by Erin Hunter
He set one paw on the bird’s head and reached to claw off a chunk of flesh. But his paw sank into something sticky, and he pulled it away again quickly, only to discover that it was covered in the horrible black liquid that Ujurak had called “oil.”
“Ew!” Lusa said. She sniffed his paw, then gingerly lifted the bird’s wing with one claw. Its feathers were drenched in oil, covering it from beak to talons. It slithered a pawlength on the ice as Lusa poked it.
“We definitely can’t eat that,” Toklo said. He scraped at the top of the ice and tried to wash the sticky oil off his paw.
“How did it get that way?” Lusa asked in a hushed voice.
“I have no idea.” Toklo was about to suggest swimming again when he heard a roar building from the distance, vibrating through the air. It sounded like something approaching. He whirled around and saw a giant floating firebeast snarling toward them through a channel it was making in the ice. It didn’t even seem to notice the blocks of ice in its way; it smashed right through them as if they were ants.
Toklo and Lusa watched, puzzled, as the firebeast churned right past their chunk of ice. The huge wave that swelled up in its wake made the chunk tilt and dip and jump until they were thrown off into the water. More broken pieces of ice bobbed around them, whacking into their sides and spinning them as they were trying to swim. Toklo flailed his paws, frantically scanning the haze. He couldn’t let himself be turned around too much. How far away was the land?
A dark shadow loomed through the reddish haze. It seemed surprisingly tall for something on a beach, but Toklo wasn’t about to argue. He nudged Lusa toward it and they paddled as fast as they could, trying to dodge the bear-sized pieces of ice that drifted past. When he felt his paws getting tired, Toklo grabbed the nearest block of ice and called for Lusa to do the same. It was too small for them to climb onto, but it gave them a chance to breathe and rest their paws as they drifted across the river.
The dark shadow loomed closer and closer, and the haze became thinner. Toklo felt his paws bump into a thick shelf of ice. He’d been so busy watching the shadow, he hadn’t realized they’d made it across the channel of water. Quickly he scrambled out into the biting wind and reached down to help Lusa up behind him.
Soaking wet, they huddled together, shivering and staring as the shadow became clearer.
“It’s not land,” Lusa said mournfully.
Toklo’s heart sank. Instead of the trees and grass and mountains he’d hoped to see, they were looking at another terrifying flat-face construction. It rose up out of the water, twice as high as most flat-face dens, with dark metal legs. The rumbling and grinding came from its belly, and it was swarming with flat-faces.
It looked like the towers Toklo had seen on the islands as they swam across the Great River, or the ones around the denning place where they’d rescued Ujurak, by the nest of metal birds.
They weren’t anywhere near the land. Toklo felt his hopes vanish. He’d wanted to lead Lusa to safety—but he’d only brought her to yet another terrible danger.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Lusa
Lusa’s paws felt as if they were frozen to the ice. She’d never been so thoroughly wet and miserable before. She missed Kallik and Ujurak, and she was hungry again after swimming so far, and most of all, she wanted to sleep.
She heard Toklo take a deep breath beside her. “The land must be on the other side,” he said. “So we’ll go around it. Maybe we’ll be able to see the shore from there.”
It was strange to have Toklo being the one who stayed positive and encouraged her to keep going, but Lusa was glad that he was trying so hard to do that for her. She didn’t have the energy to do it herself. The spark of hope that usually flared deep in her chest seemed to have faded to a dim ember, when she could find it at all. Even the memory of Arcturus the star-bear talking to her couldn’t revive her spirits; thinking about his confusing message only muddled her thoughts even more.
They crept closer to the dark tower across grayish snow that smelled of smoke. The reddish haze was thinner here, but mingled with a gritty taste in the air. Lusa’s eyes stung and watered, making it hard to see the flat-faces clambering around the legs of the tower. Many of them were on floating firebeasts, peering into the water. Some of the firebeasts were small and roared grumpily as the flat-faces steered them quickly between the pieces of broken ice.
Lusa realized that the water around the dark tower was black and slimy. More black stuff was spurting out of a hole in the tower, although flat-faces in bright yellow pelts were gathered around it trying to plug it up. She saw a bird like the one they’d found dead, only this one was still alive. It was trapped in the black water, flapping its wings in a sickly way as it tried to launch itself into the sky.
“That stuff could kill all the birds around here, just like the one we found,” she whispered to Toklo. “Look how far across the water it stretches. It’s like it could cover the whole world.”
Toklo glanced at the gray sky, which was getting darker by the moment. They couldn’t see the sun clearly through the foggy haze, but Lusa guessed that it was setting, and that soon it would be night. She knew Toklo didn’t want to sleep near the dark tower any more than she did. But if they tried to press on in the dark, one of them might slip and fall into that water—and end up just like the bird.
“There must be clearer water beyond the tower,” Toklo said. “We just have to get there. Can you go faster?”
Lusa nodded, although her paws ached and her legs felt like useless tree stumps that were about to fall off. She forced herself to run as Toklo took off across the ice. They kept the tower to their left, hoping to find a way around it on the other side.
But they were only level with the center of the construction when they heard flat-face voices yelling, much closer than the ones around the tower. Lusa bundled into Toklo as he skidded to a stop. Her fur stood on end at the terrified look on his face.
“Flat-faces!” he cried. “With firesticks!”
She saw four flat-faces running toward them across the snow. They had clearly spotted the bear cubs; they were pointing at the bears and shouting to one another. Lusa’s memory swooped back to the hunters on Smoke Mountain, chasing them across the moonlit meadow before capturing Toklo and taking him away in their firebeast.
They turned to run back the way they’d come, but more flat-faces were on the river now, standing on their floating firebeasts as they swarmed around the tower. They’d never get back across the river without being spotted.
Lusa spun in place, her heart pounding as she stared at the flat-faces that surrounded them. “Toklo! What do we do?”
“Into the water,” he ordered, shoving her toward the black, sticky mess around the tower legs.
“But—the bird—” Lusa protested.
“We don’t have a choice! Just swim and keep swimming, and don’t get it on your muzzle,” Toklo growled. Lusa’s paws pounded across the ice as they ran toward the water. The flat-faces were still chasing them, but on foot the bears were much faster.
Then again, she knew from past experience that the pellets from their firesticks moved fastest of all. Lusa expected to hear the crack of a firestick at any moment, which made her run even faster.
Toklo didn’t even stop to scan the water as they reached the edge. He lifted his head and jumped right in. Black stuff splattered up on the ice around Lusa’s paws. She looked back at the running flat-faces, took a deep breath, and leaped in after Toklo.
It was horrible in the water, sticky and hard to swim and chokingly revolting. Her paws moved slowly, as if they were wrapped in honey—but the most foul-tasting, foul-smelling honey in the world. Lusa’s fur instantly clogged up with black stuff, weighing her down. It was hard to paddle, harder still to keep her snout above the water. She wanted to call to Toklo for help, but she couldn’t open her mouth, or the oil would spill in and choke her. She was having trouble breathing with the black stuff so close to her nose.
She summoned all her strength and swam as hard as she could. If they could make it past the tower, into the water beyond, they should be able to find more ice and somewhere to rest while they hid from the flat-faces. She wished she knew how far they had to swim, but it was impossible to see beyond the tower. It was difficult even to see Toklo paddling a bear-length ahead of her.
Suddenly she felt a sharp pain in her rump. Fighting back a yelp of surprise, Lusa twisted around and saw something thin and pointy sticking out of her fur. For a moment she thought it was a giant bee stinger, but then she realized that bees had more sense than to venture out onto the ice.
More sense than me, she thought woozily. Black bear in a white bear world. Why are my paws so heavy?
Something like a thick spiderweb dropped over her head. She batted at it with her claws, but all her movements were suddenly slower and weaker than they should be. The web closed around her, dragging her through the water. Lusa stopped fighting and clung to the strands at the top. It took all her concentration just to keep her head above the water as she was pulled along.
“Lusa!” she heard someone yell. “Lusa! Lusa!”
Sounds like Toklo, she thought. Here I am, Toklo. Had she actually called back to him? She wasn’t sure. She was so tired. Was this the longsleep? Had it finally won—now, in the middle of the black sea while they were being chased by flat-faces? That’s rather inconvenient, she thought, and then her eyes drifted shut.
She forced her eyes open again as she was pulled onto a floating firebeast the color of leaves. Flat-faces reached their pale, clawless paws toward her, but instead of fighting back or trying to escape…she fell asleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Ujurak
The red mist had finally lifted, and the sun shone hazily on the jagged peaks and cliffs of ice all around Ujurak and Kallik.
Ujurak glanced at Kallik, who was trudging along silently beside him. He knew she was missing Lusa and Toklo—he missed them, too. Their absence left an aching hollow feeling inside him. All the confidence he’d found in the meeting with his mother was ebbing away. If he was doing the right thing, walking toward the rising sun, why did he feel so lost?
A breeze ruffled his thick brown fur and he shivered at the chill in the air. It was just after sunhigh, but the sun was hidden by thin gray clouds, so not much warmth filtered down to Ujurak’s skin. His claws dug into the snow as they worked their way up a long white slope. Solid blocks of blue-gray ice loomed on either side of them, and he could smell the salty tang of the sea close by.
They came over the crest of the slope and the snow abruptly turned to slick ice below their paws, so that Ujurak slipped and tumbled down the hill toward an open slash of water, and even Kallik stumbled after him, having trouble keeping her footing.
Ujurak skidded to an ungainly stop at the bottom and realized with a start that there was a large brown shape flopped on the edge of the ice, a few bearlengths in front of them.
“RAAARRRGH!” the creature bellowed, spotting them. Kallik stopped helping Ujurak to his paws and whipped around to face it. Ujurak could see that her whole body was shaking with fear.
The large brown animal charging toward them didn’t exactly have legs; it hauled itself forward on huge, flat feet, but it still moved shockingly fast. It was long and wrinkled, like a giant slug or caterpillar. Its face was squashed and whiskery, with two enormous pointed teeth sticking down out of its mouth.
“A walrus!” Kallik gasped. “Ujurak, run!” She shoved him behind her and reared up on her hind legs, slashing her claws in the air to look threatening. She let out a roar, but Ujurak could hear the wobbly note in her voice that said she was terrified. He remembered the “Walrus Attack” game she’d played with Lusa; walruses must be one of the very few things that scared white bears, and if it was bad enough to scare Kallik, it definitely scared him.
The walrus lunged at Kallik with its mouth open and she thumped it in the head with one of her massive paws, knocking it aside. Its tusks skimmed her fur and she dodged away as it charged again. Ujurak realized that she was trying to draw it away from him. But he couldn’t stand by and watch her be gored by those horrible long teeth. He charged up behind the walrus and sank his teeth into the tough, greasy hide of its back. The taste on his tongue was slimy and salty all at once.
The walrus roared and spun toward him, swiping its tusks dangerously close to his face. Ujurak jumped away and darted in a circle around it as Kallik did the same, each of them pulling the creature’s attention in a different direction. It roared again, a deep, furious bellow that echoed across the ice.
Ujurak felt a strange prickling under his fur. He looked down and saw his paws getting bigger. White fur was starting to peek out between the brown tufts. He was turning into a white bear! His body must instinctively know that a white bear was a more powerful animal for fighting a walrus.
No! his mind cried. I won’t change again! A part of him sensed that his mother wouldn’t mind—that she approved of his power. But a bigger part of him remembered how he lost himself as a goose and then as a whale, and he was terrified of his real self disappearing forever.
He concentrated his energy on thinking about brown bears. Brown, shaggy fur, hunched shoulders, swaying gait. Brown bear! To his satisfaction, the white fur retreated back into his skin and his paws shrank back down. He was himself again.
“Ujurak!” Kallik screamed.
Ujurak threw himself to the ground and rolled away just in time as the walrus sensed his distraction and attacked. Bellowing, the walrus tried to wriggle after him. Ujurak felt his back pressed up against a snowbank. There was nowhere to run. The walrus and its gleaming tusks were nearly upon him.
Suddenly Kallik reared up behind the walrus and plunged her long, sharp claws into its neck. She bit down hard and blood sprayed across the snow. The walrus thrashed and roared in pain, but Ujurak scrambled over its back to pin its tail down. The rubbery muscle heaved underneath him and he had to sink his claws in and throw all his weight on it. Gradually the thrashing stopped. The blood slowed to a trickle, and the walrus flopped over, its tiny eyes staring blankly at the gray sky.
Kallik stepped back, panting. Blood was smeared across the white fur around her mouth and Ujurak could see patches of red from tiny cuts on her body. His front shoulder ached where the walrus had walloped him, but he didn’t sense any more serious injuries. He followed Kallik over to a snowbank, limping from his bruised shoulder, and they both rolled in the fresh white snow until they felt clean again. He let his paws droop in the snow and lay there, catching his breath.
That was far too close. He had done his best, and Kallik had been amazing, but the truth was that the walrus would never have dared to attack them if Toklo and Lusa had been with them as well. What were they supposed to do if a fully grown white bear decided to pick a fight with them? More important, how were Toklo and Lusa supposed to defend themselves without him and Kallik there to help?
We never should have split up, he thought, his heart sinking. That was a terrible mistake. He looked at the dead walrus, then followed its empty gaze up to the sky. Piles of dark clouds huddled low on the horizon, while thinner gray clouds overhead drifted slowly across the weak sun.
Something appeared against the backdrop of the sky, and Ujurak squinted. It looked like a thin white streak…no, it was four thin white streaks! They slashed across the sky, as if an invisible claw were painting them there. Then, as he watched, they crossed toward one another and merged, creating one long, fat white streak that disappeared behind the darkest clouds in the distance.
Four into one. Four bears completing a journey together. That was how it was supposed to be.
“Come eat some walrus.” Kallik broke into his thoughts, nudging him with her cold black nose. “It might be gross, but at least it’s food.”
Ujurak staggered to his paws and followed her to the carcass of the walrus. Kallik used her claws to slice open its thick, wrinkled brown skin and they both
dug into the meat inside. It was greasy and foul tasting, with a strong hint of fish and ocean water, and far more blubber than meat. But Ujurak hadn’t realized how hungry he was; at least it restored his strength.
They left the rest of the walrus carcass and kept walking, skirting the edge of the sea and the dark water lapping at the ice near them. Ujurak couldn’t stop thinking about Toklo and Lusa. Four bears together were stronger than two.
“What’s that?” Kallik interrupted his thoughts again. She nodded at something small on the ice ahead of them.
Ujurak looked and felt a shiver through his fur. He didn’t know what it was yet, but he could see a gray and black and white lump, lying still on the ice.
They padded closer and saw that the lump was a dead seabird with its claws curled up in the air and its wings frozen solid. Its beak was slightly open and its beady eyes were empty. Streaks of black oil matted its gray and white feathers.
Ujurak stared down at the dead bird with a feeling of dread.
“Come on,” Kallik said, nudging him gently. “It’s getting dark. Let’s find somewhere to sleep.” She sniffed the bird. “I hope you’re not hungry, because I wouldn’t eat this. It smells bad, and not just in a rotfood kind of way.”
Ujurak shook his head. He couldn’t have eaten anything. The walrus meat was still filling his belly, and his thoughts were a whirl of guilt and worry. Where were Toklo and Lusa? If he and Kallik were weaker without them, how much weaker would those two be without any guidance on the ice? He should never have let them go alone.
They walked farther along the sea edge until they couldn’t see or smell the bird anymore—or at least, Ujurak couldn’t. He wondered if Kallik’s powerful nose still could, but she didn’t mention it. She dug a half cave out of a snowbank and they both curled into it, protected from the cool wind blowing softly across the ice.