Smoke Mountain Read online

  ‘OK, sleep well,’ he said, touching his nose to her snout. He paced a short distance away, hunched his shoulders, and sat staring out at the forest, keeping guard while the others slept.

  *

  Lusa woke up when darkness had fallen, or at least, the dusky twilight that passed for darkness during leaftime. The moon was a misty glimmer high above, and the rumbling of the firebeasts below had stopped. Ujurak was pacing in circles, and Toklo was snoozing next to Kallik.

  ‘I think the BlackPath is safer now,’ Ujurak said when he saw Lusa sit up and stretch. He nodded down the mountain. ‘We should follow it while we can.’

  Lusa nudged Kallik and Toklo awake, and they all trudged sleepily downhill through the trees until they came to the BlackPath. Up close the damage to the earth around it was even clearer. Lusa was used to hard black stone paths running for skylengths straight through forests and plains and over mountains and even over water. But next to this BlackPath was a muddy, gaping hole torn open by the yellow firebeasts. Uprooted trees and bushes lay beside it in broken heaps.

  The four cubs stopped to peer down into the trench. Lusa’s heart pounded when she saw a firebeast that looked like the one who’d hurt her. But this one was silent and unmoving, and she turned away quickly before it woke up and saw her.

  The BlackPath was still and eerie in the half-light, with only distant rumbles to indicate that faraway firebeasts were still awake somewhere. Ujurak took the lead, padding along the side of the BlackPath as it headed uphill.

  They climbed higher and higher, passing several more sleeping firebeasts, all of them huge. Lusa peered down at the trench and thought it looked like her leg injury, only much bigger. She gazed at the fallen trees and hoped the tree spirits had found a new home in time. Then she hurried forward to Ujurak. He was looking in the trench too, as he padded along.

  ‘Do you know why the flat-faces are doing this, Ujurak?’ she asked him.

  ‘No,’ he said. He lifted his snout, gazing up at the peaks above them. They were nearly at the highest point of the path. ‘I think the caribou trail is somewhere up there.’

  Gratefully, Lusa followed him away from the trench. Kallik trotted behind her, and Lusa could hear Toklo’s paws crunching over scrubby grass as he brought up the rear. They scrambled up a muddy slope studded with big rocks, slippery pebbles, and tough, scraggly bushes. Above the BlackPath was a flat outcropping of rock. Ujurak heaved himself on to it, and the other three clambered up to join him.

  Lusa turned to look back. They were high up, looking down over a white layer of fog. Here and there she could see the tips of pine trees poking out of it, and all around were dark mountain peaks.

  But the best part was that, up this high, they could see the stars.

  Lusa sat down with a happy sigh a bearlength away from the BlackPath, looking up at the twinkling lights above her.

  ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ Kallik said to Lusa, following her gaze to the sky. ‘Look, there’s the Pathway Star.’

  ‘We call it the Bear Watcher,’ Lusa said. ‘Black bears, I mean. At least, my family did. I think we all do.’

  ‘I like thinking about the ice spirits all together up there,’ Kallik said.

  ‘Me too,’ Lusa said, leaning into her friend’s fur. ‘Mother and Stella always said that all those stars were animals who keep Arcturus – that’s the Bear Watcher – company.’

  ‘That’s not what I see,’ Toklo said.

  ‘What do you see, Toklo?’ Lusa asked.

  ‘I see a bear who’s all alone,’ he replied. ‘He did something bad, so he’s being punished. He’s alone in the coldest, loneliest part of the sky, and the other animals dance around mocking him.’

  Lusa remembered Toklo’s mother on the other side of the fence in the Bear Bowl. Oka had told her the same story of a sad and lonely bear in the sky. Poor Toklo. Even the sky made him feel alone and frightened.

  ‘He’s a brave bear, though,’ she told him. ‘He stays up there leading the way for us. I bet some of the animals like him more than he knows.’

  Toklo dropped his gaze to look at his paws. ‘Well, it’s just a stupid story,’ he said, scratching at the mud.

  ‘There it is!’ Ujurak yelped. He jumped to his paws and leaned forward. ‘I see the caribou trail. Come on!’

  Lusa slid off the wide rock and followed Ujurak. Now she could pick up the strong, musky scent of caribou. It wasn’t the smell of prey that had recently gone by; instead, it smelled like it had been drummed into the ground by many hoofs over a long, long time.

  They followed the trail down into the smoky pine forest, leaving the BlackPath behind them. Stars glittered beyond the canopy of thick needles overhead. Lusa had her ears pricked, listening for the whisper of spirits, when they came to a bend in the trail. What was that? She stopped with a gasp.

  ‘Can you see that?’ she hissed.

  The other bears stopped and stared into the dimness ahead of them.

  A short way ahead, not far from the caribou trail, was a hulking shape, bigger than a full-grown brown bear. It sat there, glinting ominously in the moonlight, and didn’t move. Lusa thought she caught a flash of eyes staring at them, but although they stood frozen for several long moments, it stayed perfectly still.

  Toklo took in a long breath. ‘I think it’s dead,’ he whispered.

  ‘Or asleep,’ Kallik said.

  ‘Or waiting for us,’ Lusa whimpered.

  They fell silent again, staring at it.

  ‘We can’t stay here forever,’ Ujurak pointed out.

  ‘I’m going to see what it is,’ Toklo decided. ‘Stay here.’ He strode forward.

  ‘Toklo!’ Lusa cried. He stopped and looked back over his shoulder at her. ‘Um . . . be careful.’

  The brown bear nodded and kept going. His pawsteps became slower and slower as he approached the dark shape. Lusa felt as if she were about to burst. All of her fur was tingling with fear. What if it sprang on Toklo and killed him?

  Toklo slid up to the shape and sniffed it. After another long moment, he touched it lightly with his nose.

  Nothing happened.

  ‘OK, come on,’ he called in a loud whisper.

  Lusa’s heart thudded in her chest as she padded up to him. As she got closer, the shape became clearer.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘It’s a firebeast!’

  ‘How did a firebeast get all the way out here in the woods?’ Kallik asked.

  It was a firebeast, but it didn’t look like the roaring ones they’d seen earlier that day. This one was smaller and had lots of holes in it, and its large black paws were flat and saggy. Lusa paced around it carefully and saw that its eyes looked broken, like someone had poked them out. Strange sharp shards were left where the eyes had been.

  ‘Is it . . . is it sleeping, like the ones we saw before?’ she asked Toklo.

  ‘I think it’s dead,’ he said.

  Kallik crept closer, smelling the air, and then poked her head into one of the holes.

  ‘Oh, Kallik, don’t!’ Lusa yelped.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Kallik said. ‘Toklo’s right. I think it’s been dead for a while. It doesn’t smell like it’s moved lately.’

  ‘But . . . how can you be sure, with a firebeast?’ Lusa said. ‘I’ve never seen a dead one before.’

  ‘Everything dies,’ Ujurak said. He looked up at the sky. ‘Even firebeasts. Even flat-faces.’

  ‘Stop it; you’re scaring Lusa,’ Toklo said gruffly. He was right, but Lusa could see the fur prickling along Toklo’s spine, and she knew she wasn’t the only one who was scared.

  ‘I wonder how long it’s been here,’ Kallik said. ‘I wonder if it left cubs behind when it died.’ She looked up at the sky too, and Lusa guessed that she was searching for comfort from the ice spirits.

  ‘Do firebeasts have cubs?’ Toklo asked Ujurak.

  Ujurak tipped his head to one side. ‘I don’t know. They’re not like us,’ he said. ‘Like I said before, I don’t think the
y’re really alive.’

  ‘Well, at least they can be dead,’ Lusa said, stepping back from the corpse of the firebeast. It gave her an awful sick feeling.

  Toklo said, ‘Can we eat it?’ He pawed at the firebeast, but his claws went clang-clang against the side, and he scowled as he lowered his foot.

  ‘Let’s not even try,’ Kallik said. ‘It’s so old it probably has disgusting rotfood diseases.’

  ‘Come on,’ Ujurak said, turning back to the trail.

  Lusa glanced back at the dead firebeast, alone and rotting among the trees. Had it died of old age and sickness, or had something killed it?

  Something like the spirit of an angry giant flat-face? She shivered, remembering Qopuk’s words about the Smoke Mountain.

  Something is lying in wait there . . . something evil.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN:

  Lusa

  At sunrise they stopped to sleep for a while before continuing on. Even with the sun in the sky, Lusa didn’t feel any warmer. It seemed to be getting colder with every pawstep. She was sure the smoke was getting thicker too. Qopuk had said that meant the giant flat-face was building his fire, getting ready to kill and eat bears. As they climbed along a stony ridge, Lusa tried to see if the smoke was coming from one place in particular – the Bear Rock that Qopuk had mentioned. But it seemed to just rise from the ground, like mist.

  Towards the end of that day, they came to a part of the forest where the trees grew thickly together, blocking most of the light from the sun. Toklo slowed down as he led the way through, giving the branches overhead an uneasy look. Lusa checked the trunks as they went by, but she didn’t see any grizzly claw marks. It was strange that they hadn’t seen any other bears . . . although from what they had seen – the lack of prey, the miserable weather, the smoke and the firebeasts and the trench – she could believe that no bear would choose to live here for long.

  A rumble of thunder shook the sky, and a storm opened up above them. The rain dripped down through the leaves, soaking their fur and dumping unexpected bursts of water on their heads as they sloshed through the mud. Lusa could see the grey sky through the trees, but the forest stayed dark as night. The branches scraped and rattled in the wind.

  Up ahead, Toklo paused with one paw raised. In the fading grey twilight, Lusa saw him sniff the air and back up quickly.

  ‘Flat-faces,’ he whispered. Raindrops rolled off his nose and he shook his head to clear his vision. ‘A flat-face den.’

  ‘Out here?’ Kallik said disbelievingly. ‘But it’s so far from . . . from any flat-face things! The nearest denning place is skylengths away. And I can’t smell any BlackPaths.’

  ‘Well, it’s here anyway,’ Toklo said, jerking his snout towards a small clearing up ahead. Lusa peered past him and saw the squat shape of the den, made of wood and hemmed in closely by the trees. Smoke was rising from a hole in the top.

  ‘Let’s get away from here,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing for us.’ Toklo nodded and started to push his way into the trees, to skirt around the clearing.

  ‘Wait,’ Ujurak said.

  ‘Why?’ Lusa cried. She wanted to bury her head in a pile of leaves, or climb to the top of the tallest tree in the forest and never come down. There was something wrong with this place; she just knew it. She wanted to get away from the den with every tuft of fur on her body.

  Ujurak padded ahead through the trees.

  ‘What’s he doing now?’ Toklo sighed.

  ‘Well, we can’t leave him to explore on his own,’ said Kallik. ‘Come on.’ She set off behind the little brown bear.

  ‘Come on, Lusa, it’s all right,’ Toklo said, nudging her with his snout.

  Lusa tried to ignore the voice in her head that was shrieking, Run! Run as fast as you can!

  They caught up with Ujurak right outside the den. He was standing on his hind legs, peeking in through the window. Bright light spilled out of the den, and for a moment Lusa couldn’t see anything inside but the blinding light.

  Then she realised that there were four male flat-faces inside, sitting around a fire. They were laughing and talking in loud, boisterous voices. Two of them were holding the kind of bottles that Lusa had found in flat-face trash several times. They smelled awful and usually had a sticky liquid inside that made her head buzz when she licked it.

  These flat-faces were not like the ones the bears had stolen from, in the blue-and-red dens. These flat-faces were bigger and noisier, and Lusa could see firesticks even from where she was standing. Several were propped around the den, leaning against the wall or hung above the fire. She let her gaze travel across the wooden floor, to the far side.

  There was a head sticking out of the wall.

  A bear’s head.

  For a moment she couldn’t believe it was dead. She actually thought, Why is that brown bear just standing there? Is the rest of it on the other side of the wall?

  And then she knew that it was dead. Its glazed eyes stared sightlessly into space. She knew that flat-faces had killed it – maybe even these flat-faces – and chopped off its head and then hung that head on the wall.

  ‘Oh, bear spirits,’ Lusa whimpered.

  ‘How . . . Why . . .’ Kallik’s voice trailed off. She pressed her nose to the window as if she were hoping the sight inside would change.

  Toklo didn’t say anything, but Lusa could see his claws flexing and his eyes narrowing.

  Ujurak dropped to all paws and began to slink towards the front of the den.

  ‘Ujurak!’ she hissed. ‘Where are you going? Let’s get out of here!’

  He disappeared around the corner as if he hadn’t heard her. Perhaps he hadn’t. The wind and the rain were coming down hard, sweeping away their voices.

  Toklo and Kallik were still peering in the window. Lusa hurried after Ujurak. Why would he want to know more about this place?

  As she rounded the corner behind him, she saw him standing in front of the den with his teeth bared. She followed his gaze to the roofed area that jutted out from the front of the den.

  Her heart seemed to freeze in her chest.

  Hanging from the roof, blowing in the fierce stormy wind, were three empty, bloodstained bearskins.

  CHAPTER TWENTY:

  Toklo

  Even through the storm, Toklo heard Lusa’s terrified shriek. He dashed towards the front of the den with Kallik right behind him.

  Lusa was already racing away through the trees. He could see her tiny black paws pumping madly as she ran.

  ‘What . . . ?’ He gasped, turning to Ujurak.

  His friend was staring at the den. Now Toklo saw the bearskins. Their heads were hanging loose, jaws open, eyes staring blankly straight at Toklo. Dead eyes. Their teeth snarled hopelessly at the sky. The wind caught one of the skins and flapped it so the paws seemed to reach towards Toklo. All three of them were brown bears.

  Thumping noises came from inside the den, and suddenly the door flew open. The flat-faces pointed and yelled. Three of them were already holding firesticks. Toklo saw one of them raise his stick and point it at the bears.

  Toklo started running, his paws thudding across the ground, slipping on the wet leaves. Bangs and shouts echoed behind him. He searched for Lusa’s scent and followed it, tearing through the trees. He could hear crashing in the undergrowth that he hoped was Kallik and Ujurak.

  His paws jerked and he shuddered as he imagined claws slicing into his fur, peeling away his skin. He skidded through a puddle and slammed hard into a tree, but he bounced off and kept running. One of his scratches was bleeding again, but he ignored it. He had to catch up with Lusa. That old white bear was right about this place: it was dangerous for bears.

  Rain dripped in his eyes and turned the world blurry and dark. The trees seemed to shake their branches at him as he ran past. Suddenly the ground dropped out from under him and he lost his footing, tumbling head over paw down a slick, muddy bank. He braced himself for a bone-jarring impact at the end, but instead he landed in a
river with an enormous splash.

  He floundered to his paws and shook out his fur, which did very little good, considering that as much water was falling out of the sky as there was in the river below him.

  Then he saw Lusa. She was crouching upstream from him, shivering with terror.

  ‘Lusa!’ he cried. He waded over to her and wrapped his front paws around her.

  ‘Toklo,’ she whimpered. ‘Did you see them?’ The river rushed by their noses, smelling faintly of smoke and death.

  ‘Yes. But we knew flat-faces did terrible things,’ Toklo said. ‘It’s just a shock to see it, that’s all.’

  ‘But . . . they hunt bears!’ Lusa cried. ‘They’re looking for bears to kill, Toklo! And then they’re stealing their skins! Why would they do that? We kill to eat, but we wouldn’t keep our prey’s heads around to look at!’

  ‘That must be what Qopuk’s stories are really about,’ Ujurak said, coming out of the woods with Kallik beside him. They slid down the bank and waded over to Lusa and Toklo.

  ‘So there’s no giant flat-face,’ Kallik said, wiping the rain off her snout. ‘No cooking fire. The smoke from the rocks must have started the legend. When bears went into the mountains and didn’t come back, all their families would have seen was the smoke, and they knew how no-claws burn their food.’

  ‘So it’s just real flat-faces,’ Lusa murmured. ‘With real firesticks, hunting bears.’ She buried her nose in Toklo’s fur.

  He nuzzled her, his heart still pounding. The truth frightened him far more than stories of spirits. His paws itched. They had to get away from here.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, nudging Lusa up to the other side of the river. ‘Let’s eat something and then keep going.’

  ‘I want to keep going now,’ Lusa insisted.

  ‘You need to rest,’ Ujurak pointed out. ‘You’re bleeding again.’

  ‘And so are you, Toklo,’ Kallik prompted.

  He realised that it wasn’t just rainwater trickling through his pelt; blood was seeping from a long scratch on his shoulder. He must have cut it while he was running from the flat-faces. ‘I’m fine,’ he said gruffly. ‘Lusa, over here.’