What happens now? Ujurak wondered. He didn’t feel as if he belonged here. He longed to be outside, under the open sky, travelling with others beside him . . . others? Which others? Dimly he realised that he had forgotten something important. I’m not a flat-face, I’m a . . . I’m a . . . When he tried to remember, his memories dissolved like snow falling on water. He knew his life hadn’t begun the moment he woke in this warm, fragrant den. But what had come before? The knowledge of who he really was drifted away in a fog of weariness and pain.

Tiinchuu reappeared with another cup in his hand. Aromatic steam came from it.

‘Drink this,’ the healer said, sitting beside him on the bed. ‘It’s wintergreen tea. It will soothe the pain and help you to sleep. There’s elderberry in it too, to bring down your fever.’

He raised Ujurak’s head and held the cup to his lips. The warm liquid was comforting, but Ujurak’s nervousness increased at being so close to a flat-face.

‘That’s right,’ Tiinchuu murmured as Ujurak sipped from the cup. After a moment, he added thoughtfully, ‘You’re not from here, are you?’

Ujurak shook his head.

‘I thought not. Will anyone be looking for you – your parents or friends?’

Anxiety flooded through Ujurak and he struggled once again against the sleep that was enveloping him. This flat-face seemed so close to guessing his secret. Whatever that is.

He opened his mouth, not knowing what he wanted to say, but Tiinchuu raised his hand for silence.

‘Rest, don’t talk,’ he ordered. ‘There’ll be plenty of time for talk when you’re stronger.’

Setting the cup aside, he let Ujurak lie back on the pillows and tucked the blankets more closely around him. Ujurak began to feel warmth creeping through his body, and his eyelids grew heavy.

‘You should sleep now,’ Tiinchuu told him. ‘But first, let me give you these. They are charms that will help you get well.’

He folded Ujurak’s hand around three small carvings. Ujurak uncurled his fingers and stared at them. Three bears – brown, white, and black, tiny, but so vividly carved that they almost seemed to be alive, looking up at him with worried, questioning eyes. They had names, whispering in Ujurak’s head, prompted by the shapes of the tiny carved creatures. Memories spun from the mist that filled his mind: three figures plodding ahead of him, outlined against the horizon; mountains filled with the smell of burning; swimming a great black river that pulled at his fur and tasted bitter and slimy; sleeping and hunting and walking on, on, on through scorching days and nights that passed in a flicker of shadows.

Toklo.

Kallik.

Lusa.