"I'm your cousin, Singing Wolf. Son of Two Stones and Brown Duck. Your cousin. Remember?"
She looked up, frightened, the baby, upset, attempting to nurse at the hides covering her breast.
"The People," she murmured, barely audible. He bent to hear her low-voiced words. "The People have come for me?" Swallowing hard, she burst into tears and threw an arm around his neck.
"Yes, we've come for you," he assured quietly, patting her back.
As the last of the Others ran from their village, he held her close, keeping her from harm as other young women were rounded up by hungry-eyed warriors. They would have many new brides in the camps this year.
Around the campfires that night, Raven Hunter cornered Blueberry, smiling warmly to ease her fears. "When were you captured?"
Blueberry looked at him askance, fear in her eyes. "It's been six Long Darks since I was taken. A young man-Sheep's Tail—caught me and my sister, Onion, digging roots. He made us go west. Onion ran once and he killed her with one long dart throw. I was scared. I didn't run."
Raven Hunter nodded thoughtfully. "Then you've been with the Others long enough to know them. Tell us about them. How powerful are they?"
"Powerful. They call themselves the Mammoth People, but they're like a single snowflake compared to the blizzard of the Glacier People."
Raven Hunter frowned. "The Glacier People? Who are they?"
"The Mammoth People are being pushed up from the south and the west by the Glacier People who follow the game. The animals are moving north because the land many days to the far west is hot, drying out, and they can no longer survive
there. Between the White Tusk Clan and the Glacier People are the Round Hoof Clan, the Buffalo Clan, and finally, the Tiger Belly Clan. The Tiger Belly Clan are the most honored. They fight to keep the western Enemy from crossing the narrows where the salt waters are less than five days' journey apart."
"How many Mammoth People are there?" Singing Wolf asked, leaning forward, anxious to hear from her own lips.
"Many," she whispered. "So many. More than I've ever seen."
Raven Hunter cast a glance over his shoulder to the somber faces of his warriors who listened intently, fear glistening in their eyes. He laughed boisterously. "Well, they'll turn around now! Some escaped us. They'll run to tell the other clans of the bravery and fierceness of the People!"
The youngest members of the war party insolently lifted their chins, chests puffed out as they stood around the fire.
Singing Wolf pursed his lips and stared at the ground. The young imbeciles, couldn't they see what was happening? If Blueberry was right, the Others might be under as much pressure as the People. "What are these Glacier People like?" he asked tiredly.
"They're white-skinned, covered with hair. The Mammoth People fought them. The stories are that they came from the western edge of the world. They're fierce, fierce as Grandfather White Bear. Maybe they're his human children. I don't know. But they live by the salt water far to the southwest. Stories are told of how they float on the salt water in man-made hollow logs."
"Hah!" Raven Hunter laughed sharply. "No man floats on water. Trees don't grow big enough to—"
"Not here," Blueberry interrupted with trepidation. "But I've seen trees so tall they touch the sky. Big and dark—like dwarf spruce—but a person can climb a hundred feet high in them. I've been west of these mountains"—she pointed over her shoulder—"and seen the tall mountains that run out into the south salt water. The trees there are so tall they poke the sky."
"Fantasy," Raven Hunter growled. "This woman is spirit-touched. Living too long among the Others has done things to her mind."
She lowered her eyes, mouth hard. One by one, the warriors walked away, laughing at the stories she told. White-skinned men? Covered with hair? Grandfather White Bear's kin after all! A good story.
Singing Wolf waited, seeing the shame in her face, until the other men sauntered away to their own fires. "I believe you," he said.
"But they don't," she whispered. "Maybe I should go back to the Mammoth People. I don't know if I belong here."
"Forget about them. They're so puffed up from their battle successes they can't see straight."
"They'd better learn," she said ominously. "Because it's far worse than I told them."
A chill touched Singing Wolf's spine. "What do you mean?"
"There, to the far west, the ice is melting. The Glacier People are pushing the Others. But beyond the Glacier People, others still are pushing—people who look like us, and chase the Glacier People to the east and pin them against the sea—fierce and desperate men, who follow the animals to the north after the ice. So many hunt that mammoth there run at the slightest scent of man."