Seekers #6: Spirits in the Stars (14 page)

Chapter Fifteen

Toklo

“There’s no sign of them. They
could be anywhere by now.”

Lusa’s fretful voice woke Toklo in the snow-den under the thornbushes. The little black bear was peering into the den, anxiously talking to Ujurak, who was just rousing from sleep.

“What?” Toklo stretched his jaws in a yawn. “What’s the matter?”

“Kallik and Kissimi are gone,” Lusa told him. In her agitation she scraped the snow at the mouth of the den with her front claws.

Blinking, Toklo woke up enough to realize that the white bear and her cub were nowhere to be seen. “Keep your fur on.” He spoke around another yawn. “Kallik will be fine.”

“She’s probably gone hunting, if Kissimi was hungry,” Ujurak suggested.

Reluctantly Toklo heaved himself to his paws and pushed past Lusa into the open. “We’d better go and check that the white bears aren’t chasing her off,” he rumbled. “They might not want to share their new hunting ground.”

With Lusa and Ujurak beside him, Toklo headed along the top of the cliffs toward the new bay. The wind had risen, and snow flicked into Toklo’s eyes as he stomped along with his head down.

I wish we were back in the forest.
A pang of longing shook him.
It would be calm and peaceful, with a breeze rustling the treetops, and the sun shining down. . . .

But what he was faced with was this snow-covered island and a blustering wind nearly strong enough to blow Lusa off her paws. Toklo gave her a helpful nudge, placing himself to shelter her from the worst of the blast, and the black bear shot him a grateful look as she struggled on.

Toklo was the first to reach the top of the hill that led down into the bay, with Lusa and Ujurak huddling together in his wake. Down below he spotted a big white bear swinging his head around, sniffing the air.

Unalaq! Oh, spirits, no. . . . This means trouble!

Kallik was pacing anxiously toward the big white bear; her voice floated up to Toklo, just clear enough for him to make out the words.

“There’s no cub here. What are you talking about?”

The reddish-pelted bear—Toklo remembered he was called Yakone—was trotting anxiously behind Kallik. “We weren’t doing anything wrong,” he told Unalaq. “Just hunting and swimming.”

Before Toklo could decide what to do, Lusa let out a squeal. “Unalaq is looking for Kissimi!” She gave Toklo a sharp prod in the shoulder with her snout. “We have to do something!”

“Lonely Star, help us all now!” Toklo muttered as he launched himself down the slope toward the white bears.

Pesky cub,
he added to himself.
We might have known this would happen.

A mixture of rage and protectiveness swelled up inside Toklo. He reached the bottom of the slope in a flurry of flying snow, with Ujurak and Lusa just behind him. “You heard them!” he roared at Unalaq. “They were just hunting!”

Unalaq spun around, staring at Toklo in astonishment. Then gradually his surprised look faded, and a pleased expression crept over his face.

Is he looking forward to a fight?
Toklo braced himself.

“This isn’t your hunting ground,” Unalaq snarled. “Anything you eat from here is theft.”

“That’s bee-brained!” Toklo retorted. “Kallik says white bears don’t even have hunting grounds.”

Unalaq thrust his snout aggressively into Toklo’s face. “Well,
we
do!”

Over Unalaq’s shoulder Toklo spotted Kallik staring at him frantically. She gave a tiny jerk of her head toward a spot on the bank of the frozen river, and Toklo realized that that was where she had left Kissimi.

So that’s where he is. I’ve got to make Unalaq move away.

“You don’t own all the seals in the sea,” he growled, padding a few pawsteps toward the beach. “And you couldn’t even figure out that the seals were making you sick. I hardly think you have the right to drive us away from this hunting ground.”

“Yes, you should be grateful to us!” Lusa put in.

“Grateful?” Unalaq pulled his lips back into a snarl, swinging his head around to glare at Lusa. “Aga was fluff-brained to think that a black bear like you could save us, you pitiful scrap of fur!”

Indignation flashed in Lusa’s eyes, and Toklo was suddenly afraid that she might hurl herself at the big white bear.

“We
have
saved you, cloud-brain!” he snapped. “We taught you to hunt musk oxen. And we’ve moved the seals to a place where the sea is clean.”

Unalaq let out a huff of contempt. “The seals were fine where they were,” he retorted, lumbering toward Toklo and thrusting his snout into the brown bear’s face. “
I’ve
eaten them, and I haven’t got sick. If weak bears die, that’s their fault.”

Toklo backed up a few more pawsteps in front of Unalaq, and Unalaq padded toward him.
That’s right,
Toklo thought.
Just follow me a bit farther over here—well away from Kallik and her cub.

“Wow, I can see you really care about your friends,” Toklo taunted the huge white bear. “You must have been so sorry when Sura died.”

“Sura was always whining,” Unalaq retorted. “Bellyache. Not enough snow. Too much snow. That wretched cub of hers. They deserved to die if they couldn’t hunt for themselves.”

Retreating still farther, Toklo felt rock at his back.
Uh-oh! I didn’t mean to get myself trapped!
He was conscious that he was much smaller than the full-grown, hefty Unalaq, and thinner from his long trek across the ice. Bunching his muscles, he prepared to dodge aside and make a run for it. He knew that fighting Unalaq would just make more trouble.
Besides, if he chases me, Kallik can escape with Kissimi
.

But before Toklo could move, Unalaq gave the air another suspicious sniff. “I know I can scent a cub,” he insisted. His eyes narrowed as he raked his gaze over the newcomers. “Maybe Sura’s cub didn’t die? Maybe you know something about it?”

Toklo saw Kallik’s eyes stretch wide with horror, and he knew that at any moment Unalaq would track down the cub by his scent. He couldn’t let that happen.

With a full-throated roar Toklo hurled himself on Unalaq, raking both sets of foreclaws down the white bear’s shoulders. Unalaq let out a howl of mingled pain and fury. He slammed Toklo back against the rocks and dealt him a blow to the side of the head with one massive paw.

“I’ll teach you to come here and interfere,” he growled.

Pain pierced Toklo’s head, and for a moment all he could see was glittering darkness. Blinking, he made out Unalaq’s gaping jaws, poised to bite down on his neck.

Toklo hunched his shoulders and lowered his head, driving it hard into Unalaq’s chest. He heard the huff of the white bear’s breath and splayed his forelegs, slashing at his enemy’s fur.

“Get lost, fish-breath!” he hissed through gritted teeth.

As Unalaq drew back, Toklo spotted Ujurak and Lusa circling around, ready to dart in and join the fight. “No, keep back!” he growled, knowing that Unalaq was far too strong for either of them. “I can deal with this lump of white fur.”

With a snarl Unalaq flipped Toklo’s paws out from under him and flung him back against the rock, driving the breath out of his body. Looking up, dazed, Toklo spotted Kallik digging in the snow on the bank of the river. She unearthed Kissimi and fled, the cub dangling limply from her jaws.

Unalaq reared up and lashed out with both forepaws, digging deep into Toklo’s shoulder fur. Toklo smelled the hot reek of his own blood and felt his strength beginning to ebb, but he forced himself back onto his paws. He lunged at Unalaq and sank his teeth into the white bear’s leg, hanging on with teeth and claws as Unalaq tried to shake him off.

Behind Unalaq, Kallik was dragging Kissimi up the slope toward the crest of the hill, while Yakone looked on, his eyes wide with disbelief.

I forgot about Yakone,
Toklo thought, his heart sinking.
We’re in trouble now! The white bears know we stole their cub.

But Unalaq still hadn’t looked around. Shaking off Toklo, he trampled over his body, pummeling him with all four paws. Toklo struggled to escape, but he was pinned against the rock.

Through blurred vision he spotted Ujurak flinging himself at Unalaq and starting to bite his fur, but the huge white bear shook him off and swatted him to the ground as if he were a fly. Ujurak scrambled up and darted in to give Unalaq a nip on his hind leg.

“Make them stop!” Lusa shrieked, bounding up to Yakone. “Help them, please!”

Yakone was still gazing after Kallik, who had reached the top of the slope and vanished down the other side with Kissimi dangling from her jaws. At Lusa’s plea he turned slowly to look at her.

He won’t help,
Toklo thought despairingly, as Unalaq gouged out another pawful of Toklo’s fur.
He’s one of them.

Then to Toklo’s astonishment Yakone strode across to the rock where he was trapped. “Unalaq, that’s enough!” Yakone roared. “Stop this now!”

Unalaq ignored him. Toklo could see the rage for blood in the big bear’s eyes and wondered if he had even heard Yakone.

“Unalaq, stop!” Yakone repeated.

He thrust his shoulder into Unalaq’s side, sending the white bear staggering back from the rock. Unalaq turned on him, rearing up and raising his forepaws threateningly.

“You’re my brother,” he growled. “You should back me up, not fight on
their
side. And if you can’t, you should stay out of it. Brown bears don’t belong here.”

Yakone hurled himself forward, forcing the bigger bear backward until he was backed up against the cliff face at the side of the beach. “You’ve taught them a lesson,” he said. “Now leave it.”

Struggling to his paws, shaking his head to clear it, Toklo could see that Unalaq was already tired and hurt from the fight. He wasn’t going to make things worse by attacking Yakone.

“Who told you to interfere?” he muttered, pushing Yakone to one side and padding forward a pace to glare at Toklo. “If you know what’s good for you,” he snarled, “you’ll stay away from this hunting ground.”

Turning away, he lumbered off up the hill.

Toklo turned to Yakone, ready to thank him, but the red-pelted bear backed away from him, fury and disbelief in his eyes.

“I trusted you!” he hissed. “Unalaq is right. Stay away from here.”

Watching him as he followed Unalaq, Toklo was vaguely conscious of his own blood dripping onto the snow, spattering the white surface with scarlet blotches. His legs were shaking from the effort of fighting Unalaq, and pain was surging through his whole body.

“Are you badly hurt?” Lusa asked anxiously, padding up to him.

“I’ll be fine,” Toklo said, though he didn’t know if that was true.

“Here, this should help.” Lusa scooped up a pawful of snow and pressed it against one of Toklo’s bleeding gashes.

The icy touch was soothing; Toklo stumbled across the beach to an untouched snowbank and settled down in it, bathing his wounds with snow.

Ujurak came to join him. He was bleeding, too, though he wasn’t as badly hurt as Toklo. Lusa fussed around them, piling snow onto the wounds they couldn’t reach.

“We have to find Kallik,” Ujurak said after a moment.

Anger flared up inside Toklo at the mention of the white bear. “If she hadn’t insisted on taking Kissimi, none of this would have happened,” he growled. “She doesn’t belong here any more than we do!”

“We still have to find her,” Ujurak insisted.

“We should go now.” Lusa gave a quick, uneasy glance around. “What if Unalaq comes back with more white bears to chase us away?”

Toklo let out a grunt, reluctantly agreeing. Hauling himself to his paws, he limped away from the shoreline. His belly rumbled as he passed the dead seal that Kallik and Yakone had caught, but he didn’t dare stop to eat. Lusa was right to be afraid that more white bears might come looking for them.

We’re the hunted now,
he thought.
We’ll have to leave this place and find somewhere else with food and shelter.
He let out a weary sigh.
Has our journey really ended like this, chased off because of a stolen cub?

Ujurak and Lusa had plodded on ahead and were casting back and forth at the foot of the hill. “Over here!” Ujurak called.

Trudging up to join them, Toklo spotted Kallik’s pawprints in the snow, and a scuff mark left by Kissimi’s dangling rump. “This way,” he said.

Ujurak bounded off, following the trail, with Lusa scrambling hard on his paws. Toklo stayed where he was for a moment, staring after them.

Is this really what I want?
he asked himself.

Right from the beginning, when he’d first met Ujurak running away from the flat-faces, he had been the strong one, the one who had to protect the others. He had grumbled, he had felt resentful, and once he had even left them, to live alone in the forest as a brown bear should. But in the end he had never let them down.

A hollow space opened up inside him as he watched the small figures of Ujurak and Lusa dwindling into the distance.