The Mammoth

A gargantuan mammoth, matted fur shining silver around her tusks, reared on her hind legs as obsidian-tipped spears jabbed at her neck. The mammoth herd managed to escape thanks to this matriarch’s sacrifice; the vibration of their footsteps still shook the ground beneath the hunters' feet as they fled.

Wolf directed the hunters with demanding grunts full of anger and malice. Wolf's hunters surrounded the mammoth until she could not turn in any direction without a spear poking into her hide. The hunters then tossed a rope made of vine and fortified with pitch from hunter to hunter until the rope encircled the mammoth. The hunters pulled the rope taught and ensnared the mammoth's legs. The mammoth tumbled and fell and from even a day's walk away, the ground shuttered.

Wolf struck the killing blow, as was his right and privilege. A spear to the artery in the mammoth's neck, just below her jaw. Wolf and his hunters bathed in the warm blood. They yelled into the dusk sky for all to hear. They didn't worry about predators. They were the predators.

River watched his former tribe dance and celebrate their kill from the ample cover among the brush at the treeline surrounding the killing valley. An adult mammoth would keep the hunters and their women and children and old fed for many suns. River's mouth watered at the sight of the first fleshy hunks of muscle being cut away from the beast and hauled on thatched sleds back to the tribe's home. The home that was once River's and Wren's home so many seasons ago. Before she became swollen with child. A child that should not be. Wolf was all-father then and remains so, still. A child not born of his seed was a threat to his rule and always would be. A man who would father such a child with one of Wolf's wives was a threat greater still.

So River and Wren fled. To save themselves. To save their child. To begin something of their own. Yet here they remained in Wolf’s shadow. The gloom of which threatened to overwhelm them at any moment. Yet, survival precedes all. That's why River was at the killing valley now, despite the risk of being caught and killed and eaten as an example. Just one of those sleds would keep River, Wren, and Needle fed for longer than River allowed himself to imagine, lest he get his hopes up only for them to be dashed. Again. This gambit of his was a long shot. But the snow had already begun a full cycle earlier than last. Wren hadn't wanted him to go through with it at all, despite the first flurry. It was too dangerous to even think, let alone enact. But River, for all his faults, was nothing if not persistent. River was also careful, something that had been too often seen as a weakness of resolve and cowardice by Wolf and the other hunters. River would show them otherwise.

Wolf fed bloody hunks of meat to his hounds. He bit off mouthfuls for himself as he did. The blood ran down his chin as he watched his subordinates work tirelessly to break down the kill. His kill. Kills like this are what had kept him in power for so long. Kills like this are what made him the most feared man in the whole of his reach.

River watched as one of the women flaying the hide from the warm meat cut off a bit of flesh for herself and sneaked it into her mouth in the blink of an eye.

But little escaped Wolf's distrustful gaze. Wolf motioned with the flick of his wrist to the largest of the hunters around him, Boulder. Boulder took pleasure in others' pain. He wrenched the thieving woman away from her post and dragged her by her hair to Wolf's feet. Wolf raised her chin to him. He squeezed her jaw so that she would open her mouth. He stuck his fingers down her throat and she gagged. She threw up. The hunk of flesh she'd stolen laid amid the bile from her atrophied stomach. Wolf motioned for his favorite hound to clean up the mess, which he did without hesitation. Then Wolf slit her throat. Two other hunters dragged her away as her body continued to flail. Wolf smiled, teeth as yellow as the sinking sun.

The sun dipped below the horizon and bathed the valley in inky blue. Torches ignited around the dead mammoth. Satisfied with the progress or merely full of fresh mammoth meat, Wolf turned away and headed back home. His entourage of hunters followed, having themselves gorged on their fill of fresh mammoth as well.

Boulder, Wolf's brother and second in command, led the way ahead. The lesser men and working women brought along for the task of breaking down the kill remained with the mammoth corpse; their work had only just begun; they would work long into the night. A few hunters remained to watch over them, but compared to the flock that had only just moments ago surrounded the kill, it was a sparse showing. The dark and hubris made the fresh kill easy prey.

Well, not easy, but prey, nonetheless. River steeled himself and sneaked from the treeline and out across the valley toward the felled mammoth. He kept to the shadows. He angled himself downwind so the tribe and their hounds wouldn't smell his approach. He trained his eyes on a full sled of meat that was waiting to be pulled to the tribe's home. Though the torches made those breaking down the mammoth feel more at ease and helped them to work faster, River knew that it made it harder for them to see past the torchlight and through the dark that guaranteed his stealthy approach.

River reached the mammoth's backside and hunched down, listening. He could smell the thick blood and gamy fat. The sled of meat was just around the mammoth's other side. But so were the men and women breaking down the kill and the hunters with spears and torches making sure none like River would succeed in stealing from Wolf. River needed a distraction, a diversion, something to draw them all away.

River was prepared for this. He had always been able to make Needle laugh by mimicking the sounds of the animals around them. River could throw his voice and make it sound like a shaggy three-toe or a horned mountain or a fang-tooth were all around her, closing in, ready to pounce. River had become quite the showman, especially when he paired his vocal skill with the shadow stories he told Needle and Wren by firelight inside their cave before they fell asleep.

River balked slightly at the realization that this bit of fun was now meant to fill his family's bellies. And keep him alive. But he could not take what he needed by force. He could not risk being seen; it was better if Wolf believed them all to be dead as he surely, hopefully did. He had never had faith in River. Nor trust, nor respect. River was not even a hunter. Had he still been a part of the tribe, he would be right alongside these others breaking down the kill, cutting the richest meat for the hunters above him while he picked the bones afterward for himself. He would not have had a family. He would not have had Wren, nor Needle.

River breathed deep. He cupped his hands around his mouth. He angled toward the opposite treeline on the other side of the valley. He released a great, deep bellow: the husky warning of a fang-toothed cat.

The hunter's hounds immediately perked. The hunters swung their torches around to the treeline, right where River hoped they would. River bellowed again. It sounded as if the cat was stalking closer. The hunters gathered the women behind them, torches faced away from River, backs to him. Now was his chance.

River crept around the backside of the mammoth and, right behind their backs, River grabbed hold of the sled's pull rope and dragged the brimming sled away.

But, just as River disappeared into the night, one of the hunters turned. He wasn't sure what he saw, but he saw something through the dark and shadow.

The hunter split from the rest and trailed warily after River.

Dragging the sled made River slow. He could not outpace this curious hunter. The hunter stepped softly through the dark. His torchlight suddenly revealed the shape of the sled, now still, but having just been dragged. The hunter could see the deep ruts in the soft ground. Footprints.

River didn't give him enough time to explore the scene further. Having kept to the shadows and circled around his back, River took the hunter by surprise. River extinguished the torch with the hide he wore as a tunic in one quick flourish. He latched his arm around the hunter's neck and squeezed.

The hunter tried to call out, but River would not let even a moan escape his mouth for fear that the others would hear and run to his aid. River let the hunter sink into unconscious slumber and lied him down on the dirt. And not a second too soon.

The other hunters, having not heard the cat's warning for some heartbeats now believed it to have moved on. They then began to spin in search of the curious hunter that River had just choked unconscious.

When they finally found him lying there alone, River and the sled had already vanished into the trees. River had done it.