Survivors (novel series)

Survivors is a novel series written by a team of authors under the pseudonym Erin Hunter, who also wrote the Warriors series. Survivors follows the adventures of a group of former-pet dogs who form a pack with the help of Lucky, a lone dog, after an earthquake separates them from their owners. The first book The Empty City was released on 21 August 2012, and was followed by A Hidden Enemy on 7 May 2013, Darkness Falls on 3 September 2013, The Broken Path on 11 February 2014, The Endless Lake on 3 June 2014, and Storm of Dogs released on 10 February 2015.

Survivors

Boxed set containing the first three books
The Empty City A Hidden Enemy Darkness Falls The Broken Path The Endless Lake Storm of Dogs The Gathering Darkness: A Pack Divided The Gathering Darkness: Dead of Night The Gathering Darkness: Into the Shadows The Gathering Darkness: Red Moon Rising The Gathering Darkness: The Exile's Journey The Gathering Darkness: The Final Battle
Author	Erin Hunter
Illustrator	Julia Green
Country	United Kingdom
Genre	Children's fantasy
Publisher	HarperCollins
Published	August 21, 2012 – present
Media type	Print, e-book

There are two sub-series, each containing six books. The first, Survivors (later retitled Survivors: The Original Series), was published from 2012 to 2015. The second sub-series, Survivors: The Gathering Darkness, has finished its last book, The Final Battle. The first book of the second series, A Pack Divided, was released on 13 October 2015, followed by Dead of Night on 7 June 2016, Into the Shadows on 7 February 2017, Red Moon Rising on 3 October 2017, The Exile's Journey on 26 June 2018, and The Final Battle on 5 February 2019.

Other books have been released in addition to the main series, including three e-book novellas entitled Alpha's Tale, Sweet's Journey and Moon's Choice, the latest novella, released on 5 May 2015. The Survivors series has been released in e-book format for popular e-readers such as the Barnes & Noble Nook and Amazon Kindle. The series has also been translated into several languages. In addition, the series has a website featuring games, promotional videos, quizzes, and news. Survivors has garnered positive reviews, with critics praising the pacing, characters, and "magical" style of writing.

Inspiration and origins

When the Seekers series was being created, it started as a request from HarperCollins to Victoria Holmes, saying that the team should develop another series about a group of animals, but this time not cats. HarperCollins first suggested that they write a book about dogs, but Holmes was reluctant to create stories that would be too close to Warriors, and dogs lived in packs, hunted for food, had a strict hierarchy, and guarded their territories, like the cats.[1] Eventually it was decided that the series would be about bears instead. In another chat two years later, Holmes said that, though she was "happy to focus on cats and bears right now", she would consider doing a series about dogs.[2] Gilian Philip said later that "dogs just felt like a natural progression" from cats.[3]

The authors later invited Inbali Iselris, author of The Tygrine Cat, to write a new series about dogs called Survivors.[4] She readily accepted the offer after learning that Philip was also writing the series. According to her, cats are more mysterious when compared to dogs, who are easily sociable and full of frenetic energy.[4] After joining Erin Hunter, she spent more time with her dog Michi, watching his behaviour closely. Some of his mannerisms that were noted were his tail wagging and his ears flicking back in excitement at the sight of his friends. These gave her lots of material to develop the character of Lucky and his companions.[4]

While the earlier series had the preliminary plot written by a single author, a different approach was taken for the Survivors series. The whole team creates a detailed story outline and develops the characters together, and then the actual writing gets done by a single author, who is allowed to change something significant about the plot or characters if they feel that a certain character would not act in a specific way.[5]

Books

The Original Series

The Empty City

The Empty City is the first book in the original Sseries and was released 21 August 2012. It begins with the main character, Lucky, a shaggy, golden-and-white male Sheltie-retriever mix, hearing a story of an apocalypse called the Storm of Dogs from his retriever mix mother at a time when he was a pup named Yap. He and his four siblings (his brothers Yowl and Snip, and his sisters Squeak and Yip) are intrigued, but mostly by the story of the very fast legendary dog named Lightning, who is said to have become actual lightning. Years later, on a Long Light (summer) day in a coastal California city, the "Big Growl", an earthquake, strikes, killing most longpaws (humans) in the area. Lucky and his friend Sweet, a female swift-dog (greyhound), escape from a Trap House (dog pound). The two go their separate ways - Sweet wants to be part of a Pack while Lucky wishes to be a Lone Dog. When Lucky is trapped by red foxes, he is saved by his long-lost sister Squeak, now called Bella, who leads a group of six other former Leashed Dogs (dogs kept as pets by longpaws) who are sure that their owners will come back for them – these include Bruno the big, sturdy, thick-furred brown male German shepherd-chow chow mix Fight Dog, Martha the massive black water-dog (Newfoundland dog), Alfie the bulldog, Sunshine the Maltese dog, Daisy the wiry, white-and-tan, short-legged female West Highland white terrier-Jack Russell terrier mix and Mickey the Farm Dog (border collie). Lucky decides to join them temporarily and show them how to survive in this new world before going back to being a loner. He recounts some of his life to Bella, where he was once owned by an abusive longpaw man that he escaped from. It is eventually decided that the Leashed Dogs cannot continue to wait for their lost longpaw owners to return, so they join Lucky as they move off into the nearby wilderness, beyond the city. After Martha saves Bruno from drowning in a river because she has webbed paws as a water-dog, Lucky teaches the Pack how to divide work based on their abilities. When Alfie finds a place (an abandoned dog-training facility) where there is food and other dogs just a little farther off, Bella, Daisy and Lucky follow him. Lucky is unsure about entering the place at first, so he refuses to follow any further. Lucky soon finds that the others have been captured in the facility (termed the Dog-Garden) by a violent yet unintelligent Pack of 16 Fierce Dogs (Doberman Pinschers) already living there, angry that the Leashed Dogs are eating their leftover kibble. Lucky uses trickery to help the hostages escape and leads them to safety. He makes them bury any trace of their owners, but Mickey holds tight to his owners' son's baseball glove. Lucky leaves his Pack, but is driven to return when he hears fighting.

A Hidden Enemy

A Hidden Enemy is the second book in the series and was released on 7 May 2013. It begins in a flashback, with young Lucky's mother telling him and his siblings that wild gray wolves are not to be trusted, especially since regarding the tale of a scheming wolf named Greatfang, who tried to kill the curious granddaughter of Lightning named Nuzzle (but she survived and grew up to be a fierce warrior-dog called Wildfire), and with that Yap went to sleep, believing he'd be smarter than Nuzzle. In the present day, Lucky hears sounds of fighting and rushes to help the Leashed Pack from an attack by some members of another another dog Pack, a Wild Pack of 13, and realizes that their Alpha is a male wolfdog, who kills Alfie. An aftershock of the Big Growl occurs, causing the Packs to scatter. Lucky rescues the Wild Pack's female Beta swift-dog, revealed to be Sweet, who was falling into the opening chasm. Lucky hides that he is affiliated with The Leashed Pack. Sweet invites Lucky to her Pack, but he declines the offer. Bella sends Lucky as a spy to the Wild Pack, where he is temporarily made a patrol dog in the Wild Pack, briefly working with Twitch the tan male spaniel-beagle mix chase-dog and Dart the skinny, slender, brown-and-white female whippet mix - during patrol duty, you are not allowed to eat and can only have a minimum amount of water to drink because their Alpha considers it distracting from a patrol dogs duty, and it is mentioned that a now-exiled male member of this Pack broke that rule by eating a mountain cottontail corpse he found while patrolling (not only is this nameless dog banished, but the rest of the Pack do mention his name anymore). During a prey-sharing feast, Mulch the rude long-haired, shiny black male English cocker spaniel mix tries to steal a dead North American deermouse from the prey pile when it is not his turn, but Sweet snaps at him and threatens to demote him from his hunting and patrol duties, shocking Lucky. He later feels a sense of loyalty to the Pack during a nightly howling ritual of theirs called the Great Howl. At one point, he sees the same mysterious crow from before, but during the night, and believes it may be a messenger of the Forest-Dog. Days later, Lucky becomes an official hunter within the Wild Pack after winning a challenge with Snap the small, stout, tan-and-white female beagle-terrier mix, and is now working alongside her, Fiery the male English mastiff, and Spring (Twitch's sister). Mulch is, at the same time, demoted to a patrol dog, resenting Lucky even more. Weeks later, the small, black-colored male pug mix Omega named Whine, who sees Lucky secretly meeting Bella's Pack later that night, blackmails/bribes him and makes him frame Mulch for eating pieces off a freshly-caught mule deer doe before the actual feast. Mulch is then physically harmed by Alpha (and partly by Sweet, who secretly does not like doing it) and is demoted to Omega, while Whine is promoted to a patrol dog. Bella and the rest of the Leashed Pack (without warning Lucky) soon attack the Wild Pack with red foxes. The foxes kill Mulch and Fuzz, the short-legged, black-and-white son of Moon the Farm Dog and Fiery (now they have two pups left, Squirm the shaggy-furred, black-and-white male and Nose the shaggy, black-furred female with a black-and-white face). The two Packs together drive the foxes out. Alpha says he should kill Bella, while Moon and Fiery defend her, for she did not know that the foxes would deceive and betray her. Sweet advises Alpha to merge the two Packs and Alpha agrees, but Whine reveals Lucky's secret of being a spy for Bella's Pack, forcing him to choose which side he is on.

Darkness Falls

Darkness Falls is the third book in the series and was released on 3 September 2013. It begins with a flashback to Lucky's pup days, where his mother is fearing that someone may have angered the Sky-Dogs due to a very intense storm. Back in the present, Alpha allows Lucky and the Leashed Dogs to stay and merge the two Packs into one Pack of 18 but Lucky is demoted to Omega and about to be scarred as punishment, but Alpha is suddenly frightened after the appearance of a loud sound and black cloud in the distance (volcanic activity) that seems too unusual to be a storm - it even briefly takes the shape of a dog. Lucky temporarily takes charge, Alpha looking incompetent on what exactly to do, and helps the Pack as they evacuate the camp for higher ground. After finding temporary shelter beneath an overhanging rocky outcrop near a small lake, Twitch decides to leave the Pack after breaking one of his forelegs during the retreat and Mickey later leaves thinking the longpaws who used to own him and the other Leashed Dogs of the Pack are back, taking the strange cloud as a sign for this. Alpha banishes Lucky, thinking he angered the Sky-Dogs. After escaping some volcanic ash, Lucky eventually finds Mickey defending his longpaws' abandoned home against other longpaws (ragged-looking, ill ones) but his house collapses. Immediately afterward, Lucky convinces Mickey that his longpaws are never coming back, much to Mickey's sorrowful disappointment, who leaves the baseball glove on the doorstep. Soon, after returning to the forest and seeing longpaws riding in loudbirds (helicopters) in the distance, Lucky and Mickey find three abandoned nameless Fierce Dog pups back at the Dog-Garden whose mother is dead. Seeing that the Pack of adults has left the compound to find more food, they take the pups with them and give them the Pup Names Grunt, Lick and Wiggle, narrowly avoiding a Pack of coyotes (led by a particularly stealthy male coyote named Mangles) and searching for their own Pack's whereabouts since they apparently changed location since Lucky left to find an area with more prey - along the way, they catch a broad-footed mole and split it to feed the three pups. Meeting up with a patrolling Daisy, they bring the pups back to their own Pack's new camp, in a tranquil glade, where Alpha reluctantly allows them to stay, but leaves Lucky in charge of them as an Omega. Martha also contributes to rearing the three orphans. Lucky and a few other members of the Pack train the Fierce Dog pups how to duel, but do their best to teach them not to play fight too roughly or else someone else will get seriously hurt. Because of this, Alpha puts the three pups to the test to see if they can truly never be ferocious and asks them to follow Daisy's orders during a scouting mission. Suddenly, during this scouting mission, a male giantfur (brown bear) who is out to steal honey from bees is challenged by Grunt. Lucky and the Alpha rescue the pups and Daisy from the giantfur. At one other point, Lucky discovers some dead band-tailed pigeons that were left near the camp border by, from the smell of it, Twitch, kindly giving his former Pack food, but in secret. Later, after Lucky has a serious discussion with Bella about her reckless and regretful choice in hiring those foxes to attack the Pack, the Fierce Dog pups' original Pack, Blade ruthlessly in the lead, traps the Wild Pack and takes the pups away, Blade claiming she is their mother even though she is obviously not and is obviously the one who murdered the pups' real mother. Later, Lucky is depressed by the departure of the three pups, believing that they could have grown up to be gentle Fierce Dogs with an unquestionable loyalty to the Wild Pack. Later, as Red Leaf (autumn) approaches, to prove his own loyalty to the Wild Pack and show he does not want to go back to being a Lone Dog, Lucky challenges Snap to a second duel for hunter status, but loses. Sweet takes this as evidence that Lucky is indeed now a Pack dog (he clearly does not want to be a loner anymore) and is happy that he will not leave. The next morning, Lick returns in the Wild Pack covered with scratches and says that Blade murdered Wiggle and Grunt is staying in her Pack. Hearing this, Alpha allows Lick to stay in the Wild Pack. The Wild Pack also prepares to depart this apparently unsafe area for new territory beyond a sighted white rocky ridge.

The Broken Path

The Broken Path is the fourth book in the series and was released on 11 February 2014. It begins with a flashback to Lucky's pup days, where he befriended a female toddler longpaw and alerted her family to any danger she may have gotten herself into (like playing with matches) - his own mother congratulating him for that as well. In the present, Lucky remembers back to this moment when he heard those kind longpaws use the term "lucky", and basically understands that has pretty much become his Adult Name now. While he ponders this, he and Fiery teach Lick how to hunt brush rabbits and mountain cottontails in their Wild Pack's new territory on a Red Leaf day. While hunting, they tell Lick about how a Naming Ceremony works since she has never had a proper one, with Fiery, in particular, telling about how he got his own Adult Name (his Pup Name was Snail because of his taste in snails, which he still occasionally snacks on). They succeed in this hunt and catch and kill some rabbits. When returning to the new camp with their catches, Lucky stops to talk to a patrolling Bella and the two get into a brief feud over betraying each other's trust ever since Lucky was made a spy, though Lick stops the fighting and encourages them to be grateful to still have each other as siblings since Lick herself lost her brothers (one dead and the other traitorous). Bella and Lucky apologize and suddenly battle an American badger during a brief unusual storm similar to the one in the third book. Once they return to the camp, Lucky catches the scent of an unknown pup and who it could have been. Later that night, it is time for Nose and Squirm's Naming Ceremony where they get official Adult Names (Lick does not take part in this one because she is younger than Nose and Squirm). Squirm names himself Beetle (after seeing a beetle crawling nearby) while his sister Nose names herself Thorn (because she says that will defend the Pack like bush's thorns) as they both sit upon the white pelt of an albino rabbit prepared for them by Sunshine (now the Pack's Omega, which she actually does not mind). After the ceremony is over and everyone is giving Thorn and Beetle affectionate attention while also howling ritualistically, Lucky thinks he hears the distant howls of dogs not from the Wild Pack. Soon, Lucky discovers that the unknown pup scent belongs to Grunt, spying on them, now called Fang (his Pack has even mimicked their dead longpaw masters by maiming his ears to crop them like theirs). From this report, the Wild Pack must move on. As the Pack of 18 trudges through different regions, they encounter volcanic acid rain, and Alpha starts to show signs of uncertainty when deciding which direction to go - he foolishly tries to cover his incompetence up by taking suggestions from other high-ranking packmates, like Sweet or Fiery. Eventually, they discover a small abandoned longpaw town (not much affected by the Big Growl) filled with dead longpaws. They spend the night in a food-filled Food House. The next day, while Lucky, Mickey, Bruno, Snap and Fiery go hunting in the forest, they encounter an unorganized Wild Pack of nine dogs that Twitch (now three-legged, missing the entire foreleg he broke) has joined as the ninth member out of sheer desperation. This absurd Pack is led by a massive, mentally-crazed male pit bull-mastiff mix named Terror, who hurts his own packmates just because he feels like it. He also claims to be the forepaw for a wicked spirit-dog called the Fear-Dog, who he claims rules all the other spirit-dogs (though this is not true). Terror orders his Pack (consisting of, besides Twitch, Splash the small, thin, mangy, wiry-haired, black male mongrel, Whisper small, short-furred, lean-legged, skinny gray male whippet-Australian cattle dog mix, Rake the male Irish wolfhound, Chase the small, scruffy, ginger-furred female mongrel, Breeze the small, dark chocolate-colored female Labrador retriever-collie mix, Woody the large, thickset, burly, long-haired, stocky, brown male beagle mix, and Ruff the small black female mongrel) to drive the hunting party out of the forest, yet he still chases them back to the town - fortunately the hunting party hides and Terror's Pack gives up and retreats, and Terror himself forces his followers to kill any stranger dog on sight, even when unprovoked, by order of the Fear-Dog, after he allegedly gets this message after he goes through a psychotic spasm. After escaping and telling the rest of the Pack of what happened, their Alpha decides the best way to deal with Terror's Pack is to fight him head-on at one point. Soon, due to Alpha's own arrogance, secret incompetence, tendency to blame others for mistakes that aren't technically theirs, and need to find an excuse to get rid of Lick, Fiery challenges the wolfdog for the title of Alpha by nightfall - this will make Fiery the new Alpha of their Pack and the wolfdog himself would have to go back to using his real name. Later when the hunting band goes back into Terror's forest to find food again, Lick joining them, they encounter more strange longpaws (the same hostile ones from the previous books with yellow jackets and gas masks) that all of a sudden chase the dogs unprovoked, trying to catch them; Fiery, during this chase, is suddenly caught in a net trap and tells the other dogs to leave and find help. Everyone in the Pack agrees that something needs to be done, but Alpha refuses, saying that they should move on to a safer territory and not caring whether Fiery, his own third-in-command, lives or dies mainly because the wolfdog himself is showing signs of arrogance and cowardice. Twitch suddenly appears to tell his former Pack (even though his former Alpha tells him that he is no longer welcome among their Wild Pack anymore) that he's abandoned Terror's Pack and that he has seen where the bad longpaws are taking Fiery, to the Dog-Garden - both he and Lucky bring Moon, Martha and Bella on this rescue mission while Alpha leads the rest of their Wild Pack away from the town and Terror's forest since it is clearly not safe there anymore. Lick eventually joins up with them. At the Dog-Garden, they discover Fiery is locked in a cage next to cages containing other kinds of innocent animals (several birds, an orange sharpclaw, a male coyote, a preadolescent mule deer, some red foxes and gray foxes, some rabbits and a grown male Fierce Dog named Axe from Blade's Pack), all being experimented on by the strange longpaws by being forced to drink river water that was recently intoxicated by gasoline to make sure it is okay for longpaws to drink - apparently the toxic river is one of the main reasons for why Terror is insane, though he drank it on his own with no longpaws involved. The team frees them all along with Fiery and they leave while Axe (recognizing Lick as one of the pups her dead mother Morningstar) chooses to stay behind and fight the longpaws responsible for all of this. Eventually, the rescue party and Fiery (he is now very injured and sick from the bad water) encounter Terror's Pack again, who are forced to fight because Terror says the Fear-Dog says so. During the battle, all done blindly during a non-acidic rainstorm, Lick actually takes down Terror, ripping off his lower jaw, putting him out of his mentally-ill and intoxicated misery and this sends his remaining Pack of seven retreating, free of his deranged savage tyranny. Fiery, though, is fatally injured, much to Moon's sadness, and once he dies with honor in his heart, the others dig out a grave for him - and even one for Terror too. Lucky then feels as though Lick is now worthy enough, as well as old enough, to get her Naming Ceremony now, before they go to seek out the rest of their Wild Pack. Because of a thunderstorm that suddenly rolls in, Lick chooses the Adult Name Storm. They continue westward, following a strange salty smell.

The Endless Lake

The Endless Lake is the fifth book in the series and was released on 3 June 2014. It begins with another flashback to Lucky's pup days, specifically to where he experienced his first Ice Wind (winter) and his mother told him to trust all the spirit-dogs (the Earth-Dog, the River-Dog, the Lake-Dog, the Forest-Dog, the Sky-Dogs, the Moon-Dog, the Sun-Dog, and more) even if it seems like the spirit-dogs themselves are making things unfortunate for all mortal dogs (he also developed claustrophobia during this time). Back in the present, Ice Wind is starting, and Lucky, Bella, Martha, Moon, Twitch and Storm are resting in a convenient den on their journey back to the rest of their Wild Pack, tracking the 12 to their new territory, though Twitch plans to become a Lone Dog again since the wolfdog Alpha no longer welcomes him. Along the way after leaving the den, they catch a river-rabbit (North American river otter) and find that they are being stalked. It is revealed that the ones following them are Twitch's seven former packmates of Terror's Pack. With Terror now dead, they do not ruthlessly harm other dogs anymore, and Splash admits that they were stalking them, but only because they miss Twitch and feel that he belongs with them, and they convince him to even be their new Alpha, which he accepts; he does say goodbye to Lucky, Moon, Bella, Martha and Storm, saying that perhaps they could meet again someday, and that he would really like to see his sister Spring again in addition. Eventually, after arriving on a more open space, Storm chases after and fails to catch an escaped domestic horse; however, the five dogs discover where the mysterious salty scent has been coming from: a huge body of water that fills them with awe, which they call the Endless Lake because it seems to never end (it is really the coast of the Pacific Ocean). They find out, after Bella and Storm taste some of the seawater and spit it back out in disgust, that it is much too salty to drink from - this implies to them that the rest of their Pack would not stop to settle here due to how salty the water here is. Eventually, while traveling north along the beach, they arrive on the outskirts of an abandoned coastal longpaw town and an abandoned fair on a dock and decide to look for food there. After eating their fill of dead and dying fish they found in one of the fair's buildings, they begin to head through the nearby town when they suddenly catch the scent of Blade's Pack, who have apparently been marking their new territory here. They then run into Fang and two other vile Fierce Dogs, Fang of which tries to persuade Storm to rejoin their original Pack, which she refuses. When a chase ensues, going back to the fairground, Fang reveals that he actually misses Storm and encourages his sister and her four packmates to hide from Blade. Fang misleads the other members of Blade's Pack that he lost the five and says that they should look elsewhere for them - Blade and Mace, however, quickly abuse Fang for not catching Storm this time. Lucky and the others hide until Blade's Pack has gone far away, and they escape the ruined town and fairground, Moon really needing to be reunited with her son and daughter, Beetle and Thorn, again. By late sunset, the five traveling dogs take shelter in an empty rocky cave right on the beach for the night, though at one point they are woken up to find that the cave has been flooded due to high tide. Fortunately, Lucky finds a tunnel that goes deeper into the cave, and, with him taking the lead, they are eventually led out of the tunnel and back into open air. They soon find that the rest of their Pack is in a small sloping valley not too far from the coast. After all 17 members of their Wild Pack have a reunion, Lucky, Bella, Martha, Moon, and Storm tell everyone the sad news about Fiery's death (Alpha pretends to show sympathy, but Lucky can tell that he is faking) and the interesting news about how Twitch has now become the new Alpha of Terror's former Pack. Most of their packmates are surprised and happy at that good news about Twitch, but Alpha says that Twitch is a traitor to their own Wild Pack for just joining that other Wild Pack in the first place, back when it used to be led by Terror. Lucky also tells of their encounter with Blade's Pack and their new camp location in the nearby abandoned coastal longpaw town; even though the others turn fearful of that fact, Lucky states that this is also good news because they now know where the cruel Fierce Dogs are at the moment. They also tell about the former Lick now having the Adult Name Storm, yet while most of the Pack congratulates her for this, Alpha becomes infuriated because it was a Naming Ceremony without his authorization and he insists on still calling Storm Lick; he also continuously tries to provoke Storm by directly calling her by her Pup Name and stating the fact that her former Pack is looking for her. When prey becomes scarce due to it being early Ice Wind, Alpha decides that literally everyone in this Wild Pack, even those not in the hunting party, should go hunt for prey together. The wolfdog still shows strong signs of arrogance and incompetence whenever he believes someone else is trying to take over his command when they really are not. After failing this all-Pack hunt on the beach (Alpha blames it on a recent freezing rain), Mickey, Lucky and Snap are sent out to hunt, to find any prey at all, including some western gulls and a partly white brush rabbit whose pelt they could use for Storm's "authorized" Naming Ceremony. After so little to eat (with Alpha hoarding most of it selfishly for himself) Storm's "authorized" Naming Ceremony happens that night, though Alpha says she is no longer able to choose Storm as her official Adult Name (Lucky sees that the wolfdog is just making up the rules) and after Storm insists that she likes the name she already chose, the wolfdog instead forcefully names her Savage and declares that everyone should call her that and not Storm or else he will severely punish them. At one point, while seeking out yet another new territory, the Wild Pack comes to an abandoned lighthouse, and Blade's Pack finds them there and a battle ensues. Alpha, Spring, Beetle, and Thorn fall into the seawater due to windy and foggy conditions during the fight. Blade's Pack retreats and Martha dives into the water and rescues both Beetle and Thorn, though Spring is pulled out to sea and Alpha sinks down below the waves. of deciding something, called the Four Paws, where an idea is agreed upon by at least four Pack members. After taking shelter in an abandoned candy store for the night, Storm goes off on her own without perThe rest of the remaining Pack spends the night inside the lighthouse. The next day, the 15 dogs move on for a safer place and Lucky decides that, instead of choosing a new Alpha, they should use a sort of democratic way mission to confront Blade and possibly redeem Fang. Lucky finds that Storm's former Pack has now taken her hostage (they even tore off a small piece of her left ear), and that his Four Paws idea was probably not a good choice because of the constant arguing and bickering it apparently stirs. Sweet is declared the new Alpha and she appoints Lucky as her Beta. They all head back to the town to rescue Storm, who is being forced by Blade and her followers to fight with Fang in what is called the Trial of Rage, a rite of passage in Blade's Pack when a Fierce Dog pup reaches adulthood and must pass the test with their inner bloodlust unleashed. This trial is being hosted in Blade's new headquarters, the town's theater. Sweet establishes a plan for most of the Wild Pack to distract the bad Fierce Dogs while Martha escorts Storm out of the theater. Storm, though, does not want to abandon Fang, still feeling a family bond with him. It is then revealed that our Wild Pack's former Alpha actually survived drowning and has now, despite his deeply-rooted Fierce Dog prejudice, joined Blade's Pack willingly, but as the Omega. Storm then accepts to take the Trial of Rage and can either leave if she does not give into her inner bloodlust or stay with Blade's Pack if she does give in. She duels with Fang and does her best not to succumb to bloodlust, and as a result, Blade lets her and the rest of the Wild Pack leave but promises that she will still hunt them down get Storm back. A few days later, when the Wild Pack has left the area of the coastal longpaw town, Sweet and Lucky spread the news about Lucky's recent strange dreams that tell of the Storm of Dogs, in which the rest of the Pack say they have heard this foretold event before. Lucky says that if the Storm of Dogs is coming, no dog will have to stand alone, and that they are in it together.

Storm of Dogs

Storm of Dogs is the sixth book in the series (as well as the final book of the first story arc) and was released on 10 February 2015. It begins with Lucky having a flashback dream to when he and Sweet were in the Trap House during the Big Growl before waking up next to Sweet in their thornbush den. Lucky and Sweet have officially become mates, and life in their Wild Pack has become generally well-regulated since they are in charge. It has been a full month since the Trial of Rage and the recent fight with Blade's Pack, and so far the Wild Pack is getting along well. Storm is now a hunter, Mickey and Snap are now mates, and Thorn and Beetle are now patrol dogs. The Pack also still remains in its previous territory near the coastal town. During Ice Wind, there is little prey to find, but the best they manage to catch are brush rabbits and migrating Canada geese. During a fight-training session, Moon and Dart report that Blade's Pack has left the coastal town without a trace and that now the scent of longpaws is there. Sweet leads a patrol down to the town to investigate and find only calm longpaw construction workers trying to fix the damaged town. They report back to the rest of the Pack that these particular longpaws mean no harm, as well as saying that they will not seek out a new territory as they constantly have been doing since Long Light. Although most of the Pack is a little worried, Sweet tells them to continue to patrol the territory for Blade's Pack and to avoid the longpaws (just as a precaution) until they have determined whether they are truly friendly or not - Moon is very on edge about this since it was longpaws that were responsible for Fiery's death, though Sunshine insists that not all longpaws are bad. That night, after Lucky has a dream where the spirit of Alfie warns him about something going to happen in the Storm of Dogs, Sweet wakes Lucky and takes him to a private area away from the rest of the Pack for a special and confidential ceremony about his status as Beta. Although she briefly attacks him, leaving him with a hidden scar, she tells him that this scar is proof that he is officially the new Beta and that he is forever loyal to the Pack and she is loyal to him. After Lucky pledges to be loyal to the Pack, the two dogs return to the camp to finish the rest of the ceremony with the rest of the Pack. Later that night, Lucky wakes up to discover Fang nearby, all covered in injuries. Fang claims that he left Blade's Pack because he lost the Trial of Rage and was considered a weakling to Blade, so he came to find Lucky to warn the Sweet's Pack that Blade's Pack plans to attack them again. Lucky takes pity on Fang and walks with him to a large cave by the beach, only to be ambushed by Blade and her followers. Lucky is captured, brought into the cave and thrown into a pit, temporarily knocking him out cold. When he awakens, Lucky finds Blade staring down at him and she tells him more about why she's obsessed with trying to kill Storm, not really having to do with the Trial of Rage; she tells that she has had strange visions in her sleep involving the Storm of Dogs, similar to Lucky, since the Big Growl and believes that the Spirit Dogs are telling her to specifically kill any Fierce Dog pups born after the Big Growl so they do not truly bring on the Storm of Dogs - basically her reason for murdering her own pup and attempting to kill Storm and her brothers at first with starvation and neglect by killing Morningstar and abandoning them at the Dog-Garden and eventually murdering Wiggle and now trying to somehow get both Storm and Fang killed. Afterward Blade leaves, and Lucky's former Alpha soon shows up and explains that even though he's hated Fierce Dogs due to his bad past experiences with them, he still admires Blade's ferocious authority and that's one of the two reasons why he has joined her Pack (giving her clever plans to work with), the other reason being that he arrogantly believed that his now former Wild Pack was just a bunch of weaklings deep down. Soon, Sweet, Bella, and Storm show up and save Lucky, only to be cornered by Blade's Pack. Lucky and Storm try to convince Fang to rejoin Sweet's Pack, but Blade immediately kills him. Suddenly, the tremor sign of a new big earthquake, similar to the Big Growl, occurs, frightening everyone and sending Lucky, Storm, Bella, and Sweet running out of the cave just as it ends. A few days later, it is announced to the whole of Sweet's Pack that they should probably leave the small valley, because of both Blade's Pack and the apparent omens of a new Big Growl. Lucky, Snap and most of the former Leashed Dogs (except for Bruno) go on a brief mission to warn the unaggressive construction worker longpaws in the nearby abandoned coastal town about the new Growl. Although the longpaws don't understand what the dogs are telling them, they eventually see the Endless Lake moving in with a tsunami and make a run for it. Lucky leads the other dogs back up the cliff to where the rest of the Pack is after they quickly rescue a trapped longpaw man from a ground crevasse. After the Wild Pack settles down and the second Big Growl ends, Lucky tells everyone about the dreams he has seen about the Storm of Dogs and how Blade has had similar dreams, yet points out that she believes that any Fierce Dog pup that was born after the first Big Growl must die in order to please the Earth-Dog. Although some of the Pack suggest they should continue to flee, Whine says that they should hand Storm over to Blade to save themselves. Although Sweet and Lucky refuse to do so, they allow the Pack to vote (Whine saying it is the Four Paws idea Lucky had thought up of originally) on whether or not they should give Storm to Blade. However, only Whine, Dart, and Bruno vote that they should give Storm to Blade while the rest refuse - especially Storm herself. Fortunately, Bella has an idea: Sweet's Pack will set Blade up to fight and will isolate her, Mace, and Dagger from the rest of the cruel Pack and take them by surprise. Thinking that their plan will fail, Whine leaves the Pack and vanishes without any one trying to stop him. Soon, the remaining 14 members of Sweet's Pack decide to go seek out help from Twitch's Pack in order to increase their numbers against Blade's Pack. At one point in the search, the whole Pack temporarily splits up in order to find Twitch's Pack of eight more easily in the forest formerly owned by Terror, covering more ground, Lucky heading off with Snap, Storm and Daisy. During their search, Lucky, Snap, Storm, and Daisy hear a cry for help and see a member of Twitch's Pack, Whisper, whose tail is trapped by a fallen tree (felled by the recent tremor) and is near a female giantfur's den. After Whisper is freed, they tell him that they must speak with his Alpha Twitch and so he takes the four of them back to his own Wild Pack to meet with Twitch. The two Packs fully come together for their meeting. Twitch himself wonders if they really should risk their lives in joining this upcoming battle (he's also saddened by the sad news of Spring's death), though all of his seven packmates insist they should since Storm was technically the one who saved them by defeating Terror. Whisper, Ruff (now the Pack's Omega), Woody, Rake, and Breeze most certainly agree to this. Chase and Splash (the latter now the Pack's official Beta) also agree. The two Packs, together numbering 22 individuals altogether, plan an ambush near the river and Lucky decides to use himself as bait to lure Blade and her deputies out of hiding. He travels back to Blade's Pack's cave to tell them that Storm accepts Blade's challenge, and along the way takes a nap and dreams of a bright future where the Storm of Dogs has passed and he is a father of four pups (three daughters and one son), and Sweet is the mother. Lucky returns to the two Wild Packs and suddenly a young male Fierce Dog from Blade's Pack named Arrow, born before the first Big Growl so Blade did not kill him, shows up and tells everyone that he has abandoned Blade's Pack due to Blade's madness, saying that this claimed prophecy of hers is all she talks about, and wishes to join one of the two Wild Packs. He also reveals that Blade already knows some of their plans because Whine has recently joined her Pack and revealed some information to her. Later, to throw Blade off guard, Lucky, Sweet and Whisper rouse the same female giantfur who was near Whisper when he was trapped by the fallen tree and lure the agitated hibernator out near the town and fight Blade's Pack in order to weaken to insane Fierce Dog's ranks. Soon, both Wild Packs (now numbering 23) get ready for the fight near a frozen river, and just in time since Blade and her Pack has now also arrived at the frozen river, now weakened and reduced in number by the giantfur. A blizzard comes forth and the great battle of the Storm of Dogs now ensues; a few Fierce Dogs from Blade's Pack fall, including Mace; Splash and Martha are killed; Lucky fights and kills his former wolfdog Alpha; eventually it all comes down to Storm versus Blade, who fight on top of cracking ice, which Blade eventually falls through and drowns. The remaining members of Blade's Pack, now led by Dagger, retreat, and banish Whine for being practically useless - the little traitorous dog is also not welcome back in either of the two united Wild Packs. Sweet's Pack, accompanied by Twitch's Pack, return to their small coastal valley home. Sweet agrees to allow Twitch's Pack to join her Pack. Even Arrow is accepted in. Later that night, during the Great Howl ceremony, Lucky sees the Spirit-Dogs and the souls of the deceased Alfie, Mulch, Spring, Fang, Fiery, Fuzz, Splash, Martha, and Wiggle visiting the now bigger Wild Pack of 21 before returning to the afterlife called the Forest Beyond.

The Gathering Darkness

A Pack Divided

A Pack Divided is the seventh book in the series and the first book of the second arc, The Gathering Darkness, and was released on October 13, 2015. It begins with a flashback to when Storm and her two brothers were yet to be given Pup Names, and had been left behind at the Dog-Garden by their own Pack; it is shown that they were so young at the time that they did not truly understand the concept of death, believing that their mother Morningstar and Blade's little son are just sleeping, and were afraid of being alone, until Lucky and Mickey arrived. Back in the present, Storm is leading a hunt (consisting of herself, Mickey, Snap, Arrow, and Whisper) on a day in Tree Flower (spring), also called New Leaf, for the first time after the long Ice Wind season. The hunting party dogs decide to try hunting by a hollow to drive out prey such as black-tailed jackrabbits. Even though she is in the lead of the hunting group, Storm is sometimes annoyed by the advice Mickey and Snap often give her because she feels they are still treating her like a pup. Later that night, as the prey-sharing feast starts and after Storm play-fights with Beetle and Thorn, Thorn and Beetle themselves are suddenly hostile, stating that Twitch had better not try to eat before their mother Moon. Storm is surprised that her two friends would act like this, thinking that the prey caught was enough for everybody. Sweet does, however, let Twitch eat before Moon, even though Twitch is soon promoted to third-in-command, and Storm notices that the tension between the Pack intensifies. After the prey-sharing, Storm offers to play-fight Thorn and Beetle again, and is declined. Sweet, who is now pregnant with her and Lucky's first litter, notices the tension reawakening and offers to tell a story of the Spirit-Dogs, in which most other dogs in the big Wild Pack are eager to hear. Sweet tells the other dogs about the Wind-Dogs, a group of Spirit-Dogs that reside in the sky (similarly to the Sky-Dogs) and are known to be modeled as the first swift-dogs, and how they run all year trying to catch the elusive Golden Deer before Ice Wind. She says that if a mortal Pack manages to catch one of the offspring of the great Golden Deer, then that Pack is truly blessed by the Spirit-Dogs. Storm wants to catch a legendary Golden Deer one day, then wonders if she and Arrow have their own Spirit-Dog modeled as the first Fierce Dog, which Arrow later thinks is called the Watch-Dog. Still, tensions still rise, with some the dogs of Twitch's old Pack thinking Sweet and Lucky favor the original members of own Pack more. The following nights, Storm keeps waking up to find that she has sleepwalked a distance away from the camp. One day, Storm leads the hunting party (consisting of herself, Lucky, Bella, Breeze and Bruno) off on another hunting trip and soon catches a whiff of deer everywhere and suggests that it might be Golden Deer, though Bella disagrees, for she is skeptical on Sweet's tales relating to the Wind-Dogs - Bella even goes so far as to even doubt the existence of any Spirit-Dog at all, to which the others try to convince her to change her opinion (even Breeze insisting that the supposed Fear-Dog is real, because she used to be one of Terror's underlings). They lose the deer scent and catch some brush rabbits and western gray squirrels instead. Soon, as tensions continue to build, Sweet and Lucky attempt to resolve this by promoting Twitch as the Pack's third-in-command so there will not be any tensions in the ranks of the patrol dogs. At one point, loudbirds show up, meaning that longpaws are returning to the area. Later, when the hunters go investigate that abandoned coastal longpaw town and find the dead body of the female Fierce Dog named Ripper, who Arrow used to know from Blade's Pack, Bruno reveals a dark secret of his that he is not very trustful of Fierce Dogs, even now with two noble Fierce Dogs living among them. At one point, Moon is mysteriously framed for stealing food before the food-sharing ceremony and she is thus temporarily sent on the duty of High Watch, overlooking the Endless Lake - though she does not really see anything that could be a threat to the pack out there, mostly just gulls and the occasional large floatcages (boats) seen sailing out in the distance. Not long after that, Storm (after another of her sleepwalking sessions) discovers that Arrow and Bella have secretly formed a romantic relationship with each other; she also finds a red fox kit murdered by an unknown dog, which the kit's family seeks the big Wild Pack of dogs for revenge, to avenge the kit, who was named Cub Fire. At another point, Storm and the other hunters are seeking more prey and Storm herself discovers that Whisper is developing strong feelings for her; during this hunt, they attempt but fail to steal a tusknose (peccary) carcass guarded by a giantfur family - the hunters instead return with only a few brush rabbits and a long-tailed weasel. Sometime later, after Storm, Lucky and Snap come back after nearly catching a Golden Deer but failing to do so, they and the rest of the Pack discover that Whisper has been murdered.

Dead of Night

Dead of Night is the eighth book in the series and the second book of the second arc, The Gathering Darkness, and was released on 7 June 2016. It begins with a flashback to when Storm and her then-alive brothers first met Lucky and Mickey, who brought them to safety from starvation and named them Lick, Wiggle and Grunt; Lick later muttered in her mind, after she and four companions narrowly avoided the coyote pack led by Mangles, that she is neither afraid of coyotes nor of going to the Earth-Dog when she dies. Back in the present, Lucky becomes paranoid about Whisper's death supposedly having to do with the vengeance-seeking red foxes, so he plots war upon them - this is partly due to the fact that his and Sweet's pups are soon to be born. As Storm investigates how Whisper's killer may have pulled it off, she imagines the scenario and is then frightened by how perfect it appears, as if she committed it herself - she reminds herself that she could not have done it in a mindless rage since she was out hunting a Golden Deer with Lucky and Snap when Whisper was assassinated. Whisper's funeral occurs, his body buried at the base of a big tree in the woods not too far from the camp. All of a sudden, Sweet starts to go into labor, so everyone has to cut the funeral short and head back to camp. Lucky and Sweet soon introduce their litter of four pups to the rest of the Pack; this litter consists of three daughters called Nibble (who is short-haired, tan and long-muzzled) Tiny (who is sandy-gold-colored and runt-sized), and Fluff (who is long-furred and dark brown-colored), and one son called Tumble (who is gold-furred and slender-bodied). Later, while out spying on the nearby red fox pack, Storm, Thorn, Dart and Snap find that the foxes could not possibly be responsible for Whisper's death - being obviously weaker than the real killer and due to the fact that they left no scent at the site of the assassination, and the fact that murderer's jaw marks are larger than the jaws of a red fox - and Storm tells her associates that it must be another dog who committed the crimes (Whisper's murder, Cub Fire's murder, and framing Moon for stealing food), most likely one among their own Pack. Also, Lucky shows signs that he has completely changed since the Storm of Dogs and since becoming a father, where he demands proper etiquette (even from his closest peers) and even forgets his own theory about how Fierce Dogs are only fierce depending on how they are raised, acting as though he never thought of it at all, making Storm wonder if Lucky has completely lost his common sense and sanity. It is later also discovered that coyotes are in the vicinity. One evening, Storm asks Moon if she saw anything on the evening of Whisper's murder while on High Watch, and Moon tells her that she did see the silhouetted shapes of two dogs wandering into the shadows of the trees before Whisper was killed (whom were obviously Whisper and the unknown criminal). Soon, longpaws are sighted not too far away, but Moon wants nothing to do with them since their kind was involved with Fiery's death, despite the former Leashed Dogs telling her that not all longpaws are bad; Thorn and Beetle insist to bring the fight to the longpaws, but Moon forbids it. One day, Storm and Arrow discover that a putrid dusky-footed woodrat carcass was added to the prey pile by the unknown criminal dog and Bella, after eating other meat that made contact with it, starts vomiting. At one point, Storm reveals to Daisy her recent sleepwalking habits, relieved to tell someone about it, and Daisy promises to keep it a secret. Later on, after a number of more mindless conflicts with the nearby red fox pack (and Lucky getting upset with Storm since she could not save Tumble from being bitten by a fox due to her own recent insomnia), a pregnant female fox, named Fox Mist, is caught and held prisoner; she is set free but with a warning that her pack should not attack the dogs of Sweet's Pack ever again; to drive the point, Sweet and Lucky tell the assigned escorts - Arrow, Bella, Storm, and Mickey - of Fox Mist to scar her as a reminder (just as the wolfdog Alpha once did), but they feel this is too unjust, so as soon as they have gone deeper into the forest, they let Fox Mist go, unscarred, but still with a warning. Soon, on a not-so-windy day, Storm is feeling better after some well-deserved rest (and after the spirit of Whisper visited her in her dreams recently), and she, Lucky and other hunters happily (though Bruno subtly shows Storm his inner Fierce Dog prejudice) go out looking for more Golden Deer, but instead find a herd of ordinary mule deer; they catch and kill two mule deer and drag the bodies back to camp. Lucky apologizes to Storm for his overreaction to her not saving Tumble from injury - the pup in question was instead saved by Breeze and is doing better already. During the prey-sharing feast, after Sweet, Lucky, and their pups eat first, Twitch suddenly starts choking on shards of clear-stone that were mysteriously stuffed into one of the deer haunches.

Into the Shadows

Into the Shadows is the ninth book in the series and the third book of the second arc, The Gathering Darkness, and was released on 7 February 2017. It begins with a flashback to Storm's pup days, where she and her brothers were being taught how to swim in a river by the then-alive Martha. Back in the present, after Snap successfully helps to get the clear-stone shards out of Twitch's mouth, saving his life, some of the other dogs begin to believe Arrow may have done this, even though he obviously did not. Later that night, Storm eavesdrops on Bruno, Snap, Dart, Woody and Ruff, who are conspiring to keep an eye on Arrow to see if he does anything suspicious. The next day, Lucky and Sweet ask Storm to babysit their pups for a short while, and although Storm likes the four little ones (especially Nibble), Breeze acts as a far better babysitter by telling the four little ones enthralling stories. At one point, Dart cannot focus on helping the hunting party be safe since she keeps speaking with Bruno about Arrow and, as a result, a large tusknose charges at them - it injures Storm on the shoulder with one of its tusks, but the hunters eventually take it down. Because of her injury, Storm is not allowed to hunt the following day, so to pass the time, she works with Sunshine in preparing others' beddings of leaves and moss. A day after Storm's short time off hunting, and right after she and some of the other hunters return from an unsuccessful hunting trip that dealt with trying to steal western gull chicks and eggs, the conspirators immediately start offensively calling Arrow a bad dog, even ignoring Lucky and Sweet's commands to stop this nonsense – even Breeze's reasonable negotiations are ignored. Arrow, however, finally stands up for himself and declares that it would be better if he just leave the whole Pack, and Bella (still in a loving relationship with him) says that if he leaves, she leaves too, both of them leaving by tomorrow morning (despite Storm, Lucky and Sunshine insisting the most that they should not leave). After Bella and Arrow have left Sweet's Pack, Sweet appoints Thorn and Beetle to take Bella and Arrow's places in the hunting band, even though the two siblings, especially Beetle, have no experience in proper hunting and end up scaring away a valley pocket gopher with their recklessness. At one other point Storm finds some mysterious clear-stone shards in her bedding, clearly placed to harm her, as well as to make it look like she was the one who had clear-stone shards to sabotage the prey pile, by the unknown traitor. Storm and Lucky eventually pay Bella and Arrow a quick visit to the mates' new territory and after heading back to their own territory decide that a Great Howl ritual is in order to both bring everyone in their big Wild Pack of 22 closer and help Lucky and Sweet's pups to understand more about unity; however, when the Great Howl does happen later that night, a few of the dogs from Twitch's old Pack are hesitant to do it. Soon, Rake declares that since half the Pack cannot properly get along (him and a few others believing that Sweet and Lucky favor the original members of the Pack rather than the ones from Twitch's old Pack, despite Sweet constantly saying that this theory of Rake's is totally wrong), he, Woody and Ruff will leave and form their own small Pack, and even Dart joins them, reducing Sweet's Pack to now 18 members. At one point, while everyone is distracted one day, the call of what sounds like an insane dog appears and the camp is suddenly smeared in rabbit blood, done by the mysterious evil-behaving dog who committed all the other crimes, in this case to scare them all with a large amount of smeared blood. The brush rabbit carcass used to smear this blood is found by Sunshine in the nearby pond, clearly put there by the perpetrator to wash away his or her scent off it. Later that sunset, after the whole Pack works together to clean all the rabbit blood stains from their camp, Lucky and Storm once again visit Bella and Arrow, only to discover that they are being tormented by coyotes; after the coyotes are driven away, Bella and Arrow say that due to the overwhelming dangers in the area (as well as unnecessary conflict with Sweet's Pack over prey and boundaries), they will be moving to a further away area, and Bella reveals that she is pregnant with her and Arrow's pups and they are expecting to see them born very soon, as Long Light approaches. When Lucky and Storm return to their own camp, the Pack is in an uproar, for Tiny, Tumble, Nibble and Fluff have gone missing – disappearing when Daisy, who was assigned to look after them this evening while Sweet went out to stretch her legs, drifted off to sleep next to them. Storm, Beetle, Thorn and Breeze find the four little ones playing in the water of the Endless Lake (believing in a mythical Endless Lake tale Breeze recently told them) and so rush in to save them from drowning. From nearby, longpaw fishermen observe this in fascination - their presence making Thorn and Beetle hesitate at first to move down the beach any further. The pups are saved (especially thanks to Storm remembering the swimming lessons she was given by Martha last year) and the Pack returns to a peaceful state. That night, the four rescuers of the little pups are allowed to eat before Sweet does for this one occasion; Sweet also decides to relieve Beetle from his hunting duties (due to his inexperience) and assign him back to patrolling. After prey-sharing, a new Great Howl is commenced, yet even though Storm feels relaxed while taking part in it, she thinks she sees a glimpse of a very large dog looking like it is made of blackness, sneaking within the shadows of the nearby forest trees; she worries that it might be the supposed Fear-Dog here to torment them all, using the unknown crime-committing dog as his pawn - Storm still wonders who this traitor amongst them could be.

Red Moon Rising

Red Moon Rising is the tenth book in the series and the fourth book of the second arc, The Gathering Darkness, and was released on 3 October 2017. In the prologue, there is a flashback to Storm's pup days, when she was called Lick, where Grunt tried to make her, Wiggle and himself leave the big Wild Pack in the middle of the night because he believed that the whole Pack believed them to be bad dogs, only to be stopped from doing so by Daisy, who was out on a night patrol and convinces them to stay. Back in the present, Storm wakes up to a peaceful-feeling morning in late Tree Flower, very close to Long Light, but knows that the mysterious traitor is still on the loose. After she, Mickey, Snap, and the four little pups hear a Wind-Dog/Golden Deer story from Sweet, Storm goes out to stretch her legs, yet she at first runs into Bruno, who has decided to apologize for judging her just because she is a Fierce Dog, and he genuinely means it. At one point, Storm and Lucky teach Lucky's pups to properly swim and conquer their fears of water ever since their near-death experience in the Endless Lake by taking them to the nearby river. The next day, Storm, Moon, Bruno, Breeze and Chase go out hunting and decide to temporarily split up to cover more ground to search for prey, though Moon (after catching a brush rabbit) ends up being pummeled by tumbling rocks falling down a slope, done so by the same mysterious traitor dog (its scent masked by some wild garlic), though she survives. When Storm reports this incident to Sweet, Sweet declares that hunting patrollers and regular patrollers must travel in pairs so there can be witnesses to any other crimes committed by the mysterious unknown traitor. One morning, Bruno is found by Daisy to be mysteriously murdered near the coast, his jaw torn off; his body is buried by Storm, Moon, Mickey, Breeze and Sweet next to Whisper's grave. Later that night, when the Pack tries to perform a Great Howl, a lunar eclipse occurs and the dogs believe that it is a sign that the Moon-Dog is angry about the unknown traitor dog - Storm begins to speculate that the traitor might be, as unexpected as it is, Chase, mainly due to how innocent everyone else appears, though Chase soon shows signs of wariness around Storm, as if suspecting Storm herself of wrongdoing. During a hunting patrol, Thorn asks Storm more about how her father Fiery sadly died, and after Storm tells her, Thorn seems to develop some sort of scheme involving longpaws. Later, during a dawn hunting session, Storm, Lucky, Mickey, Snap, and Chase go after the scent of a Golden Deer and lose it (at the same time, Storm tries learn more about Chase by asking her questions about her past and how she originally came to be in Terror's Pack); they instead stumble across the edge of the nearby abandoned coastal longpaw town and raid food from a very large spoil-box (dumpster), making sure not to catch the attention of the nearby longpaw construction workers. Once back at the camp, Storm, in order to understand Chase more, asks Breeze how well she knows her, to confirm any suspicions about Chase since she and Breeze used to be some of Terror's underlings, though Breeze assures Storm that Chase could not possibly have committed all of the recent crimes due to being physically incapable of murdering dogs bigger than her, for one thing; Storm also tells Breeze that she worries now since Bruno was killed in a similar way to how she herself killed Terror, by ripping the jaw off, but Breeze assures her that it must be just a coincidence. The next day, Breeze comes back from patrol all wounded and wet, saying that she was attacked at the river by the unknown traitor dog (she says that she was too frightened to properly identify the mysterious dog) and groups are sent out to scout for clues to the traitor's identity; Storm, Mickey and Daisy at first find nothing useful until they run into a female red fox, who turns out to be Fox Mist; she tells them that she witnessed Bruno's murder, though she did not quite recognize whom the mysterious evil dog committing the crime was - this is due to the fact that Fox Mist thinks that all dogs seem to be the same size and appearance, but she does say that the traitor dog was probably about the size of Daisy or bigger. Later that day, Daisy reports that Fox Mist was not scarred after all and thus Mickey and Storm are given a severe punishment by Sweet and Lucky: for the next few days and nights, they are to eat last and work constantly at High Watch. Some time later, while on the unjust High Watch punishment, Storm and Mickey spot Thorn and Beetle sneaking around the nearby abandoned coastal longpaw town without Pack permission. Soon, Storm finds Chase sneaking away from the camp in the middle of the night and follows her to truly confirm that she's the unknown traitor, only to discover that Chase is only visiting Rake's Pack of four just to catch up with her old friends; while heading back to Sweet's Pack's camp, Chase sees Storm following her and is terrified, thus proving to Storm that Chase is not the secretly bad dog, and she assures Chase that she is not the traitor either. Soon, Beetle and Thorn go missing and Storm, Lucky, Mickey, Moon and Breeze track them down to the abandoned town, discovering them to be leashed with ropes and kept in a trailer house by the construction worker longpaws to be pets. They are set free, and as soon as they all get back to camp, Sweet punishes Thorn and Beetle, who were attempting to avenge their deceased father by frightening the nearby longpaws, by having them on constant High Watch duties for the next few days along with Mickey and Storm (since the latter two did not report this at first). Some time later, Storm consults Breeze for professional help and Breeze suggests that maybe Storm needs some time away from the Pack, so everyone can respect each other again; Breeze then offers to play fight with Storm before she eventually takes a vacation from the Pack, but Storm seems to get overexcited and accidentally hurts Breeze, causing everyone to notice, apologizes to her and Breeze immediately forgives her. Later on, Storm has a nightmare about the Fear-Dog kidnapping Tumble, carrying the pup in his jaws, and wakes up to find that she has sleepwalked into the Endless Lake, and when she returns to the camp she finds that the rest of the Pack is worried because Tumble has disappeared; when Storm is asked what she was doing down at the water, her secret of a sleepwalking habit is confessed by both her and Daisy and a few other Pack members think that that makes Storm potentially dangerous. Tumble is found hiding in a small cave on the beach and he says that Storm mindlessly brought him there in her jaws - mirroring the nightmare Storm just had. Later that day, Storm announces to the Pack that due to some of her recent mistakes, and due to the fact that some of the Pack still doesn't trust her (a few even fearing her), she will be sending herself into exile. She leaves, trudging through the forest, considering the life of a Lone Dog, until, by sunset, she spots a Golden Deer buck, but decides to not catch him, continuing on her exiled journey.

The Exile's Journey

The Exile's Journey is the eleventh book in the series and the fifth book of the second arc, The Gathering Darkness, and was released on June 26, 2018. The book starts out with a flashback to when Storm, called Lick, and her brothers were forced to rejoin Blade's Pack; after walking for a while, Blade kills Wiggle and spares Grunt and Lick, asking them if they can be "true" Fierce Dogs, to which Grunt agrees, but Lick escapes, running back to the big Wild Pack, knowing she will be safer there with those who still care about her. In present time, it has been several days since Storm sent herself into exile and became a Lone Dog, and she is heading further away from her former Wild Pack's territory, bitter but sad. After a while, she begins to get weaker and weaker, unable to catch a glaucous-winged gull by the Endless Lake and unable to catch a western gray squirrel in the forest. She eventually stops at a small riverbank in the forest to stalk a male great-tailed grackle and suddenly nearly gets killed in a flash flood. Later on, she attempts to catch a mountain cottontail, but a male wild gray wolf catches it. The wolf, to Storm's surprise, is friendly and shares the rabbit with her. He tells her his name is Thoughtful and says that the reason why he is hunting alone instead of with his Pack, is because he individually likes to focus by himself for part of the time. He warns her to not pass the Dead Tree, a lightning-scorched tree near the edge of the territory of his Pack, the Still-Water Pack, since they are a bit wary of outsiders. However, a few days after, she ignores the advice (hoping at least not to be seen) and spies on the Still-Water Pack's camp, located in an abandoned longpaw quarry with a small quarry lake in it, to see what they are like and observes the 13 members feasting on a freshly-killed large bull elk (which Storm at first mistakes for a Golden Deer until she realizes that the sunlight was playing tricks on her right then). She sees that, instead of individuals taking turns to eat depending on their ranking, everyone, including this Pack's female Alpha, feeds on the carcass all at once. She observes them for a while until, late one night, she sees the Still-Water Pack escorting a mostly blind, dying old male wolf from among them to a large stone on an open plain; once he clambers on top of it and lies down, they grieve him even though he has not died yet, praying to the Great Wolf for safe passage into the afterlife on the Moon (they apparently believe that the Moon is the Great Wolf, similar to how dogs call the Moon the Moon-Dog, so Storm wonders if the Moon-Dog and the Great Wolf are the same deity); he is then left to die on the rock as part of this ritual. She approaches the dying wolf, intending on burying him safe from potential scavengers, but he tells her that that is not the way of wild wolves. When Storm asks him what his name is, he tells her he gifted his true name back to his Pack and that his new name is now Fading since he is about to die. Instead of moving on, she keeps watch over him for the rest of the night. The next morning, when Fading finally dies, three other Still-Water wolves see Storm studying him and mistake her for a dog who intends to scavenge, so they chase her off their territory, back into the forest, giving Storm her first warning and claim they have scented and/or seen other Fierce Dogs in the vicinity. Shortly afterward, days later, she discovers the scent of those other said Fierce Dogs whilst following the trail of a western red-backed vole and tracks it down, leading her to two fully-grown Fierce Dogs from Blade's old Pack, Dagger and a grown female named Pistol, who confront her and attack her together, still believing in Blade's false prophecy, though she manages to escape. She does learn that the whole Pack of vile Fierce Dogs has been scattered since the Storm of Dogs. She flees the territory and heads farther inland, eastward, quite away from the Endless Lake, and eventually finds a longpaw log cabin at the edge of a meadow during a rainy hour. There, while attempting to raid food from the cabin's spoil-box, she runs into two young gray-and-white mongrel Leashed Dogs who are a male named Rex and a female named Coco, who are here on a vacation with their golfer longpaw owners named Tom and Danny, who are housemates; they are accompanied by none other than Whine, who has been taken in by these longpaws and Leashed Dogs and renamed Buddy by Tom and Danny. Whine encourages her to stay the night after Tom shows Storm kindness by giving her affectionate scratches and dog food, something she is not used to experiencing from a longpaw. After spending the night in a cage, she wakes up and talks to Whine, forming an escape plan after hearing that the longpaws plan to take her to the vet just like they did with Whine. When Rex and Coco come back from their leashed walk, Whine has them open her cage and help her escape through the window. She then realizes that she misses being part of a Wild Pack and goes off to find Bella and Arrow. After a few days of traveling, she gets back to the beach of the Endless Lake and picks up Arrow's scent. After a while of tracking it, she finds out that he was following her own scent. They happily greet each other and he welcomes her to his own little Pack (consisting of just him, Bella and their unborn litter, and now Storm), which lives not too far from the Still-Water Pack's territory. While heading back to camp, which is located in a small forest clearing, they hear Bella howl in agony. Rushing back, they realize she is in labor. After a day of being in labor, nothing happens, so Storm goes back onto the territory of the Still-Water Pack late one night, and calls out for help, hoping to find Thoughtful. The Still-Water Pack's Alpha and four of her subjects find Storm and surround her, demanding what she wants from them after they gave Storm her first warning, and when Storm explains that she has a friend in need, the Alpha says that they do not get involved in dog affairs, so the Alpha scratches her, giving Storm her second warning. After they leave, Thoughtful approaches Storm and offers to find his healer sister, Peaceful, and see if she could help with Bella's birthing. Peaceful eagerly agrees to help Bella deliver the pups, even though it would be against the Still-Water Pack's wishes, because she takes helping others in physical need very seriously, regardless of what creature they are. The next day, thanks to the help of Peaceful, Bella finally gives birth to three pups: Tufty, Nip, and Scramble. Tufty, the only female in the litter, dies as a stillborn and is thus given a grave. Soon, by the end of Long Light and the approach of Red Leaf, Storm now acts as the part-time babysitter for Nip and Scramble, who are very energetic and reckless, and also play with what they claim is their deceased sister Tufty, which seems to be just a figment of their imagination at first (but later Storm finds signs that Tufty's spirit might actually be there). After saving the pups from a northern Pacific rattlesnake late one night, Storm and Arrow talk about Sweet's Pack. Arrow describes his reasons for leaving that are exactly the same as Storm's reasons, being judged for being a Fierce Dog. They also agree that Lucky and Sweet are not exactly the best Pack leaders, especially since Nibble, Tumble, Tiny and Fluff were born - yet Arrow never tells the parts of him secretly judging Lucky in front of Bella since she and Lucky are siblings. Arrow then tells Storm that, around the time he and Bella left Sweet's Pack's range of territory, he saw Breeze carrying a brush rabbit in her jaws that was still alive, suffering and in pain. Storm is shocked Breeze would do such a thing. Over the next few weeks, Storm leads a happy life with her new packmates. One day, after catching a big brush rabbit, she decides to see how Peaceful and Thoughtful are doing, so she spies on the Still-Water Pack's quarry camp and sees Peaceful being branded as a traitor for helping the dogs of Bella and Arrow's Pack and is exiled for two days. The next day, to show Peaceful gratitude, Storm approaches Peaceful with two freshly-killed small brush rabbits and offers one of them to her (the other for her own Pack), but Peaceful declines, saying she has to remain loyal to her Pack; she tells Storm that wolf Packs like hers believe that they are the first creatures ever created by the Great Wolf, and because of this belief, her Pack thinks that all primal gray wolves are superior to all other creatures and that if they help anything that is not a primal gray wolf, especially if it's a dog since they are too much like wild wolves, they will lose favor with the Great Wolf – though Peaceful and Thoughtful apparently do not believe that superstition, though they still believe in the Great Wolf. Storm takes the rabbits and accidentally heads deeper into Still-Water territory (not paying attention because she was deep in thought about how the Still-Water Pack's ways are similarly strict and rigid ways to Sweet's Pack), causing her to be attacked and given her third and final warning, and the fourth warning will be death - they also take the killed rabbits. Storm runs back to Arrow and Bella's Pack, telling Bella what happened. She then discusses her suspicions about Breeze with Bella, and Bella tells her that, before anyone in Sweet's Pack truly ever knew about her and Arrow's romantic relationship, she overheard Breeze talking to someone (whom Bella assumes was Rake), calling one of the Fierce Dogs, who Bella thought at first was Arrow but Storm thinks meant herself, a dirty Longpaw Fang and a murderer (even though she only ever killed evil tyrannical dogs: Terror and Blade). The next day, Storm wakes up on a cloudy morning and sees that the eastern sky has turned red from the cloud-blocked rising Sun. Seeing this as a sign from the Sky-Dogs that Sweet's Pack is still in danger from Breeze, she later, as the clouds clear, says goodbye to Bella, Arrow, Nip and Scramble and sets off, promising that if she does not return to their little Pack in 10 days, they can come searching for her, and they will pray to the noble Spirit-Dogs for hope. As Storm travels back to Sweet's Pack's camp, she thinks about all the evidence and realizes that it makes sense that Breeze, since she seemed to be absent during the crimes and due to the fact that she used to be one of Terror's underlings, is the traitor. At one point on the way back to Sweet's Pack, Storm enters the territory of Rake's Pack (Dart is none too happy to see her), tells them that she is basically a loner now and asks Rake, Ruff and Woody specifically more about Breeze, and she is told that back in Terror's Pack, Breeze was one member who always followed Terror's orders without question, and she strangely enjoyed doing it. After Storm departs, she registers that Breeze, as the unknown crime-committing dog, has mostly been targeting dogs who were involved with Terror's death (Storm herself, as well as Moon, Twitch, Bella and Lucky). When she arrives back near Sweet's Pack's territory, she hides in a bush and tries to figure out a way to ambush Breeze. The next day, after a nightmare, Storm spots Lucky, Snap and Mickey heading off on a hunting trip with Breeze as their scout-dog; Breeze heads off to patrol further along alone, giving Storm a chance. When Breeze runs off to scout good hunting spots, Storm chases her down. Breeze stops in a meadow and turns towards Storm, expecting her. Storm accuses her of being the traitor, and Breeze confirms her suspicions. Breeze tells Storm that the reason why she did all these crimes was because she wanted revenge against every dog who was involved with Terror's death, saying that she has always been the only other dog who understood the Fear-Dog, as well as ignite general chaos by also murdering Cub Fire. She tells Storm that she killed Whisper because he wouldn't stop praising Storm and that she killed Bruno because he realized Storm was innocent. She even purposefully wanted Lucky and Sweet's pups to drown in the Endless Lake by telling them that Endless Lake/Wind-Dog fable she made up, as a way of targeting Lucky but with trauma. As for when she said that she was attacked by a dog she was too scared to identify, Breeze had actually beat herself up purposefully to make it look like she was innocent. She then bites her own shoulder and cries for help, making it look like Storm harmed her, leading to Storm being captured and accused. She is brought back to Sweet's Pack's camp by Breeze, Lucky, Mickey and Snap, where she states that Breeze is the traitor and states some evidence. Breeze suggests that Storm must be mad, hallucinating while possibly committing the recent crimes, and suggests that they blind Storm, but Sweet decides to keep Storm hostage for a night until it is decided what they do with her. She is escorted into the Alpha den. Shortly after, Sunshine comes in with a brush rabbit leg for Storm, and tells her that she believes her and that she is not the only one who believes her, giving Storm some hope.

The Final Battle

The Final Battle is the twelfth book in the series and the sixth and final book of the second arc, The Gathering Darkness (as well as the final Survivors book overall), and was released on February 5, 2019. It begins with a flashback to Storm's pup days, when she was Lick and she and her brothers were sleeping with Martha one night whilst the wolfdog Alpha tried keeping an eye on them; despite the Alpha's prejudice toward Fierce Dogs, Lick registers that she and her brothers will always be safe and generally loved in this Wild Pack. Back in the present, a night has passed since Storm's return and imprisonment. She is brought out of the den to tell her side of the story to everyone, and as she begins to tell it, she sees Breeze beginning to lunge for Nibble and Storm impulsively launches herself at Breeze, and then suddenly realizes, as soon as she pins the traitor down, that Breeze only pretended to strike at Nibble just to get Storm provoked and look even more like she is the mindless killing bad dog. Storm is brought back to the den and Sweet continues to ponder others' suggestions of punishment. After waking up from a session of sleeping, Storm finds a hole opened up in the den's thornbush side and is tempted to leap through and leave the camp, but she understands, with Sunshine's help that Breeze made that gap to let Storm possibly escape and look guilty, so the gap is mended. She ponders for a while and now believes that when she brought Tumble down to the beach in a sleepwalking state during Long Light, she was actually trying to unconsciously protect him from the current pawn of the Fear-Dog, Breeze. At another point, she is visited by Twitch who wants to hear more from her case, and she asks him about how Breeze behaved in Terror's old Pack since Twitch briefly joined that Pack last year, and he says that he does recall Breeze acting strangely loyal to Terror, whatever he commanded; Twitch agrees with Storm that Rake's Pack will be visited for more answers about Breeze's past. At one point, Storm overhears Sunshine talking to others who believe Storm is innocent: Daisy, Sweet and even Tiny; so Sweet then tells Breeze that, even though they don't know who truly is the traitor, Breeze will be having help when babysitting the pups, a second adult dog to monitor her. The next day, Storm wakes up to find herself sleepwalking successfully out of her confinement and also finds that the camp is in an uproar, for the four pups are missing, and so is Breeze. Suddenly, Rake's Pack appears, with Woody specifically bringing the dead body of Ruff who they say was murdered last night; Dart accuses Storm of doing it, but is told by Lucky that Storm was confined in the Alpha den all night and that Breeze was the real killer of Ruff (since Ruff was apparently quite defiant of Terror back when she lived under his rule). Individual search parties made up of both Sweet's Pack and Rake's Pack go off to find Breeze and the pups, Storm specifically searching with Daisy, Beetle and Thorn. They follow the scent of the pups and find that it leads through a meadow that is now being dug up by longpaw-operated construction vehicles, and while they all try to casually move through the site without causing any negative suspicion to the longpaw men, Thorn and Beetle just attack anyway (still filled with longpaw prejudice because of their father's death) and Thorn ends up getting shot in one of her forelegs by one longpaw that is carrying a short silver loudstick (pistol), much to the negative feedback of his coworkers, so the team must cut their pups-and-Breeze-search short for now to bring Thorn back to camp for proper care (she is now damaged both physically and psychologically). Back at camp, Sunshine tends to Thorn's seriously fractured leg with wet moss, Moon is dreadfully concerned for her daughter's life, and Twitch advises Thorn to do what he did back when he had a broken forepaw, to chew off the entire foreleg. At sunset, all the search parties come back unsuccessful, but immediately a new search party is formed, consisting of Storm, Daisy, Lucky and Rake. Once night has fallen, the four track a familiar pup scent to the edge of a sheer cliff at the seashore and discover that Tiny is stuck on a rocky outcropping of sandstone on the side of the cliff. They rescue her and she says that her memory is fuzzy on what happened because she was so scared. Tiny is brought back to camp where she is greeted affectionately by everyone. The next day, a proper funeral is held for Ruff and then Tiny reveals to them all that her memories of what happened with her, her siblings, and Breeze are returning since she has calmed down: she reveals that Breeze said that she was taking the four of them on an adventure into the forest where they soon slept for the night in a hollow at the base of a tree, though Tiny herself woke up and began questioning Breeze's suspicious behavior, to which Breeze immediately revealed her evil intents and began tormenting Tiny, who eventually fell on that slab of stone on the side of the seaside cliff and Breeze believed she had died. Tiny also says that she was supposedly visited by the ghost of a female pup that bore a resemblance to her, and the description matches that of her deceased cousin Tufty. Just at that moment, Bella's Pack appears, looking for Storm since she has been absent for 10 days now. So many (except Dart and Chase, who are later disciplined by the Packs' leaders for making false accusations as if the two have learned nothing) are glad to see them again (Nip and Scramble are happy to finally meet their Uncle Lucky and one of their cousins, Tiny), and the three Packs agree that they will have to work together to save Nibble, Tumble and Fluff from Breeze's madness - they find that they should also find enough prey since those nearby longpaw construction workers seem to be scaring off suitable prey in the area. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, the wailing calls of the lost pups are heard and search parties spread out, Storm joining Mickey, Rake and Daisy, who try to follow the calls, but they seem to come from nowhere and everywhere, and so the four of them decide to huddle together in sleep for the rest of the night and continue their search in the morning. Storm soon wakes up in the early dawn to see the same Golden Deer buck she saw when she first left Sweet's Pack and pursues him; she does not catch him, but he leads her to a verdant sloping cliff cat the edge of the Endless Lake, and here she hears the calls of the lost pups, coming from some kind of tunnel beneath the slope, so she calls over Mickey, Rake and Daisy, and soon the other search parties show up too (Sweet has to stay behind to look after both Tiny and Thorn). They can hear the panicked calls of Fluff and Tumble, but not Nibble. With help from Nip and Scramble (who loosen a big flat slab of stone), Storm and Lucky enter down into the tunnel system to seek out Fluff and Tumble – they also must hurry since the close by construction worker longpaws and their construction loudcages are approaching this seaside area, unwittingly causing tremors that could make the cavernous tunnels here collapse. Storm and Lucky find them in a small corner of the cavern and they head out through the passage Breeze had brought them through to get the two pups down there. Once back at camp, Tumble and Fluff tell everyone that Breeze had told them and Nibble that Tiny had died and that they were going to go exploring underground to possibly meet the Earth-Dog, and Breeze herself was acting very odd; soon she revealed to them her evil intentions and told them to stay in the cave for there could be monsters lurking about, but Nibble was not there with them in the cave because she was more scared to enter and thus Breeze took her away, seeing her as the perfect gift to sacrifice to the Fear-Dog in order to make up for the "insult" Storm had caused from killing Terror, doing it soon, at the place where Terror died and on the night of the new moon - they also say about how the spirit of Tufty also visited them. Eventually, Storm, Lucky, Bella and Arrow head out into the forest to seek out Breeze and Nibble, looking for the location where Terror was killed by Storm. Along the way, they make it across a road, nearly getting killed by loudcages and loud-beasts (motorcycles). Soon, by nightfall, they come to a part of forest that has recently been altered by longpaws and is being worked into a small suburb, where they find it being guarded by three Rough Dogs (Rottweilers): two males named Brick and Brunt, and a female named Nail. These Rough Dogs say that Breeze came through here with Nibble, and she had claimed that Nibble was her pup and that Sweet's Pack was a bunch of liars, to which they are suddenly corrected by Storm, Lucky, Bella and Arrow, showing that Breeze lied to them. The seven good dogs then find that Breeze has brought Nibble to the top of an unfinished building and is preparing to sacrifice the pup to the Fear-Dog as a rainstorm suddenly commences. Bella and Storm rush up the unfinished building, and once at the top Bella directly fights Breeze, only to have Breeze knock her off the edge where she falls to the ground to her death. Nibble escapes the scene (the spirit of Tufty guiding her) and now Storm chases down Breeze to finish this once and for all - she briefly glimpses what appears to be apparitions of the Fear-Dog and the Watch-Dog staring each other down. They end up back on the ground outside the unfinished building and Storm now battles Breeze to the death, where the evil dog is choked to death by Storm's bite, her body lying in some spilt wet cement - the spirits of Whisper and Tufty congratulate Storm before returning to the Forest Beyond. Later at dawn, the skies clear and Storm, Lucky, Arrow, Nibble, Brick, Brunt and Nail dig a grave for Bella in the forest and her sad funeral commences. Storm, Arrow, Lucky and Nibble return to camp (the Rough Dogs chose to stay with their longpaws) and show to everyone that Nibble has been found, but Bella died trying to save her. They also learn that more construction worker longpaws have been sighted nearby, planning on clearing some of the trees close to the camp. It is agreed that the whole Pack of 22 (Rake's Pack and Arrow's Pack officially rejoining Sweet's Pack) must move on to find a new home, and Arrow recommends the mountains to the north, close to the territory of the Still-Water Pack of superstitious wolves, but where longpaws do not level the trees. Eventually, a whole month later, close to Ice Wind, up in their new mountain territory, the Pack hosts the Naming Ceremony for Sweet and Lucky's pups: Fluff becomes Earth, Nibble becomes Forest, Tumble becomes River, and Tiny becomes Sky – all in honor of the Earth-Dog, the Forest-Dog, the River-Dog and the Sky-Dogs. During this ceremony, Storm catches a glimpse of the spirits of all their deceased packmates (Alfie, Mulch, Fuzz, Wiggle, Fiery, Spring, Fang, Splash, Martha, Whisper, Bruno, Ruff, Bella, Tufty, and even the former Alpha wolfdog) visiting the now liberated Pack. A year later, everything is peaceful and there is no infighting amongst Sweet's Pack; they have managed to make an agreement with the neighboring Sill-Water Pack to look out for any invading longpaws (though the longpaws that do sometimes appear in the area are harmless hikers); Thorn is now three-legged like Twitch; Forest, Sky, Earth and River have trained to become excellent hunters and their two cousins, also becoming professional hunters, have now chosen their own Adult Names as well: Nip is now Tough (because of both his developing strength and the fact that the name sounds like his dead sister's name, Tufty) and Scramble is now Golden. Storm notices gray appearing on Lucky's muzzle and wonders how old he is now. She is told by Sweet that the Pack will need good leadership when the swift-dog herself is no longer the Alpha, hinting that Storm herself could become the Pack's next Alpha someday.

Novellas

On 5 May 2015, all three of these stories were released together in a compilation book called Tales from the Packs.

Alpha's Tale

A novella set before The Empty City/Sweet's Journey, released on 29 April 2014. Long before the Big Growl struck, the wolfdog who was yet to be the arrogant Alpha of the assorted Wild Pack grew up in a Pack of pureblooded wild gray wolves who (like any wild gray wolf Pack) worship the Great Wolf, hunt prey such as elk and Rocky Mountain goats, have a camp in a small sandstone-walled valley, and are in minor conflict with a neighboring wolf Pack known as the Far-Cliff Pack, as well as with mountain sharpclaws (cougars). His Pup Name was just simply Pup before he got his Adult Name, which was humiliatingly just Dog. Being the only wolfdog hybrid in this Pack, most of the 12 pureblooded wolves in the Pack made him suffer for it, especially the rebellious female called Daring - until he swore, one day, after escaping being trapped on a farm of sheep and chickens protected by a longpaw rancher and four Fierce Dogs (a male named Sundance, a female named Belle, a male named Zorro, and a female named Calamity, and Dog briefly fell in love with Calamity) who termed him Wolf, that he would never be the runt of a Pack again; though his pureblooded wild wolf mother, Graceful, and pureblooded wild wolf half-brother, Quick, were probably the only ones in this wild wolf Pack who showed him any affection. At one point he meets and rescues Snail (Fiery as a pup), who has just been orphaned, from a territorial black-colored giantfur (American black bear) and the wolfdog gets ideas for a new Pack.

Sweet's Journey

A novella set during the events of The Empty City (and partly in A Hidden Enemy), released on 10 February 2015. After Sweet and Lucky went their separate ways, it tells of how she eventually came to be the fearless Beta of the Wild Pack led by the arrogant wolfdog, defeating the previous Beta, a big, very red-furred female Irish setter mix who was rather rude and impulsive. After her defeat by Sweet, she was banished from the Pack for her dishonesty and dishonor. It also shows a bit of Sweet's past experiences in a Pack of just swift-dogs (seven members total, including herself), where she never really got along with her original Beta named Callie, a sandy-colored female swift-dog who used to be a race dog, her former longpaw master naming her Callie because it was short for California Dreamer. It also features Sweet witnessing the moment when Moon went into labor and birthed her and Fiery's three pups: Fuzz, Squirm and Nose.

Moon's Choice

A novella telling of Moon's past, and how she came to join the wolfdog's Wild Pack, set between Alpha's Tale and The Empty City/Sweet's Journey, released on 5 May 2015. Long before the Big Growl struck, Moon (named in honor of the Moon-Dog) belonged to a different Pack, a Wild Pack of 12 including herself. She and her sister Star were the daughters of the Pack's male Alpha and female Beta. The Pack also consisted of Hunter the big, burly, gray-and-brown male great dane mix (who was at first Moon's betrothed), Meadow the small beige female terrier mix with dark ears, Rush the golden-brown, short-haired, short-tailed male terrier mix, Pebble the black sleek-furred female mongrel, and Fly the big, brown-and-white, snub-nosed, long-legged male mongrel. Also in this Wild Pack were Snap, Mulch and Whine. But when that Wild Pack was threatened by a lethal case of canine distemper, Moon found unexpected help - and a difficult choice - in an English mastiff newcomer called Fiery, who had stumbled across Moon's Pack while he and the rest of his small Wild Pack of six (consisting of himself, the wolfdog Alpha, the Irish setter mix Beta, Dart, Twitch and Spring) were seeking out new territory. While Hunter, Meadow, and Rush abandoned Moon's Pack, most of her own Pack died from the illness with only Snap, Whine (Moon's Pack's original Omega), Mulch, and Moon herself remaining. They, of course, join Fiery's Pack, increasing its numbers to 10.

Development

Mythology

The authors knew ahead of time that spirituality was going to be a large part of the lives of the dogs, and that domestication and wildness would affect their dependence on it, and the characters' varying degrees of belief and dependence on religion would vary throughout the course of the series.[5] The Leashed Dogs do not really believe in the pantheon the same way Lone and Pack Dogs like Lucky do, but as they become more wild they become more spiritual, shown when they bury their owners items as an offering to Earth Dog.[6] The dogs have a pantheon of gods for different natural elements, like forests and earth.[6] The series begins with Lucky as a pup being told the story of the "Storm of Dogs", when this pantheon would fight and trap living dogs in the middle; this becomes the "Big Growl" which the story is centered on.[5]

Hierarchy

There are multiple different kinds of dogs, with various hierarchical systems. Leashed Dogs are pets, Lone Dogs are stray but live without dependence on other dogs, and Pack Dogs are stray and live dependent on their leader and packmates. After the Big Growl, most of the Leashed Dogs have lost their owners.[5] The main characters are part of the "Leashed Pack", a group of dogs that are all dependent on one another but without a complex social structure; it can be construed that Lucky is their leader (alpha).[6] The Wild Pack has a stricter hierarchy, with the wolfdog as a leader; Alpha, Beta, and Omega are referred to by their titles, while hunters and patrol dogs are given different names to distinguish.

Terminology

There was a large group effort put into the terminology that the dogs used, as it was to be vastly different from the terminology that the cats used.[5] As opposed to "Twoleg", humans are referred to as "Longpaws", and their vehicles are called "Loudcages" instead of "monsters".[6] The dogs refer to cats themselves as "Sharpclaws". However, not everything in the Survivors series is shown or has a term in the Warriors series, like "Giantfurs" (bears), or "Fierce Dogs" (Dobermann Pinscher guard dog) . In addition, there are four types of dogs: a Pack Dog, who is part of a pack; a Leashed Dog, who belongs to a human; a Lone Dog, who is a stray dog living on their own; and a Fierce Dog, which is a dog bred to fight or defend.

Themes

Philip has said that a main theme of Survivors is "fitting in", as Lucky is a Lone Dog at heart and feels out of place in his Leashed Pack.[3] Philip says that the theme is especially relevant to many of the young readers, who are trying to find "their own place in the world and at the same time keeping hold of their new identity".[3] Philip has also said that an advantage of writing stories is that "[y]ou can do all the romance and war and friendship and loyalty. You can do all that human stuff through animals."[7] Philip has said that an advantage of writing about dogs is that they "are so much less self-reliant than cats", which she believes will "make for some good stories".[8] Another main theme of the series is the complex canine pack structure that is different, but is also familiar to a human family.[3]

Publication history

The first book The Empty City was first published as a hardcover by HarperCollins on 21 August 2012[9] and released as an e-book on the same day.[10] It was released in paperback on 7 May 2013.[11] The sequel to The Empty City, A Hidden Enemy, was also published on 7 May 2013 as a hardcover[12] and released as an e-book on the same day.[13] It was released in paperback on 11 February 2014.[14] The third book in the series, Darkness Falls, was published as a hardcover on 3 September 2013[15] and released as an e-book on the same day.[16] It was released in paperback on 3 June 2014.[17] The fourth book in the series The Broken Path was first published as a hardcover on 11 February 2014 [18] and released as an e-book on the same day.[19] It was released in paperback on 10 February 2015.[20] The fifth book in the series The Endless Lake was also published as a hardcover on 3 June 2014[21] and released as an e-book on the same day.[22] It was released in paperback on 2 June 2015.[23] The sixth book Storm of Dogs was published as a hardcover on 10 February 2015[24] and was released as an e-book on the same day.[25] It was released in paperback on 13 October 2015.[26]

The first book of the second arc A Pack Divided was first published as a hardcover on 13 October 2015[27] and released as an e-book on the same day.[28] It was released in paperback on 7 June 2016.[29] The second book Dead of Night was first published as a hardcover on 7 June 2016[30] and released as an e-book on the same day.[31] It was released in paperback on 7 February 2017.[32] The third book Into the Shadows was also first published on 7 February 2017[33] and released as an e-book on the same day.[34] It will be released in paperback on 3 October 2017.[35] The fourth book Red Moon Rising is set to release in hardcover on 3 October 2017.[36]

Three e-book novellas have released in addition to the arcs. The first e-book novella Alpha's Tale was released on 29 April 2014.[37] The second novella Sweet's Journey released on 10 February 2015.[38] The third Moon's Choice was released on 5 May 2015.[39]

Critical reception

Reviews of Survivors were initially positive, while they began to take on a more negative tone as the series progressed. Booklist enjoyed the "fast-moving" plot and the characterization of the first book. The reviewer also said it was a "promising start" to the Survivors series.[40] Kirkus Reviews gave the novel a starred review, writing, "Hunter expertly explores the tensions between responsibility and freedom; risk and safety; and loyalty and acceptance". The reviewer goes on to say that Lucky's point-of-view made "even the most mundane or familiar seem alive with magic".[41] The Horn Book Magazine criticized the first book for its large number of characters, but added that its "action-packed suspense" makes a "promising start" to the series.[42] Voice of Youth Advocates stated that the new set of words used may puzzle readers, adding that the cliff hanger ending will leave readers "eagerly awaiting" the next book.[42] The second book received another starred review from Kirkus Reviews, calling it "perfectly crafted".[43] Booklist commented on the cliffhanger, stating that it will leave "avid" fans waiting for the next installment, but many readers will be "jarred" by the lack of a satisfying conclusion.[44] The Horn Book Magazine writes that "the large number of characters is hard to keep track of" but states that Lucky's dilemma "adds suspense".[45] In a review for the third book, it comments again about the large number of characters but says that the action will "please fans", calling Lucy a "sympathetic protagonist".[46] It repeats the statement in a review for the fifth book The Endless Lake,[47] and comments about the number of characters again in a review for the sixth book Storm of Dogs.[48]

The Horn Book praised the first book of the second arc A Pack Divided, calling it a "winsome, adventurous installment" of the series.[49] It stated that new readers would have trouble tracking the characters and backstories in a review for the second book, but comments that "Hunter devotees will appreciate how the dogs' saga deepens in this Survivors spinoff series.[50]

References

1. "Erin Hunter chat #5 transcript – August 16, 2008". Wands And Worlds. Archived from the original on 19 July 2012. Retrieved 2008-08-16.
2. "Erin Hunter Chat Transcript 8/14/2010 - part 2". Wands and Worlds. 14 August 2010. Archived from the original on 11 January 2013. Retrieved 15 July 2013.
3. Carpenter, Susan (26 August 2012). "Erin Hunter goes from cats to dogs in 'Survivors'". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 16 March 2014. Retrieved 15 July 2013.
4. "Q&A – Gillian & Inbali". www.warriorcats.com. Archived from the original on 18 July 2017. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
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6. "The Empty City Book Review - Plugged In". Pluggedin.com. Retrieved 23 July 2017.
7. Barron, Christina (14 June 2013). "Author Gillian Philip tells stories from the animal's point of view". The Washington Post. Retrieved 15 July 2013.
8. MacPherson, Karen (19 May 2013). "Meet animal-fantasy writer Erin Hunter — or, at least, one of them". Detroit Free Press. Retrieved 24 July 2013.
9. Hunter, Erin. "Survivors #1: The Empty City - Erin Hunter - Hardcover". HarperCollins US. Retrieved 23 July 2017.
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11. Hunter, Erin. "Survivors #1: The Empty City - Erin Hunter - Paperback". HarperCollins US. Retrieved 23 July 2017.
12. Hunter, Erin. "Survivors #2: A Hidden Enemy - Erin Hunter - Hardcover". HarperCollins US. Retrieved 23 July 2017.
13. Hunter, Erin (2017-01-26). "Survivors #2: A Hidden Enemy - Erin Hunter - E-book". Harpercollins.com. Retrieved 2017-07-21.
14. Hunter, Erin (2017-01-26). "Survivors #2: A Hidden Enemy - Erin Hunter - Paperback". Harpercollins.com. Retrieved 2017-07-21.
15. "Survivors #3: Darkness Falls: Erin Hunter: 9780062102645: Amazon.com: Books". Retrieved 7 May 2013.
16. Hunter, Erin (2017-01-26). "Survivors #3: Darkness Falls - Erin Hunter - E-book". Harpercollins.com. Retrieved 2017-07-21.
17. Hunter, Erin (2017-01-26). "Survivors #3: Darkness Falls - Erin Hunter - Paperback". Harpercollins.com. Retrieved 2017-07-21.
18. Hunter, Erin. "Survivors #4: The Broken Path - Erin Hunter - Hardcover". HarperCollins US. Retrieved 23 July 2017.
19. Hunter, Erin (2017-01-26). "Survivors #4: The Broken Path - Erin Hunter - E-book". Harpercollins.com. Retrieved 2017-07-24.
20. Hunter, Erin. "Survivors #4: The Broken Path - Erin Hunter - Paperback". HarperCollins US. Retrieved 23 July 2017.
21. Hunter, Erin (2017-01-26). "Survivors #5: The Endless Lake - Erin Hunter - Hardcover". Harpercollins.com. Retrieved 2017-07-21.
22. Hunter, Erin (2017-01-26). "Survivors #5: The Endless Lake - Erin Hunter - E-book". Harpercollins.com. Retrieved 2017-07-21.
23. Hunter, Erin (2017-01-26). "Survivors #5: The Endless Lake - Erin Hunter - Paperback". Harpercollins.com. Retrieved 2017-07-21.
24. Hunter, Erin (2017-01-26). "Survivors #6: Storm of Dogs - Erin Hunter - Hardcover". Harpercollins.com. Retrieved 2017-07-21.
25. Hunter, Erin (2017-01-26). "Survivors #6: Storm of Dogs - Erin Hunter - E-book". Harpercollins.com. Retrieved 2017-07-21.
26. Hunter, Erin (2015-10-13). "Survivors #6: Storm of Dogs - Erin Hunter - Paperback". Harpercollins.com. Retrieved 2017-07-21.
27. Hunter, Erin (2015-10-13). "Survivors: The Gathering Darkness #1: A Pack Divided - Erin Hunter - Hardcover". Harpercollins.com. Retrieved 2017-07-24.
28. Hunter, Erin (2015-10-13). "Survivors: The Gathering Darkness #1: A Pack Divided - Erin Hunter - E-book". Harpercollins.com. Retrieved 2017-07-24.
29. Hunter, Erin (2017-01-26). "Survivors: The Gathering Darkness #1: A Pack Divided - Erin Hunter - Paperback". Harpercollins.com. Retrieved 2017-07-24.
30. Hunter, Erin (2017-01-26). "Survivors: The Gathering Darkness #2: Dead of Night - Erin Hunter - Hardcover". Harpercollins.com. Retrieved 2017-07-24.
31. Hunter, Erin (2017-01-26). "Survivors: The Gathering Darkness #2: Dead of Night - Erin Hunter - E-book". Harpercollins.com. Retrieved 2017-07-24.
32. Hunter, Erin (2017-01-26). "Survivors: The Gathering Darkness #2: Dead of Night - Erin Hunter - Paperback". Harpercollins.com. Retrieved 2017-07-24.
33. Hunter, Erin (2017-01-26). "Survivors: The Gathering Darkness #3: Into the Shadows - Erin Hunter - Hardcover". Harpercollins.com. Retrieved 2017-07-24.
34. Hunter, Erin (2017-01-26). "Survivors: The Gathering Darkness #3: Into the Shadows - Erin Hunter - E-book". Harpercollins.com. Retrieved 2017-07-24.
35. Hunter, Erin (2017-01-26). "Survivors: The Gathering Darkness #3: Into the Shadows - Erin Hunter - Paperback". Harpercollins.com. Retrieved 2017-07-24.
36. Hunter, Erin (2017-01-26). "Survivors: The Gathering Darkness #4: Red Moon Rising - Erin Hunter - Hardcover". Harpercollins.com. Retrieved 2017-07-24.
37. Hunter, Erin (2014-04-29). "Survivors: Alpha's Tale". Harpercollins.com. Retrieved 2017-07-26.
38. Hunter, Erin. "Survivors: Sweet's Journey - Erin Hunter - E-book". HarperCollins US. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
39. Hunter, Erin (2017-01-26). "Survivors: Moon's Choice". Harpercollins.com. Retrieved 2017-07-26.
40. "Empty City, by Erin Hunter | Booklist Online". Booklist Online. Retrieved 28 September 2012.
41. "The Empty City by Erin Hunter | Kirkus Book Reviews". 1 August 2012. Retrieved 12 September 2012.
42. Hunter, Erin. "The Empty City (Book) | King County Library System | BiblioCommons". Kcls.bibliocommons.com. Retrieved 2017-07-25.
43. Matlack, James (2013-05-07). "A HIDDEN ENEMY by Erin Hunter". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved 2017-07-24.
44. "Hidden Enemy, by Erin Hunter". Booklist Online. 2013-05-01. Retrieved 2017-07-25.
45. Hunter, Erin. "A Hidden Enemy (Book) | King County Library System | BiblioCommons". Kcls.bibliocommons.com. Retrieved 2017-07-25.
46. Hunter, Erin. "Darkness Falls (Book) | King County Library System | BiblioCommons". Kcls.bibliocommons.com. Retrieved 2017-07-25.
47. Hunter, Erin. "The Endless Lake (Book) | King County Library System | BiblioCommons". Kcls.bibliocommons.com. Retrieved 2017-07-25.
48. Hunter, Erin. "Storm of Dogs (Book) | King County Library System | BiblioCommons". =Kcls.bibliocommons.com. Retrieved 2017-07-25.
49. Hunter, Erin. "A Pack Divided (Book) | King County Library System | BiblioCommons". Kcls.bibliocommons.com. Retrieved 2017-07-25.
50. Hunter, Erin. "Dead of Night (Book) | King County Library System | BiblioCommons". Kcls.bibliocommons.com. Retrieved 2017-07-25.