Stephen Baxter - Longtusk

And — serving as a further sign of the relentless shortness of life — condors and other carrion eaters wheeled overhead, waiting for the death of others, their huge out-folded wings black stripes against the blue sky.

Work began again. The mastodonts were put to digging and lifting and carrying for the Fireheads.

Longtusk was still restricted to crude carrying. Those who had shared his chores last season were now, by and large, tamed and trained and trusted, and had moved on to more significant work. Of last year’s bearers, only Longtusk remained as a pack animal.

What was worse, during the winter he had grown. Towering over the immature, restless calves he had to work with — his mighty tusks curling before him, useless — he endured his work, and the taunts of his fellows. But a cloud of humiliation and depression gathered around him.

Longtusk realized, with shock, that he was another year older, and he had withstood yet another cycle of seasons away from his Family. But compared to the heavy brutal reality of the mastodonts around him, his Family seemed like a dream receding into the depths of his memory.

He was surrounded by restraints, he was coming to realize, and the hobbles and goads of the keepers were only the most obvious. These mastodonts had lived in captivity for generations. None of them even knew what it was to be free, to live as the Cycle taught. And his own memories — half-formed, for he had been but a calf when taken — were fading with each passing month.

And besides, he didn’t want to be alone, an outsider, a rogue, a rebel. He wanted to belong. And these complacent, tamed mastodonts were the only community available to him. The keepers knew all this — the smarter ones — and used subtle ploys to reinforce the invisible barriers that restrained the mastodonts more effectively than rope or wood: pain for misbehavior, yes, but rewards and welcoming strokes when he accepted his place.

If he could no longer imagine freedom, a life different from this, how could he ever aspire to it?

So it was that when Walks With Thunder came to him and said that the keeper, Lemming, was going to make an attempt to teach him to accept a rider, Longtusk knew the time had come to defy his instincts.

Lemming snapped, "Baitho! Baitho!"

Walks With Thunder murmured, "He’s saying, Down. Lower your trunk, you idiot. Like this." And Thunder dipped his trunk gently, so it pooled on the ground.

Longtusk could see that all over the stockade mastodonts were turning toward him. Some of the Fireheads were pausing in their tasks to look at him, their spindly forelegs akimbo; he even spotted the blonde head of the little cub, Crocus, watching him curiously.

Longtusk growled. "They want to see the mammoth beaten at last."

"Ignore them," Walks With Thunder hissed. "They don’t matter."

The Firehead raised his stick and tapped Longtusk on the root of his trunk.

Longtusk rapped his trunk on the ground, and as the air was forced out of the trunk it emitted a deep, terrifying roar.

Lemming fell back, startled.

"Try again," Thunder urged.

I have to do this, Longtusk thought. I can do this.

He lowered his head and let his trunk reach the ground, as Thunder had done.

"Good lad," said Thunder. "It’s harder to submit than to defy. Hang onto that. You’re stronger than any of us, little grazer. Now you must prove it."

The Firehead stepped onto Longtusk’s trunk. Then he reached out and grabbed Longtusk’s ears, his tipped stick still clutched in his paw.

Longtusk, looking forward, found he was staring straight into the Firehead’s small, complex face.

This, he realized, is going to take a great deal of forbearance indeed.

"Utha! Utha!" cried Lemming.

"Now what?"

"He’s telling you to lift him up."

"Are you sure?"

"Just do it."

And Longtusk pushed up with his trunk, lifting smoothly.

With a thin wail the Firehead went sailing clean over his rump.

Walks With Thunder groaned. "Oh, Longtusk…"

The Firehead came bustling round in front of him. He was covered in mastodont dung, and he was jumping up and down furiously.

"At least he had a soft landing," Longtusk murmured.

"Baitho!"

"He wants to try again," Walks With Thunder said. "Go ahead, lower your trunk. That’s it. Let him climb on. Now take it easy, Longtusk. Don’t throw him — lift him, smoothly and gently."

Longtusk made a determined effort to keep the motions of his trunk even and steady.

But this time Lemming was thrown backward. He completed a neat back-flip and landed on his belly in the dirt.

Other Fireheads ran forward. They lifted him up and started slapping at his furs, making great clouds of dust billow around him. They were flashing their small teeth and making the harsh noise he had come to recognize as laughing: not kind, perhaps, but not threatening.

But now the other keeper, Spindle, came forward. His goad, tipped with sharp bone, was long and cruel, and he walked back and forth before Longtusk, eyeing him. He was saying something, his small, cruel mouth working.

"Take it easy, Longtusk," Walks With Thunder warned.

"What does he want?"

"If Lemming can’t tame you, then Spindle will do it. His way—"

Suddenly Spindle’s thin arm lashed out toward Longtusk. His goad fizzed through the air and cut cruelly into the soft flesh of Longtusk’s cheek.

Longtusk trumpeted in anger and reared up, as high as his hobbles would allow him. He could crush Spindle with a single stamp, or run him through with a tusk. How dare this ugly little creature attack him?

But the Firehead wasn’t even backing away. He was standing before Longtusk, forelegs extended, paws tucked over as if beckoning.

"Don’t, Longtusk," Walks With Thunder rumbled urgently. "It’s what he wants. Don’t you see? If you so much as scratch Spindle, they will destroy you in an instant. It’s what he wants…"

Longtusk knew Thunder was right. He growled and lowered his tusks, glaring at Spindle.

The Firehead, tiny teeth gleaming, lashed out once more, and again Longtusk felt the goad cut deep into his flesh.

But suddenly it ceased.

Longtusk looked down. The girl-cub, Crocus, was standing before him. She seemed angry, distressed; tears ran down her small face. She was tugging at Spindle’s foreleg, making him stop. Her father, Bedrock, and the Shaman Smokehat were standing behind her.

Spindle was hesitating, his blood-tipped goad still raised to Longtusk.

At last Bedrock gestured to Spindle. With a snort of disgust the keeper threw his goad in the dirt and stalked away.

Now Crocus stood before Longtusk, gazing up at him. She was growing taller, just as he was, and an elaborate cap of ivory beads adorned her long blonde hair, replacing the simple tooth necklace circle she had worn when younger. She seemed afraid, he saw, but she was evidently determined to master her fear.

"Baitho," she said, her voice small and clear. Down, down.

And Longtusk, the warm blood still welling from his face, obeyed.

She stepped onto his trunk, reached forward, and grabbed hold of his ears.

He raised his trunk, gingerly, carefully.

Thunder was very quiet and still, as if he scarcely dared breathe. "Right. Lower her onto your back. Gently! Recall how fragile she is… imagine she’s a flower blossom, and you don’t want to disturb a single petal."

Rumbling, working by feel, Longtusk did his best. He felt the cub’s skinny legs slide around his neck.

"How’s that?"

Walks With Thunder surveyed him critically. "Not bad. Except she’s the wrong way around. She’s facing your backside, Longtusk. Try again. Let her off."