Great Bear Lake Page 6

  Lusa looked closely at each of the flat-faces. “I don’t recognize them,” she said at last. “I don’t think they came to see me when I was in the Bear Bowl.”

  The mother flat-face lifted a chunk of hot meat out of the object in the middle, and handed pieces to her two cubs. That was what had smelled so good. The older cub took an enormous bite. Toklo’s belly rumbled. He scanned the clearing for danger. He couldn’t see any metal sticks like the ones that had wounded Ujurak, but they could be hidden. Then he noticed that the smaller flat-face cub had wandered off into the bushes, his food held lightly in his pale pink paw.

  Setting his paws down carefully, Toklo began to follow, skirting the clearing until he reached the place where it had entered the bushes. Lusa and Ujurak padded after him, a little way behind. The scent of the food drew Toklo closer, until he spotted the cub squatting down in the shelter of a clump of ferns, staring at a butterfly perched on a grass stem in front of him.

  Hunger blurred Toklo’s vision until all he could focus on was the chunk of meat in the flat-face cub’s paw. He braced himself, ready to pounce, imagining his jaws closing around the delicious-smelling food. In just one heartbeat, the meat would be in his mouth….

  Suddenly something barreled into his side, knocking him over with a force that drove the breath out of his body. He let out a yelp as he landed among thorns. Scrambling back to his paws, he saw Ujurak standing in front of him, his brown eyes furious.

  “That isn’t the way to get food,” the cub barked.

  At the same moment a sharp call came from one of the full-grown flat-faces in the clearing. The flat-face cub leaped up and ran off, taking the precious food with him.

  Toklo took a step forward until he loomed over Ujurak, a low growl coming from deep in his throat. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Ujurak stared back at him without flinching. “What you were doing is wrong. There’ll be other food.”

  “But I’m hungry now,” Toklo complained. “I nearly had it! We have to eat!”

  “I know. But bears must not harm flat-faces.”

  “Why not? We have to survive somehow,” Toklo insisted. He caught a glimpse of Lusa peering nervously around a bush. “It’s up to me to make sure of it. Or do you want to see how well you can get on without me?”

  “No, Toklo, I know we need you,” Ujurak said. “But that doesn’t change anything.”

  “I don’t see why.” Toklo lifted his muzzle and sniffed the air. He could still smell the flat-face food and, beneath it, another scent. It was warm and milky—the scent of the flat-face cub. Toklo’s belly rumbled. “We could hunt the little flat-faces.”

  Ujurak stepped closer to Toklo, his eyes fierce. “Flat-faces are not prey,” he growled.

  Toklo reared up on his hind legs. “Who says?”

  “Do you think we can fight against the deathsticks, Toklo?”

  Toklo remembered the crack of the deathsticks and the blood that blossomed out of Ujurak’s shoulder. He dropped to all four paws again, feeling as if the air had been knocked out of him. He stared at Ujurak. “There’s nothing more important than survival,” he said. “If you haven’t learned that, then you’re not a real bear.”

  “I am,” Ujurak growled. “And that’s why I’ll only hunt real bear prey.”

  “And what would you know about that?” Toklo snarled. “You wander around with your head in the clouds, dreaming about stars and spirits. But clouds won’t fill our bellies. So don’t tell me what to do.”

  Toklo turned his back, then stomped off a few bearlengths into the trees. He heard rustling behind him and the sound of Lusa and Ujurak whispering together. After a moment, Lusa said pleadingly, “Toklo, the flat-faces have gone.”

  Toklo turned to see the other cubs behind him, gazing at him with pleading eyes. Without speaking, he swung around and headed back toward the BlackPath and the river. Lusa and Ujurak caught up to him, and all three walked on together in awkward silence.

  The daylight was fading at last. The sun was dipping behind the trees. Clouds of gnats hovered in the air and around the cubs’ heads; Toklo twitched his ears as he padded through them. His paws felt ready to fall off with tiredness; the days went on forever now, and the time for rest at night was so short. Would the days keep getting longer and longer? What happens when there’s no night anymore? he wondered. Would they have to learn to stay awake all the time?

  Ujurak, who was in the lead, halted in a clump of trees growing beside the BlackPath. “This might be a good place to spend the night,” he suggested.

  Toklo paused at the edge of the trees and sniffed the air. There was no scent of flat-faces, apart from the harsh tang of the firebeasts that still passed by a few bearlengths away. There was no scent of other bears, either.

  “It’s as good as anywhere,” he agreed gruffly.

  Ujurak gave him an awkward nod, and Lusa scurried up the nearest tree and disappeared among the branches.

  Toklo gazed longingly at an inviting hollow among the roots of the tree. A little way away he could hear Ujurak making himself a nest. He was dizzy with weariness, but he knew he couldn’t sleep yet. If they didn’t eat, they would soon be too weak to go on traveling.

  Turning his back on the BlackPath, Toklo padded into the forest. Red light from the setting sun washed over the ground, and the trees cast long black shadows across his path. Sniffing deeply, he picked up the scent of prey and spotted a squirrel scuffling about among the roots of a tree. With a growl of triumph Toklo hurled himself at it and batted it over the head with one huge paw. He swallowed the small body in a few famished gulps. For a few heartbeats he stood still to enjoy the easing of his hunger pangs. Then guilt crept up on him, like ants burrowing into his pelt. What about the others, who had gone to sleep hungry? Did he have to hunt for them, too? Was it really right for bears to journey together? They were supposed to live alone, or at least stick to their own kind. Maybe the journey to find the place where the spirits danced was meant for just Ujurak.

  Still confused, Toklo headed back toward the tree where the others were sleeping, but before he reached it, a grouse shot across his path, giving out a raucous alarm call. Almost without thinking, Toklo reared up on his hindpaws and swatted it out of the air. As it fluttered on the ground he grabbed it by the neck and carried the limp body back to his companions.

  A sort of faint pink twilight had fallen by the time Toklo arrived back at the tree. Ujurak was curled up in a hollow lined with dead leaves, his paws hooked over his nose. Looking down at him, Toklo felt an unexpected pang of sympathy; the young cub looked so thin and exhausted. He dropped his prey and gave Ujurak a gentle prod in his flank.

  “Hey, Ujurak, wake up.”

  “Wha…?” Ujurak raised his head, blinking sleep out of his eyes. “Is it time to go?”

  “No.” Toklo edged the grouse toward his friend. “Here…eat.”

  Ujurak scrambled out of the hollow and stared at the bird, his eyes shining. “Toklo, you caught this for us? You’re great!” He pelted over to the tree where Lusa had disappeared, and stretched his paws up the trunk. “Lusa! Lusa, come down! Toklo brought us some food.”

  The branches rustled and Lusa’s bottom half appeared as she climbed swiftly to the ground. She padded over to where Toklo was waiting beside his prey. “Thank you, Toklo,” she murmured, crouching down and tearing off a mouthful.

  Ujurak crouched beside her, but before he took a bite he glanced up at Toklo. “Aren’t you coming to share?”

  Toklo shook his head. “I’ve had something.”

  His belly was nowhere near full, but Lusa and Ujurak were so grateful that he couldn’t take any of their meal. He rested his muzzle on his paws and watched them eating. His stomach rumbled but he didn’t mind. He closed his eyes and drifted to sleep.

  That night, he dreamed his brother Tobi was alive and strong. They hunted together, bringing down a full-grown deer, and afterward they shared the prey that they’d caught as brothers.

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nbsp; CHAPTER SIX

  Kallik

  Kallik woke in the milky light of dawn and pulled herself to her paws. Her limbs felt stiff and heavy as she set off along the narrow spur of the bay, like she was walking through sticky mud.

  “Bears don’t belong on the land,” she muttered. “What if I was wrong about the silver path? Will my mother be mad at me for going the wrong way?”

  At the end of the spur of water, she hesitated, gazing in the direction the moon had shown her. The land in front of her was flat, covered in wiry grass with a thornbush or an outcrop of rock dotted here and there. Shallow silvery pools reflected the growing light in the sky, glittering in the first rays of the sun as it rose above the horizon.

  “It’s now or never,” she told herself. She took a deep breath and padded forward, taking her first steps away from the bay, away from her birthing grounds, away from the place where she knew other bears would gather to go back onto the ice.

  As the day grew hotter it was hard to keep her paws moving. Her fur itched and she longed to find a patch of shade and lie down there, but she made herself keep going.

  I wish I was back on the ice, she thought. I wish I could go home.

  As she trudged, Kallik felt a growing sensation that something was watching her, that silent paws were following her. She glanced around uneasily, but nothing moved or made a sound, except for the reeds beside a nearby pool, brushing together in the breeze.

  “Who’s there?” she growled, but her voice sounded thin and weak. It’s this weird place, she thought. It makes me worry about things that aren’t there.

  She padded on but the feeling didn’t go away. She did her best to ignore it, but it was hard not to keep glancing over her shoulder.

  The sun had begun to slide down toward the horizon when Kallik thought she could hear a strange rumbling in the sky, very faint, but somehow familiar. Thunder?

  She looked up but the sky was clear, a deep blue streaked with pink. Silhouetted against the setting sun, she could see a dark shape. It was no bigger than a bird but it grew rapidly as it drew closer. Suddenly, her belly lurched and a memory flashed behind her eyes like a seal popping its head out of an ice hole.

  The metal bird!

  The sound grew louder until it thumped inside her head, hurting her ears. As the metal bird approached her, Kallik could see a web dangling underneath it; inside the web was a huge bundle of white fur, all squashed up. This bird was carrying a white bear—at least one—just as the other bird had tried to carry Kallik and Nanuk back to the ice. Kallik remembered the wind in her fur, and how terrified she had been to find herself flying skylengths above the ground. She had clawed at the web in a panic until Nanuk had soothed her and explained to her what was happening.

  But that metal bird had never reached the ice. Kallik shuddered as she relived the moments when its wings had begun to whine and clatter as if it were in pain, until it burst into flames and fell out of the sky. Her heart pounded as she remembered Nanuk’s broken body lying amid the wreckage, her eyes closed and her fur already cold against Kallik’s muzzle.

  The rumbling, chopping sound swelled until it seemed to fill the whole world; Kallik crouched down and put her paws over her ears. Suddenly, the noise changed, becoming more high-pitched and whining. Kallik lifted her head and risked looking up. The bird was sinking closer to the ground, its long metal wings no longer keeping it up in the air.

  “No! No!” she yelped, scrambling to her paws and bounding toward it. “Go up! Go up!”

  But the metal bird didn’t hear her. It went on sinking, lower and lower. Wind from its clattering wings flattened the grass and bent the sparse thornbushes. Kallik hid behind a rock, peering out as she waited for flames to start spouting from its body. She flinched as she heard a high-pitched cry of terror coming from the web. There must be a cub in there! She squeezed her eyes shut tight and waited for the earth-shaking crunch of metal and fur amid roaring flames.

  Several heartbeats passed; the only thing she could hear was the chopping sound of the wings, throbbing steadily through the air. Daring to open her eyes again, she saw that the metal bird was flying so low, hovering in one place, that the web containing the bears bumped gently on the ground. Kallik pricked her ears hopefully. No bear could die from a little bump like that!

  She watched from the shelter of her rock as the web fell down around the bears and three furry shapes tumbled out: a she-bear and her two cubs. All three looked bone thin, as if they’d had as much trouble as Kallik finding food on land since the ice melted. Kallik could guess how confused they must feel, dropped here by the bird without anything to tell them where they were. But at least they didn’t look as if they were hurt.

  The web flopped loosely beside them, amid dust that was spitting into the air from the wind stirred up by the metal bird. The bears rolled sideways, away from the net, and lay still. The noise from the bird’s wings grew louder, and it lifted into the sky, clawing its way into the blue air. The wind blew harder beneath it, raising the dust higher and ruffling the bears’ fur. Kallik could just make out a flat-face in the bird’s belly, looking out at the bears the bird had released. She wondered if there had been a flat-face in the metal bird that had carried her and Nanuk, and what had happened to it when the bird had crashed in flames.

  The metal bird’s nose dipped down and it flew away. The noise of its wings faded quickly, and the dust settled around the bears. Kallik peered nervously at them. They were very still. Were they still alive? She padded out from the shelter of her rock until she could see the outline of their flanks clearly against the pale brown dirt. They were breathing. Thank the ice spirits. Kallik didn’t know what she’d have done if she’d seen more dead bears dropped by the metal birds. She remembered how a sharp sting from the flat-face’s shiny stick had made her go to sleep before she and Nanuk were carried in the net; perhaps these bears were sleeping, too. She went back to her rock to wait for them to wake up.

  The sun had crawled farther across the sky and Kallik was starting to get very thirsty when the first bear moved. A tiny she-cub lifted her head and looked around through half-closed eyes, then rolled onto her stomach and opened her eyes wide in surprise. She was clearly thinking, Where am I? She scrambled to her feet and took a few unsteady steps, shaking her head as if it were full of water, before flopping to the ground again. Just then, the other cub, a slightly bigger male, hauled himself up and walked in a circle, gazing at his paws as if he couldn’t understand why the ground was so different. He went over to his sister and butted her with his head until she stood up again, still wobbly, and together they stumbled over to the she-bear who was still lying in a heap of fur. They pushed their muzzles into her flank and barked in high-pitched voices until her shoulders twitched and her eyes flickered open. Kallik heard her grunt, long and low as if she were aching after her sleep; then the she-bear propped herself up on her front paws and heaved herself onto her feet with a jerk. She stood still for a moment with her head hanging so low that her snout was almost on the ground, as if she was gathering her strength.

  A pang clawed at Kallik’s heart, and for a moment she looked away, her eyes stinging. They look just like Nisa and Taqqiq and me!

  When Kallik looked back, the mother bear had lifted her head and her gaze was sweeping warily across the landscape. Kallik huddled behind the rock, trying to make herself as small as she could. She knew how unfriendly strange bears could be. This mother bear might think she was a threat to her cubs.

  But to Kallik’s relief the mother bear didn’t see or smell her. Kallik guessed that her nose was still full of the smell of the metal bird and the sharp cold wind that sliced through the net when it was flying through the air. Rolling her shoulders from side to side, the she-bear padded over to her cubs. The breeze was blowing toward Kallik—another reason she was able to hide from the mother bear—so that she could hear what they were saying.

  “Are you both okay?” the she-bear asked, sniffing each of her cubs from ears to
paws.

  “My head’s spinning,” the male cub complained, stumbling forward until he could lean against his mother’s shoulder. He had broad shoulders and powerful legs, as if he would be a strong bear when he was full-grown, but Kallik could see that his legs were trembling from the strange journey. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “We’ll find some water soon,” his mother promised, bending down to touch his shoulder with her nose. “Then you’ll feel better.”

  She raised her head again to scan their surroundings.

  A pang of sadness pierced Kallik’s heart like a splinter of ice. This mother bear was so like Nisa! She was strict with her cubs, but it was obvious how much she loved them. She would do everything she could to protect them and get them back to the ice, where there would be food. Something occurred to Kallik, and she sat up straighter. The mother bear will know which way the sea is, and where to find the closest ice. I could follow them, and then I’d be back where I belong, with seals to eat.

  “Where are we?” the male cub yelped. “Why did the flat-faces put us to sleep and bring us here?”

  “I don’t know why flat-faces do anything,” the mother bear replied. She paused for a moment, her snout tilted upward as she sniffed the air. “But I think I know where we are. I’ve been here before.”

  “Did a metal bird bring you?” the she-cub asked excitedly, her eyes sparkling.

  “No, I’ve never flown with one of those before,” the she-bear told her. “I came here on my own paws. I was on my way to the ice….”

  “The ice!” The she-cub tried to scramble to her paws, then flopped back down again. “Will there be seals and fish? I’m starving!”

  The male cub leaned against his mother’s shoulder again. “I can only see all this mud and yucky grass.”

  “But what can you smell?” his mother prompted, looking down at him.

  The cub stretched his snout forward and took a couple of deep sniffs. Kallik saw his eyes grow wider. “Salt and fish!”