The Great White Bear? Nanuk has come to warn us about the storm. I squinted and tried to imagine my mother’s spirit looking back, but all I saw was emptiness. I shook my head. Believing in old folktales. I was deluding myself, trying to take comfort in anything. I walked over to Ataneq, who did not want to rise.
“Aahali, poor thing,” I whispered, stroking his head. “We have to keep going.” He looked at me but did not uncurl himself. The other dogs did not want to stir either. I went down the line, checking each of them with a sinking heart. They were exhausted. Even though I knew that they would run if I commanded it of them, they would not be able to go much farther. They would run themselves to death out of loyalty.
Suddenly, Ataneq’s ears pricked up. He lifted his head and pointed it in the direction of the bleak tundra, and the hackles on his neck rose. A low growl rumbled from his throat.
“Ataneq?” I whispered.
Then he leaped to his feet. He began to bark. The other dogs lifted their heads too.
My eyes followed Ataneq’s line of sight. There, from the mist of falling snowflakes, came a flash of light. Then the howling of other dogs.
A faint shout drifted over to us.
It was a language I did not know.
The memory of the gusaks came back to me. They have come to finish me off.
I rushed to the sled and grabbed the handlebar. The dogs were already restless, anxious to be on the move. I called out a command and the entire line lurched forward, the dogs throwing all their strength into the run. My head jerked back. As icy snow flew in my face, I glanced over the back of the sled to see our pursuers.
The light gleamed again.
We charged on. But my dogs were traveling across the frozen tundra at a slower pace than yesterday. The snow turned thicker, so that the light behind us was shrouded now and then from view. But the storm slowed us down too, painting the entire landscape an eerie white. My breaths came in ragged gasps. I hoped Ataneq could sense where he was leading us.
Behind us, the light suddenly grew brighter. Our pursuers were gaining on us. Now I could hear more faint shouts floating from somewhere behind us. I caught a few clear words.
The gusak tongue. “We must go faster!” I shouted to Ataneq, but the wind drowned out my words. There was little we could do. Ataneq could not push the other dogs any faster.
The ground beneath us suddenly changed from soft snow to hard ice. We shouldn’t be on the ice, I thought frantically, remembering the Seal King’s warning. At the same time, Ataneq seemed to realize the sudden shift beneath his paws, and he tried immediately to turn us.
When I looked back again, I could see our pursuers’ dogs, dark specks against the fury of falling snow, their sledder wearing a thick fur hat. A strange sense of calm washed over me at the sight. Perhaps this would be where they caught me and killed me as they had killed Mother. Or perhaps this would be where I stood my ground. If I died here, I would die fighting.
The gusak sledder shouted something at me, but I couldn’t understand what he said. Instead, I gritted my teeth and braced myself.
Abruptly, Ataneq slid to a halt. The other dogs stumbled in their haste to stop, and the team slid across the icy surface. The sled’s runners cracked the ice. I only had time to shout before the ice gave way with a thunderous series of cracks. Then the world swallowed me whole. The icy water knocked all the breath from my lungs. Panic clogged my mind. I floundered blindly. The world flashed in and out — the water stabbed at me. I reached out, hoping for something to hang on to. I called for my dogs.
Ataneq! Ataneq!
Through the cold and darkness, I saw a shape curve through the water, its black eyes gleaming bright, tail carving a trail behind it. The Seal King.
I broke to the surface with a terrible gasp into the middle of a blizzard. Ataneq and the other dogs barked furiously. Someone had cut their sled leads to keep them from going into the water. Where were the gusaks? I tried to grab at the edge of the ice, but my limbs were too numb to pull myself out.
I will die here, I thought.
As I clung desperately to the ice, I saw a hulking figure lumbering toward me. It was enormous, oblivious to the wind and snow that blew against its hide, and its white fur blended in with the storm until I could not tell where one ended and the other began. The creature stopped before me. I lifted my frozen lashes higher until I met the beast’s brown eyes.
They were my mother’s eyes. Human.
Nanuk. I reached out a hand. The Great White Bear lowered its head so that I could touch its muzzle. I opened my cracked lips, wanting to say something, not knowing what.
“I’m sorry,” I finally whispered. Tears rolled down my cheeks. The grief that I had kept bottled since the destruction of my village now came spilling out. “I don’t even — even have a token I can keep.”