Toklo waited until Kallik and Yakone had made it down the slope before dipping his snout into the tiny stream that slipped through the ferns. The cold, clear water seemed like the most wonderful thing he had tasted for moons. When he finally stopped drinking and raised his head, he could feel energy soaking back into his body. Kallik was looking better, too, and even Yakone had perked up a little.

“Now we need to hunt,” Toklo announced.

Yakone, who had crouched beside the stream to drink, immediately started to get to his paws.

“No, you stay where you are,” Kallik ordered. “Toklo and I will hunt. Lusa, are you okay keeping an eye on Yakone while we’re gone?”

Lusa looked up from where she was still digging for fern roots. “Sure,” she mumbled around a mouthful. “Or you can just share these if you’d like.” She held out a root to Kallik.

The white bear grabbed the root between her jaws and chewed it thoughtfully. Toklo stifled a snort of amusement at the look of distaste on her face.

“No, I guess we’ll hunt,” she said at last. “Thanks anyway.”

Leaving Lusa and Yakone beside the stream, Toklo and Kallik headed up the opposite slope to where the trees grew more thickly. At the top they separated; Kallik followed a narrow path between two bramble thickets, while Toklo paused briefly to taste the air.

Rabbits!

Toklo’s jaws watered at the thought of biting into warm, juicy prey. He followed the scent trail, and as the odor grew stronger, he realized he must be close to the burrow. But when he rounded the trunk of a birch tree, he found himself facing a mossy bank where the earth had been torn away and scattered everywhere. It had been dug up so violently that some of the rabbits’ underground tunnels had been ripped open, exposing nests of dried grass and tiny piles of droppings. The air was thick with the reek of rabbit and fear, but there was no trace of prey.

Toklo halted in dismay. Did other brown bears do this? he wondered. Padding closer to the destroyed warren, he picked up another scent: one that he thought he should recognize, but could not remember where he’d smelled it before. There were small pawprints, too, that were definitely not the prints of bears.

Weird . . .

But it wasn’t important to work out what animals had done this right now. All that mattered was to find food. Toklo dug down into the tunnels; the earth was already loose, making it easy for him to follow the lingering scent of fear. Soon he came to the end of a burrow where a single rabbit was cowering. Its shriek of terror was cut off almost before it began when Toklo killed it with a swift bite to its throat.

“Thank you, spirits, for this prey,” he murmured as he hauled it out of the ground.