The Quest Begins

by Erin Hunter

  As they got closer, the bear dropped to its paws and loped over, standing between them and the river and blocking their path. Oka stopped, and Toklo ducked behind her front leg, trying not to make eye contact with the large grizzly.

  “Step aside,” Oka said firmly.

  “What’s your name, pretty?” the bear growled.

  “None of your business,” she snapped.

  “I’m Shoteka,” he announced.

  “We don’t care,” Oka snarled. “Now get out of our way. This isn’t your territory—it’s fair game for every bear. There’s enough fish in the river for all of us.”

  Shoteka’s eyes shifted to Toklo. “It’s not the fish I’m interested in,” he said. “Your cub is too old to still be traveling with you.”

  “No, I’m not!” Toklo squeaked indignantly. He knew most cubs stayed with their mothers for at least two fishleaps. However much he wanted to be on his own and make his own decisions, he knew he wouldn’t be able to look after himself for a long time yet.

  The male grizzly lifted his chin and looked challengingly at Oka. “When is he going to find his own territory?”

  “We’re just here for the fish,” Oka said. “So step aside.”

  “There are no fish in this river,” Shoteka rumbled.

  Oka snorted. “There have always been fish in this river! You’re not going to drive us off with lies like that.”

  She strode forward boldly and the other bear fell back, scraping his paws on the pebbles with a show of reluctance. Toklo trotted after her, staying close to her hind paws.

  Just as they passed him, Shoteka lunged toward Toklo. His teeth were bared, and Toklo felt a blast of hot, rotten breath over his fur. Toklo froze.

  Suddenly Oka was there, rearing up on her hind legs and roaring. She slashed at the male grizzly with her claws as Toklo ducked behind her. Shoteka stumbled back, then turned tail and ran, splashing away into the river. A few of the other bears snorted at one another. Toklo heard one of them say something about getting between a mother and her cubs, and he felt a warm swell of pride and relief. His mother was so strong! No one would mess with them now. It comforted him to know she would stick up for him, even though he wasn’t Tobi.

  Oka led the way upriver, moving as far away from Shoteka as possible. Toklo followed her into the shallows and gasped as the icy water tugged at his fur. It was much stronger than the streams in the valley. This water had power; he could almost believe that ancient bear spirits raced along in it. Smooth round stones shifted under his paws, and he felt the silt of the river mud drifting up like mist as he waded through it.

  Toklo spun in a circle and splashed over to his mother, eager to start fishing. He could see a bear farther downriver with a large fish in its jaws, flapping and shining in the light. Other bears were closing in on it, as if wondering whether the catch was worth fighting for.

  But Oka was not fishing. He could see from the looseness of her shoulders and the stillness in her paws that she was not waiting for something to swim by. Instead, she was staring into the water, talking in a soft voice. Toklo stopped splashing and listened.

  “Be careful, little cub,” Oka whispered. “You have a long journey ahead of you.” Her head dropped lower until her nose almost touched the water. “Look after him, water spirits, I beg you. He is so little and tired, and he’s not used to being on his own.”

  She was talking about Tobi. Of course.

  Toklo sighed impatiently. He was sure the water spirits knew perfectly well that Tobi was small and weak. Why else would he have died? If he’d been bigger and stronger, he’d still be alive, like Toklo was.

  Shadows danced below the ripples as Toklo gazed into the water. He searched for any sign of the bear spirits in the river, but all he could see was the vague outline of his reflection and the shapes of pebbles in the riverbed. He’d expected to see the faces of bears, or a flash of fur, or a hint of claws racing along the muddy bottom. But there was nothing here but water.

  “I can’t see Tobi, Mother,” Toklo said. He wondered if his little brother had figured out how to follow him down the mountain. It would be awful if Tobi were stuck up in the barren rocks all alone. “Do you think he’s here yet? Maybe he’s still finding his way.”

  Oka rounded on him with a snarl. “What do you know about death?” she growled. “You don’t know anything.”

  Toklo backed away. How was he supposed to know anything if she didn’t teach him? Of course he didn’t know much about death. Tobi was the only bear he knew who’d ever died. And Oka had spent so much of their lives fussing over Tobi that she’d hardly told Toklo anything.

  Toklo stomped over to a spot between two large rocks where the water flowed into a pool a little deeper than the rest of the river, reaching halfway up his legs. If his mother wanted to stand around talking to the river, that was fine. He’d learn to fish on his own. He looked around until he spotted a golden-furred female bear who was properly fishing. She was crouched in the water, keeping still and watching. Suddenly she leaped forward and dove into the water with her front paws. She must have missed what she was jumping for, because she pounced a few more times, chasing the fish around in a circle and sending up a spray of sparkling water drops. Finally she emerged, dripping wet, with a small salmon in her jaws. She looked nervously at the other bears and then sat down with her back to them, the water foaming around her fur, eating quickly as if she wanted to finish before they noticed her catch.

  Toklo’s mouth watered. Surely he could do that, too. He could be patient, and fast, and determined…couldn’t he? He turned around in the water a few times, looking for a good place to stand. He set his back to the current and left his legs planted wide apart, so the river could flow between them.

  He waited for what felt like a very long time. His vision started to get blurry from staring at the water for so long. He kept expecting to see the dark shape of a fish swim between his paws, but there was nothing but the shimmer of sunlight on the ripples.

  Something dark moved just out of his reach. Toklo pounced, landing on his belly with a big splash as his paws closed around a mossy stick.

  He had barely a moment to feel disappointed. As soon as he lifted his paws off the stones, the current seized him and began dragging him downriver. He let out a startled yelp as the river swept him past his mother and a few other bears, but Oka didn’t look up from her conversation with the river, and the other bears just seemed curious or amused. Flailing his paws, Toklo saw the huge grizzly who had attacked him earlier waiting on a rock downstream. Shoteka had planted himself right in the path of the current and was watching as Toklo was swept closer and closer.

  “Mother!” Toklo yelped. “Help me!” He tried to stretch down and dig his claws into the pebbles, but the water swamped over his muzzle. He scrambled up to the surface, choking for breath, just as he crashed into the tree-trunk legs of the male grizzly. Immediately two massive paws seized his shoulders and shoved his head below the water.

  Toklo held his breath and lashed out with his paws, trying to claw at Shoteka’s legs or kick his way free. His hind legs hit the bottom of the river, and he shoved himself to the surface again, sucking in a quick breath before the grizzly forced him under once more. Water flooded up Toklo’s nose and surged into his mouth and ears. He tried biting and scratching the paws that held him down, but he could feel his strength starting to fade and his movements getting weaker.

  The murmurs of the river seemed louder underwater, crashing in his ears like the spirits shouting at him.

  All at once the weight disappeared from his back. Toklo bobbed up to the surface, gasping for air. His paws scraped the stones on the bottom of the river and he was able to pull himself into the shallows, where he collapsed onto his belly. He looked up and saw his mother driving Shoteka out of the water. She growled and charged at the male bear, her claws reaching for him and her mouth wide open. Shoteka roared angrily and scampered up the bank, disappearing into the trees.

  Tok
lo dragged himself to his paws, panting and shivering. Oka slowly came back, her sodden fur clinging to her thin frame. She stopped on the edge of the riverbank and stared at him.

  “I’m sorry, Mother,” Toklo whimpered. “I’m so sorry I tried to fish on my own. I won’t do it again, I promise.”

  Oka didn’t move any closer. She seemed to be looking right through him. Toklo felt rooted to the spot, as if his legs were growing out of the riverbed. Why didn’t his mother come to comfort him?

  When she finally spoke, her voice was hoarse.

  “I can’t do this,” she said. “I can’t watch my cubs die. I won’t let it happen again.”

  “Mother—” Toklo began. He’d heard about her first litter of cubs, who had all died in their first few moons.

  “Leave me,” Oka growled. “Leave this territory. We’re all going to starve here. If you must die, do it somewhere else, far away from me. Go away, and don’t come back.”

  Hunching her shoulders, she turned and walked away, leaving Toklo standing alone in the river.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Kallik

  Kallik felt even more alone on land than she had on the ice. It was strange not to have smooth, cold snow beneath her paws. Here she felt heavy and awkward; her paws kept sinking into the ground, and everything smelled wrong.

  The piles of rocks beside the sea gave way to a long stretch of speckled dirt that ran along the water as far as she could see in each direction. Farther back, away from the water, the land rose up for several bearlengths and then flattened out again. Kallik could catch a glimpse of unfamiliar colors and shapes on top of the ridge, but it was hard to see much detail from where she was.

  Maybe if she climbed up there, she’d have a better view all along the shoreline. Maybe she’d see Taqqiq!

  Kallik’s paws were sore and her fur was waterlogged, weighing her down, but she focused on putting one paw in front of another as she walked across the dirt, leaving the ocean behind her. Her feet left pawprints like they did in the snow, but here the dirt tangled in her fur and her claws and it was nasty to lick off, scratching her tongue instead of cooling it.

  Kallik walked along the base of the cliff, looking for a way up. Soon it began to slope and part of it had fallen away around large boulders, so she could scramble from one out-cropping to the next.

  Huffing and gasping, she rolled onto the top of the ridge, her fur caked with dirt. From up here, she could still hear the waves battering against the rocks. The sound was even louder than the wind that howled across the ice. Kallik wished her mother were there, so she could bury her nose in Nisa’s fur and block out the noise. The farther she traveled from the sea, the lonelier she felt. The comforting whispers of the spirits below the ice were a long way behind her, and Kallik felt as if her mother were getting farther and farther away as well. It was getting dark. She needed to find a place to rest where she could be safe for the night.

  There were strange tall shapes ahead of her, taller even than a large white bear standing on his hind legs. Kallik crept up cautiously, wondering if they might attack, but they kept still even when she came right up to them. They didn’t seem like they could move at all; their paws were buried in the dirt. Kallik sniffed the air. She recognized the sharp, fresh smell she’d noticed from the ice.

  She stood up on her hind legs and rested her front paws on the solid, unmoving body. It was the same shape as one of her mother’s front legs, but wider around, and reaching up into the sky. And it was brown, like the dirt under her paws. Up above, it split into several arms with something that looked like feathers attached. The feathers were a color Kallik hadn’t seen on its own before, although they looked like they might be part of the ocean’s colors. She wondered if this was the “green” her mother had described.

  She dropped down to all fours again and sniffed around the base of the strange thing. Green whiskers were pushing out of the dirt around its paws, and with a jolt Kallik realized that this must be grass. It wasn’t how she’d pictured it from her mother’s description. She lifted her head and studied the tall shape again. It smelled like the grass—alive but not meat, with scents of dirt and sky and rain in it. Her mother had told her that was how “plants” would smell. So perhaps this was a “tree.”

  Kallik felt a little better once the world around her had a few more names attached to it. Her mother had talked about the land for a long time, so all Kallik had to do was put together her mother’s stories with what she found in front of her eyes.

  Around the other side of the tree there was a hole where the dirt had caved in below its roots. Kallik squeezed between two of the roots and found herself in a small shelter, surrounded by dirt walls that reminded her of the snowy dens her mother would sometimes build. Even if an adult white bear found her here, it wouldn’t be able to fit through the roots to get to her. She dug her claws into the dirt and spread it around, making herself a comfortable spot to sleep in. She didn’t like the feeling of the crumbly brown earth coating her paws and getting stuck in her fur, but she guessed she’d have to put up with it until burn-sky was over.

  Kallik curled up and rested her muzzle on her paws. Outside the ice spots were twinkling in the sky, and right over her head, brightest of all, she could see the Pathway Star. Despite her loneliness, she felt comforted by the sight of it. Even if she couldn’t reach the ice spirits during burn-sky, at least the Pathway Star would always be there for her. She remembered the story of the place where the ice was always frozen and the bears danced. If the Pathway Star could lead bears there, could it also take her to Taqqiq?

  Her eyes closed drowsily, and sleep washed over her before she could worry any more.

  In the bright light of the next morning, Kallik’s spirits rose as she scrambled out of her hidden den. The trees around her rustled and whispered almost like the bear spirits in the ice, and the sun sparkled brightly off all the new colors and shapes around her. Surely her mother would be proud of her for getting this far by herself. Wherever she was, she must know that Kallik was looking for her brother.

  “I’ll find him, Mother,” Kallik murmured. “We’ll be all right.”

  Her belly growled loudly as if it was answering her, demanding food.

  “I know, bossy,” she said playfully to her stomach. “Let’s see what I can find.” She knew there were no seals on the land, but her mother had said they could eat berries and grass and other kinds of plants, too. Kallik sniffed the grass around the tree and tried tugging up a mouthful of it.

  It tasted sharp and dirty, nothing like the rich, chewy warmth of meat or seal fat. “Blech,” she said, spitting it back out again. She’d only eat that if she had to.

  Shaking herself, she trotted back toward the water, following the sound of the waves. She stopped every few paces and sniffed the air or nosed the ground, searching for scents of food. But before she found anything to eat, another familiar scent hit her nostrils. White bear! Could it be Taqqiq? She dashed to the edge of the ridge, where she could see out across the shore and the water.

  In the distance, about half a skylength away, she spotted a large white bear lumbering along the edge of the bay. Disappointment prickled her fur when she realized it was too big to be Taqqiq. But perhaps if she followed it from far away, she might be able to eat any leftover prey it couldn’t finish. She thought for a moment, shuffling her paws. It wasn’t safe to get too close. Her mother had told her and Taqqiq about cubs being killed by extremely hungry white bears.

  Suddenly a movement caught her eye farther along the shore. It was another white bear—heading in the same direction! The two bears were far apart and clearly not traveling together. But they were going the same way….

  They must be heading to the gathering place! Her mother had spoken of a place where the white bears gathered to meet the ice. All Kallik had to do was go the same way—and stay as far away from the other bears as possible.

  “Please, Silaluk,” she whispered, “show Taqqiq the way to go, so I can find hi
m at the gathering place.” She prayed that he remembered what Nisa had said about the place where the ice came back. She prayed that he’d made it onto the land at all. From here she could see right out into the bay. The wind whipped ripples across the open stretches of water, and birds circled overhead, shrieking.

  Kallik decided to stay on top of the ridge, keeping the shore in sight as she set off around the bay. Then she could hopefully see any other bears coming from a long way off. Round gray things rolled and clacked beneath her paws, and she guessed these were “stones.” Or maybe “rocks.” She had never figured out what the difference was from the way her mother described them.

  She traveled the whole day, staying low when she got too close to another bear ahead of her. She found no abandoned prey, no carcasses to chew on, and finally she had to stop and eat some grass, despite its bitter taste. She followed the scent of plants into a group of trees…a “wood,” if she remembered her mother’s words right. Here there were short, fat trees, and some of them had little round balls growing on them in sharp colors that made Kallik blink. Were these “berries”? Some of them were black like her nose but some were bright red like blood. She wondered if they tasted like meat. They smelled all right to eat, but she worried…how would she know? What if they made her sick?

  The roaring in her belly made up her mind. It was this or starve to death. She closed her teeth over the berries and tugged them free. They tasted sweet, nothing like meat but much better than grass. If she could survive on these, maybe burn-sky wouldn’t be so bad.