Island of Shadows

by Erin Hunter

  Lusa lashed out a paw at it. Though she missed, the birds drew off a little way, only to fly down again a moment later. Their wings buffeted her head, and their beaks flashed out, pecking at her shoulders.

  I’m going to die here! The birds will eat me alive! Lusa thought, terror flowing through her body like ice.

  Then Lusa heard more pawsteps approaching at a run, and Kallik’s voice: “This way! Those birds have found some prey.”

  “Oh, thank Arcturus!” Lusa exclaimed. “Kallik! Toklo! Help!”

  Toklo came galloping up. “It’s not prey; it’s Lusa!”

  “Get me out of here!” Lusa begged. “My paw is stuck.”

  Kallik plunged down into the hollow to investigate, while Toklo reared up on his hindpaws, snarling and battering at the birds until they flew away. Their frustrated shrieking died into silence.

  Lusa felt Kallik scraping at the ice beside her paw. “Try it now,” the white bear said.

  Lusa tugged at her paw again and felt it come free. Staggering slightly, she managed to stand up and haul herself out of the hollow.

  “Is your paw hurt?” Kallik asked.

  Lusa flexed her foot; it felt a bit sore, but she could put her weight on it and walk. “It’ll be fine,” she said. “Thank you for rescuing me. I thought I’d be stuck there forever.”

  “Just watch where you’re putting your paws in future,” Toklo grunted, giving her an affectionate push with his snout.

  “Have you seen Nanulak?” Lusa asked as they headed back toward the den.

  Kallik shook her head. “I thought he stayed with Yakone.”

  “No, he was out here,” Lusa went on, indignation rising inside her. “I saw him and called out to him, but he just kept going and left me there. I guess he didn’t see me,” she added.

  “Oh, that’s awful!” Kallik responded. “I’m sure he’ll feel terrible when he finds out.”

  I felt terrible when he left me, Lusa thought. And I’m almost certain he saw me.

  When she pushed her way through the thorn thicket to the den they had made in the middle, Yakone and Nanulak were there together. Nanulak was curled up and looked half asleep.

  “Nanulak, you left me stuck in the ice!” Lusa growled as soon as she saw the mixed bear.

  Nanulak sprang to his paws. “I did what?”

  His eyes were wide with shock. Lusa wondered whether he was genuinely appalled to hear what had happened, or whether he hadn’t expected her to come back.

  “I got my paw stuck,” she explained. “I saw you and called out to you, but you just turned away.”

  “Well, I didn’t see you,” Nanulak replied, blinking at her. “I’m sorry, Lusa, but I really didn’t.”

  He would say that, wouldn’t he? “You looked right at me!” she retorted.

  “Lusa, remember what it was like out there—dark, and you were down in that hollow,” Toklo pointed out. “There was the noise of the wind, and those birds… It would have been difficult for any bear to see you.”

  Kallik nodded. “We wouldn’t have spotted you if it hadn’t been for the birds.”

  “I still think he saw me,” Lusa muttered, frustrated at the way her friends were taking Nanulak’s side.

  “Why would Nanulak leave you stuck out there and then lie about it?” Toklo growled.

  Lusa turned away with an angry shrug.

  “I’m really sorry, Lusa.” Nanulak’s plaintive voice came from behind her, but Lusa ignored him.

  She curled up at the edge of the den, with thorn branches scraping her back, and covered her head with her paws. She knew that if she said any more there would be a real quarrel, and she couldn’t face it, especially when it looked as if no bear would be on her side.

  I’ve been their friend for ages, she thought. Why would they believe him and not me?

  Then she wondered whether perhaps she was making a mistake. It was so unlikely that any bear would leave another to die. Kallik was right that between the darkness and the noise of wind and birds, Nanulak might have missed her.

  Still, she couldn’t stifle a nagging suspicion of the young mixed bear. She had made eye contact with him over the edge of the hollow; he must have seen her as clearly as she’d seen him. I don’t care what the others think. I’m keeping an eye on him from now on.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Toklo

  I have to keep Nanulak safe, Toklo thought. Nothing else matters.

  After their frantic escape from the ice cap, and Lusa’s accident, the bears had spent an extra day resting in the thorn thicket. Toklo had made sure that one of them was always on watch. They hadn’t seen any more bears, white or brown, but he knew they were roaming around everywhere on the island.

  The white bears really are hostile to brown bears, he thought. Tikaani must have been an exception.

  “We need to get off the island as soon as we can,” he said softly to Kallik and Yakone. Lusa was asleep, and Nanulak crouched at the edge of the thicket, keeping watch.

  Kallik nodded. “I don’t feel comfortable here,” she agreed. “There’s something not right about it. The sooner we leave it the better.”

  “And I think we should travel at night,” Yakone suggested. “That way we’re less likely to meet hostile bears.”

  “Good idea,” Toklo grunted. “We’ll start tonight.”

  They set out after sunset and plodded on through the darkness. Toklo’s senses were alert for the first signs of other bears approaching, but he could pick up nothing but the scent of frost, hear nothing except their own pawsteps.

  Night followed night as they traveled along the topmost ridge of the island. Sometimes they could see the ice cap glimmering in the distance, but after the encounter with the old white bear they kept well away from it. Each day as dawn broke they would find a hiding place, or dig out a den in the snow, and stay sleeping uneasily until the light faded again.

  I’m so tired my paws are going to drop off, Toklo grumbled to himself. And my belly thinks my throat’s been clawed out!

  Hunting was harder at night, especially as they didn’t dare split up and the pickings along their trail were slim.

  I’d give anything for a musk ox, or a caribou. Toklo’s mouth watered at the thought. These scrawny hares wouldn’t fill a hollow tooth! And Tikaani’s hunting tips don’t work as well in the dark.

  Toklo’s only relief was to look up at the sky and see Ujurak’s shape shining among the stars. And even that was a bleak kind of comfort, when he remembered how his friend had walked away from him in his dream.

  Yakone and Kallik were padding side by side, their pelts brushing, their heads close together as they talked quietly. “I can’t wait to see the Frozen Sea,” Yakone was saying. “Is the hunting good there?”

  “There are plenty of seals, until the ice melts,” Kallik replied. “Oh, I wish I could fill my belly with seal meat right now!”

  Lusa, awake for once, was perched on Yakone’s shoulders, but she didn’t join in the conversation.

  I wonder if she feels left out, Toklo thought. I’ll make sure that she finds a place with trees and other black bears. A place where she’ll be safe, and where it’s easy for her to live. And then I can travel on with Nanulak.

  Deep satisfaction flooded through Toklo as his thoughts returned to the younger bear. He felt warm from his ears to his claw tips.

  I was buried underground, under sticks and earth, he thought, remembering the fear and despair he had felt in the tunnels. I nearly died. And now I feel like I’m alive again. I know Ujurak sent Nanulak to me, to give me a reason for surviving.

  Toklo didn’t feel as tired or hungry while he made plans about how he would teach Nanulak the way that brown bears lived. I’ll show him how to dig out a den, and how to mark his territory. He’ll have the territory next to mine, and then we can look out for each other. I’ll help him if other bears attack him. We can share prey…. It’ll be almost like having Tobi back.

  Toklo sighed. Everything would be be
tter once they got off this spirit-forsaken island. But the ridge still stretched out ahead of them with no sign of coming to an end.

  One day…

  A grassy meadow lay in front of Toklo, sloping down to where sunlight glittered on a swift-flowing river. In the shallows close to the bank a brown she-bear was teaching her cub how to catch salmon.

  As Toklo watched, letting the warmth of the sun soak into his fur, an eagle circled above his head and alighted on the grass nearby. Toklo stared in astonishment as the bird’s body filled out and its feathers vanished to be replaced by brown fur, and Ujurak dropped to four paws in front of him.

  “Hi, Toklo,” he said.

  “Ujurak!” Toklo exclaimed. “I must be dreaming, right?” he added, feeling a stab of sadness that he would never meet his friend again in the waking world. “You’re not really here.”

  “Of course you’re dreaming,” Ujurak replied cheerfully. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not here with you. Race you to the river!”

  He took off across the meadow, his paws skimming the grass, and Toklo galloped after him. Suddenly it didn’t matter that this was a dream: For a little while he had his friend back again.

  At the river the mother bear and her cub still stood in the shallows, watching intently for a salmon. Ujurak halted on a flat rock that stuck out into the current a couple of bear-lengths away.

  “Toklo, will you teach me how to catch salmon now?” he asked.

  He glanced back over his shoulder as Toklo caught up. Toklo halted in confusion. The bear in front of him wasn’t Ujurak anymore; he was Nanulak.

  “Sure I’ll teach you,” Toklo replied, padding out onto the rock beside Nanulak. He was disappointed to have lost Ujurak again after such a short time, but he tried to hide it.

  Just then, the cub fishing with his mother leaped forward; glittering drops splashed up all around him. He thrust his snout into the water and raised it again with a salmon wriggling in his jaws.

  His mother’s eyes shone with pride. “Well done!” she barked.

  Suddenly Nanulak launched himself off the rock. Landing in the river beside the cub, he cuffed him hard over the head with one paw. The cub let out a squeal of pain, dropping the salmon. Nanulak snatched it up before it could fall into the water, and gave the cub a hard shove.

  The cub staggered, lost his footing, and rolled over into deeper water. He let out a terrified wail as the current carried him away. The mother bear roared in outrage, but instead of coming after Nanulak she swam after her cub.

  Nanulak scrambled out onto the rock and dropped the fish at Toklo’s paws. “That’s how to catch a salmon!”

  Toklo jerked in shock and opened his eyes in the darkness of the snow-den. Nanulak was curled up next to him, Lusa on his other side; Kallik slept in a mound of white fur, while Yakone was on watch, crouched at the mouth of the den.

  Toklo tried to steady the pounding of his heart. It was only a dream, he told himself. Nanulak would never do anything like that.

  Toklo wondered what the dream meant. Maybe it didn’t mean anything. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to compare the two brown bears. Ujurak had found his destiny and gone, except for a fleeting, unreliable contact in dreams. One bear was real; the other wasn’t.

  Now I have Nanulak to look after.

  Toklo curled up with his nose on his paws. But the memory of the dream was too strong, too disturbing, for him to go back to sleep. Instead, careful not to disturb the others, he rose to his paws and slipped past Yakone, out of the den. The snowy landscape stretched all around him, with the ice cap glimmering in the distance, beneath a sky thickly frosted with stars.

  If it’s night, why aren’t we moving on? Toklo wondered. “Hey,” he said aloud, turning back to Yakone, “you should have—”

  He broke off. Yakone and the den had vanished. Toklo was alone in the snow.

  I’m still dreaming, he thought. Can’t I just dream a nice, plump hare?

  But the whole landscape was empty of prey. Instead, Toklo looked up to see that some of the stars were moving. His paws tingled with anticipation as Ujurak’s shining shape formed in the air and cantered down the sky toward him.

  “Toklo.” Ujurak landed and stepped up to him; his paws left no prints in the snow. Toklo felt a jolt of energy run right through him as star-Ujurak touched noses with him. “Toklo, look.”

  Ujurak raised a paw to point. Gazing in that direction, Toklo spotted a brown bear curled up in the snow, under a rocky overhang. As he looked closer, he recognized Nanulak. He was sleeping peacefully.

  “Nanulak can take care of himself,” Ujurak said. “He doesn’t need you. What matters most is for you to find a home.”

  “But—” Toklo turned to Ujurak in confusion. “I thought you sent Nanulak to me, so I could look after him.”

  Ujurak shook his head. “No, Toklo. He is not your destiny.”

  “But he needs me!” Toklo burst out. “You’re wrong, Ujurak. Nanulak needs me!”

  Ujurak gazed at Toklo with stars in the depths of his eyes. “Toklo, it’s you who are wrong. You should leave Nanulak here, where he belongs.”

  “He doesn’t belong here! His family drove him away. White bears attacked him.” Anger surged up inside Toklo. “I see what the problem is!” he growled. “You’re jealous of Nanulak! You’re jealous because I’ve found another friend.”

  Ujurak let out a sad sigh. “Toklo, that’s not true.”

  “If you wanted me to be your friend, you should have stayed with me!” All his grief and bitterness burst out. “But no, you had to go off into the stars. And that means you don’t get to tell me what I should do anymore.”

  Toklo glared at Ujurak, waiting for a reply, half afraid of his own fury. He wanted Ujurak to say something that would make everything all right again.

  But Ujurak only bowed his head and turned away. Without another word, he padded off across the snow, his starry shape growing smaller and smaller until it was only a faint glimmer on the horizon. Then he was gone.

  Toklo jumped awake from the dream, shocked to find Nanulak lying close beside him, deeply asleep. Ujurak’s voice still echoed in his ears, but now Toklo knew that he wasn’t dreaming anymore. He was lying in the snow-den that Kallik and Yakone had dug out earlier as dawn had broken; Lusa was blinking up at him, clearly just waking up.

  “Are you okay, Toklo?” she asked. “You were saying Ujurak’s name in your sleep.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Toklo retorted, turning his back on her.

  There was silence from Lusa. Toklo knew that he shouldn’t be grumpy toward her, but he was still shaken from what he had seen in the dream.

  I don’t want to think about it, he decided. If Ujurak says that Nanulak isn’t part of the plan, he’s wrong, that’s all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Lusa

  Tumbling off Yakone’s shoulders, Lusa found it hard to stay on her paws. Traveling by night made her feel as if every hair on her pelt were withering from exhaustion, even when she was riding on the white bear’s back. Her muscles ached, and it was an effort even to keep her eyes open.

  And I’m so hungry! It’s so hard to find moss and leaves under the snow in the dark. Besides, there’s so little time to stop and look when we’re hurrying to escape from the white bears.

  On the distant horizon, a line of pale light showed where the sun would rise. A nearby rocky outcrop cast blue shadows across the snow, where lines of tiny pawprints broke up the smooth white surface.

  “It looks as if there might be more prey around here,” Toklo said to the white bears, sniffing the air. “Let’s hunt.”

  “Okay,” Kallik replied. “Yakone, that looks like a frozen stream over there. Let’s follow it.”

  “I’ll go this way, then.” Toklo padded off along the ridge in the direction they were heading.

  “Wait for me!” Nanulak squealed, bounding across the snow to catch up with Toklo.

  Toklo turned to face the younger bear. “No, we c
an’t leave Lusa by herself. Besides, you need to stay in hiding so the white bears don’t find you. Stay here and dig out a den, so it’s ready for when we get back.”

  “But—” Nanulak began to protest, then seemed to realize there would be no point. He padded back to Lusa, his head down, his paws kicking up the snow.

  Lusa wasn’t sure she wanted to be left alone with Nanulak, but she told herself not to be mean. Maybe I was wrong to think he left me stranded that night. Besides, he’s Toklo’s friend, so he should be my friend, too.

  “Come on, Nanulak,” she said, trying to sound cheerful in spite of her tiredness. “I’ll help you build the den.”

  “Okay. Under here would be a good place.” Nanulak headed for the snowdrifts at the bottom of the rocky outcrop and began to dig.

  For a moment Lusa admired the strong swipes of his paws, before coming to dig alongside him. “Your paws are just like Kallik’s,” she said. “It’s great that you have strengths from different kinds of bear.”

  Nanulak just grunted.

  “You remind me a bit of Ujurak,” she went on, hoping she could make Nanulak talk to her. “In a way, you’ve got different shapes, just like him!”

  Nanulak paused in his digging for a moment to look at her. “What do you mean?” he asked. “You all keep mentioning Ujurak, but I don’t see why he was so important.”

  “Oh, Ujurak was great!” Lusa replied enthusiastically. “He was a brown bear most of the time, but he could change his shape and be whatever he wanted.”

  Nanulak’s eyes stretched wide. “He could do what?”

  “Change his shape.” Lusa realized that maybe she should be more careful about what she told Nanulak. She didn’t want him to think that she was telling lies. Nanulak isn’t likely to believe that Ujurak could turn into a flat-face! “Like … if we needed to know which way to go, he could change into a bird and spy out the land. Or once he changed into a mule deer and led some wolves away from us.”

  Nanulak paused for a moment, then began scraping at the snow again. Lusa carried on digging beside him, but she found the silence awkward.