Free Smoke Mountain by Erin Hunter

was in more trouble? Then he saw the second dog lunge for Taqqiq’s neck. Taqqiq was still reeling from the last attack and didn’t see it coming fast enough to dodge away.
    Just before the dog’s jaws closed on white fur, Toklo’s massive paw slammed into the side of its head. The dog was knocked several bearlengths across the black earth. At the same moment, Toklo whirled and sliced at the other dog as it leaped towards him. The dog tumbled to the ground. With a whimper, it climbed to its paws and limped away.
    Toklo turned and saw that the first dog was also on its paws, shaking its head as if it were stunned.He took one step towards it, and the dog fled into the flat-face den.
    â€˜We’ve got to go,’ Lusa urged, racing from the bushes to his side. ‘The flat-faces will be out here with their firesticks any moment!’
    â€˜Come on!’ Toklo ordered the white bear cubs. Kallik started to limp towards him, but Taqqiq just glared at him.
    â€˜I could have taken care of those dogs myself,’ he snarled.
    â€˜Yeah, you were doing a great job!’ Toklo retorted.
    There was a clatter from inside the flat-face den, and the sound of their high-pitched noises got louder.
    â€˜Quick!’ Lusa cried. ‘Run!’ She pelted away into the marsh.
    â€˜Come
on
, Taqqiq!’ Kallik said, ramming her brother in the side.
    Well, I don’t care if the flat-faces get him
, Toklo thought. He turned his back and ran after Lusa. His paws squished heavily in the mud as he dived off the flat black earth.
Ungrateful, selfish, stupid . . .
    Lusa tore through the swampy grassland ahead of him. Toklo would have preferred to run straight acrossthe BlackPath, in the direction of the Big River, but he had to follow her so they didn’t lose her. He realised she was heading for a thin grove of trees several bearlengths away, beside the BlackPath.
Typical black bear response, running for trees
, he thought, but it wasn’t a bad idea. Hopefully the trees would hide the bears from flat-face eyes – as would the growing darkness now that the sun was all the way down.
    He caught up with her as they dived between the first few tree trunks. A firebeast roared as it charged by on the BlackPath, only a bearlength away. Lusa shot up the nearest tree and clung to a branch, panting. As the noise of the firebeast faded, there was a thundering of paws, and Toklo realised that both white bears had followed him after all. Kallik and Taqqiq ran into the trees and collapsed beside a clump of leafy bushes. Toklo spun around, looking anxiously for Ujurak. There was no sign of the other brown bear.
    He peered out between the bushes and saw flat-faces running around the den with the dogs, pointing at the big firebeast and shouting. But they weren’t looking towards the trees. Perhaps they hadn’t seen the bears.
    An odd chittering noise startled him, and he turned to see a squirrel staring at him from the roots of the nearest tree. Its eyes were very bright, like little berries, and instead of running, it stood there looking at him.
    â€˜Ujurak?’ he asked. Had he changed shape to hide better?
    Suddenly a flash of white fur flew past him. Taqqiq snatched the squirrel up in one huge paw. Before Toklo could move, Taqqiq’s jaws closed over the squirrel’s head with a devastating crunch.
    â€˜
No!
’ Toklo howled. He threw himself at Taqqiq. ‘No! Stop!’ It was bad enough risking his fur to rescue the dumb white bear from the dogs, but there was no way he was going to watch him eat Ujurak.
    Startled, Taqqiq dropped the squirrel and spun around, roaring and lashing out at Toklo with his claws. The squirrel fell on to the ground and lay there without moving. Then Taqqiq’s claws raked across his snout and Toklo lunged to bury his teeth in the other cub’s neck. Taqqiq’s powerful shoulder muscles knocked him over, and Toklo lashed out with his back paws,