“CHARGE!” cried Boulder, eager to press the sudden advantage his son had created. “Macrauchenia Riders, CHARGE!”
And most of them did charge. And our clan’s supporters cheered. And I continued to writhe on the ground in pain.
It was Hamhock who stepped up this time. He had seen Bonehead bash me and—as the brute had climbed up Woolly’s side—Hamhock had taken action. A diehard Boar Riders’ fan, he had jumped out from under the mammoth and whispered something in Woolly’s ear.
Now, just as Woolly reached the middle of the field, Bonehead found himself unexpectedly hurtling through the air, flapping his arms and shrieking like a dodo bird.
Woolly had listened to Hamhock and bucked hard.
The Boar Rider fans shouted their approval.
Echo ran over to me. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah.” I nodded, and pointed. “But this does not look good for Woolly.”
Seeing their secret weapon buck, Boulder and the other Macrauchenia Riders had halted their charge and were standing around, gaping.
Boss Hog took the opportunity to swing Big Mumma back around. “BOAR RIDERS,” he bellowed. “SHOW OUR MIGHT!”
And they charged. And their crowd roared. And the Macrauchenia Riders scattered. Chip was the first one down, bonked in the back by Newporker. Rock was next—whacked by Oinker. The Boar Rider fans cheered wildly and began to sing their fight song:
When Big Game comes
and time to fight,
we kick your bums
and show our might!
Turn Llama’s Boys
to pile o’ bones,
and always KEEEEEP …
great Shiny Stone!
Now, I couldn’t care less about the Shiny Stone, but the sight of my dad being chased by the snarling, stone-wielding Snortimer was making my blood boil. I caught up to Woolly on the edge of the field and mounted. Both crowds went berserk as Woolly and I charged back into the fray.
“That one!” I cried, pointing at the closest Boar Rider, who happened to be Boss Hog’s son, Baconbits.
Woolly reached out with his trunk and yanked the scowling boy off his squealing boar.
“Into that one!” I said, pointing at Snortimer, who was about to bash my dad.
Woolly flung Baconbits across the field like a jiggling water skin.
“Boar’s-eye!” yelled our supporters as Snortimer toppled to the ground, out cold.
“That’s my boy!” cheered my dad.
Watching Snortimer get knocked out scared a few of the Boar Riders right off the field. Boss Hog grabbed Baconbits and waddled after them. The remaining Boar Riders looked unsure about what to do. I decided to make their decision easier.
Seeing the mammoth barreling toward them, the last of the Boar Riders turned tail and ran screaming, several of them crashing into one another. Our fans began to sing:
On Big Game day
it’s Llama Time!
So run away,
you silly swine!
Crush Piggybacks
until they MOAAAAAAAN,
and then bring back
great Shiny Stone!
Stony ran toward the center of the field as the last of the Boar Riders fled into the jungle. While the crowd belted out the fight song over and over, Stony single-handedly dragged the Shiny Stone toward their outstretched arms. I watched in amazement as two girls actually ran onto the field and kissed him. He turned and winked at me.
I glanced at Echo. She was petting Woolly and could not have looked more pleased. Our plan had worked. It was the shortest Big Game anyone could remember, but we had won it for the Macrauchenia Riders and would be allowed back into the clan.
“Lug and Stony!” went up the triumphant cry among our teammates. “Stony and Lug!” They lifted us onto their shoulders and did a joyful dance called the Macrauchenia. The entire crowd joined in.
Woolly carried the Shiny Stone to the village and went to rest in the big drafty cavern around back. Everyone else busied themselves with preparations for the great victory feast. Well, everyone except Stony and me. We were given places of honor on top of the newly installed Shiny Stone in the public clearing.
“Bring Echo and Hamhock up here too,” I commanded.
And people actually did it!
Chip started drumming on Rock’s head. Froggy began bobbing rhythmically on Stony’s shoulder. Stony joined in, arching his unibrow to the beat. People started to dance. There is no doubt that it would have been the most rocking party of the Stone Age but for the sudden blood-chilling scream that pierced the air.
I JOINED THE crowd running toward the other side of the village and stopped when I saw Bugeyes lying on the ground just outside Woolly’s cavern. Then I spotted the two puncture wounds in the boy’s backside. They were the same size and distance apart as those I’d seen in the severed boar’s head. Bugeyes was faint with loss of blood, and his father, Frogface, was trying to stanch the bleeding by covering the wounds with leaves. Bonehead stood staring down at his wounded friend in slack-jawed disbelief. I glanced up at the cavern and saw one anxious mammoth eye peering out. This was not looking good.
“Your fault!” Frogface screamed at me. “Your nasty boarauchenia attacked my son!”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
“We’re truly sorry about your son,” said Echo, stepping forward. “But Woolly would never do something like this.”
“Stinking Piggyback!” Bonehead snarled. “Shut mouth!”
“Hey!” Hamhock piped up, drawing himself up to his full four feet and puffing out his chest. “That’s my sister!”
Bonehead shook a fist at the kid. “Me crack little—”
“If you touch him,” Echo warned, “I’ll—”
“Silence!” barked Boulder, stepping out of the crowd. “SILENCE!”
Everyone stopped talking and watched the Big Man walk around the semiconscious Bugeyes. He made a show of examining the two puncture wounds and glancing darkly in Woolly’s direction. On his second time around, Boulder stopped directly in front of me, his look suggesting I was a pile of pig poo that he’d accidentally stepped in.
“Let me guess,” I said. “You want us to leave?”
“No, you can stay,” he said with a chilling calmness in his voice. Then he pointed at Woolly. “If you kill your boarauchenia.”
I stared at him, feeling nauseous. “And if we don’t?”
“Go with your Piggyback friends,” he said, gesturing toward Echo and Hamhock. “If you don’t bother us again, we won’t bother you.”
I looked from Boulder to the rest of the crowd. I saw my family on the other side of the throng, watching me with stunned faces. I looked over at Woolly. I was sure he wouldn’t attack an innocent person, but Bugeyes was not exactly innocent—maybe he’d thrown rocks at Woolly or done something equally stupid.
Echo was shaking her head as if she were reading my thoughts. “Woolly didn’t do this,” she whispered. “He’s not vicious.”
I glanced at the young mammoth, then at Echo and Hamhock again. They were now banished from both tribes and would have nowhere to go. Stony was already standing with them. I turned back to Boulder. “I’ll go with them,” I said.
The Big Man looked smug—as if he’d just made a big bet and won. “All right, Lug,” he said. “Your choice.”
I didn’t look at my family as I left. I knew that if I did, I wouldn’t be able to go. As the sun descended, my friends and I led Woolly back through the jungle to the big red cavern by the creek. For the rest of the evening, the young mammoth just lay there, staring straight ahead, his huge brown eyes resembling nothing more than empty caves.
“He’s so traumatized that he won’t even communicate,” Echo whispered to me. “I’m sure he saw whomever attacked Bugeyes.”
The gusting wind keened through the cave that night, biting into my flesh as I tried to fall asleep. I thought about how strange life was. Just when you thought your biggest problem was so
lved, something even more colossal happened. What was it that Crazy Crag had said? There’s always something bigger coming around the mountain? Maybe he wasn’t so crazy after all.
I was dozing off when Stony nudged me awake to take the night’s last watch. I sat next to Woolly and watched the pale reddish dawn light bleed out of the horizon. Every feature of the landscape stood out in stark silhouette. I stared at the jagged cliffs and the fingerlike outcropping that marked my secret art cave—always beckoning. Woolly’s hollow eyes drew me back. What kind of monster had this poor creature seen? Whatever it was, I had a sinking feeling that Bugeyes wouldn’t be the last victim. I looked back out at the silhouetted cliffs. Suddenly, I had an idea.
“Rise and shine, everyone,” I said. “Rise and shine!”
Hamhock sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Echo somehow managed to glower at me with her eyes still closed. Stony and Froggy kept right on snoring.
“Wake them up!” I said to Hamhock as I ran out of the cave into the dawn light. “I’ll be right back.”
I crawled through a pitch-black tunnel, the familiar scent of dank limestone like sweet perfume to my nose. Moving by feel, I turned left at the first fork, then right, then right again. I heard a loud scampering noise behind me and wondered if it was a big tunnel rat. After a while, I glimpsed a thin shaft of sunlight in the passageway ahead. I climbed through an opening above me and stood up in a spacious oval chamber. Its vaulted ceiling was dotted by myriad sunlit holes that dappled the floor with a stunning sprinkling of light.
On the walls were paintings of my family, of other clan folk, of raucous weddings, of somber burials, of peaceful jungle llamas, of nervous-looking dodos, and of every other beautiful bird and beast that I had found in the forest. An entire wall was devoted to paintings of my father and me doing things together, including one of us painting together. Of course, making art was strictly forbidden “uncaveman-like behavior,” and my father would have never painted with me. But seeing this made me feel like it could happen someday. All of my art was here in one place—the secret fruit of years of cultivation, careful craft, and hard labor.
I walked over to my most recent painting—a bare gourd tree. It was something I’d been working on since I’d noticed the trees losing all their leaves. Beneath that half-finished artwork lay my pigment rocks—red ocher, yellow ocher, lime white, and umber. I sat down beside them and considered how it would feel to remain in my cave and forget all my troubles—to work on my art and not bother with the rest of the world. I couldn’t resist picking up the yellow ocher and crushing a bit of it in my hand. The powder was such a vivid color, so much more beautiful than the dusty gray of the caves where I spent most of my time.
Then I thought of Stony and Echo and Hamhock, and even injured Bugeyes. I felt like I needed other people—needed their help and needed to help them, maybe even more than I needed my paintings. I picked up the other pigment rocks, tucked them into my leaf sash, and headed back out of the cave.
Stony, Echo, and Hamhock were already up and waiting for me. Woolly was still sprawled on the floor, staring blankly at a wall. I walked over to him and offered him the rocks that I’d brought. “Woolly,” I said, “would you show us what happened to Bugeyes yesterday?”
The young mammoth eyed the colored lumps but did not move.
“It might save someone else from being hurt.”
Woolly looked at me for a long time. Slowly, laboriously, he got to his feet. He grasped the yellow ocher rock with the tip of his trunk and raised it to the cave wall. Then he began to draw.
At first we all agreed that Woolly was drawing a yellow cat with a rat in its mouth. Then Woolly gave the rat bulging eyes and the cat two incredibly long teeth. He made the two canine teeth long enough to skewer the rat.
“Is that … Bugeyes?” asked Echo, pointing at the ratlike figure.
Woolly nodded.
“Okay,” I said, pointing at the catlike figure large enough to hold Bugeyes in its mouth. “What is that thing, then?”
An ominous purring sound emanated from the back of the cave.
I whipped around and gasped. A monstrous feline with shining golden eyes emerged from the darkness. The giant cat moved sinuously—massive muscles rolling beneath thick tan-and-black-striped fur. He stopped directly in front of me and made a complicated sound that was half hiss, half roar.
I stared, mesmerized, at his foot-long saber teeth—extending far down past his chin—streaked with dried blood.
He made the same vocalization again.
Focus on the sound, I thought, my eyes still locked on his hideous teeth. On the sound.
And the meaning of the cat’s message soon became clear. “My name,” he was saying, “is Smilus.”
“W-W-WHAT … ARE YOU?” I stammered.
Before Smilus could answer, Woolly dropped the yellow ocher rock with a thud, his ears flapping wide. He tilted his head so that the tips of his tusks were pointing directly at the cat’s throat.
Smilus looked at the young mammoth. “Hello, Woolly,” he said.
“You two … know each other?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” replied Smilus. “Woolly’s clan and we saber-toothed cats go way back.”
The young mammoth stomped a threatening foot, and the cavern echoed with the sound. I glanced around surreptitiously until I spotted a sharp rock on the floor. But before I could even stoop down, the cat batted it away with lightning speed. It shattered against the wall, just below Woolly’s drawing.
“Don’t want to damage the lovely picture of me and the boy,” said Smilus. “I think it sends the right message.”
We all glanced at the drawing of Smilus attacking Bugeyes. Echo cleared her throat. “And what message is that?”
“Hamela, isn’t it?”
She stared, stunned.
“Ham … ela,” he whispered, as if tasting her name. “I’ve been watching you for quite a while now. I enjoyed one of your clan’s boars the other day. Afterward, I watched your little friend Lug here stumble upon its head.” He smiled at me and exposed the bloodred gums from which his saber teeth emerged.
I shuddered. This beast must have been silently stalking us for days.
He looked from Echo to me. “If your clans don’t want to suffer the same fate,” he hissed, “they’d best abandon their caves and go elsewhere.”
There was a long, shocked silence.
“Where would they go?” I finally asked.
“If they know what’s good for them, far, far away.”
“But why? I mean … this forest has enough food for all of us!”
“Stupid boy,” said Smilus. “The world is changing. I’m just the tip of the iceberg.”
“What’s an iceberg?” Hamhock whispered to Echo.
The cat’s eyes glittered with cruel amusement. “You fools have no idea what’s going on, do you?” He nodded toward Mount Bigbigbig. “Haven’t you looked out from the top of your own little hill?”
“Mount Bigbigbig is sacred,” said Echo. “No one’s allowed up there.”
Smilus sneered. “Time to open your eyes. That bug-eyed boy was just a little taste of what’s to come.” He sauntered silently out of the cavern and then turned back. “I will give your people until tomorrow’s sunrise to get out of their caves. Or no one will see sunset.”
I watched him disappear into the morning mist between the trees as the jungle around him fell eerily silent.
“COME ON, HAMELA,” Hamhock whined as the sounds of the jungle slowly resumed. “Pleeeeease.” He was watching his sister climb up onto Woolly’s back.
“No, Hamhock,” she said, “you’ll be safer here.”
Echo and I had immediately agreed on a plan, and there was not a moment to waste. “Time to open our eyes,” I said, leading Woolly out of the cave.
Hamhock dashed toward us, but Stony scooped him up and held him.
Before he could whine again, Echo and I were out of the cave and thundering through the jungle
on the Woolly Mammoth Express.
“Lug?” whispered Echo as we approached the looming mountain.
“Yeah?”
“Are you nervous about climbing Mount Bigbigbig?”
“No,” I said. “I’m nervous about never coming back down.”
She tittered anxiously.
“Did you feel that?” I asked.
“Cold rain?” guessed Echo, looking up at the treetops whizzing by.
It was only when Woolly began to climb the slope of the mountain and the jungle canopy gave way to bigger patches of sky that we saw the strange white flakes coming down.
“They’re beautiful!” cried Echo.
“They turn to water when you touch them!” I said.
She laughed in delight as the white flakes melted on her upturned face.
Woolly made a deep rumbling sound that sounded like SNOOOOOOOOOW.
“What?” I said.
“That must be what mammoths call this stuff!” shouted Echo over the wind.
The snow came down faster as we climbed higher. The wind gusted and wailed, lifting the strange white stuff off the ground so that the whole landscape seemed ghostly.
“How close are we?” shouted Echo.
“I’m not sure,” I said, squinting through the flurry of flakes.
Echo looked around and shivered. “Do you think it might be true what they say?”
“About the mountain?”
“About the ghosts of the banished,” she said, “wandering around, looking for the clan folk that exiled them?”
“I don’t know about ghosts,” I said, pointing across the slope. “But I’d bet my life that’s Crazy Crag’s cave over there.”
We both gazed at a little opening in a distant ridge. “Lug,” said Echo, “why is the cave’s mouth flickering like that?”
“I think it’s a trick of the eyes—from all the snowflakes dancing in front of us.”
Lug, Dawn of the Ice Age Page 6
