The Last Wilderness

  Where they had first come down from the mountains, so many days ago, the plain had been full of life. But in this place it was barren, crisscrossed by BlackPaths and dotted here and there with flat-face dens. The structures were odd shapes, some square, some long and flat, others round, some with odd bits of metal sticking out of them. They seemed to have been set down on the plain in a jumble, or in some weird flat-face order that didn’t make sense to Kallik. Beyond them she could see the pale gleam of a river, with a BlackPath stretching across it, and beyond that the misty outline of what might be a flat-face denning area.

  Kallik’s hope died as she gazed at the distant gleam of the ocean; she felt cut off from it by all the flat-face muddle in between. ‘If Ujurak’s here, we’ll never find him,’ she said despairingly.

  ‘We have to try.’ Lusa’s voice was stubborn. ‘We –’

  She broke off at the sound of a familiar clatter and buzz; Kallik spotted a metal bird like the one that had taken Ujurak flying along the line of the coast and swooping down somewhere on the far side of the denning place.

  ‘Look!’ she yelped as it sank out of sight. ‘That must be where the metal birds have their nest.’

  ‘Then that’s where we have to start looking!’ Lusa gave a little bounce. ‘Come on!’

  ‘It’s a long way,’ Kallik said doubtfully. ‘We’ll have to cross the river to get there.’

  ‘We’ll worry about that when we get there,’ Lusa replied.

  She led the way down the slope towards the flat-face place. Kallik couldn’t share her eagerness, but she followed anyway.

  Sunhigh was past by the time they reached the bottom of the ridge. Open ground separated them from the nearest BlackPath, a stretch of sparse, brittle grass dotted with clumps of thornbushes.

  Kallik halted and raised her snout, sniffing the air. There was a strong reek that reminded her of firebeasts, though it wasn’t quite the same. ‘What’s that smell?’

  Lusa shook her head. ‘I don’t know, but it’s disgusting, whatever it is.’

  She padded forward a few paces and gazed across the barren landscape towards the BlackPath and the strange flat-face structures beyond. ‘We’ve got to have a plan,’ she muttered.

  Now that they were down on the plain, the flat-face dens looked even bigger.

  ‘I don’t see how we can plan,’ Kallik said. ‘We don’t know what we’re going to find. All we can do is look for the metal birds’ nest and see if there are any clues there.’

  ‘Well, that’s sort of a plan,’ Lusa said. ‘Come on.’

  They padded across the stretch of open ground, swerving to avoid the thorn thickets. It was bad enough walking through greasy black mud without having their pelts filled with prickles. The plain was sliced through with BlackPaths, many of them with shiny tubes running alongside, and everywhere the tall flat-face dens loomed. Kallik shivered as she and Lusa trudged past, imagining hostile eyes peering down at them. But nothing moved, and Kallik wondered if they were empty.

  ‘This is the biggest flat-face place I’ve ever seen,’ Lusa whispered, gazing around with a mixture of wonder and dread. ‘But where are the flat-faces? We’ve hardly seen any.’

  ‘Maybe this isn’t where they live,’ Kallik suggested. ‘Their dens could be a long way off, near where we saw the metal bird.’

  ‘I think you’re right,’ Lusa agreed. ‘There aren’t any gardens, or firebeasts sleeping outside. And none of those big shiny things you get food out of,’ she added regretfully.

  Kallik sniffed the air. ‘No smell of food at all. Just that horrible reek.’

  Before they had covered many bearlengths, another metal bird rose from the far side of the denning area. At first Kallik was glad to see it because it helped to show them exactly where the nest was.

  But instead of flying away up the coast, the metal bird flew inland towards the ridge. It stayed low, its claws almost brushing the roof of one of the flat-face dens. Kallik watched it approach with terror rising inside her.

  ‘It’s coming for us!’ she yelped. ‘They’ve seen us and they want to catch us!’

  She crouched down, huddled against Lusa’s side. The clatter of the metal bird filled the sky; the wind of its approach flattened the grass and whipped at the branches of the thorns.

  ‘I’m sorry, Kallik,’ Lusa whispered. ‘I made you come here. It’s all my fault.’

  Kallik was too frightened to reply; she just pressed herself closer to her friend’s warm pelt and squeezed her eyes shut tight.

  Then above the growling of the metal bird she heard a bear roaring – bellowing their names through the stench-filled air. ‘Lusa! Kallik! Watch out!’

  Kallik opened her eyes and lifted her head from the brittle grass to see a brown bear hurtling towards them, his jaws stretched wide. It was Toklo.

  ‘Move! Bee-brains! Hide!’

  He slammed into Kallik’s side, thrusting her and Lusa towards a clump of thornbushes. Kallik crawled underneath, with Lusa beside her; Toklo crouched on the edge of the thicket, his snout raised as he snarled defiantly at the metal bird.

  ‘Go away! You can’t have them!’

  Kallik waited, breathless with horror as she listened to the clattering of the metal bird. At last the noise faded, and when Kallik dared to poke her head out, she saw it lifting higher into the sky and disappearing across the ridge.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Toklo said gruffly. ‘It’s gone. You can come out.’

  Kallik crawled into the open and stood up. She couldn’t take her eyes off Toklo, still finding it hard to believe that he was here. He looked bedraggled, and he smelled foul, with the same bitter stench as the land around them.

  ‘Thank you, Toklo!’ she puffed, as her breathing steadied and she felt her racing heart grow calmer.

  ‘You saved us from the bird!’ Lusa had crawled out of the thicket behind Kallik and raised a paw to rub at the scratch on her nose. ‘You were so brave!’

  Toklo hunched his shoulders, looking embarrassed, and let out a grunt.

  ‘You really stink, though,’ Lusa added, giving him a sniff and jumping back with a shocked look.

  ‘You’re not so sweet-scented yourself,’ Toklo retorted. ‘Anyway, it wasn’t my fault. I had an accident. Look.’ He turned sideways and showed Kallik and Lusa traces of something black and sticky on his pelt.

  ‘It’s like the mud we’ve been walking through,’ Kallik observed. She leaned forward to smell it. ‘Yuck!’

  ‘Look, can we not talk about my scent?’ Toklo growled, beginning to bristle. ‘I didn’t rescue you just to be told that I stink.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Lusa said, though amusement was dancing in her eyes. ‘We really are grateful, Toklo.’

  The grizzly cub snorted and shook his pelt. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

  ‘We’re trying to find Ujurak,’ Lusa replied. ‘What about you?’

  Toklo grunted, flicking away Lusa’s question like a fly that had landed on his ear. ‘Oh, I’ve been hunting, looking around . . . trying to find the best territory.’

  ‘Did you mark trees?’ Lusa asked eagerly. ‘And make yourself a den? I bet you were the fiercest bear in the forest!’

  Toklo shook his pelt. ‘We don’t have to go into all that. Everything’s fine. Just tell me what that little fluffball’s done now.’

  They settled down in the feeble shelter of the thorns while Lusa told Toklo about the flat-faces who had come to the denning place where the healer lived, and how they had taken Ujurak away with them.

  ‘I’m sure they brought him here,’ she finished. ‘This is where the metal birds come to nest. Will you help us find him, Toklo?’

  ‘Please,’ Kallik added. ‘It can’t be just chance that you turned up in time to rescue us. The spirits have brought us back together again.’

  Toklo huffed. ‘Spirits!’ he muttered. ‘Who do you think you are – Ujurak?’

  Even so, Kallik could tell that he was pleased to see them again. She wondered if h
e had been looking for them all this time. Did he miss us, just like we were missing him?

  ‘I suppose I’d better help,’ Toklo went on with a sigh. ‘You’ll only get into more trouble if I let you go by yourselves.’

  ‘Thank you!’ Lusa butted Toklo affectionately in the shoulder. ‘We’ll have a much better chance of finding Ujurak if you’re with us.’

  ‘OK.’ Toklo rose to his paws with an air of determination. ‘The metal birds obviously nest over there.’ He pointed his snout towards the opposite side of the flat-face place. ‘So that’s where we have to start looking.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:

  Lusa

  As Lusa and her friends walked towards the river, the air grew heavier with the bitter smell. It caught in Lusa’s throat, making her cough.

  ‘I’m surprised the flat-faces can put up with this stink,’ she said when she had got her breath.

  Kallik shrugged. ‘They make it like this, so maybe this is how they want it,’ she suggested.

  ‘Flat-faces are weird,’ Toklo growled.

  They came to a BlackPath slicing across the landscape with a shiny tube running alongside it, raised up on metal supports. Lusa padded up to the tube and sniffed it.

  ‘Ugh!’ she exclaimed, jumping back. ‘It reeks of something like firebeasts.’

  ‘You have to be careful of those,’ Toklo advised, coming to stand beside her. ‘They leak out this horrible black stuff, and that’s what’s making the smell. I fell into a puddle of it, and that’s when I got it all over my pelt.’

  ‘That’s awful.’ Lusa looked along the tube in both directions, relieved that she couldn’t spot any leaks or black puddles. ‘We’ve got to cross this BlackPath,’ she added. ‘Toklo, is it safe to climb over the tube?’

  ‘It should be OK,’ the brown bear replied. ‘Just as long as there aren’t any firebeasts.’

  Lusa raised her snout and sniffed, then realised there was no point in trying to scent approaching firebeasts when the whole area smelled of them. She could hear growling in the distance, as if firebeasts were coming and going closer to the flat-face denning place, but here everything seemed quiet.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she said.

  Toklo was first to scramble up on to the tube; he balanced on top of it for a moment, then leaped down the other side and bounded across the BlackPath. At the other side he turned back towards the others. ‘Come on!’ he called.

  Kallik followed, hauling herself over the tube and flopping down awkwardly on to the surface of the BlackPath before padding over to join Toklo.

  When Lusa tried to follow, her claws slipped on the shiny surface of the tube; she hadn’t realised that being so much smaller than the others would make it a lot harder for her to clamber up. I’m a black bear! she told herself furiously. Black bears are the best climbers.

  Scrabbling at the side of the tube, she wished she had got one of the others to give her a boost before they crossed, but she didn’t want to call them back.

  Better do it this way, she thought, pressing herself to the ground and crawling through the narrow space underneath. She felt her back scrape against the underside of the tube; there was a horrible moment when she thought she was stuck and would need to call one of the others for help.

  Lusa dug her claws into the ground, dragging herself forward, bunching her muscles for a leap that would take her away from the tube and propel her across the BlackPath. Then she heard Toklo yell, ‘Wait!’

  At the same moment the distant roaring of the firebeasts suddenly got louder. Lusa froze. A huge firebeast swept past her less than a bearlength from her nose, covering her with grit and mud that stung her eyes and spattered over her pelt.

  ‘Oh, thanks!’ she muttered, blinking to clear her vision.

  ‘It’s OK now!’ Kallik called from the other side of the BlackPath.

  Still not able to see properly, Lusa trusted her friend and thrust off with her hindpaws. She popped out from underneath the tube and felt the BlackPath hard under her pads as she scampered across. She crashed into Kallik’s soft bulk and felt the white bear licking her face to get rid of the grit.

  ‘Thanks,’ Lusa panted, blinking.

  The BlackPath led almost directly towards the flat-face area, so Lusa and the others padded along beside it. Lights were coming on at the top of the flat-face towers, and as they trudged past one of them a vast cloud of fire burst from the top of it, the glare blotting out the stars. Her heart racing, Lusa pressed herself to the ground; Kallik crouched beside her, and she could feel the white bear shaking.

  ‘What was that?’ Kallik whispered.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Though Lusa tried to sound brave, her voice rose to a betraying squeak. ‘It’s not hurting us,’ she added a moment later.

  ‘Yet,’ Toklo snapped discouragingly.

  The ground still sloped downward; ahead of them Lusa could make out the pale gleam of water.

  ‘There’s the river up ahead,’ she said, pausing to point with her snout. ‘I think this BlackPath goes across it. Toklo, do you remember that river we crossed by a BlackPath? That was before you joined us,’ she added to Kallik.

  ‘I remember a firebeast struck Ujurak and nearly killed him,’ Toklo grunted, his gaze fixed on his paws. ‘I’m not risking that again.’

  ‘We could swim,’ Lusa agreed. ‘But this BlackPath is much quieter. It might be safe enough.’

  Toklo didn’t reply, and Lusa didn’t bother arguing; there was no point, until they reached the river and saw what they had to face.

  The sun was going down by the time they reached the bank; the wide, flat surface of the water reflected an ominous red light.

  Lusa tried not to shiver. ‘That’s a long way to swim,’ she murmured.

  Ahead of them, the BlackPath carried straight on across the river, supported on huge tree trunks of metal. As the bears approached, a firebeast roared up from the other direction, swept over, and vanished into the distance.

  ‘It’s a long way to walk as well,’ Toklo pointed out. ‘If we were in the middle when a firebeast came along, it would get us for sure.’

  ‘I’d rather risk that than swim,’ Kallik said, peering down the bank to where the river lapped at the first of the metal supports. ‘I don’t like the smell of that water. I don’t want it on my fur.’

  Before Lusa could point out to Toklo that he was outvoted, another firebeast came growling up behind them and drew to a halt a couple of bearlengths away. Its growl sank to a soft purr.

  Toklo spun round to face it, his teeth bared in a snarl. ‘What does it want?’ he growled, alarm flaring in his eyes. ‘Is it trying to hunt us?’

  Kallik turned toward Lusa, looking scared and anxious; Lusa realised that her friends were expecting her to provide the answers. She was supposed to be the expert here, the one who knew most about flat-faces. But this place was so different from anything she had seen before, and she wasn’t sure she could help them.

  ‘Get ready to run,’ she said softly, ‘but don’t move unless I tell you.’

  She took a cautious pace towards the firebeast, ready for it to leap into fierce, roaring life, but the tone of its quiet purr didn’t change. She half expected its belly to open up to let out flat-faces brandishing firesticks, but that didn’t happen either. Lusa could see only one flat-face inside.

  ‘You aren’t going to believe this,’ she said, ‘but I think he’s waiting for us to cross.’

  ‘You’re right, I don’t believe it,’ Toklo grunted. ‘Flat-faces waiting for bears? You’ve got bees in your brain.’

  ‘I agree with Lusa,’ Kallik said unexpectedly. ‘If the flat-face wanted to hunt us, he would be doing it by now. Lusa, if you think we should cross, I’m willing to give it a try.’

  Lusa felt warmed by her friend’s trust in her, knowing how frightened the white bear must be. She was frightened herself, except that somehow she didn’t think that this flat-face meant them any harm. There are kind flat-faces, she told herself. They were ki
nd in the Bear Bowl.

  ‘OK,’ she said to Kallik. ‘Off you go.’

  With another anxious glance at her, the white bear padded along the edge of the BlackPath and set out across the river. Now it would be easy for the firebeast to leap forward and trample her, but it didn’t move.

  ‘Now you, Toklo,’ Lusa said when Kallik was several bearlengths ahead.

  Toklo hesitated, and for a moment Lusa was afraid that he would baulk and start arguing again. Instead he swung around with a huff of annoyance and loped after Kallik.

  Lusa set off after them. As they reached the opposite side of the river they heard the firebeast’s growl start up again and it started to roll towards them. The bears crouched by the side of the BlackPath, panting with fear, until it had gone past.

  ‘There!’ Lusa exclaimed, letting out her breath in a huge huff. ‘Wasn’t that easier than a long swim?’

  ‘You were great, Lusa,’ Kallik said. Toklo just grunted.

  Feeling a little encouraged, Lusa led the way towards the flat-face denning place. Now they were crossing a wide flat plain, dotted with small pools of water reflecting the last of the daylight. Toklo lapped at the nearest one, then backed away, making a face and retching. ‘Don’t touch the water,’ he warned the others, swiping his tongue around his jaws. ‘It tastes disgusting.’

  As darkness fell, Lusa began to realise how tired she was. Her paws were sore and her mouth was parched with thirst, but there was no water fit to drink. She wanted to howl with hunger. The rabbit she had shared with Kallik the day before was no more than a distant memory. But she didn’t want to take the time to hunt, and in any case, she hadn’t seen any prey in this barren landscape, not even a bush where they might scavenge a few berries. Besides, the overpowering smell of firebeasts meant they couldn’t scent anything even if they tried.

  ‘I just hope Ujurak will appreciate what we’re going through,’ she heard Toklo mutter.

  Now and again a huge firebeast would sweep past them, its hard yellow eyes cutting through the gathering darkness. At least they could see them coming from a long way off. There was nowhere to hide – no trees or ridges of rock or even a thornbush – so they would huddle together by the side of the BlackPath until the firebeast had disappeared.