The Mammoth Hunters

1

Trembling with fear, Ayla clung to the tall man beside her as she watched the strangers approach. Jondalar put his arm around her protectively, but she still shook.

He's so big! Ayla thought, gaping at the man in the lead, the one with hair and beard the color of fire. She had never seen anyone so big. He even made Jondalar seem small, though the man who held her towered over most men. The red-haired man coming toward them was more than tall; he was huge, a bear of a man. His neck bulged, his chest could have filled out two ordinary men, his massive biceps matched most men's thighs.

Ayla glanced at Jondalar and saw no fear in his face, but his smile was guarded. They were strangers, and in his long travels he had learned to be wary of strangers.

"I don't recall seeing you before," the big man said without preamble. "What Camp are you from?" He did not speak Jondalar's language, Ayla noticed, but one of the others he had been teaching her.

"No Camp," Jondalar said. "We are not Mamutoi." He unclasped Ayla and took a step forward, holding out both hands, palms upward showing he was hiding nothing, in the greeting of friendliness. "I am Jondalar of the Zelandonii."

The hands were not accepted. "Zelandonii? That's a strange… Wait, weren't there two foreign men staying with those river people that live to the west? It seems to me the name I heard was something like that."

"Yes, my brother and I lived with them," Jondalar conceded.

The man with the flaming beard looked thoughtful for a while, then, unexpectedly, he lunged for Jondalar and grabbed the tall blond man in a bone-crunching bear hug.

"Then we are related!" he boomed, a broad smile warming his face. "Tholie is the daughter of my cousin!"

Jondalar's smile returned, a little shaken. "Tholie! A Mamutoi woman named Tholie was my brother's cross-mate! She taught me your language."

"Of course! I told you. We are related." He grasped the hands that Jondalar had extended in friendship, which he had rejected before. "I am Talut, headman of the Lion Camp."

Everyone was smiling, Ayla noticed. Talut beamed a grin at her, then eyed her appreciatively. "I see you are not traveling with a brother now," he said to Jondalar.

Jondalar put his arm around her again, and she noticed a fleeting look of pain wrinkle his brow before he spoke. "This is Ayla."

"It's an unusual name. Is she of the river people?"

Jondalar was taken aback by the abruptness of his questioning, then, remembering Tholie, he smiled inwardly. The short, stocky woman he knew bore little resemblance to the great hulk of a man standing there on the riverbank, but they were chipped from the same flint. They both had the same direct approach, the same unselfconscious – almost ingenuous – candor. He didn't know what to say. Ayla was not going to be easy to explain.

"No, she has been living in a valley some days' journey from here."

Talut looked puzzled. "I have not heard of a woman with her name living nearby. Are you sure she is Mamutoi?"

"I'm sure she is not."

"Then who are her people? Only we who hunt mammoth live in this region."

"I have no people," Ayla said, lifting her chin with a touch of defiance.

Talut appraised her shrewdly. She had spoken the words in his language, but the quality of her voice and the way she made the sounds were… strange. Not unpleasant, but unusual. Jondalar spoke with the accent of a language foreign to him; the difference in the way she spoke went beyond accent. Talut's interest was piqued.

"Well, this is no place to talk," Talut said, finally. "Nezzie will give me the Mother's own wrath if I don't invite you to visit. Visitors always bring a little excitement, and we haven't had visitors for a while. The Lion Camp would welcome you, Jondalar of the Zelandonii, and Ayla of No People. Will you come?"

"What do you say, Ayla? Would you like to visit?" Jondalar asked, switching to Zelandonii so she could answer truthfully without fear of offending. "Isn't it time you met your own kind? Isn't that what Iza told you to do? Find your own people?" He didn't want to seem too eager, but after so long without anyone else to talk to, he was anxious to visit.

"I don't know," she said, frowning with indecision. "What will they think of me? He wanted to know who my people were. I don't have any people any more. What if they don't like me?"

"They will like you, Ayla, believe me. I know they will. Talut invited you, didn't he? It didn't matter to him that you have no people. Besides, you'll never know if they will accept you – or if you will like them – if you don't give them a chance. These are the kind of people you should have grown up with, you know. We don't have to stay long. We can leave any time."

"We can leave any time?"

"Of course."

Ayla looked down at the ground, trying to make up her mind. She wanted to go with them; she felt an attraction to these people, and a curiosity to know more about them, but she felt a tight knot of fear in her stomach. She glanced up and saw two shaggy steppe horses grazing on the rich grass of the plain near the river, and her fear intensified.

"What about Whinney! What will we do with her? What if they want to kill her? I can't let anyone hurt Whinney!"

Jondalar hadn't thought about Whinney. What would they think? he wondered. "I don't know what they will do, Ayla, but I don't think they would kill her if we tell them she is special and not meant for food." He remembered his surprise, and his initial feeling of awe over Ayla's relationship with the horse. It would be interesting to see their reaction. "I have an idea."

Talut did not understand what Ayla and Jondalar said to each other, but he knew the woman was reluctant, and the man was trying to coax her. He also noticed that she spoke with the same unusual accent, even in his language. His language, the headman realized, but not hers.

He was pondering the enigma of the woman with a certain relish – he enjoyed the new and unusual; the inexplicable challenged him. But then the mystery took on an entirely new dimension. Ayla whistled, loud and shrill. Suddenly, a hay-colored mare and a colt of an unusually deep shade of brown galloped into their midst, directly to the woman, and stood quietly while she touched them! The big man suppressed a shudder of awe. This was beyond anything he had ever known.

Was she Mamut? he wondered, with growing apprehension. One with special powers? Many of Those Who Served the Mother claimed magic to call animals and direct the hunt, but he had never seen anyone with such control over animals that they would come at a signal. She had a unique talent. It was a little frightening – but think how much a Camp could benefit from such talent. Kills could be so easy!

Just as Talut was getting over the shock, the young woman gave him another. Holding onto the mare's stiff stand-up mane, she sprang up on the back of the horse and sat astride her. The big man's mouth gaped open in astonishment as the horse with Ayla on her back galloped along the edge of the flyer. With the colt following behind, they raced up the slope to the steppes beyond. The wonder in Talut's eyes was shared by the rest of the band, particularly a young girl of twelve years. She edged toward the headman and leaned against him as though for support.

"How did she do that, Talut?" the girl asked, in a small voice that held surprise and awe, and a tinge of yearning. "That little horse, he was so close, I could almost have touched him."

Talut's expression softened. "You'll have to ask her, Latie. Or, perhaps, Jondalar," he said, turning to the tall stranger.

"I'm not sure myself," he replied. "Ayla has a special way with animals. She raised Whinney from a foal."

"Whinney?"

"That's as close as I can say the name she has given the mare. When she says it, you'd think she was a horse. The colt is Racer. I named him – she asked me to. That's Zelandonii for someone who runs fast. It also means someone who tries hard to be best. The first time I saw Ayla, she was helping the mare deliver the colt."

"That must have been a sight! I wouldn't think a mare would let anyone get close to her at that time," one of the other men said.

The riding demonstration had the effect Jondalar had hoped for, and he thought the time was right to bring up Ayla's concern. "I think she'd like to come and visit your Camp, Talut, but she's afraid you may think the horses are just any horses to be hunted, and since they are not afraid of people, they would be too easy to kill."

"They would at that. You must have known what I was thinking, but who could help it?"

Talut watched Ayla riding back into view, looking like some strange animal, half-human and half-horse. He was glad he had not come upon them unknowing. It would have been unnerving. He wondered for a moment what it would be like to ride on the back of a horse, and if it would make him appear so startling. And then, picturing himself sitting astride one of the rather short, though sturdy, steppe horses like Whinney, he laughed out loud.

"I could carry that horse easier than she could carry me!" he said.

Jondalar chuckled. It hadn't been hard to follow Talut's line of thought. Several people smiled, or chuckled, and Jondalar realized they must all have been thinking about riding a horse. It was not so strange. It had occurred to him when he first saw Ayla on Whinney's back.

Ayla had seen the shocked surprise on the faces of the small band of people and, if Jondalar had not been waiting for her, she would have kept on going right back to her valley. She'd had enough of disapproval during her younger years for actions that were not acceptable. And enough freedom since, while she was living alone, not to want to subject herself to criticism for following her own inclinations. She was ready to tell Jondalar he could visit these people if he wanted; she was going back.

But when she returned, and saw Talut still chuckling over his mental picture of himself riding the horse, she reconsidered. Laughter had become precious to her. She had not been allowed to laugh when she lived with the Clan; it made them nervous and uncomfortable. Only with Durc, in secret, had she laughed out loud. It was Baby, and Whinney, who had taught her to enjoy the feeling of laughter, but Jondalar was the first person to share it openly with her.

She watched the man laughing easily with Talut. He looked up and smiled, and the magic of his impossibly vivid blue eyes touched a place deep inside that resonated with a warm, tingling glow, and she felt a great welling up of love for him. She couldn't go back to the valley, not without him. Just the thought of living without him brought a strangling constriction to her throat, and the burning ache of tears held back.

As she rode toward them, she noticed that, though Jondalar wasn't as big as the red-haired man in size, he was nearly as tall, and bigger than the other three men. No, one was a boy, she realized. And was that a girl with them? She found herself observing the group of people surreptitiously, not wanting to stare.

Her body movements signaled Whinney to a stop, then, swinging her leg over, she slid off. Both horses seemed nervous as Talut approached, and she stroked Whinney and put an arm around Racer's neck. She was as much in need of the familiar reassurance of their presence as they were of hers.

"Ayla, of No People," he said, not sure if it was a proper way to address her, though for this woman of uncanny talent, it well might be, "Jondalar says you fear harm will come to these horses if you visit with us. I say here, as long as Talut is headman of the Lion Camp, no harm will come to that mare or her young one. I would like you to visit, and bring the horses." His smile broadened with a chuckle. "No one will believe us otherwise!"

She was feeling more relaxed about it now, and she knew Jondalar wanted to visit. She had no real reason to refuse, and she was drawn to the easy, friendly laughter of the huge red-haired man.

"Yes, I come," she said. Talut nodded, smiling, and wondered about her, her intriguing accent, her awesome way with horses. Who was Ayla of No People?

Ayla and Jondalar had camped beside the rushing river and had decided that morning, before they met the band from the Lion Camp, that it was time to turn back. The waterway was too large to cross without difficulty, and not worth the effort if they were going to turn around and retrace their route. The steppeland east of the valley where Ayla had lived alone for three years had been more accessible, and the young woman hadn't bothered to take the difficult roundabout way to the west out of the valley very often, and was largely unfamiliar with that area. Though they had started out toward the west, they had no particular destination in mind, and ended up traveling north, and then east instead, but much farther than Ayla had ever traveled on her hunting forays.

Jondalar had convinced her to make the exploratory trip to get her used to traveling. He wanted to take her home with him, but his home was far to the west. She had been reluctant, and scared, to leave her secure valley to live with unknown people in an unknown place. Though he was eager to return after traveling for many years, he had reconciled himself to spending the winter with her in the valley. It would be a long trek back – likely to take a full year – and it would be better to start in late spring, anyway. By then, he was sure he could convince her to come with him. He didn't even want to consider any other alternative.

Ayla had found him, badly mauled and nearly dead, at the beginning of the warm season that was now seeing its last days, and she knew the tragedy he had suffered. They fell in love while she was nursing him back to health, though they were long in overcoming the barriers of their vastly different backgrounds. They were still learning each other's ways and moods.

Ayla and Jondalar finished breaking camp and much to the surprise – and interest – of the waiting people, packed their supplies and equipment on the horse, rather than in backframes or haversacks which they would have carried themselves. Though they had sometimes ridden double on the sturdy horse, Ayla thought Whinney and her colt would be less nervous if they saw her. The two of them walked behind the band of people, Jondalar leading Racer by a long rope attached to a halter, which he had devised. Whinney followed Ayla with no visible guidance.

They followed the course of the river for several miles through a broad valley that sloped down from the surrounding grassy plains. Chest-high standing hay, seed heads nodding ripe and heavy, billowed in golden waves on the near slopes matching the cold rhythm of frigid air that blew in fitful bursts from the massive glaciers to the north. On the open steppes, a few bent and gnarled pine and birch trees huddled along watercourses, their roots seeking the moisture given up to the desiccating winds. Near the river, reeds and sedges were still green, though a chill wind rattled through deciduous branches, bereft of leaves.

Latie hung back, glancing now and then at the horses and the woman, until they sighted several people around a bend in the river. Then she ran ahead, wanting to be first to tell of the visitors. At her shouts, people turned and gawked.

Other people were coming out of what appeared to Ayla to be a large hole in the riverbank, a cave of some sort, perhaps, but like none she had ever seen before. It seemed to have grown out of the slope facing the river, but it did not have the random shape of rock or earthen banks. Grass grew on the sod roof, but the opening was too even, too regular, and felt strangely unnatural. It was a perfectly symmetrical arch.

Suddenly, at a deep emotional level, it struck her. It was not a cave, and these people were not Clan! They did not look like Iza, who was the only mother she remembered, or like Creb or Brun, short and muscular, with large eyes shadowed by heavy brow ridges, a forehead that sloped back, and a chinless jaw that jutted forward. These people looked like her. They were like the ones she had been born to. Her mother, her real mother, must have looked like one of these women. These were the Others! This was their place! The realization brought a rush of excitement and a tingle of fear.

Stunned silence greeted the strangers – and their even stranger horses – as they arrived at the permanent winter site of the Lion Camp. Then everyone seemed to talk at once.

"Talut! What have you brought this time?" "Where did you get those horses?" "What did you do to them?" Someone addressed Ayla: "How do you make them stay?" "What Camp are they from, Talut?"

The noisy, gregarious people crowded forward, eager to see and touch both the people and the horses. Ayla was overwhelmed, confused. She wasn't used to so many people. She wasn't used to people talking, particularly all of them talking at once. Whinney was sidestepping, flicking her ears, head high, neck arched, trying to protect her frightened colt and shy away from the people closing in.

Jondalar could see Ayla's confusion, and the nervousness of the horses, but he couldn't make Talut or the rest of the people understand. The mare was sweating, swishing her tail, dancing in circles. Suddenly, she could stand it no longer. She reared up, neighing in fear, and lashed out with hard hooves, driving the people back.

Whinney's distress focused Ayla's attention. She called her name with a sound like a comforting nicker, and signaled with gestures she had used to communicate before Jondalar had taught her to speak.

"Talut! No one must touch the horses unless Ayla allows it! Only she can control them. They are gentle, but the mare can be dangerous if she is provoked or feels her colt is threatened. Someone could get hurt," Jondalar said.

"Stay back! You heard him," Talut shouted with a booming voice that silenced everyone. When the people and horses settled down, Talut continued in a more normal tone. "The woman is Ayla. I promised her that no harm would come to the horses if they came to visit. I promised as headman of the Lion Camp. This is Jondalar of the Zelandonii, and a kinsman, brother of Tholie's cross-mate." Then, with a grin of self-satisfaction; he added, "Talut has brought some visitors!"

There were nods of agreement. The people stood around, staring with unfeigned curiosity, but far enough away to avoid the horse's kicking hooves. Even if the strangers had left that moment, they had brought enough interest and gossip to last for years to come. News that two foreign men were in the region, living with the river people to the southwest, had been talked about at Summer Meetings. The Mamutoi traded with the Sharamudoi, and since Tholie, who was a kinswoman, had chosen a river man, the Lion Camp had been even more interested. But they never expected one of the foreign men to walk into their Camp, particularly not with a woman who had some magic control over horses.

"Are you all right?" Jondalar asked Ayla.

"They frightened Whinney, and Racer, too. Do people always talk at once like that? Women and men at the same time? It's confusing, and they are so loud, how do you know who is saying what? Maybe we should have gone back to the valley." She was hugging the mare's neck, leaning against her, drawing comfort as well as giving it.

Jondalar knew Ayla was almost as distressed as the horses. The noisy press of people had been a shock for her. Maybe they shouldn't stay too long. Perhaps it would be better to start with just two or three people at a time, until she became accustomed to her kind of people again, but he wondered what he'd do if she never really did. Well, they were here now. He could wait and see.

"Sometimes people are loud, and talk all at once, but mostly one person talks at a time. And I think they'll be careful around the horses now, Ayla," he said, as she started to unload the pack baskets tied on both sides of the animal by a harness she had made out of leather thongs.

While she was busy, Jondalar took Talut aside and quietly told him the horses, and Ayla, were a little nervous, and needed some time to get used to everyone. "It would be better if they could be left alone for a while."

Talut understood, and moved among the people of the Camp, talking to each one. They dispersed, turning to other tasks, preparing food, working on hides or tools, so they could watch without being so obvious about it. They were uneasy, too. Strangers were interesting, but a woman with such compelling magic might do something unexpected.

Only a few children stayed to watch with avid interest while the man and woman unpacked, but Ayla didn't mind them. She hadn't seen children in years, not since she'd left the Clan, and was as curious about them as they were about her. She took off the harness and Racer's halter, then patted and stroked Whinney, then Racer. After giving the colt a good scratching and an affectionate hug, she looked up to see Latie staring at the young animal with longing.

"You like touch horse?" Ayla asked.

"Could I?"

"Come. Give hand. I show." She took Latie's hand and held it to the shaggy winter coat of the half-grown horse. Racer turned his head to sniff and nuzzle the girl.

The girl's smile of gratitude was a gift. "He likes me!"

"He like scratch, too. Like this," Ayla said, showing the child the colt's special itchy places.

Racer was delighted with the attention, and showed it, and Latie was beside herself with joy. The colt had attracted her from the beginning. Ayla turned her back on the two to help Jondalar and didn't notice another child approach. When she turned around, she gasped and felt the blood drain from her face.

"Is it all right if Rydag touches the horse?" Latie said. "He can't talk, but I know he wants to." Rydag always caused people to react with surprise. Latie was used to it.

"Jondalar!" Ayla cried in a hoarse whisper. "That child, he could be my son! He looks like Durc!"

He turned, and opened his eyes in stunned surprise. It was a child of mixed spirits.

Flatheads – the ones Ayla always referred to as Clan – were animals to most people, and children like this were thought of by many as "abominations," half-animal, half-human. He had been shocked when he first understood that Ayla had given birth to a mixed son. The mother of such a child was usually a pariah, cast out for fear she would draw the evil animal spirit again and cause other women to give birth to such abominations. Some people didn't even want to admit they existed, and to find one here living with people was more than unexpected. It was a shock. Where had the boy come from?

Ayla and the child were gazing at each other, oblivious to everything around them. He's thin for one who is half-Clan, Ayla thought. They are usually big-boned and muscular. Even Durc wasn't this thin. He's sickly, Ayla's trained medicine woman's eye told her. A problem since birth, with the strong muscle in the chest that pulsed and throbbed and made the blood move, she guessed. But those facts she stored without thinking; she was looking more closely at his face, and his head, for the similarities, and the differences between this child and her son.

His large, brown, intelligent eyes were like Durc's, even to the look of ancient wisdom far beyond his years – she felt a pang of longing and a lump in her throat – but there was also pain and suffering, not all of it physical, which Durc had never known. She was filled with compassion. This child's brows were not as pronounced, she decided after careful study. Even at just three years old, when she left, the bony ridges above Durc's eyes had been well developed. Durc's eyes and protruding brow ridges were all Clan, but his forehead was like this child's. Neither was pushed back and flattened like the Clan, but high and vaulted, like hers.

Her thoughts strayed. Durc would be six years now, she recalled, old enough to go with the men when they practiced with their hunting weapons. But Brun will be teaching him to hunt, not Broud. She felt a flush of anger remembering Broud. She would never forget how the son of Brun's mate had nursed his hatred of her until he could take her baby away, out of spite, and force her out of the clan. She closed her eyes as the pain of remembering tore through her like a knife. She didn't want to believe that she would never see her son again.

She opened her eyes to Rydag, and took a deep breath.

I wonder how old this boy is? He's small, but he must be close to Durc's age, she thought, comparing the two again. Rydag's skin was fair, and his hair was dark and curly, but lighter and softer than the bushy brown hair more common to the Clan. The biggest difference between this child and her son, Ayla noted, was his chin and neck. Her son had a long neck like hers – he had choked on his food sometimes, which the other Clan babies never did – and a receding but distinct chin. This boy had the Clan's short neck, and forward-thrusting jaw. Then she remembered. Latie said he couldn't talk.

Suddenly, in a moment of understanding, she knew what this child's life must be like. It was one thing for a girl of five, who had lost her family in an earthquake and who had been found by a clan of people not capable of fully articulate speech, to learn the sign language they used to communicate. It was quite another to live with speaking people and not be able to talk. She remembered her early frustration because she had been unable to communicate with the people who took her in, but even worse, how difficult it had been to make Jondalar understand her before she learned to speak again. What if she had not been able to learn?

She made a sign to the boy, a simple greeting gesture, one of the first she had learned so long ago. There was a moment of excitement in his eyes, then he shook his head and looked puzzled. He had never learned the Clan way of speaking with gestures, she realized, but he must have retained some vestige of the Clan memories. He had recognized the signal for an instant, she was sure of it.

"Can Rydag touch the little horse?" Latie asked again.

"Yes," Ayla said, taking his hand. He is so slight, so frail, she thought, and then understood the rest. He could not run, like other children. He could not play normal rough-and-tumble games. He could only watch – and wish.

With a tenderness of feeling Jondalar had never seen on her face before, Ayla picked the boy up and put him on Whinney's back. Signaling the horse to follow, she walked them slowly around the Camp. There was a lull in conversation as everyone stopped to stare at Rydag sitting on the horse. Although they had been talking about it, except for Talut and the people who had met them by the river, no one had ever seen anyone ride a horse before. No one had ever thought of such a thing.

A large, motherly woman emerged from the strange dwelling, and seeing Rydag on the horse, which had kicked perilously close to her head, her first reaction was to rush to his aid. But as she neared, she became aware of the silent drama of the scene.

The child's face was filled with wonder and delight. How many times had he watched with wishful eyes, prevented by his weakness, or his difference, from doing what other children did? How many times had he wished he could do something to be admired or envied for? Now, for the first time, as he sat on the back of a horse, all the children of the Camp, and all the adults, were watching him with wishful eyes.

The woman from the dwelling saw and wondered, Had this stranger truly understood the boy so quickly? Accepted him so easily? She saw the way Ayla was looking at Rydag, and knew it was so.

Ayla saw the woman studying her, then smile at her. She smiled back and stopped beside her.

"You have made Rydag very happy," the woman said, holding out her arms to the youngster Ayla lifted off the horse.

"It is little," Ayla said.

The woman nodded. "My name is Nezzie," she said.

"I am named Ayla."

The two women looked at each other, considered each other carefully, not with hostility, but testing the ground for a future relationship.

Questions she wanted to ask about Rydag spun through Ayla's mind, but she hesitated, not sure if it was proper to ask. Was Nezzie the boy's mother? If so, how had she come to give birth to a child of mixed spirits? Ayla was puzzled again about a question that had bothered her since Durc was born. How did life begin? A woman only knew it was there when her body changed as the baby grew. How did it get inside a woman?

Creb and Iza had believed that a new life began when women swallowed the totem spirits of men. Jondalar thought the Great Earth Mother mixed the spirits of a man and a woman together and put them inside the woman when she became pregnant. But Ayla had formed her own opinion. When she noticed that her son had some of her characteristics, and some of the Clan's, she realized that no life started to grow inside her until after Broud forced his penetration into her.

She shuddered at the memory, but because it was so painful she couldn't forget it, and she had come to believe it was something about a man putting his organ inside the place where babies were born from that caused life to start inside a woman. Jondalar thought it was a strange idea when she told him, and tried to convince her it was the Mother who created life. She didn't quite believe him, now she wondered. Ayla had grown up with the Clan, she was one of them, for all that she looked different. Though she had hated it when he did it, Broud was only exercising his rights. But how could a man of the Clan have forced Nezzie?

Her thoughts were interrupted by the commotion of another small hunting band arriving. As one man approached, he pulled back his hood, and both Ayla and Jondalar gaped with surprise. The man was brown! The color of his skin was a rich deep brown. He was nearly the color of Racer, which was rare enough for a horse. Neither of them had ever seen a person with brown skin before.

His hair was black, tight wiry curls that formed a woolly cap like the fur of a black mouflon. His eyes were black, too, and they sparkled with delight as he smiled, showing gleaming white teeth and a pink tongue in contrast to his dark skin. He knew the stir he created when strangers first saw him, and rather enjoyed it.

He was a perfectly ordinary man in other respects, medium height, hardly more than an inch or so taller than Ayla, and medium build. But a compact vitality, an economy of movement, and an easy self-confidence created an impression of someone who knew what he wanted and wouldn't waste any time going after it. His eyes took on an added gleam when he saw Ayla.

Jondalar recognized the look as attraction. His brow furrowed into a frown, but neither the blond woman nor the brown-skinned man noticed. She was captivated by the novelty of the man's unusual coloring, and stared with the unabashed wonder of a child. He was attracted as much by the aura of naive innocence her response projected as by her beauty.

Suddenly Ayla realized she had been staring, and blushed crimson as she looked down at the ground. From Jondalar she had learned that it was perfectly proper for men and women to look directly at each other, but to the people of the Clan it was not only discourteous, it was offensive to stare, particularly for a woman. It was her upbringing, the customs of the Clan, reinforced again and again by Creb and Iza so she would be more acceptable, that caused her such embarrassment.

But her obvious distress only fired the interest of the dark man. He was often the object of unusual attention by women. The initial surprise of his appearance seemed to arouse curiosity about what other differences he might have. He sometimes wondered if every woman at the Summer Meetings had to find out for herself that he was, indeed, a man like every other man. Not that he objected, but Ayla's reaction was as intriguing to him as his color was to her. He wasn't used to seeing a strikingly beautiful adult woman blushing as modestly as a girl.

"Ranec, have you met our visitors?" Talut called out, coming toward them.

"Not yet, but I'm waiting… eagerly."

At the tone in his voice Ayla looked up into deep black eyes full of desire – and subtle humor. They reached inside her and touched a spot only Jondalar had touched before. Her body responded with an unexpected tingle that brought a faint gasp to her lips, and widened her gray-blue eyes. The man leaned forward, preparing to take her hands, but before customary introductions could be made, the tall stranger stepped between them, and with a deep scowl on his face, thrust both hands forward.

"I am Jondalar of the Zelandonii," he said. "The woman I am traveling with is Ayla."

Something was bothering Jondalar, Ayla was sure, something about the dark man. She was used to reading meaning from posture and stance, and she had been watching Jondalar closely for cues upon which to base her own behavior. But the body language of people who depended on words was so much less purposeful than that of the Clan, who used gestures to communicate, that she didn't trust her perceptions yet. These people seemed to be both easier and more difficult to read, as with this sudden shift in Jondalar's attitude. She knew he was angry, but she didn't know why.

The man took both of Jondalar's hands, and shook them firmly. "I am Ranec, my friend, the best, if only, carver of the Lion Camp of the Mamutoi," he said with a self-deprecating smile, then added, "When you travel with such a beautiful companion, you must expect her to attract attention."

Now it was Jondalar's turn to be embarrassed. Ranec's friendliness and candor made him feel like an oaf, and, with a familiar pain, brought to mind his brother. Thonolan had had the same friendly self-confidence, and had always made the first moves when they encountered people on their Journey. It upset Jondalar when he did something foolish – it always had – and he didn't like starting out a relationship with new people in the wrong way. He had displayed bad manners, at best.

But his instant anger had surprised him, and caught him off guard. The hot stab of jealousy was a new emotion to him, or at least one he hadn't experienced in so long it was unexpected. He would have been quick to deny it, but the tall and handsome man, with an unconscious charisma, and a sensitive skill in the furs, was more accustomed to women being jealous over his attentions.

Why should it bother him that some man looked at Ayla? Jondalar thought. Ranec was right, as beautiful as she was, he should expect it. And she had the right to make her own choice. Just because he was the first man of her kind she had met didn't mean he would be the only one she would ever find attractive. Ayla saw him smile at Ranec, but noticed that the tension across his shoulders had not eased.

"Ranec always speaks lightly of it, though he isn't in the habit of denying any of his other skills," Talut was saying as he led the way to the unusual cave which seemed to be made of earth growing out of the bank. "He and Wymez are alike in that way, if not many others. Wymez is as reluctant to admit to his skill as a maker of tools as the son of his hearth is to speak of his carving. Ranec is the best carver of all the Mamutoi."

"You have a skilled toolmaker? A flint knapper?" Jondalar asked with pleased expectation, his hot flash of jealousy gone with the thought of meeting another person knowledgeable in his craft.

"Yes, and he is the best, too. The Lion Camp is well known. We have the best carver, the best toolmaker, and the oldest Mamut," the headman declared.

"And a headman big enough to make everyone agree, whether they believe it or not," Ranec said, with a wry grin.

Talut grinned back, knowing Ranec's tendency to turn aside praise of his carving skill with a quip. It didn't stop Talut from bragging, however. He was proud of his Camp, and didn't hesitate to let everyone know.

Ayla watched the subtle interaction of the two men – the older one a massive giant with flaming red hair and pale blue eyes, the other dark and compact – and understood the deep bond of affection and loyalty they shared though they were as different as any two men could be. They were both Mammoth Hunters, both members of the Lion Camp of the Mamutoi.

They walked toward the archway Ayla had noticed earlier. It seemed to open into a hillock or perhaps a series of them, tucked into the slope that faced the large river. Ayla had seen people enter and leave. She knew it must be a cave or a dwelling of some kind, but one which seemed to be made entirely of dirt; hard-packed but with grass growing in patches out of it, particularly around the bottom and up the sides. It blended into the background so well that, except for the entrance, it was hard to distinguish the dwelling from its surroundings.

On closer inspection she noticed that the rounded top of the mound was the repository of several curious implements and objects. Then she saw a particular one just above the archway, and caught her breath. It was the skull of a cave lion!