“That’s a lot of no-claws,” Yakone commented; Lusa thought he sounded nervous. “I’ve never seen so many dens all in one place.”
There weren’t many flat-faces on Star Island, Lusa recalled. “We’ll only go to the edge of them,” she told him. “Just as far as it takes to find something to eat.”
Yakone only grunted.
As they drew closer to the denning place, another, wider BlackPath joined the one they were following. Not far past the junction, Lusa heard the roar of a firebeast coming up from behind, and she leaped to one side as it plowed past through the snow, spattering her fur with filthy snowmelt.
“That was huge!” Yakone exclaimed, staring at the firebeast as it growled away toward the denning place.
“At least it didn’t take any notice of us,” Kallik said.
“Let’s get away from here,” Toklo growled as the roar of yet another firebeast sounded in the distance. “Now that we can see the flat-face dens, we don’t need to follow the BlackPath.”
Without waiting to see if the others agreed, he headed down into the valley, cutting across the open ground toward the nearest dens. Lusa followed, slipping and stumbling down the snow-covered slope, while Kallik and Yakone brought up the rear. By now the daylight was fading, much to Lusa’s relief. It would be easier to stay hidden in the flat-face area if it was dark, and there wouldn’t be as many firebeasts and flat-faces moving around, either.
The line of hills reared up above the low roofs of the denning area. Lusa thought that they looked ominous, as if they were frowning down on bears and flat-faces alike.
I really don’t like this place, she thought. If Kallik’s Frozen Sea is only on the other side of those hills, I don’t think I want to stay there.
They had reached the outskirts of the denning area when Lusa heard the roar of another firebeast. She glanced around, but there were no BlackPaths nearby, and the roar was growing louder and louder, battering against her ears.
Then she heard Toklo call out, “Great spirits!”
The brown bear was looking up. Following his gaze, Lusa saw a metal bird screaming across the sky straight for them. But this wasn’t like the birds she had seen flying above the Last Great Wilderness, with their whirling metal wings on their heads. This was much bigger; it had rigid wings that stuck out at the sides, and glaring eyes that looked down at her. As Lusa watched, transfixed by terror, curved claws emerged from the underside; she could imagine it swooping down to catch her and carry her off to its nest.
“Run!” she squealed, taking off across the snow.
The metal bird bore down on her. Its screeching filled the whole sky, and in her panic Lusa had no idea where she was running. She glanced up to see the glaring lights above her head, fell over her own paws, and rolled in the snow. Scrambling up, she ran on again, expecting at any moment to feel those cruel talons meeting in her back.
Suddenly the lights vanished. The screaming of the metal bird began to die away. Lusa halted, panting, and realized that she was standing in a narrow pathway between two flat-face dens. She had fled into the denning area. Her heart was pounding so hard she thought it would burst out of her chest, but for the moment she was safe.
Where did the bird go? Did it catch one of the others?
Lusa forced herself to be calm, to steady her breathing, and to look around for the others. The narrow pathway stretched in both directions; a light shone from one end, and a firebeast rolled past. The other end was dark. Sniffing the air, Lusa caught the tang of firebeasts and a faint trace of rotting flat-face food, but there was no scent of bear. She couldn’t see any of her friends.
“Toklo?” she called cautiously, afraid of flat-faces hearing her. “Kallik? Yakone?”
There was no reply.
“I’d better get out of here and find them,” Lusa muttered to herself.
Everything was quiet now, except for firebeasts growling in the distance. Lusa had no idea where she was or what route she had followed to get there. The snow on the path was dirty and half melted, so she couldn’t even follow her own pawprints back to where she’d left the others.
She was sure that she hadn’t crossed a BlackPath, so she headed away from the lighted end of the pathway, clinging to the shadows of the den walls that rose sheer on either side. At the end of the pathway she peered cautiously out from behind the nearest den. An open stretch of ground lay in front of her, bounded on all four sides by more dens. BlackPaths led away from the ground on both sides, and there were two or three other narrow paths like the one where Lusa was hiding.
“I don’t remember this place,” she murmured. “I don’t remember anything!” She crept out into the open, only to dart back into cover a moment later at the sound of flat-face voices.
Two male flat-faces appeared from one of the narrow paths and crossed the open space, talking loudly. At first Lusa thought they were heading for her, and she braced herself to run. But then they disappeared into one of the nearby dens, the door snapping shut behind them.
Lusa took a deep breath. Now or never, she told herself.
Leaving the shelter of the pathway, she scurried across the open space. Her heart began to pound again from fear of being in the open. It felt like a long, long way to the safety of the paths on the other side. Before she reached them, she heard the roar of an approaching firebeast. The glaring beams of its eyes swept across her and swiveled back, fixing her in the harsh light. A flat-face shouted something.
Lusa was frozen with fear. Then, as she heard the thump of flat-face paws hitting the ground, she forced herself to run. More shouting broke out behind her. The mouth of the nearest pathway was just in front of her. But as she plunged into the darkness between the dens, she caught a glimpse of a black shape flying in the air over her head. The next moment, something tangled in her paws and she crashed to the ground.
When Lusa tried to get up, she found herself caught in some sort of mesh made out of tough strands like twisted vines. She struggled wildly but only managed to tangle herself further. Frantic to escape, she bit through one of the strands. It gave way, but two flat-faces were already bending over her, one on each side.
“Help!” she squealed. “Toklo! Kallik! Help me!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Toklo
Toklo had fled when the metal bird had come shrieking out of the sky. He had lost sight of his companions, but when the bird swooped out of sight over the rooftops of the flat-face dens, there was no struggling bear shape in its claws. He realized that they had all escaped.
Now all I have to do is find them.
His injured shoulder was stinging, but the wound hadn’t stopped him from moving fast when he’d needed to. Looking around, he saw he was standing on a BlackPath in the depths of the denning area. Snow was piled in huge mounds on either side, leaving the black surface clear for firebeasts. Toklo scrambled over the nearest heap and took cover in the shadow of an overhanging den roof.
When he looked up, he could see the line of the hills beyond the jumble of dens, and he realized roughly the direction he would need to take. I suppose the best thing to do is go back to the place where we split up. I bet the others will do the same. His belly lurched with fear. If they can.
He was turning to pad alongside the BlackPath when he heard a high-pitched squeal of terror. “Help me!”
Lusa!
Toklo froze, trying to work out where the cry had come from. A narrow pathway gaped in front of him, and darting down it, he spotted Lusa at the far end. She was on the ground, struggling; two flat-faces wearing thick pelts were bending over her. Toklo let out a roar and charged toward them.
The two flat-faces straightened up, then backed away. To Toklo’s relief, neither of them was carrying a firestick. They shouted something; then one of them turned and ran toward a firebeast crouching at the far end of the pathway.
“Lusa!” Toklo bellowed.
Lusa was still struggling. As he reached her side, Toklo saw that she was tangled in some kin
d of mesh made out of twisted vines. She was biting through it, but the hole she had made was still too small to crawl through.
Toklo thrust his muzzle close to hers and began tearing through the mesh. “Hurry!” he growled. He knew it wouldn’t be long before the flat-faces came back with firesticks.
Suddenly the mesh ripped open in their teeth, and Lusa scrambled free. “Thanks, Toklo!” she gasped.
“Don’t talk—run!”
Toklo turned and bounded toward the end of the pathway, with Lusa scurrying behind him. He heard more shouting from the flat-faces, and the pounding of their paws, but not the crack of firesticks. Emerging from the end of the pathway, Toklo shoved Lusa behind one of the mounds of snow. “Keep still!” he ordered.
Peering around the snow heap, he saw the two flat-faces appear from the end of the pathway. They stood a moment looking around, muttered something to each other, then shrugged and vanished the way they had come, taking the torn vine stuff with them.
“Okay,” Toklo murmured. “We can go.”
“I don’t know the way,” Lusa said, standing up and shaking snow from her pelt. “Have you seen Kallik and Yakone?”
“No, but I know the bird didn’t get them,” Toklo replied. “We’ll find them.” He tried to sound confident for Lusa’s sake, though privately he felt doubtful. What will we do if we’ve lost Kallik and Yakone? “I’m guessing they’ll go back to the place where we scattered,” he went on. “I think it’s this way.”
He led Lusa alongside the BlackPath, keeping to the shadows and hiding behind the drifts of snow when a firebeast snarled past. Creeping around a corner, Toklo found himself on the edge of an open space where several firebeasts crouched in rows. Harsh yellow light poured down from thin metal stalks that loomed over them. Toklo’s paws tingled with apprehension.
“I think they’re asleep,” Lusa whispered, peering around his shoulder.
“We still have to get past them,” Toklo muttered. “Follow me, and if you think they’re waking up, run.”
Gagging on the acrid tang of firebeasts and oil, Toklo slunk between two of the rows. The ground underpaw was hard, covered in snowmelt with an oily slick on the surface. He tensed at the sound of flat-face voices in the distance, but the firebeasts didn’t stir. Relief flooded over him as he reached the dark opening of a pathway at the other side.
Toklo raised his snout to sniff the air, but he couldn’t distinguish any trace of bear beyond the overwhelming reek of firebeasts. “Kallik!” He raised his voice into a roar. “Yakone!”
He thought there might have been a faint answering roar, but it was drowned out by flat-face shouting and the thump of approaching footsteps.
“They heard us!” Lusa exclaimed.
“This way!”
Toklo bundled Lusa in front of him and fled down the pathway and around the next corner. The walls of a huge den rose up on one side, flat and featureless. On the other side was more piled snow, lining a BlackPath that seemed to lead to the edge of the denning place.
“Thank Arcturus!” Lusa panted, scrambling through the snow piles toward the pale outline of the hills beyond.
“Lusa! Toklo!”
Toklo spun around at the sound of Kallik’s voice. The white she-bear rose from behind a huge snowdrift, scattering snow as she bounded toward them. Yakone followed her more slowly.
“Kallik!” Lusa hurried over to her friend and butted her head into Kallik’s shoulder. “I can’t believe we found you!”
“Same here,” Kallik replied, giving Lusa an affectionate nudge. “We were afraid the big metal bird had gotten you.”
Toklo greeted the two white bears with a rumble deep in his throat. He didn’t want to admit how pleased he was to see them again. At least to see Kallik again.
“We’d better get out of here,” he said.
“What about food?” Lusa asked, glancing back the way they had come.
“You’re not suggesting going back there?” Toklo growled. “If you want the flat-faces to catch you again, go ahead. The rest of us are heading for the ridge.”
Lusa nodded reluctantly. “Okay. I suppose you’re right.”
Toklo led the way past the last of the dens, picking up the pace until they were moving at a fast trot. He breathed easier with every pawstep that took him away from this unnatural place.
Behind him he heard Kallik ask, “What did Toklo mean, catch you again?”
“Two flat-faces trapped me in some sort of mesh,” Lusa explained.
“It seems weird that they’d do that instead of hurting you with firesticks,” Yakone observed. “But then, no-claws are weird.”
“Maybe they wanted to take you to bear jail,” Kallik suggested. “I told you about the time I was trapped there, remember? Those no-claws put me in a net to take me to a place with other bears.”
“Maybe they were going to take me back to the Bear Bowl.” Lusa gave her pelt a determined shake. “But I’m a wild bear now. Thanks for saving me, Toklo.”
“Just remember that.” Toklo recalled how scared and angry he had been when he’d seen Lusa trapped. “These flat-faces might not use firesticks. But they’re still not good for bears. So let’s get as far away from them as we can.”
As they left the last of the dens behind, Toklo realized that they had come out of the denning place by a different route, and now they were much closer to the hills. The land sloped steeply upward, with rocks poking up out of the snow and a twisted thornbush here and there. The hills seemed to glower down at them, as if they were guarding the interior of the island against intruders.
Toklo let out a contemptuous snort. You’re getting as bad as Ujurak, seeing signs everywhere! Pain twisted his heart again as he remembered his friend. The absence of a smaller brown bear padding alongside him was like a gaping wound that refused to heal. Pushing the dark thoughts away, he kept on at a grueling pace, higher and higher into the hills. His legs ached with the effort, and he could hear his companions panting as they followed, but something forced him to keep going.
“Toklo!” Lusa gasped out from behind him. “Can we rest for a bit?”
Reluctantly, Toklo halted and turned to look back the way they had come. Starlight glimmered on the snowdrifts, broken only by their own trail, and cast dark shadows from the rocks and scrubby thorns. The flat-face dens looked tiny at this distance, like pebbles he could have dashed aside with one paw.
Kallik and Yakone stood close together, gazing across the plain they had left behind, while Lusa panted beside them, her sides heaving and her breath billowing into clouds in the frosty air.
Toklo shifted his paws impatiently. His belly was howling with hunger, and he sniffed instinctively for the scent of prey. The harsh tang in the air was unexpected, and he snuffled at his own pelt, wondering if he had picked up the scent of oil from the flat-face dens. But all he could smell there was bear fur.
“I can smell firebeasts,” he muttered, half to himself. “But there aren’t any BlackPaths for them to run on.”
“Maybe it’s from that metal bird,” Lusa suggested, scanning the sky nervously.
Toklo grunted. He didn’t want to think about the bird hunting them down out here on the hillside, where there was no cover. “We’d better move on,” he said.
His paws were still driving him onward, but he couldn’t keep up the same fast pace as the slope grew steeper still. Soon he had to leap from rock to rock, or grip the twisted thorns to drag himself upward. At one point the snow gave way under his paws, and he slipped back, colliding with Yakone, who was just behind him.
“Sorry,” Toklo muttered.
“Don’t worry, I’m fine,” Yakone responded. “I just hope there’s something worth finding at the other side of these hills.”
Have you got a better idea, cloud-brain? Toklo forced himself not to say the words aloud. Yakone just doesn’t understand about making a long journey.
Soon the top of the crags loomed just above Toklo’s head. With a last desperate scramb
le he pulled himself over the edge. In the same heartbeat a storm of white wings battered his head, and he let out a surprised yelp, almost losing his balance and falling back down the slope.
The scent of goose washed over Toklo. Hunger in his belly took control of his paws. He lashed out, snagged his claws in feathers, and landed hard on top of a goose, bringing it to the ground. The rest of the flock wheeled into the air with harsh cries and were gone.
Behind Toklo, Lusa’s horrified voice cried out, “Toklo! No!”
Toklo stumbled to his paws, looking down at the goose with mingled shock and fury. It lay motionless, its neck at an awkward angle. Not again.
“There was a whole flock of geese,” he growled defensively. “How likely is it that I’d snatch Ujurak? And if it was him,” he added, “it serves him right for hanging around looking like prey. I’m hungry!”
But it’s not Ujurak, he told himself silently. It can’t be. I killed him by the shore, when he was the hare. This just can’t be Ujurak, too. He wouldn’t be that cruel.
“I’m going to eat,” he announced defiantly. “You can share if you want to.”
Yakone crouched down beside the body of the goose. “Thanks, Toklo.”
Kallik hesitated a moment longer, then joined them. “I suppose Ujurak might have sent the geese,” she murmured, though Toklo wasn’t sure she was managing to convince herself. “We won’t get much farther without food.”
“That’s right.” Toklo tried to sound as if he believed her. “Ujurak wouldn’t let us starve.”
Lusa just shook her head sadly, and padded over to a thorn tree growing at the edge of the rocks. A few shriveled leaves clung to its branches; Lusa stripped them off and crunched them, then clawed off strips of bark and began to chew those.
That doesn’t look like much of a meal, Toklo thought, with his mouth full of goose. But it’s better than meat for Lusa, I suppose.
The goose was a big bird, though divided among three it wasn’t really enough. Still, it soothed the pain in Toklo’s belly and sent new strength into his paws. Raising his head from the remains of the prey, Toklo let out a groan. He had thought that with the last scramble they had reached the top of the hills. He had half expected to see Kallik’s Frozen Sea stretching out in front of them. But now he saw how wrong he was.