Longtusk

the mastodonts for such instruction.

But such wisdom, passed from generation to generation, was acquired by long experience. And if the land was changing so quickly — so dramatically within the lifetime of a mammoth — what use was the wisdom of the years?

And in that case, what might have become of his Family?

He shuddered and rumbled, and he felt Crocus pat him, aware of his unease.

After several more days Crocus guided Longtusk down a sharp incline toward lower ground. He found himself in a valley through which a fat, strong glacial river gushed, its waters curdled white with rock flour. The column of mastodonts crept cautiously after him, avoiding the sharp gravel patches and slippery mud slopes he pointed out.

After a time the valley opened, and the river decanted into a lake, gray and glimmering.

The place seemed familiar.

Had he been here before, as a lost calf? But so much had changed! The lake water was surely much higher than it had once been, and the long grass and even the trees grew so thickly now, even down to the water’s edge, that every smell and taste and sound was different.

…Yet there was much that nagged at his memory: the shape of a hillside here, a rock abutment there.

When he saw a row of cave mouths, black holes eroded into soft exposed rock, he knew that he had not been mistaken.

Crocus called a halt.

She and her warriors dismounted, and on all fours they crept through the thickening vegetation closer to the caves. They inspected footprints in the dirt — they were wide and splayed, Longtusk saw, more like a huge bird’s than a Firehead’s narrow tracks — and they rummaged through dirt and rubble.

At last, with a hiss of triumph, the hunter called Bareface picked up a shaped rock. It was obviously an axe, made and wielded by clever fingers — and it was stained with fresh blood.

And now there was a cry: a voice not quite like a Firehead’s, more guttural, cruder. The mastodonts raised their trunks and sniffed the air.

A figure had come out of the nearest cave: walking upright, but limping heavily. He stood glaring in the direction of the intruders, who still cowered in the vegetation. He was short and stocky, with wide shoulders and a deep barrel chest. His clothing was heavy and coarse. His forehead sloped backward, and an enormous bony ridge dominated his brow. His legs were short and bowed, and his feet were flat and very wide, with short stubby toes, so that he left those broad splayed footprints.

He was obviously old, his back bent, his small face a mask of wrinkles that seemed to lap around cavernous nostrils like waves around rocks. And his head was shaven bare of hair, with a broad red stripe painted down its crown.

Not a Firehead, not quite. This was the Fireheads’ close cousin: a Dreamer. And Longtusk recognized him.

'He is called Stripeskull,' Longtusk rumbled to Thunder. 'I have been here before.'

'As have I. This is where we found you.'

Walks With Thunder described how, when the Fireheads had first moved north, they had sent scouting parties ahead, seeking opportunities and threats. Bedrock himself had led an expedition to this umpromising place — and Crocus had been, briefly, lost.

'The Dreamers saved her from the cold,' said Longtusk.

Thunder grunted. 'That’s as may be. We drove the Dreamers from their caves. But the land was too harsh, and we abandoned it and retreated farther south.'

'And the Dreamers returned to their caves?'

'They are creatures of habit. And, back then, the Fireheads did not covet their land.'

'But now?'

'See for yourself. The land has changed. Now the Fireheads want this place…'

Longtusk said, 'It was so long ago.'

'For you, perhaps,' Thunder said dryly. 'For me, it seems like yesterday.'

'How did Stripeskull get so old?'

'Dreamers don’t live long,' growled Thunder. 'And I fear this one will not grow much older.'

'What do you mean?'

But now Stripeskull seemed to have spotted the intruders. He was shouting and gesturing. He had a short burned-wood spear at his side, and he tried to heft it, but his foreleg would not rise above the shoulder.

A spear flew at him. It neatly pierced Stripeskull’s heart.

Longtusk, shocked, trumpeted and blundered forward.

Stripeskull was on the ground, and blood seeped red-black around him, viscous and slow as musth. His great head rocked forward, and ruddy spittle looped his mouth. He looked up and saw the mammoth, and his eyes widened with wonder and recognition. Then he fell back, his strength gone.

Longtusk rumbled mournfully, and touched the body with the sole of his foot. He was gone, as quickly destroyed as a pine needle on a burning tree. How could a life be destroyed so suddenly, so arbitrarily? This was Stripeskull, who had grudgingly spared his own Family’s resources to save Longtusk’s life; Stripeskull, with long memories of his own stretching back beyond his Family to a remote, frosty childhood — Stripeskull, gone in an instant and never to return, no matter how long the world turned.

But even while Stripeskull’s body continued to spill its blood on the trampled dust, the Fireheads were moving onward, driven, busy, eager to progress.

Crocus beckoned to Longtusk. She led him to the dark mouth of the cave. 'Bowl, bowl!' Speak…

With a growing feeling of unease, he raised his trunk and trumpeted. The noise echoed within the cramped rock walls of the cave, where it must have been terrifying.

A Dreamer came running out — a female, Longtusk saw, young, comparatively slim, long brown hair flying after her. She saw the mammoth, skidded to a halt and screamed.

She did not know him. The Dreamers grew quickly, as Thunder had said; perhaps this one had been an infant, or not even born, during his time here.

She tried to retreat — but the Shaman, grinning, had moved behind her, blocking her from the cave. Her eyes widened, and for a brief moment Longtusk saw the Shaman through her eyes: ridiculously tall, with a forehead that bulged to smoothness, willow-thin legs, a nose as small and thin as a spring icicle…

Firehead warriors threw a net of hide rope over the female, as if she was a baby rhino, and they wrestled her to the ground. But she was strong, and was soon ripping her way through the net. So they tied more rope around her, leaving her squirming in the dirt.

The hunters fell back, panting hard; one of them was missing a chunk of his ear, bitten off by the Dreamer female. They seemed to be studying her body as she writhed and struggled.

'Perhaps they will mate with her,' Longtusk said.

'If they do it will be for pleasure only,' said Walks With Thunder. 'Their pleasure, not hers. Something else you need to know, Longtusk. Firehead cannot seed Dreamer with cub. They are alike, you see, cousins.'

'Like mastodonts and mammoths.'

Thunder growled, oddly. 'But their blood does not mix. And so they compete, like — like two different species of gulls, seeking to nest on the same cliff face. To the Fireheads, the Dreamers are just an obstacle, something to be cleared out of the way.'

'Then what will become of the Dreamers?'

'Though they are strong, they are no match for the cunning Fireheads. If they are lucky, the other Dreamers will have seen what happened here, and scattered.'

'And if not?'

Thunder snorted. 'The Fireheads are not noted for their mercy to their kin. The Dreamers will be butchered, the survivors enslaved and taken to the settlement where they will work until they die.'

Now there was a howl from the cave.

Another Dreamer emerged — this time a male. He was young and strong, and he had a stone knife in his free paw — crude, but sharp and potent. And he had taken a captive. It was Lemming, the mastodont keeper. The Dreamer’s foreleg was tight around Lemming’s neck. Lemming was whimpering, and blood dripped from a wound in his upper foreleg.

The Dreamer’s small eyes, glinting in their caves of bone, swiveled this way and that. He seemed to be trying to get to the female on the ground. Perhaps that was his sister, even his mate.

Crocus stepped forward. She was obviously concerned for Lemming. She held out her paws and said something in her high, liquid tongue.

The Dreamer, not understanding, jabbered back and slashed with his knife.

Longtusk acted without thinking. He slid his trunk around the Dreamer’s neck and yanked so hard the Dreamer lost his grip on Lemming, and he fell back into the dirt at Longtusk’s feet. The mammoth pinned him there with a tusk at the throat.

Lemming fell to the ground, limp. Crocus ran to him and called the others for help.

The Shaman stalked toward the fallen Dreamer. 'Maar thode,' he snapped at Longtusk. 'Maar thode!'

Break. Kill.

Longtusk leaned forward, increasing the pressure on the Dreamer’s throat.

But the Dreamer was saying something too, calling in a language that was guttural and harsh, yet seemed strangely familiar.

On the Dreamer’s face, under a crudely shaved veneer of stubble, there was a mark, bright red, jagged like a lightning bolt. It had faded since this Dreamer was a cub, but it was still there.

Willow, thought Longtusk. The first Dreamer I found, grown from a cub to an adult buck.

And he recognizes me.

Crocus was close by.

Once again the three of us are united, Longtusk thought, and he felt a deep apprehension, as if the world itself was shaking beneath him. He had long forgotten the raving of the strange old Dreamer female when he had first brought Crocus here, her terror at the sight of the three of them together… Now that terror returned to him, a chill memory.

The Shaman hammered Longtusk’s scalp with his goad, cutting into his skin. 'Maar thode!'

Longtusk stepped back, lifting his tusk from the Dreamer’s throat. Willow lay at his feet, as if stunned.

With a hasty gesture, Crocus ordered other hunters forward. They quickly bound Willow with strips of hide rope. He did not resist, though his massive muscles bulged.

The Shaman glared at Longtusk with impotent fury.

Now Crocus, accompanied by more hunters, made her way into the cave. There seemed to be no more Dreamers present, and with impunity the hunters kicked apart the crude central hearth. Under Crocus’s orders, two of the hunters began to dig a pit in the ground.

'It seems we will stay here tonight,' Walks With Thunder growled. 'The cave will provide shelter. And see how the hunters are making a better hearth, one which will allow the air to blow beneath and—'

'The Dreamers have lived here for generations,' Longtusk said sharply. 'I saw it, the layers of tools and bones in the ground. Even the hearth may have been a Great-Year old. Think of that! And