‘That’s right,’ Kallik added. ‘They won’t kill us, but they’ll put us to sleep and take us to the place where the hungry bears are kept. I know; I’ve been there. And then we won’t be together any more.’

‘We have to get out of here now.’ Toklo shoved past Ujurak and peered around the end of the firebeast. He could hear voices in the distance, but there were no flat-faces nearby. ‘Come on; it looks quiet.’

‘Wait,’ Ujurak said. ‘I need to tell you something. I’ve found out what the flat-faces are doing. They’re taking oil from the land.’

‘So what?’ Toklo grunted. ‘What’s oil, anyway? Will it help us find prey? If not, they can have it, as far as I’m concerned.’

Ujurak turned to face him, the fur on his shoulders standing on end and the light in his eyes replaced with something harder and colder. Toklo had never seen him like this before; he only just stopped himself from taking a step back.

‘Oil is stinking black stuff,’ Ujurak snarled. ‘I can smell it on your pelt, Toklo. The flat-faces want it, so they built all this to help them get it.’

‘But Ujurak –’ Kallik stammered, coming up to stand beside him. ‘It’s flat-face stuff. It doesn’t have anything to do with bears.’

‘Oh, no?’ Ujurak swung round to face her, quiet fury in his voice. ‘You’ve seen what it’s like here. Filthy, noisy, reeking . . . Well, the flat-faces want to make everything like this. They want to put their stinking structures where the caribou come to feed.’

‘Why?’ Kallik blinked, her gaze troubled. ‘What harm have the caribou done to them?’

‘The flat-faces take oil from the ground,’ Ujurak told her. ‘That’s what all this is for. The towers pump up the oil and the pipes carry it to where the flat-faces want it. I don’t know why, but they need it badly. They’re prepared to sacrifice the wild to get it. Not just here, Kallik, but on the ice too.’

‘They can’t!’ Kallik’s eyes stretched wide with alarm. ‘Flat-faces can’t live out on the ice.’

Ujurak pressed closely against her side. ‘I’m sorry, Kallik, but they can.’

‘Then what can we do about it?’ the white bear asked.

‘I don’t know. But we must have faith.’ Ujurak’s voice quivered. ‘We have come all this way for a reason. I think we have been sent here to stop it all.’

‘I can’t believe you just said that,’ Toklo stated flatly. Does the squirrel-brained cub really think that anything we do will stop the flat-faces? ‘We have to leave here, and go into the mountains. You said that they’re going to build their structures on the plain, so the mountains will be safe.’

Ujurak shook his head; there was such certainty in his expression that Toklo gulped.