Эрин Хантер - The Ultimate Guide

With another Twolegplace rogue named Red, Boulder went to ShadowClan and asked Cedarstar to accept him as a warrior—and Cedarstar agreed. Boulder was given Mousewing as his mentor, but refused to change his name—a decision that was seen as a challenge by the warriors, but was due to nothing more than Boulder’s attachment to the name his mother had given him as a kit.

Boulder trained hard, proving himself to be a courageous and skillful fighter, and his origins were soon forgotten. He was an outspoken supporter of Tigerstar when he came to ShadowClan, seeing in the former ThunderClan deputy the bold and fearless leader that could restore ShadowClan to its former strength. And when Tigerstar announced his plans to take power over the whole forest, it was Boulder who suggested an alliance with the Twolegplace cats. Boulder visited Twolegplace on Tigerstar’s behalf to speak with Scourge, the new leader of the rogues and former kittypets. But Boulder was too trusting, and when Scourge came to the forest, he killed Tigerstar and took on all four Clans in battle.

Desperate to make amends, Boulder fought with the strength of a horde of badgers to defeat the BloodClan cats. He never mentioned his Twolegplace roots from that moment on and remained a loyal ShadowClan warrior until his peaceful death in the elders’ den, in his Clan’s new home beside the lake.

BORN IN THUNDERCLAN, BRAMBLECLAW’S littermate and the daughter of Tigerstar and Goldenflower, Tawnypaw was a bright and confident apprentice, with a quickness of temper that sometimes led her into clashes with her Clanmates, especially when her loyalty was questioned. She was horrified to learn the truth behind her father’s exile, which had happened when she was still a kit, and insisted that her loyalty was to ThunderClan only, refusing her father’s continued requests to join him in ShadowClan once he became their leader.

When Tigerstar allied his Clan with RiverClan and started to drive out all cats with half-Clan blood, Tawnypaw found herself judged more and more harshly by her Clanmates for the crimes of her father. Pushed to the breaking point by Smallear’s comparison of her with Tigerstar because she seemed to share her father’s reluctance for clearing out the elders’ den, Tawnypaw left her home and went to find acceptance in ShadowClan. Even after Tigerstar’s death in the battle with BloodClan, Tawnypaw stayed with her adopted Clan, gaining her warrior name—Tawnypelt—and earning Blackstar’s trust.

Tawnypelt went on the quest to the sun-drown-place as the representative of ShadowClan, where her courage and willingness to look beyond Clan boundaries made the unlikely group of cats bond much more quickly. She was less hasty to dismiss Crowfeather because of his sullenness and quick temper, and encouraged Feathertail to see past his shy exterior to the qualities beneath. Given that Feathertail died saving Crowfeather from the mountain lion, Sharptooth, perhaps Tawnypelt regretted this later.

Tawnypelt was visited by Tigerstar in her dreams, just like Brambleclaw, but she refused to accept his offer of secret training because she knew her father would never help her achieve what she wanted most: security, peace, and loyalty to one Clan above all. Instead, she found this in Rowanclaw, who fathered her three kits: Flametail, Dawnpelt, and Tigerheart.

Tawnypelt proved that being loyal didn’t mean treating all other cats as enemies. She stayed friendly with Brambleclaw and other ThunderClan cats and raised her kits to have the same sense of fairness. While Brambleclaw never completely escaped the shadow cast by their father, Tawnypelt lived her life entirely free of Tigerstar’s influence and reputation, with an independence and sense of purpose that Tigerstar himself would have been proud of.

FLAMETAIL WAS THE SON of Tawnypelt and Rowanclaw, and littermate to Dawnpelt and Tigerheart.

When he was an apprentice, but had not yet been given a mentor, Blackstar lost faith in StarClan and followed the advice of a rogue named Sol to let each cat choose his own path. Tawnypelt had no wish for her kits to grow up in a Clan that no longer listened to its warrior ancestors, so she took them to ThunderClan and asked for shelter. Flamepaw was particularly angry about Blackstar’s change of heart because he was on the verge of being apprenticed to Littlecloud the medicine cat, but all the same, he and his littermates were intrigued to meet Lionblaze, Jaypaw, and Hollyleaf, who were kin because their father, Brambleclaw, was Tawnypelt’s brother.

When Jaypaw came up with the idea to fake a sign from StarClan, Flamepaw and his littermates were keen to help. When Blackstar was trapped by the uprooted saplings, Flamepaw was rewarded by the sight of Runningnose and Raggedstar visiting the forest to speak with the ShadowClan leader.

This sealed his belief in StarClan and made him even more determined to become a medicine cat.

After the apprentices returned to ShadowClan, he was indeed apprenticed to Littlecloud.

He was faced with a lot of responsibility early on when Littlecloud became ill, but Flametail was confident in his skills and successfully treated his Clanmates after the battle with ThunderClan in which Russetfur died. On a visit to the Moonpool, Flametail was warned by Raggedstar’s spirit that a time of war was coming, and that the Clans would have to stand alone in order to survive. Littlecloud disagreed, refusing to believe that medicine cat allegiances across Clan borders could ever be threatened. But with Littlecloud confined to the elders’ den by his sickness, Flametail was able to convince Blackstar that they had to heed their ancestors’ warning and cut themselves off from the other Clans.

As well as Raggedstar’s dire prophecy, Flametail started to experience dreadful visions of drowning, being engulfed in black water and trapped by ice. Even slipping into a shallow puddle brought these images crashing into his mind. He interpreted it as yet more warning that a terrible time of darkness was rising up to overwhelm the Clans and worked harder to prepare for the battle that seemed inevitable.

Seeing that the young medicine cat was exhausted and haunted by his dreams, Dawnpelt and Olivenose persuaded Flametail to play a game of prey-stone on the frozen lake. The ice broke beneath

Flametail’s paws, sending him down to a cold, watery death. He was aware of Jayfeather diving down to help him, and another, hairless, unfamiliar cat nudging Jayfeather away, back to the surface and the air. Flametail was left to drown and was forced to watch his Clanmates battle against the Dark Forest from his place in StarClan.

RUNNINGNOSE REACHED THE DARK, yawning hole below the jagged peaks and stepped aside. “After you, Tigerclaw,” he murmured.

Tigerclaw walked past the gray-muzzled medicine cat and stood at the mouth of the tunnel. Dank shadows that tasted of stone lapped at his paws. Above their heads, a sharp wind hurled itself against