The Burning Horizon by Erin Hunter

up onto the ridge at the very top of the mountain, where Yakone paused briefly, puffing out his breath.
    â€œAre you okay?” Kallik prompted. “Is your paw hurting?”
    Yakone shook his head and started to follow Toklo again. “My paw’s fine. But I’m frightened for Lusa. How will we ever find her among all this?” He swung his head around, taking in the huge stretches of the mountains. “Firebeasts can travel somuch faster than us. She could be all the way to the Melting Sea by now!”
    Kallik paused. “But you’ll keep on looking for her, right?” she asked in a small voice.
    Yakone padded on for a few more paces, then glanced sideways at Kallik. “I have faith in Ujurak to get us there,” he grunted. “It’s just that . . . the mountains are so big, and Lusa is so small.”
    â€œI know.” Kallik touched Yakone’s shoulder with her muzzle. “But we will find her. I’m sure we will. We have Ujurak’s help now.”
    A little farther on, the craggy slopes leveled out into a rocky plateau, where small creeping plants struggled to grow in the cracks.
    â€œI remember this place!” Toklo exclaimed, coming to a halt. “It’s where Ujurak turned into a goat.”
    â€œI wish I could turn into one,” Yakone said, with a rueful glance at his stunted paw. “I’d do a lot better among all these rocks.”
    Crossing the flat plateau was easy, but after that they reached a place where the ridge became too spiky for them to walk, and they had to scramble down until they reached a path a few bearlengths below.
    â€œI remember this place, too,” Toklo said, sniffing. “It’s where we were chased by wolves. Ujurak turned into a mule deer and led them away.”
    â€œDo you think there are still wolves here?” Kallik asked nervously.
    â€œIf there are, we’ll give them something to remember,” Toklo responded grimly. “We’re a lot bigger than Lusa and I were back then. . . .”
    His voice trailed off and he paused, his eyes clouding with sadness. Kallik knew he must be wrestling with the fact that neither Ujurak nor Lusa was with them now.
    â€œIt’s not your fault that we’ve lost them,” Kallik pointed out gently. “And we’ll find Lusa again.”
    â€œWe were so close to the end of our journeys!” Toklo snarled, stamping on a scrap of dead branch that splintered under his paw.
    â€œExactly,” Kallik said. “And Ujurak won’t let us finish without Lusa.”
    Toklo hesitated, his spurt of angry despair fading. Then he swung around and headed along the path once more.
    The mention of wolves had made Kallik more alert, and before long she began to pick up traces of scent like that of abandoned prey, or blood on the pelt of a predator. “Toklo . . .” she began.
    â€œI know,” Toklo growled. “I can smell it, too. But it’s stale scent . . . a day or two old. There aren’t any wolves around now.”
    â€œI’d still be happier if we got away from here,” Kallik said, remembering their fierce battles against the wolves in Toklo’s forest.
    â€œThe wolves might have left some prey behind,” Yakone suggested. “I’m getting hungry, and I haven’t seen a single thing to eat up here.”
    Toklo thought for a moment. “No,” he decided at last. “It’snot worth the risk to follow the scent. We’ll look for a place to turn off this path, and then try to hunt.”
    But at first there seemed to be no way of getting off their narrow trail. Sheer rock stretched upward on one side, while on the other the ground fell away in a precipice to the pine forests below. Kallik’s fur began to prickle with anxiety as the wolf scent grew stronger. Like it or not, the bears seemed to be heading right for them.
    Sunhigh was almost upon them when they