Lucky eyed the birds, but he knew it would be impossible to catch them. “We’ll get another vole, or maybe even a rabbit. We just need to be patient and see what the Forest-Dog offers us.” Not that he’d seen any rabbits all day—but there had to be something here. He started sniffing his way around the edge of the camp. Mickey was right: The other dogs had followed the bank of the lake, away from the forest and the Fierce Dogs’ lair with its ominous smells of death and emptiness. Lucky cast a last look in that direction. Far beyond the forest lay the city that had once been his home. With a jolt he remembered the giant loudbirds and wondered if they’d flown this way—perhaps that was why the Pack had left?

“Who’s the Forest-Dog?” asked Lick. She skipped along the edge of the overhang, chasing ants.

Lucky blinked at her in surprise. “Sometime I’m going to have to sit you pups down and tell you all about the Spirit Dogs.”

“Does the Forest-Dog make food for us?” asked Wiggle in his small, high voice.

“He doesn’t make food, but he watches over the trees and animals. He protects us, you see. He keeps dogs safe, and if he is pleased he offers us delicious morsels like vole and rabbit. So it’s important to remember the Forest-Dog, and to be grateful to him. If you’re hungry, you might say: ‘Please deliver me some food, wise Forest-Dog.’ And once you’ve caught and eaten a vole, you would say ‘Thank you, Forest-Dog.’”

Wiggle exchanged a puzzled look with Grunt, who was padding toward them. Lick paused, her dark brow wrinkled in thought. “But if the Forest-Dog watches over the trees and animals, doesn’t that mean he watches over voles and rabbits too?”

“Where does the Forest-Dog sleep?” asked Wiggle, shaking his floppy ears. “Does he have a camp? It must be really, really big. He must be a giant to see so much.”

“We’re not even in the forest,” Grunt pointed out. “Most of the trees have gone. Doesn’t it take more than one or two trees to make a forest?”

The memory of a stormy night came back to Lucky. He, too, had asked his Mother-Dog questions about the Spirit Dogs, desperate to understand the great and mysterious world around him, and she had answered, telling him all about the Sky-Dogs and Lightning.

“That’s true,” Wiggle put in. “Forests have lots of trees.” The smallest pup panted happily, as though he had made an incredible discovery.