched as each cat pounced on its prey and turned to race away with the limp body dangling from its jaws. He supposed they were taking it to some starry fresh-kill pile.
    Leafpool padded up to him and touched her nose to his shoulder. “You see the silver tabby over there?” She pointed with her tail to where a beautiful she-cat was leaping to catch a plump vole. “That’s Feathertail. She was Stormfur’s sister. She died in the mountains.”
    Jaypaw gazed curiously at the cat, wondering if she knew anything about the mountain cats’ ancestors.
    â€œCan we talk to her?”
    â€œShe might not wait for us,” Leafpool replied. “She’ll want to take her prey back to the StarClan camp.”
    â€œI want to ask her—” Jaypaw broke off as Feathertail bounded away. But she didn’t follow the other StarClan cats; she headed in a different direction, where the trees and bushes were thicker. “Where is she going?”
    â€œI don’t know.” Leafpool looked troubled.