Free The Melting Sea by Erin Hunter Page A

flat-faces on pawsticks were chasing us.”
    â€œIt’s time we were moving,” Toklo said, his paws itching with impatience to get as far away as possible from the BlackPath. “Line up beside me, and don’t try to cross until I tell you.” To his relief, the others did as he told them without arguing. Toklo stood with ears pricked, making sure that all was silent. There was no sign of firebeasts in either direction.
    â€œNow!”
    All four bears launched themselves across the BlackPath, slipping and sliding on the hard-packed snow. Memories flashed into Toklo’s mind of how he and his mother and Tobi used to cross BlackPaths all the time. They often walked along them through the woods, ducking into cover at the edge when firebeasts came by. Back then, the BlackPaths hadn’t seemed so terrifying, but Toklo couldn’t remember why they’d stayed near them.
    Surely Oka should have realized that BlackPaths and flat-faces are nothing but trouble?
    Once across the BlackPath, Kallik took the lead, heading away from the mountains and into the plain. “Come on!” she urged, looking back. “I want to get to the edge of the Melting Sea. It’s my home!”
    Toklo felt a stab of jealousy. He had no idea how to find the sunlit woods where he had wandered with Oka and Tobi. He just knew that they were a long, long way away. The hollow place inside him opened up again as he wondered whether he would even recognize the valleys and forests where he grew up.
    Will I be as certain as Kallik when I get there?
    For the rest of the day the bears trekked across the plain, pausing just after midday to hunt. Determined to show what he could do, Toklo stalked cautiously toward a clump of thornbushes and reeds around a frozen pool. Before he reached them, he spotted two black spots against the snow and realized that he was looking at the ear tips of a hare. His belly cramping with hunger, Toklo crept up on the telltale black specks. The scent of the hare reached his nose and he imagined sinking his teeth into the warm flesh.
    Just a bit closer …
    With a roar, Toklo leaped. His claws sank into the hare before it was even aware of him. He crushed its neck with one paw.
    As he gazed down at his prey, breathing hard with satisfaction, a flicker of movement caught his eye. A second hare sprang out from behind the thornbushes, clearly alarmed.
    Toklo raced after it, enjoying the sensation of his muscles bunching and stretching as he chased it across the snow. The frightened hare changed direction, dodging from side to side, but Toklo was determined it wouldn’t escape. Guessing which way it would run next, he intercepted it and killed it with a blow to the head.
    Pride filled Toklo as he headed back to his companions with the two dead hares gripped in his jaws. When he reached them, Lusa had uncovered a bushy plant and was chewing the leaves, while Kallik and Yakone stood close together a little way away. They didn’t seem to have caught anything.
    Toklo was pleased that he was able to provide for them. Padding over to them, he dropped the hares at their paws. “Here,” he said. “You can have one of these.”
    Kallik and Yakone exchanged a glance.
    â€œThanks, Toklo,” Kallik responded awkwardly. “But Yakone and I decided that we’ll wait and hunt on the ice when we reach the Melting Sea. We want to start fresh there.”
    Toklo thought that was bee-brained, but he tried to conceal his rising annoyance. “The ice is too hard on Lusa,” he pointed out. “We agreed to stay on land.”
    â€œI know,” Kallik replied. “We won’t go far, just out enough to catch a seal, and then we’ll come back, I promise.”
    â€œBut we’ve always hunted together before!” Toklo protested.
    â€œWell, maybe we don’t have to now,” Kallik told him.
    Lusa looked up from where she was munching leaves. “It’s fine,