"Goldtusk is my home," Laira whispered.

She pushed herself up onto wobbling arms. Bedraggled and covered in mud, she stared downhill toward their camp. The tribe's tents rose across the misty valley, made of animal hides stretched over branches. Their totem pole rose among them, carved with animal spirits, topped with the gilded mammoth tusk they worshiped, the god Ka'altei. Deer, hares, and fowl roasted upon campfires, and the tribesmen, clad in fur and leather, tended to the meat.

The tribe's source of power, a flock of rocs, stood tethered outside the camp. Great vultures the size of dragons, they gathered around a mammoth carcass, tearing into the meat with sharp beaks. Those beaks were large enough to swallow Laira whole. As she watched, the tribe hunters—tall, strong, and sporting jewelry of clay, bronze, and even gold—walked toward the beasts. One by one, they mounted the rocs and took flight, brandishing bows and roaring hunting cries.

"The hunters are strong and proud," Laira said to herself, watching as they soared. "They are the nobility of Goldtusk. They are never beaten, never spat upon, never afraid."

She rose to her feet, hugged herself, and stared at the hunters flying into the distance, their rocs shrieking.

"My old kingdom is forbidden to me," Laira whispered. "The escarpment is but a myth. But I am the child of a warrior prince. I am noble and I am strong." She clenched her small fists. She would become what she had vowed the day her mother had died. "I will be a huntress."

* * * * *

That evening, the hunters returned upon their rocs, singing the songs of their totems. The great birds shrieked, beating their rotted wings, holding game in their talons: deer, boar, and buffalo. With splatters of blood, they tossed the carcasses down between the tents. Soon great campfires burned, and the game roasted upon spits, filling the camp with delicious aromas.

The women returned too, placing down baskets of berries, nuts, and mushrooms collected from a nearby grove. Though not as honored as the hunters, the gatherers too were praised; tribesmen blessed their names and reached into their baskets, feasting upon their finds.

Songs rose and ale, traded in what villages they passed, flowed down throats. One tribeswoman played a lyre, and people clapped and danced. Teeth bit into the roast meat and grease dripped down chins.

Laira spent the feast serving the others. She sliced off slabs of meat and rushed to and fro with clay bowls. She collected what bones the diners tossed into the dirt, bringing them to the camp dogs in their pen. She kept scurrying to the nearby stream, returning with buckets of water, then filling cups and serving the thirsty.

Never did she eat herself. When once she only sniffed at a bone, Zerra made sure to march over, slap her cheek, and tell her that bones were for the dogs, that she was merely a maggot. She kept working, belly growling and mouth watering.