Smoke Mountain (24 page)

Her front paws hit the ledge and then her chest whomped into the rocks, knocking the air out of her. She scrabbled with her back paws and dug in her claws and slowly shoved herself all the way on to the ledge. Then she pushed herself to her paws and turned back to Toklo and Kallik.

‘See?' she called hoarsely. ‘Easy!' She doubled over in a fit of coughing.

Toklo came next. He was heavier, so the tree swayed more ominously and his paws were soaked through, but he was bigger too, so he could reach from boulder to boulder more easily. Then Kallik followed them across. Her paws were made for walking on slippery ice, so she had no trouble with the wet boulders, although her large size also made it hard for her to navigate the smallest boulder.

But at last all three of them were standing on the
far side of the waterfall, wet and exhausted, but triumphant.

‘You did so well!' Lusa cheered as Kallik shook her fur dry. ‘I'd like to see a flat-face try that!'

‘I wouldn't,' Toklo growled. ‘Let's get going. Where's Ujurak?'

They all looked up at the sky and saw the Ujurak-falcon swooping down. He landed beside them and changed back into a bear, grumpily shaking off his feathers.

‘I could have crossed with you,' he insisted. ‘I saw the flat-faces – they're still well behind us.'

‘Well, we're all safe now,' Toklo said. ‘Come on.'

They followed the ledge away from the waterfall. After a few pawsteps, Lusa glanced back at the thundering spray. She couldn't see any flat-faces behind them, but it was hard to see anything through the cloud of water and mist. Would the good spirits in the mountains help them escape? Or would the bad spirits let them be hunted down like prey?

She wanted to believe that the flat-faces would give up. She hoped that the cubs' brave crossing of the waterfall would put them too far ahead for the
flat-faces to ever catch up. But she remembered how the hunters had followed the bears' trail up the side of the mountain. She had a feeling they wouldn't give up so easily.

As they started to climb, the skies opened up, and it began to rain again.

R
ain poured down from the clouds all the rest of that day. The bears trudged through mud and sudden torrents of water that appeared like rivers rising out of nowhere. Their paws slipped on the wet rocks and their fur clung to their hungry bodies. Kallik could barely remember what it felt like
not
to be wet and scared. She worried about Lusa, who looked even smaller and more fragile with her fur drenched flat.

The cubs stopped to eat a hurried meal when Toklo caught a smelly muskrat, but even though she was so hungry, Kallik found it hard to swallow because her paws just wanted to run and run and keep running. She choked her portion down without tasting it, and they pressed on quickly.

She thought it was near sunset, although it was hard to tell through the rain, when they reached the highest peak. To her disappointment, there was no snow here, although she could see it on some of the peaks that surrounded them. It looked clean and white and crisp, and something inside her yearned for it, tugging her paws towards the icy freshness . . . But unless she grew wings like Ujurak and flew, it was too far to reach. She was stuck here on this snowless, rocky mountain, with aching paws and flat-faces hunting her.

Lusa let out a whimper as she stared at the ridges and valleys that spread out in front of them. ‘I thought we were nearly through the mountains,' she said. ‘It still looks so far.'

‘It's hard to tell from here,' Ujurak said, but his voice was flat and toneless.

‘Let's sleep for a while,' Toklo suggested, his shoulders drooping wearily. ‘We won't be able to keep running unless we rest.'

They had barely stopped moving since spotting the no-claw hunters that morning. Kallik collapsed on to her side and fell asleep right away.

She dreamed of no-claws with firesticks creeping
closer and closer, their faces hidden by smoke and fog. Their paws crunched on the forest floor. Their smell scratched her nose, too strong and acrid and horrible, like a hundred firebeasts crawling over her tongue.

That smell – the smell of firebeasts. It was stronger than it should be, all the way out here in the mountains.

Kallik woke up with her nose twitching. A pale moon hung low in the sky, nearly hidden by thick clouds. Her friends slept soundly beside her, their fur rising and falling like ocean waves. Not even Toklo had been able to stay awake to keep watch.

Her fur prickled anxiously. She tried to figure out how much time had passed. There was a grey, cold feeling to the air, as if it were nearly morning.

And she could still smell the scent of firebeast.

Kallik twisted to look behind them.

Something was crawling along the slope of the mountain, far below them.

‘Toklo,' she said. The urgency in her voice brought him instantly awake. He scrambled to his paws, rubbing his face. Lusa and Ujurak shifted, slowly waking up.

‘Look,' Kallik said, nodding down at the small, creeping thing. She felt as if the ground was disappearing under her paws, like the ice suddenly melting underneath her. Terror flooded through her. ‘It's them. They're still following us.' A low growl rumbled deep in Toklo's throat as he stared down the mountain.

‘That's a firebeast!' Lusa gasped, jumping up. They were all wide awake now. ‘It's like the one we saw in the forest – the kind that can leave the BlackPath!'

‘That must be how they caught up with us,' Toklo muttered.

The firebeast looked tiny from their vantage point, no bigger than a fly. Kallik wished it was really that small; she'd squash it in a heartbeat. She thought she could see the flat-faces leaning out, pointing up at the peak where the bears stood.

‘We ought to go,' Ujurak said unnecessarily.

The sky was shifting from black to grey as they came down from the peak into a grassy valley surrounded by pine forest and snowy mountain peaks. The faint light of a silver moon still glimmered from behind the clouds, and the rain
had finally ebbed away.

Kallik nearly crashed into Lusa when the little black bear stopped and stood up suddenly. Lusa twisted her head in each direction, pointing her big ears at the landscape on either side.

‘I hear a firebeast!' she cried.

‘That's impossible,' Toklo said, spinning around. ‘It can't have scaled the peak so quickly.'

‘Could it have gone around the mountain?' Kallik asked. She tried to stand protectively in front of Lusa, but the little black bear was running in a tight circle, staring into the darkness.

‘I hear it,' Lusa repeated frantically, standing and clawing the air. ‘It's coming this way. It's angry. It's coming for us!' She twisted around again.

‘I'm sure there's no–' Toklo began, but a distant roar interrupted him.

Then Kallik saw the firebeast rear above the shoulder of the mountain and plunge down into the valley. Smoke and clouds of dust rose from its paws as it ran, and its eyes glowed horribly. She felt a sudden chill over her whole body, like diving into the freezing sea. She had never seen a firebeast stray from the narrow BlackPaths before, and
this one was alive and growling and
hunting her
.

‘Run,' Toklo said grimly.

Kallik sprang forward and began galloping through the grass. Toklo's paws thudded close beside her.

‘If we lose one another,' he said, panting, ‘meet at that tallest tree at the end of the valley.'

In the distance, Kallik could see the tip of a pine tree waving above a low clump of trees at the head of the valley.

Behind her, she could hear the firebeast roaring closer and closer. Its growl rose and fell as it bounced over the rocks and tussocks of grass. How could they be so much faster than bears? She never saw them use their haunches or legs to shove themselves off. All their movement came from their strange rolling black paws.

She glanced back and saw two of the no-claws standing up with their heads sticking out of the top of the firebeast. They lifted long black sticks and pointed them at her.

Bang! Bang!

Something whizzed past Kallik's ear with a high-pitched humming sound.

Death pellets!

She thought fast. Lusa was dark and small; if she could hide in the shadows of the rocks, the no-claws might not see her. Especially if Kallik could draw them away on her longer, faster legs.

‘Lusa!' Kallik yowled, looking around and finding her friend behind her. ‘Head for those rocks on the left – if you run behind them, they'll hide you until you can make it to the trees. Run for your life – go,
now
!' She gave Lusa a ferocious shove and the bear cub pelted away.

Kallik dodged in the other direction. In the dim, growing light, her white coat stood out like a splash of seal blood on the ice.

Bang!

Ahead of her she saw Toklo slam into Ujurak and knock him down as another death pellet whizzed over their heads.

‘Change, Ujurak!' Toklo yelled. ‘Change! You have to!'

‘No! I'm staying with you!' Ujurak shouted back. ‘I'm a bear! I want to be a bear!'

Bang! Bang!

‘I will die protecting you if you don't change
right
now
,' Toklo growled, his voice low but so fierce that Kallik could hear it over her pawsteps as she sped away from them. Her own paws seemed unwilling to obey her. Part of her wanted to stay with Toklo, but she needed to lead the no-claws away from Lusa. So instead she ran and kept running, feeling sure that death was going to thud into her side at any moment, ripping her open and tearing her full of holes.

Something flapped over her head and she ducked, but when she looked up she realised it was Ujurak as a snowy owl, taking to the skies. She could still see dark patches of fur disappearing into his wings as he soared away. Toklo had won the argument.

Suddenly the firebeast fell silent, and that was even more terrifying. Now Kallik didn't know where it might be, or how close. She skidded behind a boulder and peered out. The light from the firebeast's eyes had gone out. Darkness spread across the valley.

Where were the no-claws?

She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself, and then, suddenly, she realised . . .
she could smell them
.

There was less smoke at this end of the valley, and scents were sharper than they had been before. Not only that, but the no-claws smelled very strongly of the liquid in the bottles that Lusa had pointed out to her when they raided the rotfood. Lusa had warned her that it tasted foul and musty, and it smelled that way too. All four of the no-claws reeked of it.

She could tell that two of them had run off in opposite directions, but two of them were very close by. Could she make it to the trees before they spotted her? Crouching low to the ground, she crept out from behind the boulder.

In the gloomy shadows behind her, she heard a hissing whisper.

Turning slowly, she saw the two hunters only a few bearlengths away. They were looking straight at her. Behind them, the firebeast waited, still and silent.

The hunters raised their firesticks.

All right, chase me! I'm the fastest bear. I'm a white bear. You'll never catch me!

Kallik drove her paws into the ground and focused on running, on the strength flowing through her limbs. She remembered racing across the ice with
her mother and Taqqiq, escaping from full-grown male white bears. She remembered running away from the walruses. She knew she was good at running.

She also remembered the looks on the faces of the no-claws that she had scared back by the Big River. Maybe she was scarier than she knew. She had claws and teeth and power in her arms that these no-claws couldn't dream of. If she turned to fight them, might
they
run away from
her
?

But these no-claws had unfair advantages, like firebeasts to give them speed and sticks that could kill from far away, so that they didn't need claws and teeth.

Her sharp nose told her the hunters had split up and stopped. They were crouching, doing something . . .

Pointing their firesticks at me
, she guessed, hearing the click of metal. And she was a large white target, easy to hit even in the trees.

Kallik noticed that the ground slanted away to her left. She dived and rolled down the slope. Wet soil coated her fur as she tumbled over and over, bouncing off rocks and tree trunks. She landed with
a splash in a muddy stream. Kallik rolled and rolled, coating her pelt in thick brown mud.

She stopped and sniffed the air. The no-claws had lost sight of her; then they were running towards her again. She could hear every movement and crackle of twigs as they ran. They were so loud and clumsy! She slunk up the opposite slope, checking her fur to make sure she was completely covered. Sliding forward on muddy paws, she listened for any sign that they'd spotted her. There were no shouts, no pounding footsteps.