The Burning Horizon

by Erin Hunter

  The bears had been traveling through the forest for a day. They had followed the direction of the stars down a steep, rocky incline, narrowly managing to keep their footing on the loose scree. Kallik felt a huge sense of relief at finding the caribou trail again. It looked like they were traveling through the forest in the same direction but must have taken a detour because of the steep slope. Kallik was beginning to feel even more certain that the stars and the caribou would bring them to Lusa.

  Toklo padded up beside her and gave the tracks a sniff. “Yes, we’re certainly going the right way,” he said with satisfaction. “It’s great that our two signs have come together again. We must be close to finding Lusa.”

  They pressed on over the soft mossy ground. Even Kallik and Yakone, who were used to the ice, found the going easier than the rough surface of the glacier.

  And there are no crevasses to fall down! Kallik thought.

  She soon realized that the light up ahead was growing brighter. “We’re coming to the edge of the forest!” she barked.

  All three bears paused at the tree line and gazed out across the vast open landscape, a gently rolling expanse of rippling green and gold. The horizon shimmered like smoke in the heat of the day.

  Kallik felt dread churn in her belly. The hot sun weakened her and Yakone so much. She longed to stay in the shade of the trees. But they had no choice. That was where the trail led, so they had to strike out into the vulnerable emptiness and find Lusa.

  “We’ll have to leave the caribou trail,” Yakone decided. “We know we’re going in the right direction, and we have the stars to guide us. Right now it’s more important for us to choose a route that gives us some cover.”

  “Let’s head for those trees,” Toklo suggested. “I don’t like being out here like a bug on a leaf.”

  He led the way across the open ground until they reached a copse, but the trees were so spindly they hardly cast any shade. Kallik couldn’t see any more cover in the direction they had to go if they were going to follow the caribou trail, but her belly still churned as they turned away from the hoof marks pressed into the brittle grass.

  The bears didn’t feel much better protected when they were among the tree trunks.

  “Even if we don’t follow the caribou trail, it still feels very exposed,” Toklo grumbled, trying to hide under a scrubby bush.

  “Maybe we should travel at night,” Yakone murmured thoughtfully. “We’d be able to see Ujurak’s mother, and the darkness would keep us hidden.”

  “I think that’s a great idea!” Kallik said. “It’ll be cooler, too.”

  “But think of the time we’ve already wasted!” Toklo exclaimed with a flash of fury. “We won’t have any hope of finding Lusa if we keep stopping.”

  “We also won’t find Lusa if we get caught by flat-faces,” Yakone said gently.

  “Yakone’s right,” Kallik agreed. “We want to find Lusa just as much as you do, Toklo.”

  Toklo gave a reluctant grunt of agreement, then began pacing up and down among the thin trees, as if he still wanted to be on the move.

  “Settle down and rest,” Kallik urged him. “We’ll make much better time at night if we get some sleep now.”

  Toklo looked as if he wanted to argue, but he said nothing and curled up at the foot of a tree. He fell asleep quickly, and Kallik wondered whether he had slept at all the night before.

  Kallik exchanged a glance with Yakone. “This heat is awful,” she said, feeling like she was burning up as the hot sun struck her fur though the measly tree cover. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep.”

  “Let’s see if there’s more shade that way.” Yakone nodded down a slope where the trees seemed to grow more thickly.

  “Okay.”

  Kallik rose to her paws and padded after Yakone, though she doubted they would find anywhere to escape the merciless sun. Then, at the bottom of the slope, she spotted a tiny pond with trees and long grasses growing around it.

  Together she and Yakone slid into the pool. Kallik felt blissful relief from the heat as the water soaked into her fur, even though there wasn’t quite enough to cover her.

  “This is better!” she breathed. Then she lifted a paw, wrinkling her nose at the green scum that covered it from the stagnant pond water. “We’ll turn into green bears if we’re not careful,” she said.

  Yakone nuzzled her shoulder. “I don’t mind being a green bear if you’re one, too.”

  Kallik and Yakone dozed in the water and woke to hear Toklo’s voice calling to them through the trees. Darkness was falling, and when they emerged from the copse they could see the outlines of Ujurak and Ursa shining in the sky.

  As they struck out across the open grassland, Toklo broke into a run. Kallik and Yakone picked up their pace to match his.

  But they had not gone very far when Kallik noticed that Yakone was limping again. He was beginning to drop back, panting with the effort of running on his mangled paw.

  “Toklo!” Kallik shouted. “Slow down! We can’t go that fast.”

  To her relief, Toklo wheeled around and trotted back to them. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just want to find Lusa as soon as we can.”

  “Ujurak hasn’t told us to stop looking for Lusa,” Kallik pointed out. “We have to trust that she’s okay and that we’re going to find her.”

  Toklo heaved a deep, frustrated sigh. “You’re right,” he admitted. “Okay, you set the pace.”

  The going was easy over the soft, flat ground, with a cool breeze whispering around them, but soon the bears began to feel hungry. “There doesn’t seem to be any prey out here,” Yakone complained. “I’d give anything for a good fat seal.”

  So would I, Kallik thought, and began to sniff carefully as they padded on. There was no hope of a seal, but there might be some other prey hidden in the long grass. After a while she picked up a faint scent and signaled to the others to stop. “Ground birds!” she whispered, pointing with her muzzle in the direction the scent came from.

  Kallik stalked forward as slowly as if she was creeping up on a basking seal. Eventually she could make out the shape of the bird sitting among the grass, and slid forward in a single fluid movement to plant her paw on top of it.

  Got it!

  Toklo and Yakone padded up to examine her catch, a plump grouse. As Kallik picked it up, she noticed that it had been sitting on eggs.

  “Good catch!” Toklo grunted, crunching up one of the eggs. “Spirits, that tastes good!”

  All three bears felt on edge in the open grassland, casting quick glances around them. It’s like being on the ice, Kallik thought, sinking her teeth into the grouse. Only out on the ice, there aren’t any flat-faces to spot us.

  Kallik remembered the very beginning of her journey, after the silver bird crashed and killed Nanuk, when she walked for days across dusty, empty ground.

  At least I have Yakone and Toklo now, she thought. But I should have Lusa, too. . . .

  Not long after the bears set out again, they came to the top of a long, shallow slope and saw a large flat-face denning area spread out in front of them. The caribou trail veered sharply away from it in a completely new direction.

  “Have you seen this place before?” Kallik asked Toklo.

  The brown bear shook his head. “We must be away from the path I followed last time.”

  Lights glittered in the darkness, shining on crisscrossing BlackPaths and more dens than they could count. At the far side was a tall, slender tower with an ominous red light smoldering at the top of it.

  “Looks like we should go straight through there,” Yakone pointed out, gazing up at the stars.

  “No way!” Toklo retorted. “We’ll have to go around like the caribou.”

  “But we’ll lose time if we do,” Kallik told him.

  “We’ll lose even more if we get caught by flat-faces,” Toklo flashed back at her.

  Reluctantly Yakone nodded. “He’s right.”

  Kallik had to give in, sighing as
their paws turned into the new route. Why can’t anything be easy?

  By the time the sky began to pale toward dawn they were still skirting the denning place. It seemed to go on forever, with the smells of flat-faces and firebeasts, the danger of crossing BlackPaths, and the never-ending worry that they would be spotted. The ground was dusty where firebeasts had trampled the grass into dirt, and the dust stung Kallik’s injured eye. There were no signs of prey.

  “We have to find somewhere to hide,” Toklo said. “We’re bound to meet flat-faces around here in daylight.”

  Kallik glanced around and saw a small stretch of woods not far from the outermost flat-face dens. “In there would be a good place,” she suggested.

  She led the way into the trees, but before they had gone many bearlengths, she picked up the scent of flat-faces again and noticed the gray walls of a tumbledown den not far ahead.

  “Seal rot!” she muttered. “Flat-faces are everywhere.”

  “Maybe the den is abandoned,” Yakone murmured hopefully.

  Before Kallik could point out that the scents were fresh, loud barking split the air, and a dog shot out from behind the den and raced straight for the bears.

  “Get away!” Yakone snarled at the dog, raising one paw. “Or I’ll flatten you!”

  “No!” Kallik gave Yakone a hard shove. “Don’t touch it. That’ll only make its flat-face master chase us.”

  Yakone nodded, and together the bears plunged into the bushes, heading away from the flat-face den as fast as they could. The dog followed them for a little while, barking loudly enough to wake every flat-face in the denning area, then gave up and turned back to its den.

  “Thank the spirits!” Kallik exclaimed.

  Their flight had brought the bears back to the edge of the woodland. The ground ahead of them was flat and open, with nothing at all that could give them cover. A small BlackPath crossed the middle of it, where firebeasts were already running to and fro as the sun rose.

  “We’re too exposed here,” Toklo said, flexing his claws angrily.

  Gazing desperately around, Kallik saw some large dens on the edge of the denning area, on the other side of the BlackPath. They didn’t look to her like the sort of places where flat-faces lived. They were too big, and there were no small, square holes in the sides. We’ve hidden in places like that before.

  “We’ll have to go in there,” she told her friends, pointing with one paw.

  “Are you completely cloud-brained?” Toklo growled, his eyes wide with amazement. “Those are flat-face places.”

  Yakone nodded uneasily, agreeing with Toklo. “I don’t like the look of them.”

  “Like it or not, they’re our only choice,” Kallik retorted, biting back her irritation. “It’s too hot to be outside all day, and the flat-faces are bound to see us if we hang around here much longer.”

  Reluctantly, Yakone and Toklo gave in. Kallik took the lead as they crept out into the open, trying to crouch close to the ground so they wouldn’t be seen. As they approached the BlackPath, they found a narrow gully where they could squeeze down and wait for a lull in the stream of firebeasts. The sun had barely cleared the horizon, but already there seemed to be no end to the growling, stinking monsters.

  Kallik froze as a flat-face in the belly of a firebeast let out a yell and pointed at them. He spotted us! But the firebeast swept by without even slowing down. Kallik relaxed, puffing out a breath of relief. Maybe that firebeast isn’t interested in bears.

  When they finally managed to cross the BlackPath, they had to skirt around a group of flat-faces who were standing beside a huge firebeast, peering at something underneath its belly. Then finally they had a clear path to the big dens.

  Shoulder to shoulder, the bears galloped across the open ground and pushed hard at the door of the first den. But it wouldn’t open.

  “What’s the matter with it?” Kallik asked, rearing up in frustration and battering at the door with her forepaws.

  “Come on, let’s try the next one,” Toklo said tensely.

  But as they headed toward the second den, they heard a whistling sound and the thump of heavy pawsteps. Just in time they ducked behind a sleeping firebeast as a flat-face came around the corner of the den.

  “Why is he making that funny noise?” Kallik wondered aloud, thinking how weird the flat-face looked with his mouth puckered up. “Is he trying to be a bird?”

  “Nothing would surprise me about flat-faces,” Toklo responded.

  The flat-face climbed into the belly of the firebeast they were hiding behind. As it woke up with a cough, the bears scrambled away and raced around the corner of the next den. Kallik peered out to watch the firebeast roll away, retching at the vile-smelling fumes that came out of its rear.

  Meanwhile Toklo was trying to open the door of the second den, but it stuck fast. “Seal rot!” he exclaimed, giving it a bang with one paw. “Now what do we do?”

  “Let me look at it.” Yakone stepped forward and pushed his nose into a narrow gap between the door and the wall. “If I can just shift this . . .”

  Kallik watched, holding her breath. Suddenly there was a loud click, and the door swung open. “Good job, Yakone!” she exclaimed.

  With Yakone in the lead, the bears sneaked into the shadows of the big den. Kallik pushed the door shut behind her. Rows and rows of flat-face objects stretched out in front of them. There were piles of wooden things like flat cages, and stacks of shiny metal cans that reminded Kallik of how Lusa used to scavenge for food among flat-face rubbish.

  I wonder if there’s food in these.

  But all she could smell was the tang of firebeasts and an oily scent that made her feel nauseous.

  “I don’t want to stay here all day,” she said. “We’ll need to find a better place.”

  “I don’t like it here either,” Yakone said, and Toklo nodded in agreement.

  But when they opened the door again and peered out, several more firebeasts had appeared, with flat-faces climbing out of their bellies. Two or three of them were unloading huge stuffed pouches from the back of one of the firebeasts.

  “We can’t go out there now,” Toklo muttered, withdrawing into the shadows again.

  “Okay,” Kallik sighed.

  The bears retreated as far into the den as they could and squeezed into a gap between some of the shiny cans. One of them tipped over and rolled onto the floor with a clang. All the bears froze; Kallik fixed her gaze on the door, certain that a flat-face would come in to see what the noise was about.

  None appeared, but Kallik still couldn’t relax. She crouched beside Yakone and Toklo, all of them too scared to go to sleep.

  “I’m sorry,” Kallik whispered. “This was a bad idea.”

  “We’d have been spotted right away if we put a paw outside,” Toklo pointed out grimly. “And there’s nowhere else to hide. All we can do is wait here until it’s dark.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Toklo

  A sickening stench wreathed around Toklo; he could feel it clinging to his pelt. He was walking in the middle of a herd of caribou, surrounded by gray-brown bodies and the sound of their clicking hooves. With the caribou pressing around him, he had lost sight of Lusa and the white bears, and when he tried to call out to them, there was no reply.

  Toklo stumbled onward, swept along by the plodding caribou. He ducked down and tried to peer through the spindly brown legs to find his friends, when suddenly the ground gave way under his feet. He fell with a splash into terrible stinking black liquid, waves of it slapping against his fur. It was thicker than water, greasy and warm, sliding into his nose and ears and dragging him beneath the surface. Though he flailed his paws frantically, he could feel himself sinking until the fetid liquid closed over his head.

  “Help me!”

  With a yelp, Toklo woke to find himself in the cramped, dark hiding place in the flat-face den. Yakone had risen to his paws and was peering into the den from behind the barrier of cans.

&nbs
p; “I think it must be night outside,” he reported, glancing back over his shoulder. “There aren’t any gaps in the walls that light could come through, but it’s all quiet. I think we should get out of here.”

  Toklo staggered to his paws, trying to push the horror of his dream from his mind, and followed Yakone and Kallik through the den on legs that ached with stiffness.

  Yakone tried to nose the door open, but it didn’t move. “I don’t understand,” he said, looking puzzled. “When we came in, I lifted that little silver stick there, but now it won’t budge.”

  Toklo shouldered past him. “Let me try.”

  Fear and anger began to build up inside Toklo as he pushed and pulled at the door fastening with his snout and paws. But Yakone was right. No matter what Toklo did, it wouldn’t move. “We’re trapped,” he growled. “There’s no way out!”

  Letting his fury spill over, Toklo turned on Kallik. “We should never have come in here!” he snarled at her.

  “Leave her alone!” Yakone pushed himself between Toklo and Kallik. “We all agreed—”

  “I can answer for myself,” Kallik interrupted with an annoyed look at Yakone. “Toklo, this place was crawling with flat-faces this morning, and there was nowhere else to hide. We didn’t have a choice, remember?”

  “And now we’re stuck!” Toklo knew he was being unfair, but his fear of being trapped in this flat-face place and his need to get out and continue the search for Lusa were making him desperate.

  “Maybe there’s another way out,” Yakone suggested. “Or maybe the door will open if we just push it harder.”

  He threw himself at the door; it shook but still held fast. After a moment Toklo joined him, and the two bears battered at the door over and over until they were both bruised.

  “This is no use,” Toklo panted, exhausted.

  Kallik and Yakone both looked utterly defeated, and as despairing as Toklo felt.

  “Okay, let’s look for another way out,” Toklo mumbled.

  He headed down one side of the den, between piles of the flat wooden cages. A faint hint of light was seeping in from tiny translucent globes attached to the ceiling, but it was barely enough to see anything. Toklo had to rely on vague memories of the space from the day before, and he longed for the open air and starlight.