Fire in the Sky (6 page)

“Wake up!”

Lusa covered her nose with her paws and groaned.

“Lusa! Wake up! Come on!” Toklo prodded her again. Through her half-open eyes, Lusa could see light through the walls of the snow cave, so she must have slept through the night. But it didn’t feel like long enough. She was still so tired.

“Lusa, please!” Toklo barked. “I’ve been trying to wake you for
ages
. Ujurak is back!”

“Oh,” Lusa said, struggling to open her eyes all the way. She tried to sit up and nearly fell over. Her paws felt like heavy useless fish at the ends of her legs. “Is he all right?”

Just then Ujurak came bundling into the cave with Kallik right behind him, shoving him inside. His fur was soaking wet and he was shivering, and his eyes looked strangely unfocused, as if he were watching something inside himself instead of seeing his friends.

Kallik and Toklo crowded around Ujurak, ushering him
into the center of the cave next to Lusa and curling beside him to warm him up. With a grateful sigh, Lusa lay back down and rested her head on her paws. Even Ujurak’s cold, wet side pressed against hers didn’t make her feel more awake.

“Where did you go?” Kallik prompted. “You were gone for so long!”

Ujurak stared down at his paws. “I was with a pod of other whales. I mean…a pod of whales. Not like me. Not bears.” He sounded almost as tired as Lusa felt.

“Did you see any seals down there?” Toklo asked. “Are there any breathing holes close by?”

“What was it like under the ice?” Kallik pressed, her eyes filled with curiosity. “Were you scared? You didn’t see any orcas, did you?”

“Did you like being a whale?” Lusa murmured through a yawn.

“It must be great to be able to swim so far,” Kallik said wistfully. “And to stay underwater for that long…I bet you saw all kinds of things bears never get to see!”

Ujurak shifted on his paws. “I prefer being a bear,” he said.

As the others kept pestering him, Lusa let herself start to drift off again. It was so cozy in here…so warm, and comfortable, and she was so tired….

“LUSA!” Toklo shouted.

Lusa jumped awake. Her friends were gone, and she was alone in the cave, except for Toklo’s grumpy face poking back in through the entrance.

“What is the matter with you?” he growled. “Come on, the sun will wake you up. Get out here.”

With a huge sigh, Lusa struggled to her paws and followed him out of the cave. She was surprised at how far up the sun was in the sky—it was at least halfway to its highest point. They must have stayed in the cave to warm Ujurak up for a while, although Lusa had slept through it all. She swung her head around to look for the small brown bear and saw him standing not too far from the crack in the ice. His head was bowed, and for a moment she worried that he might dive back into the dark water.

“He won’t say if he saw any seals,” Toklo grumbled. “Or if there are any we could hunt around here. Absolutely useless.”

“That’s all right,” Kallik said, sniffing the air. “I smell prey!” She nodded toward the sun.

“Come
on
, Ujurak!” Toklo called. “We’re not going to get wherever you want us to go by standing around and staring into the water.”

Lusa chuffed with laughter, but Ujurak just blinked, then turned and shambled up beside them. His paws crunched on the ice, and the shadows of the snow piles around them rippled across his brown fur.

“Cheer up, whale-brain,” Toklo said, nudging Ujurak’s side.

“Whales have perfectly good brains,” Ujurak retorted. He shook his head. “I mean, not as good as bear brains, of course.”

“Well, of course!” Toklo said. He sprang after Kallik, who
was already trotting up a long snowy slope in the direction of the prey scent. Ujurak and Lusa followed more slowly after them.

The bright sun warmed Lusa’s fur and did make her feel a little better, although she could tell that she’d still be able to fall asleep in a heartbeat if she had the chance. Her paws churned through the snow as she tried to keep up with the others. In the lead, Kallik kept padding faster and faster, as if she knew for certain there was something ahead of them. Lusa couldn’t smell anything, but she was concentrating too much on staying awake to argue.

Toklo’s question echoed in her mind as snow and ice crunched underpaw. Was there something wrong with her? All she wanted to do was curl up somewhere and sleep. She’d never felt like this before, not even when they were traveling much farther every day, through the mountains and across vast plains where the grass rippled like water.

She couldn’t tell the others. If she was sick, it would ruin their whole quest. But how could she save the wild when she could barely put one paw in front of the other? Lusa gritted her teeth. She would keep going, no matter what. She’d come all this way; she wasn’t going to let a little sleepiness stop her now. She’d just keep walking and hope that her friends didn’t notice.

Immediately in front of her, Toklo was moving much slower than the day before, checking the ice every few steps to make sure it was firm underneath him. He seemed less interested in taking the lead today, although Lusa was sure that if Kallik
didn’t find prey soon, that would change.

The sun slid slowly down the sky, casting longer and longer shadows across the snowy landscape. Lusa watched a few clouds amble from one edge of the sky to another. Her paws began to ache, and her eyes itched from the brightness of the sunshine on the snow. They’d been walking for
ages
. Lusa found it hard to imagine that Kallik had really smelled something this far away. Her stomach growled sadly. She’d so wanted her friend to be right this time.

“Here!” Kallik suddenly called from up ahead. “Look what I found!”

Lusa dug her paws in and sprinted over a small hill of snow. She slid down the other side and nearly crashed into Ujurak, who was standing with his head raised, staring at the edge of the sky where bright blue met shimmering white ice.

Next to Kallik’s paws was a breathing hole…and lying beside it was the half-eaten carcass of a seal!

Lusa gasped. “Kallik, that’s amazing!” She turned to look back at where they’d come. The cave where they’d slept was skylengths away now. “How did you smell it from all that way?”

Kallik shrugged and scraped her claws across the ice. “It’s a lot easier out here where the ice doesn’t muddle up my nose the way earth and trees and plants do,” she said.

“That is really impressive,” Ujurak said admiringly.

Toklo just grunted. He lowered his head to sniff the carcass, then turned to look around suspiciously. “This smells like another white bear,” he said.

“Uh-oh,” Lusa said, casting a nervous glance at the hill behind them. “Some bear must have left it here. What if it comes back?”

“Are we invading their territory?” Toklo asked. His brown fur bristled across his back. “Not that I’m afraid of fighting another bear for food! I say it’s their loss! It’s just…uh…white bears can get very…big.”

“There are no territories on the ice,” Kallik said, tilting her head at him in a puzzled way. “Everyone takes what food they can get. Sometimes it means frightening away a smaller bear, if that’s what you have to do—when I was on the ice with Nisa and Taqqiq, we were scared away from food more than once!”

“Makes sense to me,” Toklo agreed. “If a bear was silly enough to leave food out in the open, they’d better expect someone to take it.”

Lusa’s ears pricked with alarm. She remembered the size of the white bears at Great Bear Lake. One of
those
might come along and chase them off at any moment? She didn’t like the sound of that! She was
much
smaller than any of those bears. She’d probably make just as good a meal for one of them as the seal lying on the ice in front of her.

“Well, let’s not wait for whoever caught this to come back,” Kallik decided. She bent down and tore off a piece of flesh. “Try it!”

They all crouched and began to dig in, although Lusa kept an eye out for angry white bears who might be returning for their prey.

“It’s good!” Toklo said, sounding surprised. “Fattier and greasier than a rabbit or a squirrel, but that’s all right by me. It tastes kind of like fish and kind of like meat at the same time. Doesn’t it, Ujurak?”

Ujurak nodded as if he wasn’t really listening. His jaws worked as he chewed. “We’re lucky Kallik found it,” he mumbled around a mouthful. Lusa wondered if he was trying to remind Toklo of how much they needed the white bear’s guidance out here.

She picked at the chunk of flesh she’d ripped off. She was excited about finally having food, but the rich, fishy smell was overpoweringly strong. When she bit into it, the dense, chewy fat nearly made her gag. It felt like eating heavy, fish-smelling slugs, all slimy and fatty in her mouth. She wished she could have fresh berries or grubs instead, but of course that was impossible out here. And she had to eat, or she would starve.

“Don’t you like it?” Kallik fretted. “Just imagine it’s a plump rabbit.”

Lusa bit off another mouthful. “Mmm,” she said, pretending to savor it. “You’re right, it’s just like rabbit. Um, only better!”

Satisfied, Kallik turned back to her portion. Lusa felt guilty for lying to her, but she didn’t want Kallik to worry that she would go hungry out here. She forced herself to take a few more bites, chewing slowly to make it go down more easily.

“Hey!” A strange voice interrupted them, and Lusa whirled around to see a large female bear stalking toward them. “That’s
mine
! I caught it!”

“Too bad,” Toklo growled. “It’s ours now.”

“You can’t leave newkill and just expect it to be there when you get back,” Kallik said, planting herself between the seal and the unfamiliar bear.

“But—” the other bear started.

“Where is it, Mother?” a younger voice cried plaintively behind her. A small cub came scrambling over the top of the snowy hill and stumbled, tumbling down to land at her mother’s paws. “I’m starving! I’m so hungry I could eat a—” She stopped, staring wide-eyed at the four bears around the seal.

“Hey!” she whispered loudly. “Why are those bears such funny colors? What’s wrong with them?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said the she-bear. She stood up on her hind legs and clawed at the air. “They’re going to back off and let us have our seal.”

“No!” Toklo snarled, raising himself onto his hind legs as well.

Lusa exchanged glances with Ujurak and guessed that he felt as bad as she did. They were so hungry—but how could they steal from a tiny cub?

Suddenly a roar split the air and Lusa nearly jumped out of her skin. A full-grown male white bear charged across the snow toward them, baring his teeth.

Lusa’s heart pounded with terror. How had he snuck up on them? He must have been moving very fast. He was
enormous
, and from the look on his face, he wasn’t very pleased.

“I SMELL SEAL AND IT WILL BE MINE—” The white bear stopped midroar and skidded to a halt. He stared
at the brown and black bears.

“What—how—” he stammered. He shook his head vigorously and pawed at his eyes. He swung his head toward Kallik and the other white bear. “Are those
brown
bears? And a black bear? Out here on the ice?”

“Yes,” Kallik said, her voice trembling a little. She lifted her head and looked him straight in the eye. “Yes. They’re my friends.”

“Your
friends
?” he barked. “What are they doing out here? They’ll never survive!”

Toklo gave Lusa an
I told you so
expression.

“They will!” Kallik said fiercely. “I’ll make sure they do!”

“So will I!” Ujurak jumped in, looking angry.

The grown bear’s gaze fell on the half-eaten seal. “By helping them to steal other bears’ newkill?” he growled. “There’s barely enough for the white bears to eat out here. And now you’re bringing strange bears who don’t belong to steal our prey?”

“We’re not stealing! We have as much right to this newkill as anyone,” Kallik snapped. “Certainly as much as you. You didn’t catch it, either!”

Ujurak suddenly reared up on his hind legs. “And if you disagree, you can fight us for it, bear to bear!”

“Ujurak, no!” Lusa squeaked. She saw the mother bear nudging her cub backward out of the way. The cub’s tiny paws were trembling with fear.

The male bear reared up on his hind legs as well, lashing out at Ujurak with one of his front paws. Ujurak dodged the
blow and then threw himself at the bigger bear, bashing into his stomach with his shaggy head. His claws raked down the white bear’s side, leaving thin trails of red blood. The bear roared angrily, flung out a huge paw, and thwacked Ujurak on the side of the head. He flew through the air and landed with a painful thud on the ice. He crumpled into a furry heap and lay still and unmoving. Lusa couldn’t even see him breathing.

The male bear charged over and reared up, preparing to crush him with his massive paws.

“Ujurak!” Lusa screamed.

A blur of brown and white fur shot past her, and she shrank back as Kallik and Toklo both leaped at the giant white bear. Toklo’s jaws fastened in the bear’s neck and he sank his claws in to hold on, growling ferociously. Kallik reared up on her hind legs and battered his head with her paws.

Terrified, Lusa scrambled behind a lump of ice and covered her head with her paws. She couldn’t watch. The bear was so big! And as they fought, she could feel the ice shaking beneath them. What if it cracked, and they all fell in? Who would save her if they all died?

Lusa heard a deep growl and the trembling stopped. She peeked out and saw that the giant white bear had finally shaken Toklo off. He backed away as Toklo and Kallik stepped toward him, brown and white fur side by side. As scared as she was, Lusa felt a burst of pride. They weren’t afraid of anything!

“It’s not worth it,” the white bear spat, glaring at the cubs. “I’m not going to fight you over a scrap of seal skin. If you
want to share your food with bears who don’t belong here, that’s your problem,” he said to Kallik. He cast a scornful look at Lusa, Toklo, and Ujurak. “Black and brown bears don’t belong on the ice. Everyone knows that. You only have to look at their fur to know that. Muddy, sticky bears.” He shuddered. “You’ll find that out soon enough!”