Five days after he had first accepted the food, more Fireheads came to see him: Bedrock the leader, the Shaman Smokehat with his grotesque headpiece of smoking bone, and the cub, Crocus.

Though Bedrock was cautious and kept hold of her paw, Crocus approached Longtusk. Her necklace of mammoth teeth gleamed in the watery spring sun. She reached past the ropes and ruffled the long hair that dangled from his trunk.

He closed his eyes, recalling how Willow, the male Dreamer cub, used to do the same thing.

He wondered where the Dreamers were now, Stripeskull and Willow and the others. Scattered, he supposed, turned out of the caves they had inhabited for uncounted generations, in the face of the advance of these Fireheads -

Pain lanced into his flank. He trumpeted and reared up, but he was contained by the ropes. There was a stink of burning flesh and hair.

The Shaman, Smokehat, held a piece of stone fixed to the end of a stick. The stone had been chipped and shaped to look like the outspread paw of a Firehead. It glowed red hot.

The mark of the Firehead, the outstretched paw, had been burned into Longtusk’s flank.

Like all these others he belonged to the Fireheads, and was forever marked.

He trumpeted his anger and despair.

As you know, Icebones (said Silverhair), Longtusk spent most of his years as a young Bull away from other mammoths.

Everywhere he went he won friendship and respect — naturally, since he was the greatest hero of all, and even other creatures could recognize that — and in many instances he was made their leader, and led them to fruitfulness and success before passing on to continue his adventures.

And so it came to pass that Longtusk came to live with the Fireheads, and to rule them.

Now the Fireheads are the strangest creatures in all the Cycle: weak yet strong, smart yet stupid. In the summer heat they had difficulty finding the food and drink they needed, and in the winter cold they suffered because they had no winter coat.

So Longtusk decided to teach them how to live.

When they were cold, he took them to the west, where Rhino lived.

Now Rhino was a magnificent beast with a coat as thick as a mammoth’s and great horns like upturned tusks (yes, she really existed, Icebones, have patience!). And Longtusk said to the Fireheads, "You need coats like Rhino’s to fend off the cold. See how warm and comfortable she is? When the wintertime is over she sheds her hair, and you may take it to make your own coats. Isn’t that right, Rhino?"

And Rhino replied, "Yes, Longtusk" — for all the creatures of the world knew Longtusk—"my hair will be all your friends need, and they may have it."

And the Fireheads muttered and calculated, for that is their way.

And when Longtusk’s back was turned, they attacked poor Rhino, and robbed her of her fine coat, and even took her magnificent horns.

When he found out what had happened, Longtusk berated the Fireheads for their greed and impatience. "You could have taken all you needed, if only you had waited!"

And the Fireheads said they were sorry. But in their hearts they were not.

When it rained, Longtusk took the Fireheads to the east, where Dreamer lived.

Now Dreamer was a little like the Fireheads, but she was placid and kind and accepting, and she had lived for many years in caves hollowed out of the rock of a hillside. And, of course, the caves kept the rain from her head.

And Longtusk said to the Fireheads, "You need a cave like Dreamer’s to fend off the rain. See how warm and comfortable she is? There are many caves in this hillside, and you may take them for your own shelter. Isn’t that right, Dreamer?"

And Dreamer replied, "Yes, Longtusk" — for all the creatures of the world knew Longtusk—"the caves will be all your friends need, and they may have them."

And the Fireheads muttered and calculated, for that is their way.

And when Longtusk’s back was turned, they attacked poor Dreamer, and robbed her of her fine cave, and threw her out into the rain.

When he found out what had happened, Longtusk berated the Fireheads for their greed and impatience. "You could have taken all you needed without stealing Dreamer’s home!"

And the Fireheads said they were sorry. But in their hearts they were not.

Then the Fireheads became thirsty.

So Longtusk took them to the north, where the mammoths lived.

He brought them to a place where the mammoths, in their wisdom, knew that water seeped from deep in the ground. They were digging there with tusks and feet, bringing the water to the surface.

And Longtusk said to the Fireheads, "You must dig for water as the mammoths do. See how much water there is? And when you have learned what the mammoths have to teach you, you can find water of your own. Isn’t that right, Matriarch?"

And the Matriarch of the mammoth Family said, "Yes, Longtusk" — for all the mammoths knew Longtusk—"in the ground there is all the water your friends need, and we will teach them how to find it."

And the Fireheads muttered and calculated, for that is their way.

And when Longtusk’s back was turned, they attacked the poor mammoths, and drove them away, and robbed them of their water.

When he found out what had happened, Longtusk berated the Fireheads. "You could have found your own water without robbing the mammoths — oh, you are impossible!"

And the Fireheads said they were sorry. But in their hearts they were not.

By now Longtusk knew that all his teaching was wasted on such creatures. He had decided besides that he had spent enough time away from his Clan.

So he turned his back on the Fireheads and walked away, leaving them to fend for themselves. They called to him plaintively, begging him to return, but he would not.

And so Longtusk returned to the mammoths, and became their Patriarch, and…

But that’s another story. Perhaps the greatest of them all.

What happened to the Fireheads without Longtusk’s wisdom, driven only by their own foolishness, cold and wet and thirsty? Nobody knows.

Some say they quickly died out.

And some say they became monsters.

All around Longtusk, sleeping mastodonts lay like immense boulders. In the summer they preferred to sleep on their backs, exposing their bare feet and bellies to the cool air. From time to time one of them, startled by a noise, would rise smoothly and silently to his feet, like some hairy ghost, before settling back.

But Longtusk could not sleep — even after the months he had been kept here in the Firehead settlement.

He could hear small Firehead footsteps as they pattered across the hard ground, their thin Firehead voices as they came and went on their strange, incomprehensible business. Sometimes he even heard the clear voice of the female cub, Crocus, who — in another life that was long ago and far away — he had saved from freezing.

And, worst of all, he could smell the meat they hung up on frames of wood to dry: rags of brown and purple, laced here and there by pale fat or strings of tendon, some of it even clinging to shards of white bone. Most of the meat came from deer and horse and smaller animals, but there were some larger chunks, great knobbly pieces of bone he couldn’t recognize.

And he could smell the meat that burned, slowly, in the great stone-lined pits in the ground, the billowing greasy black smoke that lingered in the air.

At least he had put aside the panic he had felt continually when he had first been brought here to the Firehead settlement, as every instinct drove him to flee the smoke from the fires. But he would never grow used to that dreadful meat stink. It seemed to have seeped into his very fur, so that he was never free of it.