But for the first time since being brought to this place, Silverhair’s legs were free. She stood straight with a great effort.
Now the Lost started to prod at her, and to pull at her ropes. She tried to resist, but she was so weakened, the feeble muscles of these Lost were sufficient to make her walk.
She moved one leg forward, then another. The pain in her hips and shoulders had a stabbing intensity.
But the pain began to ease.
Silverhair had always been blessed by good health, and her constitution was tough — designed, after all, to survive without shelter the rigors of an Arctic winter. Even now she could feel the first inklings of a recovery that might come quickly — if she were ever given the chance.
But still, it
Her strength was returning. But she did not let her limp become less pronounced. Nor did she raise her head, or fight against the ropes. It occurred to her it might be useful if the Lost did not know how strong she was.
As they passed a fire, Skin-of-Ice pulled out burning branches. He kept one himself and passed the others to his companions. Soon the patch of littered beach was illuminated by overlapping, shifting circles of blood-red light, vivid in the subdued midnight glow.
They led her past Snagtooth. Her aunt was still tied loosely by the rope dangling from her neck. The stump of her severed trunk was ugly, but it seemed to be healing over.
Snagtooth turned away.
Silverhair walked on, flanked by the Lost, led by the capering gait of Skin-of-Ice in the flickering light of the torches.
They were dragging her to another shelter: a dome shape a little bigger than the rest. The shelter stank of mammoth. She felt her dry trunk curl.
The other Lost backed away, leaving her with Skin-of-Ice. Almost trustingly, he reached up and grabbed one of the ropes that led to the tight noose around her neck. Feigning weakness, she allowed herself to be led forward toward the shelter.
Skin-of-Ice shielded his torch and led her through the shelter’s entrance. It was so narrow, her flanks brushed its sides.
She felt something soft.
Inside the shelter was utter darkness, relieved only slightly by a disk of indigo sky that showed through a rent in the roof. The stench of death was almost overpowering.
She wondered dully what the Lost was planning. Perhaps this was the place where Skin-of-Ice would, at last, kill her.
He bent and flicked his torch over a small pile in the middle of the floor. It looked like twigs and branches. A fire started. At first smoke billowed up, and there was a stink of fat. But then the smoke cleared, and the fire burned with a clear, steady light.
She saw that the fire was built from bone shards, smashed and broken. Mammoth bones.
The fire’s light grew.
The walls of this shelter were made of some kind of skin, and their supports were curved, and gleamed, white as snow.
The supports were mammoth tusks.
The tusks had been driven into the ground, so that their tips met at the apex of the shelter. They were joined at the tip by a sleeve of what looked like more bone, to make a continuous arch.
The wall skins, too, had been taken from mammoths, she saw now: flayed from corpses, scraped and cleaned, rust-brown hair still dangling from them. As she looked down, she saw more bones — jaws and shoulder blades and leg bones as thick as tree trunks — driven into the ground to fix the skins in place.
Black dread settled on her as she understood.
But the horror was not yet done. Skin-of-Ice was pointing at the ground with his paw.
Resting by the doorway was the massive skull of a mammoth. She recognized it. She was looking into the empty eye sockets of Eggtusk.
Skin-of-Ice was confronting her, his paws spread wide, and he was cawing. She knew that he had brought her here, shown her this final horror, to complete his victory over her.
She began to speak to him. 'Skin-of-Ice, it is you who is defeated,' she said softly. 'For I will not forget what you have done here. And when I put you in the ground, the worms will crawl through your skull and inhabit your emptied chest, as you inhabit these desecrated remains.'
For a heartbeat he seemed taken aback — almost as if he understood that she was speaking to him.
Then he raised his goad.
She summoned all her strength, and reared up. The ropes around her neck and forelegs parted.
Skin-of-Ice, evidently realizing his carelessness, fell backwards and sprawled before her.
At last her trunk was free. She raised it and trumpeted. She took a deliberate step toward him.
Even now he showed no fear. He raised a paw and curled it: beckoning her, daring her to approach him.
She stabbed at him with her tusk.
But he was fast. He squirmed sideways.
Her tusk drove into the earth. It hit rock buried there, and she felt its tip splinter and crack.
Skin-of-Ice wriggled away. But a splash of bright fresh red disfigured his side, soaking through the loose skins he wore.
She felt a stab of exultation. She had wounded him.
He scrambled out of the shelter.
She set about wrecking this cave of skin. She trampled on the heap of burning bones. She smashed away the supports that held up the grisly roof. When the layers of flayed skin fell over her, exposing the midnight sky, she shook them away.
All this took mere heartbeats.
Then, with her trunk, she picked up the fragments of skin, and laid them reverently over her back. She found herself breathing hard, her limited reserves of energy already depleted.
She turned to meet her fate.
Beyond the ruins of the hut there was a ring of light: a dozen burning branches held aloft by the paws of the Lost. Several of them had thunder-sticks, which they pointed toward her. She could see their small eyes, sighting along the sticks at her head and belly.
And there was Skin-of-Ice. He was holding his side, but she could see the blood leaking through his fingers.
She tried to calculate. If she charged directly at him, even if the stinging hail from the thunder-sticks caught her, her sheer momentum could not be stopped. And Skin-of-Ice, wounded as he was, would not be able to evade her this time.
She rumbled to her calf. 'So it is over,' she said. 'But the pain will be mine, not yours. You will not see this terrible world of suffering, dominated by these monsters, these Lost. It will be brief, and then we will be together, in the aurora that burns in the sky…'
She lowered her head -
There was a braying, liquid roar.
The Lost scattered and ran, yelling.
A shape loomed out of the shadows: bristling with fur, one tusk held high. It was Snagtooth. Silverhair could see how she trailed the broken length of rope that had restrained her.
Without her trunk Snagtooth was unable to trumpet, but she could roar; and now she roared again. She selected one of the Lost and hurled herself straight toward him. The Lost screamed and raised his thunder-stick. It spat fire, and Silverhair could see blood splash over Snagtooth’s upper thigh. But the wound did not impede her charge.
Snagtooth’s mutilated head rammed directly into the belly of the Lost.
Silverhair heard a single bloody gurgle, the crackle of crushed bone. The Lost was hurled into the air and landed far from the circle of torches.
But this victory was transient. The Lost gathered their courage and turned on Snagtooth. Soon the still air was rent by the noise of thunder-sticks.
Snagtooth reeled. She fell to her knees.
Silverhair screamed: 'Snagtooth!'
Through the storm of noise, Silverhair could hear Snagtooth’s rumble. 'Remember me…'
And Silverhair understood. In the end, Snagtooth had thrown off her shame. She had chosen to give her life for Silverhair and her calf. Now it was up to Silverhair to get away, to accept that ultimate gift.
She turned away from the noise, the Lost, the fallen, agonized shape of Snagtooth, and slipped away into the silvery Arctic light.
The Lost closed around Snagtooth with their thunder-sticks and ice-claws.
Part 3: Matriarch
The Story of Ganesha the Wise
This (said Silverhair) is the story of Ganesha, who is called the Wise.
I am talking of a time many Great-Years ago — ten, twelve, perhaps more. In those days, the world was quite different, for it was warmer, and much of the land was covered in a rich Forest.
Now, in such a world you or I would be too hot, and there would be little for us to eat. But Ganesha’s Family thought themselves blessed.
For Ganesha’s Family, and their Clan and Kin, had lived for a hundred Great-Years in a world awash with heat, and Ganesha had no need to keep herself warm, as you do. And she ate the rich food of the Forest: grass, moss, fruit, even leaves and bark.
If Ganesha was standing before you now you would think her strange indeed.
Though she had a trunk and tusks, she had little fur; her gray skin was exposed to the cooling air all year round. She had little fat on her lean body, and her ears were large, like huge flapping leaves. And Ganesha was tall — she would have towered over you, little Icebones!
Ganesha had two calves, both Cows, called Prima and Meridi.
Everyone agreed that Meridi was the beauty of the Family: tall, strong, lean, her skin like weathered rock, her trunk as supple as a willow branch. By comparison Prima seemed short and fat
