She stepped forward. The scree crunched and slithered under her feet. It was very tiring, like climbing up a snowbank. Small rocks began to litter the ice floor, broken off the rock face by frost, increasing with size, until she found herself climbing past giant boulders.

A thunder-stick cracked.

Its sharp noise rattled from the sheer walls of the chasm. And now the screams of terrified mammoths rattled from the walls.

Every fiber in her being impelled Silverhair to lunge back down the slope and return to her Family. But she knew she must stick to her task.

She turned and resumed her climb.

When she could reach the rock face, Silverhair dug into the rock wall with her tusks. The rock was loosely bound and easily scraped aside. As Owlheart had predicted, the exposed rock was rotten. Water would seep into the slightest crack and then, on freezing, expand, so widening the crack. Lichen, orange and green, dug into the friable rock face, accelerating its disintegration. Gradually the rock was split open, in splinters, shards, or great sheets, and over the years fragments had fallen away to form the slope of scree below her.

With growing urgency Silverhair ground her way deeper into the rotten rock. Soon she was working in a hail of frost-shattered debris, and she ignored the sharp flakes that dug into the soft skin of her trunk.

But the chasm was full of the screams of the calves, and she muttered and wept as she worked.

Then — suddenly — the wall fell away, and there was a deep, dark space ahead of her.

A cave.

Hope surged in her breast. With increased vigor she pounded at the rock face before her, using tusks, trunk, forehead to widen the hole. The rock collapsed to a heap of frost-smashed rubble before her.

She reached forward with her trunk. There was no wall ahead of her. But she could feel the walls to either side, scratched and scarred. Scarred — by mammoth tusks? How could that be, so deep under the ground?

She felt a breath of air blowing the hairs on her face. Air that stank of brine. Owlheart had been right; there must be a passage here, open to the air. And that was all that was important right now; mysteries of tusk-scraped walls could wait.

But would the passage prove too narrow to get through? She had to find out before she committed them all to a trap.

Scrambling over the broken rocks, she plunged into the exposed cavern. It extended deep into the rock face. There was no light here, but she could feel the cool waft of brine, hear the soft echo of her footfalls from the walls. She pushed deeper, looking for light.

So it was that Silverhair did not see what became of Owlheart, as she confronted the troop of Lost.

The Lost advanced toward Owlheart, and their cries echoed from the walls.

The Matriarch reared up, raising her trunk and tusks, and trumpeted. Her voice, magnified by the narrow canyon walls, pealed down over the Lost, sounding like a herd of a thousand mammoths. And when she dropped back to the ground, her forefeet slammed down so hard they shook the very Earth.

But the Lost continued to advance.

After that first explosion of noise, the Lost had lowered their thunder-sticks and piled them on the ground. Now they raised up other weapons.

Here was a stick with a shard of rib or tusk embedded in its end. Here was a piece of shoulder blade, its edge sharpened cruelly, so huge it all but dwarfed the Lost who clutched it. And here were simple splinters of bone, held in paws, ready to slash and wound.

A chill settled around her heart. For they were weapons made of mammoth bone.

She put aside her primitive fear and assembled a cold determination. Whatever these Lost intended with this game of bones and sticks, this battle would surely take longer — win or lose — than if they used the thunder-sticks. If Silverhair stayed where she was and carried out her orders, they would have a chance.

Now one of the Lost came toward her. He was holding up a stick, tipped with a bone shard.

She lowered her head, eyeing him. "So," she told him, "you are the first to die."

She waited for him to close with her. That thin wooden stick would be no match for her huge curved ivory tusks. She would sweep it aside, and then -

The Lost hurled his stick as hard as he could.

Utterly unexpected, it flew at her like an angry bird. The bone tip speared her chest, unimpeded by the hair and skin and new summer fat there. She could feel it grind against a rib, and pierce her lung.

Staggering, she tried to take a breath. But it was impossible, and there was a sucking feeling at her chest.

Oddly, there was little pain: just a cold, clean sensation.

But her shock was huge. The Lost hadn’t even closed with her yet — but she knew she had taken her last breath. As suddenly as this, with the first strike, it was over.

The Lost who had injured her knew what he had done. He jumped up and down, waving his paws in the air in triumph.

Well, she thought, if this breath in my lungs is to be my last, I must make it count.

She plunged forward and twisted her head. The sharp tip of her right tusk cut clean through the skin and muscle of the throat of the celebrating Lost.

He looked down in disbelief as his blood spilled out over his chest and fell to the ice, steaming. Then he fell, slipping in his own blood.

Owlheart charged again, and she was in amongst the Lost.

She reached out with her trunk and grabbed one of them around the waist. He screamed, flailing his arms, as she lifted him high into the air. While she held him up, another bone-tipped stick was hurled at her chest. It pierced her skin but hit a rib, doing little damage. Impatiently she crashed her chest against the ice wall. There was an instant of agonizing pain as the embedded sticks twisted in her wounds, opening them further, but then they broke away.

She tightened the grip of her mighty trunk until she felt the Lost’s thin bones crack; he shuddered in her grip, then turned limp. She dropped him to the ice.

She longed to take a breath, but knew she must not try.

Two dead. She knew she would not survive this encounter, but perhaps it wasn’t yet over; if she could destroy one or two more of the Lost, Silverhair and the others might still have a chance.

She looked for her next opponent. They were strung out before her, wary now, shouting, raising their sticks and shoulder blades.

She selected one of them. She raised her trunk and charged. He dropped his stick, screamed, and ran. She prepared to trample him…

But now another came forward. It was the hairless one, the one Silverhair called Skin-of-Ice.

He hurled a stick.

It buried itself in her mouth with such venomous power that her head was knocked sideways.

She fell. The stick caught on the ground, driving itself farther into the roof of her mouth. The agony was huge.

She tried to get her legs underneath her. She knew she must rise again. But the ground was slippery, coated with some slick substance. She looked down, and saw that it was her own blood; it soaked, crimson and thick, into the broken ice beneath her.

Now the hairless Lost stood before her. He held up a shard of bone, as if to show it to her.

She gathered her strength for one last lunge with her tusk. He evaded her easily.

He stepped forward and plunged the bone into her belly, ripping at skin and muscle. Coiled viscera, black with blood, snaked onto the ice from her slashed belly. She tried to rise, but her legs were tangled in something.

Tangled in her own spilled, gray guts.

She fell forward. She raised her trunk. Perhaps she could raise a final warning. But her breath was gone.

Within her layers of fat and thick wool, Owlheart had spent her life fighting the cold. But now, at last, all her layers of protection were breached. And the cold swept over her exposed heart.