The Last Wilderness (2 page)

This is the wilderness Qopuk promised us. Enough to feed us all, space for every bear, no sign of flat-faces or firebeasts or BlackPaths . . .

Ujurak felt a sharp pain in his belly. The journey through Smoke Mountain had been a hard one, with little prey, and the sight of the geese awakened his hunger. He swallowed as his mouth filled with saliva. The grass blurred beneath his front paws as he pushed himself faster, thinking of nothing but a meal of tasty, plump goose . . . Then Ujurak felt his legs tingling and saw his forelegs begin to lengthen and grow thinner; his pelt prickled as his brown fur transformed into a rough grey pelt.

Wolf!

His snout grew longer and he could feel his vision narrowing, the edges darkening as he focused on a single flock of geese on the plain.
One flock
. The sounds around him faded to insignificance and all he could hear was the geese directly in front of him honking and yakking, their noise growing louder and louder.

His stride lengthened. He felt swift; as he raced past Toklo he thought he heard the brown bear growl. But the sound seemed to come from far away. It meant nothing to Ujurak. The hot reek of the geese engulfed his senses. His tongue lolled as he pinpointed his prey: a fat white bird feeding at the edge of the flock.
One goose
. He could almost feel his teeth sinking through its feathers, crunching its bones. He smelled its blood and heard its heartbeat.

Kill . . . one bite into warm prey . . . then feed.

The plain whirled past him in a blur, his paws hardly seeming to touch the marshy ground. He reached the edge of the flock; the birds flew up in a storm of flapping wings and terrified squawking. Snarling, Ujurak leaped on his chosen prey. His fangs closed on its neck. He shook the goose. It battered him with its wings, then went limp.

Ujurak proudly lifted his head with his prey dangling from his mouth.
Feed now . . . taste blood . . .
But something was gnawing at his mind. He couldn’t eat yet. Reluctantly he turned and began trotting back the way he had come.

Ujurak felt his rangy wolf body begin to swell and thicken; brown fur replaced the shaggy grey pelt,
and his footsteps grew heavier. His heartbeat slowed as the wolf’s hunger for blood died away.

Gradually he began to notice the plain around him again. The flock of geese were settling a little way off, their raucous cries fading. Ujurak could hear the rattle of wind in the reeds and the splashing paws of an Arctic fox as it darted from one clump of bushes to another. He blinked in confusion as he saw three other bears approaching him, just coming off the foothills on to the plain. Black, brown, white . . . he felt that they ought to be familiar.
Why can’t I remember who they are?

‘Ujurak!’ The small black bear bounded forward to meet him. ‘That was a great catch!’

‘Uh . . . thanks . . . Lusa.’ Ujurak’s confusion vanished as he stood in front of her and dropped the prey at Lusa’s paws. Of course he knew who she was, and the other two bears padding up to him were his friends Toklo and Kallik. The long legs he had as a wolf had rapidly outdistanced them. ‘Come and share,’ he invited them.

Toklo growled his thanks as he tore off a part of the goose and retired a couple of paces to flop down and eat the newkill. Ujurak waited for the she-bears
to take their share before he settled down to eat too. The goose was a fat one, and there was enough to share among all of them. It tasted delicious, warm in Ujurak’s belly.

‘Thish ish –
mmmm
– won-erful!’ Kallik said, chewing enthusiastically. She raised her head and sniffed at the air. ‘Can you smell the ice? Soon the sea will freeze closer to shore, and I’ll be able to get back to the white bears’ feeding grounds.’

‘But . . . there’s no . . . shelter . . . on the ice,’ Lusa objected, her mouth full of juicy meat. ‘The wind will blow you into the sea.’

‘No, we dig dens in the snow,’ Kallik explained. ‘Then we curl up together, and it’s so cosy!’ Ujurak saw a shadow of sadness creep into her eyes, and he wondered if she was remembering her old life with her brother and mother. Kallik blinked, and the shadow vanished. ‘And we hunt for seals through holes in the ice. You’ve never tasted anything as delicious as seal!’

‘I’ll settle for the brown earth under my paws, and the prey I can catch on it.’ Toklo jerked his head toward a distant ridge that was thickly covered with trees. Ujurak could see birds wheeling over it and
sensed the throbbing life of small animals under the branches. ‘That’s the best sort of place for brown bears – right, Ujurak?’

‘Right,’ Ujurak replied.

‘Look at all those trees,’ Lusa said, pawing a feather from her muzzle. Her dark eyes sparkled with anticipation as she looked across at the tree-clad ridge. ‘I love sleeping in the branches, with the sound of the wind and the bear spirits close by.’

Toklo tore off another mouthful of goose flesh. ‘What –
mmm
– I like about . . . this . . . place,’ he said, gulping it down and swiping his tongue around his jaws, ‘is no flat-faces. No BlackPaths. No firebeasts. No flat-face dens.’

‘Just open land and sea, wherever you look,’ Kallik said.

‘And all the prey we can eat,’ Toklo added.

Lusa sprang to her paws. ‘What should we do next?’ she asked. ‘I want to find a tree to spend the night.’

‘Let’s rest for a bit.’ Toklo batted a paw at the eager little bear. ‘There’s plenty of time.’

Ujurak finished eating his share. He was enjoying listening to his friends as they chattered excitedly about their new home. He had brought them here, to
a place where they could be safe and well fed and away from flat-faces for the rest of their lives. He was licking his paws, feeling his belly full of warm meat, when a soft voice sounded inside his head. He stiffened as it whispered:
Not the end
.

Ujurak lifted his head, his pelt prickling as if it were crawling with ants. He quietly rose to his paws and stepped away from his friends, pretending to drink from a pool of water. He flattened his ears and listened in case the voice came again.

He had heard this voice before.

Many moons ago it had spoken to him one cold night under a blaze of stars.
Follow the Pathway Star
, it had said, and when he had looked up he had seen one star twinkling more brightly than the rest. He had chosen to ignore the voice at first. But it had whispered to him in the quiet moments as he curled up to sleep and before he rose in the morning.
You will not travel alone
, it had told him.

‘What do you mean? There’s nobody here.’ Ujurak had looked around, seeing nothing but the forest stretching into shadow, as if he were the only bear in the world.
They will find you
, the voice promised. Then he met the brown bear Toklo, and his question was
answered. He’d started to listen to the voice after that. If ever he had doubted the journey they were making, the voice inside his head urged him on, soft and insistent. Over time, he’d thought he’d figured out who it was, reaching to the edge of his memory, the very first things he could remember.

Ujurak lapped the ice-cold water from the pool. Above, a single star glimmered faintly in the dusky grey-blue sky.
Not the end
, the voice whispered again.

I don’t understand!
Ujurak protested silently, gazing up at the Pathway Star.

Then, over the mountains, he saw a tiny black dot moving in the sky – no, there were three black dots. They moved closer, following the line of the ridge, and he could hear a distant buzzing. The dots grew bigger and he saw the flash of evening sunlight on hard silver.
Metal birds
, he thought with alarm. He glanced back at his companions. They hadn’t noticed the dots in the sky. They were too busy arguing about which was better to live in, trees or caves.

Ujurak watched the metal birds fly away into the distance. The clatter of their wings faded, echoing on the still air. Ujurak’s fur prickled. Metal birds were flat-face things – firebeasts of the air. So what
were they doing here? Like Toklo had said about this place:
No firebeasts. No flat-faces
.

Ujurak looked at his friends again. Lusa cuffed Toklo, pretending to be angry with him when he said that trees were too full of twigs to be comfortable. They looked so happy. Ujurak felt his heart pounding in his chest.

But I have brought them here – to this place
, he told the voice inside his head.
There is nowhere left to go
.

Not the end
, said the voice.

Then what am I supposed to do?
Ujurak begged.

He listened for an answer. But all Ujurak could hear was the sound of the wind in the long grasses and the call of a gull.

L
usa stood at the top of a grassy hill, gazing across the plain. A cold wind flattened her fur against her face and made her eyes water. It brought with it the scent of ice and fish. In the distance she could just make out the white edge of the ocean. Shivering, she thought of the ice that Kallik longed for so much. That wasn’t where she belonged – her home was here, among the trees and the long, sheltering grass.

‘We’ve made it!’ she murmured.

Her quest was at an end! She had come through all the dangers and hardships of the journey, and now she was safe here with her friends, a truly wild black bear at last.

The sun was rising, throwing Lusa’s shadow out
beside her. The night before, after feasting on the goose that Ujurak had caught, they had made their dens at the edge of a patch of stunted thornbushes. Lusa felt rested and energetic after spending the night among the gently tossing branches, knowing her friends were sleeping below.

‘Hey! Fluff-brain!’ Toklo bounded up beside her, butting her gently in the shoulder with his snout. ‘Are you dreaming, or what? I’ve called you three times!’

‘Sorry,’ Lusa replied, playfully pushing Toklo in return. He was so much bigger than her, it was like trying to shift Smoke Mountain.

‘I’ve caught a couple of hares for us,’ Toklo went on. ‘But if you don’t want your share, we can eat it for you.’

‘Don’t you dare!’ Lusa yelped.

Toklo loped off toward the bottom of the rise where Kallik and Ujurak were waiting beside his newkill. Lusa followed, puffing as she tried to keep up. They had grown fast over the last moon, and Lusa was more than a head smaller than the others now – with Kallik the biggest of all of them.

When they had finished eating, Lusa cleaned her
face with her paws and sat up straight, feeling the wind tug at her ears. ‘What should we do now?’ she wondered out loud.

Toklo shrugged. ‘We’ve arrived, haven’t we? We can do whatever we want.’

‘Then we should explore!’ Lusa decided. If this was her new home, she wanted to know every pawstep, every scent, every bush where berries grew.

Toklo and Kallik stood up at once, ready to set out, but Ujurak didn’t seem as eager. Still, he didn’t object as they trotted through the long, whispering grass, keeping to the line of the foothills. Geese fluttered up from patches of shallow water as the bears went past, only to settle again almost at once. Lusa’s belly was comfortably full; there was no need to hunt now. When they were hungry again, there would be plenty of prey to be caught, and hopefully some tasty leaves and berries for her. She didn’t like eating meat all the time, and her mouth watered as she thought of picking fruit from the trees on the mountains.

It seemed strange to think about having a choice of what to eat.
I’d almost forgotten what it was like not to have to worry where the next meal’s coming from
.

There were plenty of places to make dens too. Trees
for her, holes between rocks or under tree roots for Ujurak and Toklo, and soon there would be the ice for Kallik. Lusa let out a long sigh, letting go of the tension from the many moons of fear and anxiety.

‘Race you to that rock!’ Toklo exclaimed suddenly, pointing with his snout towards a rounded grey boulder half-buried in the ground. He propelled himself forward, powerful muscles pumping under his thick brown fur; Kallik raced after him, hard on his paws, but Ujurak hesitated, his head tilted back as he studied the clouds.

‘Hey, Ujurak!’ Lusa called. ‘Are you going to let those bigger bears beat you?’

Ujurak jumped, as if his thoughts had been far away, then turned and pelted after his friends.

Lusa scampered behind them, knowing she didn’t have any hope of winning but enjoying the sensation of strength in her muscles and the certainty that they wouldn’t have to travel any more. She was a wild bear now, and this was her home. If only Ashia and Yogi could have come with her.

Toklo reached the rock a snout-length before Kallik. ‘I’ve won!’ he yelled. ‘I’m the fastest!’

‘You had a head start!’ Kallik leaped on the young
grizzly and pushed him over; brown and white pelts wrestled, grunting and slapping each other with their paws.

Meanwhile Ujurak scrambled up on to the boulder and gazed around, towards the distant sea and over the rolling hills they had just left. Lusa thought he looked anxious, as if he was searching for something and couldn’t find it.