The Quest Begins

by Erin Hunter

  Kallik crept along in the shadow of the bushes beside the path until she found a smaller stone path that went off to the left. She followed this to a stone clearing behind a flat-face den. A few firebeasts were squatting here, but they all seemed to be asleep. Next to the large den were three enormous containers, each twice her height, overflowing with rotting food and bits of discarded flat-face things. Kallik squeezed between them and the wall of the den. There was just enough space for her, and it was dark and well hidden from sight. The smells from the containers were driving her mad with hunger, but her terror won out, and she crouched lower, hoping the smell would help to hide her scent from the firebeasts.

  She crouched there all day, dozing uneasily but snapping awake every time there was a noise outside. Twice she heard no-claws come out of the den and throw things into the containers, making clanging sounds that hurt her ears. Firebeasts growled in and out of the clearing, squatting there while their no-claws went into the den and came out carrying strange-smelling things.

  Kallik dreamed of plump seals crunching between her teeth, chewy fat sliding down her throat. She reached for another mouthful, but the seal was sliding away across the ice, and when she reached out for it, her nose hit cold metal and she woke up. The air was full of the smell of food—hot sizzling fat from somewhere close by. Kallik’s head swam and her belly growled. She had to find that smell.

  She squeezed out from behind the containers and tracked the scent, using her nose the way her mother had taught her. She followed it along the walls of the dens, staying in the shadows. It was difficult because there were bright sun-globes everywhere, many of them growing on the top of tall, leafless trees that lined the stone paths.

  When Kallik reached the den where the scent was coming from, she smelled something else: another bear. She hid behind a container like the others until she could see the approaching bear. It was a female, starving and thin with a mud-splattered pelt. Kallik watched her nose through the entrance of a den and wander inside. She must have been tracking the same scent. Quickly Kallik followed. This was her prey!

  She poked her nose inside the open door and discovered a narrow space that smelled overpoweringly of food. The she-bear was at the other end of the room, standing on her hind legs and roaring at a no-claw. The no-claw screamed and threw something at the bear that clattered on the floor. Other no-claws came rushing in, all of them shouting.

  Kallik glanced around, her stomach roaring so loud it filled her ears. On a ledge just above her head, there was a large hunk of blood-red meat. Yes! She stood up on her back paws and fastened her teeth in it, dragging it down to the floor. She tore into it, ripping strips off and gulping them down. Nothing mattered but the meat, precious food, rich and warm and filling her belly….

  A bang split the air and the other bear slumped to the ground. Kallik saw blood spilling across the floor and trickling between her claws. It felt warm and sticky, and she suddenly remembered pink water washing over the ice, staining her fur. She looked up and saw a no-claw standing a bearlength away.

  He was pointing a death stick right at her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Lusa

  Lusa dropped to the ground below the fence, feeling the hard surface of the flat-face path below her paws. She sniffed the air for a moment, wondering which way to go.

  A low rumbling trembled through the ground and she twitched her ears, trying to identify the noise. It got louder and louder, and suddenly a pair of enormous bright eyes blasted out of the darkness and roared past her, belching smoke and fumes. Lusa leaped backward and rolled into the fence, covering her muzzle with her paws. She lay there, quivering, wondering if the terrible beast was going to come back and eat her. As her heartbeat slowly returned to normal, she realized that it must have been a firebeast—a larger, louder version of the ones the feeders rode around in to visit the animals.

  Were the firebeasts everywhere in the wild? She didn’t want to make any of them angry. She didn’t want to see what they would do to her in a fight.

  She ran across the path to a patch of grass outside one of the flat-face dens. The soft green tickle under her paws made her feel a little better, so she took a moment to stop and study her surroundings. Bright fire-globes stood all along the flat-face path, casting wide circles of light that drove the shadows into the corners. If she stayed on the path, she’d surely be spotted by a flat-face. She wasn’t afraid of them—she knew that flat-faces liked her and might give her food if she danced for them. But she worried that if the feeders found her, they would shoot her with the stick that made her sleep, and then they’d take her back to the Bear Bowl. It would be very difficult to escape the same way again. The feeders would be watching her too closely. She had to make it work this time.

  There was a side path that looked darker than the main one, so Lusa padded down it, staying close to the fences and keeping her paws on grass as much as possible. She made it past several dens when she heard flat-face voices coming toward her. Lusa spun around. Next to her was a wooden fence about twice her height. She scrambled over it and dropped onto grass on the other side. The fence made a square, like the walls of the den in the Bear Bowl. Lusa raced across the grass and swung herself over the fence on the other side.

  She was in another enclosure! Lusa began to despair. Was there nothing out here but fences and enclosures, like one Bear Bowl after another?

  A wild screech came from behind her, making her jump. She turned and saw a small animal crouched beside the door of the flat-face den. The animal’s back was arched, its long tail was standing up straight, and its orange fur was sticking out all over. It hissed at her and screeched again, showing a row of tiny sharp teeth.

  Lusa was puzzled but amused. The creature was barely a quarter of her size. She could easily knock it over, if she wanted to. But she admired its bravery. Lusa backed away and climbed over the next fence.

  She found herself in yet another enclosure. There was another animal here, but different, with a loud, fearsome bark. This one was much closer to Lusa’s size. It charged at her with its slavering jaws wide open; Lusa stood rooted to the spot, transfixed by the gleaming teeth and lolling pink tongue. But when it got to a bearlength from her, it jerked to a sudden stop, falling back with a yelp.

  A long chain stretched tautly behind it, holding the creature back. It strained at the end of the chain, flailing its paws toward her and barking furiously.

  Lusa rose onto her hind legs and huffed. “Don’t mess with me!” she snarled, although she knew it couldn’t understand what she was saying.

  To her surprise, the animal fell quiet and dropped to the ground, laying its ears flat. Lusa stalked past him…but made sure she stayed out of the chain’s reach.

  The next fence led to a tiny lake in the middle of a grassy enclosure. Lusa padded up to it. Could this be one of the lakes Oka had mentioned? It was smaller than Lusa had imagined. As she got closer, she saw that the floor of the lake was not dirt; it was hard white stone like the floor of her den in the Bear Bowl.

  Lusa ducked her head to the water and sniffed, wondering if it was safe to drink. It had a sharp smell, but she reached out her tongue and lapped it cautiously.

  Yuck! Lusa spat and wiped her tongue with her paws. This didn’t taste like real water at all. It couldn’t be the lake Oka had talked about. Besides, there weren’t two others next to it. She climbed over the next fence and at last found herself back in a dark open space, with a path running along in front of her. She paused, taking a deep breath, and looked up to search for the Bear Watcher again.

  There, outlined against the orange sky, was a mountain! It looked like a bear’s snout, just as Oka had described. And it was huge! It had to be at least ten or twelve times the size of the boulders in the Bear Bowl! Surely she’d be able to get to it very quickly—it was so large, it must be close by. The Bear Watcher star was gleaming right over the mountain, as if it was waiting for her.

  Lusa ran all night long, darting into
the shadows whenever flat-faces or firebeasts went by. But as the sun started to come up, she didn’t seem to be any closer to the mountain than she had been when she started. She was too tired to keep walking, and flat-faces could see her more easily now that it was daylight. She needed to find a place to sleep. She padded along the path until she found a fence with more greenery growing over the top of it than the others had. Where there were bushes and trees, there might be a place to hide. Shoving herself up with her back claws, she scrambled over the fence and dropped down into an enclosure that was full of bushes and vines in a tangle of branches and leaves.

  Keeping her ears pricked for flat-face noises, Lusa padded through the web of vines to the end of the enclosure farthest from the flat-face den. Here she found a place where three thick bushes grew close together, concealing a hollow space underneath. She crouched low on her belly and crept into the space, curling her paws around to fit and digging away some of the dirt to make it more comfortable.

  Once she was safely hidden, exhaustion finally hit her. Lusa rested her muzzle on her paws and, within moments, she was fast asleep.

  The sound of her stomach growling woke her up shortly after dark. She had never been this hungry before; it was as if someone had scooped out her insides with a giant paw. Lusa scrambled up and poked her nose outside, sniffing for danger. As far as she could tell, there were no flat-faces or strange animals around. But she did smell something else…something very tempting.

  She followed her nose through the tangled vines to the side of the flat-face den. The scent was coming from two large cans next to the wall, a bit like the ones the feeders brought her food in. Lusa crept up to them on silent paws.

  She rested her forepaws on the edge of one of the cans, poking her muzzle inside. A wave of delicious, peculiar, startling scents hit her nose. Lusa nosed through crinkly things, sharp things, and fluffy things until she found a mouthful of meat. It tasted a little sour, but it was better than nothing. She also found some rotten bits of banana and scraps of bread farther down, where she had to lean in to dig them out.

  As she dug her paws into the can it tipped over with a crash, scattering its contents everywhere. Lusa looked up and saw a light come on outside the den. A flat-face roar sounded from inside. It didn’t sound like a friendly roar, from an animal that would appreciate her taking food from its cans.

  Lusa raced to the fence, hauled herself over, and ran down the road. She didn’t stop running until the overgrown place was far, far behind her.

  When she finally slowed down, she noticed that nearly every flat-face den along the paths had the same big silver cans stacked outside. She padded past them, sniffing, until she found a den with no firebeasts crouched beside it. Cautiously she snuck up to the cans and stood up on her hind legs, sticking her nose inside. A thin white skin surrounded the contents, but she was able to slice through it with her claws, spilling more crinkly, shiny, crumpled things out into the can. She leaned in, resting her weight on the edge of the can, and it toppled over, clattering deafeningly on the path.

  Lusa sprang back in dismay. Beside her was a small tree, and although it wasn’t as tall as the Bear Bowl trees, it was still a place to hide. She scrambled up and clung to a top branch, waiting.

  Nothing happened. No flat-faces came out to yell at her. After waiting a long time, Lusa snuck back down and started pawing through the mess that had fallen out of the tipped-over can. Some of the things she thought were food were horrible. She bit down on one black lump and spat it out again immediately, wiping her tongue with disgust. But another smell caught her attention, and she dug farther until she found some short sticks of potato that were covered in salt and tasted like fat. She gobbled them up and licked her paws clean afterward. She thought they might be the most delicious thing she’d ever eaten.

  The next morning she hid in a small wooded area where leafy bushes concealed her from the flat-face cubs that raced around playing during the day. When she continued walking the next night, she kept the bear snout mountain in sight and headed toward it as much as she could, although she often had to veer around large flat-face dens to avoid bright lights or the sound of the barking and screeching animals. If this was living in the wild, she couldn’t understand why King had been so worried or grumpy about talking about it. It was easy! She had food and places to shelter, and she knew which way to go.

  On the third night, when she awoke, clouds were hanging low over everything, shrouding the world in fog. She couldn’t see the stars or the mountain anymore—she could barely see her paws in front of her. The air hung heavily around her, clinging to her fur and leaving damp droplets on her muzzle. Lusa was too nervous to go on without the sight of the Bear Watcher or the mountain in front of her, so she dug herself deeper into the hollow under the tree roots and waited, restless and hungry, for the sky to clear.

  The fog continued all night, in the morning shifting to rain that left Lusa dripping, cold, and unhappy. But finally it cleared, and she stuck her nose out into a damp mist shortly before sunset. Ahead of her, the bulk of the mountain loomed against the darknening sky. She padded toward it until she came to the edge of a large flat-face path, wider than any of the ones she had crossed before. It smelled strongly of the firebeasts, and even as she was standing there, one of them roared past.

  Lusa shivered. This path was clearly their territory. She paced back and forth, sniffing the air and scratching at the dirt below her paws. She needed to keep going toward the mountain, but in order to do that she’d have to cross the firebeasts’ path. Finally she decided to travel along the path and hope she found a safe place to cross farther up.

  She padded along in the shadows, ducking into the bushes whenever a firebeast went by. There were a lot of them at first, but as the night wore on, she saw fewer and fewer.

  It was close to moonhigh and the low clouds were starting to break up like shredded spiderwebs when Lusa smelled something that might be food. She hadn’t eaten yet that night because the flat-face dens along this stretch of path were too brightly lit and full of noise, and she was afraid to approach them. But this smell was coming from somewhere close by. She stood on her hind legs and took a long sniff.

  It was coming from the path! She dropped to all fours and walked a little farther, until she spotted something on the ground in the center of the path. From the scent, she guessed that it was the salty potato sticks she’d tasted before.

  Did she dare step onto the path? She hadn’t seen a firebeast in a long time. Perhaps they had all gone somewhere to sleep.

  Lusa stepped tentatively onto the path. She waited, her whole body tensed, but she couldn’t feel the rumbling of an approaching firebeast. The air was silent, with the faintest breeze drifting through the light fog. She took another pawstep, and then another, and soon she was racing across the path to the discarded food. To her delight, it was a crumpled carton of the potato sticks with several left at the bottom. She pinned it down with her paw and stuck her muzzle into the carton as far as it would go, licking up the salt with her long tongue.

  BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMP!

  A large firebeast was hurtling toward her, its eyes blazing with fury.

  Lusa bolted to the other side of the path just as the firebeast hurtled by. As she leaped onto the grass at the edge, she felt a sharp pain stab into her paw. Whimpering, she crept under some bushes and sat down, lifting up her forepaws to see what was hurting her. One of her paws had something sharp and glittery sticking out of it, and blood was trickling from the wound. Lusa blinked, feeling ill and anxious. It wasn’t a thorn, but it felt sharp like that. It looked like the clear, shiny stuff she had seen in the flat-face dens. And it hurt.

  She crouched there for a moment, staring at her paw and wondering what to do. What would King do? Or Oka?

  They would be brave. They would fix themselves and keep going.

  She put her teeth around the sharp object and tugged it free from her paw. As it came loose, a gush of blood followed it, and
Lusa felt dizzy. She shook her head, gritting her teeth, and began to lick her paw. To her relief, the flow of blood slowed and then stopped, and her paw felt a little better. But when she tried to stand on it, the pain sliced through her again. She would have to find somewhere safe to hide until it had a chance to heal.

  The mist clung to her fur as she limped out of the bush, heading for an open grassy space not far from the firebeast path. It wasn’t as sheltered as some of the enclosures she had been in, but the grass was very tall—almost as tall as her—and there were three trees growing close together at the far end, near a fence. Lusa curled up in the roots of one of the trees and went back to licking her paw.

  She stayed there for three days, until she could walk again. During the day she could hear the firebeasts roaring and racing past. She wondered if she had made them angry by stealing food from their territory. She hoped they wouldn’t come off the path to look for her.

  Luckily there didn’t seem to be many flat-faces in the area. She did see several of the furry screeching animals stalking through the grass, but they could smell her there, and they stayed well clear of her hiding place. She felt weak from hunger and pain. Everything is going wrong! How would she ever make it to the bear snout mountain, let alone find Toklo once she got there? At least she could still see the Bear Watcher from her hiding spot. It was comforting to know the star was still watching her.

  On the night Lusa was ready to resume traveling, the sky was covered in clouds and she couldn’t see any stars at all. She sat up, pointing her nose at the spot where she was sure the Bear Watcher should be. She couldn’t see it—but somehow she knew she was looking in the right place. It was like a tug in her fur, nudging her that way. Just then, the clouds drifted apart and for a heartbeat, the Bear Watcher beamed down from the dark blue sky. It vanished again almost at once, but that was enough for Lusa. As long as she knew where the star should be, she wouldn’t get lost!