The Burning Horizon (9 page)

“Thank you,” Toklo said. “Good-bye, and may the spirits be with you.”

“Good-bye,” Enola responded. “I hope you find Lusa.”

Toklo rejoined Kallik and Yakone, who pressed up to him eagerly.

“What did she say?” Kallik asked. “Has she seen Lusa?”

“No,” Toklo replied, feeling disappointed all over again as he saw the hope die from his friends' faces. “But she said she'd keep an eye out for her.”

“That doesn't help us much,” Yakone grunted. “What were you talking about for so long?”

“She wanted to come to Great Bear Lake with us. But I didn't think it would be a good idea.”

“You were right,” Kallik said. “We can't take care of her and look for Lusa.”

As the three of them padded away together, Toklo was aware of Enola watching him from her tree, but when he glanced back over his shoulder, her small black shape was already out of sight among the branches. He felt a moment's regret, followed by a fiercer determination.

There's one black bear who
does
need to get to Great Bear Lake. We have to find Lusa!

Plunging farther down the hill, Toklo and the others came back within sight of the BlackPath and followed it in the direction they figured the firebeast must have gone, while remaining a couple of bearlengths away, under cover of the trees.

“We don't even know if we're going the right way,” Kallik said after a while.

“But this is our best guess,” Toklo reminded her. “There's nothing else we can do. Keep your eyes open for any firebeast tracks leaving the BlackPath.”

But though the bears plodded along through the suffocating heat of the day until the sun slid down the sky and cast long shadows through the trees, they saw no firebeast tracks, and no places near the BlackPath where a firebeast might have taken Lusa.

I wonder if Ujurak knows where Lusa is,
Toklo thought.
I wish he were here now. If he took the shape of a bird, he could help us look for her.
“Where are you, Ujurak?” he asked aloud, wishing he could understand why the star-bear had abandoned them when they needed his help so much.

“I wish he were here, too,” Kallik said softly.

“Then why isn't he?” Toklo asked, slashing angrily at a clump of long grass as he trudged past it.

“I don't know,” Kallik admitted. “Maybe he knows that we can find Lusa on our own.”

Toklo grunted.

The long day was drawing to an end when the bears reached a place where the BlackPath swooped down the mountain until it reached the edge of a vast plain.

By the time they were halfway to the plain, night had fallen. The bears paused in a gap among the trees; Toklo gazed down at the constant stream of firebeasts. In the darkness their fierce, glowing eyes lit up the ground in front of them.

Is Lusa really in one of those?
Toklo wondered. He tore his gaze away from the rushing firebeasts and gazed up at the night sky. Above his head Ujurak's shape blazed out, cold and expressionless.
Why don't you help us?
he asked despairingly.

Behind Toklo, Kallik began trampling down the undergrowth in the shelter of a thorn thicket, dragging in ferns to make a temporary den. Yakone vanished and reappeared a short time later with a grouse dangling from his jaws.

“Thanks, Yakone,” Toklo said. It seemed like a long time since they had feasted on the goat.

“You're welcome,” Yakone grunted.

Almost too tired to eat, the three of them gathered around to share the prey. Toklo could barely choke down the meat; he missed Lusa too much, happily crunching fern roots beside them. He hated that while they were resting they were doing nothing to find her.

But we can't keep going all day and all night
.

While Kallik gathered more leaves—which she hoped would help treat Yakone's injured paw—Toklo settled down to sleep. His mind kept whirling with images of Lusa being attacked by a firebeast, or lying injured and frightened in the forest, but he was so exhausted that nothing could stop him from drifting off to sleep. He dreamed that he was standing on the edge of a great plain. A herd of caribou was moving across it, covering the ground as far as Toklo could see. The clicking sound of their feet echoed around him.

Then a small black bear emerged from the middle of the herd, while the caribou walked calmly around it without showing any fear.

“Lusa!” Toklo whispered.

But as the black bear drew closer, Toklo realized that it wasn't Lusa. This bear was gazing at him with the warm brown eyes of Ujurak.

Toklo bounded forward to meet his friend at the edge of the herd. “Ujurak! Can you tell me where Lusa is?” he called.

Ujurak shook his head. “I can sense her,” he replied. “I know she's alive, but she has been taken far away.”

“Can you speak to her for me?” Toklo begged.

But Ujurak was already beginning to fade away. “Look for the place where the caribou walk,” he whispered, “beneath the stars that shine where the sun will rise.”

“Is that where Lusa is?” Toklo asked. “With the caribou?”

Ujurak's voice seemed to come from a distance now, echoing through the night. His figure was no more than a faint
outline on the edge of the caribou herd. “Find the caribou. . . .”

His voice became one with the wind that swept across the plain, over the crisscrossing BlackPaths lined with flat-face dens, and then the last traces of his form vanished. Toklo woke into a gray dawn, with Kallik and Yakone still sleeping beside him.

“Lusa! Lusa!”

Her mother's voice was calling to her, and Lusa realized that she was back in the Bear Bowl, crouching at the foot of the tree. She tried to focus on Ashia's voice, but she could hardly hear it over the roaring of an angry bear.

Her heart thumping in panic, Lusa looked around and spotted the huge, ragged figure of Oka, throwing herself at the fence over and over again as she tried to break through it in a frenzy of grief and fury.

“It's okay!” Lusa barked to her. “I found Toklo! He's alive—he's fine.”

But Oka didn't seem to hear her. She just went on bellowing and raging against the fence. Then all the black bears surrounded Lusa: King and Ashia, Stella and Yogi, all of them roaring, too, until Lusa thought that her ears would burst.

She started to panic. “Help me!” she squealed, flailing her paws because she felt something enfolding her tightly. “Let me go!”

Pain stabbed through her head, making her lie still again, and with a growing feeling of horror she realized that she wasn't in the Bear Bowl at all. Instead she was lying on the back of a firebeast, wrapped in some kind of thin, shiny pelt that trapped her paws and pressed against her flanks. The bellowing of bears in Lusa's dream was really the noise of the firebeast as it rumbled over the BlackPath.

Agony sliced through Lusa's head again as she tried to raise it, and the sky above her was so dazzlingly bright that it hurt her eyes.

Toklo, Kallik, Yakone—where are you? What is happening to me?

Moaning, Lusa let herself drift back into the darkness inside her head. When she woke again, the firebeast was still moving, but she felt strong enough to prop herself up as much as the shiny pelt allowed and look around her, craning her neck to peer over the side of the firebeast's hollow back. With a start, she saw that they had left the mountains behind and were rolling across a flat plain. Lusa sniffed the air, trying to detect trees or water or anything familiar, but all she could pick up was the eye-watering stench of the firebeast.

“Where is it taking me?” she whimpered. She remembered the two flat-faces in the forest—a large male and a smaller female—and wondered if they were in the firebeast as well. Had it attacked them all? Or did the firebeast belong to the flat-faces, the way firebeasts often seemed to be commanded by the hairless creatures?

Desperately thirsty, Lusa drifted in and out of consciousness. Suddenly the firebeast swerved, sending her sliding
across its back, before it shuddered to a halt. The rumbling sound died away, and after a moment Lusa could hear flat-face voices. A little while later a flat-face came and looked down at her.

This was a flat-face Lusa hadn't seen before, with gray fur around a brown face. All her instincts told her to hide, or to snap at him if he tried to touch her, but his voice was low and kind. Something familiar about his scent reminded Lusa once again of the Bear Bowl, and his soft tones made her relax almost against her will.

But in spite of her urge to trust this flat-face, Lusa could feel her heart pounding as she looked for a way to escape.
I have to get out of here! Then I can find herbs for the pain in my head and start looking for the others.

The gray-furred flat-face started to peel off the shiny pelt. As soon as Lusa's legs were freed she lashed out, and the flat-face retreated rapidly. A flat-face cub appeared, looking over the side of the firebeast and squeaking at Lusa, until yet another flat-face pulled the cub away. Then the gray-furred flat-face reappeared, bending over Lusa. She felt something sharp prick her neck, and almost at once shadows began to gather around her and the inside of her head felt like it was filling with fog. Lusa struggled to stay awake, but the shadows overwhelmed her and she slipped away.

Lusa blinked as she raised her head and tried to work out where she was. As her vision cleared, she made out bars all around her and a roof above her head, clustered with shadows.

I'm in a cage . . . like the time I was captured on the ice.

She remembered how back then Ujurak had appeared to her in the shape of a flat-face and rescued her from the flat-faces who had captured her.

Maybe he'll help me again,
she thought, trying to feel more hopeful.
But what if he doesn't know I'm here?

With an enormous effort, Lusa managed to sit up. Her muscles shrieked at her as she moved stiffly, and her head still felt full of cloudfluff. The floor of her cage was made of some hard, gray stuff, though the corner where she had been lying was covered by a thick bundle of straw. Beside her was a shiny silver bowl, brimming with water. Lusa managed to get up on shaky legs, plunged her muzzle into the bowl, and took a long, long drink.

When she looked up again, swiping her tongue around her jaws, she realized that the light around her was fading. But she could still see enough to tell her that she was inside a long, low den lined with cages on either side.

I need to find a way out
.
But I'm so tired, and I ache all over. . . .

Lusa sniffed the stale air, but the scents of so many animals were mingled that she couldn't tell them apart. She wondered how long she had been asleep since she had seen the flat-faces.

Her head still throbbed with pain from where the mule had kicked her. Her vision was blurry in the eye on that side, and she staggered a little when she tried to move.

But I'm not hurt too bad,
she told herself firmly.
I can keep traveling, if only I can get out of this den.

Then another scent drifted into her nose.
It's another black bear!

“Who's there?” she called, wondering too late if it was safe to raise her voice.

“Never mind,” came the gruff reply.

Squinting through the bars on one side of her cage, she could just make out the hunched shape of another black bear. “Do you know the way out of here?” Lusa whispered.

A long silence followed her words, and Lusa thought she might have somehow offended the other bear. When he finally spoke again, he seemed confused.

“Way out? Of course there's no way out! Anyway, why would you or any bear want to leave?”

Because bears don't belong in cages!
Lusa thought.
Why isn't this bear doing everything he can to escape?

There was a loud click, and light flooded into Lusa's cage from a bright white strip overhead. She had to shut her eyes and duck her head against the unexpected glare, while all around her noise broke out: the skittering of claws, flapping of wings, the screeching and roaring of many different creatures.

Lusa opened her eyes again, and as she got used to the light she caught her breath in astonishment. Though she had scented other animals, she hadn't realized how daunting it would be to see them.
Oh wow . . .

In the cage on her other side was a coyote biting at the bars that separated them, its cold eyes fixed on her. Lusa shuddered, hoping the bars were too strong for its sharp yellow teeth. On the opposite side of the den, a flock of pigeons were fluttering
around an enclosure, and beside them an eagle perched on a branch in a cage, harsh cries coming from its gaping beak. In the next cage along, a raccoon was scrabbling in the straw on the floor. Rhythmic thumping came from farther down the den, on the same side as Lusa so that she couldn't see what was making the noise, but she guessed that some large animal was throwing itself at the door of its cage, over and over.