Longtusk

forth grinding of a mammoth’s jaw. Then he stamped on the tree, breaking it up further.

Within a few heartbeats, a healthy tree had been reduced to a few shards.

'My name is Jaw Like Rock,' said the mastodont. He opened his huge mouth and belched; a fine spray of spittle and wood chips peppered Longtusk. 'I enjoyed that. But you grazers prefer to munch on a few blades of grass, don’t you? I suppose if that’s all you’re strong enough to manage—'

'I’m strong enough to best you,' Longtusk said.

Jaw Like Rock looked puzzled. 'Oh, yes. It’s time for me to get my eye ripped out, isn’t it? We’d better get it over with.'

Unexpectedly, something barged into Longtusk’s backside. Trumpeting, he tried to turn.

Here was Walks With Thunder, his broad brow dipped. 'You let me creep up on you downwind again, little grazer. You’ve a lot to learn.'

'I’ve nothing to learn from you wood-nibblers.'

Walks With Thunder’s broad head once again rammed his backside, hard. Longtusk stumbled and took two or three steps forward.

Now something wrenched backward on Longtusk’s left hind leg. There was a hoop of hide rope knotted around his ankle, over his foot. The rope’s other end was tied tightly around the roots of a tree.

He heard a yelp of triumph from his feet.

He looked down. It was the little fat Firehead, the one who had detected his presence before anybody else. He had been crawling on the ground close to Longtusk’s feet, and his flabby skin was coated with something dark and pungent.

'Dung,' Longtusk said. 'Mammoth dung.'

'Your dung,' said Walks With Thunder easily. 'That’s how Lemming crept up on you. You couldn’t smell him. Oldest trick there is, little grazer. And now you’re caught.'

Longtusk trumpeted his alarm. 'Why are you doing this to me? Let me go! In the name of Probos—'

Walks With Thunder exchanged a glance with Jaw Like Rock, and Longtusk thought he detected a brief sadness there.

Walks With Thunder said, 'Grazer, this has nothing to do with Probos.'

'Don’t worry, lad,' Jaw said. 'We’ve all been through it.'

'Been through what? Let me go.' Frustrated, frightened, angry, humiliated, Longtusk tugged with all his strength at the rope. It wouldn’t give. Rumbling, enraged, he fell back.

The Fireheads stood around him in a loose circle, letting the drama play itself out.

Jaw Like Rock took a heavy step forward, 'Come on then, little grazer. Let’s get this over. Give me your best shot.'

Longtusk eyed Jaw Like Rock. 'There is a stink of Firehead on you,' he said. 'You have no honor.'

Jaw Like Rock stiffened.

Walks With Thunder murmured, 'I wouldn’t get him angry.'

Longtusk cried, 'For Probos!' And he roared and lunged with his tusks.

The mastodont sidestepped — but not fast enough; the tip of one mammoth tusk scraped down his flank. 'Well done, little grazer,' he said, his trunk investigating the wound. 'You were too fast for me.'

Longtusk looked down, and saw a smear of bright crimson at the sharp tip of one curling spiral tusk. He felt a surge of pride. If only Rockheart could see him now!…

'Get it over, Jaw,' growled Walks With Thunder. 'Don’t try to make him feel better about it.'

Longtusk, straining at the sinew on his leg, said, 'What does he mean?'

'Nothing,' said Jaw Like Rock, wiping blood off the tip of his trunk on the sparse grass. 'He’s an old fool. Do your worst, mighty mammoth, calf of Primus!' And he trumpeted and raised his stubby tusks.

Again Longtusk lunged.

But the mastodont was standing at his side. He had moved in a blur of speed, too fast for Longtusk to see. 'Forgive me, brave grazer.' And he brought his tusks crashing down on Longtusk’s head.

It was as if thunder had clapped inside his head. The light was suddenly strange, with everything suffused by a bright golden tinge. To his surprise he found he was kneeling, his trunk dangling on the grass like the discarded skin of a snake.

He tried to lift his tusks, but, oddly, they were scraping on the thin soil of the ground. With every breath he took, the golden light around him intensified.

'…don’t understand it. It’s never taken more than a single blow before. That would have felled Kilukpuk herself.'

'You aren’t used to these woolly grazers, Jaw.'

'No. Perhaps all that fur—'

'More likely that wretched dome of bone on the top of his skull. Try it again, Jaw. Just make sure you don’t kill him.'

A huge face loomed, a gaping jaw, the teeth surrounded by four short, squat tusks. 'Try not to move, grazer.'

Longtusk felt a wash of fetid breath, a rush of air — and again there was an explosion inside his head.

This time the world fell away, through deepening gold, into darkness.

7 The Taming

The sun was high.

He was standing. He was conscious of hunger, an even more powerful thirst. There was a strong scent of mammoth around him… but not quite mammoth.

'…Milkbreath? Matriarch?'

'They aren’t here, lad.'

The voice came from directly before him. It was a mammoth — no, a mastodont — short and squat, with a long narrow face and an extra pair of tusks. The mastodont seemed to swim into focus, as if ice water were draining out of his eyes.

The mastodont was a Bull, grizzled with age, and his waist and head and legs and tusks were wrapped around with lengths of rope, knotted tight and tied to the stumps of trees. Only his trunk roamed free, its pink tip questing toward Longtusk.

'Walks With Thunder,' Longtusk said slowly.

'I’m glad you know me. That oaf Jaw Like Rock is none too gentle; I feared he might have scrambled your brains for good… Who’s Milkbreath? Your mother?'

Longtusk growled and tried to back away. But he couldn’t move. He could feel ropes wrapped around his legs and torso and head.

'The ropes will tighten if you struggle. They will cut your flesh.'

Longtusk pushed hard with one leg. With a creak, the loops tightened just as Walks With Thunder had warned.

He gave up, panting, longing for water. 'Who did this?'

'Our keepers. The Fireheads.'

'I am mammoth. I have no keeper.'

'You do now, little grazer.'

'They have tied me up so I will not run away?'

'That’s right.'

'…But why you?'

Walks With Thunder emitted a deep snort from his trunk. 'To show you it isn’t so bad.'

Now a Firehead was coming toward them. It was the little fat one Longtusk had called Lemming — the one who had, with stealth, slipped that first loop of rope around Longtusk’s leg. He was carrying a skin bag, some dry grass.

Longtusk rumbled and lunged at the little Firehead. All over his body, the ropes creaked and tightened cruelly.

Lemming yelped and staggered backward. He dropped his skin bag, which landed with a thick gurgle.

'Let him feed you,' Walks With Thunder urged.

'I feed myself.'

'Not any more. Watch…'

Lemming retrieved his dropped bag, opened it up and held it out to Walks With Thunder. With a noisy slurp the mastodont sucked up a trunkful of water, draining the bag.

The smell of the water filled Longtusk’s head.

Now the little Firehead started stuffing hay into Walks With Thunder’s accepting mouth. The mastodont rumbled, 'It isn’t so bad, Longtusk. Just accept it. You’re lucky. Lemming likes you. He’s one of the better ones. He goes easy with the goads. Some of the others take it too far. Like Spindle — the one Jaw farted over—'

'I won’t give in.'

'You’re special, are you? Different from us, smarter, stronger?'

'Yes.'

'Sniff the air, little grazer.'

Longtusk did so — and found he was surrounded by mastodonts: ten, eleven, twelve of them, all males, presumably the same herd who had circled him earlier. Some were pulling branches from the low trees here; but most were feeding on heaps of smashed wood left for them by the Fireheads. One mastodont was wallowing in the mud of a shallow water hole, its fringe crusted with late-winter ice. He was rolling on his side and lifting his squat feet, letting a Firehead scrape mud off his delicate soles with a piece of sharpened stone.

And now a mastodont walked past with a heavy gait. He had a passenger, a skinny Firehead who sat astride the mastodont’s neck. His bare feet kicked at the animal’s ears, and he struck the mastodont’s broad scalp with a stick tipped with sharpened bone.

The mastodont had a broad, ugly scar across his face, eclipsing one eye.

It was Jaw Like Rock. And his rider was the keeper who had beaten him before, Spindle.

'Why does he accept that? He could throw off that creature and crush him in a moment.'