“We’ll go and look for them,” my brother says. “They do not know that we are here, so they take their time. We will go call them home, and help them bring in the kill.”
“I should come to lead the way,” Kol’s mother says, turning in the place where she sits on a large stone beside the unlit hearth, looking over her shoulder toward the meadow as if she might have heard something. I look up too, but the only new sound is the call of geese passing overhead. There is nothing new to see but the even strokes of their wings.
“No need,” says Chev. “You should wait here, in case they return by another route. I’m sure we remember the way into the hills since the last time we hunted with your clan.”
Kol’s mother falls silent. The chorus of conversation of those scattered around the meeting place goes quiet too.
How can any of us remember that hunting trip and not remember the saber-toothed cat that I killed, the cat that threatened to kill Kol? How can we think about any hunting trip between our two clans and not think of death?
We move quickly, and before the sun has brushed the tops of the trees on the ridge, Seeri, Chev, and I are ready to hike north into the meadow, then east into the hills. Lees and Roon will stay here. They are not too young to face the risks of hunting—Lees has hunted many times at home—but perhaps too young to come along on a trip such as this one, with so much uncertainty about what we might find. No one says this, of course, but everyone thinks it—probably even Lees and Roon.
I raise my hand to shield my eyes as I look back at them—Mala, Lees, and Roon—and the wind rattles the ivory beads in my hair. I had forgotten they were there. My hand moves to touch them, to trace over Ela’s handiwork, and Lees lifts her hand and waves.
Roon waves too, and my mind catches on the sight of them, standing side by side. A thought leaps to me as I hurry to catch up to Seeri, who strides behind my brother up the sloping path.
Do not think of it, I tell myself. Do not open a flap in the roof and let such a thought blow in. And yet the thought is there.
Of the three of us—me, Seeri, and Lees—Lees is the only one who is certain to see the boy she came to see.
THREE
The stillness dissolves like a snowflake on water.
As one, the mammoths turn and rush toward us, their feet carrying massive and twitching bodies over the ground. Chev, Seeri, and I clamber over the jagged boulders that border the pass, struggling to get out of the way.
As I climb higher I look behind me, my eyes sweeping the lower end of the pass. Pek scrambles onto the slabs opposite me, out of danger. Farther below I see Kol, and behind him—not far, maybe an arm’s length away—his father.
At the foot of the pass, shadows ripple like water. Everything—the ground, the sky, the sun itself—trembles with the motion of the herd.
Kol does not slow, but he turns. I see him reach back, his hand open for his father. He expects him to take his hand.
I watch. He is there. He is running right behind Kol.
A sound knifes through me—a violent breaking of rocks.
I see Kol, his hand out, his head raised as he shouts to his father—and then the place he stands is washed out by a swiftly flowing current of broad backs and tusks and raised trunks. The herd runs by like a river, raging and churning after a storm.
And then the river runs dry. The mammoths are gone. Only the whisper of falling dust remains.
From my perch above the pass, movement catches my eye. A hand slides out from under deep shadows and broken rocks—Kol’s hand. The same hand I’d seen him stretching out behind him toward his father.
He pulls himself up, and all I see of him is the top of his head. Even through the gloomy shade, I see his hair turning crimson as it fills with blood. I hear a voice call out his name—my own voice. I hurry down over the rocks, but before I can reach him, he’s on his feet, stumbling forward.
He moves only three steps before he drops to the ground. I think he must have collapsed—light-headed from blood loss, or maybe something worse. I rush to him, and when I reach his side—when I drop to my knees at the spot where he fell—I realize that things are much worse.
Much, much worse.
Bright red blood runs in the gray dust. It pools, dark and thick, in a rut, cut into the ground beside a long, shallow ditch.
And in that shallow ditch at the edge of the pass, beside a trampled and shattered spear, lies a trampled and shattered body.
The body of Arem, the High Elder of the Manu.
The body of Kol’s father.
Kol leans over him, takes his head in his hands, and tries to raise him up. Words tumble from his lips. “Don’t worry. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you. I’ll take care of you.” Cradling his head, he pulls him to his chest. Blood flows like water over Kol’s hands. If he notices, he doesn’t let it show.
He rocks his father against his chest, and I realize he has no hope of saving him, and he knows it. He knows it is too late. His only hope now is to comfort his father as he goes.
He eases himself onto the ground beside the place where his father lies, still cradling him in his arms. For a short time, both chests heave, both men gulp in air. Both backs stiffen against the hard, cold ground.
But then Arem’s hands slide from the places where they cling to Kol, his arms dropping into the dirt. His back softens and his chest stills.
But not Kol’s. Kol’s chest heaves as he lets the lifeless body of his father slide from his arms. He does not get up, but stays where he is, stretched out beside his father. He is in no hurry to leave his father’s side. Instead, he lays his own head on his father’s chest, and weeps.
Time passes, but the sun remains, squatting on the horizon. Its rays hug the ground, drawing the shadows of mountains from the smallest of rocks. This is the time of year when the sun dips below the horizon only in the middle of each night, when the Divine leaves the Land Above the Sky to feed its fire in preparation for its next trek into day.
I stand with Chev and Seeri, at least twenty paces from Kol, his brother, and his father. The body of his father. They’ve asked us to wait, to give them time.
So we wait.
As the sun sinks, its warmth flees, and a torrent of cold sweeps over the ground. It seeps through my tunic. Without the protection of the parka I would normally wear on a hunt, it soaks right into my bones. My teeth clench but still they chatter, rattling in my head.
The sun is half hidden behind the western hills when Kol and his brother get to their feet and remove their parkas. A shiver runs through me as I watch Kol, stripped from the waist up, crouch and slide his parka under his father’s shoulders. Pek slides his own under his hips. When they tie the sleeves, they have fashioned a sling to carry the body home. Before they lift it, Kol runs both hands through his hair, shaking his head as if to clear it. Drops of blood splatter his bare chest, and his hands, still stained with his father’s blood, are wet again, this time with his own.
At last, he turns toward me. His eyes are red-rimmed and damp. “Could you help me?” he asks.