Mastodons are Cooler

Red raced back into pack lands in a state of obvious excitement, his molten-and-iron coat bristling from spiney hackles to tail. He skidded to a halt before the ravine leading into the caverns and threw back his heavy head to call out in a deep, echoing call to his packmembers to come together. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, like nothing he'd ever seen before. He knew there were creatures called 'elephants' in Auster and thought he'd caught a glimpse of them far in the distance when he and Aurielle had gone to explore the castle down there, but this was something different. Something, dare he say, from another age. There were stories in his homeland about an age of ice long ago when wolfkind was fairly young and the strange creatures that competed with those ancient wolves - he knew he himself resembled a creature they'd called a scimitar cat or something similar - and among those creatures the massive elephantine beasts known as mastodons and mammoths.

He was certain, absolutely certain, that the creatures he'd seen further north were exactly those beasts, and that their appearance now had something to do with the icy grip the weather continued to have well into spring. He was morally afraid that this presaged another ice age like the one of legend... and if it did, Valhalla would need every advantage they could get to survive it. Taking down one of those creatures would mean a store of supplies beyond anything they could hope to achieve in one hunt otherwise. As he'd made the long run back to the pack lands, a plan had formed itself in his mind.

Now, as his call died away into echoes, Red spun neatly on his heels to race into the caverns, rummaging through various stores for what he'd need and dragging each back to deposit them messily in the area outside the ravine, where there would be plenty of room for everyone to gather to work on what they'd need for his plan.