Refusing to argue, Kallik spun around again and headed back up the slope to where Yakone was now chasing the goat toward the abandoned waterfall. The brown she-bear followed with her cubs hard on her paws. Ignoring her, Kallik raced after Yakone, her muscles burning as her paws flew over the barren terrain. Reaching the waterfall, she began climbing after Yakone over the rock-strewn snow, with the goat leaping lightly ahead.

Nearly there . . . Kallik thought grimly, trying to force every last scrap of speed out of her legs.

But when they were almost upon the goat, Kallik heard a dreadful creaking noise, as if the ground beneath her paws was groaning. She lurched backward. At first she thought her paws were slipping on the rocks slick with snowmelt.

No! The whole world is falling away!

Kallik was swept off her paws as all the snow, boulders, and dead branches in the old waterfall slid down the mountain in a terrifying avalanche. Rocks crashed into her sides; a mixture of snow and earth covered her head and carried her down with it, tumbling her head over tail. She fell in a chaotic darkness, with only flashes of light here and there to tell her she wasn’t blind. Down, down, down . . . Kallik thought the battering and falling would go on forever.

At last Kallik thumped against something solid. She felt like every bone in her body was broken. Her mouth was full of grit and snow, and though her eyes were open, she couldn’t see anything.

I have to climb out . . . she thought groggily, but she didn’t know which way to dig. Then she felt something dripping on her paw, and realized that it must be snowmelt from the debris covering her. Now that she knew which direction was up, Kallik dug determinedly with her forepaws, even though all her muscles were shrieking in protest.

At last her head broke through the covering of rocks, earth, and snow. She spat out a mouthful of damp soil, blinked her stinging eyes, and looked around.

The avalanche had cut a swathe of destruction across the lower slopes of the ridge and into the forest. The surface looked like a solid, choppy sea. Uprooted bushes, boulders, and chunks of ice had punched down through the trees; some trees had crashed down and been carried along, while others leaned sideways, supported by others. The force of the avalanche had been spent, but the massive devastation it left behind made Kallik’s head reel.

“Yakone!” she called out, her voice no more than a croak. “Yakone, where are you?”

There was no sign of the white bear. Terrified, Kallik dragged herself out of the snow and stumbled across the surface of the avalanche, calling and searching. Her panic mounting, she finally spotted a small uprooted pine tree with a tuft of white fur clinging to a branch.

“Yakone!” Kallik gasped, starting to dig with huge scoops of her forepaws.