Toklo guessed she wasn’t as confident as she sounded. But there’s no time to look for anything else, he thought, working his claws impatiently in the grass. We have to move. And those leaves can’t do Yakone any harm. . . .

Once Lusa had trickled the leaf juice into Yakone’s wound, with Kallik watching worriedly, Toklo led the way up the slope, heading into denser woodland. The uneven ground dislodged the thorn in his paw, and though his pad still throbbed with pain, Toklo was relieved to be rid of it.

As they passed beneath the branches of the outlying trees, Lusa brightened up, gazing around with eager curiosity, but Yakone still seemed exhausted. It looked like it was taking all his strength just to put one paw in front of another. Kallik stayed close by his side, her anxiety wrapping around her like a dark cloud.

Every pawstep Toklo took deeper into the trees brought back more memories for him. The sensation of being pulled back into his old life was so strong that it almost overwhelmed him, and yet there were unexpected differences, too.

That lightning-blasted tree . . . he thought as they padded past the pale trunk and spiky, leafless branches. Wasn’t it by the river? Or was that a different tree?

“I like it here.” Lusa interrupted his thoughts with a happy sigh. “The forest feels safe, somehow, like it’s going to look after us.”

Toklo just grunted in reply. His memories weren’t all good ones, but he didn’t want to say this to the others. And now that he was here, in the place that was so familiar to him, he felt the weight of responsibility for his friends even more. It’s my duty to help them, because this is my home.

Thinking of his friends reminded him of the long path they had traveled together. The cub he had been, playing here in these woods with Tobi, would never have imagined that he would see and do so much in his lifetime. Toklo suddenly realized that he had never really believed he would make it home until now, when he walked beneath the trees that were familiar and at the same time unsettlingly strange.

“Toklo!” Kallik, who had been padding along beside Yakone, put on a spurt to catch up. “Do you really think we’ll meet more brown bears in these woods?”

Toklo nodded. “There don’t seem to be any others around right now, but sooner or later we will.”

Lusa shivered. “I’m not sure I want to. Brown bears guard their territory even more fiercely than black or white bears.”

Kallik glanced around uneasily. “I don’t know how you two can possibly be comfortable under trees like this,” she muttered. “Out on the ice, you can see for whole skylengths. But here . . . there could be a bear behind every bush, just waiting to leap out on us.”