Free The Last Wilderness by Erin Hunter

about it.
    They had never spoken about the dream since, but Lusa had known from that moment that Ujurak was even more special than they realised. The spirits wouldn’t let him die. The whole of the wild needed him too much.
    Closing her eyes, Lusa tried to send out a message to Ujurak.
The flat-faces will look after you
, she told him, hoping that he could hear her.
We’ll wait for you until you’re better, so we can keep going to save the wild
.
    Lusa felt new strength welling up inside her like a mountain spring. Somehow she knew that Ujurak would receive her message. Letting out a long sigh, she opened her eyes again. ‘I’m starving!’ she announced. It seemed as if days had passed since they had persuaded Ujurak to join the flock of geese in the hope of catching one of them. ‘What about you?’
    Toklo nodded. ‘We need to hunt,’ he murmured reluctantly, ‘but –’
    ‘But we can’t go off and leave Ujurak,’ Kallik finished for him. ‘Not when we don’t know if he’s going to be OK.’
    As the bears glanced uncertainly at one another, Lusa raised her snout and sniffed. She could pick up whiffs of interesting scents, and she realised how quiet the denning place was, with all the flat-faces indoors because of the rain.
    She gave Kallik a friendly shove with one paw. ‘Don’t worry. Flat-face dens are always good for a few scraps of food, if you know where to look.’
    Toklo frowned. ‘I’d rather hunt our own prey.’
    ‘No, Lusa’s right,’ Kallik said. ‘This will be easier, and we can stay close to Ujurak.’
    Toklo shrugged. ‘OK. But don’t blame me if the flat-faces catch us.’
    By now twilight was gathering. The rain still hissed down around them, and the doors to the flat-face dens stayed firmly closed. Cautious, but still confident, Lusa led the way across the denning area, looking for the shiny containers full of rubbish that flat-faces always kept at the back of their dens.
    The faint sound of music and flat-face voices came from the bigger den that the healer had left. Lusa crept up to a lighted window and peered inside. Rows of flat-faces sat at tables, with little piles of meat in front of them. They were talking loudly and baring their teeth at one another in a friendly way.
    As one of the flat-faces rose to his feet, Lusa drew back into the shadows, shoving Toklo and Kallik away from the window. A moment later the flat-face opened the door and stepped out, pulling a pelt over his head, and ran across the rainswept ground to another den in a distant corner.
    ‘Let’s get on with it!’ Toklo hissed in her ear.‘They’ll spot us if we hang around here.’
    Lusa knew he was right. She set off again, still looking for the flat-face rubbish containers. To her surprise, she couldn’t see any. ‘What do they do with their rubbish?’ she muttered angrily. ‘Don’t they know there are hungry bears around here?’
    As they came to the end of a row of flat-face dens, Toklo halted, sniffing at the air. ‘What’s that?’ he asked.
    Lusa joined him and took a deep sniff. The most delicious smells tickled her nostrils; they seemed to be coming from a small den a little way from the end of the row. ‘We’ve
got
to have some of that!’ she exclaimed.
    ‘Be careful,’ Kallik warned her as she padded up to Lusa’s side. ‘There’s the smell of fire too. It could be dangerous.’
    ‘I’ll be fine.’
    Before either of her friends could object, Lusa gave a swift glance around to check that no flat-faces had appeared, then trotted up to the door of the small den. She gave the door a push, but it wouldn’t open. Frustrated, she glared at it, then noticed a gleam of silver between the edge of the door and the frame.Something there was holding the door shut.
    Squeezing her paw into the gap, Lusa gave the silver thing an experimental prod. There was a clicking sound; she almost lost her balance as the door swung inward. Smoke surged out of the doorway, while the delicious scents