The Burning Horizon

by Erin Hunter

  “He found you!” Toklo exclaimed.

  Kallik nodded. “I think he was afraid, too, but he never left me until I was safe.”

  “I’m so sorry that we couldn’t help you,” Yakone said. “We didn’t know what to do.”

  “Well, it’s okay now.” Kallik stood back a little and looked at her friends, relishing the feeling of relief that flooded through her. We found each other, she thought. Against all odds, we did it! So maybe that means we can find Lusa, too. “We should follow the caribou,” Kallik went on. “I saw where they’re heading from high up on the glacier.”

  She padded forward, ready to go right away, but Toklo stepped forward to block her. “You’re not going anywhere until you’ve had a rest and something to eat,” he told her sternly.

  “But—”

  Yakone didn’t give her a chance to protest. “Toklo’s right. You look exhausted, your paws are bleeding, and you haven’t eaten for a day.”

  “Besides,” Toklo added, “last night we saw Ursa’s star-shape in the sky. Even if we lose the caribou, she’ll guide us to Lusa.”

  Kallik drew in a long breath. “That’s wonderful!”

  Though she was still impatient to keep looking for Lusa, Kallik knew that Toklo and Yakone were right. Toklo plunged into the bushes, saying he was going to hunt, while Yakone led Kallik to a trampled sleeping-place among some thorns and made her lie down. While she rested he cleaned her sore paws, rasping gently against them with his tongue. Kallik dozed, giving way to the shadows that clustered at the edge of her thoughts.

  Before long Toklo returned with a ground squirrel, and the bears settled down to eat.

  “This is good, Toklo,” Kallik said, relishing every bite, “but we really should get going.” We need to make up for the day we lost because of me, she added miserably to herself.

  “It’ll be okay,” Toklo mumbled around a mouthful of squirrel. “We just have to put our trust in the stars.” He gazed up and over the trees, as if he was trying to see the plains beyond and find Lusa playing in a beam of sunlight. “We’ll find her.”

  Her belly full, Kallik rose to her paws, ready to set out, but Yakone pushed her firmly down again.

  “Rest,” he ordered her. “We aren’t going anywhere until you’ve had some sleep.”

  Giving in with a sigh, Kallik dozed in the den and woke to see that sunhigh was past. She jumped to her paws. “I didn’t mean to sleep so long! Now we really have to leave,” she said. “Lusa’s counting on us.”

  “Okay,” Yakone responded, nosing carefully down one side of Kallik and then the other and giving her paws a careful check. “You seem fine,” he added, “but you have to promise to let us know if you need to stop.”

  “You too,” she retorted, gesturing toward Yakone’s injured paw.

  Together they set off downhill, leaving the glacier behind and pushing their way through bushes and rough grass until they came to the caribou trail. Toklo led the way, ears pricked and stubby tail twitching as he forced aside the scrub until they were standing at the edge of the hoofprints.

  “We may have lost the caribou,” Kallik murmured, “but their trail is easy enough to follow.”

  The strong scent of the caribou wreathed around the bears, and a wide swath of hoofprints led on into the distance, scattered with caribou droppings. Ahead was the shadowy line of the forest, clinging to the lower slopes of the ridge.

  All three of them fell silent as they headed for the trees. We could have a long, long way to go before we find Lusa. Anxiety crept up on Kallik again, her relief and joy at finding Toklo and Yakone fading as she realized the massive task that still lay before them.

  Yakone let out a snarl of annoyance as he banged his wounded paw on a stone lodged in the dirt, and when Toklo tangled himself up in some brambles, he threw them off with a roar of fury instead of carefully picking his way out. He was still growling under his breath as he stalked on. Kallik could tell the others shared her anxiety.

  Kallik padded beside Toklo, touching her muzzle to his shoulder in a soothing gesture. “We’re all worried about Lusa,” she told him. “But we have to stay calm, for our sake as well as hers.”

  Toklo cast her a sidelong glance. “I know,” he said. “Sorry.”

  For once, Toklo seemed small and young, not like the confident, almost full-grown bear who had guided them this far. Kallik let her shoulder fur brush against his for a few strides. He looks after all of us, but he needs to be looked after, too.

  The ground began to slope upward, and the trek became exhausting in the hot sun. The trees never seemed to get any closer, and their steps lagged as they stirred up dust.

  Finally the bears paused to rest at the crest of a hill, staring out over the tops of the trees. Ahead of them the forest stretched as far as they could see. The caribou were so far ahead now that even at this height they couldn’t see any sign of them.

  “This is it,” Toklo said, pointing with a paw. “Ursa’s star-shape would be in that direction, so this is where we leave the caribou trail and head into the trees. We have to trust Ujurak.”

  “At least there’ll be plenty of prey in there,” Yakone commented.

  “But will we be able to see the stars?” Kallik wondered, feeling uneasy at the thought of leaving the strongly marked trail.

  Yakone nudged her. “We know Ujurak is with us,” he said quietly. “He’ll show us the way.”

  Relief from the scorching sunlight washed over the bears as soon as they stepped into the dense shade cast by the pines. At first a deep hush seemed to envelop them, but after a while Kallik began to hear the rustling of tiny creatures and the whisper of pine needles as something small and light moved over the ground.

  Although she belonged out on the ice, Kallik felt at home in the forest. It’s safer here than being exposed on open ground.

  Her two companions seemed to feel the same. Their mood lifted and they pressed on more quickly, padding purposefully through the trees.

  “I’m so glad we found you,” Yakone said to Kallik as he fell in beside her. “I would never have stopped looking, even if it meant I never returned to Star Island.”

  Kallik shuddered. “I don’t ever want to be in such an awful place again,” she responded. “I have no idea what I would have done if Ujurak hadn’t been with me—and even he was scared.”

  Yakone padded closer so that their pelts were brushing. “If Ujurak really means to see us to the end of our journey, then he has his work cut out for him!” he observed, a note of humor in his voice.

  Kallik hesitated, then asked, “You believe that Ujurak was with me under the glacier?”

  Yakone paused and turned to her, fixing her with a solemn gaze. He nodded. “Yes. He saved your life. I believe that.”

  Toklo halted and gestured ahead with his muzzle. Kallik spotted a small deer picking its way through the trees. Oh yes . . . she thought, feeling her jaws start to water.

  Without needing to say a word, the bears spread out, padding silently over the thick covering of pine needles until they surrounded the deer, which still seemed unaware of them. As they began to close in, the deer gave a start of surprise and plunged away, heading for the space between Toklo and Kallik. Both bears leaped at it and brought it down, and Toklo gave the killing blow to its neck.

  “Thank you, spirits, for this prey,” Kallik said.

  The bears ate hungrily, though as the scent of blood rose into the air, Yakone began looking over his shoulder with a wary expression in his eyes.

  “There aren’t any coyotes around here,” Toklo reassured him. “We would have smelled them by now.”

  When their bellies were stuffed, they kept walking until the sun began to set, sending shafts of scarlet light angling through the trees. The shadows thickened as the light faded, but before it was completely dark, the bears came to a small clearing where they could look up through the circle of trees and see the stars. They lay down together in the open and gazed up at Ursa and Ujurak shining down at t
hem. Far from their homes, hardly knowing where their journey would take them next, the bears felt a sense of peacefulness and hope. No harm would come to them tonight, not under the gaze of their star companions.

  “I hope Lusa is safe, too,” Kallik whispered.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Lusa

  As soon as Lusa got her breath back, she crawled out from underneath the thornbush. Sunhigh was long past, and all around her the land was flat and scorched to dusty brown by the heat. Gazing at the expanse made Lusa’s head reel, and she could almost feel herself shrinking to nothing more than a tiny dot in this endless landscape.

  The flat-face vine was still around Lusa’s neck. Determinedly she clawed at it until it snapped, and she kicked the scraps away from her. Then she gave herself a shake and forced herself to think about what to do next.

  I need to retrace the route to the mountains, where I last saw the others, she thought. They don’t know I was taken away by a firebeast. They might still be looking for me there. A small worm of doubt crawled into her mind. I hope they’re still looking for me. . . . She knew that the journey could take days, because she had no idea how far from the mountains she had come. It might be quicker to try to find my way to Great Bear Lake from here. The Longest Day could be very soon. But I don’t want to finish my journey without the others. I have to try to find them first.

  Lusa set out across the scrubby grass, staying alongside the BlackPath. Her pelt prickled with apprehension, and she kept her ears alert for approaching firebeasts. After a while, realizing how hungry she was, she stopped to nibble berries from a scrawny bush and dug down to find some juicy white roots. Beside the BlackPath she found a puddle and took a drink, curling her lip at the tang of firebeasts in the water.

  Yuck!

  While Lusa was drinking, she heard a firebeast growl toward her and stop nearby. Looking up, she recognized all three flat-faces peering out from its belly. “No!” Lusa yelped, fear and shock freezing her to the spot. “They’ve found me!”

  The young flat-face scrambled out of the firebeast and pointed at Lusa. Before she could get any closer, Lusa took off, racing across the scrubland toward a huge expanse of glossy green plants that towered above her head. Plunging into the stalks, Lusa spotted yellow kernels underpaw. Corn! I remember that from the Bear Bowl.

  Lusa pushed her way through the thick stems, deeper and deeper. Sharp-edged leaves scratched her face and caught in her fur, but Lusa didn’t slow down. She could hear the flat-faces barking at the edge of the corn, their voices high-pitched against the soft rustle of stalks. They didn’t seem to be following her in, but Lusa didn’t want to risk it so she kept going, trying not to brush against the stems and give herself away by their movement.

  On and on Lusa went until she stumbled to a halt, her cheeks stinging from the leaves, and strained to listen over the rustling sound of the cornstalks. There was no sign of pursuit from the flat-faces.

  “Okay!” Lusa blew out a breath of relief. “Now all I need to do is find a way out.”

  But as she looked around, Lusa realized that she had no idea which way to go. I’m lost!

  Fighting down panic, she nibbled some of the corn and licked the leaves for moisture to quench her thirst. Then she chose a direction and set out, only to stop again, afraid that she was just heading deeper and deeper into the corn. She turned around, but everywhere she looked, stalks stretched away from her into the distance. Now the noise of the wind in the leaves seemed sinister and hostile, as if the corn was watching Lusa and surrounding her endlessly. . . . It can’t go on forever, can it?

  “Ujurak?” she called in a small voice. “Can you see me?”

  There was no reply. Feeling desolate and foolish, Lusa curled herself into a tiny ball.

  Though she hadn’t intended to sleep, she must have dozed, because when she uncurled herself, it was dark. She shivered, spooked by the corn as it whispered all around her. It was nothing like the comforting murmurs of black bear spirits that she could hear in trees.

  The cornstalks seemed to be pressing in on Lusa, making it hard to breathe. Desperate for some fresh air, she looked up. At once new courage flowed through her as she spotted Ujurak shining ahead of her, strong and bright, and Arcturus gleaming down, just as they had on every step of her journey. She gazed at the glittering points of light, overwhelmed by the memory of the time in the cave when Ursa had appeared in all her blazing splendor and guided her son back to his home in the stars.

  “Ursa and Ujurak will show me the way!” Lusa exclaimed.

  Setting out again, Lusa used the familiar star-shapes to guide her through the corn. The trek seemed to take forever. Lusa’s snout grew sore from brushing against the leaves, and her neck got stiff from looking up, but she kept going.

  I just have to get out before daylight comes and the stars vanish, she told herself.

  Gradually Lusa began to hear other sounds besides the rustle of the cornstalks. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked. A firebeast coughed and roared away. I must be close to the edge!

  Lusa began to run, forcing her way through the corn. Finally she blundered out and came to a dead stop, her sides heaving as she looked out across a stretch of smooth grassland. The breeze stroked her ruffled fur, and her eyes watered in the cool night air.

  “Thank you, Ujurak,” she whispered.

  Lusa trekked across the grass in starlight, her body casting a huge shadow beside her. She felt exposed once she left the cover of the corn, but she knew she wasn’t alone, because Ursa and Ujurak were watching over her. When she reached a BlackPath, she ducked down into the ditch that ran alongside it and waited until it was clear of firebeasts. Then she ran swiftly across the hard gray stone and headed onward across another murmuring expanse of grass, following the stars all the while.

  As dawn appeared on the horizon, Lusa began to look for somewhere to shelter. She veered away from a flat-face den, then realized that it had been abandoned, with large holes in the walls and the roof beginning to fall in. She was wary of entering the den itself, but she found a dense patch of undergrowth just behind it and crawled into cover beneath the overhanging stems.

  At first Lusa found it hard to sleep. Her mind was filled with Taktuq, the young flat-face, and the coyote. I wish I could have said good-bye to Taktuq. And I hope I didn’t scare the flat-face by fighting the coyote. I did it to save her! But most of all she wondered whether she would be able to find her friends. A dark space seemed to open up inside her when she thought about how far away they might be by now, though she had to believe Ujurak was leading her somewhere important.

  Eventually Lusa sank into sleep. Her dreams were full of the clicking feet of caribou, and she hoped that she had understood the sign of the caribou herd Ujurak had sent her.

  When Lusa woke, she scavenged some leaves and berries from the patch of undergrowth where she had slept and waited impatiently until the stars appeared so she could set out once again.

  The night before, the sky had been clear and the stars easy to follow. But now the tiny silver dots appeared fitfully through clouds, confusing her when she tried to figure out her bearings. Lusa headed in what she thought was the right direction, only to realize when the sky cleared briefly that she was completely wrong. She let out an annoyed growl as she turned back to face the outlines of Ujurak and Ursa again.

  Gradually the grassland gave way to a barren, rocky area, though it was still mostly flat. Lusa plodded up to the top of a low hill and became aware of thickening shadows shifting in front of her. She paused for breath, and at that moment the clouds shifted. Moonlight lit up the land with a cold, silver radiance. Huge shadows were moving toward Lusa. She flinched back, terror coursing through her.

  Great spirits!

  The shadows drew closer, and an ominous rumbling, clicking sound came to Lusa’s ears. For a moment she was even more frightened until she realized what it was.

  Caribou! I found them!

  Even though night had fallen, the a
nimals were still moving, quiet and patient in the shadows. The herd was passing below Lusa, around the bottom of the rise. Lusa ran down toward them, getting as close as she dared and taking cover behind a scatter of rocks. The caribou took no notice of her, as if they didn’t even sense she was there. On and on they passed; there were more of them than Lusa could possibly count. She peered into the throng of animals, wondering whether her friends could be hidden inside the herd, like Ujurak had been in her dream. No, that’s impossible, she told herself. Caribou would never travel with bears so close.

  Finally the last of the caribou passed by, leaving a trail behind them that stretched back into the darkness. Lusa waited, hoping breathlessly for her friends to appear, following the trail. As the moments dragged by, she called out, “Toklo! Kallik! Yakone!” but there was no reply.

  I found the caribou, but now which way do I go?

  With such a momentous decision in front of her, Lusa settled down in the grass beside the trail and let her thoughts turn over. She knew that if she made the wrong decision, she might lose her friends forever.

  Should I follow the caribou and hope they’ll take me to the others? Or follow the trail back and look for them that way?

  As Lusa crouched there in an agony of indecision, she remembered how in her dream Ujurak had made her turn around and look back along the caribou trail. She sat up, suddenly alert, her heart beating faster. “Ujurak wanted me to follow the caribou trail in the opposite direction!” she exclaimed aloud, so excited to have pieced the signs together.

  Taking a deep breath, Lusa rose to her paws, squared her shoulders, and turned to follow the hoofprints back the way they had come.

  I found the caribou, Ujurak! she thought. Now you have to help me find my friends!

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Kallik

  “Caribou! Look!” Kallik halted in front of the others and looked down at the ground. Lots and lots of hoofprints were pressed into the soft mulch of the forest floor, and there was a strong scent of caribou.