The Quest Begins

by Erin Hunter

  She climbed to her paws, gingerly testing her sore paw. It still ached when she leaned on it, but she took a few steps and decided that she could walk, at least a little way. Now that she had her sense of where the Bear Watcher was, she wanted to keep going. She climbed over the fence and headed toward the mountain and the star again. She’d been walking for a short while when a light rain started to fall, filling the air with a clean, fresh scent.

  There were fewer flat-face dens in this direction. The ones she saw were surrounded by wide expanses of grass, and there were short stretches of woodland in between them. The growling murmur of the firebeasts faded the farther she walked. She liked the quiet, but it also made her a little nervous. She wasn’t sure how she was going to find food once she left the flat-face dens behind.

  The rain lifted close to dawn, and Lusa sneezed, shaking her soaked fur. Everything around her smelled green and alive, and for once there were lots of places where she could hide. But first she wanted to find something to eat. The last meal she’d had was the potato sticks in the firebeasts’ territory three days earlier, and she was beginning to stumble with weariness and hunger.

  She trotted warily over to the nearest flat-face den. In the pink and gray early-morning light, it looked quiet and closed up. Not a sound came from inside, and she couldn’t see any lights shining through the windows. A high wooden fence ran along the back and sides of the grassy enclosure, with tall trees just beyond it.

  Lusa sniffed around to the back of the den, where she found one of the silver cans. This one had a lid tightly stuck on it. She dug her claws under the rim and shoved at it with her front paws. The can tipped over easily, knocking off the lid. The clatter was fairly loud, but still nothing seemed to move inside the den. Maybe the flat-faces were out hunting for prey. She stuck her muzzle inside the can and scrabbled out a small skin stuffed with things. She ripped open the skin and spread the contents out around her, sniffing each one.

  Something rattled behind her, and Lusa spun around. Standing on the back steps of the den was a male flat-face cub. He looked like the flat-face cubs who had often visited her at the Bear Bowl. Perhaps if she danced for him, he would throw her fruit, like her feeders used to. Her mouth watered at the thought of blueberries. Feeling hopeful, Lusa stood up onto her hind legs and batted at the air with her forepaws.

  The flat-face cub screamed.

  Startled, Lusa fell over backward. Her ears were still ringing as she scrambled back to her feet. The door of the den slammed open and a large male flat-face stormed out, shouting and waving his paws. In one of them he held a long metal stick. As he swung it around to point it at her, Lusa realized that it looked like the ones the furry feeder had used to send her and her mother to sleep.

  She turned and raced for the nearest fence. She didn’t want to be sent to sleep! With a huge leap, she sank her claws into the wood and scrambled up to the top. Just as she was hauling herself over, a bang went off behind her, and the edge of the fence near her exploded into splinters.

  Lusa lost her balance and tumbled onto the other side, knocking the wind out of herself as she landed. Painfully, she climbed upright again and limped into the woods. She wasn’t sure what had just happened—but she suspected that if the metal stick had hit her instead of the fence, she might have been the one exploding into bits.

  She found a hollow between two trees and crawled into it, shivering. Part of her wanted to stay in there forever. This wasn’t how her journey was meant to be! Maybe King was right, and she should have stayed in the Bear Bowl. The other part of her knew she should keep moving as soon as it was dark again. She needed to get to the forest and the mountain. Once she was truly in the wild, away from the flat-faces, she knew there would still be dangers…but she couldn’t believe they would be as scary as what she’d faced so far.

  Lusa slept all day, and when night fell, she had to force herself to leave the hollow. Another flat-face den was only a few bearlengths away through the trees, but she didn’t want to risk another attack from a spitting stick. She would get to the forest, and then she would start looking for food again.

  She wove through the trees until she came to a path, where she stopped and looked up at the night sky. Her breath caught in her throat. There were so many stars! She’d never known there were so many up there—the orange glow of lights around the Bear Bowl and among the flat-face dens must have hidden them. But out here, where there was much more darkness, she could see all the tiny stars glittering clearly in the pure black sky.

  “Thousands of stars,” she breathed.

  Now she could see the stars from Stella’s stories. She could see the little black bear that had the Bear Watcher in her tail, and the big brown bear that chased her around the sky. That little bear had to be brave, and so did she.

  Lusa padded along, keeping her eyes on the dark shape of the mountain ahead of her. She ran across patches of short grass, through stands of trees, behind quiet flat-face dens. She walked all night. And then, at last, just as the sun was sending trickles of pale gold sneaking over the horizon, Lusa crossed one final stone path and looked up to see the slope of the mountain rising above her.

  Ahead of her stretched a forest for as far as she could see, touching the ends of the sky and climbing up the mountain. The trees were vast, gigantic—so much bigger than the spindly trees in the Bear Bowl. Lusa could believe that this was where bear spirits came when they died. Already she thought she could hear their whispers in the soft breeze that rustled the leaves.

  She stood at the edge of the forest and looked up into the branches.

  “It’s me, Lusa,” she whispered to the tree spirits. “I’m here.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Toklo

  Toklo stared at the smooth-pelt cub. It could speak his language!

  “Please help me,” the young smooth-pelt said. “I won’t hurt you.” The cave echoed with his growls, which sounded very strange coming from a smooth-pelt muzzle.

  “What do you want?” Toklo growled. “Where is the cub?”

  “I am the cub,” the stranger said, pressing his paw to the wound in his shoulder. “I—I changed during the night. Please, I need you to get me an herb for this.” Toklo saw that the smooth-pelt’s paws were trembling and his face was very pale. His breathing was ragged and his voice kept faltering, as if he was using all his energy to talk.

  “An herb?” Toklo echoed. “Why do you want an herb?” He didn’t believe this butterfly-brained story about the cub turning into a smooth-pelt. But they did have the same wound, which was odd.

  “The juice of the leaves will make my shoulder better. It’s a tall plant with bright yellow flowers,” the smooth-pelt grunted. “The leaves are long and dark and—and pointed at the ends. Please.” A ripple of pain crossed his face. “If you don’t get them, I’ll die.”

  Toklo backed out of the cave. He hadn’t decided yet whether to come back with the herb, but he didn’t like the sickly smell coming from the smooth-pelt. It reminded him of Tobi, and he didn’t want to watch another creature die, even if it was only a smooth-pelt cub. Perhaps he would bring the herb and then get as far away as he could.

  As he padded up the ravine, he kept an eye out for the grizzly cub. It must have snuck out of the cave while he was asleep. He was surprised not to find any pawprints or traces of the smaller cub’s scent. How had it gotten away?

  In the meadow at the top, Toklo hesitated behind a pile of boulders, sniffing the air, before emerging into the field. There was no trace of the smooth-pelts or their popping sticks in the air. Only the buzzing of flying insects and the faraway hum of firebeasts reached his ears as he stepped into the long grass. He followed his nose to the main river; not far from it there was a clump of the plants that the smooth-pelt had described. Toklo bit a couple of them off at the stem, resisting the urge to stay and dig up some roots to eat. Maybe if the flat-face keeps annoying me, I’ll eat him, Toklo thought. Did grizzlies eat smooth-pelts? He didn’t think so—h
is mother had never mentioned them, and she would have if they were food.

  He dragged the plants back to the ravine and held them carefully in his mouth as he climbed down to the cave. They tasted bitter, and he tried not to swallow any of the juice. Inside, the smooth-pelt was curled up, his ribs lifting with quick, shallow breaths, his eyes closed. Maybe he was right about dying.

  Toklo dropped the plants beside him. “Is this what you want?”

  The smooth-pelt opened his eyes and nodded. He picked up one of the plants in his tiny, clawless paws and started ripping apart the leaves. Toklo realized that the smooth-pelt’s paws split into five bits at the ends, each of which the cub could move separately from the others. Toklo looked down at his heavy, flat paw, tipped with long straight claws. He thought it was more useful to be able to dig up roots and slice open the skin of your prey than it was to pick up small things.

  “What’s your name?” the smooth-pelt asked, pressing the leaves together.

  “Toklo.”

  “I’m Ujurak,” the smooth-pelt said. He put the crushed leaves in his mouth and chewed them into a green paste, which he spat out and spread over his wound. Toklo wrinkled his nose.

  Ujurak held out his paw, with some of the paste still in it. “Your muzzle is hurt,” he said. “Put this on it.”

  “No!” Toklo said. “I don’t need your help.”

  “Trust me, it’ll heal faster,” the smooth-pelt said. He leaned forward so quickly, Toklo didn’t have time to move. Before he knew it, Ujurak was spreading green paste over the cut on his nose.

  He felt a cool tingling under his skin, and the pain faded away. Toklo stopped squirming and sat still, letting Ujurak apply the rest of the paste. After he was finished, Ujurak lay back against the wall. He closed his eyes, and his breathing slowed until Toklo realized that he was asleep.

  Time to go. Ujurak wasn’t dying anymore. Toklo could go on his way without worrying about this smooth-pelt cub or even thinking about him again. Quietly, so as not to wake him, he backed out of the cave and padded up the side of the ravine again. He set off across the meadow, working his way back to the river. He could feed himself now and get rid of the taste of that herb.

  Standing in the river with the silvery shadows flickering between his paws, Toklo watched and waited. There! A flash of movement slithered through his paws. Toklo remembered not to leap too quickly. He saw the path the fish was taking—he aimed for the spot where it would be, not where it was—and then he sprang, trusting his paws to guide him.

  His claws sank into flesh. He ducked his head below the water and fastened his teeth around a gleaming, flailing bundle of scales. Triumphantly he lifted his muzzle out and shook the fish as hard as he could, stunning it into stillness.

  He’d caught a salmon!

  Toklo splashed over to the riverbank and dropped the fish on the pebbly shore. He pinned it down with one paw and ripped off a chunk with his teeth. The taste was startlingly delicious. It tasted even better than the salmon he’d stolen a few days earlier.

  Suddenly he pricked his ears. Something was coming through the bushes. Toklo hunched his back and growled, ready to protect his prey. Branches snapped as a grizzly bear cub blundered out of the bushes. It was the cub he had rescued yesterday.

  “You!” Toklo said.

  “Yes,” said the cub. “Thank you for the herb.”

  Toklo looked at the cub’s shoulder. There was a greenish paste covering the wound. “Did the smooth-pelt put that on you?” he asked.

  “You mean the human boy?” said the cub. “That was me. I’m Ujurak.”

  Toklo stared at him. “But you’re a bear.”

  “I am now,” the cub said, sitting down. He shook his head. “Just not all of the time. I don’t know whether I’m really a bear or a boy, or something else.”

  His shoulders slumped. Toklo wondered what it was like to turn into something else. He didn’t want to find out. A bear was clearly the best thing to be. “Well, you’re a bear now,” he said. He wasn’t even sure if he believed the cub. Maybe he had seen the smooth-pelt, who had put the paste on his shoulder. And yet they had wounds in exactly the same place. And the same innocent, trusting brown eyes…

  Toklo tore off half the salmon and offered it to the cub. Ujurak accepted gratefully. Toklo finished his half of the salmon and watched the cub gnawing away. He hadn’t planned on meeting him again. The only thing Toklo had wanted was to make sure he didn’t die, and obviously he was fine now.

  “All right,” Toklo said. “I’ll be off, then.”

  “Wait,” Ujurak said, scrambling to his paws. “Where are you traveling to?”

  Toklo sank his claws into the soft earth. “As far away from other bears as possible,” he growled. He pictured the bright star, alone and distant and apart from all the others. That’s how he wanted to be, too.

  “That’s where I’m going, too,” Ujurak said unexpectedly. “But I don’t know how to get there. All I know is that the way will be marked by a path of fire in the sky.”

  Toklo tilted his head. Fire in the sky? More like the cub had bees in his brain. “Well, er…good luck, then,” he said.

  “No, don’t you see?” Ujurak pressed. “We have to travel together. We can help each other find this place.”

  Toklo looked down at Ujurak. His shoulders were thin for a brown bear, and his paws did not look as if they’d been toughened by moons of climbing over rocks and snow. An image of Tobi flashed through Toklo’s mind. If Ujurak was left on his own, he might not survive. But Toklo didn’t want a traveling companion, one he had to look after, one who would slow him down. Especially not one who kept saying he could change into a flat-face.

  “Where’s your mother?” Toklo asked.

  Ujurak shrugged. “I’ve been on my own for a long time,” he answered. “Please help me find where I have to go.”

  Toklo thought about Tobi’s body, covered in dirt and leaves. He thought about his mother, crazy with grief, who didn’t love him enough to take care of him. Toklo knew he couldn’t abandon Ujurak like that. “Okay,” he said gruffly. “We can travel together for a while. But I’m not going all the way to a place where there is fire in the sky.” That didn’t sound like a place with sheltered valleys and rivers filled with salmon.

  Ujurak sprang to his paws, wincing as he jarred his shoulder. “Let’s go!” He bounded away up the river without waiting to see which way Toklo had been planning to go. He kicked up a flurry of pebbles behind him, and one of them bonked Toklo on the nose.

  Toklo sighed, rubbing his muzzle. What had he gotten himself into?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Kallik

  The no-claw lowered his death stick and yelled something. Another no-claw—this one with fur growing from his muzzle—stepped forward and pointed a different stick at her. Kallik felt a sharp scratch in her side. She yelped and jumped back, pawing at the spot where she’d been scratched. She was surprised that it didn’t hurt very much. Surely this wasn’t the pain of the death sticks that the she-bear had warned her about?

  Then she realized that the world around her was getting fuzzy. She felt as if her mind was melting like the ice. Everything around her was getting blurrier, like she was seeing it through a dense fog. Kallik blinked, trying to stay awake. Was this what dying felt like? She didn’t want to die here, so far from the ice.

  But she couldn’t fight the weight pressing down on her mind. She slid to the ground, feeling her paws go limp. Slowly her eyes closed, and she sank into blackness.

  When Kallik opened her eyes again, she was surrounded by white—bright, blistering white. Not snow. Something else that was cold and hard and didn’t feel right. She rubbed her eyes with her paws. She could smell other bears. She shook her head to clear the buzzing from her ears. The bears were crying out to one another, calling names and pleading for help.

  Kallik sat up, still feeling woozy. Now she could hear harsh clanging sounds, and there was a strong smell coming from somewhere very
close by. She sniffed. The smell was coming from her! Something sticky had been daubed all over her fur. It made her eyes water. There was also a weird, sharp taste in her mouth.

  Where was she?

  Kallik stood up, her paws wobbling underneath her. She took a step forward and noticed that she was surrounded by hard gray columns, like tree branches but much straighter and smoother. Beyond the columns she could see a massive den. Her gaze traveled up the straight white walls to the roof looming far above her. She looked down again and saw that the other white bears were enclosed by gray columns as well.

  No-claws were walking between the enclosures, looking at the bears. Some of them held long sticks, and Kallik flinched, putting her nose under her paws. She waited for the stick to sting her again.

  The no-claws walked straight past, and Kallik peered up. An old male bear was pacing behind the columns opposite her. “We’re all going to die!” he howled. “The ice will never return, and we’ll all starve!”

  “That’s not true!” Kallik cried, feeling panic rise up in her. “The ice will come back. It always does. That’s what my mother told me.” Her voice faltered at the end, but he ignored her.

  “Every bear in the world will starve!” he roared again.

  “The Endless Ice…”

  “It never melts….”

  “That’s where we need to go….”

  Whispers ran through the bears, rustling like snow across the ice. Kallik scratched her ear. Were they talking about the place where the Pathway Star led—where the ice never melted?

  “The Endless Ice?” Kallik yelped. “You mean the place with the dancing spirits? Where the Pathway Star leads?”

  “A long way…” one bear murmured, but none of them answered Kallik’s questions. She didn’t think they even knew what they were saying. Most of them sounded half crazed and terrified, rambling to themselves instead of speaking to one another.