Free Great Bear Lake by Erin Hunter

couldn’t sleep yet. If they didn’t eat, they would soon be too weak to go on traveling.
    Turning his back on the BlackPath, Toklo padded into the forest. Red light from the setting sun washed over the ground, and the trees cast long black shadows across his path. Sniffing deeply, he picked up the scent of prey and spotted a squirrel scuffling about among the roots of a tree. With a growl of triumph Toklo hurled himself at it and batted it over the head with one huge paw. He swallowed the small body in a few famished gulps. For a few heartbeats he stood still to enjoy the easing of his hunger pangs. Then guilt crept up on him, like ants burrowing into his pelt. What about the others, who had gone to sleep hungry? Did he have to hunt for them, too? Was it really right for bears to journey together? They were supposed to live alone, or at least stick to their own kind. Maybe the journey to find the place where the spirits dancedwas meant for just Ujurak.
    Still confused, Toklo headed back toward the tree where the others were sleeping, but before he reached it, a grouse shot across his path, giving out a raucous alarm call. Almost without thinking, Toklo reared up on his hindpaws and swatted it out of the air. As it fluttered on the ground he grabbed it by the neck and carried the limp body back to his companions.
    A sort of faint pink twilight had fallen by the time Toklo arrived back at the tree. Ujurak was curled up in a hollow lined with dead leaves, his paws hooked over his nose. Looking down at him, Toklo felt an unexpected pang of sympathy; the young cub looked so thin and exhausted. He dropped his prey and gave Ujurak a gentle prod in his flank.
    â€œHey, Ujurak, wake up.”
    â€œWha…?” Ujurak raised his head, blinking sleep out of his eyes. “Is it time to go?”
    â€œNo.” Toklo edged the grouse toward his friend. “Here…eat.”
    Ujurak scrambled out of the hollow and stared at the bird, his eyes shining. “Toklo, you caught this for us? You’re great!” He pelted over to the tree where Lusa had disappeared, and stretched his paws up the trunk. “Lusa! Lusa, come down! Toklo brought us some food.”
    The branches rustled and Lusa’s bottom half appeared as she climbed swiftly to the ground. She padded over to where Toklo was waiting beside his prey. “Thank you, Toklo,” she murmured, crouching down and tearing off a mouthful.
    Ujurak crouched beside her, but before he took a bite he glanced up at Toklo. “Aren’t you coming to share?”
    Toklo shook his head. “I’ve had something.”
    His belly was nowhere near full, but Lusa and Ujurak were so grateful that he couldn’t take any of their meal. He rested his muzzle on his paws and watched them eating. His stomach rumbled but he didn’t mind. He closed his eyes and drifted to sleep.
    That night, he dreamed his brother Tobi was alive and strong. They hunted together, bringing down a full-grown deer, and afterward they shared the prey that they’d caught as brothers.

CHAPTER SIX
Kallik
    Kallik woke in the milky light of dawn and pulled herself to her paws. Her limbs felt stiff and heavy as she set off along the narrow spur of the bay, like she was walking through sticky mud.
    â€œBears don’t belong on the land,” she muttered. “What if I was wrong about the silver path? Will my mother be mad at me for going the wrong way?”
    At the end of the spur of water, she hesitated, gazing in the direction the moon had shown her. The land in front of her was flat, covered in wiry grass with a thornbush or an outcrop of rock dotted here and there. Shallow silvery pools reflected the growing light in the sky, glittering in the first rays of the sun as it rose above the horizon.
    â€œIt’s now or never,” she told herself. She took a deep breath and padded forward, taking her first steps away from the bay, away from her birthing grounds,