And, of course, he had to seek out food as he traveled. Firehead Matriarch on his back or not, he still needed to cram the steppe grasses and herbs into his mouth for most of every day. But the mastodonts preferred trees and shrubs, and if he found a particularly fine stand of trees he would trumpet to alert the others.

A few days out of the settlement a great storm swept down on them. The wind swirled and gusted, carrying sand from the frozen deserts at the fringe of the icecap, hundreds of days’ walk away, to lash at the mastodonts’ eyes and mouths, as if mocking their puny progress. Crocus walked beside Longtusk, blinded and buffeted, clinging to his long belly hairs.

At last the storm blew itself out, and they emerged into calmness under an eerie blue sky.

They found a stand of young trees that had been utterly demolished by the winds’ ferocity. The mastodonts browsed the fallen branches and tumbled trunks, welcoming this unexpected bounty.

Walks With Thunder, his mouth crammed with green leaves, came to Longtusk. "Look over there. To the east."

Longtusk turned and squinted. It was unusual for a mastodont to tell another to "look," so poor was their eyesight compared to other senses.

The sun, low in the south, cast long shadows across the empty land. At length Longtusk made out something: a blur of motion, white on blue, against the huge sky.

"Birds?"

"Yes. Geese, judging from their honking. But the important thing is where they come from."

"The northeast," Longtusk said. "But that’s impossible. There is only ice there, and nothing lives."

"Not quite." Walks With Thunder absently tucked leaves deeper into his mouth. "This is a neck of land, lying between great continents to west and east. In the eastern lands, it is said, the ice has pushed much farther south than in the west. But there are legends of places, called nunataks — refuges — islands in the ice, where living things can survive."

"The ice would cover them over. Everything would freeze and die."

"Possibly," said Thunder placidly. "But in that case, how do you explain those geese?"

"It is just a legend," Longtusk protested.

Thunder curled his trunk over Longtusk’s scalp affectionately. "The world is a big place, and it contains many mysteries. Who knows what fragment of rumor will save our lives in the future?" He saw Crocus approaching. "And the biggest mystery of all," he grumbled wearily, "is how I can persuade these old bones to plod on for another day. Lead on, Longtusk; lead on…"

The geese flew overhead, squawking. They were molting, and when they had passed, white fathers fell from the sky all around Longtusk, like snowflakes.

As the days wore on they traveled farther and farther from the settlement.

Longtusk hadn’t been this far north since he had first been captured by the Fireheads. That had been many years ago, and back then he had been little more than a confused calf.

But he was sure that the land had changed.

There were many more stands of trees than he recalled: spruce and pine and fir, growing taller than any of the dwarf willows and birches that had once inhabited this windswept plain. And the steppe’s complex mosaic of vegetation had been replaced by longer grass — great dull swathes of it that rippled in the wind, grass that had crowded out many of the herbs and low trees and flowers which had once illuminated the landscape. It was grass that the mastodonts consumed with relish. But for Longtusk the grass was thin, greasy stuff that clogged his bowels and made his dung slippery and smelly.

And it was warmer — much warmer. It seemed he couldn’t shed his winter coat quickly enough, and Crocus grumbled at the hair which flew into her face. But she did not complain when he sought out the snow that still lingered in shaded hollows and scooped it into his mouth to cool himself.

The world seemed a huge place, massive, imperturbable; it was hard to believe that — just as the Matriarchs had foreseen, at his Clan’s Gathering so long ago — such dramatic changes could happen so quickly. And yet it must be true, for even he, young as he was, recalled a time when the land had been different.

It was an uneasy thought.

He had been separated from his Family before they had a chance to teach him about the landscape — where to find water in the winter, how to dig out the best salt licks. He had had to rely on the mastodonts for such instruction.

But such wisdom, passed from generation to generation, was acquired by long experience. And if the land was changing so quickly — so dramatically within the lifetime of a mammoth — what use was the wisdom of the years?

And in that case, what might have become of his Family?

He shuddered and rumbled, and he felt Crocus pat him, aware of his unease.

After several more days Crocus guided Longtusk down a sharp incline toward lower ground. He found himself in a valley through which a fat, strong glacial river gushed, its waters curdled white with rock flour. The column of mastodonts crept cautiously after him, avoiding the sharp gravel patches and slippery mud slopes he pointed out.

After a time the valley opened, and the river decanted into a lake, gray and glimmering.

The place seemed familiar.

Had he been here before, as a lost calf? But so much had changed! The lake water was surely much higher than it had once been, and the long grass and even the trees grew so thickly now, even down to the water’s edge, that every smell and taste and sound was different.

…Yet there was much that nagged at his memory: the shape of a hillside here, a rock abutment there.

When he saw a row of cave mouths, black holes eroded into soft exposed rock, he knew that he had not been mistaken.

Crocus called a halt.

She and her warriors dismounted, and on all fours they crept through the thickening vegetation closer to the caves. They inspected footprints in the dirt — they were wide and splayed, Longtusk saw, more like a huge bird’s than a Firehead’s narrow tracks — and they rummaged through dirt and rubble.

At last, with a hiss of triumph, the hunter called Bareface picked up a shaped rock. It was obviously an axe, made and wielded by clever fingers — and it was stained with fresh blood.

And now there was a cry: a voice not quite like a Firehead’s, more guttural, cruder. The mastodonts raised their trunks and sniffed the air.

A figure had come out of the nearest cave: walking upright, but limping heavily. He stood glaring in the direction of the intruders, who still cowered in the vegetation. He was short and stocky, with wide shoulders and a deep barrel chest. His clothing was heavy and coarse. His forehead sloped backward, and an enormous bony ridge dominated his brow. His legs were short and bowed, and his feet were flat and very wide, with short stubby toes, so that he left those broad splayed footprints.

He was obviously old, his back bent, his small face a mask of wrinkles that seemed to lap around cavernous nostrils like waves around rocks. And his head was shaven bare of hair, with a broad red stripe painted down its crown.

Not a Firehead, not quite. This was the Fireheads’ close cousin: a Dreamer. And Longtusk recognized him.

"He is called Stripeskull," Longtusk rumbled to Thunder. "I have been here before."

"As have I. This is where we found you."

Walks With Thunder described how, when the Fireheads had first moved north, they had sent scouting parties ahead, seeking opportunities and threats. Bedrock himself had led an expedition to this umpromising place — and Crocus had been, briefly, lost.

"The Dreamers saved her from the cold," said Longtusk.

Thunder grunted. "That’s as may be. We drove the Dreamers from their caves. But the land was too harsh, and we abandoned it and retreated farther south."