It was not ambition at all, but cruel necessity that made the former geologist the informal leader of the “Mammoth people,” which unites the Cro-Magnon tribes, Neanderthals and Pithecanthropes. How to manage them? The decision is prompted by life itself - the tribe that has become family to Semyon Vasiliev turns into a “caste” of rulers, each of whom has the right to administer justice and reprisal. But the son of a leader, in order to get into this caste, needs to go through many tests and the most severe training. In this school, a bad grade means death, a good grade means initiation into a warrior. And paternity does not matter here, because the father is just an equal among the first...