Kallik followed as Lusa carried the pouch through the brambles and down into the den. Toklo peered in from the top of the hollow.

“I’ll stay out here,” he said. “Just in case.”

Yakone lay where Kallik had left him. His rasping breath was shallow and painfully fast. He didn’t open his eyes as the bears crouched beside him, and Kallik saw Lusa flinch when she smelled his wound. It wasn’t hard to see that Yakone was dying.

“I hope this works,” Kallik whispered, half to herself. If it doesn’t, there’s nothing more we can do.

“It will.” Lusa sounded confident as she pawed at the pouch until it tore, spilling out two things that looked like big seedpods, with flat-face markings on the side.

“Do you know what we have to do with those?” Kallik asked.

Lusa shook her head. “But I guess it’s obvious, or Ujurak would have told me.” She clawed at one of the pods until it split; a stream of tiny white seeds poured out of it. “I recognize those!” she exclaimed. “The flat-face healer in the denning place gave something like them to Ujurak.”

Kallik nodded. “So we have to get him to eat them.” She gave Yakone a doubtful look; he was so far into unconsciousness that she didn’t think anything would rouse him.

“I know what to do. Toklo!” Lusa called up to the brown bear, who was still sitting at the edge of the den. “Can you find me a big leaf and drop it down here?”

Toklo vanished briefly and reappeared with a large leaf dangling from his jaws. As it fluttered down beside the other bears, Lusa took a mouthful of the white seeds and chewed them up, then spat them out onto the leaf.

“Yuck! Those things taste awful!” Turning to her friend, she added, “Now, Kallik, get Yakone to wake up.”

Kallik wriggled up beside Yakone and nudged him. “Wake up,” she murmured. “We have some food for you.”

At first Yakone didn’t move, but as Kallik went on prodding him, he grunted and his eyes flicked open. “You caught . . . seal?” he asked.

“No,” Lusa told him. “This is better than seal.”

“Nothing . . . better than seal.”

“This is.” Lusa pushed the leaf wrap next to his jaws. “Try it.”

Yakone sighed and looked as if he was slipping back into unconsciousness. Kallik gave him another nudge. “Eat.”

“Bossy . . .” Yakone muttered, but to Kallik’s relief he picked up the leaf wrap between his teeth, chomped it a couple of times, and swallowed.

Lusa and Kallik exchanged a glance, with identical sighs of relief.

“What’s happening?” Toklo called down. “Is it working?”

“Give it time!” Lusa responded. “Besides, we’ve got this other pod-thing to deal with first.”