The Last Wilderness (21 page)

K
allik and Lusa spent the night in the cave beside the rabbit holes and woke again in the first pale light of dawn. Kallik crawled out of the den, shaking sandy soil from her pelt, and watched Lusa, who stood a couple of bearlengths away, sniffing the air.

‘Which way?’ she asked.

Lusa hesitated for a moment. ‘I’m not sure,’ she confessed. ‘We’ve come such a long way; I can’t remember what direction the metal bird was flying.’

Kallik took a deep breath and smelled the familiar tang of the sea. Her paws itched with longing. ‘I think we should head for the shore,’ she murmured. ‘I might be wrong, but something seems to be telling me that’s the way to go.’

Lusa’s eyes shone. ‘Maybe the Bear Watcher is sending you a sign.’

Or maybe it’s just the ice calling me
. But there was nothing to point them in a different direction, so they headed for the crest of the ridge. The sun rose as they trudged upward, warming their pelts. Kallik felt her muscles loosen and a tide of hope began to rise inside her; perhaps this would be the day when they were reunited with Ujurak.

The last bearlengths that brought them to the top of the ridge were a hard scramble over loose rock that shifted under their paws. Lusa was the first to reach the crest; she stood staring out at the land beyond, as still as a bear carved out of stone.

‘What is it?’ Kallik called, her paws slipping on pebbles a little way below.

‘You won’t believe this!’ the little black bear replied. ‘I don’t believe it, and I’m looking at it!’

With a bit more effort Kallik thrust herself up the slope until she could stand, panting, beside her friend. Her claws scraped hard against the rock and her heart began to pound as she gazed out across the plain.

Where they had first come down from the mountains, so many days ago, the plain had been full
of life. But in this place it was barren, crisscrossed by BlackPaths and dotted here and there with flat-face dens. The structures were odd shapes, some square, some long and flat, others round, some with odd bits of metal sticking out of them. They seemed to have been set down on the plain in a jumble, or in some weird flat-face order that didn’t make sense to Kallik. Beyond them she could see the pale gleam of a river, with a BlackPath stretching across it, and beyond that the misty outline of what might be a flat-face denning area.

Kallik’s hope died as she gazed at the distant gleam of the ocean; she felt cut off from it by all the flat-face muddle in between. ‘If Ujurak’s here, we’ll never find him,’ she said despairingly.

‘We have to try.’ Lusa’s voice was stubborn. ‘We –’

She broke off at the sound of a familiar clatter and buzz; Kallik spotted a metal bird like the one that had taken Ujurak flying along the line of the coast and swooping down somewhere on the far side of the denning place.

‘Look!’ she yelped as it sank out of sight. ‘That must be where the metal birds have their nest.’

‘Then that’s where we have to start looking!’ Lusa gave a little bounce. ‘Come on!’

‘It’s a long way,’ Kallik said doubtfully. ‘We’ll have to cross the river to get there.’

‘We’ll worry about that when we get there,’ Lusa replied.

She led the way down the slope towards the flat-face place. Kallik couldn’t share her eagerness, but she followed anyway.

Sunhigh was past by the time they reached the bottom of the ridge. Open ground separated them from the nearest BlackPath, a stretch of sparse, brittle grass dotted with clumps of thornbushes.

Kallik halted and raised her snout, sniffing the air. There was a strong reek that reminded her of firebeasts, though it wasn’t quite the same. ‘What’s that smell?’

Lusa shook her head. ‘I don’t know, but it’s disgusting, whatever it is.’

She padded forward a few paces and gazed across the barren landscape towards the BlackPath and the strange flat-face structures beyond. ‘We’ve got to have a plan,’ she muttered.

Now that they were down on the plain, the flat-face dens looked even bigger.

‘I don’t see how we
can
plan,’ Kallik said. ‘We don’t know what we’re going to find. All we can do is look for the metal birds’ nest and see if there are any clues there.’

‘Well, that’s sort of a plan,’ Lusa said. ‘Come on.’

They padded across the stretch of open ground, swerving to avoid the thorn thickets. It was bad enough walking through greasy black mud without having their pelts filled with prickles. The plain was sliced through with BlackPaths, many of them with shiny tubes running alongside, and everywhere the tall flat-face dens loomed. Kallik shivered as she and Lusa trudged past, imagining hostile eyes peering down at them. But nothing moved, and Kallik wondered if they were empty.

‘This is the biggest flat-face place I’ve ever seen,’ Lusa whispered, gazing around with a mixture of wonder and dread. ‘But where are the flat-faces? We’ve hardly seen any.’

‘Maybe this isn’t where they live,’ Kallik suggested. ‘Their dens could be a long way off, near where we saw the metal bird.’

‘I think you’re right,’ Lusa agreed. ‘There aren’t any gardens, or firebeasts sleeping outside. And none
of those big shiny things you get food out of,’ she added regretfully.

Kallik sniffed the air. ‘No smell of food at all. Just that horrible reek.’

Before they had covered many bearlengths, another metal bird rose from the far side of the denning area. At first Kallik was glad to see it because it helped to show them exactly where the nest was.

But instead of flying away up the coast, the metal bird flew inland towards the ridge. It stayed low, its claws almost brushing the roof of one of the flat-face dens. Kallik watched it approach with terror rising inside her.

‘It’s coming for us!’ she yelped. ‘They’ve seen us and they want to catch us!’

She crouched down, huddled against Lusa’s side. The clatter of the metal bird filled the sky; the wind of its approach flattened the grass and whipped at the branches of the thorns.

‘I’m sorry, Kallik,’ Lusa whispered. ‘I made you come here. It’s all my fault.’

Kallik was too frightened to reply; she just pressed herself closer to her friend’s warm pelt and squeezed her eyes shut tight.

Then above the growling of the metal bird she heard a bear roaring – bellowing their names through the stench-filled air. ‘Lusa! Kallik! Watch out!’

Kallik opened her eyes and lifted her head from the brittle grass to see a brown bear hurtling towards them, his jaws stretched wide. It was Toklo.

‘Move! Bee-brains! Hide!’

He slammed into Kallik’s side, thrusting her and Lusa towards a clump of thornbushes. Kallik crawled underneath, with Lusa beside her; Toklo crouched on the edge of the thicket, his snout raised as he snarled defiantly at the metal bird.

‘Go away! You can’t have them!’

Kallik waited, breathless with horror as she listened to the clattering of the metal bird. At last the noise faded, and when Kallik dared to poke her head out, she saw it lifting higher into the sky and disappearing across the ridge.

‘It’s all right,’ Toklo said gruffly. ‘It’s gone. You can come out.’

Kallik crawled into the open and stood up. She couldn’t take her eyes off Toklo, still finding it hard to believe that he was here. He looked bedraggled, and he smelled foul, with the same
bitter stench as the land around them.

‘Thank you, Toklo!’ she puffed, as her breathing steadied and she felt her racing heart grow calmer.

‘You saved us from the bird!’ Lusa had crawled out of the thicket behind Kallik and raised a paw to rub at the scratch on her nose. ‘You were so brave!’

Toklo hunched his shoulders, looking embarrassed, and let out a grunt.

‘You really stink, though,’ Lusa added, giving him a sniff and jumping back with a shocked look.

‘You’re not so sweet-scented yourself,’ Toklo retorted. ‘Anyway, it wasn’t my fault. I had an accident. Look.’ He turned sideways and showed Kallik and Lusa traces of something black and sticky on his pelt.

‘It’s like the mud we’ve been walking through,’ Kallik observed. She leaned forward to smell it. ‘Yuck!’

‘Look, can we not talk about my scent?’ Toklo growled, beginning to bristle. ‘I didn’t rescue you just to be told that I stink.’

‘Sorry,’ Lusa said, though amusement was dancing in her eyes. ‘We really are grateful, Toklo.’

The grizzly cub snorted and shook his pelt. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

‘We’re trying to find Ujurak,’ Lusa replied. ‘What about you?’

Toklo grunted, flicking away Lusa’s question like a fly that had landed on his ear. ‘Oh, I’ve been hunting, looking around . . . trying to find the best territory.’

‘Did you mark trees?’ Lusa asked eagerly. ‘And make yourself a den? I bet you were the fiercest bear in the forest!’

Toklo shook his pelt. ‘We don’t have to go into all that. Everything’s fine. Just tell me what that little fluffball’s done now.’

They settled down in the feeble shelter of the thorns while Lusa told Toklo about the flat-faces who had come to the denning place where the healer lived, and how they had taken Ujurak away with them.

‘I’m sure they brought him here,’ she finished. ‘This is where the metal birds come to nest. Will you help us find him, Toklo?’

‘Please,’ Kallik added. ‘It can’t be just chance that you turned up in time to rescue us. The spirits have brought us back together again.’

Toklo huffed. ‘Spirits!’ he muttered. ‘Who do you think you are – Ujurak?’

Even so, Kallik could tell that he was pleased to see
them again. She wondered if he had been looking for them all this time.
Did he miss us, just like we were missing him?

‘I suppose I’d better help,’ Toklo went on with a sigh. ‘You’ll only get into more trouble if I let you go by yourselves.’

‘Thank you!’ Lusa butted Toklo affectionately in the shoulder. ‘We’ll have a much better chance of finding Ujurak if you’re with us.’

‘OK.’ Toklo rose to his paws with an air of determination. ‘The metal birds obviously nest over there.’ He pointed his snout towards the opposite side of the flat-face place. ‘So that’s where we have to start looking.’

A
s Lusa and her friends walked towards the river, the air grew heavier with the bitter smell. It caught in Lusa’s throat, making her cough.

‘I’m surprised the flat-faces can put up with this stink,’ she said when she had got her breath.

Kallik shrugged. ‘They make it like this, so maybe this is how they want it,’ she suggested.

‘Flat-faces are weird,’ Toklo growled.

They came to a BlackPath slicing across the landscape with a shiny tube running alongside it, raised up on metal supports. Lusa padded up to the tube and sniffed it.

‘Ugh!’ she exclaimed, jumping back. ‘It reeks of something like firebeasts.’

‘You have to be careful of those,’ Toklo advised,
coming to stand beside her. ‘They leak out this horrible black stuff, and that’s what’s making the smell. I fell into a puddle of it, and that’s when I got it all over my pelt.’

‘That’s awful.’ Lusa looked along the tube in both directions, relieved that she couldn’t spot any leaks or black puddles. ‘We’ve got to cross this BlackPath,’ she added. ‘Toklo, is it safe to climb over the tube?’

‘It should be OK,’ the brown bear replied. ‘Just as long as there aren’t any firebeasts.’

Lusa raised her snout and sniffed, then realised there was no point in trying to scent approaching firebeasts when the whole area smelled of them. She could hear growling in the distance, as if firebeasts were coming and going closer to the flat-face denning place, but here everything seemed quiet.

‘Let’s go,’ she said.

Toklo was first to scramble up on to the tube; he balanced on top of it for a moment, then leaped down the other side and bounded across the BlackPath. At the other side he turned back towards the others. ‘Come on!’ he called.

Kallik followed, hauling herself over the tube and flopping down awkwardly on to the surface of
the BlackPath before padding over to join Toklo.

When Lusa tried to follow, her claws slipped on the shiny surface of the tube; she hadn’t realised that being so much smaller than the others would make it a lot harder for her to clamber up.
I’m a black bear!
she told herself furiously.
Black bears are the best climbers
.

Scrabbling at the side of the tube, she wished she had got one of the others to give her a boost before they crossed, but she didn’t want to call them back.

Better do it this way
, she thought, pressing herself to the ground and crawling through the narrow space underneath. She felt her back scrape against the underside of the tube; there was a horrible moment when she thought she was stuck and would need to call one of the others for help.

Lusa dug her claws into the ground, dragging herself forward, bunching her muscles for a leap that would take her away from the tube and propel her across the BlackPath. Then she heard Toklo yell, ‘Wait!’

At the same moment the distant roaring of the firebeasts suddenly got louder. Lusa froze. A huge firebeast swept past her less than a bearlength from her nose, covering her with grit and mud that stung
her eyes and spattered over her pelt.