Fire in the Sky (13 page)

“I don’t know!” he yelped.

Horror flooded through Kallik. It sounded a lot like the roar of a firebeast—along with a crashing and cracking that she’d never heard before, as if an entire forest were falling down around them.

“Run!” Ujurak roared. “We have to run! Now!”

Ujurak’s fur stood on end.

“You have to run!” he heard Kallik shouting at Iniq. The smaller white bear bundled into Iniq’s side, shoving her away from the den and the approaching sound.

“I can’t!” Iniq cried. “My legs won’t carry me!” She stumbled weakly in the snow.

“You have to!” Ujurak bellowed. “It isn’t safe!”

“RUN!” Kallik shouted again, snapping her teeth at Iniq’s paws.

“My den!” Iniq wailed. She looked back over her shoulder as they pushed her forward. “My cubs!”

“Your cubs will grow up safely somewhere else!” Kallik insisted. “But not if you don’t get out of here!”

Finally Iniq’s paws seemed to start working again, and she scrambled along beside them as they ran. Ujurak gazed blindly into the mist. Where should they run to? Was anywhere safe? He couldn’t even tell which direction the noise was coming from.

“Not that way!” Kallik barked, skidding to a halt. “It’s getting louder over there!” She drove Iniq around and started running again, bolting away from the rumbling in the ice.

Ujurak ran until the ice stopped shaking beneath his paws, and then he slid to a halt, scattering snow around him. Kallik and Iniq stopped a few bearlengths away. They all looked back, gasping for air.

Out of the gloomy, horrible-smelling, reddish-brown mist slid a massive firebeast unlike any Ujurak had ever seen before. At first he thought it must be sliding across the ice, but when he looked closer, he realized that it was floating in the water and smashing the ice in front of it to get through. Its sharply pointed front end forced a path through by riding up and over the ice, then crushing and breaking the sheet with its own weight. Behind the firebeast was a narrow lane of open blue water edged with jagged pieces of ice.

Kallik gasped. Her claws sank into the snow, and Ujurak could see her shoulders shaking with fear. He could imagine how she felt—the ice seemed so solid, so firm beneath their feet. It was horrifying to realize there were firebeasts that could smash through her world so easily.

“The spirits,” she whispered. Kallik believed the spirits of dead bears lived in the ice below them as well as in the stars. So this was even worse—a violation of the spirits’ home, destroying Kallik’s ancestors and protectors along with the ground she stood on.

The terrible grinding noise of the firebeast roared across the ice, nearly deafening them. Ujurak could smell the firebeast
clearly now, too, its scent sharper and smokier than the red-brown mist. The mist was finally beginning to lift, and in the distance he spotted another firebeast following the first one. It was laden with blue and red cubes, and it trailed along the path the first ship had made.

Ujurak padded up to Kallik and leaned against her, trying to be comforting.

“That beast is stronger than the ice,” Kallik whimpered, her voice shaking. “I didn’t know anything like that existed.” Beside her, Iniq crouched low to the ground. Her expression was equally terrified.

“It may seem that way,” Ujurak said. “But remember, the ice always returns. Every snow-sky, there it is again, no matter how many firebeasts try to smash it down.”

“I hope so,” Kallik said softly.

“I can’t use that den now,” Iniq said. She nodded at the drift of snow in the distance. “It’s too close to the path of the firebeast. And it was so beautiful!” She buried her nose in Kallik’s fur.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” Kallik said. “I’ve never seen a firebeast like that.”

“I have,” Iniq said with a shudder. “The no-claws and their firebeasts come here more and more to open up paths of water through the ice. Their noise and stench have made me move on before.” She sighed. “I need to find somewhere safe for my cubs to be born, far away from the firebeasts.”

Ujurak saw the sad look on Kallik’s face. He knew she wanted to help. He wanted this bear and her cubs to be safe,
too. He guessed that Kallik was also trying to replace Lusa—without realizing it, she was looking for another friend to save. But they didn’t have time to wander the ice searching for a safe home for every bear. They had to keep moving. Couldn’t Kallik understand that their mission was more important than one bear? That if they succeeded, it would help save
all
bears?

Suddenly Kallik lifted her head. “I think I smell seal,” she said, inhaling deeply. “I’m going to check. I’ll be right back.” She padded away, sniffing intently.

Iniq lay down in the snow and rested her head on her paws. “You’re lucky to have each other,” she said. “I’ve always loved being on my own. But now, knowing that I’ll soon have cubs depending on me—it all seems so much harder, somehow. Especially with the firebeasts everywhere. How can I bring cubs into a world like this?”

“Maybe it won’t always be like this,” Ujurak said. He wished he had his mother’s strength and wisdom. If she were here, she’d know exactly what to say.

It wasn’t long before Kallik came back, dragging a seal carcass. Her jaws were stained red. She dropped it at Iniq’s paws. “This is for you and your cubs,” she said. “I wish we could do more to help, but we have to keep going.”

Ujurak met Kallik’s gaze and nodded, glad that she understood.

Iniq’s eyes widened at the fat seal flopped across her paws. “I haven’t had seal in days!” she said. She gave them a sideways look as if she expected them to take it away from her again, and Kallik nodded reassuringly. Iniq tore hungrily into the
newkill. Ujurak thought she might be hungrier than he had ever been in his life.

“Good-bye,” Kallik said softly, backing away from Iniq. “May Silaluk watch over you.”

Iniq didn’t seem to have heard. Her claws ripped into the seal flesh as she wolfed it down.

Ujurak and Kallik turned toward the sun and began to walk again. Ujurak was trying to figure out how to tell Kallik that she’d done a good thing by giving Iniq some hope. But after half a skylength, Kallik turned to him with her normally gentle eyes blazing.

“How can it be like this?” she demanded. “Why should the no-claws destroy the ice? It isn’t fair!”

“We’re going to stop them,” Ujurak reminded her. “That’s what we’re trying to do.”

Kallik shook her head. “I don’t see how,” she muttered.

He couldn’t imagine how, either. All he knew was that they had to keep going. His mother was waiting, and somewhere out there, he’d find a way to save the wild.

He had to.

The reddish mist still hung over
the ice, making Toklo’s fur feel sticky and heavy. They had walked for most of the day without finding anything to eat, and Toklo couldn’t smell anything except the haze.

He lifted his head as a cool breeze parted the mist for a brief moment, ruffling his fur. He squinted. There was something dark on the edge of the sky—something that wasn’t just more white snow and ice. His heart leaped.

“Lusa!” he barked. “Do you see that? Tell me I’m not imagining it!”

Next to him, Lusa stood up on her back paws and peered through the haze. “What do you think it is?” she asked.

“Land!” he said. “Isn’t it? It must be. Look how close we are!”

Lusa’s ears twitched. “Maybe,” she said. “I hear something…like a rumbling or a grinding. Could it be coming from the land?”

Toklo couldn’t hear anything. “I’ll be able to tell when we
get closer,” he said. His paws felt lighter as he started walking again, speeding up to a trot. “Come on—maybe we’ll even be able to sleep on land tonight!”

As they galloped across the snow, slipping on bare patches of ice, Toklo strained his ears to catch what Lusa had picked up. After a while he began to hear it. It sounded like a low grumbling, like a giant bear muttering to himself. And they were definitely heading toward it.

Lusa gave him an anxious glance. “Are you sure this is safe?” she panted. “A noise like that makes me think maybe we should run away.”

“It’s probably firebeasts,” Toklo pointed out, although his fur tingled. “You know how their roaring carries. And if it is, that means they’re on the land, and we’re going the right way.” He bumped her side. “We’ll go around them when we get there. Don’t worry about it.”

Suddenly Lusa skidded to a stop. “Oh, no!” she cried. “Toklo, look!”

The flat, smooth snow they’d been running across ended after a few more bearlengths. After that, the ice was broken into large chunks, drifting on a dark, frozen river.

The two bears stood at the edge of the ice, looking down into the rippling darkness. Uneasiness prickled through Toklo’s fur. He didn’t want to swim again—to risk orcas, drowning, and being trapped under the ice. But it looked as though they didn’t have a choice. The land he’d seen was hidden again by the haze, but he knew it was ahead of them.

“This makes sense,” he said, trying to sound confident for
Lusa. “Remember, the ice was all broken up around the land. It must mean we’re near the shore, that’s all. We won’t have to swim far before we get there.”

“Really?” Lusa asked, dipping one paw into the water. She pulled it out and licked it, then shivered. “
Blech
. This water tastes horrible. Not just salty, but worse, somehow, like firebeasts.” She pawed at her tongue.

“Well, the plan is to swim in it, not drink it!” Toklo pointed out. Lusa made a face at him. “Let’s go now, while it’s still light enough to see.”
Light enough to watch for orcas,
he thought. His eyes scanned the water for black fins, but he didn’t see any signs of them.

Taking a deep breath, he slipped into the water and let out a yelp as the bone-chilling cold soaked into his fur. A quiet splash and another yelp told him that Lusa was right behind him. She surged up alongside him and they began to paddle with their paws, trying to keep their noses above the water. A wave swamped some of the seawater into Toklo’s mouth and he spat, disgusted. Lusa was right—this water was worse than the salty seawater they’d swum in before. It tasted of firebeasts and black stuff and smoke.

It’s because we’re near the shore,
he told himself again.
That’s where most of the firebeasts are, so of course they’ve made the water taste like this.
But he felt a nagging doubt as he searched the sea for orcas, and he hoped that there were some bear spirits—white or brown—around to help guide them to the land.

A large blue chunk of ice bobbed in front of them, and they swam toward it gratefully. Lusa sank her claws into the side
and Toklo gave her a boost to help her up. He heaved himself onto the ice and they sat, panting, for a few moments. The ice chunk was a few bearlengths long, with jagged edges as if it had been violently hacked away from the rest of the ice.

“Oh, look,” Lusa said, scrambling to her paws. She padded over to the far side of the ice chunk and Toklo realized there was something small lying there. Lusa prodded it with one claw.

He padded over to join her. “It’s a bird!” he said in surprise.

It looked like the gray and white birds that were always screaming annoyingly along the shore. This one was definitely dead.

Lusa poked it again. “Do you think we can eat it?”

Toklo sniffed it and wrinkled his nose. “It smells sort of nasty in a flat-face way, but I think it’s still newkill, not rotfood.” His stomach rumbled. “I guess we can,” he said.

He set one paw on the bird’s head and reached to claw off a chunk of flesh. But his paw sank into something sticky, and he pulled it away again quickly, only to discover that it was covered in the horrible black liquid that Ujurak had called “oil.”

“Ew!” Lusa said. She sniffed his paw, then gingerly lifted the bird’s wing with one claw. Its feathers were drenched in oil, covering it from beak to talons. It slithered a pawlength on the ice as Lusa poked it.

“We definitely can’t eat that,” Toklo said. He scraped at the top of the ice and tried to wash the sticky oil off his paw.

“How did it get that way?” Lusa asked in a hushed voice.

“I have no idea.” Toklo was about to suggest swimming again when he heard a roar building from the distance, vibrating through the air. It sounded like something approaching. He whirled around and saw a giant floating firebeast snarling toward them through a channel it was making in the ice. It didn’t even seem to notice the blocks of ice in its way; it smashed right through them as if they were ants.

Toklo and Lusa watched, puzzled, as the firebeast churned right past their chunk of ice. The huge wave that swelled up in its wake made the chunk tilt and dip and jump until they were thrown off into the water. More broken pieces of ice bobbed around them, whacking into their sides and spinning them as they were trying to swim. Toklo flailed his paws, frantically scanning the haze. He couldn’t let himself be turned around too much. How far away was the land?

A dark shadow loomed through the reddish haze. It seemed surprisingly tall for something on a beach, but Toklo wasn’t about to argue. He nudged Lusa toward it and they paddled as fast as they could, trying to dodge the bear-sized pieces of ice that drifted past. When he felt his paws getting tired, Toklo grabbed the nearest block of ice and called for Lusa to do the same. It was too small for them to climb onto, but it gave them a chance to breathe and rest their paws as they drifted across the river.

The dark shadow loomed closer and closer, and the haze became thinner. Toklo felt his paws bump into a thick shelf of ice. He’d been so busy watching the shadow, he hadn’t realized they’d made it across the channel of water. Quickly he
scrambled out into the biting wind and reached down to help Lusa up behind him.

Soaking wet, they huddled together, shivering and staring as the shadow became clearer.

“It’s not land,” Lusa said mournfully.

Toklo’s heart sank. Instead of the trees and grass and mountains he’d hoped to see, they were looking at another terrifying flat-face construction. It rose up out of the water, twice as high as most flat-face dens, with dark metal legs. The rumbling and grinding came from its belly, and it was swarming with flat-faces.

It looked like the towers Toklo had seen on the islands as they swam across the Great River, or the ones around the denning place where they’d rescued Ujurak, by the nest of metal birds.

They weren’t anywhere near the land. Toklo felt his hopes vanish. He’d wanted to lead Lusa to safety—but he’d only brought her to yet another terrible danger.