The Melting Sea

by Erin Hunter

  “We weren’t doing anything,” the first bear said, padding over to join his companion. “Keep your fur on.”

  “You’ll have to move on,” Toklo told them brusquely. “There are other white bears living here.”

  The two white males exchanged a glance. Lusa could still feel tension like sharp thorns in her throat, and she knew that as the bears’ heads cleared and they recovered from their flight, they could still attack.

  “Why do we have to do what you say?” one of the white males asked. “You’re a brown bear!”

  “Yeah,” his companion added.

  “I’m a white bear,” Akna snapped, padding over with Kassuq hard on her paws. “And I’m telling you to get out of here!”

  “We don’t want to fight you,” Toklo said. “But we will, if you stay here to make trouble.”

  The two white males hesitated, then turned and shambled off along the shore; one of them glanced back to give Toklo a furious glare.

  “There’s hunting on the ice for now!” Toklo called after them. “Maybe you should look there for food.”

  “I can’t believe you’d help them after what they did!” Akna exclaimed.

  Toklo shrugged. “Better they eat seals than your cubs, right? Lusa, are you okay?” he continued. “I can’t believe how brave you were, standing up to those two fish-breathed idiots!”

  Lusa had started to shake, really understanding for the first time how easily she and the two cubs could have been torn to pieces. “I’m so sorry, Akna,” she said. “I put your cubs in danger.”

  “But you were great,” Toklo insisted. “You held off two bears much bigger than you. If you hadn’t, they might have hurt the cubs before Akna and I got here.”

  Lusa shook her head, finding it hard to accept Toklo’s praise, but wondering if he might be right. I did help save them. … “I should have gotten the cubs away sooner,” she said.

  “It wasn’t your fault, Lusa,” Akna responded. “I didn’t realize there would be more white bears here. I’ll have to be more careful. At least I have you and Toklo to help me look after the cubs.”

  Toklo grunted, flashing a sidelong glance at Lusa, but didn’t say anything. Lusa guessed he was wondering how long Akna expected them to stick around.

  “Please,” Iluq asked plaintively, “could some bear get me out from under this driftwood?”

  When Akna had freed her cub, easily heaving aside the boulder that was jamming the wood, the bears headed back to their temporary den at the edge of the pine trees. Kallik and Yakone were there, calling out their names.

  “We were so worried about you!” Kallik exclaimed, bounding forward to meet her friends. “We saw the metal bird bringing those other bears.”

  “We dealt with them,” Toklo replied. “I sent them farther up the shore.”

  “Come and share the seal we caught!” Yakone called.

  The cubs ran toward him, while Akna and the others followed more slowly. Lusa saw that Akna looked much more relaxed now.

  “It was so hard to find food when we first came ashore,” she said as they settled down to share the seal. “I didn’t know where to look, and there were so many other bears, and no-claws everywhere. I’m lucky to have found you,” she finished, tearing hungrily into the seal.

  Lusa noticed that Toklo seemed unusually quiet as they ate. When every bear was full, and Akna took her cubs into the shelter of the trees to sleep, Toklo rose to his paws.

  “I want to make sure that those bears haven’t come back,” he announced.

  Kallik and Yakone withdrew to the makeshift den with Akna, but Lusa followed Toklo down the slope.

  “We’re not going to stay here much longer, are we?” she asked, guessing that Toklo would want to keep going.

  “This isn’t where our journey ends,” Toklo replied. “It’s good to help other bears figure out how to find food on land, but Kallik still has to travel farther on to the Melting Sea. And our homes are still far away.”

  Lusa heaved a deep sigh. “I wish we didn’t have to leave Kallik and Yakone behind.”

  “We always knew it would happen one day,” Toklo pointed out.

  “I know, but …” Lusa hesitated, then went on, “If there are trees, we could stay beside the Melting Sea, couldn’t we?”

  Toklo glanced down at her. “You know we don’t belong here,” he told her. “We still have a long way to go.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Kallik

  Stars glittered above Kallik’s head as she stood on the shore. Behind her, Yakone was sleeping in the makeshift den, along with Akna and her cubs. Farther down the shore, Toklo and Lusa were padding along side by side, Toklo bending his head down to Lusa as they talked.

  I think I know what they’re talking about.

  Looking up at the stars, Kallik felt comforted by the spirits of her ancestors shining down on her. She knew that Nisa was among them, and remembered how she had seen her mother dancing in rivers of fire above the ice. “I’m coming home,” she whispered.

  At last Lusa and Toklo turned back toward the trees. Kallik padded out a few paces to meet them. “We leave at dawn?” she asked.

  Toklo nodded; there was nothing to discuss. All of them knew that they had to keep moving.

  “Akna won’t like it,” Kallik commented after a moment, glancing back to where the mother bear was sleeping with her cubs in a heap of white fur.

  “Akna will understand eventually,” Toklo said.

  For several heartbeats they stood looking at the horizon, where the next stage of their journey lay. Ujurak’s stars twinkled icily above the snow-covered landscape.

  “The four of us are still together,” Lusa whispered.

  Kallik woke as dawn light filtered through the pine trees, and slipped out of the den. Yakone, Toklo, and Lusa were stirring, too, though Akna and her cubs still slept.

  Toklo came to stand beside her. “I think you should be the one to break the news to Akna,” he said quietly.

  Yakone blundered out of the den, blinking. “What news?”

  “We’re leaving now,” Toklo told him.

  “Why?” Yakone’s eyes widened in surprise as he turned to Kallik. “There’s food here, on the ice and on the land, and more bears are arriving every day. What if Taqqiq comes?”

  A worm of uneasiness gnawed at Kallik’s belly, because she knew that Yakone might be right. “I want to go back to the place where I first left the Melting Sea,” she replied. “Even if the ice doesn’t last long enough to go out to where Taqqiq and I were born,” she added, desperately hoping that Yakone would understand. “We just have to hope that Taqqiq is still there.”

  Yakone bowed his head. “If that’s what you want.”

  Kallik could see that he was still doubtful. “You have to trust me,” she said.

  “I do,” Yakone responded, touching his muzzle gently to her shoulder. “I want to see all the places that you remember. But I’m worried that the ice is breaking up so soon, when burn-sky has hardly begun. I don’t want to walk into starvation.

  “We have to risk it,” Kallik replied. “I must find Taqqiq.”

  A rustle came from the den as Akna rose to her paws, along with drowsy squeaks from the cubs. Kallik turned to her.

  “Akna, why don’t we go for a walk along the shore?” she suggested, fighting uneasiness at the thought of what she was about to say. “I’ll show you the nearest ice floe, where you can go hunting for seals.”

  Akna nodded. “Good idea.”

  “Can we come?” Iluq asked, bouncing with excitement. “Please?”

  “No, not this time,” Lusa told her, emerging from the den and rounding her up with her brother, Kassuq. “You’ve got to get some practice lifting bigger sticks. There are lots here under the trees. You want to grow big and strong, don’t you?”

  “And we’ll look for black bear spirits!” Kassuq said.

  “There’s something I have to tell you,” Kallik began when she and Akna were padding along the wa
ter’s edge. She hesitated and then continued. “We’re leaving today.”

  “What?” Akna halted, dismay in her eyes. “But how will I survive on my own? What about my cubs?”

  “You’ll be fine,” Kallik told her, hoping that was true. “Toklo tells me you’re getting really good at hunting on land, and soon Iluq and Kassuq will be big enough to help.”

  Akna sighed, then gave an understanding nod. “I know the four of you are on a long journey,” she murmured, “and that you haven’t reached the end yet. But please—will you hunt with me on the ice just once, before you go?”

  Kallik glanced back to where Toklo, Lusa, and Yakone were standing at the edge of the pine trees. She knew that they were waiting to leave, but she also felt that they owed one more hunting expedition to Akna. She had a long, hard burn-sky ahead of her, with two hungry cubs to provide for.

  Hoping her friends would understand, Kallik launched herself into the sea with Akna beside her. The pale light of dawn shone on the ruffled water, growing gradually brighter as they swam.

  At last Kallik reached an ice floe and scrambled onto it, waiting for Akna to join her. She relished the feeling of ice under her paws, but the floe felt incredibly fragile; the slap and gurgle of the sea was so noisy after the silence and solidity of the Endless Ice. And the ice was disappearing much earlier than when Kallik had been forced onto the shore when the last burn-sky came. This truly was the Melting Sea. The ice—along with Kallik’s memories of her mother and Taqqiq—was vanishing into the black water.

  “Is this the first time you’ve been back on land?” she asked Akna as the mother bear shook water out of her pelt.

  Akna shook her head. “No, I was born three suncircles ago. I was my mother’s only cub then, and I lived with her.... I still see her, and her younger cubs, but every burn-sky they get thinner, and more desperate for food.”

  Kallik murmured understanding as she turned and padded away from the edge of the ice floe, beginning to search for a seal hole.

  “I had two cubs one suncircle ago,” Akna continued, her voice tight with grief. “But they both died of hunger.”

  A massive wave of sympathy for the mother bear washed over Kallik. “Iluq and Kassuq won’t die,” she assured Akna. “You’ll all be okay, I promise.”

  Akna turned her head and looked deep into Kallik’s eyes. “That’s not a promise you can make.”

  “I know,” Kallik admitted. “But the spirits of your other cubs will be watching over you, willing you to be strong.”

  “Perhaps,” Akna said. “I want to believe that the cubs are still in the ice, in the bubbles and shadows under my paws.” Her voice shook and then strengthened again. “That way they’re closer to me.”

  “I hope they are,” Kallik told her, touching Akna’s ear with the tip of her snout.

  A few paces farther on Kallik spotted a seal hole, a dark blotch in the expanse of ice. She and Akna settled down beside it, a feeling of quiet companionship growing between them.

  Knowing Akna was older than her, and more experienced in hunting, Kallik expected she would be the first to catch a seal. But when the water swirled and the seal stuck its nose out into the air, it was Kallik who reacted first. Lunging swiftly, she fastened her claws into the seal’s hide and dragged it thrashing out onto the ice. Akna helped her to kill it with a blow to its spine.

  “Great catch!” Akna said. “I wish I were as fast as you.”

  “You would have caught it if I hadn’t been here,” Kallik told her, half wishing she had hung back and let Akna take the prey. But what if she’d missed it? I can’t stick around here all day. “Let’s get this back to the others,” she added.

  When Kallik and Akna dragged the seal up the shore, Toklo came to meet them, with Iluq and Kassuq bounding around his paws and almost tripping him.

  “What are you doing?” Toklo asked Kallik in an undertone, gesturing toward the seal. “I thought we were leaving at dawn.”

  “I owed this to Akna,” Kallik retorted.

  Toklo grunted but said no more.

  Yakone and Lusa padded down from the trees to join them. “It’s time we got going,” Yakone said. “Akna, I hope all goes well with you.”

  “And with you,” Akna responded. Kallik could see anxiety in her eyes. “I wish you luck,” she added, sounding doubtful, as if she was imagining the dangers they might encounter.

  “Thanks,” Toklo said, adding to his friends, “Let’s go.”

  “No! You can’t leave us!” Iluq protested, her eyes wide as if she had just understood that this was good-bye.

  “Lusa, we want you to stay and play with us,” Kassuq added.

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t,” Lusa replied. She bent her head and touched noses with each cub in turn. “Look after your mother, and remember to practice what I taught you.”

  “We will!” they chorused.

  “Good-bye, Akna,” Toklo said. “Remember everything you’ve learned about hunting on land.”

  Akna nodded. “Good-bye, Toklo. And thank you.”

  The time had come to leave. Kallik found it hard to walk away, and wondered if she was making a grave mistake. But her need to find Taqqiq again forced her paws onward.

  By now the sun was well above the horizon, glittering on the waves and the distant ice. Kallik spotted a silver glint in the sky and made out another metal bird with a single bear in the net dangling underneath. It flew over their heads and swooped in to land farther up the coast.

  I hope that bear is okay, she thought. It’ll need luck as well as new hunting skills to survive.

  “I can feel the sun soaking right through my fur!” Lusa announced. “I’d almost forgotten what it feels like to be warm.”

  “It’s great,” Toklo agreed.

  Kallik exchanged a glance with Yakone. She was also enjoying the weak sunlight warming her fur, but she knew what it meant for the ice. She hoped that Yakone wouldn’t start wishing that he had never left Star Island, surrounded by the Endless Ice.

  Thinking of Star Island reminded her of Kissimi, the cub she had taken care of when his mother died. “I wonder how Kissimi is getting on,” she said out loud to Yakone. “He’s older than Iluq and Kassuq. Do you think he’s learned to catch seals yet?”

  “Maybe,” Yakone responded. “He’s still young, though.”

  “How soon do the mother bears on Star Island start teaching their cubs to hunt?”

  Yakone hesitated. “It varies,” he said at last. “I was about three moons old when I started. You have to be big enough to cope with a seal, and sensible enough to keep still while you’re waiting.”

  “Waiting’s the hardest part!” Lusa exclaimed, as she and Toklo caught up. “Kallik, do you remember how you taught me to catch a rabbit by waiting outside its burrow? I thought it would never come out!”

  “That’s because you’re an annoying chatterbox,” Toklo growled, though he nudged Lusa affectionately as he spoke. “If you could talk prey to death, we would never be hungry!”

  “Speaking of being hungry,” Yakone interposed, looking as if he still wasn’t comfortable with Toklo and Lusa’s playful quarreling, “I’m starving. Kallik, do you want to swim out and hunt?”

  “Sure,” Kallik replied. “If it’s okay with you?” she added to Lusa and Toklo.

  “That’s fine,” Toklo said instantly. “Bring us back a really tasty seal.”

  Kallik was glad that he was comfortable letting her and Yakone go out onto the ice now. He must be sure that we’re not going to leave him, she thought. Aloud she said, “Thank you.”

  Toklo blinked in surprise. “I know you’ll come back. We have a long way to go yet.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Toklo

  “My paws are falling off,” Toklo grumbled. Every pawstep he took felt as if thorns were driving into his pads. Lusa was limping, too. “It’s time to stop for the day,” he announced.

  Two sunrises had passed since the bears had said good-bye to Akna and her cubs
. They were walking in a shallow gully, sheltered by the wind, and separated from the shoreline by a gentle rise. The pine trees had been left behind; only a few scrubby bushes grew on the landward side of the gully.

  “It’s getting warmer all the time,” Toklo continued as he halted, “and the days are getting longer. I guess that’s why our paws feel so sore: We’re walking farther every day because we’re using all the daylight.” He flopped on one side and rasped his tongue over his stinging pads. “We’ll have to start limiting how far we travel each day,” he said between licks.

  “Good idea,” Yakone responded.

  Toklo was pleased by the white bear’s agreement. He knew that Yakone found their journey easier, because his paws were suited to walking on snow.

  Kallik won’t like it, though, he thought. She’s more driven with every day that passes. She won’t want to cut down our traveling time.

  Glancing around for the white she-bear, he saw that Kallik had drawn a little ahead and was standing at the top of the rise, looking out toward the sea. Her gaze was focused on something out of Toklo’s sight; he wondered if she had spotted some prey, or another bear.

  Though we’ve only seen one metal bird since we left Akna, and that passed straight overhead.

  Scrambling to his paws again, Toklo padded toward Kallik, but before he reached her she began to walk away from him, then quickened her pace until she was running. As he reached the top of the rise, Toklo saw that her gaze was fixed on some piles of lumpy snow not far away from the water’s edge.

  Alarmed, Toklo ran after her. Catching up to her, he saw that Kallik was digging down frantically into the snow. “What are you doing?” Toklo asked.

  Kallik ignored him. She was muttering to herself, too faintly for Toklo to make out the words, and concentrating on scraping away snow.

  “What’s going on?” Yakone asked, coming up with Lusa at his side.

  Toklo shook his head. “I have no idea.”

  He watched Kallik as she uncovered a shard of metal, sharp and shiny, then hurled herself at another snowy lump and started digging again. Toklo glanced at Yakone and Lusa, but they both looked as baffled as he felt.