Island of Shadows by Erin Hunter Read Free Book Online Page A

out and looked around for his companions.
    Kallik had climbed out of the water a few bearlengths farther down the channel. She was leaning over to help Lusa out, while Yakone gave the little black bear a boost on his shoulders.
    Toklo bounded over and got a grip on Lusa beside Kallik, helping to haul her over the rim of the ice. Lusa collapsed, water streaming from her black fur. She retched miserably and coughed up a few mouthfuls of the oily water.
    â€œThanks,” she choked out. “I’ll be fine.”
    Kallik stood watching the firebeast as it roared away and the water in the channel gradually grew still. “I think it got fed up with chasing us,” she said. “After all, we’re not much prey for a thing that size.”
    Toklo nodded, beginning to relax as the noise died away and the firebeast dwindled into the distance. “Good riddance,” he muttered.
    Yakone clambered out of the water and padded up. “Hey, Toklo, you’re bleeding,” he said. “It must have been those firesticks.”
    Toklo started. “What?”
    Yakone angled his snout toward Toklo’s shoulder. Twisting his head to look, Toklo saw a furrow through his fur, and a reddish scratch on the flesh underneath. Blood was oozing out of it, trickling through his pelt and dripping into a scarlet puddle on the ice.
    â€œI didn’t notice,” he said. In the biting cold he could hardly feel the sting of the wound. “It’s nothing.”
    â€œIt’s not nothing,” Yakone argued. “You might not be badly hurt, but you’ll leave a trail of blood, and that could attract hostile white bears.”
    Toklo took a breath, determined not to lose his temper at being bossed around. Yakone had been right about swimming the channel, and he was right about this. “I’ll take care of it,” he responded.
    â€œI wish Ujurak were here. He knew all about healing,” Kallik fretted.
    â€œYeah, he’d have known which herb would stop the bleeding,” Lusa put in, reviving enough to give Toklo’s injury an anxious sniff.
    Toklo crushed down the memory of Ujurak and let his gaze travel around the desolate landscape. “Lusa, this is the ice,” he pointed out. “There are no herbs. In any case, the scratch will heal soon enough,” he added impatiently.
    He twisted his head again and drew his tongue along the wound, only to jerk away with a growl deep in his throat. Touching his freezing fur had given him a burning pain in his tongue, far worse than the sting of the scratch.
    â€œToklo, what’s the matter?” Lusa asked.
    â€œIt burns,” Toklo said. “I won’t do that again.”
    Instead, he scooped up a pawful of snow and packed it down over the wound, hoping that would be enough to stop the bleeding. Cold stabbed through him, but he held the snow in place until it was tightly wadded into his fur. He hoped it would stay there once he started to move.
    â€œWell?” he demanded, meeting his friends’ worried gazes. “What are we waiting for?”
    This time Toklo let Yakone take the lead as they plodded away from the channel. The firebeast vanished into the distance, and soon the channel it had broken was no more than a dark line behind them on the ice. The reek of oil faded, though some of it still clung to their fur.
    When the daylight began to ebb, there was still no sign of land anywhere on the endless ice. Toklo’s shoulder ached, though at least his wound had stopped bleeding. Kallik and Yakone quested from side to side, looking for seal holes, but they’d had no luck when darkness put an end to their search.
    â€œUjurak, are you there?” Toklo heard Lusa speaking softly. “Give us another sign, please.”
    Toklo glanced up hopefully, half expecting to spot Ujurak’s starry shape galloping toward them. But there was no response to the black bear’s plea, and his tiny shoot of hope