Stephen Baxter - Longtusk

"Not quite." Walks With Thunder absently tucked leaves deeper into his mouth. "This is a neck of land, lying between great continents to west and east. In the eastern lands, it is said, the ice has pushed much farther south than in the west. But there are legends of places, called nunataks — refuges — islands in the ice, where living things can survive."

"The ice would cover them over. Everything would freeze and die."

"Possibly," said Thunder placidly. "But in that case, how do you explain those geese?"

"It is just a legend," Longtusk protested.

Thunder curled his trunk over Longtusk’s scalp affectionately. "The world is a big place, and it contains many mysteries. Who knows what fragment of rumor will save our lives in the future?" He saw Crocus approaching. "And the biggest mystery of all," he grumbled wearily, "is how I can persuade these old bones to plod on for another day. Lead on, Longtusk; lead on…"

The geese flew overhead, squawking. They were molting, and when they had passed, white fathers fell from the sky all around Longtusk, like snowflakes.

As the days wore on they traveled farther and farther from the settlement.

Longtusk hadn’t been this far north since he had first been captured by the Fireheads. That had been many years ago, and back then he had been little more than a confused calf.

But he was sure that the land had changed.

There were many more stands of trees than he recalled: spruce and pine and fir, growing taller than any of the dwarf willows and birches that had once inhabited this windswept plain. And the steppe’s complex mosaic of vegetation had been replaced by longer grass — great dull swathes of it that rippled in the wind, grass that had crowded out many of the herbs and low trees and flowers which had once illuminated the landscape. It was grass that the mastodonts consumed with relish. But for Longtusk the grass was thin, greasy stuff that clogged his bowels and made his dung slippery and smelly.

And it was warmer — much warmer. It seemed he couldn’t shed his winter coat quickly enough, and Crocus grumbled at the hair which flew into her face. But she did not complain when he sought out the snow that still lingered in shaded hollows and scooped it into his mouth to cool himself.

The world seemed a huge place, massive, imperturbable; it was hard to believe that — just as the Matriarchs had foreseen, at his Clan’s Gathering so long ago — such dramatic changes could happen so quickly. And yet it must be true, for even he, young as he was, recalled a time when the land had been different.

It was an uneasy thought.

He had been separated from his Family before they had a chance to teach him about the landscape — where to find water in the winter, how to dig out the best salt licks. He had had to rely on 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.