ULY SNIFFED AT the patches of dead needles in the pine grove, but he couldn’t smell any prey.
Flumpf!
A sound made his ears perk. It had come from the pine-tree bridge that he and Mia had crossed. Maybe some critter had nestled between the snow and the trunk.
Uly padded to the edge of the river and got low. He wriggled his hips and then made a mighty leap onto the bridge, pouncing to pin the critter down. His forepaw struck the snow, and it shifted beneath him …
“Oh squi—”
The snow broke, Uly fell, and suddenly, he was buried in white. Snow packed in around him, pushing into his mouth and nostrils. He paddled his paws, but the movement only made him sink deeper. Every time he inhaled, his nostrils filled with slush. His breath grew shallow. His body went numb.
But then … he heard something in the distance.
“Aroo-roo-roo!”
Uly stopped breathing and listened.
“Aroo-roo-roo!”
It was the kits. They were howling back in the den.
The sound spread a warmth through his body. He snorted the snow from his nostrils and tried to spiral his muzzle and shoulders. He gained a little breathing space, but the air was close and pinched and barely filled his lungs. He willed himself not to panic as he lashed his head back and forth. Soon his shoulders were free from the snow. Then his forepaw.
“Aroo-roo-roo!”
He kicked his hind paws until the snow packed beneath them and he was able to press up against it. With the last of his strength, he made a great push, and—
The snow gave out beneath him.
Uly fell through darkness before his three paws landed on something solid. He gasped with fogged relief. He was under the bridge, on top of the frozen river. The ice groaned beneath his paws, threatening to crack and spill him into the rushing water. He hopped onto the bank.
Moonlight streamed through the hole in the bridge he’d fallen through. From below, he could see that the bridge wasn’t made from one toppled pine tree, but two. Uly had just happened to pounce directly onto the snowy space between the trunks and become stuck.
“Lucky me,” he said.
A warm stench overpowered his nose. As his eyes adjusted to the faint light, he realized he was surrounded by dead animals. Mice and squirrels and rabbits—all killed in awful ways. Half-skinned. Throats torn out. Heads turned the wrong way. Meat left rotting on the bone.
Uly gulped. This wasn’t what he’d hoped for when he’d thought of dead animals in the pines. He shuddered and left the place as quickly as he could.
He followed the ice back into the open grove where the river ran free again. He bounded up the opposite bank, then gazed back through the trees toward the den. Every frozen inch of him wanted to return and snuggle with Mia and the kits. But he hadn’t hunted anything yet. Nothing but a pinecone.
A breeze blew through the trees, pushing Uly toward the den, as if encouraging him to give up, go back. But then the breeze brought a scent. A fox’s scent.
At first, he wanted to run away, hide. But then he remembered something …
Uly exited the pines and followed the scent.