Bone was Scourge’s closest ally—never viewed by Scourge as his equal, but valued for his brute strength and absolute courage in the fiercest battle. He walked ahead of Scourge into the forest, and for a moment the Clan cats assumed that this huge, ferocious tom was the one who led BloodClan. He died in the same battle as Scourge, killed by a swarm of apprentices after he took the ThunderClan deputy Whitestorm’s life. No cat could have doubted Bone’s loyalty to his cruel leader, and perhaps it is a tragedy that he never had the chance to live the life of a true Clan warrior.
SOL
SOL WAS A GINGER , black, and white loner with a deep desire to destroy the warrior Clans. This anger came from an incident in his early life. An encounter with SkyClan cats led him to join their Clan in the gorge, but though he tried to fit in with his new Clanmates, he was too selfish, too impulsive to be guided by the warrior code. Trying to help Leafstar only caused more trouble and, in a last desperate attempt to impress her, Sol took three kits and hid them far from the gorge so that he could play a triumphant role in finding them. But his plot was discovered and Sol was banished from the Clan, and warned by Leafstar that he could never be a true warrior. From that moment on, Sol was determined to hunt down every Clan cat he could find and prove to them that their code was worthless.
Sol’s luck turned when he met Midnight, the badger with a deep connection to the Clans. He used her to glean information about the Clans and when he arrived by the lake, he was able to use that knowledge to appear mysterious and wise to the Clan cats.
He went first to ThunderClan, insisting he meant no harm and that he was only curious about the cats he had heard so much about. But he quickly began sowing seeds of discontent, telling Jaypaw and Leafpool that a terrible darkness was coming. This coincided with Jaypaw’s own vision of blackness descending upon the forest. But as Sol had no connection to StarClan, Leafpool was disinclined to listen to him, and Firestar sent Sol away.
During a ferocious battle on ThunderClan territory that involved all four Clans pitched against one another, the sun vanished, plunging the forest into the darkness that Sol had prophesied. His prediction of the eclipse was a fortunate guess: He may have foretold a “coming darkness” and the loss of the sun, but this could have been interpreted as any kind of momentous change to affect the Clans. The fact that the sun actually disappeared played monumentally to his advantage, and set Sol on the path that almost led him to destroy the Clans forever.
Sol soon found an able audience with Blackstar, who was already in the depths of despair because of the troubles faced by his Clan in their new home. Sol encouraged Blackstar to give up the warrior code, to let his Clanmates hunt for themselves and take care of their own ailments. Under Sol’s influence, Blackstar forbade his warriors from attending Gatherings, and his medicine cats from going to the Moonpool.
ShadowClan began to collapse from within, to the dismay of other Clans. It fell to Jaypaw’s faked StarClan sign to restore Blackstar’s faith and lead to Sol’s banishment. But that wasn’t the last the Clans heard of this cat. When the warrior Ashfur was killed in mysterious circumstances, many
ThunderClan cats believed Sol was responsible. Brambleclaw led a patrol to track him down, and the ThunderClan cats eventually found Sol in the ruins of Purdy’s Twoleg den. They escorted both cats back to the hollow, where Sol was taken prisoner and accused of Ashfur’s murder. All this time, Sol remained calm, poised, unruffled, as if he knew more than the warriors would know in a dozen lifetimes. The other Clans were outraged to learn that Firestar had brought the troublesome cat back to the lake and insisted he be exiled once and for all.
Seasons later, Sol came back to ThunderClan. Many ThunderClan warriors viewed him with deep suspicion, but others believed he had chased off a fox that had been about to attack a pair of apprentices, and welcomed him. Sol took advantage of the young cats who had barely known him before and encouraged them to plan an attack on WindClan. At the same time, he secretly visited WindClan to stir up anger toward ThunderClan. Luckily Dovewing and Ivypool overheard his plot, and ThunderClan was ready for the attack. In the battle, Hollyleaf took on Sol and defeated him, threatening to kill him if he dared show his face in the forest again. Sol left, but behind him lay fretful, disunited Clans, vulnerable to the influences of the Dark Forest.
Sol came close to destroying the Clans by the lake, but the code held strong, and Sol remained as alone and bitter as he had always been.
ROCK
ROCK WAS DISCOVERED BY Jaypaw in the tunnels beneath ThunderClan after they moved to their home beside the lake. Rock was an alarming sight, lurking in the darkness: hairless, hunched, with bulging, sightless blue eyes. No cat knew when he first entered the tunnels—if, indeed, he had ever lived in the open air. He was already a legend when a young cat of the Ancients, Fallen Leaves, entered the tunnels to begin his initiation as a sharpclaw. Rock kept count of the cats who survived the test and made it back out to the hillside, marking each success with a scratch on a piece of wood.
Rock watched Lionpaw and Heatherpaw play in the underground cavern, tolerating the disturbance because so much solitude could weigh heavy, even on him. When three WindClan kits got lost in the tunnels and Jaypaw and Hollypaw joined the others to search for them, Rock revealed himself to Jaypaw, recognizing in the blind medicine cat someone who would understand the messages he had to pass on. He helped Jaypaw find the kits and escape from the flooding caves, and he sent his scratched stick out with them, to remind Jaypaw of the history he had stumbled upon.
When Jaypaw traveled to the mountains to stay with the Tribe of Rushing Water, Rock walked in his dreams and took him to the Tribe of Endless Hunting, showing him that there were ancestors other than just StarClan. More than that, these cats were connected to the Clans, because they had come from the lake and then sent some of their kin to settle in the forest. Rock, together with the Tribe of Endless Hunting, had been waiting for Jaypaw to come for a long time, knowing that the future of the Clans lay in his paws.
Rock guided Jaypaw to walk among the Ancients as Jay’s Wing, where he played a crucial role in sending the cats to find a new home in the mountains. There was nothing Rock could do to prevent the battle with the Dark Forest, but he could show Jaypaw just how important it was that the cats beside the lake survived, keeping alive the circle of sharpclaws, prey-hunters, cave-guards, and warriors that had rolled out since the very first sunrise over the lake.
But he also blamed the very existence of the Three for the threat that faced the cats by the lake. If Jayfeather, Lionblaze, and Dovewing had not come, they would not have fulfilled the prophecy that involved the Dark Forest rising. In his rage, Rock blamed the Clans too, for clinging to the memories of the cats who had done them wrong, preserving their existence in the Place of No Stars and giving them enough power to walk in the dreams of restless warriors.
Rock didn’t take part in the Great Battle, but he watched from the tunnels, knowing that the prophecy had come true and the Three—with Firestar—had saved the cats that lived beside the lake in this age. There would be others, and others after them. And Rock would watch over them all, tireless, blind, and alone in his underground world.
FALLEN LEAVES