The Burning Horizon (23 page)

“We're not on the island now,” Toklo argued, bracing himself to take a step inside the hole. “There's nothing here: no wolves, no flat-faces, no hostile bears. And we won't find anywhere better to hide before dawn.”

Reluctantly Kallik followed him inside, with Yakone bringing up the rear. They settled down close to the entrance. From the others' uneasy expressions, Toklo could see they shared his fear of being trapped if they went farther in.

As the day dawned Toklo dozed fitfully, knowing that he needed rest, but too anxious to let himself sleep deeply. He kept an eye on the slope leading up to their shelter, but nothing stirred under the hot sun. The day seemed to stretch on forever.

We must be close to the Longest Day,
he thought.
And only the spirits know how far away we are from Great Bear Lake.
His paws itched with the need to be on the move again, though not for fear of missing the gathering.
Have we missed Lusa somehow? Where is she? Is she making her own way to Great Bear Lake?

When he became aware of Kallik and Yakone shifting restlessly beside him, Toklo rose to his paws. “I know it's not dark yet,” he said, “but I think we should get going. The nights are so short now, we're not making much progress.”

“Okay,” Yakone agreed with a glance at Kallik, who nodded as well. “We'll have to keep a sharp eye out for flat-faces, though.”

Toklo's pelt tingled as he and the others left their refuge
and climbed to the top of the slope. Something was telling him he had to move, and move fast. He didn't understand his sudden urgency, but he knew he had to obey the inner voice.

“Which way?” Kallik asked as they left their shelter behind.

Toklo paused, feeling the breeze nudging his fur, and swung into the direction he sensed it wanted him to go. “Follow me,” he said confidently.

Kallik gave him a bright, questioning look. “Do you know this place? Or is Ujurak guiding you?” she asked.

Toklo hardly dared to reply. “I think he is.”

As they crested the ridge, a vast stretch of grassland unrolled in front of them. It seemed deserted; as they padded on they saw only a few flat-face dens, and a couple of narrow BlackPaths here and there. The air was clear, with only the faintest tang of flat-faces or firebeasts, and they could walk undisturbed. When darkness fell, the bright shape of Ursa blazed out ahead of them, confirming their course and beckoning them on.

In spite of the peaceful landscape, Toklo felt strangely anxious. His friends were clearly on edge, too, and all three of them jumped when a bird flew up unexpectedly from a clump of long grass. Even then, no bear commented on their strange mood. Instead, they picked up their pace into a steady lope, faster than they were used to traveling.

The ground rose gently to the crest of another hill. Beyond it, Toklo looked down onto a stretch of dense forest. Along the foot of the nearest trees he made out a dark, muddy swath of earth, as if the grass had been trampled by countless hooves.

Yes!

Toklo raced down the hill and spun around at the edge of the forest to wait for Kallik and Yakone, who galloped down after him. “Look!” he exclaimed. “Caribou tracks! We've found them again.”

Kallik's eyes shone. “It's as if Ujurak wants us to know we're still going the right way.”

The tracks followed the edge of the forest for a short distance, then swerved into the trees. Their unspoken urgency growing stronger, the bears plunged after them.

On and on they went, pushing between the trees, flattening undergrowth and leaving tufts of their fur on brambles. As they paused briefly in a starlit clearing, Toklo caught Yakone's gaze.

“This is it,” he said. “I feel it now, more than ever. We're going the right way to find Lusa.”

Lusa plodded along the caribou tracks,
her head down and her paws aching. She had been traveling through the night, and her legs were feeling heavy.
I've traveled like this nearly all my life,
she told herself.
I can do it.

But traveling was different on her own, without her friends to distract her when the horizon felt as far away as ever and her legs were heavy with weariness.
Is this what Ujurak meant? Will this trail really lead me to my friends?

The ground here undulated almost like waves of the sea, and as she trekked to the top of each rise, Lusa peered into the distance to see if she could spot three familiar figures: two white and one brown. But each fold of the land only revealed more of the scrubby wasteland, dotted with occasional flat-face dens and crossed by narrow, almost deserted BlackPaths.

At least I won't have much trouble from flat-faces or firebeasts,
she thought, trying to cheer herself up.
And there's enough food. The roots of these bushes are quite juicy.

As Lusa traveled on, her mind drifted back to the flat-face
den where she had been imprisoned. It had felt wrong, uncomfortable, and threatening there, compared with the wide-open spaces she had discovered on her journey.

I could hardly breathe,
she thought, pausing to take a few deep gulps of the warm air around her.
But Taktuq is happy there . . . or at least, he's content.

Lusa knew how difficult it would be for a blind bear to survive in the wild. She figured you might be able to find roots or berries with only your sense of smell to depend on, but it would be almost impossible to find shelter or escape from enemies.
It would even be hard to know where to walk safely!
She closed her eyes and tried to walk while sniffing the air, only to stub her paw on a large rock that was in her path.

“Ow!”

Cloud-brain!
she scolded herself as she opened her eyes and licked her sore paw.
But that just proves how hard it would be.

She started off again, skirting the rock, remembering how skillfully Taktuq had used his hearing to work out what was going on in the den. He had adapted to make the den his home in a way that Lusa knew she never could. Perhaps she'd have been able to once, long ago, but now even her life in the Bear Bowl felt so distant, and she couldn't remember how she had survived. She remembered her dream of growing glossy black wings and flying across the mountains in the wide-open sky. That was what her spirit had longed to do every day she was in the flat-face den with Taktuq.

Lusa slithered down a steep slope to the bank of a narrow stream where shallow water chattered over smooth, mossy
stones. Dipping her snout, she drank thirstily, then padded forward to let the current cool her paws. The sun was high overhead, beating down on Lusa's fur. A little farther downstream she spotted a huge rock overhanging the water, and she waded down into the shade. Climbing out onto a sandy spit of land beneath the overhang, she settled down to rest with her nose on her paws. After a while, she drifted into a doze.

As she dreamed, Lusa became aware of caribou all around her; she was walking in the middle of the herd, swept forward by the unstoppable river of bodies. Bright stars shone down from the night sky. There were no other bears there, only the caribou surrounding her with their clicking feet. Lusa padded calmly with them, her paws fitting neatly into the hoofprints pressed into the earth.
I'm going to Great Bear Lake,
she thought, a feeling of peace enfolding her.
The Pathway Star is showing me the way.

Lusa woke with a start. The sun had slipped a little farther down in the sky, and its position reminded her that following the caribou trail was actually taking her farther and farther
away
from Great Bear Lake. She let out a yelp of panic. She had made the decision to head back to the mountains for good reasons, but she was suddenly aware of what a huge risk she was taking, retracing her steps to look for her friends.
They could be long gone. They might even be at the lake already! Is it the Longest Day yet?
There was so much daylight now, and the nights were so short, that it was hard for Lusa to tell how much longer it would be to the gathering.

What if I end up back in the mountains alone?
she asked herself.
Will I have to turn around and come back all this way?
She knew that if she reached the mountains without finding the others, by the time she had retraced her steps it could be too late for the Longest Day Gathering. Lusa pictured herself arriving at Great Bear Lake to find it deserted, the gathered bears long gone and the lakeshore desolate. She let out a whimper of despair.
I might never see Miki and his family again.

Then Lusa sat up, bracing herself.
I won't be alone, and I'm not alone now! Ujurak is always with me, even if I can't see him.

Lusa reminded herself that she was going this way because it felt right. She couldn't question the signs now! She had found food and places to sleep ever since she'd left the flat-face den, and in her dream Ujurak had pointed her this way. She was certain that he was watching over her, and felt reassured.

And I trust myself to read the signs around me, just like Ujurak did.
She pulled herself to her paws, took another drink from the stream, and set off again.

When Lusa reached the top of the next hill, she was confronted by a swath of dark forest unfurling away into the distance. She could just make out more open ground beyond it, but for a while she would be walking among dense trees. A worm of panic began gnawing at Lusa's belly, though she tried hard to ignore it.
It will be so easy to miss the others among the trees!

But the tracks left by the caribou led straight into the forest, and Lusa's instinct tugged her forward. A bird piped somewhere ahead of her, as if it was urging her on.

She headed into the trees. As the thick branches cut off the sunlight, she felt like she was plunging into cool, green water.
Her paws stumbled on the hoof-marked ground, but Lusa kept going, even when a bush with bright-red berries seemed to reach out its branches to tempt her to stop.

A strange sense of urgency filled Lusa now. She felt like she was getting close to something huge, something almost within her grasp.

As Lusa pushed her way forward, the trees closed up behind her and she was enveloped in the whispering, rustling world of the forest. A gray-and-white bird swooped over her head, almost brushing her fur, and Lusa watched it disappear into the branches.
Is that Ujurak, keeping an eye on me?
The thought warmed her and gave more energy to her paws.

The forest fell eerily silent once the bird had vanished. Lusa picked up her pace, loping along faster and faster, until her paws skidded on a loose stone and she fell down a slope, landing hard in a bramble thicket at the bottom.

“Seal rot!” she spat.

When Lusa tried to struggle to her paws, the tendrils of bramble coiled around her, seeming to tug her deeper into the thicket. A fresh awareness of how alone she was surged over Lusa, and she barely stopped herself from whimpering.

Wrenching again at the brambles, Lusa only managed to tear her fur, but then she looked up and spotted a knot in a tree trunk above her head. As she stared, it took on the shape of a bear's face with warm, kind eyes and a soft, furry muzzle.

Lusa gasped with wonder. “It's a bear spirit, watching me!”

Looking around, she saw more bear faces emerging from
the trunks of the trees.
You are not alone,
they seemed to tell her.
We are with you.

Urged on by their kind encouragement, Lusa calmed herself and withdrew little by little from the thicket, freeing herself from the clinging brambles with small, delicate movements. At last, scratched and missing several tufts of fur, she stood on open ground again.

“Thank you!” she exclaimed, bowing her head to the bear spirits. “Thank you for saving me. I have to go now, but I'll never forget you.”

The caribou trail wound through the trees, and Lusa padded along it without stopping. She knew the bear spirits were still with her. She could feel their encouragement boosting her on, and a breeze whispered through the leaves like gentle voices.

“Lusa . . . Lusa . . . all will be well. . . .”

Thin shafts of reddening sunlight angled through the branches, telling Lusa that the sun was going down and the long day coming to an end. Though her legs ached with weariness, her paws still tingled impatiently; she didn't want to stop for the night. She emerged from the trees in a small clearing filled with soft green grass, and paused there, relishing how the cool grass soothed her paws.

I could lie down and sleep here—but I feel so close. . . .

At that moment Lusa heard heavy lumbering noises up ahead, as though some large animals were blundering through the forest.

More caribou?
she wondered, her heart beginning to thump.

Lusa glanced around, trying to figure out which trees would be best if she had to climb to safety.

The noises grew closer, and now Lusa could see branches waving as the animals passed through the bushes. She crouched down behind a thick clump of ferns, hoping they would pass by without noticing her.