Silverhair growled. "They have thunder-sticks."

"Those spindly things? What harm can they do us?"

Silverhair knew it was difficult for him to imagine, for sticks that spat fire and agony on command had no place in a mammoth’s map of the world. "Eggtusk, a thunder-stick killed Lop-ear. Skin-of-Ice didn’t even have to come close to us to do it."

"Then what should we do?"

"It’s obvious," complained Snagtooth loudly. "We must creep away from this place of blood and Lost, and—"

Eggtusk slapped his trunk over her head. "Quiet, you fool."

Now, to Silverhair’s bewilderment, one of the Lost — a fat brute — shucked off layers of his loose outer skin from his body. His hairless chest and fore-limbs were pink and gleaming with sweat. He swung his ice-claws down through the air, hauling them with both paws. He cracked the fox’s strong leg bones, tore through its skin, cut tendons, prized open ribs, and ripped open the organs that had nestled inside the fox’s body.

As he worked, the Lost made a noise like the caw of a gull. Almost joyous.

When he was done, this savage one opened the fox’s mouth and reached inside. With a fast slash of his ice-claw he severed the fox’s tongue. Then he lifted the limp, fleshy thing above his head, cawing and rubbing his big belly, as if it was the finest delicacy.

"They are like worms," Eggtusk whispered beside Silverhair. "They gnaw on the meat of the dead." Silverhair could hear the anger and disgust in his voice. "Especially that fat one."

"Gull-Caw," Silverhair said.

"What?"

"We will call him Gull-Caw."

Eggtusk was silent for a few heartbeats. Then he said, "We must not hate them. They are Hotbloods, like us. And they have their place in the Cycle, whatever they do. After all, it is not pleasant to watch a pack of wolves work at a seal’s carcass."

Silverhair said, "Wolves take what they need. Even the worms do no more than that. There is none of this joy in death and the tearing apart of the body. These Lost are not like us, Eggtusk."

He looked at her. "It was you," he reminded her, "who wanted to seek out the Lost. Get help from them."

"I was wrong," she said tightly. "I never imagined how wrong."

Snagtooth, on Silverhair’s other flank, was staring, fascinated. "Look at the way they work together."

"You sound as if you admire them," Eggtusk snapped.

Snagtooth grunted. "They are small and weak and isolated on this Island, but they are not slowly dying, as we are. They are not like us. Perhaps they are better."

Silverhair, shocked more deeply by Snagtooth than she had thought possible, watched as the Lost completed their grisly butchering.

And she wondered what had become of Lop-ear. Was it possible his helpless body had received the same fate as the fox?

There was a crack, like thunder.

All three mammoths raised their trunks and trumpeted.

Eggtusk twisted his head and stared at his shoulder. "By Kilukpuk’s oozing scabs…" Blood seeped out of a small puncture in his hide, and spread over his wiry hair.

But Silverhair scarcely noticed. For, standing only a few strides downwind of them, were two of the Lost: Skin-of-Ice and Gull-Caw. They were both holding thunder-sticks.

And they smelled of mammoth: for they had smeared themselves in mammoth dung, the rich, dark stuff clinging to their loose outer skin and their bare faces. That was how they had crept up unnoticed.

Even at this moment of peril Silverhair felt chilled at the cunning of the Lost.

Eggtusk reared on his hind legs, raised his trunk, and trumpeted. "So you’d punch a hole in me, eh?" he roared. "By Kilukpuk’s quivering dugs, we’ll see about that." The great Bull’s forefeet crashed back to the earth, and the ground shook as he lowered his head and charged.

The thunder-sticks wavered. Faced by a trumpeting, hurtling mountain of muscle, flesh, and tusks, the two Lost ran, scampering across the flower-strewn plain like two Arctic hares.

Suddenly, to Silverhair, they did not seem a threat at all. But, she reminded herself, they still carried their thunder-sticks.

With Snagtooth, she ran after Eggtusk.

Skin-of-Ice fell, heavily, and cried out. When he got to his feet again he was clutching his foreleg.

Gull-Caw came back to him. The two Lost stood side by side and raised their sticks.

More thunder-cracks.

Silverhair felt something fly past her ear, a hot scorch. And another crack, and another: a series of rippling explosions like the splintering of a falling tree, sharp sounds that rolled away across the plain.

Eggtusk grunted and staggered. Silverhair saw a new splash of blood on his fleshy thigh. "Get behind me," Eggtusk ordered.

"But—"

"Do as he says," snapped Snagtooth. Her eyes were wide, her smashed tusk dribbling fresh pulp.

Silverhair tucked herself, with Snagtooth, behind Eggtusk’s mighty buttocks.

And now Eggtusk began to walk toward the Lost, his pace measured and deliberate. "So you think you can kill me, do you, little maggots? We’ll see about that. Do you know what I’m going to do with you? I’m going to pick you up with my trunk and drown you in the pus that oozes from Kilukpuk’s suppurating mouth-ulcers. And then—"

But still the thunder-sticks barked, and the strange, invisible, deadly insects slammed into Eggtusk’s giant body. One of them tore away a piece of his shoulder, and Silverhair’s face was splashed by a horrific spray of hair, skin, and pulped flesh.

With each impact Eggtusk staggered. But he did not fall, and he kept the Lost washed in a stream of obscene threats.

Gull-Caw was agitated. The fat one’s thunder-stick no longer barked; he scrabbled at it, frightened, frustrated.

When Skin-of-Ice saw this, he turned and ran.

Gull-Caw roared out his anger at this betrayal. Then, seeing Eggtusk remorselessly approaching, he yowled like a fox cub. He dropped his useless thunder-stick and turned to run, but he stumbled and fell on the ground.

And now Eggtusk was over him.

The great Bull reared up, raising his huge tree-trunk legs high in the air. His deformed tusk glistened, dripping with his own blood; he raised his trunk and trumpeted so loud his voice echoed off the icebergs of the distant ocean.

Silverhair reared back, terrified of him herself.

Eggtusk reached down and wrapped his trunk around the wriggling Lost. He lifted the fat body effortlessly. Eggtusk squeezed, the immense muscles of his trunk wrapped tightly around the Lost’s greasy torso. Silverhair could see the Lost’s eyes bulge, his short pink tongue protrude.

Then Eggtusk threw Gull-Caw into the air. The Lost briefly flew, yelling, his fat limbs writhing, his smooth, ugly skin smeared with Eggtusk’s blood.

The Lost landed heavily on his belly; Silverhair heard the crack of bone.

But still Gull-Caw tried to raise himself, to crawl away, to reach with a bloodied forelimb for his thunder-stick.

Eggtusk leaned forward and knelt on the Lost’s back.

The Lost screamed as that great weight bore down. Silverhair heard the crunch of ribs and vertebrae. The Lost’s scream turned to a liquid gurgle, and blood gushed from his mouth.

Then Eggtusk drove a tusk through his neck, pinning him to the ground.

The Lost twitched once, twice more. Then he was still.