The next morning, long before the sun had a chance to pierce the clouds covering the Last Glacial Maximum, Frodo began the practical initiations for his new specialists.
He decided to start his evaluations by testing the candidates for the Logistics and Resource Management team.
Since ’Logistics’ was an entirely alien concept to a tribe that had spent generations living meal-to-meal, their primary duties for the foreseeable future would be solely focused on inventory control, rationing, and preservation.
As the tribe grew and they began to extract more complex resources like copper ore and timber, the responsibilities of this team would expand drastically...
When Frodo walked toward the rear of the cavern, he found the two elderly women he had selected the day before... Elara and Vash.
Despite their frail appearances and grey hair, their eyes were sharp, carrying the wisdom of women who had survived dozens of brutal winters.
As Frodo approached, they quickly bowed their heads in a gesture of respect, an unusual greeting for a twelve-year-old boy.
"The mountain spirits favor you, Frodo," Elara mumbled. "Tell us how we may serve the tribe."
Frodo gestured for them to stand straight. "I need leaders who can manage our lifeline. I hope to find that capability in you two, and I trust you will perform well in the test I have designed."
He pointed to a pile of unsorted resources piled near the newly dug permafrost cellar.
It was a tangled mess of raw mammoth meat, chunks of blubber, splintered bones, half-scraped furs, and bundles of pine branches.
"Inside this pile," Frodo continued, "is the very survival of our people. Your task is to go through every single piece of this mess and establish a working inventory. I want the fat rendered and separated from the lean muscle. I want the bones categorized by density for tool-making. You will be judged on the speed of your sorting, how little of the meat goes to waste, and how efficiently you pack it into the ice cellar."
He looked at them with piercing eyes. "I wish you luck."
Elara and Vash exchanged a brief glance.
Without asking a single unnecessary question, they immediately hobbled over to the mountain of resources and began ripping into the pile.
Upon seeing the women begin their sorting with such fierce dedication, Frodo left the rear of the cave, leaving Bael sitting nearby with his lever-crusher to monitor them and ensure no resources were carelessly tossed into the fire.
Frodo then turned his attention to the second half of his morning agenda: the Reconnaissance team.
Reconnaissance was an unconventional doctrine for the Paleolithic era.
In the past, hunters simply wandered until they found tracks, or they were ambushed.
The primary task of this new team was the uninterrupted, invisible transmission of information from the hostile wilderness back to the cave.
Currently, the only feasible branch of this concept was an early-warning scout network. Frodo needed a candidate who possessed a very specific mindset.
As he stepped out into the freezing wind at the mouth of the cave, he found the three wiry teenagers waiting for him.
They were dressed in tight-fitting, white-furred wolf pelts to blend in with the snow.
After returning their respectful nods, Frodo got straight to the point. "Because of your size and speed, I know that you all have experience slipping past predators and moving without breaking the crust of the ice. But hiding is only half the job. Given your presence here, I assume you have the intelligence to understand the value of a warning. I am going to ask you a few tactical questions. Depending on the feasibility of your answers, I will appoint one of you as the Head Scout."
With these words, the three teenagers straightened their spines.
They understood that their responses would shape their destinies, elevating them from mere youths to protectors of their families.
Frodo began with his first scenario. "So, my first question is this: How do you propose we gather information on Kael’s Blood-Walkers without being seen, and how do you transmit that warning from the valley floor all the way up to this cave in time for us to prepare?"
The teenagers were taken aback by the depth of the question.
While they had plenty of experience running from danger and hiding in the brush, they had never contemplated how information itself could be efficiently transmitted across miles of hostile terrain.
Their perspectives had been limited by the primitive instinct of ’run and survive.’
But now, in response to Frodo’s question, their horizons were forced to expand as they pondered the logistics of a communication network.
One of the candidates, a boy named Jax who was known as the fastest runner in the tribe, hesitantly raised his hand.
Frodo nodded, encouraging him to speak.
Jax cleared his throat. "Frodo, based on how the wolves hunt, I would suggest placing a scout in the high branches of the tallest dead pine near the frozen lake. If I am in that tree, I can see the Blood-Walkers coming from a long way. When I see their red paint, I will climb down and run as fast as my legs can carry me back up the mountain path to blow the bone flute."
Frodo nodded slowly in acknowledgement.
While it lacked innovation, it was a tried and tested method that relied purely on athletic endurance...
However, Frodo’s aim was to create something akin to a military telegraph system for this era... a network capable not only of transmitting information instantly, but doing so without risking the life of the messenger.
"If you run," Frodo pointed out, "you leave fresh tracks in the snow. If their hunters are faster, or if they have their own scouts in the woods, you are a dead boy."
As he listened to slightly altered versions of the same ’run back and yell’ answer from the others, the response of the second candidate finally caught his attention.
This teenager, a lanky and exceptionally thin boy named Orin, had spent most of his childhood observing the migratory patterns of birds.
Orin humbly suggested, "Frodo, I have watched how the geese fly in a line, passing the wind to one another. Seeing your new tripwire chimes in the cave inspired an idea."
Orin took a deep breath. "My proposal is a chain of eyes. We place one scout at the frozen lake, one halfway up the mountain ridge, and one near the cave entrance. When the scout at the lake sees the Blood-Walkers, he stays hidden. Instead, he waves a white fox pelt, or flashes the reflection of a polished piece of ice. The scout on the ridge sees the flash, and he immediately flashes his own ice to the cave. The warning travels up the mountain in the blink of an eye, and no one has to run or leave tracks."
Frodo found this idea intriguing.
He posed a follow-up question, raising an eyebrow. "Interesting. But let me ask you this, Orin: How would you suggest we transfer that warning when the weather turns? What happens when a Last Glacial blizzard rolls in, the sky goes white, and drops to the length of your own arm?"
The lanky teenager who had initially suggested the brilliant optical relay was stumped.
His face flushed red with embarrassment as he struggled to come up with a solution to the boy-leader’s question.
Nervously, Orin began to sweat despite the wind, his mind going blank.
Not a single sound came out of his mouth as he stared at his boots.
The third candidate, a teenager named Silas, who sat slightly apart from the others spoke up. He had a deep voice that was unusually low for his age.
"If I may, Frodo," Silas said, stepping forward. "I have an idea to address the specific challenge of the whiteout."
Frodo turned his attention to the bulky teenager, his interest piqued. "What is it, Silas?"