It was in the middle of the weeks with no sun that characterized the beginning of true winter that some hunters finally managed to bring to the tribe two wolves from a pack that had attacked them during a hunt. These were definitely not the wolves I was used to. They were completely black and had a long obsidian horn sticking out of their heads. More importantly, they were easily twice as big as an Alaskan Malamute.

With the new catch it was obvious what awaited us. As the best by far in our group, all four of us were easily deemed ready for our third infusion. This time around Tasha was the first one of my group to receive the ceremony, as, apart from the first infusion, the order for the ceremony was from the strongest to the weakest, and she had managed to best me in our last two contests on the obstacle course. I went second immediately after her and, like the first two times, I ended up passing out after a couple of minutes of screaming in pain.

The change this time around was as noticeable as the other times, if not more. I now had the body of an eight year old, with a bit more muscle on than one would expect from a kid. But the biggest change wasn't one of the body, but one of lifestyle.

Kids that had gone through their third infusion successfully were expected to leave their mother's tent and all sleep together in what was practically the boarding school of the tribe with one of the older members of the tribe looking after them. In total there were eight of us, under the watchful eye of Ian, plus six who had gone through their fourth ceremony and lived in another tent that shared a fenced yard with ours. This was done to allow the women of the tribe to go back to hunting once their kids were old enough, or have another child if they wished to. Despite the arrangement being similar to a boarding school, we still joined the rest of the tribe in the communal hall for dinner.

Unlike the free play that filled our days before, now we had more structured lessons. In the morning we would start with some body exercises, then have lessons about the traditions of the tribe and general knowledge of life on the mountains in the early afternoon, followed by weapon training using wooden replicas of the weapons normally used by the tribe, which were maces, hammers, hand axes, great axes, knives and javelins.

At first Ian just taught us the correct way to use grip them, keep some form of stance, and in general how to swing effectively. Then the lessons turned to practice against wooden mannequins reinforced with strong metal bars. Finally, Ian decided we were ready for some actual combat practice and made us practice against each other, either in one on one duels or in group fights.

As the weeks went by my tiny body soon became faster and stronger than I had ever been even as an adult in my previous life. The additional gifts of the infusions also started to show themselves. If I concentrated I could see way further beyond and in greater detail than it should have normally been possible, thanks to the eagle. If I wanted, I could harness the power of the elk for short bursts of speed that made me much faster than I could normally sprint. Finally, the power of the wolf allowed us to empower each other when fighting together, making a group of us much stronger than the sum of the individuals.

Stolen novel; please report.

From the theoretical lessons we learned how to recognize edible plants. Ian pointed out that the infusions made us resistant to most poisons but poisonous plants could still play a number on one's toilet visit the day after, so it was better to avoid them to not waste the food we ingested with them. He then told us about the various fauna that lived on the mountains. The true staple food of the tribe was a species of giant sloths that ate the nutritious needles of the pine trees that grew there and bred like rabbits.

I questioned him on why we didn't eat the needles ourselves if they were so nutritious, in all response he made me try chewing on some of them. What came out of them was a fatty and sugary mix that tasted like the most bitter cough syrups imaginable. My reaction to biting down on them gathered quite a few laughs from everyone around me but Ian still complimented me for asking about something I didn't know.

Other common animals we found in our plates were actual rabbits, which were usually caught with traps that were checked about once a week, and bisons that lived further down the mountain.

As before, I and Tasha competed for everything and were often joined in our competitions by Ivan and Andrei. With the introduction of the theoretical lessons, we would often find ourselves competing to see who could remember things better before going to sleep in the evening.

It was with the progression of those lessons and our competing that I realized that there was a serious lack of writing in our lessons. Indeed, since I had been born over a year before, I had never seen anything that could be called proper writing. Sure, the tribe didn't really need reading and writing with such a simple life, but the complete absence of it rubbed me the wrong way. It was for that reason that I decided to adapt the English alphabet to the sounds of our language and started teaching it to Tasha and the boys as well.

When Ian saw us writing in the snow he laughed and said we were scribbling like humans. That was another shock for me. I inquired him about it and he explained me how, far south from the mountains where we lived there were many other races. From humans to elves, from lizardfolks to dwarves, there was a whole array of different sapient races out there in the world. It was obvious from the way he spoke about them, though, that he held none of them in high regard, except for the dwarves, who he described as courageous, honorable, and awesome smiths. The fact that they too usually lived on mountains, or, rather, underneath them, probably helped raise his opinion of them.

After his quick introduction to the people of the world, I asked him what we were called, and he said we were Gorchevs, the people of the mountains, and he proudly talked about how we were the strongest of the races in the world.

Despite his disdain for the other races and their cultures, I kept writing anyway, either using a stick on snow or pieces of charcoal on bark. He let me free to do it, as long as my passtime didn't interfere with the lessons. After his interruption and subsequent explanation, the boys stopped trying to learn writing, discouraged by his words, Tasha, on the other hand, kept studying, not wanting to accept that I was better than her at something, despite the fact that I had brought the alphabet to the tribe myself.