River of Lost Bears (22 page)

“Chenoa!” The scream stuck in her throat. Her chest seemed to burst as Chenoa slid from view.

She can't be dead! She can't be!

Lusa struggled in her sleep, trying to escape her dream, but another flooded in. She was on the shore, the waterfall thundering in the distance upriver. Dread filled her as she padded toward the boulders where Yakone stood. She knew what he'd found, even before she saw it. But the shock of seeing the limp black pelt, snagged on the rocks, slammed into her like a firebeast. She struggled for breath.

Next moment, Chenoa was lying in the shallow pit Toklo had dug with Kallik and Yakone. They were heaping dirt onto her, then branches, then rocks, one by one.
How will she breathe?
Lusa wanted to scream as they covered her friend's body. Suddenly, she was in the pit alongside Chenoa.
But I'm not dead!
Darkness pressed in with the weight of the rocks. She struggled to push them off, but they were too heavy. She clawed at the branches, trying to scream, but earth showered into her mouth.

“Help!” She woke with a shriek, relieved to feel the cool night air ruffling her pelt. She was safe in her tree. Moonlight filtered through the branches, glowing on the silvery bark. It seemed to pool on one particular part of the trunk, delicately picking up shadows and coils in the surface of the tree.

Lusa stiffened as a swirl in the trunk close to her muzzle seemed to take on a familiar shape.

“Chenoa? Is that you?” She sniffed at the whorls in the bark. There was no tang of sap, just the soft scent of her friend. Lusa jerked backward, eyes wide. The shape in the trunk seemed to be looking straight at her. “Chenoa! It
is
you!” Lusa wrapped her paws around the trunk and closed her eyes. She'd tried not to look for her friend, scared of any reminder that Chenoa was dead. But Chenoa had found
her
! Her spirit had found its way into the tree. Even though she was dead, she was still in the forest. Lusa suddenly felt warm and safe.

“Thank you for finding me,” she whispered. Clinging to the tree, she closed her eyes and drifted deep into sleep.

A buzzing noise woke her. Lusa opened her eyes.

Sunshine glittered through the branches.
Where are the others?
She jumped to her paws, realizing with a jolt that she wasn't in a nest or a den but in a tree. She clung to the trunk to stop herself from falling. Chenoa's scent touched her nose. Gasping, Lusa remembered and sat back on the branch. In the warm sunlight, she could see Chenoa's face clearly picked out by the rippling bark: her broad muzzle, her neat ears, her warm eyes.

“Hi, Chenoa!” Lusa huffed in delight.

The buzzing noise broke into her cheerfulness. It was the same angry buzzing they'd skirted before in the forest, the one that sounded like all the firebeasts in the world gathered together. She'd better find the others.

Lusa climbed down from the tree and glanced around, trying to remember which way she'd trekked from the river. Nothing looked familiar in the morning light.

“Toklo?” she called. “Kallik?” She pricked her ears, but only the buzzing answered.

She looked up at Chenoa. “Which way should I go?”

The swirl in the bark looked down solemnly.

“I need to find the others.” Chenoa must understand that she had to leave. Lusa backed away, feeling sadness tug in her belly. “I'll always remember you.” She turned and set off through the woods. Was that a glimmer of water flashing through the trees? The river must be this way, and the others would be on the shore. She quickened her pace, ducking under bracken and pushing past knotweed until the birch gave way to pine. The buzzing hummed louder until it grew to a screech. Lusa flattened her ears. What was making the noise? Was it coming to hurt them? Her heart began to pound. Why had she left the others last night? She had to warn them.

A harsh scent touched her nose. It smelled of BlackPath and flat-faces.
And wood dust!
She could taste the freshness of sap on her tongue. In a flash, she remembered watching firebeasts carrying trees away.

No!

A crack split the air. Branches clattered and swished. Somewhere nearby, a tree thumped to the ground.

With a gasp, Lusa scrambled forward.
What's happening?
Fear spiked her pelt. She ran blindly, panicked. “Toklo! Kallik!” Where were they? She burst into a clearing and, terrified, stumbled to a halt. Stumps jutted before her, glistening with fresh sap. The bodies of trees lay between them.

Lusa's eyes watered as wood dust and firebeast stench washed her muzzle. As tears welled, she saw the blurry shapes of flat-faces stalking between the stumps. Moving stiffly, in thick yellow pelts, they lifted long, shiny paws, which screamed as they swished through the air.
The buzzers!
The flat-faces had brought them! Lusa flattened her ears against the agonizing screech. A flat-face moved toward a towering pine. He lifted his shiny paw and pressed it against the trunk. As the paw sliced into the tree, wood dust sprayed like blood.

“No!” Lusa roared. She was sure she could hear a bear spirit wailing. The tree tottered as the flat-face freed his paw and stepped away. He yelped a warning to the other flat-faces as slowly the tree began to fall. Lusa watched, breathless, as it folded and crashed to the ground. It bounced, then lay as still as Chenoa when they'd pulled her from the water.

Lusa raced back through the forest. Blind with horror, she pelted through the pines and crashed past the birch. Bracken whipped her muzzle and brambles snagged her fur, but she kept running. Her paws burned as they skidded over the earth. She tripped and tumbled, the sky flashing overhead as she fell out onto the shore. The wide river stretched ahead of her. Jerking around, she searched the shoreline. With a rush of relief, she spotted a white pelt shambling along the rocks.

Kallik! And Yakone!
He stood in the river, the water washing his back.
Where's Toklo?

As Lusa scrambled over the rocks, Toklo padded out from the trees.

“I can't even find her scent,” he called to Kallik. “The whole forest stinks of flat-faces and BlackPaths.”

“Toklo!” Lusa wailed. “Come quickly!” Her heart beat in her throat. “They're killing the trees!”

“Lusa!” Toklo's eyes widened as she skidded to a stop beside him. “We've been worried. Where have you been?”

Lusa fought for breath. “I've seen them! The buzzers! They're big, shiny paws. The flat-faces are using them to cut down the trees.”

Kallik galloped to meet her. “Calm down. Tell us exactly what you saw.”

Lusa stared at her. Didn't she understand what was happening? “The flat-faces are killing the
trees
!” She swung her head from Toklo to Kallik.

Toklo's eyes went round in sympathy. “I saw the wounds they'd left in the forest when Chenoa showed me the mountains.”

Yakone huffed. “There are too many trees here anyway.”

Lusa gasped. “But we
need
them! For prey and food and—” She broke off and swallowed. “Where will my spirit go if there are no trees left?”

Yakone shifted his paws. “I'm sorry, Lusa.” He twitched his ears toward the distant sound of buzzing. “I didn't think.”

Kallik touched her muzzle to Lusa's head. “Flat-faces kill trees wherever they go, Lusa. There's nothing we can do.”

“But it's horrible! You have to see!” Lusa tore away from them and plunged into the woods. She glanced back to make sure Toklo and Kallik were following, relieved when she saw them charging after her.

Yakone raced after them. “Hey, where are you going?”

Lusa followed the path she'd beaten in her rush to the shore. The buzzing grew louder.

“We shouldn't be heading this way!” Yakone bellowed.

“Lusa!” Kallik thundered behind her. “There's nothing we can do.”

“You have to see!” Lusa called back. If the others saw the trees dying, they'd have to do something. After all, they'd stopped flat-faces from destroying things before. She raced faster as the buzzing turned to screeching. She ignored the pain piercing her ears. “There!” She stopped a muzzlelength from the tree line, where the forest opened onto the stump-filled clearing. “Look!”

Toklo crept forward. Lusa watched his ears quiver as he peered past the trunks. Kallik followed him, Yakone pushing in beside her. Wood dust shimmered in shafts of sunshine. The air was filled with choking firebeast stench. A huge black-pawed firebeast rumbled at the edge of the clearing, while another picked up the dead trees with a gigantic dangling claw and loaded them onto its back.

Lusa slid next to Toklo and watched the flat-faces. The clearing was swarming with them. One was slicing into a fresh tree. Lusa's pelt stood on end as she heard it scream. Another tree cracked. Lusa snapped her head around. A flat-face held up his shiny paw triumphantly and yelped as a tree toppled away from him. The far edge of the clearing seemed to sway as tree after tree collapsed like grass bending beneath the wind. “They're cutting them
all
down!” Lusa gasped.

Toklo pressed against her and steered her away. “There are too many flat-faces,” he breathed into her ear. “We can't stop them.”

Kallik touched her nose to Lusa's head. “I'm sorry, Lusa. There's nothing we can do.”

“What about Chenoa?”

Toklo froze. “Chenoa?”

“I saw her, in the bark of a tree. Her spirit's over there.” Lusa pointed with her muzzle. “What if they cut her down, too?”

Kallik's eyes clouded with pity. “Oh, Lusa.”

Yakone padded away from the clearing. “Her spirit will find a new home.”

“You don't
know
that!” Lusa gaped at him. “What would happen to white bear spirits if flat-faces melted all the ice and stole all the stars?”

“Come on, Lusa.” Toklo began to hustle her away. “We can't stay here. It's not safe.” His ears were twitching.

“And it's too noisy.” Yakone headed back toward the river. Kallik trotted after him, glancing anxiously at Lusa.

“I wish we could help.” Toklo steered her forward. “But what can we do?”

Numbly, Lusa let Toklo guide her. She'd let the river sweep Chenoa away. Now she was leaving her spirit to be destroyed by flat-faces. She'd been too small to help her friend when she was alive, and Lusa was still too small to save her spirit now.

As they reached the shore, Lusa
pulled away from Toklo. He watched her anxiously as she headed along the riverbank. The black bear weaved, stumbling over the stones, as though half-blind with grief.

Toklo forced away a groan of despair. There was nothing he could do. Surely Lusa understood? How could he protect Chenoa's spirit tree?

Kallik hurried to catch up with Lusa, reaching her just in time to steady her as a loose rock turned beneath her paw.

“Dumb stones!” Lusa snarled, flinching away from Kallik.

Toklo stared into the forest. There seemed to be as many flat-faces as prey here; first the rafts, then the herd by the falls, and now the tree cutters. The bears had to keep moving, find a way to a less crowded place.

The morning passed slowly. Clambering over the rocky shoreline was harder than before, with looser pebbles to challenge weary paws. Stones shifted and teetered underfoot. Toklo's forepaw slipped off one moss-covered rock and hit another. He winced, glancing at the wide, flat beaches on the far shore. It looked like easier walking on the other side, but he couldn't be sure there weren't flat-faces there. And he knew he couldn't suggest crossing the river again.

Dark, fat-bellied clouds rolled from the horizon, and as the bears pushed on, the breeze lifted, ruffling their fur. Rain began to spatter Toklo's muzzle, falling more and more heavily until the treetops disappeared in a gray haze. Toklo clung to the tree line, sheltering beneath branches, but soon they dripped cold droplets along his spine. He shivered, shaking off the rain.

“It wasn't your fault.” Yakone's growl took him by surprise. Toklo jerked his head around to see the white bear fall in beside him.