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stared into the fragment of flame. He fingered the bits of curved tooth in his bag. ‘I was thinking about our totems,’ he said. ‘Here are the three of us, named for the bare bones of the world, ice and stone and moon - and Mammoth Talker, named for a beast nobody living has seen. Have our totems abandoned us?’
    Ice Dreamer shifted, trying to find a less uncomfortable position. ‘Whether they have or not, it is up to us to behave as if it is not so.’
    He nodded gravely. ‘Maybe you should be the priest.’
    That made her laugh.
    Moon Reacher pushed her way into the shelter. ‘Oh, it’s cosy. Not very warm yet. Why are you laughing?’
    ‘Because we’re alive.’ Dreamer could smell the blood. ‘You caught something.’
    With a flourish, Reacher produced a jackrabbit from behind her back and held it up by the ears. The snare still dangled from its leg, and Reacher had broken its neck.
    Dreamer leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. ‘You are a great hunter. Come on, let’s get this cooking.’
    The three of them worked together. Dreamer quickly detached the animal’s head and sleeved off its skin. Dreamer and Shaper butchered the jackrabbit quickly, and Reacher used her own small obsidian blade to cut the meat fillets finely, so they would cook faster on the small fire.
    When the meat was sizzling on a hot stone, Mammoth Talker pushed into the shelter. He let the cold wind in, and they all had to huddle around the fire to make room. ‘I found no prey,’ he growled. ‘But I did find this.’ He dragged in a bundle of wood, dried, old.
    They eagerly piled it on the fire. Bark curled, the wood crackled, and smoke began to billow. For the first time that day Dreamer began to feel warm.
    ‘You can have some of my jackrabbit,’ Reacher said brightly. She handed Talker a leg.
    He gnawed it, crunching the delicate bones. ‘And I saw Cowards. Many of them.’
    The mood in the shelter immediately turned cold again. Dreamer asked, ‘Are we safe here until morning?’
    ‘Yes. But listen to me. The Cowards have killed bison. They drove them into a valley . . . You should see it. Many animals. More bison than Cowards, I think.’
    ‘What have Cowards and their bison to do with us?’
    ‘Don’t you see? There is more meat than they can eat, even if every man, woman and child gorges until the meat rots. More than they can carry away. Meat for us. All we have to do is take it.’
    ‘But it’s the Cowards’ kill,’ Shaper said. ‘They hunted these beasts. We will be scavenging, like the dogs of the prairie.’
    Dreamer could see that Talker, the proud hunter, hadn’t allowed himself to think that way. ‘You should applaud me. Not peck at me with these questions, peck, peck, peck. I will sleep outside this hovel.’ He grabbed a handful of Reacher’s jackrabbit fillets, more than his share, and pushed his way out of the shelter.
    ‘Don’t be a—’ Fool. Dreamer bit back the word before she could say it; it would do far more harm than good.
    Talker left a skin flapping loose. Stone Shaper crawled over to shut out the cold.

6
    Mammoth Talker woke them all not long after the dawn.
    If he had been uncomfortable in the night, huddled alone in the cold protected only by his cloak, he said nothing of it. But Dreamer thought he looked paler, his eyes that bit darker. Even his great strength was not infinite, and he was a fool to waste it on displays of temper.
    He pointed with his spear. ‘The kill site is that way. South. Not far. We will leave our stuff here.’
    Moon Reacher wasn’t happy. She was a child who in her eight years had seen almost everything taken from her, her whole family destroyed by the glacial flood, and now she had a habit of clinging to what was left.
    Dreamer squeezed her hand. ‘Don’t worry, Reacher. We will be fine, our stuff will be safe here.’
    Stone Shaper objected too. ‘I will take the medicine bag, and the fire, even so.’
    ‘By the Wolf’s teeth - fine, fine,