They came to a low ridge, half Longtusk’s height. Under a lip of grass, he could see ice protruding above the ground, dirty, glistening with meltwater.

"The stagnant ice is slowly melting away. As it does so it leaves hollows and caverns under a crust of unsupported earth. But sometimes the rain and meltwater will work away at the ice, turning it into a honeycomb. So watch your step, little grazer, for you don’t want to snap a tusk or an ankle. And you don’t want to dump your rider on her behind."

So Longtusk stepped carefully.

When the sun was at its highest the party paused to rest. The mastodonts were freed of their packs, hobbled loosely and allowed to wander off in search of food.

Later some of them, Longtusk included, underwent some refresher training in preparation for the hunt, along with their riders. Jaw Like Rock, ridden by the cruel Spindle, led them.

Jaw trotted back and forth across the broken ground, and Spindle, riding Jaw’s back, got cautiously to his feet. His feet were bare to improve his grip, and he kept his balance by holding out his forelegs.

Jaw kept up a commentary for the mastodonts. "You can see he can hold his place up there. The hunters stand so they get a better leverage when they hurl their spears and darts.

"But you have to realize it isn’t natural. He isn’t stable. I can feel he’s on the brink of falling over. He can shift his feet and hind legs to adjust his balance, and I have to try to keep my back steady as I move. See? It gets a lot harder when you’re racing over this crusty ground alongside the prey… And if you stop working at it even for a moment—"

He stopped dead.

Spindle tried to keep his balance, waving his forelegs in the air. But without Jaw’s assistance, he was helpless. With a wail, he tumbled to the ground, landing hard.

Longtusk heard his own rider, Crocus, break into peals of laughter. The mastodonts trumpeted and slapped the ground with their trunks.

Spindle was predictably furious. He got to his feet, brushing off dirt and grass blades. He picked up his goad and began to lash at Jaw’s face and rump.

The other keepers turned away, as if disgusted, and the mastodonts rumbled their disapproval.

Longtusk said grimly, "I don’t know how you put up with that."

Jaw eyed him, stolidly enduring his punishment. "It’s worth it. Anyway, nothing lasts forever—"

A contact rumble washed over the steppe. "Silence," Walks With Thunder called. "Silence. Rhinos…"

There were three of them, Longtusk counted: two adults and a calf.

They were at the edge of a milk-white pond. One of the adults — perhaps a female — was in the water, which lapped around the fur fringing her belly. Her calf was in the pond beside her, almost afloat, sometimes putting her head under the water and paddling around her mother.

The other adult, probably a male, stood on the shore of the pond. He was grazing, trampling the grass flat and then using his big forelip to scoop it into his mouth.

They were woolly rhinos.

They were broad, fat tubes of muscle and fat. Their skin was heavy and wrinkled. On massive necks were set squat, low-slung heads with small ears and tiny black eyes. Their bodies were coated with dark brown fur, short on top but dangling in long fringes from their bellies. They had high humps over their shoulders, short tails and, strangest of all, each had two long curving horns protruding up from their noses. The bull’s nasal horn in particular was long and glinting and sharp.

Small birds clustered on the bull’s back, pecking, searching for mosquitoes and grubs.

Now the cow climbed out of the water, ponderous and slow, followed by her calf. Dripping, she grunted, shifted her hind legs, and emitted a spray of urine, horizontal and powerful, that splashed into the pond water and over the nearby shore. The urine came in gargantuan proportions. Longtusk saw, bemused, a series of powerful blasts, until it dwindled to a trickle down the long hairs of the cow’s hind legs.

The bull, rumbling in response, immediately emptied his own bladder in a spray that covered the cow’s. Then he rubbed his hind feet in the wet soil.

Thunder grunted. "The rhinos talk through their urine and dung. When other rhinos come this way, they will be able to tell that the cow over there is in oestrus, ready to mate. But the bull has covered her marker, telling the other bulls that she is his…"

They were almost like mammoths, Longtusk thought, wondering: short, squat, deformed — nevertheless built to survive the harshness of winter.

The party of mastodonts and Fireheads began to pad softly forward.

"They haven’t sensed us yet," said Thunder. "See the way the Bull’s ears are up, his tail is low? He’s at his ease. Let’s hope he stays that way."

The rhino calf was the first to notice them.

She (or he, it was impossible to tell) was prizing up dead wood with her tiny bump of a horn, apparently seeking termites. Then she seemed to scent the mastodonts. She flattened her ears and lifted her tail.

She ran around her mother, prodding her with her horn. At first the mother, dozing, took no notice. But the calf put both her front feet on the mother’s face and blew in her ear. The cow got to her feet, shaking her head, and rumbled a warning to the male.

The rhinos began to lumber away from the pond, in the direction of open ground. The small birds which had been working on the backs of the rhinos flew off in a brief burst of startled motion.

The mastodonts and their riders pursued, rapidly picking up speed. Those animals heavy with pack were left behind, while others lightly laden for the chase hurtled after the rhinos: they included Thunder, bearing Bedrock, Jaw with Spindle — and Longtusk, carrying Crocus, who clung to his hair, whooping her excitement as the steppe grass flew past.

"This is it," said Thunder, tense and excited. "We’re going after the bull."

Longtusk said, "Why not the cow? She is slowed by the calf."

"But she is not such a prize. See the way the bull’s back is flat and straight, the cow’s sagging? That shows she is old and weak. This hunt is a thing of prestige. Today these hunters are chasing honor, not the easiest meat. We go for the male."

Soon they passed the cow and her calf. The cow flattened her ears, wrinkled her nose and half-opened her mouth, as if she was about to charge. But the mastodonts and their riders ignored her, flying onward over the steppe in pursuit of the greater quarry.

They drew alongside the male rhino. He ran almost elegantly, Longtusk thought: like a horse, his tail high, his feet lifting over the broken ground. Even as he ran he bellowed his protest and swung his powerful horns this way and that, trying to reach the mastodonts.

With practiced ease Bedrock slid to his feet on the broad back of Walks With Thunder and prepared his atlatl. He raised a dart — it was almost as long as Bedrock was tall, and its tip, pure quartz crystal, glinted cruelly — and he fitted a notch in the base of the dart to the thrower. The thrower, perhaps a third the length of the dart, was carved from the femur of a giant deer.

Longtusk could feel Crocus clambering to her feet on his back. She was unsteady, and he sensed her leaning forward, ready to grab at his hairs if she felt herself falling. Nevertheless she hefted her own dart.

And she threw first.

She hurled hard and well — but not accurately enough; the dart’s tip glanced off the rhino’s back, scraping through his hair, and slid onward toward the ground.

Now her father raised his dart. He held it flat, with the thrower resting on his shoulder, his hand just behind his ear. Then, with savage force, his entire lean body whipping forward, he thrust at the dart. Longtusk saw the thin shaft bow into a curve, and then spring away from Bedrock, as if it was a live thing, hissing through the air.