Free Island of Shadows by Erin Hunter Page B

Yakone observed. “But then, no-claws are weird.”
    â€œMaybe they wanted to take you to bear jail,” Kallik suggested. “I told you about the time I was trapped there, remember? Those no-claws put me in a net to take me to a place with other bears.”
    â€œMaybe they were going to take me back to the Bear Bowl.” Lusa gave her pelt a determined shake. “But I’m a wild bear now. Thanks for saving me, Toklo.”
    â€œJust remember that.” Toklo recalled how scared and angry he had been when he’d seen Lusa trapped. “These flat-faces might not use firesticks. But they’re still not good for bears. So let’s get as far away from them as we can.”
    As they left the last of the dens behind, Toklo realized that they had come out of the denning place by a different route, and now they were much closer to the hills. The land sloped steeply upward, with rocks poking up out of the snow and a twisted thornbush here and there. The hills seemed to glower down at them, as if they were guarding the interior of the island against intruders.
    Toklo let out a contemptuous snort. You’re getting as bad as Ujurak, seeing signs everywhere! Pain twisted his heart again as he remembered his friend. The absence of a smaller brown bear padding alongside him was like a gaping wound that refused to heal. Pushing the dark thoughts away, he kept on at a grueling pace, higher and higher into the hills. His legs ached with the effort, and he could hear his companions panting as they followed, but something forced him to keep going.
    â€œToklo!” Lusa gasped out from behind him. “Can we rest for a bit?”
    Reluctantly, Toklo halted and turned to look back the way they had come. Starlight glimmered on the snowdrifts, broken only by their own trail, and cast dark shadows from the rocks and scrubby thorns. The flat-face dens looked tiny at this distance, like pebbles he could have dashed aside with one paw.
    Kallik and Yakone stood close together, gazing across the plain they had left behind, while Lusa panted beside them, her sides heaving and her breath billowing into clouds in the frosty air.
    Toklo shifted his paws impatiently. His belly was howling with hunger, and he sniffed instinctively for the scent of prey. The harsh tang in the air was unexpected, and he snuffled at his own pelt, wondering if he had picked up the scent of oil from the flat-face dens. But all he could smell there was bear fur.
    â€œI can smell firebeasts,” he muttered, half to himself. “But there aren’t any BlackPaths for them to run on.”
    â€œMaybe it’s from that metal bird,” Lusa suggested, scanning the sky nervously.
    Toklo grunted. He didn’t want to think about the bird hunting them down out here on the hillside, where there was no cover. “We’d better move on,” he said.
    His paws were still driving him onward, but he couldn’t keep up the same fast pace as the slope grew steeper still. Soon he had to leap from rock to rock, or grip the twisted thorns to drag himself upward. At one point the snow gave way under his paws, and he slipped back, colliding with Yakone, who was just behind him.
    â€œSorry,” Toklo muttered.
    â€œDon’t worry, I’m fine,” Yakone responded. “I just hope there’s something worth finding at the other side of these hills.”
    Have you got a better idea, cloud-brain? Toklo forced himself not to say the words aloud. Yakone just doesn’t understand about making a long journey.
    Soon the top of the crags loomed just above Toklo’s head. With a last desperate scramble he pulled himself over the edge. In the same heartbeat a storm of white wings battered his head, and he let out a surprised yelp, almost losing his balance and falling back down the slope.
    The scent of goose washed over Toklo. Hunger in his belly took control of his paws. He lashed out, snagged his claws in feathers, and