Fire in the Sky Read online

  Seekers

  Fire in the Sky

  Erin Hunter

  Contents

  Maps

  Chapter One

  Lusa

  Chapter Two

  Kallik

  Chapter Three

  Kallik

  Chapter Four

  Toklo

  Chapter Five

  Ujurak

  Chapter Six

  Kallik

  Chapter Seven

  Ujurak

  Chapter Eight

  Lusa

  Chapter Nine

  Kallik

  Chapter Ten

  Ujurak

  Chapter Eleven

  Toklo

  Chapter Twelve

  Lusa

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kallik

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ujurak

  Chapter Fifteen

  Kallik

  Chapter Sixteen

  Toklo

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lusa

  Chapter Eighteen

  Kallik

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ujurak

  Chapter Twenty

  Toklo

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Lusa

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Ujurak

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Toklo

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Lusa

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Toklo

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Lusa

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Kallik

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Ujurak

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Lusa

  Chapter Thirty

  Toklo

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Ujurak

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Kallik

  Coming Soon from Erin Hunter

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Books by Erin Hunter

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Maps

  CHAPTER ONE

  Lusa

  Streaks of pink and gold and green flowed across the night sky, stretching long, dazzling clouds of color between the twinkling stars. Rivers of light danced across the bears’ fur as they stood on the edge of the shore and watched. They were bathed in waves of cool flame, soundless, touchless, carried in the air like wind. Lusa blinked, her black fur rippling as she shifted on her paws. She’d never seen anything like this before. Nothing in the Bear Bowl had ever been this beautiful, and nothing she’d seen on her long journey with her friends had ever been this strange.

  Ujurak must be right. It had to be a sign. The fire in the sky had been sent by the bear spirits, telling them they needed to go onto the ice.

  She looked out at the murmuring sea and the vast white emptiness beyond—the Everlasting Ice—and felt a tremor of fear. The rough, pebbly sand under her paws felt solid and comforting. Even though her nose was still clogged with the scent of flat-faces and the sticky black stuff that Ujurak called “oil,” she could also smell fresh grass and hear the scrabbling of tiny animals not far away. A tiny splash from the river behind them spoke of fish waiting to be eaten, and even the shadows of the spiky bushes scattered around them promised some shelter from rain or snow.

  But out on the ice, there was nothing at all…no berries, no grubs, no rabbits, no trees…nothing to eat and nowhere to hide, and not even any smells to guide them. Nothing but the cold, empty scent of unmoving water.

  How could they save the wild there?

  “Ujurak,” she said, nudging the small brown bear with her nose. “You are sure about this, aren’t you? That is what the sign means…that we have to go out there?” She nodded her head at the ice.

  Ujurak’s eyes were dark and serious, with a strange look that suggested he could see things that Lusa never had. “I am sure,” he replied. “Kallik must lead us into her world now.”

  Lusa glanced at their friend. The white bear stood with her snout lifted, inhaling the scents of the ice and the sea as if she couldn’t breathe deeply enough. The moonlight turned her fur to dappled silver as the wind brushed across her shoulders. Her muscles quivered with the effort of staying on land when the endless ice tugged at her paws, calling her out. Lusa wished she could understand how Kallik felt. What was there to love about all that emptiness?

  She had to be brave, that was all. This quest was bigger than any of them alone, Lusa knew. Maybe it would be more exciting on the ice than she imagined. It would certainly be different from anything she’d seen in the Bear Bowl! “And if we go out there,” she asked Ujurak, “we’ll be able to save the wild? We can stop the flat-faces from tearing up the land and destroying everything?”

  Ujurak bowed his shaggy head and scraped his claws through the sand, leaving deep scars. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “I don’t know what we’re supposed to do about the flat-faces, but I do believe that we have to go onto the ice. The fire in the sky has to mean something, I can feel it. Even though the land has come to an end, my journey—our journey—must continue.”

  He looked back out at the ice, and Lusa shivered. Although the night wind was bitterly cold, she knew it wasn’t the only thing making her skin crawl and her paws tremble.

  “Huh!” Toklo’s voice snorted behind them. “If you ask me, you’ve all got bees in your brains.” He turned and stalked up the shore toward a line of scraggly bushes.

  Oh, no! Lusa thought. They couldn’t go without Toklo! The bears had already been separated once, when he decided to go into the mountains on the far side of the plain and lead the life of a lone brown bear. Lusa wasn’t exactly sure why he’d come back; she hoped it was because he had changed his mind about leaving them. She’d missed him terribly, and even more than that, she knew that they needed him. All four of them had to save the wild together. It wasn’t a coincidence that they’d met and made it so far as a team. Couldn’t he see that?

  “Toklo, wait!” she called. “What about the fire in the sky? It’s not bee-brained—it’s a sign!”

  Toklo swung his large head around. His black eyes were very bright. “I’m just saying, if we’re going on a journey, we’ll need to eat something first.”

  Lusa felt a burst of joy. Toklo was coming with them! Maybe the fire in the sky had affected him more than he wanted to let on. Lusa wasn’t exactly sure what Toklo believed about the stars. They didn’t seem to fill him with joy, the way they did Lusa and Kallik. But if the stars weren’t watching Toklo in a kind way, what did he think they were doing?

  She scrambled after him as he padded up the pebbly slope, sniffing the night air.

  “Shush,” Toklo scolded her. “You’ll scare off all the prey.”

  “Sorry!” Lusa said, trying to tread more lightly. She bumped against his side, resisting the urge to bury her nose in his thick brown fur. “You’re so brave, Toklo.”

  He huffed. “Me?”

  “I know you don’t have to come,” Lusa hurried on. “I mean, I know you’d rather stay on the land…but you are really going to come with us, right? Onto the ice?”

  Toklo stopped and crouched with his nose to the ground, smelling intently. Lusa pricked up her ears, wondering what he’d sensed. After a long moment, he snorted again.

  “Why not?” he muttered, avoiding her eyes. “I mean, the mountain wasn’t all that great. Too crowded for my liking. Too many bears fighting for too little prey.” His shoulders rippled with muscle as he stood up. “Besides, you three would be lost without me.” He nudged her teasingly.

  “See what I mean?” Lusa said. “You could go off and be on your own, but instead you’re staying with us on this dangerous jou
rney. That’s what I call brave.”

  Toklo squinted at her, his eyes reflecting the moonlight. “What about you? You didn’t even think twice about following those two. They say, ‘Let’s go onto the ice!’ and right away you say, ‘Where do I put my paws?’ If you ask me, you’re the brave one.”

  “Oh,” Lusa said, embarrassed. It seemed different for her; she couldn’t imagine going off and living on her own. Not yet. She didn’t even know if she could live on her own. She’d had to when she first escaped from the Bear Bowl and went to find Toklo, but she hadn’t had a choice about that. And looking for Toklo gave her a purpose, something to think about beyond surviving. She’d always believed that she’d find him, so there had always been the thought that she’d have someone to talk to in the end. But to live entirely alone, with just trees and ground squirrels for company, wasn’t something she could ever imagine doing. “Well, no,” she stammered. “I mean, it’s not like—”

  Suddenly there was a flash of motion from the nearest bush and a rabbit leaped out into the open, tearing away toward the river. Toklo sprang into action at the same instant and raced after it with his legs pumping and his belly close to the ground.

  Lusa looked back at the others. Ujurak was climbing the slope toward her, while Kallik was still standing on the shore as if she couldn’t bear to take one pawstep away from the sea now that they’d reached it. The shimmering flames of light in the sky were starting to fade, and the moon was bright and round, casting a silver streak like a path across the water.

  She heard a huff of frustration and turned to see Toklo stomping back toward her with no rabbit in his jaws.

  “Maybe we’d have better luck over there,” Lusa suggested, nodding toward a marshy pool farther along the shore, away from the flat-face bridge. Moonlight glinted off the still water, and there were huddled shadows around it that might be bushes or might be something much more edible. Lusa sniffed eagerly, hoping to catch a scent of prey.

  Ujurak brushed against her side and nodded. “I think I smell something over there, too,” he murmured.

  Kallik caught up to the three of them as they padded quietly toward the pool. She stayed close to Lusa’s side, but Lusa could see her large white head swinging around to watch the sea every few paces.

  They slowed down as they got closer. A fluttering sound caught Lusa’s attention and she froze, holding her breath so she wouldn’t scare the prey away. The others looked at her, then back at the pool. The shapes around the pool were geese—a flock of them, all asleep in the long, marshy weeds.

  Toklo gave Lusa and Ujurak a look that clearly meant stay here. Lusa wondered if he was remembering what had happened the last time they’d hunted for geese. In the thrill of the chase, Ujurak had turned into a big gray bird and had flown away with the flock. When they’d finally found him again, he’d swallowed something terrible and nearly died, and they had to take him to the flat-faces in the hope that they would save him, which was how they had ended up here, so close to the smelly, choking flat-face denning place. Lusa glanced at Ujurak, hoping he wasn’t planning to change again. It seemed much safer when he was just a bear, like them.

  She settled quietly on the ground next to the young brown bear, watching as Toklo and Kallik split up and crept toward the flock. Pebbly mud squished underneath her, cold against her fur and paw pads, but she had to admit she liked it better than the hard black paths around the flat-face dens. And it’s nowhere near as cold as the ice will be, she reminded herself, shivering again.

  A loud honk abruptly blasted from the flock and several geese lunged upright, taking to the air with ungainly, flapping wings.

  “Oh, no!” Lusa cried, sitting up. “Did they all get away?”

  “No, look,” Ujurak said. He nodded at the brown and white shapes of Toklo and Kallik as they leaped into the mass of wings and feathers, claws outstretched. When the rest of the geese had disappeared into the dark sky, Lusa could see both of her friends trotting toward them triumphantly, each dragging a fat goose carcass.

  “Great catch!” she yelped, bouncing down to join them.

  Kallik shrugged modestly.

  “As if a fat bird like this could escape from a decent hunter,” Toklo scoffed, dropping the goose and tossing his head.

  The four bears settled down by the pond, next to a clump of bushes that blocked the cold wind, and tore into the juicy flesh of the geese. Lusa was surprised to realize how tired she was. Now that she had sat down, she didn’t think she could get up again. She was glad for the chance to rest her paws and aching muscles.

  The crunch of bones and meat in her mouth helped to revive her a little. She gazed into the still water next to them and saw large shapes reflected in the moonlight. It took her a moment to realize she was looking at herself and her friends. She was so much bigger than she remembered! Her fur was thick and dark and her ears were larger than the last time she’d seen herself in a pool of water. She always felt so small next to the others. Toklo seemed stronger and taller every day, and Kallik was even larger than he was.

  Lusa glanced at the white bear. Kallik’s massive jaws pulped the rich goose fat, while her long claws ripped off another chunk of meat. If Lusa hadn’t known Kallik all along, she would probably be terrified to run into her now. A full-grown white bear might even eat a smaller black bear like Lusa!

  Just as she had that thought, a goose feather drifted up Kallik’s nose, and the white bear jumped back and sneezed loudly. She sneezed again, and then again, and her expression was so startled and outraged that Lusa couldn’t help letting out a huff of laughter. Maybe Kallik wasn’t so scary after all.

  “Let’s find somewhere dry to sleep,” Toklo suggested once the geese were picked clean.

  “Yes! Sleep!” Lusa agreed, pushing herself to her paws. She felt strangely heavy, as if her pelt was soaking wet. The others gave her funny looks, but she couldn’t think of anything she’d rather do right then than curl up somewhere warm to nap.

  “What about the ice?” Kallik said. “Shouldn’t we get started? We could sleep out there.”

  That didn’t sound warm and cozy to Lusa. How could any bear fall asleep on the ice?

  “That’s a stupid idea,” Toklo snorted, as if he’d read Lusa’s mind. “This is probably our last chance to get a decent night’s sleep.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Kallik flared. “We’ll sleep fine out there! Better even, because we won’t have dirt clogging up our fur or no-claws stomping around and nearly running us over with their firebeasts!”

  “Oh, sure,” Toklo said. “I bet it’s really comfortable sleeping on solid frozen water. I can’t wait.”

  Lusa’s ears twitched. Privately she agreed with Toklo, but she thought he was being unfair to Kallik. After all, this was the place she had longed to find—where all white bears dreamed of living because the ice stayed forever. If white bears could survive out there, so could they. They needed to trust Kallik to keep them safe, that was all.

  “Hey!” Kallik growled. “I don’t complain about the nasty hot dirty places you find for us to sleep—”

  “Okay, all right, that’s enough,” Ujurak interrupted, shouldering his way between them before Toklo could lash out at Kallik with his claws. With a shock, Lusa realized that Ujurak was almost as broad as Toklo now, and his fluffy cub pelt was giving way to blond streaks of coarser hair, like a full-grown grizzly. “Listen, we need to rest before we start, especially if we’ll have to swim to reach the ice.”

  “Yeah,” Toklo said smugly.

  “Although I’m sure we’ll also be very comfortable sleeping on the ice like Kallik does,” Ujurak added, giving Toklo a warning look.

  “I guess it would be a good idea to get some rest first,” Kallik admitted, flicking her stumpy tail.

  “Besides, Lusa looks like she’s about to fall asleep on her paws,” Toklo joked.

  “I am n—” Lusa’s protest was cut short by a huge yawn. “Okay, maybe I am,” she muttered as the others h
uffed with amusement. They wouldn’t think it was funny if they felt as tired as she did. She was relieved to see Toklo’s fur settling back down on his shoulders, and when she stumbled against Kallik’s flank because her paws wouldn’t lift up properly, the white bear nuzzled her with a friendly snort. Though she’d never admit it out loud, it scared Lusa when Kallik and Toklo confronted each other like that; then it was too easy to see the strength in their shoulders, and the glint of their hooked claws. Lusa hoped the two of them wouldn’t quarrel when they got to the ice. Once Toklo realized that Kallik knew what she was doing, everything would be all right.

  They headed up the slope away from the sea, looking for dry grass and shelter from the wind. The pebbly sand underpaw gave way to tufts of thick grass. Beyond the river, Lusa could see a line of trees up on a ridge. She could almost hear their leaves rustling from here. She wished she could curl up in their safe, strong branches, or tuck herself between their thick roots. She wanted to fall asleep surrounded by the whispers of bear spirits watching over her from behind the bark.

  One thing she knew for sure: There were no trees on the ice. No trees meant no friendly black bear spirits. What if she died out in the cold, white emptiness? Would her spirit ever find its way back where it belonged?

  “It’s all right,” said a gruff voice in her ear. Lusa turned and saw Toklo padding along beside her. Kallik and Ujurak were a few pawsteps ahead. Toklo nodded at the wooded ridge. “I know you wish you were up there.”

  “You’re right. Which means that I’m not brave at all,” Lusa said. “Toklo, I’m terrified.”