Fire in the Sky Read Online Free PDF

games! Watch.” She spun around and saw Lusa still gazing intently at the ice block, looking for blue reflections.
    “WALRUS ATTACK!” Kallik suddenly bellowed, throwing herself into the snow beside Lusa.
    “Where?” Lusa shrieked. She leaped back and whirled around, her eyes wild and terrified. “What’s a walrus? Where is it? Why can’t I see it?”
    “No, no, no,” Kallik said, woofing with laughter. “It’s agame. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. Taqqiq and I used to play this all the time.”
    “Oh,” said Lusa. She sounded more bewildered than amused.
    “So one of us is the walrus—let’s say Toklo,” Kallik offered. Toklo tossed his head and made a face that he probably thought was walrus-y. “And then as we’re walking along, all of a sudden he jumps up and yells, ‘Walrus attack!’ and chases one of us. If he catches you, then you’re the next walrus. Make sense?”
    “Um…okay,” Lusa said.
    “It’s fun!” Kallik insisted, scrambling up and shaking snowflakes from her ears. She swiped a pawful of snow at Lusa.
    “Yikes!” Lusa yelped as the snow splattered across her ears. At least it seemed to wake her up. “You’ll be sorry now!” she cried, scooping up her own lump of snow and flinging it at Kallik.
    Kallik dodged and galloped out of reach. A pleased chortle rumbled in her throat. But it died when she looked back at the two brown bears: Ujurak trudging along blinded and deafened by his secret thoughts, and Toklo barely keeping his paws under him and growling at every step.
    “If you keep acting like cubs, we’ll never get anywhere before nightfall,” he grumbled. “I’d rather find food than play a silly game.”
    Kallik swallowed. Toklo was right. This wasn’t like her and Taqqiq playing outside their den. Now she had to be like Nisa, keeping the others safe and alive.
    “All right, we’ll just keep walking,” she said. “I smell seal up ahead.” She looked up at the sky and realized that the snow was falling faster, covering the ice more thickly and adding to the drifts in fragile layers that hadn’t yet been carved by the wind.
    “ I don’t smell anything,” Toklo answered petulantly, but he pawed snow out of his eyes and followed her without any more arguing.
    They walked for a long time across a landscape that probably looked unchanging to the others, but to Kallik’s eyes showed clear signs that they were getting farther from the water and nearer the thicker parts of the ice: Their pawsteps made dull thuds on the ground rather than slippery whispers, and the ridges of snow were set like rock at the base, worn down by the wind over uncountable seasons. Some of the snow was so hard that Kallik wondered if it had ever melted. Were the stories about the Everlasting Ice true—that it stayed frozen forever? Kallik’s heart sang. I found it, Nisa, Taqqiq! I had faith, and I found it!
    But only she belonged here. Not her companions, with their different-colored fur. As her paws began to ache, Kallik looked back at Lusa, trudging through the snow at a snail’s pace. Toklo walked beside her, glancing at her anxiously. Ujurak was right behind them. Kallik checked the sky again. The sun was starting to sink below the white horizon. It wasn’t late enough for Kallik to feel tired, but the days were shorter than the nights now, which meant less time for hunting, and longer without the warmth of the sun. Lusa wasshivering even more as the air grew colder.
    Kallik stopped, thinking: What would Nisa do now? She could smell the seal not far away, but it would still be a while before they reached it, especially at the pace of the other three bears.
    “The days are getting a lot shorter,” Ujurak observed quietly, catching up to her. “The sun is leaving, and earthsleep is coming.”
    “I’m hungry,” Toklo snapped. His shaggy head turned to Kallik. A dusting of snow through his brown fur made him look strangely mottled. “Do your spirit-bubbles have any