In the final confrontation with the Dark Forest, Spottedleaf gave her life in the stars to save Sandstorm, one last gift to her beloved Firestar.
GRAYSTRIPE AND MILLIE
AS AN APPRENTICE, GRAYPAW’S boldness and bravery led him to be the first Clan cat to approach Rusty the kittypet, who went on to become Firestar. This boldness would lead him into trouble more than once—but it was the same courage and impulsive generosity that moved him and Fireheart to catch food for RiverClan when the river was poisoned, and to travel far beyond the territories to rescue WindClan after they had been chased out by ShadowClan.
Like Bluestar, Graystripe fell in love with a RiverClan cat: Silverstream, daughter of Crookedstar. Silverstream died giving birth to Graystripe’s kits, Stormkit and Featherkit, and when ThunderClan failed to treat these kits with the kindness that Graystripe hoped for, he took them back to their mother’s Clan. It tore him apart to leave his Clan—and his best friend, Fireheart—but he believed that RiverClan was the only place where they’d be truly welcomed. Stormkit and Featherkit thrived, eventually taking the warrior names Stormfur and Feathertail, but Graystripe returned to ThunderClan when he realized that his loyalties were not to his kits’ Clan, but to his own.
When Twolegs began to destroy the forest to make way for a new Thunderpath, they set traps for the cats in their way. Graystripe was captured while risking his life to free others, and was taken away to live with Twolegs. Although treated kindly, he never forgot that he was a warrior and always yearned to find the Clan he had lost.
While imprisoned by Twolegs, he met a kittypet named Millie who loved him enough to travel with him all the way to the lake where the Clans had made new homes. Graystripe was welcomed like a returning hero, but it was Millie’s determination that got them out of Twolegplace, and her untiring encouragement that helped Graystripe find his lost Clanmates. Millie quickly learned to hunt for prey and fight as well as any warrior, but she refused to take a warrior name or be ashamed of where she had come from. Because of this, some cats always questioned her loyalty to the warrior code—though never within earshot of Graystripe.
SANDSTORM
WHEN RUSTY THE KITTYPET first joined ThunderClan, Sandpaw sided with fellow apprentice Dustpaw in tormenting him. But the former kittypet, who would eventually come to be known as Firestar, soon made a very different impression on her, as she began to appreciate his courage and loyalty to his adopted Clan. He slowly came to realize how important she was to him as well, and Sandstorm’s friendship and support were especially important to Firestar as he prepared for the battle against BloodClan. Firestar was determined to save the forest from Scourge and had heard StarClan’s prophecy that he was the only one who could do so. But Sandstorm was the cat who made Firestar believe that he was doing the right thing by fighting the cats from Twolegplace and that he would be able to defeat them.
Sandstorm was a proud and committed warrior and her courage equaled Firestar’s on the journey to rebuild SkyClan in the sandy gorge far from the forest. Sandstorm took on the role of medicine cat to help the scattered Clanmates, and she matched Firestar blow for blow in the battle against the rats, even though she had only a single life to lose. She was an excellent mother to Squirrelflight and Leafpool, and stood by her daughters when the truth came out about Lionblaze, Hollyleaf, and Jayfeather.
Sandstorm had a quick temper and a strong sense of what was right, which Firestar respected. Next to his deputies and his medicine cats, Sandstorm was the cat he consulted most often before making any decisions for the Clan. She spoke up for the cats in ThunderClan who shied away from the traditional warrior lifestyle, in particular Daisy, who came from the horseplace by the lake. Sandstorm defended Daisy’s wish to stay in the nursery and help other queens, instead of joining border or hunting patrols.
Sandstorm would have loved to have had more kits, but she knew that Firestar had enough demands made on him by the rest of the Clan. She shared his sense of responsibility to all of the cats who lived in the hollow, and never wished that their lives could have been different.
BRIGHTHEART AND CLOUDTALL
BRIGHTHEART’S RAVAGED FACE REMINDED every cat of the attack from Tigerstar’s half-trained pack of dogs. But Brightheart only remembered when she saw her reflection in a pool of water—so she avoided drinking from anything except fast-flowing streams. She tried hard to forget the horror and pain of the mauling, and to ignore the flinches that came from strangers seeing her for the first time. Far from being treated like an invalid, Brightheart hunted and fought alongside her Clanmates and spent time with every apprentice, training them in specialized battle skills to use if one of their own eyes were injured. She possessed the true beauty that comes from courage, loyalty, and devotion—but she had no wish to see her own face.
Happily, despite her scars, Brightheart’s life turned into everything she ever dreamed of: She and Cloudtail had two litters of kits, and their daughter Whitewing had her own kits, Dovewing and Ivypool, who played a critical part in saving the Clans from the Dark Forest.
Cloudtail never flinched from Brightheart’s scars. But then he knew how it felt to be different, not just because of his fluffy, white pelt that older warriors scorned for the way its brightness stood out to every piece of prey. Cloudtail was the son of Firestar’s kittypet sister, Princess. She gave him up to be raised as a ThunderClan warrior. As an apprentice, Cloudpaw struggled at first; he even went back to the kittypet life until StarClan—and Fireheart—gave him a second chance.
Cloudtail made the long journey from the forest to the lake, helped establish his Clan in a new home far from anything they had known before, and risked his own life to save his Clanmates from badgers, storms, and illness—all without believing in StarClan. But he did believe in the battle between good and evil, and he fought as fiercely as any warrior against the cats of the Dark Forest. In the end, loyalty to the warrior code and to his Clanmates mattered more than anything else.
YELLOWFANG
YELLOWFANG WAS THE EXILED ShadowClan medicine cat discovered on an early solo patrol by Firepaw, who would one day become Firestar. His act of kindness in giving her a piece of fresh-kill was punished by Bluestar because he had broken the warrior code of feeding elders and kits from his own Clan first. As a result, Firepaw was ordered to feed and care for Yellowfang in her first moons in the Clan, where she was viewed with suspicion because of ThunderClan’s long rivalry with bloodthirsty ShadowClan. In spite of Yellowfang’s simmering anger at being treated like a prisoner, she formed a strong bond with the young kittypet-turned-warrior, a connection that lasted beyond her death.
Yellowfang was cranky, stubborn, impatient—and the most loyal cat you could ever meet. Her whole life was a quest for loyalty—to ShadowClan, to her role as their medicine cat, to the son that she bore in secret, and then to ThunderClan after her exile. Yellowfang’s biggest mistake was her love for Raggedstar, leader of ShadowClan, despite knowing that medicine cats are forbidden from having mates or kits. When Yellowfang’s bitter, neglected son, Brokenstar, became ShadowClan’s leader and made the forest run red with the blood of kits too young to fight, Yellowfang’s loyalty to what she knew to be right led to Brokenstar exiling her and forcing her across the border to ThunderClan.
She blamed herself wholly for Brokenstar’s brutality, and when he was finally defeated during a raid on the ThunderClan camp, she persuaded Bluestar to let him stay there, blind and captive. Just a few moons later, Yellowfang discovered that Brokenstar had plotted with Tigerclaw and some rogues against the Clan that had given him food and shelter. Wracked with guilt, Yellowfang fed deathberries to her own son: It was the only solution she could find for a problem she believed she had caused. Her loyalty to ThunderClan was proven beyond all doubt when she died saving her adopted Clanmates from a fire that swept through their camp. Fireheart grieved as if he had lost his own mother.
CINDERPELT
CINDERPELT WAS A MEDICINE cat who should have been a warrior. She was F
ireheart’s first apprentice, but when she was struck by a monster on the Thunderpath, she injured her hind leg so badly that she had to give up all her hopes of hunting and fighting for her Clan. In spite of her disappointment, she trained fiercely as Yellowfang’s apprentice and became a skilled and reliable medicine cat. She fought hard to save Silverstream’s life at the birth of Graystripe’s kits and was always haunted by her failure. Cinderpelt tried to make amends by helping two sickly ShadowClan cats who sought refuge in ThunderClan’s territory; this forged a strong, lasting friendship with one of them, Littlecloud, who went on to become ShadowClan’s medicine cat.
Cinderpelt didn’t have the same sensitivity to StarClan that other medicine cats have had; for example, she interpreted blades of burning grass as a warning that Brambleclaw and Squirrelflight would unite—fire and tiger—to destroy ThunderClan. In fact, those cats’ quest to the sun-drown-place saved the Clan by finding them a new home.
But StarClan did not blame Cinderpelt for her mistake. They understood that she should never have been a medicine cat. Her warrior ancestors gave her one more test before deciding to give her a second chance: Led by Bluestar, they told Cinderpelt when she would die and then let her live with that knowledge even though her apprentice, Leafpool, was on the brink of leaving the Clan to be with the WindClan warrior Crowfeather. Cinderpelt went on in the shadow of her own death with such courage and dignity, resisting the temptation to beg Leafpool to stay, that she proved herself worthy of a second life, returning to ThunderClan at the moment of her final breath as one of Sorreltail’s kits, Cinderheart.
LEAFPOOL
IN CONTRAST WITH ClNDERPELT, Leafpool was always destined to be a medicine cat. From birth, she had a special sensitivity to other cats, particularly her sister. As young apprentices, Leafpaw and Squirrelpaw could always sense where the other was and what they were feeling. StarClan fostered this link because they knew Squirrelpaw would be journeying far from the forest—farther than any Clan cat had been before—and they needed a cat back home to be aware of what she was going through.
For a while it seemed that, young as she was, Leafpool knew what lay around every corner and over every horizon. She knew the Clans had found their new homes when they reached the lake; she knew that Brambleclaw would make a strong and loyal deputy for ThunderClan; she even knew that blood would spill blood before the Clans were truly settled around the lake—and she watched with her own eyes as Brambleclaw killed his half brother, Hawkfrost, to save Firestar.
But the one thing Leafpool did not foresee was falling in love with a WindClan warrior, Crowfeather. Like Yellowfang before her, she broke the warrior code and bore kits: Lionkit, Hollykit, and Jaykit. To keep Leafpool’s secret, Squirrelflight raised the kits as her own, even convincing her mate, Brambleclaw, that they were his. Leafpool suffered the pain of watching her kits grow up without them knowing she was their mother.
When her secret was discovered by Hollyleaf and blurted out at a Gathering of all the Clans, Leafpool was forced to give up her role as ThunderClan’s medicine cat and become a warrior instead. To add to her agony, her kits hated her for lying to them, especially Jayfeather, who became medicine cat in her place. But Leafpool never judged them, and she served her Clan with quiet loyalty until Jayfeather realized that her skills and experience were too precious to lose and invited her to return to the medicine den alongside him.
SQUIRRELFLIGHT
IF LEAFPOOL WAS LIKE water—calm, deep, reflecting the stars—then Squirrelflight was fire. She had enough energy to scorch every tree in the forest, and a tongue that could leave scars in beech bark. She was passionately loyal to her Clan and incapable of doing anything but what she believed to be right—including taking on her sister’s kits and making their Clanmates believe they were Squirrelflight’s own.
Squirrelpaw was still an apprentice when she insisted on joining Brambleclaw on the quest to sun-drown-place, following the message from StarClan that they must “listen to what midnight tells you.” Midnight turned out to be a wise, old badger who steered the cats toward their new home by the lake. Squirrelpaw proved herself to be a brave, feisty companion to the other cats on the quest, demonstrating the courage of her father, Firestar, and the quiet determination of her mother, Sandstorm. For a while on the journey, it seemed as if she was growing close to the RiverClan warrior, Stormfur, but it was Brambleclaw who captured her heart.
Once the Clans had settled by the lake, Ashfur fell in love with Squirrelflight, noticing something behind the mischief and the fire, when Brambleclaw saw only a quarrelsome nuisance. But though Ashfur would have been loyal to the end, he failed to appreciate the strength beneath her impulsive ways. Squirrelflight needed someone to match her fire, not contain it, and that cat was always going to be Brambleclaw.
Squirrelflight watched Brambleclaw raise Lionblaze, Hollyleaf, and Jayfeather as his own, a fair and devoted father. When the truth came out that the kits were Leafpool’s, Brambleclaw couldn’t forgive Squirrelflight for lying to him. Squirrelflight accepted his anger as her punishment; the death of Ashfur and the shame she had brought to the whole of ThunderClan meant that she didn’t feel worthy of being loved. But she never stopped being unwaveringly loyal to her Clan, and fought like a lion in the battle against the Dark Forest. When Brambleclaw became leader after Firestar’s death, there was only one cat he could choose to be his deputy: Squirrelflight, his former mate, the cat he knew he could trust to his very last breath.
BRAMBLECLAW
THE SON OF TIGERSTAR was always going to walk a path of light and shadow, torn between the courage and ambition he inherited from his father and loyalty toward the Clan his father had tried to destroy. Brambleclaw was the first cat chosen by StarClan to go on the quest to find Midnight, and the fact that Firestar didn’t hesitate to trust him sent a clear signal to his Clanmates that Brambleclaw should not be judged for Tigerstar’s sins. Though still a young and inexperienced warrior, Brambleclaw led the five other cats through Twolegplaces and across mountains to the sun-drown-place. He endured the return journey, keeping his little band of warriors together even after Feathertail’s tragic death in the Cave of Rushing Water, and inspired Firestar and the other Clan leaders to set out in search of a new, safer home.
But at the same time he showed the greatest courage in saving his Clanmates, Brambleclaw was also walking with Tigerstar in his dreams, letting his father nurture his ambitions to lead his Clan, and scheming with his RiverClan half brother, Hawkfrost, to destroy the weaker Clans. Brambleclaw stepped as close as he possibly could to the path of vengeance and bloodthirsty destruction that Tigerstar had planned for so long. But at the last moment, faced with the possibility of Firestar losing his lives in a trap set by Hawkfrost, Brambleclaw realized where his loyalties truly lay. He killed Hawkfrost, fulfilling the prophecy that “before all is peaceful, blood will spill blood,” and turned his back on Tigerstar’s attempts to corrupt him.
Brambleclaw’s greatest challenge after that was becoming a father to Lionblaze, Hollyleaf, and Jayfeather, a challenge that he relished as he watched the kits grow up into strong, loyal members of ThunderClan. His heart was broken when he learned that Crowfeather of WindClan was their real father, and Squirrelflight had lied to him all along. But he kept a check on his rage, stayed loyal to his Clan, and served Firestar well as his deputy. Deep down, Brambleclaw knew that Squirrelflight had followed the only path she could to keep her sister’s kits safe from hostility and rejection. He missed her wisdom, her generous spirit, and her impulsive desire to help others, and he wanted no other cat beside him as deputy when he became ThunderClan’s leader.
ASHFUR
ASHFUR TRULY LOVED SQUIRRELFLIGHT and was bitterly hurt when she passed him over in favor of Brambleclaw. That was the defense he would offer for his dramatic—and terrible—actions on top of the cliff in the midst of a thunderstorm, when he threatened to kill Squirrelflight’s kits to punish her. There was no way he could have expected the reaction he received
, which was Squirrelflight telling him that the three cats meant nothing to her because she was not their real mother.
Now Ashfur had an even more powerful weapon to use against Squirrelflight: the chance to reveal to the Clan that she had been lying to them about Lionblaze, Hollyleaf, and Jayfeather. Would Ashfur really have done this, knowing it would hurt Squirrelflight more than dying with her secret untold?
It was too great a risk for Hollyleaf, who tracked Ashfur to the stream on the boundary with WindClan and fatally wounded him. It was a tragic and unfortunate end for a cat whose greatest fault had been loving too much. He was a strong, brave warrior, and a good mentor for Lionblaze because he was able to shape the young cat’s raw talent for fighting into powerful, well-practiced techniques. Ashfur may not have been a close friend of Firestar, but that didn’t stop him from being trustworthy, loyal to his Clan, and a valuable warrior in the thick of battle. In different circumstances—if the cat who he loved had loved him back—he might have led a noble, well-respected life, perhaps even become deputy and leader. But his rivalry with Brambleclaw, and the love for Squirrelflight that soured so cruelly, put him on a path that led only to tragedy.
LIONBLAZE