Longtusk

suspended in utter silence, broken not even by the cry of a bird.

Mountains protruded from the ice sheet like buried creatures straining to emerge, their profiles softened by the overlying snow. The mountains — a chain of which this nunatak was a member — were brown and black, startling and stark against the white of the ice. Their shadows, pooled at their bases, glowed blue-white.

Over the years Longtusk had come to know the ice and its changing moods. He had learned that it was not without texture; it was rich with a chill, minimal beauty. There were low dunes and ridges, carved criss-cross by the wind, so that the ice was a complex carpet of blue-white traceries, full of irrelevant beauty. In places it had slumped into dips in the crushed land beneath, and there were ridges, long and straight, that caught the low light so that they shone a bright yellow, vivid against ice. Here and there he could see spindrift, clouds of ice crystals whipped up by the wind and hovering above the ground, enchantingly beautiful.

The ice was a calm flat sea of light, white and blue and yellow, that led his gaze to the horizon. The ice had a beauty and softness that belied its lethal nature, he knew; for nothing lived there, nothing outside the favored nunatak.

But much had changed in the years — by Kilukpuk’s dugs, it had been forty years or more — that he had been climbing this peak.

To the west he looked back the way they had come on their epic trek, so long ago: back across the fragile neck of land that connected the two landmasses. On the land bridge’s northern side there was a vast, glimmering expanse of water, dark against the ice. It was where he recalled the ice-dammed lake had been.

But that lake had grown immeasurably — it was so large now it must have become an inlet of the great northern ocean itself.

Ice was melting into the oceans and the sea level was rising, as if the whole ocean were no more than a steppe pond, brimming with spring water. And the ocean was, little by little, flooding the land.

Meanwhile, on the southern horizon, there was brown and green against the ice white: a tide of warmth and life that had approached relentlessly, year by year. The exposed land formed a broad dark corridor that led off to the south — and into the new land, the huge, unknown continent that lay there — a passageway between two giant, shrinking ice sheets.

The world was remaking itself — the land reborn from the ice, the sea covering the land — all in his lifetime. It was a huge, remarkable process, stunning in scale.

And he knew that the changes he saw around him would one day have great significance for his little Clan.

He had long stepped back from his role as Patriarch. There had never before been a Patriarch in all the Cycle’s long history, and he had never believed there should be one for longer than strictly necessary.

So he was no longer a leader of the Clan. Still, he had traveled farther and seen more than any of the mammoths here on the nunatak.

And he knew that this nunatak would not always remain a refuge.

Sometimes he wished he had someone to discuss all this with. Somebody like Rockheart, or Walks With Thunder — even Jaw Like Rock.

But they were all gone, long gone. And Longtusk, always the outsider, now isolated by age, was forced to rely on nothing but his own experience and wisdom.

…Willow, on his back, was growing agitated. He was muttering something in his incomprehensible, guttural tongue. He leaned forward, over Longtusk’s scalp, and pointed far to the west.

Longtusk raised his trunk, but could smell nothing on the dry air but the cold prickle of ice. He squinted, feeling the wrinkles gather around his eye sockets.

On the far horizon, he saw something new.

It was a line scratched across the ice. It ended in a complex knot, dark and massive yet dwarfed by the icecap. And a thin thread rose up from that knot of activity, straight and true.

It was too far away to smell. But it was unmistakable. It was smoke: smoke from a fire. And the line that cut across the ice was a trail, arrowing directly toward the nunatak.

On his back, Willow was whimpering his alarm — as well he might, Longtusk thought.

For the signs were unmistakable. After all these years, the Fireheads were coming.

As the sun sank deeper in the sky, the light on the ice grew softer, low and diffuse. Blue-gray shadows pooled in hollows, like a liquid gathering. It was stunning, beautiful. But Longtusk knew that this year he could not stay to see the sunset.

The nunatak’s long dream of peace was, so quickly, coming to an end.

He turned and, with elaborate care, began his descent from the summit.

'We have no choice but to abandon the nunatak.' He looked down at the Family — the fat, complacent Cows, their playful calves, all gazing up at him, trunks raised to sniff his mood. 'We have been safe here. The nunatak has served us well. But now it is a refuge no more. And we must go.'

'You’re being ridiculous,' Horsetail said severely. 'You’re frightening the calves.'

'They should be frightened,' he said. 'They are in danger. Mortal danger. The Fireheads are on the western horizon. I could see their trail, and their fire. They will overrun this place, enslave you, ultimately kill you. And your calves.' He eyed them. 'Do you understand? Do you understand any of this?'

The Cows rumbled questions. 'Where should we go?' 'There is nowhere else!' 'Who is he to say what Cows should do? He is a Bull. And he’s old. Why, if I—'

He had expected arguments, and he got them. It was just as it had been when he had argued with Milkbreath, his own mother, trying to convince her that the flight in search of the nunatak was necessary.

He was too old for this.

One more effort, Longtusk. Then you can rest. Think of Rockheart. He had kept going, despite the failure of his huge body. He pulled his shoulders square and lifted his tusks, still large and sweeping, so heavy they made his neck muscles pull.

Horsetail, the Matriarch, said sadly, 'I’m trying to understand, Longtusk. I truly am. But you must help me. How can they come here? We are protected by the ice.'

'But the ice is receding.'

'Where would we flee?'

'You must go south and east. At first you will cross the ice' — a rumbling of fear and discontent—'just as your grandmothers did. Just as I did. But then you will reach a corridor. A passage through the ice sheets, to the warmer lands beyond, that has opened up in the years we have lived here. It won’t be easy—'

'But Longtusk, why? Why would the Fireheads come here? On this rock, we are few. Even if these Fireheads are the savage predators you describe, why would they go to such efforts, risk their own lives, just to reach us?'

Now Threetusk, dominant Bull of the bachelor herd, loped toward Longtusk. He said grimly, 'Perhaps the Fireheads come because there is no room for them in the old lands. Perhaps they are seeking mammoths here because there are none left where they come from.'

There was a general bray of horror.

'Or perhaps,' Longtusk said sadly, 'it is me.'

Horsetail rumbled, 'What do you mean?'

'I defied her,' he said, unwelcome old memories swimming to the surface of his mind.

'Who?'

'The most powerful Firehead of them all. She thought I was hers, you see. And yet I defied her…'

He knew it was hard for them to understand. All this was ancient history to the other mammoths, an exotic legend of times and places and creatures they had never known — maybe just another of Longtusk’s tall stories, like his tales of she-cats and rhinos and Fireheads with caps of mammoth-ivory beads…

It was not their fault. He had wanted to bring his Clan to a safe place, and these generations of fat, complacent mammoths were what he had dreamed of seeing. It wasn’t their fault that he had succeeded too well — that their lives of comfort and security had prepared them so badly for the ordeal ahead.

But he recalled Crocus.

He recalled how she had hunted down the Firehead who had killed her father. He knew she would not have forgotten, or forgiven.

As long as he was alive, nobody was safe here.

Horsetail and Threetusk approached him and spoke quietly so the others couldn’t hear.

Horsetail said, 'You aren’t the only one who has seen the corridor to the south. But it is harsh, and we don’t know how long it is, or what lies at its end. Perhaps it is cold and barren all the way to the South Pole.'

'When we set off for the nunatak,' he said evenly, 'we didn’t know how far that was either. We went anyway. You know, Threetusk — you’re the only one left who does. You will have to show them how to survive.'

Horsetail said severely, 'We have old, and sickly, and calves. Many of us will not survive such a trek.'

'Nevertheless it must be made.'

'And you?' asked the Matriarch. 'Do you believe you could walk through the corridor?'

'Of course not.' He brayed his amusement. 'I probably wouldn’t last a day. But I’m not going.'

Threetusk said, 'What?'

Briefly, briskly, he stroked their trunks. 'I know the Fireheads. You don’t. And I have thought deeply on their nature. And this is what I have concluded. Listen closely, now…'

Saxifrage watched this, fascinated, the rumbling phrases washing over her.

Later, boldly, she stepped forward from under her mother’s belly and tugged her trunk. 'What did he say? What did he say?'

But Horsetail, grave and silent, would not reply.

They filed past him, down the sloping rock face and onto the ice, bundles of confusion, fear and resentment — much of it directed at him, for even though the smoke columns from the Fireheads’ hearths were now visible for all to see, they still found it impossible to believe they represented the danger he insisted.

Nonetheless, they were his Clan. He wanted to grab them all, taste each one with his trunk. For he knew he would not see them again, not a single one of them.

But he held himself back. It was best they did not think of him, for the ice and the dismal corridor to the south would give them more than enough to occupy their minds.

And besides, he still had company: the little Dreamer, Willow. He had tried to push the Dreamer, gently, off the rock and after the column of mammoths. But Willow had slapped his trunk and dug his old, bent fingers in Longtusk’s fur, his intentions clear.

Company, then. And a job to complete.

Longtusk waited until the long column of mammoths had shrunk to a fine scratch against the huge white expanse of the ice.

And then he turned away: toward the west, and the Fireheads.