The Burning Horizon by Erin Hunter Page B

picked up Lusa’s scent!” Yakone told him. “It leads up into the trees, here on the far side.”
    â€œShe didn’t cross with us,” Kallik murmured as Toklo hurried to join her and Yakone.
    â€œLook at this,” Yakone said, pointing with his snout to a spot beside the trail. Trampled ferns and a scrap of broken vine showed that some kind of scuffle had happened there, and a few of the fern fronds were flecked with blood.
    â€œShe must have been injured!” Kallik exclaimed.
    Toklo picked up the rising anxiety in Kallik’s voice and fought to keep himself calm. “Come on,” he said. “She couldn’t have gone far. She’d know we’d look for her.”
    Yakone led the way along Lusa’s scent trail, back toward the edge of the brown bear’s territory that they had passed earlier in the day. The trail was strong and full of Lusa’s fear-scent.
    â€œI need to find some herbs to help her.” Kallik was glancing from side to side as they followed Lusa’s scent into the trees. “But Lusa knows so much more about them than I do!” There was a sharp edge of panic in her voice.
    â€œThere’s still daylight left,” Toklo said encouragingly. “We need to find Lusa as fast as we can. Then she’ll be able to tell us what herbs she needs.”
    Pressing on into the undergrowth, they kept on following Lusa’s scent trail. To Toklo’s relief, it soon veered away in another direction. Thank the spirits! he thought. I was afraid she might have wandered into that other bear’s territory.
    Toklo spotted tufts of black fur clinging to a berry bush. “Look,” he grunted, pointing to it with his snout. “We’re on the right track.”
    As he spoke, Toklo heard the cough of a waking firebeast, then a gentle roar as it moved off. Though it was faint in the distance, his fur prickled. “Is there a BlackPath in this part of the forest?”
    Yakone let out a low growl. “There are BlackPaths everywhere .”
    Up ahead, the undergrowth thinned out, and light trickled through the gaps in the trees. Toklo caught glimpses of firebeasts running back and forth and realized that a huge BlackPath cut through the forest.
    â€œWhat if Lusa was hurt by a firebeast?” Kallik’s voice quivered. “If she was badly injured by a mule, she might have stumbled onto the BlackPath without knowing where she was.”
    Toklo ran forward toward the BlackPath; Kallik kept pace with him while Yakone, still limping, dropped a little way behind. On the BlackPath, firebeasts charged in both directions, the rumbling of their bellies loud and threatening. Their acrid scent filled the air, and their bright, unnatural colors dazzled Toklo’s eyes.
    â€œNow what?” he asked. “Do we follow this BlackPath?”
    â€œWhat good would it do?” Kallik retorted. “How can we listen for Lusa, or pick up her scent, with all the racket and reek from the firebeasts?”
    Toklo’s shoulders sagged. “You’re right.”
    All three bears backed up into the forest again, looking around vainly for Lusa. Then Toklo spotted a flattened patch of grass underneath a tree and bounded over to it. “Lusa’s scent is here!” he reported with a flicker of excitement. “She must have lain down to rest.”
    Kallik and Yakone padded over to inspect the flattened grass for themselves.
    â€œBut she’s not here now,” Yakone said worriedly. “So where did she go?”
    Closing her eyes, Kallik lifted her snout into the air and stood still, concentrating. Toklo waited impatiently; he knew Kallik could pick up the scent of a seal across empty ice. If any bear could track Lusa, she could.
    Finally Kallik shook her head. “I can hardly pick up Lusa’s scent at all,” she admitted. “It’s these spirit-cursed firebeasts. Their awful reek swamps everything else.