Ice Age

Ice Age
Михаил Климовицкий
Ice  Age


         When the onset of spring drags on, it seems that winter will be forever, as in the ice age. Misha was telling his son.
       
       Over the last million years of the existence of planet Earth, there have been several ice ages, and the latter ended about 10 thousand years ago, and maybe not yet. In the middle phase of the last ice age, glaciers on land reached Kiev. They ice bound large rivers of Europe, Asia and North America, which seemed streams flowing from the giant tongues of ice. And in America, under the hundred-meter thick ice, there were Great Lakes, or rather they were not.

Deer and wolves

        Three hunters from the Mamont tribe, Father and two sons, had been watching the plain covered with ice for several days. This steppe stretches along the edge of the southern seas and mountains and stretches to the icy mountains of the Great Glacier, where no one lived and where life went. These were the people of the eolite of the time, when groups of Neolithic hunters still roamed on Earth, but tribes of pastoralists capable of taming animals have already appeared. With the hunters there was a large flock of tamed wolves. They differed from their wild relatives in black and white color and tails slightly twisted upwards.  The flock was supposed to cut through a large herd of reindeer and drive in the direction the hunters needed. The main role was the leader of the pack of large white wolf, more than a meter at the withers. Perhaps he was a descendant of the first wolf tamed by the Father of the tribe. Deer were larger than modern deer. They looked like moose with very branched horns in males (up to two meters wide).
       
            Father shouted, and the wolf dogs rushed to the herd. They, like their not yet tamed relatives, knew how to divide a large herd into groups and units. Hunters in hides and fur boots followed the wolves with long sticks in their hands. It was necessary to prevent the environment of the deer from passing into their extermination.
       Father shouted, and the wolf dogs rushed to the herd. They, like their not yet tamed relatives, knew how to divide a large herd into groups and units. Hunters in hides and fur boots followed the wolves with long sticks in their hands. It was necessary to prevent the environment of the deer from passing into their extermination. At the end of the stick was a belt loop - erga, which had to be thrown on the main deer, fettering its mobility. Wolves surrounded the main deer, but without the leader’s command they retreated in front of his horns, and the leader was waiting for people. After the hunt, wolves and people drove part of the herd to the tribal camp, where children and wolf cubs were waiting for them.
       The hunters rode on deer, and they traveled six to seven days. Therefore, several wild deer were to feed them and their wolves. They moved at night. Father taught his sons to navigate the stars, and on starless nights their wolves knew the way. In the afternoon they: a herd, a flock and people hid in copses, where there was always a lot of snow and it was possible to hide a fire. They had many enemies, and the further they hunted, the more. The main danger was alien hunters and cavemen. Then there were predators: big wolverines, cave lions, lynxes, as well as wild wolves who tried to join their flock, and whom only the leader had chased away. In addition, during the daytime, herds of bison, musk ox, woolly rhinoceros or even a mammoth could interfere with movement.
      The leader sensed the smell of cave lions from an approaching line of dwarf willows and birches. Lions were waiting for the herd and flock, as they successfully hunted deer, and wolves, and people. The leader ran ahead and tried to stop the herd, then rushed to the Father with all appearance pointing to the danger from the forest. It was three o'clock in the morning - The hour of the bull, but the deer stubbornly approached the danger. Finally, the pack, obeying the leader, stopped or they, too, sensed northern lions. Lions lived in families, and how many were hiding behind the low but lush trees? The leader sensed a couple, and maybe more.
    Father ordered torches to light up. The sons did this by carving sparks from the stones that they had themselves. Only fire could protect people from lions. But how was the herd saved? The father decided to free the main deer with huge horns. One on one, he could take a fight with a lion or at least hold him back. The wolves drove the herd back, and hunters with burning torches remained behind a large deer, who did not even think of retreating. He could not run fast, and became sharp cloven hooves, breaking an ice crust on the grass and in the snow around him. In the silver light of the moon he was magnificent, a real miracle of nature.
His light gray fur was covered with hoarfrost and sparkled, a powerful high neck held two trees of horns with sharp ends. On the neck and chest, the fur was darker and thicker, which made it even more like a tree with two crowns of branches. Lions, crouching low, came out from behind the bushes. There were five of them: a lion, a lioness and three year-old lion cubs, not inferior in size to a lioness.
       The lioness sniffed. The torches disgustedly pulled smoke and scorched wool, the herd was removed, and the large deer was very horned, and even people with lights. Therefore, when the lion cubs came forward, the lioness roared angrily and turned to the forest, where they found a den in the afternoon and bit a bear with cubs. The rest of the lions turned after her.
     After a couple of hours, the herd, driven by hunters and their wolves, went around the lion's forest and took shelter for a day behind the snow drifts behind the forest. After four hauls, they reached the camp site, where they were met by a group of Amazon girls armed with large bows and sharp arrows. The hunters laid a large trail along the steppe, along which flocks of coyotes and other small predators ran after them, who had to be driven away from the camp, and most importantly, to check if other hunters were coming and kill the strangers. Some deer girls rushed to the steppe, others helped drive the new deer into the herd, pricking them with light spears. Dogs-wolves ran up to the camp to sniff with their brothers.