Mammoth task

Lighteye hurried toward the herd at as fast a pace as she could
manage. She nosed her way through the tough wall of woolly hide and
looked at what was going on. Black nose was once again challenging lead
bull, Darktooth. Darktooth was huge and never beaten in a fight. He
wasn't lead bull for nothing, but Black nose would not accept the
theory of braun is better then brains. Matriarch looked on sadly as
Black nose was beaten to the ground and spiked with huge tusks until he
could not move. Matriarch stooped Darktooth through pity towards Black
nose.
The cows moved away and Darktooth rounded up his bull herd and moved
off, trumpeting a warning to the others. Lighteye admired Black nose.
She could not let this be known publicly, as she would be picked on as
Black nose was. Instead she whispered to him when everyone was a safe
distance away.
"You must stop this." She said.
"Why?" Black nose said indignantly.
"It's silly, you'll never beat him!"
"I will! I just have to mature, then we'll see."
"And how are you going to do that whilst being thrashed almost
everyday? You'll have your growth stunted."
"Huh&;#8230;" He finished.
He heaved himself up, and leaned on Lighteye as they journeyed
away.

The two mammoths walked slowly away until they reached the glaciers
coming down from the mountains. They walked into a little crevice of
ice, out of the wind, and Lighteye laid Black nose down. In the way she
normally did. She looked at the trail of blood, stark against the white
snow. A pool was forming at Black nose's side.
"Look what you've done&;#8230;" she said, sadly, "You've got wolves
coming after your trail now, and you've got it on my fur!"
"Sorry." He said wheezing a little.
Lighteye scraped at the snow until she reached the mud underneath. She
used the finger like projections on the end of her trunk to pick up a
small ball of snow. Black nose winced as she wiped it on the gash in
his side, cleaning the wound. She pushed a clod of the mud she had just
dug up in to the wound and smoothed it out with her trunk.
"Nice tidy job." She said.
"Thanks Lighteye&;#8230;I don't know what I'd do without
you."
"You'd die." She said bluntly.
He lay back and slept while she cleaned him up. She looked at him to
admire her good work. The amount of times she'd patched him up, kept
him warm, and fed him when he did this. It was a waste of a mammoth,
him doing this. He was very clever, and quite handsome. In fighting
against Dark tooth all the time, his body was covered with scars and
his ears were ripped. This obsession he had about beating Darktooth was
taking over his life, affecting his growth, and all prospects of ever
becoming lead bull the natural way (when the old bull was to old to
keep his place, he would step down and let another bull take over.) The
herd avoided him because they associated him with trouble and rebellion
against the complex social structure.

Black nose had light fur, a kind of golden colour, like most of this
herd. He was named Black nose because his trunk darkened to a black
tip, quite odd. Lighteye came from the same herd as Black nose, and
also had the golden fur. She however, had dark feet and blue eyes. Blue
eyes were very rare, and not been seen in this herd for centuries.
Darktooth was black, and was an intruder from another herd which had
almost been wiped out by a flash flood, but for two cows and
Darktooth.