The Quest Begins

by Erin Hunter

  The she-bear shook her head, her brown eyes sad. “They’re not coming anymore,” she growled. “The bear spirits must be angry with us.”

  The bear spirits, Toklo thought. Like Tobi. Was Tobi angry with him? Did he blame Toklo for his death, too, like Oka did?

  “Why would the bear spirits be angry?” he asked nervously.

  “Or maybe it’s the flat-faces,” the bear said. “They’re building a dam upriver that stops the salmon from getting through.”

  Toklo knew what a dam was. He’d seen beavers building a dam in a stream on the other side of the mountain. That had been a good day—Tobi had been feeling stronger than usual, and they had played a little bit in the water while Oka caught them a hare to eat. A pang of grief stabbed at Toklo’s heart.

  The she-bear tilted her head and looked at him kindly, as if she could sense his sorrow. “Tell me where your mother is, little cub,” she said.

  Toklo slid off his rock and padded over to the river’s edge. He pointed with his nose to the dark shape of his mother, lying partly in the water on the other side.

  “You should go back to her,” the female bear said. “Or she’ll start to worry about you.”

  I wish, Toklo thought. The she-bear stepped into the river as if she were going to walk him across.

  “It’s all right,” Toklo said quickly. He didn’t want her to see how strange his mother was acting. “I can go by myself.”

  “Very well,” said the she-bear. “Good luck to you both.” She touched her nose to Toklo’s muzzle, then turned and lumbered away into the dark. Toklo watched her go with an ache in his heart. Why didn’t his mother care about him as much as this strange bear did? Why wasn’t Oka the one checking up on him and nuzzling him and making sure he wasn’t alone?

  He splashed through the cold river, picking his way carefully across the rough current as his claws slipped on the smooth pebbles underwater. Oka didn’t move as he got closer, and he was afraid to speak to her in case she snarled at him like she’d snarled at the other bear earlier. He climbed a short way up the bank and lay down, as close to her as he dared to get.

  Snowflakes drifted past his nose, and the air was sharp and cold. Toklo wished he could cuddle into his mother’s fur. He almost couldn’t remember what that felt like; she hadn’t let him snuggle into her since Tobi had died. He rested his chin on his paws and watched her. She was growling in her sleep, muttering to herself. He saw her front paws twitch and flex, as if she was dreaming about pinning something down with her claws.

  Toklo didn’t like the feeling it gave him to see his mother like this—it was as if the trees in the forest had shaken the dirt off their roots and started walking around, or the river had switched direction and started flowing up the mountain. She was supposed to be his protector; she was supposed to be strong and to teach him the ways of being a bear. She certainly wasn’t supposed to drive him away.

  His mind teeming with dark, lonely thoughts, Toklo finally drifted into an uneasy sleep.

  In his dream, Toklo found himself safely tucked under the ground. He looked around, blinking, and saw that he was back in his BirthDen. The earth walls curved around him, keeping him and his brother warm. Tobi was curled up beside him, opening and closing his mouth as if testing out how it worked.

  Toklo could smell the richly packed earth. The scent of leaves and moss filled his nostrils. His nose twitched, and he sneezed, which startled him awake. He opened his eyes and saw his mother standing over him. There was a strange, heavy feeling in his fur, and he realized it was full of dirt and leaves. Oka had her eyes half closed and she was murmuring something….

  “Guide his paws through the rocks and the soil until his soul reaches the water that lives deep within you—” she said softly. She was saying the words of the death ritual!

  Toklo scrambled to his paws, shaking his fur. “Mother!” he yelped. “Stop! I’m still alive, see? I’m not dead!”

  Oka’s eyes were vague, as if she was looking into the distance instead of at her cub. She seemed shocked that he’d gotten to his paws.

  “Mother?” he said again. “Look, it’s all right. I’m not dead.”

  Her eyes narrowed and she bared her teeth. “You should be dead,” she snarled.

  Toklo took a step back and noticed a sign in the earth beside him. It was the same crossing-claws mark that Oka had made next to Tobi’s body. What if the earth spirits came to get his spirit, thinking he was dead? Or what if he died somewhere else and they never found him, because the mark was here?

  “Get out!” Oka roared. “There is nothing here for you.”

  “But—but you’re my mother,” Toklo whimpered.

  “I have no cubs,” Oka growled. “Go away!” She lunged at him, her claws outstretched.

  Toklo turned tail and ran for the trees as fast as he could.

  He glanced back when he reached the trees and saw Oka standing on her hind legs, roaring. Her eyes were wild and she looked like a stranger—not like his mother at all. Toklo had lost more than his brother when Tobi died. Perhaps his mother’s spirit had followed her cub too far into the dark river.

  He ran into the woods, determined to put as much distance between himself and Oka as he could. Every cub leaves his mother someday, he told himself. That was true—but usually they had several more moons of learning to hunt and fish with her first.

  “I can teach myself,” he said out loud. “I will learn to hunt and forage on my own.” She wasn’t teaching me very much anyway. Perhaps I’ll be better off by myself. Now I can go where I please and make my own choices. I can stay in the mountains, far away from the stinky trails of the firebeasts.

  The light grew brighter in the clear blue sky as he wove through the whispering, sun-speckled trees, following the bubbling sound of the river, and he felt the warm breeze ruffling his fur. It carried with it the promise that earthsleep was ending and fishleap was on its way—the smell of things growing and changing.

  If he had to live this way, so be it. If there was any cub who could survive on his own, it was Toklo. He’d find a way to live.

  He had to.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Kallik

  Hunger gnawed at Kallik’s belly and her paws trembled with exhaustion. The long shadows of the night were slipping away across the wet grass as the sun peeked over the edge of the sky. Above her, there were streaks of clouds like long claw scratches.

  She reached a scrawny tree, one of the few she could see in either direction, and sat down to rest for a moment. Kallik looked up at the Pathway Star, shining as brightly as it had all night. She’d been trying to follow it while staying close to the shore; even up on the ridge, or when she had to travel inland to get around boggy swamps, she made sure she could smell the bay not too far away.

  The small spot of ice gleamed in the sky above her, reminding her of Nisa and Taqqiq. Maybe her brother was looking at the same star right now. She felt the strong pull of the star, almost as if she could smell the place of never-ending ice already. She knew she had to find it, because Taqqiq would be looking for it, too. She got up to walk again, drawn by the fading light of the star. Her paws made a squishing sound as she stepped onto an expanse of marshy grasses that stretched far in front of her. She felt mud squelching up between her claws and she shuddered, wishing all over again that she could be back on the clean ice and snow over the frozen sea.

  As she slipped and stumbled through the marsh, she stopped to try and eat some of the grass, but it did almost nothing to ease her hunger. She nearly walked straight past the small lump of brown fur, half hidden by the long grasses. But the breeze whisked by at just the right moment, parting the stems so she could spot it.

  Kallik pounced, realizing as her claws hit the flesh that it was a rabbit, and it was already dead. She couldn’t tell how it had died, but she was too hungry to care. “Thank you, ice spirits,” she whispered, ripping off the skin with her claws. “Wherever you are, thank you.”

  She devoured
the rabbit in a few bites, feeling strength return to her legs. When she was finished, she padded toward the shore, following the sound of shrieking. There were birds everywhere now—birds sailing through the air, birds floating in the water, birds darting along the sand, leaving tiny three-clawed tracks behind them. Kallik had never seen so many living things in one place. She knew some of them were ducks and some were plover; from her mother’s stories, she guessed the long-necked ones were geese.

  Shortly before sunhigh, she emerged from the marsh onto pebbly sand. The sea was going out and she spotted five plovers fighting over a small fish. The silver scrap of food was lying on the sand, with birds diving at it and squawking at one another. One of them was standing over it, attacking any others that came near, but another was able to dive in and grab it before a third seized the tail and tried to yank it away.

  Kallik dropped into a crouch, then lunged forward. With a yelp of satisfaction, she pounced on one of the plovers, pinning it to the ground.

  She couldn’t believe it! Live prey, and she’d caught it herself! Kallik bit down quickly before the bird could flap its way free of her paws. With her claws she sliced away the feathers and then chewed her way through the meat of the plover, its tiny bones crunching in her teeth.

  Even the bright heat of sunhigh didn’t bother her as much when there was food in her stomach. Feeling triumphant, she padded through the sand, watching the masses of birds whirl and flap and dive for fish in the bay. Hints of green were starting to appear on the bushes along the shore and Kallik could see more trees again, farther inland.

  She stopped and sniffed the air. The smell was almost overpowering, like all the rain in the world. She started trotting toward it, drinking in the scents it carried of mud, reeds, and tree roots. She threaded her way through some bushes and skidded to a halt. Ahead of her was a tongue of brown water flowing into the bay. She stared across to the other side.

  The brown water was half a skylength wide!

  More swimming? The water looked deep, with a fast current. She started shivering, remembering her mother crying out and the whales attacking.

  There had to be a way around it.

  She turned her back on the bay and trotted along the brown water’s pebbly shore.

  The brown water twisted and turned through scrubby trees and long grasses. Every time she rounded a bend, hoping to reach its end, she saw it stretching away even farther. She felt she might travel forever and never get to the end.

  When her feet started to hurt she made her decision to try and swim across. Although the brown water was deep, she was thankful that it was moving more slowly now.

  She climbed down its muddy side and stepped tentatively into the water. It was cold and refreshing. In a few more steps she was up to her nose. Silaluk, please help me to the other side, she whispered and fell forward into the current. She pulled with her front paws and let her back legs hang behind, steering her.

  Kallik swam farther into the brown water. It felt wonderful, the cold water tugging her fur and soothing her muscles. Soon she was far from shore. She was wondering if she was over halfway when something bumped against her legs.

  She pushed her head beneath the surface and, although it was too murky to see anything, she could hear strange sounds. The water was making clicking, whistling and clanging noises. She lifted up her face to see smooth gray bodies swimming all around her. There were so many of them! It was like the pebbles on the bed of the brown water had come to life. Panic shot through her. She remembered the black fins and sharp teeth of the orca that had taken away her mother. Save me, spirits of the ice! she thought.

  A spout of water shot into the air, dousing her head with salty spray. The next moment, a head popped out of the water, and Kallik saw that the swimmers weren’t killer whales at all. These were small gray whales. The one looking at her had a chubby white head and short flapping fins. It squeaked cheerfully, and another small whale broke off to join it. They both clicked and whistled at Kallik, and she wondered what they were saying.

  One of them ducked under, came back up, and spat water at Kallik. The other swam around her, flapping its fins and spinning slowly. For such peculiar-looking animals, they moved with an odd grace in the water. Kallik felt clumsy and awkward beside them.

  They splashed around her as she swam toward the shore, and a light giddiness welled inside her. She’d been too terrified to notice before, but the icy water was a relief after so much mud and dust and rocky ground under her paws. Kallik rolled in the water, ducking her head under and sending splashes into the air that made the whales whistle. She felt cooler and lighter, the dirt and grime of many days’ travel washing out of her fur. The water tasted of ice: freezing and sharp and full of promises. But there was no ice to be seen—the waves stretched on and on, all the way to the edge of the sky.

  Kallik felt sand under her paws and she dug in, pushing herself out of the water up onto the shore. A loud whistle sounded from a larger whale swimming by, and the two little whales flipped over and dove away, swimming rapidly to catch up to the others. Kallik watched them go with a deep pang of loneliness. They had one another to play with, and lots of other whales to keep them company. She never got to play anymore, not without Taqqiq, and she had no one to look after her.

  Kallik was too tired and wet to go any farther today. A short way along the shore she found a hollowed-out rock sticking out of the sand. She crawled underneath it, digging through the sand until she’d created a space big enough for her to curl up in. From here she could see and smell the sea. It made her think of the spirits in the ice, and she drifted off to sleep wondering how long they stayed around when the ice melted. Was her mother’s spirit out in the water somewhere? Or had she already splashed up into the sky, to become a star looking down on Kallik?

  The shore of the bay started to change the next day as Kallik kept walking. There were more stones underpaw here, the sand giving way to pebbles and larger round rocks. Soon after the sun came up she saw a large cliff cutting across the beach far ahead of her, blocking her view of the shore beyond.

  As she got closer to the rocky wall, a dank, heavy smell hit her nose almost at the same time as she heard grumbling and snorting from up ahead. She slowed down, wondering what it was and whether it was safe to go any closer. It sounded a bit like thunder, or many bears bellowing in pain.

  Kallik crept up to the edge of the cliff that cut in close to the sea. She peered around it to the strip of land beyond, where the shore curved into a miniature bay enclosed by rocks.

  All along the sandy beach, huge, fat animals were lying on their stomachs. Walruses, so many and so packed together that Kallik couldn’t see the ground underneath them. They were the ugliest creatures Kallik had ever seen. Two long yellow teeth jutted straight down from their top lips. Tiny eyes peered out of the folds around their faces, and their muzzles were squashed and bushy.

  Kallik padded out from behind the wall and trotted along the curve of the small bay. As she got closer, a few of the walruses swung their heads around to look at her.

  Suddenly the closest one charged at her, barking, its brown flesh wobbling. Its teeth sliced through the air only whiskers away from Kallik’s nose. With a yelp of fear, Kallik fled back the way she came, terror giving extra speed to her paws. She skidded around the end of the rocky cliff and raced inland. She would go as far as she could while keeping the smell of the sea in her nose.

  She trotted faster, fear spurring her paws along. Visions flashed through her mind of those long, sharp tusks stabbing into her fur. Had her brother run into walruses on his journey? She looked up at the sky, knowing the Pathway Star was out there, even if she couldn’t see it in the daylight. Please, spirits of the ice, if you can hear me, she whispered, please protect Taqqiq. Help him to follow the Pathway Star. Tell him I’m coming for him. Tell him to stay alive until I find him. Please.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Lusa

  Lusa’s nose twitched. There was something ne
w in the air—something that made her paws itch and her fur prickle. She could smell things growing and changing around her, although the Bear Bowl still looked the same. Every day more and more birds flew overhead. Sometimes she would sit and watch them and wish she could go wherever they were going.

  “It’s the seasons changing, little blackberry,” Stella explained. “Cold-earth is ending, and this is your first leaftime. This is the time when we would be searching for new kinds of food in the wild. But we don’t have to do that here, because we haven’t gone short of food during cold-earth. We’re safe, and nothing’s going to change. You’ll get used to it. Now, go and play with Yogi. He’s probably feeling just as restless as you are.”

  Lusa didn’t think so. Yogi couldn’t even be bothered to climb to the top of the Bear Tree to see what was outside the Bowl. But she didn’t want to be lonely as well as bored, so she went to find him.

  They were playing on the Mountains, jumping off and scampering around to climb back on again, when Lusa heard a whirring noise and doors rattling on the far side of the Fence, in the grizzly enclosure. She leaped off the rocks and galloped over to the Fence, pressing her nose against the cold web.

  “Lusa!” Yogi cried. “Where are you going? What about our game?”

  “Yogi, come see!” Lusa called. “Grumps is getting a friend!”

  The burning smell of the firebeast filled her nose as it prowled into the center of the brown bear enclosure. It was pulling a cage, like the one Ashia had been taken away in. Inside, Lusa could see a large pile of shaggy brown fur.

  She had never seen a new bear arrive in the Bowl before. She stood up on her hind legs and hooked her front claws in the Fence, stretching to get a better view. Two of the feeders came around to the back of the trailer, wearing extra pelts on their paws and faces. They unhooked the mesh door and reached in to pull out the shiny skin the new bear was resting on. They dragged it and the bear onto the ground, then slid the skin out from under her.