Stephen Baxter - Longtusk

Under Bedrock’s single blow, the stone blade slid easily through the rhino’s hide.

As his spine was severed the rhino’s eyes widened, startled, almost curious. Then he slumped flat against the blood-stained dirt, his magnificent body reduced to a flaccid, quivering mound.

He raised his head to face Longtusk. He breathed in short sharp gasps, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

Walks With Thunder said grimly, "He’s trying to speak to you. Who are you? Why are you doing this?"

"How can you understand him?"

"We are all Hotbloods, grazer."

Then, mercifully, Bedrock drove another blade into the rhino’s spine.

The rhino’s head slumped to the ground. His body rumbled and shuddered as its huge, complex processes closed down.

When life was gone, panting mastodonts and blood-spattered Fireheads stood away from the corpse. They seemed united by the vivid moment, stilled, as if the world pivoted on the death of this huge, defiant animal.

Then Bedrock climbed onto the rhino’s back, his furs stained with blood. He raised his paws in the air and hollered his triumph, and his hunters yelled in response. They sound like wolves, Longtusk thought; it is the feral cry of the predator.

And I have run with them. For an instant an image of his mother came into his mind, her smell and warmth and touch, as clearly as if she was standing before him. Oh, Milkbreath, I have come on a long journey since I last saw you!

Bedrock jumped down and walked to the rhino’s slumped head. He gripped his hammer rock and swung it against the base of that huge horn. With a sharp crack, the horn split away from a shallow depression in the rhino’s face. Bedrock raised the horn to the sky, then tucked it into his belt.

The hunters gathered around the rhino, producing their knives of stone, and began to slice through skin and fur.

Longtusk said, "Now what? It will take a while to butcher this huge animal."

"Oh, they aren’t going to butcher it," said Jaw Like Rock. "It’s too big a beast to haul across the steppe, too much meat to eat and store. They will dig out the liver and consume that. And, of course, Bedrock has his horn…"

"The horn?"

Walks With Thunder rumbled, "Bedrock has a dozen horns already. He will take this one and have it shaped into a dagger or a drinking cup, and he will treasure it forever, a token of his bravery. This wasn’t about gathering meat. Today the Fireheads have proved, you see, what brave hunters they are… Look up there."

Condors wheeled overhead, their wings stretched out, cold and black.

"They know," said Thunder. "They have seen this before, and—"

A Firehead cried out.

It was Bedrock. He stood upright, but a look of puzzlement clouded his face. And his body was quivering.

A thin, small spear protruded from his skull.

Then his eyes rolled back in his head, blood gushed from his mouth, and he collapsed as if his bones had dissolved.

Crocus rushed forward and began to keen, her voice high and thin.

Walks With Thunder said grimly, "Circle."

Longtusk immediately obeyed, taking his place with the others in a rough protective ring around the fallen Firehead. It was an ancient command, millions of years old, so old it was common to both mastodonts and mammoths.

Now Longtusk could smell and hear the assailants who had so suddenly struck down Bedrock. They were Fireheads, of course — but not from the settlement. They were some way away, and they danced and stamped their delight. The skin of their small faces was coated with a fine white powder — perhaps rock flour, sieved from the shallow pools of this strange landscape — a powder that stank sharply of salt.

The young hunter, Bareface, his shaven-smooth visage twisted into an unrecognizable snarl, whipped his foreleg with suppleness and speed.

A boomerang went flying. It spun, whistling, as it soared through the thin air. It was a piece of mammoth ivory carved smooth and curved like a bird’s wing, with one side preserving the convex surface of the original tusk, the other polished almost flat.

The strange Fireheads didn’t even seem to see it coming — they scattered as it flew among them, like mice disturbed by an owl — but the boomerang flew unerringly to the temple of one of them, knocking him to the ground.

Jaw growled his approval. "The one who struck down Bedrock. He will not live out the day…"

"Whiteskins," Thunder muttered. "I never thought I’d see their ugly, capering forms again."

Longtusk said, "You’ve met them before?"

"Oh, yes. Many times. But never so far north."

Now Crocus came running to Longtusk. Her face was contorted with rage, and her blonde hair blew around her. She held the stone chisel which Bedrock had driven into the rhino’s spine. "Baitho! Baitho!" He lowered his head and trunk, and she grabbed his ears and scrambled onto his back. "Agit!"

Her intention was unmistakable.

Without thought — despite rumbles of warning from the mastodonts, cries of alarm from the hunters — Longtusk charged toward the Whiteskins.

Longtusk expected the Whiteskins to flee. But they held their ground. They dropped to their knees and raised weapons of some kind.

Suddenly there were more small spears of the type that had felled Bedrock flying through the air around him, fast and straight.

"They are not spears," puffed Thunder as he ran after the mammoth, "but arrows. The Whiteskins have bows — never mind, grazer! Just keep your head high when you run. You can take an arrow or two — but not your rider."

And, as if in response to Thunder’s warning, a small flint-tipped spear — no, an arrow — plunged out of nowhere into Longtusk’s cheek. The pain was sharp and intense; the small blade had reached as far as his tongue.

Without breaking stride, he curled his trunk and plucked the arrow out of his cheek. Blood sprayed, but immediately the pain lessened.

Jaw Like Rock was charging past him, the keeper Spindle clinging to Jaw’s hair as if for life itself, his mouth drawn back in a rictus of terror. Jaw called, "Had a mosquito bite, grazer?"

"Something like that."

The big tusker trumpeted his exhilaration and charged forward.

Still the strange Fireheads did not break and run.

An arrow lodged in the foreleg of Jaw Like Rock. Longtusk could smell the sharp, coppery stink of fresh blood. Jaw screamed and pulled up, despite repeated beatings from Spindle on his back. Jaw knelt down, snapping away the arrow. Then, bellowing with rage and pain, he plunged on.

Still Spindle continued to beat him and scream in his ear.

Now they were on the Whiteskins. Mastodonts, Whiteskins and Fireheads flew at each other in a crude, uncoordinated mêlée, and trumpets, yells and screams broke the dust-laden air.

Longtusk lunged at the Whiteskins around him with his tusks and trunk. But, nimble and light on their feet, they stayed out of his reach. They jabbed at him with their spears and rocks, aiming to slash at his trunk or belly, or trying for his legs.

Calmly, Thunder called to Longtusk: "Watch out for those knives. These brutes have fought us before. They are trying for your hamstrings. Recall that rhino, grazer. I’ve no intention of carrying you back to the stockade."

Longtusk growled his gratitude.

Jaw Like Rock, enraged by pain, feinted at a fat Whiteskin. The Firehead, evading the lunge of those tusks, got close to Jaw with his spear. But Jaw swung his tusks sideways and knocked the Whiteskin to the ground. Then, with a single ruthless motion, he placed his foot on the head of the scrambling Whiteskin.

Jaw pressed hard, and the head burst like an overripe fruit, and the Whiteskin was limp.

Through all of this Spindle clung to Jaw’s back, white-eyed, obviously terrified.