Toklo looked sideways at Ujurak. ‘When you said that we’d leave this morning, did you know the rain was going to stop?’ he asked.
Ujurak shrugged. ‘Maybe.’ He headed off, trotting along the stream.
Toklo huffed.
‘Are you ready?’ Kallik asked Lusa, splashing in a circle around her. ‘Are you sure your leg will be all right?’
‘Oh, my goodness,’ Lusa huffed. ‘I’m just a big pile of wet, useless fur, aren’t I?’
‘No, you’re not,’ Kallik said, bumping Lusa’s shoulder with her nose. ‘You’re our ray of sunshine. See, you came outside, and the sun just had to come back out.’ She looked up at Toklo, and he dipped his head in agreement.
‘Hmm – a heavy, dopey, limping ray of sunshine,’ Lusa said with a sigh.
‘You are surprisingly heavy,’ Toklo teased. ‘I think you must’ve been sneaking blueberries when we weren’t looking.’
‘Hey!’ Lusa yelped, batting a spray of water at him. ‘I wish!’
‘Come on, let’s catch up with Ujurak,’ Toklo said, his spirits feeling lighter than he’d expected after the long, fretful night.
They climbed all morning, stopping often so that Lusa could rest. The days of rain had damped down the smoke, so the air smelled clearer than it had in a while. For a long time they stayed by the stream, but when it wandered off between some tall cliffs, Ujurak insisted on leaving it. They needed to keep going straight ahead; he was sure of it. They scrambled away up some sharp rocks, beneath trees that were twisted by the wind. Toklo kept a sharp eye out for prey, but the only thing he caught was a mouse, which was barely a mouthful for Lusa.
When the sun was high, they stopped in the shade of an enormous boulder and lay down to rest. They had climbed to a point where they could see a wide view of the ridge stretching ahead of them. To Toklo’s surprise, he could see swathes of tall green trees and swaying grasses in the valley meadows. Not all of Smoke Mountain was as dark and rocky as Qopuk had described.
He sat down beside Lusa and noticed she was breathing heavily. ‘You’re sure you’re OK?’ he murmured.
‘I am,’ Lusa said, resting her head on her paws. ‘Truly.’
Toklo wasn’t convinced. ‘Can we stop to hunt?’ he called up to Ujurak. The smaller brown bear was pacing along the edge of the boulder, staring out at the mountains. He looked down at Toklo with a startled expression, as if he’d forgotten about eating. He probably did just that, Toklo thought.
‘Oh . . . sure,’ Ujurak said. ‘I was just trying to remember where the Pathway Star is. Qopuk said to follow it beyond the mountain.’ He lapsed into silence again, gazing at the sky.
Toklo shrugged, deciding to leave Ujurak to it. He sniffed the air for prey. The scent of smoke was coming back now that the rains had passed.
‘Toklo!’ Kallik called from behind the boulder. ‘What’s this over here?’
He traipsed over the rattling pebbles to the white bear, who was sniffing along a trail. Something had come through here, something big enough to leave prints and flattened grass behind it, and Toklo could tell that it had gone up the steep, rocky slope to their left.
‘Is it prey?’ Kallik asked, her ears pricked. ‘I don’t recognise the smell.’
Toklo shook his head. ‘That’s the scent of lynx,’ he told her. ‘They’re too big for us to eat, and they’ve probably eaten what little prey there is around here.’
Pebbles crunched underpaw as Ujurak trotted over to join them. He lowered his head and sniffed along the trail.
‘We’ll hunt somewhere else,’ Toklo said. He glanced at Ujurak and saw two odd tufts of black fur fluttering at the top of his ears. ‘Ujurak,’ he said, ‘there’s something wrong with your ears.’
Then he realised that Ujurak’s ears were also getting longer and pointier. His face was getting flatter, and his eyes were turning yellow and catlike.
Toklo sighed. ‘Again?’ he said.
‘Mrrrrrowrt,’ Ujurak answered. He picked up one furry paw and studied it with interest as the rest of him changed into a large grey wildcat.
‘What is that?’ Kallik asked curiously, looking Ujurak up and down.
‘It’s a lynx,’ Toklo said. ‘I mean he – he’s a lynx.’
Ujurak blinked and crouched low, glaring at the bears as if he didn’t recognise them. Then he spun around and disappeared up the slope into the rocks, sprinting on silent paws.
‘Well, that’s useful,’ Toklo grumbled, stamping his feet. ‘What is he doing?’
‘Should we wait for him?’ Kallik asked.
‘No, let’s keep looking for food,’ Toklo said, heading back around the boulder to Lusa. ‘Ujurak can follow our scent trail – it’s not like there’s much else to smell around here.’
‘Except smoke,’ Kallik said, coughing as a breeze brought the acrid smell up from the rocks behind them.
‘Lusa? Are you ready to go on?’
The black bear got to her paws and stretched. ‘I’ve been doing my exercises,’ she said. ‘See?’ She wiggled her toes at him, and he chuffed with amusement.
‘I think our best chance is to head down into a valley,’ Toklo said. ‘Where there’s grass and trees, there’s more likely to be prey.’
‘There are trees down there,’ Lusa said, nodding at the slope below them. Toklo could see a small stand of dark pine trees huddled close together near the centre of a yellow meadow.
‘And it doesn’t smell like smoke in that direction,’ Kallik pointed out.
‘Maybe that’s because the fire is inside the rocks,’ Toklo said, trying to puzzle it out. ‘So there’s less smoke in the grassy parts of the mountain.’
Lusa shivered. ‘Rocks burning under the ground. I suppose I’d rather have that than a giant flat-face setting bears on fire, but it still seems spooky and wrong.’
The smoke was definitely getting stronger from the rocky slope behind them, as the mysterious fires came back to life after the rains.
‘Come on,’ Toklo said, jerking his head at the clear meadow ahead. He started forward down the hill, bracing himself so he didn’t slip on the loose rocks underpaw. Overhead, once they left the smoke and the boulders on the ridge, the sky was a startling bright blue. Toklo had almost forgotten the sky could be so blue, after so many days of rain and smoke.
A rocky stream bed wound towards the trees, and after all the rain it was filled nearly to overflowing with a gurgling rush of water. Toklo studied the bubbles as they followed it, looking for signs of fish. His stomach was rumbling painfully. Lusa padded in front of him when he paused to pounce in the river, but he caught nothing but shadows and splashed back out, crossly shaking his pelt dry.
Suddenly Lusa came to an abrupt halt. She reared up on her hind legs, her ears and nose twitching. ‘I smell flat-face food,’ she said.
‘Flat-faces!’ Kallik exclaimed. ‘Here?’
‘Why would they bring their food all the way out here?’ Toklo asked.
‘Some flat-faces like to eat and sleep in the woods,’ Lusa said. ‘I’ve seen them putting up little dens with sticks. Then they build fires, burn their food, eat it, fall asleep in these fluffy sacks inside the dens, and the next day they take everything and leave again.’ She shook her head. ‘I have no idea why. Flat-faces are weird.’
‘Making a fire on purpose,’ Kallik said with a shudder. ‘I’ll never understand no-claws.’
The three bears stood beside the stream for a moment, letting the strange smell of burning food waft across their noses. Toklo could tell that it was coming from the stand of trees – exactly where they’d been going to search for prey.
‘We have to eat,’ Kallik pointed out.
‘Let’s get closer and have a look,’ Toklo agreed. He dropped low to the ground and crept forward, trying to move as if he were stalking prey. The she-bears followed close behind him. He slipped along the bank of the stream until he was in the shade of the trees and then crawled up through the bushes towards the sound of flat-face voices.
There were three flat-faces gathered around a tiny fire in a clearing, clattering pots and tearing open packages that smelled like food. Behind them were two of the dens, one bright blue and one bright red. They looked flimsy, like large leaves stretched over a couple of sticks. Toklo thought they seemed as if they would blow away in a strong gust of wind.
‘Head for the dens,’ Lusa whispered. ‘They’re the easiest place to find food. If we’re quiet, the flat-faces won’t even notice us. They always miss things that are right under their noses.’
‘Those are very small noses.’ Kallik sniffed.
‘The walls of the den are really thin,’ Lusa added, ‘like the skins they put their garbage in, so you can slice right through the back and stick your head in.’
‘How do you know all this?’ Toklo asked suspiciously. If it was something that happened in the woods, he thought he ought to be the expert on it, not Lusa.
‘I had to steal from flat-faces while I was looking for you,’ Lusa said. ‘I didn’t know how to hunt . . . and then I found some flat-faces like this in the woods.’
‘So you’ve done this how many times?’ Toklo demanded.
‘Um . . . just once,’ Lusa admitted. ‘But it’ll work! Trust me!’
‘You’re not going,’ Toklo said. ‘You’re not strong enough to run away if you need to. I’ll go see what I can find.’ As much as he didn’t like the idea of stealing flat-face food, he would rather do it himself than risk Lusa’s fur.
‘Are you sure?’ Lusa said. ‘Can you be really quiet?’
Toklo snorted at her.
‘I don’t see any firesticks,’ Kallik said, peeking out at the clearing. ‘If they see you, just run really fast.’
‘Great plan,’ Toklo grumbled. ‘All right, stay here. Don’t move.’
He set off through the trees, padding lightly around the clearing with his nose to the ground. He glanced back and saw the other two watching as he crept up to the back of the dens. The skin of the blue den flapped and billowed a little bit in front of him. With a long, sharp claw, he sliced through the back of it. Lusa was right; it peeled open easily.
Toklo poked his head through the gash. The den was very small and confined, with that odd blue skin on all sides. It made the light inside the den blue as well. He saw two long green things that were probably the fluffy sacks Lusa had been talking about, which the flat-faces used for sleeping. A little red-and-white box sat in between them.
Toklo shoved and wriggled, making the hole wider until he could climb inside the den. He trotted over to the box. After a moment of sniffing, he realised that the top could lift up. He slid his claws into the cracks in the box and the top of it popped right off.
He paused to listen. Outside, the flat-faces were making their high-pitched yabbering noises around the fire. They had no idea that a brown bear cub was rooting through their stuff right behind them.
Inside the box were some silver-and-blue cans the same shape as the ones behind flat-face dens, but much smaller. Toklo scrabbled at them with his claws, but they were too difficult to pick up and felt cold and hard under his teeth. This wasn’t food.
Disappointed, he crawled out of the hole again and crept over to the red den. When he ripped open the back of this one, there was a small zzzzzt! sound, and Toklo froze. The noise from the flat-faces didn’t change. After a moment, Toklo wriggled into the second den.
This looked more promising. The den was full of bags and piles of stuff. It had only one of the green sacks in it. Toklo nosed through the bags, following the smell of food. He stepped on to the green sack and stood up on his hind legs to reach a promising-smelling bag on top of a pile of boxes.
Suddenly the sack slipped out from under his back paws. Toklo lunged to the side, trying to grab something to stay upright, and all the boxes and bags collapsed on him with an enormous crash.
Outside he heard the flat-faces leap to their paws, yelling with alarm. As he struggled to his paws again, one of them ran over and yanked open the front of the red den. Toklo poked his shaggy head out of the opening and blinked at the flat-face. The flat-face blinked at him.
Toklo braced himself. It was time to fight.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Lusa
‘Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!’ the flat-face screamed. It spun around and pelted back across the clearing to the others, who were also screaming and running in circles.
Toklo rolled out of the den and flailed his paws in the air. A long green sack was wrapped around one leg, and a shiny silver bowl was stuck on one front paw. He jumped and danced and wriggled, trying to shake them off.
‘Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!’ the flat-faces screamed again, and all four of them ran off into the forest. Lusa could hear them crashing and thumping through the trees in the direction of the BlackPath.
‘Nice work, Toklo,’ Kallik barked.
‘You looked terrifying!’ Lusa squeaked, bounding over to untangle Toklo from the flat-face things.
Toklo shook a strip of feathery white stuff from his shoulder. ‘We’d better leave before they come back with firesticks and more flat-faces,’ he said.
‘Did you see that?’ Kallik said. ‘They were afraid of you!’
‘I think it was your ferocious, bewildered expression,’ Lusa teased. Her heart was still racing in her chest.
‘Let’s get what we came for,’ Toklo growled, pawing through the stuff the flat-faces had dropped near the fire. Lusa nosed her way into the red den and found some flat bars that smelled delicious. They had colourful skins, but once she chewed those off, there was sweet brown stuff inside, sweeter than any fruit she’d ever tasted.
Back by the fire, Toklo and Kallik had found a packet of thin slabs of meat. Lusa joined them as they ripped it apart and shared the meat between them.
‘We should save some for Ujurak,’ she said.
Kallik pawed a few strips of meat aside. ‘I’ll carry these for him,’ she said.
‘All right, let’s go,’ Toklo said after they’d wolfed down what they could find. ‘Quick, before they come back.’
The cubs ran through the trees, putting as much distance between them and the flat-faces as they could before they stopped to rest. The meat dangled from Kallik’s mouth, which she held high in the air to keep the strips off the dirt. Toklo led the way out of the pine trees and across the meadow. He deliberately crossed a few streams, wading along in the water to hide their scent.
Lusa knew it was smart to hide their scent from the flat-faces, but she worried about Ujurak. Would he still be able to find them? But Toklo’s face was set and determined, so she didn’t say anything. They climbed on to another rocky slope leading up the side of a mountain. Lusa’s paws hurt as she struggled across the sharp rocks, and her leg felt as if a giant bear were raking her with his claws, but she didn’t want to slow the others down.
Dark clouds were rolling in over the blue sky. A chilly, damp wind swept through their fur as they traipsed across a pebbly slope, then into a dense patch of trees. On the other side of the trees, Kallik lifted her head and tilted it to the side, listening. Her black nose twitched. ‘Do you hear that?’ she asked, putting down the meat for a moment. ‘I hear rumbling.’
Toklo pricked up his ears. ‘I hear it too,’ he said.
Lusa stared up at the ridge ahead of them. It sounded like a giant bear growling in the distance, or a giant flat-face. She hoped it was neither, as they crept forward and poked their noses over the boulders.
They were high on the side of the mountain, overlooking a vast pine forest. Winding through the forest was a BlackPath. Crawling along it were long silver firebeasts, roaring and skulking in a row, belching black fumes into the air. Beside the BlackPath, large yellow firebeasts like the ones they’d seen at the Big River were digging up earth from another giant trench. They rumbled and roared as their huge metal claws sliced into the ground. The same smell of the black, sticky liquid hung in the air, and Lusa could see another silver snake at the bottom
of the trench.
Toklo paced along the ridge, glowering down at the firebeasts on the BlackPath. Several of them were even larger than the ones they’d seen by the trench and dragged huge things behind them – sometimes entire trees. Lusa could see flat-faces inside, hunched over near the front of the firebeasts.
She jumped when she heard branches cracking nearby. An odd-looking animal was pacing up the slope towards them, and it took her a moment to realise it was Ujurak. His fur was already shifting from grey to brown, and he shook himself as he slowly transformed back into a bear.
‘Where did you go?’ Kallik asked eagerly, after bounding up to Ujurak and dropping the meat at his paws.
Ujurak didn’t answer. He ate the meat, then looked down at the BlackPath. ‘It was quiet and peaceful here not long ago,’ he murmured. ‘Then the flat-faces came with their firebeasts and started tearing up the dirt. They keep taking what they want from the earth – the black stuff, and the trees, and anything else they think they need.’
‘Just our luck,’ Toklo said.
‘The lynxes are really worried,’ Ujurak went on. ‘There are so few of them left.’ His eyes clouded with pain.
Lusa wished she could say something to make him feel better.
After a long pause, Ujurak shook himself and spoke again. ‘Let’s rest here until moonhigh,’ he suggested. ‘There’s a caribou trail that crosses the BlackPath at its highest point. If we can find that, it might be an easy, direct route through the mountains.’
‘You figured that out as a lynx?’ Kallik asked. ‘That’s amazing.’
‘I can just . . . sense what they know,’ Ujurak said. ‘I don’t know why.’
They all curled up in the pine needles. Lusa saw Toklo watching her.
‘Aren’t you going to climb the tree to sleep?’ he asked.
‘Oh, no, I’m all right down here,’ she said. She didn’t want to put the strain on her injury, and she could tell Toklo guessed that.