The Quest Begins (15 page)

“Go catch your own!” her brother answered good-naturedly. He was standing over his fish, watching its tail lift when the water lapped against it. “It's not that hard. Don't you think you can do it?”

“Of course I can! I just need something to keep up my strength, that's all. One bite!”

Fochik turned his head to shove his sister away. At once Toklo darted out of the bushes, plunged down the bank, and snatched up the fish in his jaws.

“HEY!” Aylen yelped. “Stop! That's ours!”

“Mother!” Fochik yowled.

Toklo scrambled up the bank. He glanced back and saw
Aylen chasing after him. “You thieving badger-face!” she howled. “Are you a wolverine or a bear? Come back, scavenger!”

Her words pricked at Toklo's pride but the taste of the salmon was already flooding his mouth, so he kept running. Then he heard the crash and crackle of the mother bear charging through the bushes after him, and his heart began to pound with terror. How far would she chase him? He knew she must be faster than he was. He dodged under a low-hanging branch and slipped on a pile of leaves, wasting precious moments as he scrabbled back to his paws.

He risked another look back as he burst out of the bushes and raced under some spiny trees. The mother bear was pushing her way out behind him, her mouth hanging open and her pink tongue lolling. She let out another bellow when she saw Toklo. “We fish the river here!”

Toklo's legs were so tired, he didn't think he could run anymore. If he stopped, would the mother bear take the fish back and leave him alone? Or would she attack him, ripping into his fur like the bear on the mountainside, leaving him bleeding and dying on the leaves? His breath came in ragged gasps and all he could hear was the blood pounding in his ears. His footsteps slowed and, without looking around, he braced himself for massive paws to slam down on his shoulders.

Nothing happened. Toklo slowed even more until he staggered to a stop, the salmon still gripped in his teeth. He turned around. The mother bear was standing behind him, several bearlengths back, under a prickly tree with small curly
leaves. “This is my territory!” she roared. “Stay away from us!”

Toklo didn't answer. His legs were trembling too much to carry him another step. He just stood still, waiting for the she-bear to catch up to him. But she didn't. Instead, she turned away with an angry huff and trotted back toward the river. Toklo sank onto the dry leaves, panting and dizzy. She had chased him out of her territory—that was all she had wanted. He was safe. And he had food.

That night he slept with a full stomach in a den under some tree roots. For once, he did not dream of Tobi dying or of Oka driving him away. He didn't even feel guilty about stealing the salmon. His sleep was dreamless and peaceful.

Kallik stared at the sea of
white bears. Maybe Taqqiq was there, so close to her she might be able to smell him. She wondered if it was safe to go down and walk among them. They didn't look as if they were talking to one another like a big group of friends—in fact, they seemed to be ignoring one another, as if they were here on their own. Perhaps they would ignore her, too.

One large male with patchy gray fur and scrapes along his muzzle was pacing along the edge of the sea, staring out over the waves. “Why have you abandoned us?” he howled. “Spirits of the ice, where are you? We need you! You are failing us!”

It made Kallik feel nervous. She couldn't help thinking that yelling at the ice spirits was only going to make them angrier.

Behind her, Purnaq scrambled up the slope. He stopped next to her at the top, scraping the mud off his claws.

“What's going on?” Kallik asked. “Why are all these bears here?”

“This is where we come every burn-sky,” he said. “We're waiting for the sea to freeze.”

Relief washed over Kallik. “So we all wait together?” Maybe now she could learn everything she hadn't had time to learn from her mother.

“It's not exactly like that,” Purnaq said. “But we don't fight one another here—it's hard enough just to survive.”

Kallik could hear a note of warning in his voice, like he was telling her not to expect too much, but she felt better anyway. The other bears would give her a better chance of learning where to find food, and she might even be able to share a leftover carcass. With other bears, she would also be safer from walruses and the other animals she'd seen.

Purnaq started toward the beach, trotting down the slope of the hill. Kallik bounded after him and caught up to trot alongside. Purnaq stopped and turned on her, his lip curling.

“Stay away from me,” he snarled. “I have trouble finding enough food for myself. I don't need a stupid cub tagging along behind me.”

Kallik stared at him in astonishment. “I—I wasn't tagging along,” she stammered. “I was just going the same way.”

“Good,” he growled. He whirled around and stalked off without looking back.

Kallik stayed where she was, waiting for him to get far enough away so it didn't look like she was following him. Gray-and-white birds hopped along the edge of the sea, shrieking and flapping their wings at one another. They seemed unafraid of the gathered bears and walked right up to
them to pick up bits of seaweed and other tidbits.

Kallik walked among the bears, feeling the sand trickle between her claws. She looked at each of them closely, trying not to seem like she was staring. Many of them were lying very still, ignoring the insects buzzing around their ears. Others were tugging up the spiky blue-green grass to chew it. The air felt hazy and warm, blurring the sun's rays into a heavy pelt of heat that pressed them into the ground. By a cluster of boulders, she saw a pair of young male bears play-fighting. Her heart started to thump, and she edged closer to get a better view, but after a moment she could tell that they were both too big to be Taqqiq.

Other bears clearly didn't have enough energy to wrestle. They looked as if they had been lying in the same place for days, leaving a permanent bear-shaped imprint on the sand. Kallik guessed they were saving their energy, not sure when they would be able to eat again.

A yelp of laughter startled her, and she spun around. Nearby, two cubs were leaping and rolling on the pebbles. One of them snatched up a clump of seaweed and galloped off with his brother in close pursuit. A large female bear roared at them, and they both swerved to run back to her side. She cuffed them gently with her paw and then lay down so they could scramble over her. Memories of Taqqiq and her mother made Kallik's eyes blur, but she blinked hard and forced herself to move on.

On the far side of a group of sleeping bears, another cub was dabbing his paws in the water, flicking his ears at the
squelching sound they made when he lifted them out. Kallik could imagine Taqqiq being fascinated like that. He'd have been happy to play with all the new things she'd found. Maybe this cub
was
Taqqiq….

She padded over, her muzzle lifted, trying to catch his scent. It didn't smell like Taqqiq—this cub smelled more like trees and dirt than fish and snow, but that would happen to any white bear once it had been on land for a while.

“Taqqiq?” she called. The cub lifted his head. “Taqqiq!” she called again, speeding up.

A wall of white fur slammed down in front of her, and Kallik skidded to a stop. A she-bear reared up over her, snarling. “Leave my cub alone,” she growled.

Kallik crouched down, ducking her head, too scared to speak. Dropping to all fours, the female turned and herded her cub back up the beach. Now Kallik could see a tilt to the cub's ears that Taqqiq didn't have. She wanted to find him so badly, she tried to see him in every cub. But Taqqiq wasn't here. She kept walking through the bears, feeling more and more hopeless as she saw that each cub the right shape and size had a mother to travel with. There were no other lone white bear cubs here.

A strange grumbling noise drifted toward her, from behind a shallow ridge of ground. Kallik stopped and perked up her ears. She stared in alarm as an enormous creature crawled over the ridge, growling deep in its throat as it headed straight for the bears. Kallik looked around, but none of the other bears had even raised their muzzles to sniff for the creature's
scent. She turned back, determined to be brave like them.

The creature was a bit like the firebeasts Kallik had seen on the stone path, with the same round black paws and bitter, burning scent, but it was larger and shaped like a huge white block of ice. Suddenly she realized there were holes in the side of the creature, and
inside
were the two-legged animals she'd seen before. Had the firebeast eaten them? How were they still alive? She could clearly see them moving and pointing their paws at the bears. They didn't seem afraid of being trapped inside the firebeast at all.

Kallik glanced over her shoulder again. Maybe one of the other bears would know what this was. She could see Purnaq beyond a cluster of bears around a patch of brittle grass, but she didn't want to get snarled at again. Closer to her there was a female bear lying on her side who looked only a few seasons older than Kallik. Her eyes were half closed, and she looked comfortable and peaceful. Kallik hoped she wouldn't be too unfriendly.

“Excuse me?” she said, padding up to the bear. “I'm—I'm sorry to bother you, but could I ask you a question?”

The bear opened her eyes and grunted without sitting up. Kallik took that as a yes.

“Can you tell me what that is?” she asked, pointing with her muzzle to the white creature with round black paws. “Is it a firebeast? Are those live animals inside it? Do you know what they are?”

The bear sighed. “This is why I don't want cubs,” she muttered. “Always asking stupid questions. We call them white
firebeasts,” she said grudgingly. “You don't need to be scared of it. It just comes out here to stare at us. Firebeasts carry around the no-claws—those are the two-legged animals you can see inside.”

“Oh,” Kallik said. “If they have no claws, that means they can't hurt us, right?”

“Ha,” said the older bear. “You
are
an ignorant cub, aren't you? Don't you know about the no-claws' firesticks?”

Kallik shook her head.

“If you ever see a no-claw pointing a long stick at you, run as fast as you can,” the bear advised. “They make a noise like cracking ice, and they're even more dangerous than the tusk of a walrus, because they can hurt you or kill you no matter how far away the no-claw is.”

Kallik shivered. How could a stick hurt you without touching you? She looked at the white firebeast and the no-claws peering out through the holes in its side. None of them seemed to be carrying sticks, but a lot of them were pointing at her with their paws. It made her nervous.

“Thank you for your help,” she said to the female bear, who grunted and lay down again. Kallik began to walk toward the sea, but it seemed like the white firebeast was following her. When she stopped, it stopped. When she moved again, it started crawling to keep up. She wondered what would happen if she ran away.

Suddenly a furious roar came from down on the shore. The bear who had been ranting at the ice spirits reared up on his hind legs, clawing the air with his front paws. Then he
dropped to all fours and charged up the shore, over the pebbles and spiky grass, right up to the firebeast. Lowering his head, he smashed into its side with a hollow, ringing sound. The white firebeast lurched but didn't fall over. The male white bear reared up and slammed his front paws into its side, raking his claws down it with a squealing sound that made Kallik wince. She could see that he only had some of his claws left, and there were red spots on his fur where the others must have been torn out. She could smell his blood on the air.

The firebeast didn't fight back. Instead it crawled away quickly, leaving long tracks in the dirt behind it. The bear slumped to the ground, whimpering.

Some of the bears were on their paws now, walking along the edge of the shore in the same direction as the white firebeast. None of them even looked at the wounded old bear. Kallik wondered where they were going. She looked around until she spotted Purnaq, who had stopped to drink at a stream.

“Hello,” Kallik said. He whipped his head up and glared at her. “I'm not following you,” she said quickly. “I just want to know where those other bears are going.”

Purnaq nodded in the direction the white firebeast had gone. “If you keep going that way, you'll come to a territory of no-claw dens.” He hesitated, then added, “You can get food there, if you're lucky, but you have to be careful of the no-claws.”

“Are you going there?” she asked.

He hunched his shoulders and looked down at his paws. “I haven't decided yet.”

Kallik got the feeling he was only saying that so she wouldn't tag along with him. “All right,” she said. “Well, thank you.”

“Hrm,”
he muttered, turning back to the stream.

Kallik padded away in the opposite direction, aiming for the shore. She walked casually, without looking back, but when she reached a group of boulders, she slipped behind one of them and peeked out at Purnaq. He had crossed the stream and was heading purposefully up the shore, aiming inland, the same direction as the white firebeast had gone.

She snuck out and followed him, staying at a safe distance. He was her best chance of reaching the no-claw dens and possible food. What's more, if Taqqiq had heard that there was food to be found in this place, he might have gone there as well.