Taking a deep breath, Kallik forced herself to slow down and look around more closely. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she started to recognize some of her surroundings.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that before,” she said to Yakone, pointing with her snout at a buckthorn bush. “And the crooked tree that looks a bit like caribou antlers.”

Yakone nodded, though Kallik saw that he was looking confused, too. It took a while before they were sure of where they were, and were able to follow faint paths through the undergrowth until they reached the den among the brambles.

“Toklo! Lusa!” Kallik called out. “We came back!”

There was no reply. The broken branches and torn vegetation from their battle with the wolves still lay strewn around the outside of the den. When Kallik peered through the remaining brambles, she saw that the den was empty; Toklo’s and Lusa’s scents were cold and stale.

“I can smell fresh wolf scent,” Yakone reported. “They’ve been back here since we left, I’m sure of it.”

Kallik shuddered. “Do you think the wolves came back and drove Toklo and Lusa out?” she fretted. “They might be hurt. We have to find them!”

She began looking around for any blood or tufts of bear fur that would tell her there had been another attack. But all she found were a few scraps of rabbit fur and a scattering of feathers.

“Okay, there’s no fresh scent here,” Yakone said. “But there’s no blood, either. If Lusa and Toklo left, they were walking, and uninjured.”

His words comforted Kallik a little, but she knew that she wouldn’t feel real relief until she was reunited with her friends. “We have to find them,” she repeated determinedly.

Together Kallik and Yakone trekked through the forest in ever-widening circles around the abandoned den.

“Maybe we should split up to cover more ground,” Yakone suggested.

Kallik shook her head. “No. I’m not going to risk losing you, too.”

The forest seemed dark and threatening as they continued their search. Kallik felt like hostile eyes were watching them from every tree and clump of bushes. Her ears were pricked for the slightest sound, and she sniffed the air, hoping to pick up her friends’ scents.

But it was Yakone who first noticed a new smell. “Wolves!” he hissed, shoving Kallik into the shelter of a bramble thicket.

Kallik caught the scent, too, along with the reek of blood, and poked her head out cautiously to see what was happening. Two young wolves limped past, slinking along with their tails between their legs. Patches of bare skin showed where their fur had been torn out, and they were both bleeding from deep scratches.

“It looks as if they met their match,” Yakone remarked as they emerged from hiding once the wolves had gone. “I’d say a couple of fierce bears, wouldn’t you?”