The Burning Horizon (5 page)

“Like I said, lots and lots of bears meet together by a lake,” Lusa explained. “Black bears, and brown and white. I've never seen so many bears in one place!”

“They exchange news and tell stories,” Toklo said.

“Yes, and there's a ceremony,” Kallik added. “At least, the white bears hold one. The oldest and wisest bear calls on the sun to leave so that the dark and cold can return. It's
wonderful. . . . But it seems like such a long time ago that we were there,” she finished with a sigh. “We've seen so much since then.”

“And Ujurak was with us.” Toklo looked sad for a few moments, then swallowed his last bite of grouse and sprang to his paws. “Let's get going!”

They crossed the stream and carried on over ground where the trees grew farther apart and they could make better progress. After a while Kallik heard the sound of running water again, this time a deep, slow surge. Flashes of astonishing blue appeared through the leaves, and a few pawsteps later they broke out into the open to see a river in front of them, lined on one side by a small BlackPath. “This must be the river we saw from the edge of the forest,” Lusa said.

A shallow slope led down to the BlackPath and water, and on the other side of the river, a steeper slope climbed up to another ridge.

Toklo looked up to check the angle of the sun and the direction of the mountain slopes. “Yes, this is where we have to cross,” he said with a confident nod.

Beyond the BlackPath the mighty current of the river rolled onward, the water reflecting the blue of the sky. Flecks of foam dotted the surface, and small waves broke against the rocks on the shore.

Kallik's paws tingled with excitement. She and the others waited at the edge of the BlackPath, crouched behind a bush for cover, while a firebeast crammed with flat-faces roared past. Then they raced across the BlackPath, scrambled over
the rocks, and plunged into the water, heading for the far bank.

The cold shock of the water felt wonderful as Kallik struck out into the current. But it had been so long since they'd encountered deep water that she struggled a little until she found her rhythm. She glanced back to make sure her friends were coping.

Toklo was gasping and splashing but managing to stay afloat, and Yakone, beside him, was carving across the current with powerful strokes. Lusa had dropped back a little, so Kallik swam around in a circle back to her. As she reached Lusa's side, she noticed a small group of flat-faces bouncing toward them over the waves in some kind of broad, shallow thing that looked like a huge upturned leaf. Toklo and Yakone had already swum past it, but she and Lusa were right in its way.

“Great spirits, what's that?” Lusa gasped, staring at the flat-faces in terror.

The flat-faces had begun shouting and pointing at them and beating the water with wide-ended sticks. The upturned leaf carrying the flat-faces loomed up at them, springing off the waves until Kallik could see air beneath it. In another moment it would be on top of them.

Kallik looked around in desperation, but there were no rocks nearby, nowhere to hide, only the wide expanse of the churning torrent. Beside her Lusa was paddling frantically to stay afloat.

There's only one place to go. . . .

“Hold your breath!” Kallik barked to Lusa.

She grabbed the black bear by her scruff and dove down
below the surface of the water. The river crashed and foamed around them, rolling them over until Kallik lost all sense of direction.
This is nothing like swimming in the ocean!

She kept striking out with her paws until the roaring in her ears faded and she reached deeper, stiller water. She still held Lusa's scruff in her jaws, willing the panicking black bear not to struggle.

A shadow fell over them, and Kallik looked up to see the huge shape of the flat-face leaf-thing passing above them. Blurred faces stared down at them, and the water was pierced by the flattened sticks.

Kallik dug her hind claws into the grit of the riverbed, crouching low over Lusa to protect her, as the current carried the flat-faces away. One of the sticks struck her back, and then was gone.

Getting a firmer grip on Lusa, Kallik dragged her back up to the surface. Both of them began gasping and choking as soon as their heads emerged. Farther downstream the flat-faces were twisting around to stare and shout at them, but there didn't seem to be any chance of them turning their leaf-thing back toward the bears. Kallik had to get Lusa to shore before her strength gave out. The small black bear was in no shape to swim on her own now.

With a stab of relief she spotted Toklo's head bobbing in the water beside her. Together they hauled Lusa to the shore, where the black bear lay limp on the pebbles, barely breathing. Yakone had run ahead to find cover and to keep a lookout for more flat-faces.

“Lusa!” Toklo nuzzled urgently at her shoulder. “Lusa, wake up! Lusa!”

With a jerk, Lusa coughed up a huge mouthful of water and shakily sat up.

“Are you okay?” Kallik pressed.

“Yes. I think so. Thanks, Kallik,” she gasped. “But give me a bit more warning next time you want me to turn into a fish!”

“We can't stay here,” Toklo urged. “Let's get under cover of the trees.”

Yakone was already waiting under the branches, and when Lusa rose to her paws, they all headed into cover and began to climb again.

The smell of Kallik's fur wreathed around her with the tang of water and a faint trace of fish. For a moment she wished that they could stay by the river and hunt.
But those flat-faces might come back,
she told herself.
Better to get as far away as we can.

The sun was going down, and Kallik heaved a thankful sigh as the heat of the day faded and a cool breeze sprang up. As twilight gathered, the bears found a place to sleep in the middle of a juniper thicket.

“This is good,” Kallik said approvingly. “The smell of the bushes will hide our scent.”

“But we have to hunt before we sleep,” Toklo reminded her. “I'm starving!”

Kallik and Toklo set off, leaving Lusa and Yakone dragging ferns into their temporary den to make it more comfortable. Toklo headed into the trees, while Kallik prowled around closer to the bushes. While she hunted, she stayed alert for
the sound of more flat-faces.

The undergrowth was full of the scent of prey, and before long Kallik picked up the traces of a partridge. Setting down her paws as lightly as she could, she crept up on the ground-nesting bird, her jaws watering with anticipation. But the partridge must have heard her approach, because when Kallik was still just out of reach, it let out an alarm call and exploded upward in a flurry of wings. Kallik leaped and batted the bird out of the air, holding it down with one paw while she ended its struggles with a bite to its neck.

When she returned to the den with the partridge dangling from her jaws, she met Toklo on his way back, carrying a squirrel.

“Good job,” he mumbled around his catch. “We'll eat well tonight.”

Inside the thick covering of the juniper bushes, the four bears shared their prey. Kallik felt almost too exhausted to eat, but she felt a warm satisfaction that they had crossed the river safely.

“Lusa, you won't forget your underwater swim in a hurry,” Toklo teased. “Maybe you'll show me how to do it sometime.”

“Oh, sure,” Lusa retorted sleepily. “Right after you and Yakone show me how to hunt horses!”

A harsh squawk from somewhere overhead woke Kallik. Stretching her jaws in a yawn, she looked around to see pale light filtering through the branches of their den. Her companions were still sleeping. The harsh call came again, along
with a flutter of wings as the unseen bird took off.

We've never been in such a noisy place!
Kallik thought crossly, wishing she could go back to sleep.
My ears are ringing!

The second call had roused her friends, and they all pushed their way into the open. The air was cool and clear, and above their heads the sky was pale blue without a trace of cloud. Kallik felt brighter as they set out, enjoying the fresh scents all around her and the shade of the trees.

More narrow, stony trails crossed their path, and Kallik's paws itched to follow one that seemed to be going in the right direction. “It would be great not to have to struggle through brambles the whole time,” she sighed.

Toklo shook his head. “It's too dangerous, you know that. Besides, we can't be sure it would go the right way.”

Reluctantly Kallik agreed. The scents of horses, mules, and flat-faces were too strong to risk it, and she followed Toklo without protest as he headed across the trail and back into the undergrowth.

Only a few bearlengths later Toklo halted, pointing with his snout to a set of clawmarks scored into the bark of a pine tree. A familiar scent drifted into Kallik's nostrils. “There's a brown bear living around here,” Toklo said. “We'd better stay out of his territory.”

“Did you meet him last time?” Kallik asked.

Toklo shook his head. “He must have moved in since then,” he replied. “Or maybe we just missed the edge of his territory.”

Following Toklo, they veered to the side, tracking the scent marks and scratches on the trees in an effort to skirt
the brown bear's territory. Kallik's fur prickled with apprehension as she padded quietly along, hoping not to attract the bear's attention.

I hope he's over on the other side of his territory. We have enough problems without getting into a fight.

“If I were this bear,” Toklo said as they came to a small stream bubbling along among rocks, “I would make this my boundary. A stream makes a good barrier.”

“Let's check!” Lusa bounded on ahead for a few bearlengths and halted underneath a gnarled oak tree. “You're right!” she called back. “Here are some more markings!”

“Lusa,” Toklo grunted as the others caught up to her. “Don't go dashing off like that again. We
know
there could be a hostile bear about.”

“Okay,” Lusa muttered. “Sorry.”

Toklo fell silent as they walked along the edge of the brown bear's territory. Kallik wondered if he was thinking about the territory waiting for him—and maybe the she-bear Aiyanna who was guarding his brother's burial mound.

“One day you'll have your own territory,” she said to Toklo. “And bears will have to avoid
your
scent.”

Toklo nodded. “I won't fight any bear unless I have to, though,” he said. “I'm not like Chogan.”

A short way farther on, the stream vanished into a patch of swamp surrounded by brambles and spindly dogwood. The bears circled around it warily, looking for the next set of clawmarks.

“Let's check over there,” Yakone suggested, pointing with
his snout at a lightning-blasted tree on the edge of the swamp. “It's the only spot where you could put a clawmark.”

Heading for the tree, Kallik saw that Yakone was right. The bear had scored his claws deep into the trunk of the dead tree. She could see the next set of clawmarks, too, on a pine tree well away from the direction she and her friends were traveling.

“Thank the spirits!” she exclaimed. “The boundary curves away here.”

“And we haven't met the bear,” Toklo added with satisfaction.

As they left the unseen bear's territory, Kallik began to hear more sounds from up ahead: horses clattering along a stony trail with their hard paws, and the occasional bark from a flat-face.
Not again . . .
As they approached the sounds grew louder, and they were somehow different, harsher and more confused, from what they had heard before.

Peering out of the bushes, Kallik was astonished to see a plump flat-face on a horse followed by a long, long line of mules, far more than she could count, all linked together by vine tendrils. Each mule carried a bundle on its back, each bundle almost the size of a black bear. Farther down the line, more flat-faces on horses flanked the mules.

The bears crouched down to hide in the bushes to watch them all plod past.

“Seal rot!” Yakone muttered. “We'll have to wait until they've gone.”

Kallik's fur prickled with anxiety. The line of mules seemed
never ending.
How many more can there be?
she wondered.

Then one of the mules balked, sidestepping and tugging on its vines as if it wanted to flee.

“It knows we're here,” Toklo growled. “Now the flat-faces are sure to spot us.”

Kallik tried to press herself closer to the ground as the panic spread through the line of mules, more of them throwing up their heads and letting out high-pitched whinnies. The vines that held them snapped taut, holding them in place with skittering paws. Kallik heard annoyed barking from the flat-face at the front.

“I can hear more flat-faces. Coming up behind us!” Lusa whispered, her eyes wide with dismay.

Kallik swiveled around. She picked up the flat-face scent, then stiffened as several bright-pelted flat-faces emerged through the trees, chattering away and heading straight for her and her friends. They didn't seem to be aware of the bears or the mules. “Now what do we do?” she hissed.

On both sides the undergrowth pressed in on them, its thorny walls a barrier that was impossible to break through. There was nowhere to go but forward, but the long mule train was still blocking their route.

“Will it ever end?” Toklo muttered.

The flat-faces behind them drew closer and closer, until Kallik could hear them breathing.
Much closer and they'll step on us!

“We can't stay here,” Toklo growled. “We'll have to charge the line of mules.”

“But we won't be able to get through!” Yakone objected.

“It's the only way. We'll have to charge at a gap between two of them.” Toklo glanced from Kallik to Lusa. “Ready? We'll meet up on the other side of the trail.”

Lusa nodded, her eyes wide with fear.