The Melting Sea (17 page)

A massive wave of sympathy for the mother bear washed over Kallik. “Iluq and Kassuq won't die,” she assured Akna. “You'll all be okay, I promise.”

Akna turned her head and looked deep into Kallik's eyes. “That's not a promise you can make.”

“I know,” Kallik admitted. “But the spirits of your other cubs will be watching over you, willing you to be strong.”

“Perhaps,” Akna said. “I want to believe that the cubs are still in the ice, in the bubbles and shadows under my paws.” Her voice shook and then strengthened again. “That way they're closer to me.”

“I hope they are,” Kallik told her, touching Akna's ear with the tip of her snout.

A few paces farther on Kallik spotted a seal hole, a dark blotch in the expanse of ice. She and Akna settled down beside it, a feeling of quiet companionship growing between them.

Knowing Akna was older than her, and more experienced in hunting, Kallik expected she would be the first to catch a seal. But when the water swirled and the seal stuck its nose out into the air, it was Kallik who reacted first. Lunging swiftly, she fastened her claws into the seal's hide and dragged it thrashing out onto the ice. Akna helped her to kill it with a blow to its spine.

“Great catch!” Akna said. “I wish I were as fast as you.”

“You would have caught it if I hadn't been here,” Kallik told her, half wishing she had hung back and let Akna take the prey.
But what if she'd missed it? I can't stick around here all day
. “Let's get this back to the others,” she added.

When Kallik and Akna dragged the seal up the shore, Toklo came to meet them, with Iluq and Kassuq bounding around his paws and almost tripping him.

“What are you doing?” Toklo asked Kallik in an undertone, gesturing toward the seal. “I thought we were leaving at dawn.”

“I owed this to Akna,” Kallik retorted.

Toklo grunted but said no more.

Yakone and Lusa padded down from the trees to join them. “It's time we got going,” Yakone said. “Akna, I hope all goes well with you.”

“And with you,” Akna responded. Kallik could see anxiety in her eyes. “I wish you luck,” she added, sounding doubtful, as if she was imagining the dangers they might encounter.

“Thanks,” Toklo said, adding to his friends, “Let's go.”

“No! You can't leave us!” Iluq protested, her eyes wide as if she had just understood that this was good-bye.

“Lusa, we want you to stay and play with us,” Kassuq added.

“I'm sorry, but I can't,” Lusa replied. She bent her head and touched noses with each cub in turn. “Look after your mother, and remember to practice what I taught you.”

“We will!” they chorused.

“Good-bye, Akna,” Toklo said. “Remember everything you've learned about hunting on land.”

Akna nodded. “Good-bye, Toklo. And thank you.”

The time had come to leave. Kallik found it hard to walk away, and wondered if she was making a grave mistake. But her need to find Taqqiq again forced her paws onward.

By now the sun was well above the horizon, glittering on the waves and the distant ice. Kallik spotted a silver glint in the sky and made out another metal bird with a single bear in the net dangling underneath. It flew over their heads and swooped in to land farther up the coast.

I hope that bear is okay
, she thought.
It'll need luck as well as new hunting skills to survive
.

“I can feel the sun soaking right through my fur!” Lusa announced. “I'd almost forgotten what it feels like to be warm.”

“It's great,” Toklo agreed.

Kallik exchanged a glance with Yakone. She was also enjoying the weak sunlight warming her fur, but she knew what it meant for the ice. She hoped that Yakone wouldn't start wishing that he had never left Star Island, surrounded by the Endless Ice.

Thinking of Star Island reminded her of Kissimi, the cub she had taken care of when his mother died. “I wonder how Kissimi is getting on,” she said out loud to Yakone. “He's older than Iluq and Kassuq. Do you think he's learned to catch seals yet?”

“Maybe,” Yakone responded. “He's still young, though.”

“How soon do the mother bears on Star Island start teaching their cubs to hunt?”

Yakone hesitated. “It varies,” he said at last. “I was about three moons old when I started. You have to be big enough to cope with a seal, and sensible enough to keep still while you're waiting.”

“Waiting's the hardest part!” Lusa exclaimed, as she and Toklo caught up. “Kallik, do you remember how you taught me to catch a rabbit by waiting outside its burrow? I thought it would never come out!”

“That's because you're an annoying chatterbox,” Toklo growled, though he nudged Lusa affectionately as he spoke. “If you could talk prey to death, we would never be hungry!”

“Speaking of being hungry,” Yakone interposed, looking as if he still wasn't comfortable with Toklo and Lusa's playful quarreling, “I'm starving. Kallik, do you want to swim out and hunt?”

“Sure,” Kallik replied. “If it's okay with you?” she added to Lusa and Toklo.

“That's fine,” Toklo said instantly. “Bring us back a really tasty seal.”

Kallik was glad that he was comfortable letting her and Yakone go out onto the ice now.
He must be sure that we're not going to leave him
, she thought. Aloud she said, “Thank you.”

Toklo blinked in surprise. “I know you'll come back. We have a long way to go yet.”

“My paws are falling off,” Toklo
grumbled. Every pawstep he took felt as if thorns were driving into his pads. Lusa was limping, too. “It's time to stop for the day,” he announced.

Two sunrises had passed since the bears had said good-bye to Akna and her cubs. They were walking in a shallow gully, sheltered by the wind, and separated from the shoreline by a gentle rise. The pine trees had been left behind; only a few scrubby bushes grew on the landward side of the gully.

“It's getting warmer all the time,” Toklo continued as he halted, “and the days are getting longer. I guess that's why our paws feel so sore: We're walking farther every day because we're using all the daylight.” He flopped on one side and rasped his tongue over his stinging pads. “We'll have to start limiting how far we travel each day,” he said between licks.

“Good idea,” Yakone responded.

Toklo was pleased by the white bear's agreement. He knew that Yakone found their journey easier, because his paws were suited to walking on snow.

Kallik won't like it, though
, he thought.
She's more driven with every day that passes. She won't want to cut down our traveling time
.

Glancing around for the white she-bear, he saw that Kallik had drawn a little ahead and was standing at the top of the rise, looking out toward the sea. Her gaze was focused on something out of Toklo's sight; he wondered if she had spotted some prey, or another bear.

Though we've only seen one metal bird since we left Akna, and that passed straight overhead
.

Scrambling to his paws again, Toklo padded toward Kallik, but before he reached her she began to walk away from him, then quickened her pace until she was running. As he reached the top of the rise, Toklo saw that her gaze was fixed on some piles of lumpy snow not far away from the water's edge.

Alarmed, Toklo ran after her. Catching up to her, he saw that Kallik was digging down frantically into the snow. “What are you doing?” Toklo asked.

Kallik ignored him. She was muttering to herself, too faintly for Toklo to make out the words, and concentrating on scraping away snow.

“What's going on?” Yakone asked, coming up with Lusa at his side.

Toklo shook his head. “I have no idea.”

He watched Kallik as she uncovered a shard of metal, sharp and shiny, then hurled herself at another snowy lump and started digging again. Toklo glanced at Yakone and Lusa, but they both looked as baffled as he felt.

“Kallik, tell us what's wrong,” he said, but once again the white she-bear ignored him.

“I think I understand,” Yakone said after a moment. “This must be the metal bird that was carrying Kallik when it fell out of the sky. Kallik, you can't do anything about it now.”

“I've got to find Nanuk.” Kallik almost spat the words out. “I left her here, all alone.”

Unearthing more chunks of metal, she started heaving them aside, scraping at the snow underneath them until she reached the bare, brown earth.

“I have to find Nanuk's body,” she muttered, half to herself. “I can't leave it here.”

She kept digging down frantically. Toklo drew in a horrified breath as he saw that the jagged scraps of metal were scratching at her legs and paws, smudging her fur with scarlet blood.

Yakone thrust himself between Kallik and the twisted metal scrap she was trying to shift. “Kallik, stop!” he exclaimed. “There … there won't be anything left of Nanuk, not now.”

Kallik stopped her desperate digging, raising her head to look into Yakone's eyes. She took two or three shaky breaths; at last she said, “I keep losing bears who are important to me. My mother, Taqqiq, Nanuk, Ujurak, Kissimi …” Toklo could hear her pain in each name as she spoke it.

“But we're still here with you,” Yakone reminded her.

Kallik's gaze was still full of sorrow. “I know. But how much longer? What would I do if I lost you, or Lusa, or Toklo?”

“You won't,” Toklo said instantly, then wondered if that was true.
We're bound to split up soon, to find our own homes
.

“I wish I could believe that,” Kallik responded, clearly understanding what he hadn't said. “I think about those others, and I
know
sooner or later it will happen again.”

“The past is the past,” Yakone murmured. “We have a long way to go, and a lot more surviving still to do....”

Kallik let out a long sigh. “I know....” Turning to Lusa and Toklo, she added, “I don't know why, but I felt I had to see Nanuk again. I couldn't say good-bye to her properly before, and I wanted to.”

“We understand,” Lusa responded sympathetically.

Kallik gave Toklo a doubtful look, as if she expected him to dismiss her grief, or to make a joke.

But I know all about losing bears who mean a lot
. Toklo knew he would never forget the little mound of earth and sticks that had covered Tobi.

“Yes, it's okay,” he assured her. “I'll help you look for Nanuk, if that's what you want.”

Kallik's eyes widened in surprise. Looking back at the piles of half-buried metal, she shook her head. “No. We should let her rest where she is,” she replied. “Yakone's right. Her spirit isn't there anymore.”

“So this is where you started your journey,” Lusa said, glancing around. “How did you know where to go?”

“I didn't, at first,” Kallik told her. “But then … come on, I'll show you.”

Kallik led the other bears inland, up a long, gentle slope and then down the steeper descent on the other side. The land was barren, just a few stalks of long, coarse grass poking up here and there out of the snow.

“Careful,” Yakone warned. “That's a BlackPath at the bottom.”

Toklo spotted the hard-packed snow the white male was pointing out, and stayed well away from the edge. “Do we have to cross?” he asked Kallik.

“No, but we follow it for a while,” she replied. “This way.”

The BlackPath led alongside thorn thickets with a stunted tree here and there, twisted by the wind. Toklo sniffed the air and picked up the scent of water again, though he thought that they had left the Melting Sea some way behind.

Finally Kallik's trail left the BlackPath as she led the way up another long, snow-covered slope. Reaching the top, Toklo looked down. The ground fell away sharply in front of his paws; a dark stretch of water lay a few bearlengths below, lapping gently at the reeds that grew at the water's edge. The opposite side was just visible, a dark smudge of flatter land in the twilight.