Lemming fell to the ground, limp. Crocus ran to him and called the others for help.
The Shaman stalked toward the fallen Dreamer. "Maar thode," he snapped at Longtusk. "Maar thode!"
Break. Kill.
Longtusk leaned forward, increasing the pressure on the Dreamer’s throat.
But the Dreamer was saying something too, calling in a language that was guttural and harsh, yet seemed strangely familiar.
On the Dreamer’s face, under a crudely shaved veneer of stubble, there was a mark, bright red, jagged like a lightning bolt. It had faded since this Dreamer was a cub, but it was still there.
Willow, thought Longtusk. The first Dreamer I found, grown from a cub to an adult buck.
And he recognizes me.
Crocus was close by.
Once again the three of us are united, Longtusk thought, and he felt a deep apprehension, as if the world itself was shaking beneath him. He had long forgotten the raving of the strange old Dreamer female when he had first brought Crocus here, her terror at the sight of the three of them together… Now that terror returned to him, a chill memory.
The Shaman hammered Longtusk’s scalp with his goad, cutting into his skin. "Maar thode!"
Longtusk stepped back, lifting his tusk from the Dreamer’s throat. Willow lay at his feet, as if stunned.
With a hasty gesture, Crocus ordered other hunters forward. They quickly bound Willow with strips of hide rope. He did not resist, though his massive muscles bulged.
The Shaman glared at Longtusk with impotent fury.
Now Crocus, accompanied by more hunters, made her way into the cave. There seemed to be no more Dreamers present, and with impunity the hunters kicked apart the crude central hearth. Under Crocus’s orders, two of the hunters began to dig a pit in the ground.
"It seems we will stay here tonight," Walks With Thunder growled. "The cave will provide shelter. And see how the hunters are making a better hearth, one which will allow the air to blow beneath and—"
"The Dreamers have lived here for generations," Longtusk said sharply. "I saw it, the layers of tools and bones in the ground. Even the hearth may have been a Great-Year old. Think of that! And now, in an instant, it is gone, vanished like a snowflake on the tongue, demolished by the Fireheads."
"Demolished and remade," growled Thunder. "But that is their genius. These Dreamers lived here, as you say, for generation on generation, and it never occurred to a single one of them that there might be a different way to build a hearth."
"But the Dreamers didn’t need a different hearth. The one they had was sufficient."
"But that doesn’t matter, little grazer," Thunder said. "You and I must take the world as it is. They imagine how it might be different. Whether it’s better is beside the point; to the Fireheads, change is all that matters…"
The two Dreamer captives, Willow and the female, huddled together on the ground, bound so tightly they couldn’t even embrace. They seemed to be crying.
If Crocus recalled how the Dreamers had saved her life, Longtusk thought, she had driven it from her mind, now and forever.
That night, when Crocus came to feed him, as she had since she was a cub, Longtusk turned away. He was distressed, angered, wanting only to be with his mate and calf in the calm of the steppe.
Crocus left him, baffled and upset.
That night — at the Shaman’s insistence, because of his defiance over Willow — Longtusk was hobbled, for the first time in years.
The Fireheads stayed close to the caves for several days. Crocus sent patrols to the north, east and west, seeking Dreamers. They wished to be sure this land they coveted was cleansed of their ancient cousins before they brought any more of their own kind north.
Lemming became very ill. His wound turned swollen and shiny. The Shaman, who administered medicine to the Fireheads, applied hot cloths in an effort to draw out the poison. But the wound festered badly.
At last the bulk of the column formed up for the long journey back to the settlement. They left behind three hunters and one of the mastodonts. The captive Dreamers had to walk behind the mastodonts, their paws bound and tied to a mastodont’s tail.
The hunters were heavily armed, but there had been no sign of more Dreamers since that first encounter. Perhaps, like the mammoths, the Dreamers had learned that the Fireheads could not be fought: the only recourse was flight, leaving them to take whatever they wanted.
"Since you refused to kill the Dreamer buck," growled Thunder as they walked, "the Shaman has declared you untrustworthy."
"He has always hated me," said Longtusk indifferently.
"Yes," said Thunder. "He is jealous of your closeness to Crocus. And that jealousy may yet cause you great harm, Longtusk. I think you will have to prove your loyalty and trustworthiness. The Shaman is demonstrating, even now, what he does to his enemies."
"What do you mean?"
"Lemming. The Shaman is letting him rot. His wound has festered and turned green, like the rest of his foreleg and shoulder. That is his way. The Shaman does not kill; he lets his enemies destroy themselves. Still, they die."
"But why?"
Thunder snorted. "Because Lemming is a favorite of Crocus’s — and so he is an obstacle to the Shaman. And any such obstacle is, simply, to be removed, as the Fireheads remove the Dreamers from the land they covet. The Fireheads are vicious, calculating predators," the old mastodont said. "Never forget that. The wolf’s first bite is his responsibility. His second is yours… Quiet."
All the mastodonts stopped dead and fell silent. The Fireheads stared at them, puzzled.
"A contact rumble," Walks With Thunder said at last. "From the settlement."
Longtusk strained to hear the fat, heavy sound waves pulsing through the very rocks of the Earth, a chthonic sound that resonated in his chest and the spaces in his skull.
"The calf," Thunder said. "The Cows have sung the birth chorus. Longtusk — Neck Like Spruce has dropped her calf."
Longtusk felt his heart hammer. "And? Is it healthy?"
"…I don’t think so. And Spruce—"
Longtusk, distressed, trumpeted his terror. "I’m so far away! So far!"
Thunder tried to comfort him. "If you were there, what could you do? This is a time for the Cows, Longtusk. Neck Like Spruce has her sisters and mother. And the keepers know what to do."
"The best keeper is Lemming, and he is here, with us, bleeding in the dirt! Oh, Thunder, you were right. A mammoth should not mate a mastodont. We are too different — the mixed blood — like Fireheads and Dreamers."
"Any calf of yours will be strong, Longtusk. A fighter. And Neck Like Spruce is a tough nut herself. They’ll come through. You’ll see."
But Longtusk refused to be comforted.
Lemming was dead before they reached the settlement. His body, stinking with corruption, was buried under a heap of stones by a river.
And when they arrived at the settlement, Longtusk learned he was alone once more.
Neck Like Spruce had not survived the rigors of her birth. The calf, an impossible, attenuated mix of mammoth and mastodont, had not lasted long without his mother’s milk.
The Remembering of mother and calf was a wash of sound and smell and touch, as if the world had dissolved around Longtusk.
When he came out of his grief, though, he felt cleansed.
He had lost a Family before, after all. If it was his destiny to be alone, then so be it. He would be strong and independent, yielding to none.
He allowed Crocus to ride him. But she sensed his change. Her affection for him dried, like a glacial river in winter.