‹ Prequel: Ninety Days of Water
Status: Active.
Tundra
Chapter XX – Tusks – Part I
They didn’t call it mammoth grass for nothing. The stalks were long and straight as sabres, the tips at the top of each stem bristling like boar hair. Each bent like a reed under the pressure from the wind, or else whispered where we had touched it, spreading fast rumours among its peers. The lot of us crouched beneath the line of the feathery tide, in an ocean where finches were fish and spider-webs, lightly suspended and glistening with dew, floated like jellyfish. It was not an unfamiliar scene, even if it was an unfamiliar angle. This was where we had glimpsed the mammoth people before– it was but one point in a journey that never ended, proceeding in achingly slow laps like the moon around the earth.
‘So what are we doing here?’ It was Hackley, lying beside me on her belly with her head propped up on her hands.
‘These people have been dealing with the druids for centuries,’ I told her. ‘If anyone knows how to invoke the elders at Mossen Grove, they will.’ It seemed like a long-shot, and even more pathetic when heard by my own ears, but it was about our only hope. In the distance, we could already see them, a train of ants descending a drift of alpine snow that would land them in the lap of the tundra. There were hundreds of them, hundreds of scythe tusks glinting by the light of their lunar twin. Hundreds of skin and bone fortresses marching in single file, trunk to tail. ‘Several bands,’ I muttered to myself.
Eiron overheard me. ‘You know,’ he said in rumination, ‘the Seafarers consider these people not worth raiding.’
‘This is not the time,’ Hackley said, boldly, but she was right. The caravan was drawing in, and several of its leaders were dismounting. There was no point to staying covered anymore. We stood up, brushing ourselves down, and greeted the sturdy mammoth riders.
‘We need your help,’ I explained, allowing myself to be patted on the shoulder in a friendly gesture. Making allies, however, was not anywhere near as simple as that.
‘Why should we help you?’ asked a senior rider with hair the colour of cobwebs. ‘What have you ever done for our kind?’
‘Nothing,’ I confessed. ‘I won’t pretend otherwise. But you have to have realised something is going on here.’
The mammoth rider shook his woolly heard. ‘The sacred season is over now,’ he informed us.
‘We know,’ I replied. ‘Someone has broken the wheel of the seasons, and we need to go to Mossen Grove and talk to the druid elders to stop it. Can you invoke them?’
‘If our need is great enough, yes.’
‘There has never been a greater need than now.’
‘So what are we doing here?’ It was Hackley, lying beside me on her belly with her head propped up on her hands.
‘These people have been dealing with the druids for centuries,’ I told her. ‘If anyone knows how to invoke the elders at Mossen Grove, they will.’ It seemed like a long-shot, and even more pathetic when heard by my own ears, but it was about our only hope. In the distance, we could already see them, a train of ants descending a drift of alpine snow that would land them in the lap of the tundra. There were hundreds of them, hundreds of scythe tusks glinting by the light of their lunar twin. Hundreds of skin and bone fortresses marching in single file, trunk to tail. ‘Several bands,’ I muttered to myself.
Eiron overheard me. ‘You know,’ he said in rumination, ‘the Seafarers consider these people not worth raiding.’
‘This is not the time,’ Hackley said, boldly, but she was right. The caravan was drawing in, and several of its leaders were dismounting. There was no point to staying covered anymore. We stood up, brushing ourselves down, and greeted the sturdy mammoth riders.
‘We need your help,’ I explained, allowing myself to be patted on the shoulder in a friendly gesture. Making allies, however, was not anywhere near as simple as that.
‘Why should we help you?’ asked a senior rider with hair the colour of cobwebs. ‘What have you ever done for our kind?’
‘Nothing,’ I confessed. ‘I won’t pretend otherwise. But you have to have realised something is going on here.’
The mammoth rider shook his woolly heard. ‘The sacred season is over now,’ he informed us.
‘We know,’ I replied. ‘Someone has broken the wheel of the seasons, and we need to go to Mossen Grove and talk to the druid elders to stop it. Can you invoke them?’
‘If our need is great enough, yes.’
‘There has never been a greater need than now.’