Seekers #6: Spirits in the Stars (21 page)

“Tulugaq’s ravens!” Ujurak called out, his eyes shining. “They’ve come to help!”

Hope flooded back into Lusa’s heart as the caribou started to move up the valley, their pace steadier this time, kept in place by the bears flanking them and the ravens flying overhead. She had to stay alert, ready to chivvy any of the hulking beasts who tried to slow down or escape, but now the herd had settled into a steady, drumming rhythm.

This is how it should be,
Lusa thought, exchanging an exultant glance with Ujurak.
Bears, birds, and caribou working together to save the island. All our ancestors are in the stars, after all.

Snow began to fall again as the herd reached the crest of the hill. Lusa paused to survey the mountain range ahead of them. For the first time she saw all the way to the top of the narrow valley where the cave was, and spotted the flat-face structure raking the sky like a leafless tree.

But there are no bear spirits living in that tree.

All around them the wind had risen, and falling snow mingled with flakes whirled up from the ground. The sky grew dark and threatening, and from somewhere in the distance came a rumble of thunder.

A storm is rising,
Lusa thought, feeling new power coursing through her from ears to paws.
The wild has come to destroy the
oil rig.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Kallik

Through a flurry of driving snow
that almost blinded her, Kallik saw Toklo rear up on his hind legs and roar, flailing his forepaws in the air.

“Now! Charge!” he bellowed.

This is it!
Kallik realized.
This is our only chance to save the island.

She plunged forward, fire burning in her blood; she felt as strong as the storm, as fierce as all the bears in the sky.

Panic seized the caribou, and they fled along the valley, heading for the no-claw structure. Now that they were galloping, it was even more of a battle to keep them going in the right direction. The pace picked up as bears and ravens worked together; Kallik snapped at the hooves of a caribou calf that tried to turn back, and it reared away, mingling with the herd again. A huge male broke away next, and Kallik stumbled in the snow as she pursued it. She looked up to see a raven flapping its wings and clawing at the beast’s face until it veered away and rejoined the rest of the caribou.

“Get back!” Toklo’s throaty roar came from the other side of the herd, and though Kallik couldn’t see him, she could picture him driving another of the huge animals in the right direction.

She wondered what had happened to Lusa and Ujurak, but a moment later she heard Lusa’s high-pitched squeal, warning Ujurak to watch out.

They’re all safe—for now.

The no-claw structure loomed closer. Kallik gazed upward and spotted pale-faced no-claws running out of it, yelping in alarm.

Too late,
she thought with satisfaction.
There’s nothing you can do. The herd is unstoppable.

The caribou plowed on up the valley, running blindly in their panic. An old male stumbled and fell, and Kallik, who was hard on its hooves, almost tripped over it. She leaped across its flailing legs and left it bleating on the ground.

No time for prey.

A moment later a calf broke out of the herd, its spindly legs teetering in the fresh snow. Kallik swerved around it and let it go.

The strongest, fittest caribou are the ones we need.

The caribou bore down on the no-claw dens like an arching wave. Kallik heard a splintering sound as the first of them trampled the outer fence. She saw one of the wooden dens topple and crash down, then another and another, covering sticky pools of oil with the wreckage. Too panic-stricken to swerve, the caribou pushed firebeasts over and stamped on them in an ear-splitting screech of hooves and metal.

Kallik felt power pulsing through her: the power of the wild united against the destruction of the no-claws, who ran away, shouting. She galloped in the wake of the herd, spotting her friends again close by as they leaped over splintered wood and wire and wove their way around the broken bodies of firebeasts.

Ujurak swerved up to her, his eyes distraught. “The caribou are heading away from the rig,” he panted. “We have to turn them back!”

Looking up, Kallik saw that the tall sticklike structure in the middle of the denning area was still standing; the herd parted and thundered around it like a foaming river around a rock. They were moving too fast for the bears and ravens to catch them and chase them back in the right direction.

“Maybe we’ve destroyed enough,” Kallik suggested.

Ujurak shook his head. “No, the rig has to go. Or the flat-faces will just come back and rebuild.”

Lusa and Toklo ran up to join them, in time to hear Ujurak’s last words.

“What can we do?” Lusa asked.

“I’ll have to lead the caribou that way myself,” Ujurak said.

Kallik stared at him, not understanding at first. Then she saw his legs start to lengthen and grow spindly, and his shaggy brown bear fur changed into the smoother pelt of a caribou.

“No!” she cried. “It’s too dangerous! You might get crushed.”

Ujurak gazed at Kallik, his eyes filled with immense sadness. “This is the end of my journey,” he told her. “We’re going to save the wild, but I am going to die. I have to do this.”

Kallik stared, stunned with horror as the last of the change came over him: A powerful male caribou, he bounded away on sticklike legs.

“No!” Lusa wailed, gazing after him. “Ujurak! He can’t die!”

“No one’s going to die if there’s anything I can do about it,” Toklo said tersely. “Let’s help him move these caribou.”

Lusa and Toklo raced away to their original places flanking the herd. Kallik thought her paws would never move again after hearing Ujurak prophesy his own death, but she managed to shake off her paralysis and dropped back again to the rear.

Snapping at the caribou’s heels, Kallik was aware of the Ujurak-caribou forcing his way through the herd, bellowing above the noise. His strength and size made him stand out, his head rising above the surging mass. For a moment the herd milled around uncertainly; then it began to turn.

He must be telling them to follow him,
Kallik thought.
Please, Ujurak, don’t die here!

She had to force herself to keep chasing the caribou. She could see the Ujurak-caribou’s head raised above the rest of the herd, and she was terrified that it would vanish and he would be crushed by the stampede.

A mighty screech split the air as the herd hit the rig. The top of the structure swung from side to side, then seemed to hover in midair as the terrible shrieking of metal went on and on.

Kallik let out a scream that rose above the wind, above the bellowing of the caribou, above the death throes of the no-claw structure. “Watch out!”

The caribou scattered like a shoal of frightened fish, plunging past the pursuing bears. Kallik cowered down, terrified of being struck by the flying pointed hooves. As the last of them fled past her, she rose and raced after them, Lusa and Toklo by her side, bundling down the valley behind the herd.

Kallik dared to halt and look back, in time to see the structure tilt over and begin to fall, slowly at first and then faster and faster, until it hit the ground with a crash that seemed to split the whole world.

For a moment all was still. Even the wind seemed to drop as Kallik and her friends gazed at the destruction. Then the no-claws began to stir, shouting and clambering among the wreckage or heading for the few firebeasts that still remained on their round black paws.

The caribou herd was vanishing down the valley. One large male separated from them and circled back toward the bears, changing into Ujurak as he ran. “We did it!” he yelled.

“You’re alive!” Lusa squealed, bounding down to meet him and flanking him closely as he joined the others.

Kallik pressed close to Ujurak, rejoicing in his safe return, while Toklo let out a pleased rumble. Then in the midst of their delight Kallik heard a low chopping noise coming from the top of the valley. She raised her head to listen.

Is it the rig disintegrating? Or thunder?

The noise got louder and louder, until to Kallik’s dismay a silver bird appeared over the horizon behind the destroyed oil rig, its metal wings thrashing the air. Horror turned her muscles to ice.

“Look!” she shrieked. “They’ll catch us in a mesh and take us away! Run!”

As one, the bears took off racing down the valley, slipping and stumbling in the churned-up snow, but the silver bird followed them. Its vicious wings sliced through the sky, screeching against the buffeting wind.

No matter how fast they ran, the bird was faster. It hovered over them, but instead of the silver mesh Kallik expected, something spattered into the snowy ground beside her, sending up a spray of snow.

“Firesticks!” Lusa exclaimed.

Kallik realized the terrible truth. The silver bird didn’t want to take them away. Instead there were no-claws inside it, trying to hurt them. They were leaning out of the bird, and their shouts reached Kallik on the gusts of wind.

They’re angry because we destroyed the oil rig,
she thought with a pang of guilt.
Oil is important to no-claws. But they can’t take the oil from
here
,
she added to herself, pushing the guilt away.
This island is more important than oil.

“Head for the cave!” Toklo bellowed.

The bears ran faster than ever, fleeing for their lives in front of the silver bird. They swerved and ducked to dodge the balls of fire that spat down around their heads; Kallik felt one whistle past her fur. Lusa tumbled over her own paws and rolled several bearlengths down the slope before Toklo hauled her to her paws and pushed her on.

As the mouth of the cave came in sight, Kallik looked around frantically for Kissimi. He was nowhere to be seen, and she hoped he had done as he was told and stayed safely within the cave.

We’re going to make it!
she thought.

But before they could reach the shelter of the cave, the silver bird swooped even lower. Kallik could see one of the no-claws leaning out of it, his firestick aimed straight at Ujurak. She heard the crack of the weapon, but at the same moment Lusa shoved Ujurak out of the way. The fiery ball struck her, and she fell to the ground. A trickle of blood came out of her hind leg, staining the snow scarlet.

Above their heads the silver bird mounted higher and whirled away.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Toklo

Toklo stared dumbfounded as Lusa dropped
to the ground in front of him. For a moment he could scarcely understand what had happened.

“No!” Kallik shrieked, bending over Lusa and desperately nudging her.

Ujurak was staring at the little black bear with horrified eyes. “Not Lusa! Me!” he whispered.

Toklo bent over Lusa, sniffing at her wound. Blood was still oozing from it, but when he looked closer, he could see it was only a graze. Relief washed over him as he realized that she was still breathing.

“She’s alive!” he exclaimed.

Lusa began to stir, raising her head and looking around groggily. “Is Ujurak okay?” she asked.

“He’s fine,” Kallik said soothingly. “Let’s get you into the cave.”

But before they could start to move her, Toklo heard a gigantic rumbling sound; it was much louder than the silver bird, making the ground shudder.

“What’s happening?” he asked, looking up. “That can’t be thunder!”

Kallik was staring up the valley, her eyes wide with fear. “Avalanche!” she gasped.

Following her gaze, Toklo saw the silver bird just vanishing over the top of the hill. The wind whipped up by its blades had loosened the snow on the slopes, sending it sliding slowly, slowly down. Toklo stared in horror as the massive chunks of snow built up speed, like white bears sliding on their bellies.

“Get to the cave!” he roared.

“There’s no time!” Kallik whispered.

Frozen with fear, the four bears watched the wall of snow bearing down on them, churning like a wave, swallowing the valley with a deafening roar. It was faster than a firebeast, faster than the silver bird, and more unstoppable than the herd of caribou.

I can’t believe this is how it ends,
Toklo thought.
After everything I’ve done to keep us all alive, after trekking all this way from our homes, we’re going to die in a wall of snow!

Rage flooded through Toklo. He reared up on his hind legs, ready to battle with the snow with his forepaws splayed out. But his roar of defiance was lost in the growing thunder from the avalanche.

Then he heard a bellow from Ujurak. Glancing around, he saw that the smaller bear had vanished. In his place was a gigantic musk ox with a shaggy pelt and broad, curving horns.

“Ujurak?” he said uncertainly.

The musk ox stumbled forward and shoved at a lump of snow. As the snow fell away, a massive boulder appeared, its dark surface stippled with snow and lichen. Slowly the Ujurak-ox broke it free from where it sat, then thrust at it with his shoulders so that it rolled toward the bears.

What are you doing?
Toklo wondered, baffled.

The avalanche thundered on until it seemed to hover over their heads, filling the air with an icy snow-fog. Toklo knew it would sweep over them at any moment, yet somehow he felt as if there were all the time in the world for the Ujurak-ox to move the boulder.

Scarcely visible in the foggy air, the Ujurak-ox put his mighty shoulder against the rock again and heaved it into position above Lusa, who still lay wounded on the ground, jamming it against another, smaller rock.

Suddenly Toklo understood. “Kallik, here!”

Together they cowered down over Lusa. The Ujurak-ox let out a tremendous bellow as the leading edge of the avalanche hit them and the world was filled with the deluge of snow.

Toklo closed his eyes and crouched low, pressed against Kallik and Lusa. The boulder juddered, but it held still, while snow poured around and over them in a hideous, thunderous, jagged noise. Toklo thought that it would go on forever.

This is the end of the world.

At last the crashing and thunder and the cascade of snow died away. Everything was still and silent. Toklo opened his eyes and felt snow all around him; hot panic rushed through his fur. He could see faint light filtering through above his head, and he thrashed wildly until his head broke through the surface. Thanks to the boulder, the snow around him wasn’t too deep; he was able to spring out into the open.

Kallik’s head popped up close by, and while she was heaving herself out, Toklo raked the snow vigorously until he found Lusa and could drag her clear. He was thankful to see that her wound still wasn’t bleeding badly, and she was able to sit up.

Drawing long, panting breaths, Toklo stared down into the valley. The landscape was hardly recognizable. The avalanche had filled up the valley with debris and chunks of ice and earth that had been ripped up from beneath the snow.

Behind him Lusa let out a squeal. “Ujurak!”

Fear clawed at Toklo as he and Kallik sprang up and started to search, floundering around in the fresh snow. Then Toklo spotted a lump of shaggy fur poking out of a heap just beyond the boulder.

Bounding over to it, he began scraping off the snow, gently at first and then more vigorously as the body of the musk ox was revealed.

“Wake up, Ujurak!” he begged. “It’s all over. You saved our lives!”

The ox’s eyes were closed, and Toklo couldn’t detect the slightest movement of its chest to show that it was breathing. “Ujurak!” Then the shape of the musk ox seemed to blur in front of his eyes. It shifted and became the shape of a small brown bear, lying limply in the snow. His eyes were still closed, and he didn’t move.

Kallik and Lusa joined Toklo and stared down at their friend.

“He’s dead!” Kallik whispered.

“No!” Lusa squealed. “He can’t be!” She bent over Ujurak’s body, sniffing him and nudging him frantically. “Ujurak, wake up!”

Kallik stood still for a moment, deep shudders running through her body. Then she reached out a paw to draw Lusa back. “It’s no use. He’s gone.”

Toklo stood silently over the body of his friend, too stunned to speak or move. Even though Ujurak had warned them of his coming death, Toklo had never believed that it would really happen. Now belief was being forced on him. His whole world had shrunk to this moment of cold understanding.

I failed. I should have protected Ujurak, and I failed.

“He knew he was going to die,” Lusa protested, her dark eyes full of grief. “Why didn’t he do something to keep himself safe?”

Kallik nuzzled Lusa’s shoulder, almost as if she were comforting a cub. “He gave his life to save us. He knew what he was doing. Now his journey is truly over.”

“But he was my friend!” Lusa wailed, raising her muzzle to the sky.

“He was a friend to all of us,” Kallik said. “We will—” Her voice started to shake, and she had to pause, swallowing, before starting again. “We will never forget him, and as long as we have his memory in our hearts, we will never be without him.”

“He was the best friend a bear could have,” Toklo murmured.

But even as he spoke the words, as he watched Kallik still trying to comfort Lusa, Toklo felt that his heart was breaking.

I can’t believe this is where it ends.

He had always known that one day he would say good-bye to his friends, that once their journey was over, he would live alone in the forest as a brown bear. But he had imagined that the time would come when they were all safe.

No,
Toklo thought, looking down at Ujurak’s small broken body, so helpless amid the snow.

He let out a bellow of rage and pain. As it echoed around the peaks, the snow shifted ominously, as if another avalanche was about to begin. Toklo couldn’t make himself care.
Did he know from the beginning?
he wondered.
What was the point of all that fighting, all that hunting, learning to survive on the ice, if this was going to happen? We came all this way, and Ujurak died.

A trickle of snow fell onto Ujurak’s limp body, dusting his brown fur with white. Thankful to have something to do, Toklo turned and began kicking more snow over his friend’s body with powerful scoops of his hindpaws.

“I’m sorry, Ujurak,” he whispered. “I can’t cover you with stones and earth and sticks, as I would if we were in a forest. This snow will have to do.”

He dug into the snow more and more viciously, casting huge swaths of it over Ujurak’s body. “We should never have come here,” he muttered. “I should have refused to follow Ujurak on his bee-brained journey. We should have stayed in the trees, where we belonged.” Pain surged through him, so sharp that he could scarcely get his breath. “If I’d been brave enough, we could have marked out a territory for ourselves, with plenty of food. . . .”

A voice murmured behind him. “Oh, Toklo, you
were
brave enough!”

Toklo felt as though his pounding heart had slammed into his throat. He spun around. “Ujurak?”

A brown bear was padding toward him through the snow, coming from the direction of the cave. Everything else—the mound of snow covering Ujurak’s body, the figures of Lusa and Kallik huddled together a couple of bearlengths away—had grown blurry and indistinct.

Toklo focused his gaze on the approaching bear. Incredulously he recognized her powerful shoulders and claws, and the scars on her muzzle.

“Mother!” he exclaimed.

Oka halted on the other side of Ujurak’s body and gazed at Toklo, with all the love in her eyes he had longed to see when he was a cub. “I am so very proud of you,” she said. “You are the reason that Ujurak made it this far. He fulfilled his destiny because of
you
.”

Toklo couldn’t accept his mother’s comfort. “His destiny wasn’t to be squashed under the snow,” he growled.

“His destiny was to save this island,” Oka told him. “And he has achieved that, thanks to you. All those times you fought to save him, caught food for him, kept him out of danger?
You
brought him here, just as you were always destined to.”

Rage surged up inside Toklo. “But it wasn’t enough! If I could bring him here, why couldn’t I take him home again?”

Blinking sadly, Oka looked down at the mound of snow that concealed Ujurak’s body. “We can’t save everyone,” she whispered. “Not all of the time.”

She’s remembering what happened to Tobi,
Toklo thought, regret sweeping over him that nothing he or his mother could do had kept his little brother alive.

“I tried so hard.” His voice was hoarse with grief. “I wanted Tobi to live.”

“I know you did,” Oka replied, raising her head to meet his gaze once more. “And I let you down when I left you to fend for yourself. You will never know how sorry I am for that.”

“Now I think I do,” Toklo replied. He understood his mother’s rage and her sense of failure after Tobi died, because his own heart was shattered. “I just feel so . . . empty.”

Oka’s eyes shone with the fire of stars. “You are not empty!” she insisted. “You have the spirit of the wild inside you. Ujurak taught you so much: Now you owe it to him to take that spirit back to the forests where you were born, to be a truly wild brown bear, with your own territory and your own cubs.”

“I don’t think I want to,” Toklo replied. “Without Ujurak it just doesn’t seem worth it.”

The fire in Oka’s eyes died away, leaving a gentle warmth. “Once you thought you’d lost me and Tobi forever, didn’t you? And yet you carry us with you always, you still speak to us, and we are always here when you need us. It will be the same with Ujurak.”

Wishing that what his mother said might be true, Toklo didn’t know how to respond. While he was still searching for words, a smaller bear, unseen until now, slipped out from behind Oka. At first Toklo didn’t know who he was. Then his jaws gaped in astonishment as he recognized Tobi: not the scrawny, sickly cub he had been, but strong and healthy, his eyes glimmering with amusement at his brother’s surprise.

“I’m very proud of you, too, Toklo,” Tobi said. “Ujurak was very lucky to have you as his big brother on his journey.”

“Remember your BirthDen,” Oka went on. “The trees, the waterfall, the open meadows rich with flowers and prey, where you and Tobi played together. All that is waiting for you.” She paused, and when she continued, her voice had grown deeper and more serious. “You have done what you needed to do for Ujurak. Now go and find your home.”

She stretched out her neck to Toklo, and he leaned toward her. Above the snowy mound that concealed Ujurak’s body, their muzzles touched.

“I will,” Toklo said. “I promise.”