Free Fire in the Sky by Erin Hunter Page A

Lusa’s fur and did make her feel a little better, although she could tell that she’d still be able to fall asleep in a heartbeat if she had the chance. Her paws churned through the snow as she tried to keep up with the others. In the lead, Kallik kept padding faster and faster, as if she knew for certain there was something ahead of them. Lusa couldn’t smell anything, but she was concentrating too much on staying awake to argue.
    Toklo’s question echoed in her mind as snow and ice crunched underpaw. Was there something wrong with her? All she wanted to do was curl up somewhere and sleep. She’d never felt like this before, not even when they were traveling much farther every day, through the mountains and across vast plains where the grass rippled like water.
    She couldn’t tell the others. If she was sick, it would ruin their whole quest. But how could she save the wild when she could barely put one paw in front of the other? Lusa gritted her teeth. She would keep going, no matter what. She’d come all this way; she wasn’t going to let a little sleepiness stop her now. She’d just keep walking and hope that her friends didn’t notice.
    Immediately in front of her, Toklo was moving much slower than the day before, checking the ice every few steps to make sure it was firm underneath him. He seemed less interested in taking the lead today, although Lusa was sure that if Kallikdidn’t find prey soon, that would change.
    The sun slid slowly down the sky, casting longer and longer shadows across the snowy landscape. Lusa watched a few clouds amble from one edge of the sky to another. Her paws began to ache, and her eyes itched from the brightness of the sunshine on the snow. They’d been walking for ages . Lusa found it hard to imagine that Kallik had really smelled something this far away. Her stomach growled sadly. She’d so wanted her friend to be right this time.
    “Here!” Kallik suddenly called from up ahead. “Look what I found!”
    Lusa dug her paws in and sprinted over a small hill of snow. She slid down the other side and nearly crashed into Ujurak, who was standing with his head raised, staring at the edge of the sky where bright blue met shimmering white ice.
    Next to Kallik’s paws was a breathing hole…and lying beside it was the half-eaten carcass of a seal!
    Lusa gasped. “Kallik, that’s amazing!” She turned to look back at where they’d come. The cave where they’d slept was skylengths away now. “How did you smell it from all that way?”
    Kallik shrugged and scraped her claws across the ice. “It’s a lot easier out here where the ice doesn’t muddle up my nose the way earth and trees and plants do,” she said.
    “That is really impressive,” Ujurak said admiringly.
    Toklo just grunted. He lowered his head to sniff the carcass, then turned to look around suspiciously. “This smells like another white bear,” he said.
    “Uh-oh,” Lusa said, casting a nervous glance at the hill behind them. “Some bear must have left it here. What if it comes back?”
    “Are we invading their territory?” Toklo asked. His brown fur bristled across his back. “Not that I’m afraid of fighting another bear for food! I say it’s their loss! It’s just…uh…white bears can get very…big.”
    “There are no territories on the ice,” Kallik said, tilting her head at him in a puzzled way. “Everyone takes what food they can get. Sometimes it means frightening away a smaller bear, if that’s what you have to do—when I was on the ice with Nisa and Taqqiq, we were scared away from food more than once!”
    “Makes sense to me,” Toklo agreed. “If a bear was silly enough to leave food out in the open, they’d better expect someone to take it.”
    Lusa’s ears pricked with alarm. She remembered the size of the white bears at Great Bear Lake. One of those might come along and chase them off at any moment? She didn’t like the sound of that! She was much smaller than any of those