Stephen Baxter - Silverhair

But, Silverhair admitted, it wasn’t important. Snagtooth’s mind was almost as impenetrable as a Lost’s, and since her injury that had only worsened. She would be no help anyhow.

And Skin-of-Ice, she noticed, was gone too. Perhaps he had crawled away to die at last. Somehow she suspected it would not be so easy. But she had no time, no energy for him now.

Silverhair brought Eggtusk food, grass and twigs and herbs. But the wind scattered the grass, and Eggtusk’s trunk fingers seemed to be losing their coordination and were having increasing difficulty in grasping the food.

But she kept trying, over and over.

"Do not fret, little Silverhair," he said to her, his voice a bubbling growl. "You’ve done your best."

"Eggtusk…"

He reached out with his trunk as if to stroke her head, but it was, of course, much too far to reach. "Give it up. That Lost has trapped me and killed me. I am already dead."

"No!"

"You have to go back to the Family, tell them what has happened. Owlheart will know what to do… Tell her I’m sorry I didn’t keep my promise to bring you home. And you must tell Croptail that he is the dominant Bull now. Tell him I’m sorry I won’t be there to teach him anymore… Do it, Silverhair. Go…"

"I won’t leave you," she said.

"By Kilukpuk’s mold-choked pores, you always were stubborn."

"And you’ve always been so strong—"

"Should take more than a little hunger to kill old Eggtusk, eh? But it isn’t just that. Watch now."

With infinite difficulty, he rolled his trunk toward him and pushed it below his chin and into the pit, below his body. She could see the muscles of his upper trunk spasm, as if he was pulling at something.

Painfully, carefully, he pulled his trunk out of the pit. He was holding something.

It was a bone, she saw. A rib. It was crusted with dried, blackened blood — and stained with a fresher crimson.

A mammoth rib.

"The bottom of the pit is littered with them," gasped Eggtusk. "They stick up everywhere. Mostly into me. And I think Skin-of-Ice put some kind of poison on them."

"They took it from the yedoma," she said. Or — worse still — from Lop-ear… She felt bile rise in her throat. "They are using our own bones to kill us."

"Oh, these Lost are clever," he said. "Snagtooth was right about that. I couldn’t have dreamed how clever." He let the rib fall to the mud. "Well, little Silverhair. If you’re determined to hang around here, you can help me. There’s something I must do while I still have the strength."

"What?"

"Fetch a rock. As big as you can throw over to me."

She went to an outcrop of rock and obeyed, bringing back a big sandstone boulder. She stood at the edge of the kettle hole, dug her tusks under the rock, and sent it flying through the air toward Eggtusk. It landed before his face, splashing in the mud.

He raised his head, turned it sideways. And then he brought his misshapen tusk crashing against the rock. The tusk cracked, but he showed no awareness of the pain at all.

"Eggtusk! What are you doing?"

"You needn’t try to stop me," he said, breathing hard.

"Why?"

"Better I do it than the Lost. Didn’t you tell me how they robbed the ancient mammoth in the yedoma? I don’t want them doing the same to me."

And again he began to smash his magnificent deformed tusk against the rock, until it had splintered and cracked at the base.

At last it tore loose, leaving only a bloody spike of ivory protruding from the socket in his face.

"Take it," he told Silverhair, his voice thick with blood. "You can reach it. Take it and smash it to splinters."

She was weeping openly now. But she reached out over the mud of the kettle hole, wrapped her trunk around the tusk, and pulled it to her. It was immense: so massive she could barely lift it. Once again she appreciated the huge strength of Eggtusk — strength that was dissipating into the cold mud as she watched.

She lugged the tusk to the outcrop of sandstone, and pounded it until it had splintered and smashed to fragments.

Eggtusk rested for a time. Then he lifted his head again, and started to work on his other tusk.

When he was done, his face was half-buried in the mud, the breath whistling through his trunk; there was blood around his mouth, and pulp leaked from the stumps of his tusks.

"Eggtusk—"

"Little Silverhair. You’re still here? You always were stubborn… Talk to me."

"Talk to you?"

"Tell me a story. Tell me about Ganesha."

And so she did. Gathering her strength, staying the weakening of her own voice, she told him the ancient tale of Ganesha the Wise, and how she had prepared her calf Prima to conquer the cold lands.

He grunted and sighed, seeming to respond to the rhythms of the ancient story…

She woke with a start. She hadn’t meant to sleep.

Eggtusk, still wedged tight in his kettle hole, was chewing on something. "This grass is fine. Isn’t it, Wolfnose? The finest I ever tasted. And this water is as clear and fresh as if it had just melted off the glacier."

But she could see that only blood trickled from his mouth, and all that he chewed was a mouthful of his own hair, ripped from his back.

"Eggtusk—"

He raised his head, and the stumps of his tusks gleamed in the sun. "Wolfnose? Remember me, Wolfnose. Remember me. I see you. I’m coming now…"

His great head dropped to the earth, and it did not rise again.

Silverhair felt the deepest dark of despair settle over her, an anguish of shame and frustration that she hadn’t been able to help him.

Soon she must start the Remembering. She could not reach Eggtusk, or touch his body; but at least she could cover his corpse -

Suddenly there was a band of fire around her neck: a band that dug deep into her flesh. She trumpeted her shock and pain.

And the Lost were here: dancing before her, two of them, and they held sticks in their paws, sticks attached to whatever was wrapped around her neck.

Snagtooth was standing before her, apparently in no distress.

Silverhair, shocked, agonized, tried to speak. When the Lost tugged at their sticks the fire burned deeper in her neck, and it got so tight she could barely breathe. "Snagtooth… Help me…"

But Snagtooth kept her trunk down. "I brought them here."

"You did what?"

"Don’t you see? They are smarter than we are. Submit to them, Silverhair. It isn’t so bad."

"No—" Silverhair struggled to stay on her feet, to ignore the pain in her throat.

Beyond Snagtooth, she saw Skin-of-Ice himself. His damaged foreleg was strapped to his chest.

Light as a hare, he hopped over the mud of the kettle hole, and came to rest on Eggtusk’s broad, unmoving back. He raised his head to the sky and let loose a howl of triumph.

Then he raised an ice-claw in his paw, and drove it deep into Eggtusk’s helpless back.

The thing around Silverhair’s neck tightened. A red mist filled her vision.

She was forced to her knees.

The Lost threw more loops and lassos at her. Many of them missed, or she shook them off easily, but gradually they caught on her tusks or trunk or around her legs. Soon her head was so heavy with ropes that she could not lift it.

Now the Lost — five or six of them, under the supervision of Skin-of-Ice — began to run around her, whooping and beating at her flanks and legs with sticks. She tried to reach them with her tusks — she knew she could disembowel any of these weak creatures with a flick of her head — but she was pinned, and they were too clever to come close enough to give her the chance to hurt them.

She could not even lift her head to trumpet, and that shamed her more than anything else.