Then an even louder roaring came from up ahead, and one of the biggest firebeasts Toklo had ever seen swept into view. He stopped to watch it as it bore down on him. Its huge paws pushed waves of rainwater aside as it growled along. As it passed Toklo, it flung up stones from its paws, clattering over the tube and stinging Toklo’s side like a swarm of hornets.

Toklo reared away, and his paws slipped on the smooth surface of the tube. He let out a roar of shock and fright as he toppled sideways and crashed into the undergrowth.

‘Bee-brain!’ he huffed after the departing firebeast. ‘Watch where you’re going!’

Struggling to his paws, he gagged on an even stronger reek of firebeasts, and realised that he had fallen into a sticky black pool. Drops of it were seeping from the tube, dripping on to the ground and puddling in a hollow beside the BlackPath. It was smeared all over Toklo’s fur, so that as he backed away from it the disgusting smell came with him.

It stinks! Growling in anger, Toklo pawed at the stuff to clean it off his fur, but that just transferred the sticky liquid to his paw. Yuck! What is it? It’s slimy and disgusting and it’s making me feel sick! What do I have to do to get rid of it?

His belly heaving with every breath, Toklo left the BlackPath behind, wandering down a slope into the trees and scraping his flank against the trunks in an effort to rub off the horrible stuff. Pain shot through one of his forelegs when he put weight on it, and he realised that when he fell he must have hurt it.

He kept an eye open for more scratch marks on trees, but apart from that Toklo limped along aimlessly. He hadn’t eaten all day, but when he tried to sniff for prey again, the stench of the black stuff on his pelt made it impossible to locate anything. He was growing exhausted; it was becoming harder and harder to put one paw in front of another. The pain from his injured leg grew worse.

Darkness was falling and still the rain didn’t let up. Toklo was stumbling along now, head down, unaware of where he was going. Then he suddenly smelled the scent of prey, even stronger than the stench of the black stuff, striking up from the ground in front of him. He had nearly padded over the half-eaten remains of a rabbit.