Island of Shadows (24 page)

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 better 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.

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.