Stephen Baxter - Silverhair

Silverhair felt chilled to the core, as if she’d taken a bellyful of snow.

It was slow going. The two groups of Family, huddled around the calf and the proud old Cow, seemed to crawl across the hard ground.

Here and there the snow was drifting into deceptively deep pockets. Mammoths always have difficulty traversing deep snow; now Silverhair felt her legs sink into the soft, slushy whiteness, and it pushed like a rising tide up around the long hair of her belly, chilling her dugs. In the deepest of the drifts she had to work hard with Foxeye to keep the calf’s head and trunk above the level of the snow.

And all the time Silverhair could sense the fire pooling over the dry ground. The snow was having no effect now, such was the heat the fire was generating, and she knew their only chance was to outrun it. She stayed close to Sunfire, sheltering the calf from the wind and encouraging her to hurry — and she tried to contain her own rising panic.

But now they were brought to a halt.

Silverhair found herself on the bank of a stream that bubbled its way from the base of the ice and across the rocky land. She could see where the stream was already cutting into the loose soil and debris scattered over the rock, and depositing small stones from within the glacier. The mammoths’ deep knowledge of their Island could not have helped them predict they would encounter this barrier, for every year the runoff streams reshaped the landscape. And the stream was wide, clearly too deep to ford or even to swim.

The mammoths clustered together against the wind, staring at the rushing water with dismay. Silverhair, blocked, felt baffled, frustrated, and filled with a deep dread that reached back to her near-drowning as a calf. It was a bitter irony, for a runoff stream like this was exactly what they had come looking for; and now it lay in their way.

She found Lop-ear standing with her. "We’re in trouble," he said. "Look around, Silverhair. The runoff here. The forest over there, where the fire is coming from. Behind us, the Mountains…"

Suddenly she understood.

They had got themselves trapped here, by river and Mountains and forest, as surely as if they had all plunged into a kettle hole.

Eggtusk approached them. "We can’t cross the stream," he said bluntly.

"But…" said Lop-ear.

Eggtusk ignored him. "It’s not a time for debate. We have to move on. We can’t go north; that way will soon take us into the Mountains. So we follow the stream south. The stream will get broad and shallow and maybe there’ll be somewhere to cross. That’s what Owlheart has ordered, and I agree with her."

He turned away, preparing to go back to Wolfnose, but Lop-ear touched his trunk. "Eggtusk, wait. Going south won’t work. The fire will reach us before we—"

Eggtusk quoted the Cycle: "The Matriarch has given her orders, and we follow."

Lop-ear cried, "Not to our deaths!"

In the middle of the storm, there was a moment of shocked stillness.

Silverhair, startled, was unable to remember anyone continuing to argue with Eggtusk after such a warning.

Nor, evidently, could Eggtusk.

Eggtusk lifted his great head high over Lop-ear; he was an imposing mass of muscle, flesh, and wiry, mud-brown hair. "Any more talk like that and I’ll silence you for good. You’ll frighten the calves."

"They should be frightened!"

Hastily Silverhair shoved her trunk into Lop-ear’s pink, warm mouth to silence him. "Come on," she said. Pulling him with her trunk, nudging him with her flank, she led him away from a glaring Eggtusk.

She felt a deep chill. Lop-ear, with his fast, unusual mind, could sometimes be distracted, a little strange. But she had never seen him so agitated.

…And what, she thought with a deep shiver, if he is right? He’s been right about so many things in the past. What if we really are just walking to our deaths?

Still, Lop-ear called. But the wind snatched away his words, and nobody listened.

With Foxeye and a reluctant Snagtooth, Silverhair shepherded a trembling, unsteady Sunfire along the bank of the runoff stream.

Although the depth and ferocity of the central channel gradually reduced, the stream spread further over the surrounding ground, and sheets of water ran over the rock. The cloudy water made the rock slick enough to cause even the tough sole of a mammoth’s foot to slip, and several times poor Sunfire had to be rescued from stumbles.

Meanwhile the storm mounted in ferocity, with gigantic clatters from the sky and startling bolts of lightning and a wind that swirled unpredictably, slamming heavy wet snowflakes into her face.

And all the time she could sense the fire as it spread through the dry old grass toward them.

Lop-ear was helping Owlheart and Eggtusk with Wolfnose’s cautious progress. But he was still calling to the sky, complaining and prophesying doom. At the moment, the Matriarch and the old Bull were too busy to deal with him, but Silverhair knew he would pay for his ill-discipline later.

They came to a young spruce lying across the rocky ground near the stream. It neatly blocked the mammoths’ path.

The little group broke up again. Foxeye, panting and near exhaustion, tucked her infant under her belly-hair curtain. Snagtooth, yowling complaints about her tusk, turned away from the others and scrabbled in the cold mud of the stream bank to cover her wound once more.

Silverhair stepped forward. She saw that the tree’s roots had sunk themselves into shallow soil that was now overrun by the runoff stream; when the soil had washed away, the tree had fallen. The tree itself would not be difficult to cross. They could all climb over, probably, or with a little effort they could even push the tree out of the way.

But the tree was only an outlier of the spruce forest. Other trees grew here, small and stunted and sparsely separated — and some of them, too, had been felled by the runoff. She could see that a little farther south the trees grew more densely, and she could smell the thick, damp mulch of the forest floor.

Eggtusk, with Owlheart, came up to her. Eggtusk saw the fallen tree. "By Kilukpuk’s gravel-stuffed navel. That’s all we need."

"We’ll have to climb over it," said Owlheart.

"Yes. If we get Wolfnose over first—"

But suddenly Lop-ear was here, standing head to head with Eggtusk. He was bedraggled, muttering, excited, eyes wide and full of reflected lightning. "No. Don’t you see? This is the answer. If we push this fallen tree over there — and then go farther toward the forest to find more—"

In the flickering light of the storm, the old Bull stood as solid as if he had grown out of the rock. Owlheart and Wolfnose, the two Matriarchs, stood by and watched, their icy disapproval of Lop-ear’s antics obvious.

Eggtusk said, "You’re risking all our lives by wasting time like this."

Silverhair hurried forward. "What are you trying to say, Lop-ear?"

"I can’t tell you!" he cried. "I just know, if we push the trees together, and—"

"He’s going rogue," said Owlheart. The Matriarch lumbered forward and glowered down at the prancing Lop-ear. "I always knew this calf would be trouble. All his talk of changing things. He’s more like one of the Lost than a mammoth."

"Listen to me!" Lop-ear was trumpeting now. He ran to Owlheart, who was turning away, and grabbed at her trunk. "Listen to me—"

Eggtusk inserted his massive bulk between them. "You don’t touch the Matriarch like that."

"But you must listen."

"Perhaps you’ll listen to this," roared Eggtusk, and he tusked the ground.

It was a challenge.

Eggtusk and Lop-ear faced each other, trunks lowered, ears flaring, gazes locked.