Icebones

"By Kilukpuk’s eyes," Autumn said softly.

Icebones trumpeted, "Circle!"

The adults gathered around Breeze and her calf. Icebones prodded them until they all had their backs to the wind, with Autumn, Thunder and Icebones herself at the rear of the group.

There was a moment of eerie silence. The ground’s shaking stopped, and even the wind died.

But still the storm front bore down on them. Its upper reaches were wispy smoke, and its dense front churned and bubbled, like a vast river approaching.

Icebones, pressed between Thunder and Autumn, felt the rapid breathing of the mammoths, smelled their dung and urine and milk and fear. "Hold your places," she said. "Hold your places—"

Suddenly the storm was on them.

Perhaps it had something to do with night and day.

The Gouge was so long that while its eastern end was in day, its western extremity was still in night. Icebones imagined the battle between the cold of night and warmth of day, as the line of dawn worked its slow way along the great cha

But the why scarcely mattered.

The wind was red-black and solid and icy cold. It battered at Icebones’s back and legs. Dust and bits of stone scoured at her skin, working through her layers of hair and grinding at any exposed flesh, her ears and trunk tip and even her feet.

Now a thick sleety snow began to pelt her back. Soon her fur was soaked through with icy melt, and the cold deepened, as if the wind was determined to suck away every last bit of her body heat. The ground itself was shuddering, making it impossible for her rumbles or stamping to reach the others.

She risked opening one eye.

It was like looking into a tu

She had seen this vast storm approaching since it was just a line on the bleak horizon. How was it she hadn’t heard its howl, or even felt the rumble of its destruction? Perhaps the storm was so violent, so rapid, that it outran even its own mighty roar.

But by standing together the mammoths were defeating the storm, she thought with a stab of exultation. However soaked and battered and cold, they would emerge from this latest crisis stronger and more united as a Family -

There was a noise like thunder, a blow like a strike from Kilukpuk’s mighty tusk.

The world spun around, and she was flying, flying, though the driven snow and the dust. She could feel her legs and trunk dangling, helpless, not a single one of her feet in contact with the ground, lost in the air like poor Shoot. She could smell blood — no, she could taste it.

But there was no pain, not even fear. How strange, she thought.

A wall, dark red and hard, loomed before her.

She slammed into rock. Pain stabbed in her right shoulder.

She slid down the wall to the ground. Hard-edged rock ripped at her belly and legs and face.

And then she fell into darkness.

She could feel cold rock beneath her belly.

She opened her eyes.

She glimpsed a dim sun through smoky dust, and the round shapes of mammoths, their hair licking around them. A gust battered her face, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

But the storm had diminished.

She was resting on her front, her legs folded beneath her, as a mammoth would lie when preparing to die. She tried to pull her forefeet under her, so she could rise. Pain exploded in her right shoulder, and she stumbled flat again, sprawling like a clumsy calf.

But then there was a trunk under her, strong and supple. "Lean on me." Autumn stood over her, a massive silhouette against a crimson sky. "The storm has gone to find somebody else to torment. But you are hurt."

High above Autumn, a bird wheeled through dusty red light.

Icebones tried again to stand. The pain in her shoulder betrayed her once more. But this time Autumn’s strong trunk helped her, and she managed to stay upright, shakily, her three good legs taking her weight.

The mammoths shook themselves and tugged at their hair, trying to get out the worst of the grit and dust and water. The calf, none the worse for his experience, was trotting from one adult to another, his little trunk held up as he tried to help them groom. Icebones saw that crimson dust had piled up where the mammoths had been standing, making a low dune.

The land showed the passing of the storm. Dust and gravel lay everywhere, and new red-black streaks along the rocky ground showing where the winds had passed. Bushes and bits of trees lay scattered. There was even the broken corpse of a small, young deer, Icebones saw, bent so badly it was almost unrecognizable.

She wondered what damage this storm would have done in the Nest of the Lost. Surely no trace of the mammoths’ footsteps in the littered dust would remain.

A shadow arced over the mammoths. Icebones saw that bird still wheeling overhead, wings outstretched. She looked like a skua, hunting a lemming. Perhaps she nested in those great spherical caves in the cliff face. Icebones raised her trunk, but could smell nothing but iron dust and her own blood.

She took a step forward. Pain jarred in her shoulder, making her cry softly.

"Everybody’s safe," Autumn said sternly. "Everybody but you. Your shoulder is damaged. We will rest here, until your healing begins."

"We must reach the Footfall—"

"We ca

"I am sorry," Icebones said softly.

"If you are sorry you are a fool. Maybe we should go back to the ponds. I bet Chaser-Of-Frogs was comfortable in her mud, with only the tip of her trunk sticking out into the storm. What do you think…?"

The bird was descending, Icebones saw, curious despite her pain. Her body was stone gray, her beak bluish, and her wings had white flashes across them. She had webbed feet, spread beneath her, pointing at the ground — webbed, with claws.

She was descending, and descending, and descending. Coming out of the storm, unperturbed by the remnant winds.

Coming straight toward the mammoths.

Growing huge.

The calf was alone, grubbing at a fallen tree.

Icebones roared, "Watch out!" She tried to run. Her shoulder seared and she fell sprawling, as if her leg had been cut away. Still the mammoths did not look up. And still Icebones tried to stand, pushing herself forward, for the shadow was becoming larger. "The bird!" she called again. "The bird…!"

A roof of feathers and bone slid over her, rustling, and there was a smell like scorched flesh. She glimpsed a blue-gray beak, and black eyes, flecked with yellow, peered into hers. Those great wings beat once, lazily and powerfully, and air gushed.

Icebones cringed. All the dust-stained mammoths were in the bird’s shadow now, standing like blocks of sandstone.

The webbed feet spread, talons reaching out of the sky. The calf ran for his mother, trunk raised, mewling.

The talons closed. Woodsmoke trumpeted as the claws pricked his sides, and blood spurted, gushing over his spiky hair.

The bird screeched, a sound like rock cracking, as she struggled to lift her prey. With every beat of the wings, dust and bits of rock were sent flying, and the ground shuddered. It was a nightmare of noise and dust, shadow and blood, the stink of feathers.

If the skua succeeded in getting off the ground, she would surely carry the calf away to some high, remote nest, where he would be devoured alive, piece by bloody piece, by a clutch of monstrous chicks. Icebones roared her anguish. But, pi