Bamboo Kingdom #3 by Erin Hunter

Author:Erin Hunter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

GHOST PEERED INTO THE snowstorm, planting his feet in the drifts, refusing to be moved by the howling winds. The cold seeped through his fur and bit into his skin.

Was it always this difficult? Has living in the Southern Forest made me soft?

It had been a long, lonely journey to the mountains. Days of climbing higher, leaving the soft earth and grass behind, feeling the air grow colder. His eye had finally reopened on the second day, after he’d started to wonder if he would be able to see through it ever again. The rest of his wounds were closing, but not yet fully healed, and the chill seemed to find its way in through every scratch on his skin, until he felt more like ice than bear.

He had slept in trees and curled behind rocks, eaten bamboo when he could get it and fruit, nuts, and insects when he couldn’t. It had been at least four feasts since he had found anything to eat at all.

What am I doing? he thought, and not for the first time, as he forced his way through another gust of snow to a pair of spindly pine trees and leaned against them for a moment. Why am I doing this?

It was all for a promise he had made to a dead tiger, for no reason other than it felt important. It could all be for nothing. If he didn’t find the ancient stones, he would never know.

He’d started seeing landscapes he thought he recognized, places near Winter’s territory that he might have visited once to practice hunting, or perhaps just passed through when he left. Everything felt smaller and bigger, all at the same time.

I don’t think I understood just how big these mountains are, he thought. When I was a cub, the whole world was the den, the hunting grounds, the snowfield, and the Endless Maw.

Now he had some sense of how far these peaks went, not to mention the world beyond. And he had no idea where he could even start to search for ancient stones that looked like a tiger’s eye and a panda’s jaws. The tiger hadn’t said how big they were, or whether they might be buried under the snow or perched on top of the peaks. . . .

He tried not to think of the sad, crumpled shape of the poor tiger, or the monkeys who had killed him.

Ghost looked behind him down the steep, snowy climb, expecting to be able to see the trail he had dug into the snowdrifts in search of these rocks, but the storm was already covering his efforts.

He shook himself, throwing off a white wave of snow, which he knew was also futile—he’d be covered again in moments.

He didn’t know how he was going to do this, but obviously it wouldn’t be while the storm was raging. He would have to find somewhere to shelter until the snow stopped. He stomped away from the trees, heading for the nearest high

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