Raggedstar raised his son to be fierce enough to fight back against the teasing that came from having no mother; Raggedstar knew how it felt to be rejected by a parent. He was desperately proud of Brokentail and made him deputy as soon as he could, after Cloudpelt was killed in a skirmish with WindClan. But even Raggedstar’s ambition and readiness to fight paled beside Brokentail’s desire for power. Too late, Raggedstar realized that his son was training cats to fight to kill. He confessed to Yellowfang that he had made a terrible mistake in appointing Brokentail to be deputy so soon and tried to tell Brokentail to train less fiercely. Days later, Brokentail ambushed and killed his father in a remote part of the territory, blaming WindClan trespassers for his death.
SAGEWHISKER
SAGEWHISKER WAS THE MEDICINE cat before Yellowfang. She served Cedarstar and then Raggedstar, but died before she had to witness the cruelty of Brokenstar’s leadership. Sagewhisker had a prodigious memory for herbs and a gift for listening to StarClan, but her greatest strength lay in observing the cats around her. She was the first to realize that the young she-cat Yellowpaw, who would one day be Yellowfang, had a unique sensitivity to other cats’ ailments and felt their pain in sympathy. Sagewhisker encouraged Yellowpaw’s curiosity about berries and herbs, secretly hoping that Yellowpaw would ask to be apprenticed as a medicine cat.
But Yellowpaw seemed intent on following the path of a warrior despite her talents and earned the warrior name Yellowfang. Close questioning after a clash with the Twolegplace cats confirmed Sagewhisker’s suspicions that, even though Yellowfang had escaped with hardly a scratch, she knew exactly where her Clanmates had been hurt. Yellowfang still had her heart set on serving her Clan as a warrior, not a medicine cat, but Sagewhisker was patient. She knew that this was a decision Yellowfang had to reach on her own, and although she let Yellowfang help with herbs and treatments, she made no attempt to change her mind.
Eventually Yellowfang could no longer bear to fight alongside her Clanmates when she could feel every blow that was struck, and she asked Sagewhisker if she could train as a medicine cat. Without gloating, Sagewhisker agreed and helped Yellowfang find a way to block out the pain of other cats.
Soon after Yellowfang became a full medicine cat, Sagewhisker realized the young she-cat was expecting Raggedstar’s kits, and she wondered if she had made a terrible mistake. But Sagewhisker believed that being a medicine cat was more important than anything else, and she persuaded Yellowfang to tell Raggedstar so that their kits would have at least one parent in the Clan.
Yellowfang took her mentor’s advice, and gave Brokenkit up to Lizardstripe as soon as he was born.
Sagewhisker kept Yellowfang out of the nursery so she was not distracted by the sight of her son and gave her herbs to dry up her milk.
Sagewhisker died in her den, midway through sorting herbs. She had fulfilled her duty to her very last breath and trusted Yellowfang to do the same.
RUNNINGNOSE AND LITTLECLOUD
RUNNINGNOSE WAS CHOSEN BY Yellowfang to train as a ShadowClan medicine cat. Weaker than his littermates due to his tendency to catch every passing sickness, he was nonetheless cheerful and keen to learn. Yellowfang never did teach him to cure his own sniffles, but he became a skilled and well-respected medicine cat, loyal to his Clan above all else, and patient with the most querulous elder or fractious kit.
His life became much harder once Yellowfang was forced out of ShadowClan, leaving Runningnose in the grip of Brokenstar’s bloodthirsty rule. As younger and younger kits were trained to fight, Runningnose had to patch up the tiniest bodies when they returned injured and scared out of their fur. His heart broke for every scrap of life that was lost in Brokenstar’s obsessive quest to conquer his rivals.
Even when Brokenstar was captured by ThunderClan, and ShadowClan was free to choose a new leader, Runningnose shouldered the heavy burden of knowing that Nightstar had not been granted his nine lives. Brokenstar still had his final life, despite no longer leading ShadowClan, and StarClan believed Nightstar was too old and frail to give ShadowClan the leadership it needed. Both Nightstar and his medicine cat were left to lie to the rest of the Clan about the ceremony. Runningnose must have wondered how his path had led him to this, hiding a terrible secret from his precious Clanmates while he struggled to keep Nightstar strong enough to lead them.
Littlecloud was Runningnose’s apprentice. Born during Brokenstar’s rule, he was forced into warrior training when he was just three moons old. After already being a warrior, he was inspired to become a medicine cat after being rescued by Cinderpelt of ThunderClan during ShadowClan’s Great
Sickness. Disease from the rats at Carrionplace brought a different kind of death to ShadowClan, and Littlecloud escaped with Whitethroat into ThunderClan territory. Cinderpelt took pity on them and kept them hidden from passing patrols while she treated their sickness. They were eventually chased back to ShadowClan, where Littlecloud turned away from his warrior status to become a medicine cat.
Cinderpelt’s kind deed was rewarded by a fair and peaceful medicine cat in ShadowClan for many, many moons. Littlecloud was always willing to share herbs and experience with ThunderClan and watched out for blind Jayfeather on his first independent journeys to the Moonpool. He was devastated when his apprentice, Flametail, drowned after falling through ice on the lake, but unlike his Clanmates, he didn’t blame Jayfeather for failing to save him. For Littlecloud, everything was a test of his faith in StarClan, and that never faltered throughout his long life.
BROKENSTAR
BORN IN SECRET TO the ShadowClan medicine cat Yellowfang and raised by Lizardstripe, a queen who had no wish to nurse an extra mouth at her belly, Brokenstar walked a twisted path from the start.
From the moment he opened his eyes, he was determined to prove to his Clanmates that he was stronger, braver, and more ferocious than they could ever be. Unflinchingly loyal to his Clan and the warrior code, he quickly became deputy to the leader, his father, Raggedstar—and then killed Raggedstar in order to become leader himself, despite knowing that he was sending his own father to StarClan.
When he stood at the head of ShadowClan, Brokenstar oversaw a reign of terror, unleashing attacks on WindClan and training the smallest kits to fight in the thick of battle. When Yellowfang could no longer bear to treat the wounds on cats who should still have been in the nursery, she spoke out against this practice and was exiled from the Clan. Brokenstar continued his bloodthirsty leadership, driving out WindClan and setting his sights on taking over ThunderClan territory too. But he overextended himself—and underestimated his neighbors—and ended up blind and captive in the ThunderClan camp. Yellowfang grudgingly cared for him, still without telling him the truth about his birth.
When Brokenstar plotted with Tigerstar to launch an attack on ThunderClan from within, Yellowfang took it upon herself to end her son’s bloodstained life. Feeding him deathberries, she told him exactly who had kitted him, and how he had brought his destruction upon himself.
Brokenstar continued to rage against the Clans from the Dark Forest, joining with Tigerstar to recruit discontented cats in their dreams. In the final, desperate battle, Yellowfang came from StarClan to obliterate her only son, breaking his neck and sending him out of the Clans forever.