Cover artist Bettina Kurkoski Language English Publication date June 24, 2008 Originally published 24 June 2008 Illustrator Bettina M. Kurkoski | Country United States Publisher HarperCollins Media type Print (Paperback) | |
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Series Warriors: The Prophecies Begin Characters Firestar, Brokenstar, Thistleclaw, Quince, Scourge Genres Children's literature, Fantasy Fiction Similar Erin Hunter books, Warriors: The Prophecies Begin books, Fantasy books | ||
The Rise of Scourge is an original English-language manga book written by Erin Hunter and Dan Jolley as part of the Warriors series. The Rise of Scourge is a stand-alone manga that details the rise to power of the BloodClan leader, Scourge. It is drawn by Bettina Kurkoski.
Plot summary
Tiny is the smallest of Quince's litter of three cats, which also includes Socks and Ruby. His brother and sister ignore him because of his size. Later, humans come to adopt Socks and Ruby, but they leave Tiny. His siblings tell him that as an unwanted kitten, he will be thrown into the river.
Despite being terrified of the stories of forest cats, Tiny runs into the forest to escape before he can be killed. He is met by a ThunderClan patrol of Bluefur, Thistleclaw, and Thistleclaw's apprentice Tigerpaw. Tigerpaw attempts to kill Tiny, but is stopped by Bluefur, who reminds him of the warrior code.
Tiny goes to the city and is mocked for his collar. He finds a dog tooth and attempts to break his collar with it, but it ends up embedded in the collar. When other cats ask him about it, Tiny says that he ripped it out of a dog's mouth after killing it. Two other loners, Bone and Brick, come ask him to help with a dog. The dog is scared of Tiny's shadow and runs away. Impressed, the cats ask him what his name is. Tiny remembers something his mother told him about how forest cats are a scourge on the name of all good cats, and decides to be named Scourge from now on.
Later, Scourge is asked to help drive away a gang of mean cats. When they tease him because of his size, he kills one of them to show the cats from the gang and his own cats what he is capable of. The gang cats are shocked and decide to go back to the forest.
Scourge is treated like a sort of leader among the city cats after the incident, and he becomes more of a dictator to them, though he remains discontent. After a while his littermates, Socks and Ruby, come to him for help because their housefolk betrayed them. He took revenge and sent them away with a small meal. Later, BloodClan is becoming more organized and Tigerpaw, now Tigerstar, comes asking for help. Scourge finally gains his happiness when he kills Tigerstar in retribution for the attack when they were younger. He was finally content. He also managed to kill Firestar's first life, leader of ThunderClan. Bluefur, now Bluestar in StarClan, blesses Firestar and Firestar awakes from his death. Firestar has managed to kill Scourge, and the rest of BloodClan is left in panic and without a leader. The former members of Bloodclan becomes rogues and goes their own ways. Eventually, the two brothers of Barley, Hoot and Jumper, gathers up former Bloodclan cats and creates a second version of Bloodclan but that all ends with Thunderclan yet again, destroys the former Bloodclan cats.