Fire in the Sky (7 page)

He turned and bounded across the snow, disappearing quickly into the blinding whiteness.

Lusa galloped down to Ujurak’s still body, reaching it a moment before Toklo and Kallik did. “Ujurak!” she yelped, pressing her nose into his fur. “Are you all right? Ujurak!”

To her relief, he drew a long, shuddering breath and struggled to sit up.

“What were you thinking?” Toklo exploded. “Picking a fight with a full-grown white bear all by yourself? You could at least have transformed into a white bear before you did it, you squirrel-brained—”

“No!” Ujurak snapped. “I’m a brown bear! I’ll fight like one! And we need food, so why shouldn’t I help defend it? That’s what brown bears do, isn’t it?” He licked his shoulder and winced a little.

Lusa couldn’t believe Ujurak was behaving so oddly. He never chose violence if he could avoid it.

“Why don’t you let us do the fighting from now on?” Kallik suggested.

Ujurak bridled, and Lusa jumped in quickly. “It’s not that we don’t think you’re strong, Ujurak! It’s just that if anything happened to you, we’d all be lost—we wouldn’t know where
to go or what to do. The quest would be over. Can’t you see that?”

A tense moment passed, and then Ujurak swiped at the snow with his front claws. “Fine,” he muttered.

Suddenly Toklo gasped. “The seal!” he roared. “It’s gone!”

“Gone!” Kallik shoved past him and stood next to the breathing hole. The ice was bloodstained where the carcass had been, but there was no sign of the seal itself. “How—where did it go?” She gave the dark water a puzzled look, as if perhaps the seal had come back to life and swum away.

“The mother bear,” Lusa realized. “She must have snuck off with it while you were fighting.”

“How
dare
she!” Toklo roared.

“Well, it was hers to begin with,” Lusa pointed out.

“Only until we claimed it,” Toklo retorted. “You should have been keeping an eye on it!”

“Oh, right!” Lusa flared. “Because I’m so sure
I
could have stopped her! With what, my useless tiny paws?” She scuffed a pawful of snow at him and turned her back, huffing angrily.

There was a long moment of silence, and then Kallik sidled up to Lusa. “It’s not your fault,” she said in a quiet voice. “You don’t need to be scared of other white bears. We’ll protect you.”

“I know that,” Lusa mumbled. “You were brilliant, Kallik. I’m fine.”

But she was lying again. Seeing that white bear, and hearing what he said about her fur, made her feel even more uncomfortable than before. She hadn’t even thought about how she
stood out against the snow. White bears could probably see her coming for skylengths and skylengths. Or if their noses were like Kallik’s, they could almost certainly
smell
her.

“Let’s keep going,” Ujurak said, stalking up the hill in the direction the mother bear had gone. Lusa could smell the trail of the seal carcass, but she was glad Toklo didn’t suggest going after it. She couldn’t bear the thought of eating now anyway.

Kallik bounded ahead to take the lead with Toklo close behind her. Lusa followed with a sigh. She tried to look on the bright side: They’d chased off a big white bear on their own. And maybe they wouldn’t have to be out here too much longer. Maybe they’d figure out what they had to do, save the wild, and return to the land again.

Best of all, maybe soon night would fall, and then Lusa would be able to go back to sleep.

A cold night wind blew across
the ice, but inside another cave of snow, Kallik was warm and cozy. She watched Lusa’s back slowly rise and fall as the little black bear slept. In their huddled sleeping pile, it was hard to tell which fur was Toklo’s and which was Ujurak’s. Kallik had a sharp burst of memory of Nisa and Taqqiq sleeping curled together in the same way. It was so powerful she could almost smell her mother’s warm breath and feel her brother’s solid bulk pressed against her side.

Her mother’s spirit felt so close to her, out here on the ice. Nisa seemed to be watching her from every ice bubble, from the light drifts of snow dust in the wind, from the bright, sparkling ice spots in the sky.

Kallik shifted her weight. The sun wouldn’t be up for a little while yet, but she couldn’t fall asleep again. She was too happy to be on the ice and surrounded by snow. And she felt responsible for the others—in her dreams, she walked in Nisa’s pawsteps, worrying about Toklo, Ujurak, and most of all Lusa
as if they were her own cubs.

She just hoped that Ujurak was right to have faith in her, and that her instincts were taking them the right way.

Perhaps she could try catching a seal while the others slept. Carefully she eased her paws free and dug at the tunnel she’d filled in. A gust of cold air swept in and Toklo rolled over in his sleep, grumbling. Kallik nosed her way outside and shoved snow back into the hole to keep the others warm.

The night was very quiet, with moonlight casting a peaceful glow over the empty ice. Kallik’s white fur ruffled in a breeze that carried gusts of snow into swirling whirlwinds around her head. She lifted her muzzle and inhaled deeply. Through the sharp, pure smells of ice and snow came the warm, furry scent of seal. She began to pace toward it, wondering if she looked as powerful and graceful as she remembered Nisa looking when she hunted. Snow crunched under her paws, and she let out a satisfied huff. It was good to have clean fur again, after moons of dirt clogging up her pads.

The scent led her across small hills of snow to a wide, flat part of the ice. Kallik spotted the breathing hole from a few bearlengths away, dark against the paler gray of the ice. Cautiously she crept up to it and settled down to wait, resting her nose on her front paws. Vivid memories flooded through her—of her mother waiting patiently, teaching Kallik and Taqqiq the importance of absolute stillness and silence.
Become one with the sea-ice
, she thought, hearing her mother’s voice echo in her mind.
Absorb its stillness and the seals will not sense you.

Without the other three watching her, Kallik felt focused
and sharp, all her senses alert. She felt as though she could wait like this forever, watching the hole and dreaming of her cubhood. Her breathing slowed as she sensed the comforting presence of spirits in the ice and stars all around her. She was so caught up in her memories that she nearly missed the hint of a splash right before a seal popped its sleek brown head out of the hole. It gave her such a startled look that she would have laughed, if she hadn’t been lunging forward to sink her claws into its neck. She could already taste the rich fat sliding down her throat.

But to her surprise, her paws closed on empty air. With another splash, the seal disappeared below the water. She’d missed it! She’d failed again!

Kallik sat back on her haunches and stared at the dark water. She’d been so sure she was going to catch it. And this time she couldn’t blame Toklo for distracting her.

Was it hopeless? Perhaps Nisa dying so soon meant that she would never be a real white bear. Maybe there was too much her mother hadn’t had time to teach her. Miserable, Kallik trudged back to her friends. She wished her mother’s voice would return and tell her what she was doing wrong.

The sun was a pale pink glow on the edge of the sky when she reached the snow cave and started digging into it with her paws. Toklo shot awake as she poked her head inside. He nearly clawed her nose off before he realized it was her and not an invading bear.

“Where have you been?” he snapped.

“Nowhere,” she said. “Just walking around.” She didn’t
want to admit that she’d failed yet again to catch a seal. She could just imagine how Toklo would react to that.

As if he’d read her mind, Toklo said, “I am dying of hunger. Let’s get these lazybones up and go catch a seal.”

Kallik winced guiltily. Toklo poked Ujurak in the side and he rolled onto his paws, blinking as if he’d been dreaming about being another animal and was startled to find himself as a bear.

Lusa was much harder to wake up, but she finally dragged herself out of the den, and they gathered in the sun, shaking snow off their fur.

“A good day for traveling,” Ujurak observed, sniffing the cold morning air.

“A good day for
eating
,” Toklo grumbled. “If we could just
find
something to eat.”

Kallik took a deep breath. “Ujurak, listen,” she said. “I know you want me to lead us, but I don’t know where we’re supposed to go.” Her confidence was badly shaken by her failed hunt. She had to ask him for help now; she couldn’t keep pretending she knew what she was doing. “I mean, what are you looking for?” she went on. “A white bear would normally just wander the ice, eating seals and sleeping until burn-sky returned. I have no idea what you think we’ll find out here, or how I’m supposed to lead you to it.”

She lowered her head, feeling better for having confessed, but mostly feeling terrible for failing her friends so badly.

Ujurak gazed around at the ice, looking thoughtful. “It’s all right,” he said in his faraway voice. “Let me try to read the
signs.” He paced a few steps away from them, studying the sky and the snow.

Toklo snorted. “More signs. I don’t need any stupid signs. I can tell you exactly where to go—to the nearest seal!”

Kallik nearly snapped at him, her anxiety and frustration boiling over, when she suddenly realized that Lusa was asleep in the snow beside them. Worried, Kallik nudged her in the side until the little black bear slowly opened her eyes.

“Lusa, what’s wrong?” she barked. “Something is wrong, isn’t it?”

Toklo came to stand next to Kallik, peering down at Lusa.

“I’m just, um…resting,” Lusa said groggily, trying to sit up. “I’m all right. Nothing to, um…worry about.” She gave up and lay her head back down on the snow with a sigh.

“Lusa, you don’t have to pretend,” Kallik said gently. “Please tell me what’s wrong.”

“I’m sorry,” Lusa said in a small voice. “I’m just—I’m so tired.” She put one paw over her nose. “And my tummy hurts,” she said in an even smaller voice. “I’m sorry, Kallik; I think it’s the bit of seal we ate last night. It feels all wrong in my belly. All I want is berries.”

Kallik put her paw lightly on Lusa’s belly. The black bear’s words were slurred as if she was speaking through a mouthful of water, and her eyelids drooped while she talked. But she was getting as much sleep as the rest of them—more, sometimes—and they weren’t traveling as far on the ice as they used to on the land. It didn’t make sense for her to be so tired.

“It’s all right,” Kallik soothed. “Just rest for a moment, and
we’ll wake you up when we’re ready to go.”

“Thank you,” Lusa said with a sigh, closing her eyes. Within a moment she was in a deep sleep again.

Kallik looked up and met Toklo’s worried gaze. “Do you think she’s sick?” she asked as Ujurak came padding back to join them. Ujurak looked from them to the sleeping bundle of black fur at their paws.

“Maybe,” Toklo said, digging his claws into the snow, “but I don’t see what we can do about it. Unless—Ujurak, is there anything you can do?”

Ujurak shook his head. “There aren’t any herbs out here,” he said. “Even if I knew what was wrong with her, I don’t have anything that might make her better.”

Kallik felt a stab of powerful guilt. Medicine was something Nisa had never taught her about, because she and Taqqiq had never been sick—at least, not that Kallik could remember. “If Lusa needs herbs, maybe we should go back to the land,” she said, forcing out the words. She desperately wanted to stay on the ice, but her friend’s life was much more important. “Maybe it was a mistake to come out here after all.”

“No!” Ujurak said firmly. “This is where we are supposed to be, I
know
it. I don’t know what will happen next, but if we have any chance of saving the wild, we have to be out here.” He stood up, shaking the snow off his fur. “We just have to keep going. The signs tell me we should go that way.” He pointed with his nose and then set off without waiting for them to argue with him.

Kallik exchanged glances with Toklo again. “That was
strange,” she said. “Wasn’t it?”

Toklo shifted his shoulders. “I don’t know.” He prodded Lusa’s side, but she didn’t move.

“I mean,” Kallik hurried on in a low voice, “it’s not like Ujurak to not care about his friends. Right? Isn’t it weird that he’s not more worried about Lusa? Maybe there’s something wrong with him, too. It’s like he doesn’t even feel anything right now.”

“I’m sure he is worried,” Toklo said, wriggling uncomfortably. “But maybe he knows something we don’t. As usual.” He poked Lusa again. “Come on, time to go.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Kallik said, although she wasn’t entirely convinced. “Maybe when we save the wild, it’ll save Lusa, too. And that’s why it’s so important…. That could be it, couldn’t it?”

“Sure,” Toklo said in a tone of voice that clearly said he wanted to end this conversation. Kallik decided to drop it for now. Perhaps he was right, and she was reading too much into Ujurak’s behavior.

Together they managed to rouse Lusa, and the three of them hurried after Ujurak. The mounds of snow around them seemed to become flatter and smaller as they traveled on, until the ice appeared to stretch almost evenly from sky edge to sky edge. Twice Kallik thought she saw pawprints in the snow of other bears, although she wasn’t sure how long ago they’d been left there. Once she scented another bear moving far off in the distance, but it was heading away from them.

She wondered why they hadn’t seen more bears out here.
She knew white bears preferred to keep to themselves, so she guessed that full-grown bears used their long-distance sense of smell to avoid too many encounters with others. But she’d always imagined the Endless Ice as such a paradise that she’d expected to find happy, well-fed bears everywhere. It surprised her to find only a few pawprints here and there.

After walking for most of the morning, they came to a broken-up section where huge chunks of ice floated free in the pale blue-green water. It looked strange to Kallik; she could see that the broken section extended for a skylength in either direction, like a path stomped right through the ice. No bear could have left this shattered trail behind them. So what had made it?

She breathed in and gagged. The scent of the black, foul-smelling stuff was strong in the air, and the broken ice reeked of firebeasts.

“Maybe we should try to go around,” she suggested.

Ujurak shook his head. “I read the signs, and I know this is right. We have to keep going that way,” he said, indicating the ice beyond the broken channel. “We’ll have to cross.”

“Oh, no,” Toklo said. “Not more swimming! Come on, the ice looks exactly the same in that direction as it does over there. Why can’t we go this way instead?” He jerked his head at the empty ice to their right.

“We
must
cross,” Ujurak said again, stubbornly.

Toklo growled low in his throat. “How do I know you’re not just making this up?” he said. “There’s nothing to tell you where we are out here. I don’t think anyone has any idea where we’re going.”

“Do we have to have this fight again?” Ujurak flared. “Either stop arguing and trust me, or go your own way without us!”

Toklo stepped back as if blasted by the force of Ujurak’s anger. “Well, I just might do that sometime,” he muttered.

“It’ll be easy to swim across,” Kallik jumped in, trying to reassure Toklo. “I did this all the time with my mother and Taqqiq. Look how short the distance is between the ice floes. We’ll be over on the other side in no time.”

Lusa looked doubtfully at the water. She edged closer and dipped her front paw in, then pulled it out and shook it. “Oh,
brrrr
!” she squeaked.

“Swim fast, and it’ll warm you up,” Kallik encouraged her.

“All right, fine,” Toklo said, marching down to the water. “At least there’s plenty of room to come up for air here.” He was about to launch himself in, when Kallik spotted something moving under the water. Was it a seal? She searched the water with her eyes. Her heart began to pound. There it was again—sleek, black and white, with fins…

“TOKLO!” she shouted. “Get back! Don’t jump in! Get away from the water
now
!”

“Huh?” he said, stumbling at the edge. “But you said—”

“Orca!” she shrieked. “Get over here!”

Toklo spotted a black fin slicing through the water toward him and scrambled back to where his friends stood. For a heart-stopping moment Kallik saw her mother’s death happening all over again. Terrified, the bears huddled close together, listening to the splashes and strange noises the killer whales were making only bearlengths away.

“We’ll never make it across,” Lusa whispered, trembling with fear.

“Yes, we will,” Ujurak said. “We have to. There must be a way to get there without swimming.” He lifted his head to look at the unbroken ice on the far side.

Kallik raised her head, too, studying the stretch of water where the orcas swam. Most of the floating ice chunks were large and close together. “We might be able to jump from one piece of ice to the next,” she suggested. “Then we wouldn’t have to go in the water at all.”

“I like that plan,” Toklo said. “No more going in the water. Ever again, please.”

They walked along the edge of the ice for a short way until they found a chunk close enough to jump to from where they were. Broken pieces of ice floated in the water all the way across, like a path of smooth white stones.

Kallik went first, although the sight of the black shapes under the water made her paws shake and her fur stand on end. But she had to be brave for the others. She crouched at the very edge of the ice and leaped, closing her eyes. She landed hard on the nearest chunk, which bobbed and tilted underneath her.