Icebones

Boaster growled and pawed the ground, his huge trunk swaying. A sad unspoken thought passed between Boaster and Icebones: she had still not come into oestrus, and they both feared now that the dryness at her core would never be broken.

Autumn, oblivious to this, said, "I only wish that Spiral could find some happiness too."

Icebones understood her regret. Spiral had come into oestrus soon after Icebones’s mammoths had arrived here in the Footfall. She was tall and handsome, and the Bulls could tell from her complex scents that she had borne healthy calves before. But though Spiral had attracted an even larger consort retinue than Breeze, in the end she had brayed at her wi

"She will come to no harm," said Boaster. "She is proud and difficult, but she is beautiful."

"Ah," Autumn said, rather grandly. "But she wrestles with problems you may not imagine, child…"

"Just as," came a muddy voice, "you big hairy animals can barely imagine the troubles I have."

Icebones turned. A squat creature was waddling toward her, its peculiarly naked skin covered in drying mud. It raised a small stubby trunk.

Icebones limped forward, inordinately pleased. "Chaser-Of-Frogs!"

The Mother of the Swamp-Mammoths looked up at Boaster with small black eyes and burped proudly. Boaster trumpeted, startled, and he backed away from the stubby form.

Chaser-Of-Frogs said, "Without me, you know, these clumsy oafs would be blundering around that Gouge still." She reached up with her trunk and probed at Icebones’s belly. "But your journey was hard too. You are a bag of skin. And," she said more gently, probing at Icebones’s dry dugs, "you have other problems, I fear."

Icebones gave a brief rumble of regret. But she insisted, "What of you, Chaser-Of-Frogs? I thought you would never leave that muddy pond."

"My Family has found a new pond now." She raised her trunk toward a shallow lake nearby.

Icebones heard and smelled more Swamp-Mammoths burrowing gratefully into the muddy pond floor. Their wet backs gleamed in the sun like logs, and their protruding eyes blinked slowly. Mammoths stood around these new arrivals, trunks raised in curiosity, and a clutch of ducks swam away indignantly.

There were perhaps a dozen Swamp-Mammoths in the lake.

Icebones said softly, "This is all?"

Chaser-Of-Frogs said grimly, "We both knew how it would be, Bones-Of-Ice. Most would not follow. Of those who set out, those who died first were the old and the young, our calves… It was hard, Bones-Of-Ice. So hard."

Autumn rumbled, "We faced the same choice — and failed — and our bones would now be scoured by the dust storms of the high plain, our line extinct, if not for good fortune…"

"The mammoth dies, but mammoths live on," Icebones said softly.

But now Boaster stiffened. He was looking to the north, his tusks raised, and he trumpeted.

There was a sound of feet, purposefully walking. And on the northern horizon a black cloud hugged the ground, like the approach of a storm.

Icebones, with deep reluctance, turned that way. When she raised her trunk she could smell a tang of blood and staleness.

It was no storm. It was mammoth: a great herd of them, and they walked through the billowing crimson dust raised by their own powerful footfalls.

Calves ran squealing in search of their mothers. Bulls broke off from their jousting and backed away, grumbling. Even Breeze’s consort circle was broken up.

"It is as if a cloud has come across the sun," Autumn said.

But Icebones stood straight. For, in the lead of the marching mammoths, gray hair flying wispy in the wind, was the Ragged One.

It was time. Relief flooded Icebones.

One more trial, Icebones. Just one more. Then you can rest.

She gathered her strength.

The Ragged One trumpeted, her loose hair wafting around her strange gray-pink face. She was gaunt, her ribs protruding beneath her sparse hair. Her face was scarred, her tusks badly chipped.

"So, Icebones," the Ragged One said, "you survived. And you did not kill any more mammoths on your journey."

Before Icebones could reply, Autumn raised her trunk. "Spiral," she said softly. "Daughter — is that you?"

From behind the Ragged One, Spiral stepped forward, head held high, her beautiful tusks gleaming.

Autumn rumbled her dismay.

Icebones growled to the Ragged One, "Say what it is you want here. And say what you have promised these mammoths who follow you."

"That is simple," the Ragged One said. "I have told them I will bring back the Lost."

Icebones immediately sensed the hopeful, longing mood of the mass of mammoths who had followed the Ragged One — and, to her shock, she even sensed a stirring of doubt in Boaster, who stood at her side.

For a heartbeat she felt giddy, weak, as if she might fall. This was a dangerous moment indeed: a moment that could decide the future of the species, here on this rocky steppe — and all that she could bring to bear was her own failing strength.

Spiral called thinly, "The Lost gave us life, Icebones. What have you to offer us but a jumble of myths, suffering and death — as my own sister died, as we nearly died?"

There was a great rumbling from the mass of mammoths behind her.

"I have nothing to offer you," Icebones said. "Nothing but the truth, and dignity."

The Ragged One snorted contempt. "I ca

Autumn demanded, "How do you imagine you will call back the Lost from the sky?"

The Ragged One walked up to the giant Breathing Tree. Its mottled bark loomed above her like a wall. Grunting, she slashed at the bark with her tusks.

The gouged wood leaked a blood-red sap.

"I am one mammoth, with a single pair of tusks. But I can cut and slash. And when I am exhausted, another will come and cut after me, and then another, and another… It might take a season, a whole year. But we are mammoths, and we are strong. And we will destroy this Tree, as we can destroy any other."

"You are a fool," said Autumn. "How will that help you bring back the Lost?"

"You are old and your mind is addled," said the Ragged One. "You are the fool. Look at this Tree. Smell it. Hear its roots worming into the earth. Is there another such Tree in the whole of the world? No, there is not. Because this Tree is a creation of the Lost — their mightiest work, destined to outlive the Nests, and the beetle things that toil and burn. And if we destroy the Tree, the Lost will wish to restore it — and they will return."

A wave of excited trumpeting rippled through the crowd of her followers, and the noise was briefly deafening.

Before the Ragged One’s intense anger and determination, Icebones felt weak, like a figure in a dissolving dream. But she knew she must act. "I will stop you."

"And if you try," hissed the Ragged One, "I will kill you."

"Then that is what you will have to do, for I will oppose you to my last breath."

"Why?" Autumn asked. "Icebones, it is only a tree."

"No," Icebones said. "I have thought deeply on this, and I believe I understand the Tree’s true importance — as do you, Cold-As-Sky. Show yourself now."

Out from the crowd beyond Spiral, a squat, rounded form shouldered her way: mammoth, yes, but with a hump and covered in black, sticky hair, and with small feet and tiny pointed ears, and a pair of eyes that glowed orange.

The mammoths around her recoiled, rumbling uncertainly.

"I am here, Icebones," said the Matriarch of the Ice Mammoths. "I followed your Ragged One. I come here despite the thickness of the air, and the stench of water and your fat green growing things…"

Icebones said, "Cousin. You saved my Family on the High Plains. And yet now you seek to destroy a world."