Эрин Хантер - The Ultimate Guide

Our warriors can fight as bravely as any, but we are called lazy and cowardly by the other Clans because we rarely venture into battle. We have no need: If no cats are willing to soak their paws crossing the river to attack us, why should we pick battles with them? The exception was Sunningrocks. Those rocks were ours! When cats first settled in the forest, the river flowed on both sides, cutting them off from ThunderClan and leaving them a short swim from our camp. The river changed direction, giving ThunderClan dry-paw access to the rocks, and those greedy cats instantly claimed them as their own. More blood was shed trying to take them back than I care to remember.

Sunningrocks was won and lost, won and lost, every season until we finally left the forest.

Now every Clan lives beside water, although we are still the only cats that swim for our prey. At first we settled on the island, but when StarClan sent the tree-bridge, it was claimed as our new

Gathering place, so we have made our territory around a stream that flows into the lake. We have been threatened by curious Twoleg kits and a poisonous pool, but RiverClan quietly endures, taking pride in our independence and our strong-swimming cats.

WHEN CROOKEDSTAR WAS BORN , he was called Stormkit, but a fall while playing broke his jaw and his mother, Rainflower, renamed him. It seemed to Crookedkit that his mother never recovered from the disappointment of having a disfigured son. She showered attention on his brother, Oakkit, instead, leaving Crookedkit restless and discontent. He left the Clan when he was still a kit and lived with farm cats instead, learning to hunt through fields of wheat, free from the warrior code. But deep down, he was still a Clan cat, and he returned home, was given the apprentice name Crookedpaw, and eventually earned the warrior name Crookedjaw.

In his dreams, he walked with Mapleshade, a cat with revenge in her heart, who let him assume she was from StarClan although she was confined to the Dark Forest. She agreed to make him the most powerful RiverClan warrior of all, if he vowed that nothing would ever be more important to him than his Clan. Crookedpaw could see no trickery in this and made the promise. Mapleshade trained him hard, honed his skills, but also expected Crookedpaw to stand by and watch as, one by one, the cats he loved most were taken away from him.

Crookedjaw proved his worth many times over with his skill at hunting on land and in the river.

He never seemed to be able to do enough to please his mother, but he soon won the affection of his denmate Willowbreeze. Mapleshade tested him by luring a Twoleg kit to Willowbreeze, allowing her to be captured and taken back to Twolegplace. Crookedjaw rescued her with the help of her sister, Graypool—and he knew exactly what Mapleshade had done. He was beginning to realize that he had made a terrible promise that would leave him isolated in the midst of the Clan, but Mapleshade would not release him.

A stray dog in the RiverClan camp sent Crookedjaw racing to help, but he was faced with the dreadful choice of saving his Clanmates or rescuing his mother, who had been knocked into the river.

Urged on by Mapleshade, Crookedjaw went to help the other warriors, and Rainflower died.

Crookedjaw never forgot the moment when he lost his mother, and with her, the chance of ever winning her love.

When Shellheart retired from Clan deputy, the broken jaws of a pike on the fresh-kill pile predicted that Crookedjaw should take his place, despite being so young. Mapleshade took the credit for damaging the fish, and that night Crookedjaw finally realized that he was being trained among

Dark Forest warriors and dissatisfied, angry cats from other Clans, including Thistleclaw of ThunderClan. Horrified that he was being asked to kill to secure victory—against the warrior code—Crookedjaw vowed never to return.

But Mapleshade reminded him of the promise he had made, and slowly Crookedjaw’s world fell apart. His brother, Oakheart, fell in love with Bluefur, a ThunderClan warrior, and compromised his loyalty to RiverClan. An expedition to hunt rats in a nearby barn, suggested by Crookedjaw, led to the death of Hailstar, plunging Crookedstar too soon into leadership. And then greencough took

Willowbreeze and two of their new-kitted daughters, leaving just one, Silverkit, for Crookedstar to raise alone.

For a while Crookedstar thought Mapleshade’s curse had lifted, but his daughter Silverstream fell in love with Graystripe, a ThunderClan warrior, and died giving birth to his kits on the other side of the river, in the shadow of Sunningrocks. Thanks to Mapleshade, Crookedstar had achieved

everything he had ever wanted—and lost everything that mattered. It is to his credit that he hid so much of his private torment and was regarded as a strong, fair-minded leader throughout the forest.

BORN IN THUNDERCLAN, MAPLESHADE was a keen and loyal apprentice, and a bold, skillful warrior.

Her single-minded pursuit of the warrior code, and the courage with which she faced every enemy—cat, fox, or badger—stirred up whispers among her Clanmates that she would soon be deputy, and then leader. Mapleshade reveled in their admiration and burned inside with ambition.

But then she made the tragic mistake of falling in love with a RiverClan warrior named Appledusk. She managed to keep their relationship a secret, creeping out at night to meet him beside the river, until the moment she gave birth. None of her Clanmates stepped forward as the father of her kits, and the medicine cat recognized the proud, handsome RiverClan warrior instantly in the shape of the tiny heads and the way they held their stubby tails.

Mapleshade was cast out by her Clanmates, banished for betraying ThunderClan and the warrior code. In desperation, Mapleshade tried to swim across the river with her kits, to seek refuge in their father’s Clan. But the river was swollen from leaf-fall rain, and her kits were swept away.

Mapleshade almost drowned trying to save them, but they were already gone, whisked out of her grasp like sodden little leaves. She made it to the other side, but to her horror, Appledusk blamed her when he learned what had happened. He wanted nothing more to do with her, and RiverClan refused to let her stay, not even for one night.

Cast out by the one cat she loved, and by the Clan she had hoped would give her shelter, Mapleshade became a rogue. Her hatred for RiverClan and ThunderClan festered and, unable to get revenge while she was alive, she plotted against them when she walked in the shadows of the Dark

Forest. When she saw young Crookedkit—rejected by his mother, cut off from his Clanmates, restless with unfocused ambition—she pounced. She promised to make all his hopes come true in return for one thing: that he would hold his Clan more precious than anything else in the world. Crookedkit agreed, not seeing that loyalty to an entire Clan was not the same as loving a single cat.