She put her hand down. He continued undressing her slowly, tenderly, then removed his own clothing and crawled in beside her. And gently, with exquisite tenderness, he made love to her half the night.

The Cave quickly settled down into their usual routine. It was a glorious autumn. The gra.s.ses of the fields rippled in golden waves in the brisk wind, and trees near The River blazed with brilliant shades of yellows and reds. Bushes were heavy with ripe berries, apples were rosy but tart, waiting for the first frost to turn sweet, nuts were dropping from the trees. While the weather held, the days were filled with gathering the season's bounty of fruits, nuts, berries, roots, and herbs. After the temperatures at night dropped below freezing, hunting parties went out regularly to stock up on a supply of fresh meat to supplement the dried meat from the summer hunting.

During the warm days shortly after their return, storage pits were checked and new ones dug into the summer-softened soil so that they would be below the usual permafrost level, and lined with stones. The meat of fresh kills was cut up and left out overnight high on platforms, and away from prowling animals, to freeze. In the mornings it was put into the deep pits, which kept it from thawing out as the day warmed. Several such cold cellars were located near the Ninth Cave. Shallower root cellars, which kept fruit and vegetables cold but not frozen during the early part of the season, were dug as well. Later, as the freezing glacial winter progressed and the ground froze solid, the produce would be moved to the back of the abri.

Salmon, making their way upstream, were netted and smoke-dried or frozen, as well as other varieties of fish caught by a method new to Ayla: the fish traps of the Fourteenth Cave. She had visited Little Valley while the fish were running, and Brameval had explained how the woven traps, which were weighted down, allowed fish to easily swim in them, but not back out. He had always been very friendly and pleasant to her. She was pleased to see Tishona and Marsheval, too. Though she hadn't had the chance to get to know them as well during the Matrimonial, they still felt the tie of having mated at the same time.

Some people were also fishing with a gorge. Brameval gave her one of the small pieces of bone, sharpened at both ends and attached in the middle to a thin but strong cord, and told her to catch herself a meal. Tishona and Marsheval joined her, partly to see if she needed help, but also for her company. Jondalar had shown her how to use a gorge. She had both worms and small pieces of fish as bait, and started by threading a worm onto the bone. They were standing on the bank of The River, and she cast her line in. When she felt a pull, indicating that a fish had swallowed the baited gorge, she gave the line a sharp tug, hoping that the sharpened bone would lodge horizontally across its gullet, with both ends piercing the sides. She smiled when she pulled a fish from the water.

When she stopped at the Eleventh Cave on the way back, Kareja happened to be gone, but she saw the donier of the Eleventh with Marolan, his tall, handsome friend, and stopped to talk to them. She had seen them together at the Summer Meeting several times and understood he was more than a friend, more like a mate, though they didn't have a Matrimonial. But the official mating ceremony was primarily for the sake of potential children. Many people chose to live together without a mating ceremony besides those who were interested in those of the same gender, especially older couples who were past having children, and some women who had children without having a mate and later decided to live with a friend or two.

Ayla often accompanied Jondalar when he went out with a hunting party as they were starting out. But when the hunters of big game went farther afield, she stayed closer to the cave and used her sling or practiced with the throwing stick. Ptarmigan inhabited the plains across The River, as well as grouse. She knew she could have caught them with her sling, but she wanted to learn to use a throwing stick with equal siali. She also wanted to learn to make them. It was difficult to separate thinner pieces from logs, usually done with wedges, and then it took time to shape and smooth them. Even more difficult was learning to throw them with a special twist so that they spun horizontally through the air. She had once seen a Mamutoi woman use one of similar design. She could throw it at a flock of low-flying birds and often knock down three or four of them. Ayla always did enjoy hunting with weapons that took skill.

It made her feel less left out to have a new hunting weapon to practice with, and she was getting proficient with the throwing stick. She seldom came home without a bird or two. She always took her sling with her, too, and often had a hare or a hamster to add to the pot. It also gave her a certain economic independence. Though she was already pleased with the way her home was beginning to look-many of the gifts she had received when she and Jondalar were joined found good use-she was learning to trade and often exchanged bird feathers, and sometimes the meat, for things she wanted to furnish her new home with. Even the hollow bird bones could be cut into beads or small musical instruments, flutes with high-pitched tones. Bird bones could also be used as parts of various tools or implements.

But many of the hides of rabbits and hares that she hunted with her sling, or the thin, soft skins of birds, she saved for herself. She planned to use the soft furs and skins to make clothes for the baby when the weather got cold and she was bound to the shelter.

On a cool, crisp day late in the season, Ayla was rearranging her things, making a s.p.a.ce for the baby and baby things. She picked up the boy's winter underwear that Marona had given to her and held the tunic up to herself. She had long since outgrown it, though she still planned to wear it later. It was a comfortable outfit. Perhaps I ought to make another one for myself with a little roomier top, she thought. She had some extra deerskins. She folded it and put it away.

She had promised to visit Lanoga that afternoon and decided to get some food to take with her. She had developed a real affection for the girl and the baby, and visited them often, even though it meant seeing and talking with Laramar and Tremeda more than she wanted. She also got to know the other children somewhat, especially Bologan, though it was a rather stilted acquaintance.

She saw Bologan when she arrived at Tremeda's dwelling. He had started learning how to make barma from the man of his hearth. Ayla had mixed feelings about it. It was right for a man to teach the children of his hearth, but the men who were always around drinking Laramar's barma were not those she thought Bologan ought to a.s.sociate with, though it certainly wasn't for her to say.

"Greetings, Bologan," she said. "Is Lanoga here?"

Though she had greeted him several times since their return to the Ninth Cave, he still seemed surprised when she did, and always seemed at a loss for words.

"Greetings, Ayla. She's inside," he said, then turned to go.

Probably because she had been putting away her clothes, Ayla suddenly remembered a promise she had made to him. "Did you have any luck this summer?" she asked.

"Luck? What do you mean, 'luck'?" he asked, looking puzzled.

"Several young men your age made their first major kill at the Summer Meeting. I wondered if you had any luck hunting," she said.

"Some. I killed two aurochs in the first hunt," he said.

"Do you still have the hides?"

"I traded one for barma makings. Why?"

"I promised I'd make you some winter underclothing, if you would help me," Ayla said. "I wonder if you would like to use your aurochs hide, though I think deer hides would be better. Maybe you could trade it."

"I was going to trade it, for more barma makings. I thought you forgot about that," Bologan said. "You said it a long time ago, when you first came here."

"It was a long time ago, but I was thinking about some other things I wanted to make, and thought I'd make your outfit at the same time," she said. "I have some extra deer hides, but you'd have to come over and let me take measurements."

He looked at her for some time with a strange, almost speculative expression. "You have been helping Lorala a lot. Lanoga, too. Why?"

She thought for a moment. "At first, it was just that Lorala was a baby and she needed help. People want to help babies, that's why the women started nursing her, once they found out her mother had no more milk. But I've grown fond of her, and Lanoga, too."

Bologan was quiet for a while, then he looked at her. "All right," he said. "If you really want to make something, I have a deer hide, too."

Jondalar was on an extended hunting trip, along with Joharran, Solaban, Rushemar, and Jacsoman, who had recently moved to the Ninth Cave from the Seventh, along with his new mate, Dynoda. They were on a mission to find reindeer, not so much to hunt them just yet, but to find out where they were and when they might be migrating closer to their region, so they could arrange a major drive. Ayla was feeling restless. She had started out with the hunters early, then turned back. Wolf had scared up a couple of ptarmigan, not quite fully white yet, but getting close, and she dispatched them quickly.

Willamar was also gone, on what would likely be his last trading trip of the season. He had gone west, specifically to get salt from the people who lived near the Great Waters of the West. Ayla invited Marthona, Folara, and Zelandoni to share a meal and help her eat the ptarmigan. She told them she would cook it the way she used to for Creb when she lived with the Clan. She had dug a small pit in Wood River Valley at the foot of the sloping path to the ledge, lined it with rocks, and built up a good fire inside it. While it was burning down, she plucked the birds, including their snowshoe-feathered feet, then gathered an armload of hay to wrap them in.

If she had found eggs, she would have stuffed them in the cavities of the birds, but it was not the season for eggs. Birds didn't try to raise chicks when they were heading into winter. Instead she picked a few handfuls of flavorful herbs, and Marthona had offered her some of the last of her salt, for which Ayla was grateful. The ptarmigan were cooking, along with some ground nuts, in the pit oven, and she had spent time grooming the horses, and now she was looking for something else to do while she waited for the birds to cook.

She decided to stop off and see if she could do anything for Zelandoni. The donier said she was in need of some ground red ochre, and Ayla said she would be happy to get some for her She went back down to Wood River Valley, whistled for Wolf, whom she had left exploring interesting new mounds and holes, and walked toward The River. She dug up the red-colored iron ore and found a nice river-rounded stone that she could use as a pestle to grind the ochre with. Then she whistled for Wolf again as she headed up the slope, not really paying much attention to who else was on the path.

It came as a shock when she almost b.u.mped into Brukeval. He had actively avoided her since the meeting in the zelandonia lodge about Echozar and the Clan, though he constantly watched her from a distance. He observed her advancing pregnancy with pleasure, knowing she would soon be a mother, and actively imagined that the child she carried was of his spirit. Any man could fancy that any pregnant woman was carrying the child of his spirit, and most of them occasionally wondered if a particular woman might be, but Brukeval's dream was an obsession. He would sometimes lie awake at night envisioning an entire life with Ayla, most of it mimicking what he surrept.i.tiously saw her doing with Jondalar, but when confronted by her on the path, he didn't know what to say. There was no way to avoid her now.

"Brukeval," she said, attempting to smile. "I've been wanting to talk to you."

"Well, here we are," he said.

She hurried ahead. "I just wanted you to know that I didn't mean to insult you at that meeting. Jondalar told me that you were teased before about flatheads, until you made people stop. I admire the fact that you stood up for yourself and made people stop calling you that. You are not a flat-head...one of the Clan. No one should ever have called you that. You couldn't begin to live with them. You are one of the Others just like all the Zelandonii. That's how they would see you."

His expression seemed to soften. "I'm glad you recognize that," he said.

"But you must realize, to me, they are people," she hurried on. "They couldn't be animals. I have never thought of them any other way. They found me alone and injured, and they took me in and cared for me, raised me. I wouldn't be alive today if it wasn't for them. I find them to be admirable people. I didn't realize you would consider it an insult to suggest that your grandmother may have lived with them when she was lost and gone for so long, that they might have taken care of her, too."

"Well, I guess you couldn't know," he said, smiling.

She smiled back, feeling relieved, and tried to make her explanation more clear. "It's just that you remind me of some people that I care about. That's why I was drawn to you from the beginning. There was a little boy I knew, who I loved, and you remind me of him ..."

"Wait! Are you still saying that you think they are a part of me? I thought you said that I was not a flathead," Brukeval said.

"You aren't. Not even Echozar is. Just because his mother was Clan doesn't mean that he is. He wasn't raised by them, and you weren't, either..."

"But you still think my mother was an abomination. I told you, she was not! Neither my mother nor my grandmother had anything to do with them. None of those dirty animals had anything to do with me, do you hear me?" He was shouting and his face had turned an angry red. "I am not a flathead! Just because you were raised by those animals, don't think you can drag me down."

Wolf was growling at the excited man, ready to spring to Ayla's defense. The man looked as if he might want to hurt her. "Wolf! No!" she commanded. She had done it again. Why couldn't she have stopped when he was smiling? But he didn't have to call her Clan "dirty animals," because they weren't.

"I suppose you think that wolf is human, too," Brukeval sneered. "You don't even know the difference between people and animals. It's unnatural for a wolf to act the way he does around people." He was unaware just how close he was to Wolf's fangs with his shouting, but it probably wouldn't have mattered. Brukeval was beside himself. "Let me tell you something, if it hadn't been for those animals attacking my grandmother, she would not have been so frightened that she gave birth to a weak woman, and my mother would have lived to take care of me, love me. Those filthy flatheads killed my grandmother and my mother, too. As far as I'm concerned, they are no use to anyone. They should all be dead, like my mother. Don't you dare tell me they have anything to do with me. If it were up to me, I'd kill them all myself."

He was advancing on Ayla as he screamed, backing her down the path. She held Wolf by the fur on his neck to keep him from attacking the raging man. Finally he brushed past her, knocking her aside, and stormed down. He had never been so angry. Not only because she imputed flatheads to his lineage, but because in his rage, he had blurted out his innermost feelings. He had wanted more than anything else to have had a mother to run to when the others teased him. But the woman who inherited Brukeval along with his mother's possessions had no love for the baby she reluctantly nursed. He was a burden on her, and she considered him repulsive. She had several children of her own, including Marona, making it even easier to ignore him. But she wasn't much of a mother even to her own, and Marona had learned her callous, unfeeling ways from her mother.

Ayla was shaking. Now she had really done it. She tried to collect herself as she stumbled her way up the path and into Zelandoni's dwelling. The woman looked up as Ayla came through the entrance and immediately recognized that something was gravely wrong.

"Ayla, what is it? You look as if you've just seen an evil spirit," she said.

"Oh, Zelandoni, I think I have. I just saw Brukeval," she cried. "I tried to tell him I didn't mean to insult him at that meeting, but I always seem to say the wrong thing to him."

"Sit down, tell me about it," Zelandoni said.

She explained what had happened during her encounter on the path. Zelandoni was quiet after Ayla told her, then she fixed the young woman a cup of tea. Ayla settled down; talking about it had helped.

"I've watched Brukeval for a long time," Zelandoni said after a while. "There's a fury inside him. He wants to strike out at the world that has given him so much hurt. He has decided to lay the blame on the flatheads, the Clan. He sees them as the root of his pain. He hates everything about them, and anyone a.s.sociated with them. The worst thing you could have done was to imply that he himself might be related in some way to them. It's unfortunate, Ayla, but I fear you have made an enemy. It can't be helped, now."

"I know it. I could tell. Why do people hate them so much? What's so terrible about them?" Ayla asked.

The woman looked at her, considering, then made up her mind. "When I said at that meeting that I had gone into deep meditation to recall all the Histories and Elder Legends, that was entirely true. I used every prompt and memory aid I know to bring out everything I ever memorized. It is probably something that should be done more often, it's enlightening. I think the problem, Ayla, is that we moved into their lands. In the beginning, it wasn't so bad. There was a lot of room, many empty shelters. It wasn't hard to share the land with them. They tended to keep to themselves, and we avoided them. We didn't call them animals then, just flatheads. The term was more descriptive than derogatory," she said.

"But as time went on, and more children were born, we needed more s.p.a.ce. Some people began taking their shelters, sometimes fighting with them, sometimes killing them, sometimes being lolled. By then, we had lived here for a long time, and this was our home, too. The flatheads may have been here first, but we needed places to live, so we took theirs.

"When people treat others badly, they have to rationalize it so they can go on living with themselves. We give ourselves excuses. The excuse we used was that the Great Mother gave us the earth for our home, the water, the land, and all Her creation.' That means all Her plants and animals are ours to use. Then we convinced ourselves that flatheads were animals, and if they were animals, we could take their shelters for ourselves," Zelandoni said.

"But they are not animals, they are people," Ayla said.

"Yes. You are right, but we conveniently forgot that. She also said the Earth is our 'home to use, but not to abuse.' The flatheads are also Earth's Children. That was the other thing I learned from my meditation. If She mixes their spirits with ours, they must be people, too. But I don't think it would have made much difference if we thought they were people or not. I think we would have done it anyway. Doni has made it easier for other living creatures that kill, so they can live. I don't think your wolf there worries about the rabbits he kills to survive, or the deer that a pack of them may hunt down. He was born to kill them. Without them he would not live, and Doni has given every living thing the desire to continue living," the donier said.

"But humans have been given the ability to think. That is what makes us learn and grow. It is also what gives us the knowledge that cooperation and understanding are necessary for our own survival, and that has led to empathy and compa.s.sion, but there's another side to those kind of feelings. The empathy and compa.s.sion we feel for our own kind is sometimes extended to the rest of the living things on the earth. If we allowed it to keep us from killing a deer, or other animals, we would not live long. The desire to live is the stronger feeling, so we learn to be compa.s.sionate selectively. We find ways to close our minds. We limit our sense of empathy." Ayla was listening closely, fascinated.

"The problem is knowing how much to stop those feelings without perverting them. In my opinion, I think that is really at the bottom of Joharran's concern over the knowledge you have brought us, Ayla. As long as most people believed your Clan were only animals, we could kill them without thinking about it. It's harder to kill people. The empathy is so much stronger that the mind must invent new reasons. But, if we can somehow link it to our own survival, the mind will make the devious twists and turns necessary to rationalize it. We're very good at that. But it changes people. They learn to hate. Your wolf doesn't need to hate what he kills. It would be easier if we could kill without compunction, like your wolf does, but then, we wouldn't be human."

Ayla thought for a time about what Zelandoni said. "Now I know why you are First Among Those Who Serve The Mother. It is hard to kill. I know how hard it is. I remember the first animal I killed with my sling. It was a porcupine. I felt so bad, I didn't hunt again for a long time, and then I had to find a reason. I decided to kill only carnivores because they sometimes stole the meat from the hunters, and because they killed the same animals the Clan needed for food."

"That is truly the loss of innocence, Ayla, when we understand what we must do in order to live. That is why a young hunter's kill is so important. It is not only changes in the physical body that make a person an adult. The first hunt is the most difficult, and it is more than overcoming fear. A man and a woman must show that they can survive, that they can do what must be done to live. That is also the reason we have certain ceremonies to honor the spirits of the animals we kill. It is one way we show honor to Doni. We need to remember and appreciate that their life is given so that we may live. If we don't, humans can become too hardened, and that can turn against us.

"We must always show appreciation for what we take, we need to honor the spirits of the trees and gra.s.s and other foods that grow, too. We must treat all Her Gifts with respect. She can become angered if we ignore Her, and She can take back the life She has given us. If we ever forget our Great Earth Mother, She will no long provide for us, and if the Great Mother should decide to turn Her back on Her children, we will no longer have a home."

"Zelandoni, you remind me of Creb in many ways. He was kind and I loved him, but more than that, he understood people. I could always go to him. I hope that doesn't insult you. It's not meant to," Ayla said.

Zelandoni smiled. "No, of course I'm not insulted. I would like to have known him. And, Ayla, I hope you know, you can always come to me.'"

Ayla thought about her conversation with the First as she prepared to grind the red ore. But when she began the hard work of crushing the lumps of iron ore with the roundish rock against a flat, saucer-shaped stone, she tried to bury herself in the job to forget about the incident with Brukeval. The exertion did help to wear off tension, but the repet.i.tive physical activity left her mind free to think, and Zelandoni had given her much to think about. She is right, Ayla thought. I think I have made an enemy of Brukeval. But what can I do about it now? It's done. I don't think there was ever anything I could have done about it. He will think what he wants to think, no matter what I do or say.

It didn't occur to Ayla to lie and tell him that she didn't really think he had the look of the Clan. It wasn't true. She did think he was a mix. She began to wonder about his grandmother. The woman had been lost. When she was found again, she talked about being attacked by animals, but the animals she referred to must have been the ones she called flatheads. They must have found her, how else had she survived? But if they took her in, fed her, they would have expected her to work, like their own women. And any man of the Clan would then feel he could use her to relieve his needs. If she objected, someone may have forced her, the same way Broud had forced her. It was unthinkable for a woman of the Clan to resist. She would have been put in her place.

Ayla tried to imagine how a woman born a Zelandonii would respond in a situation like that. To the Zelandonii, it was the Gift of Pleasure from the Great Earth Mother, and it was never supposed to be forced. It was for sharing, but only when both the man and the woman wanted to share it. Without doubt, Brukeval's grandmother would have considered it an attack. How would it feel to be a.s.saulted by someone you thought of as an animal? To be forced to share the Gift of Pleasure with such a creature? Would it be enough to affect the mind? Perhaps. Zelandonii women were not used to being ordered around. They were independent, as independent as the men.

Ayla stopped grinding the red stone. It had to be true that a man of the Clan had forced Brukeval's grandmother to couple with him, because she was pregnant, and that was what started the Ufe growing inside her. And Brukeval's mother was born as a result. She was weak, Jondalar said. Rydag was weak, too. Perhaps there is something about the mixture that sometimes produces weakness in the offspring.

Her Durc was not weak, though, and Echozar was not weak. Neither were the S'Armunai. They were not weak, and many of them had the look of the Clan. Perhaps the weak ones died young, like Rydag, and only the strong ones lived. Could the S'Armunai be the result of such a mixture that began long ago? They were not so upset about mixtures, perhaps because they were more used to them. They seemed to be ordinary people, but they did have some Clan characteristics.

Was that why Attaroa's mate tried to dominate the women before she killed him? Was something about the way men of the Clan thought about women pa.s.sed down, like some of their looks? Or was it just something he learned when he lived with them? But there was much that was good about the S'Armunai. Bodoa, the S'Armuna, had discovered how to take clay from a river and burn it into stone, and her acolyte was a fine carver. And Echozar, he is really very special. The Lanzadonii, just like the Zelandonii, think it was the mixing of spirits that gave him the look of both lands of people, but his mother had been attacked by one of the Others.

Ayla began grinding stone again. How ironic, she thought. Brukeval hates the people who started the life that gave birth to him. It is men who start life growing inside a woman, I'm sure of it. It needs both. No wonder that Cave of S'Armunai were dying out when Attaroa was their leader. She couldn't force the spirits of women to blend to make life. The only women who had babies were those who sneaked in at night to visit their men.

Ayla thought about the life growing inside her. It would be Jondalar's baby as much as hers. She was sure it started when they got off the glacier. She hadn't made her special tea, and she was sure that was what kept life from starting inside her during their long Journey. The last time she had bled was shortly before she and Jondalar started across the glacier. She was glad she hadn't been sick much this time. Not like when she was pregnant with Durc. Children who were mixtures seemed to be harder on women, and on some of the babies. This time she felt wonderful, most of the time, but would she have a girl or a boy? And what would Whinney have?

37.

The Ninth Cave built a refuge for the horses under the abri in the lesser-used section to the south near the bridge up to Down River. Ayla had asked Joharran if anyone would object if she and Jondalar constructed something to protect the animals. She had expected to make something simple that would just keep rain and snow from blowing in on them. Instead, when Joharran held a meeting at the Speaking Stone to see how people felt about it, they decided to pitch in and make a real dwelling for them, with low stone walls and panels above to keep out the wind. But there were no drapes at the entrance and no fence to keep them penned in.

The horses had always been free to come and go as they chose. Whinney had shared Ayla's cave in the valley, and both horses had grown accustomed to the horse shelter the people of the Lion Camp had built onto their longhouse for them. Once Ayla showed Whinney and Racer the place, fed them dried gra.s.s and oats, and gave them water, they seemed to know it was theirs. At least, they returned often, using the more direct route from the edge of The River that was nearby. They seldom used the path from Wood River Valley and across the busy ledge in front of the dwelling area, unless Ayla led them.

After the horse shelter was built, Ayla and Jondalar decided to make a watering trough out of wood, a kerfed square box made in the style of the Sharamudoi containers, and when they started, everyone was interested. It took several days, even though they had many helpers-and even more observers. First, they had to find the proper tree, and settled on a tall pine from the middle of a thick stand. The closeness of the other trees caused each one to grow tall to reach the sunlight, with few lower branches, which avoided knots.

The tree had to be cut down with flint axes, no small ch.o.r.e in itself. A flint axe did not bite deep. Instead, they started high, removing many chips and thin slivers as they worked through the trunk at a shallow angle. The remaining stump looked as though it had been chewed by a beaver. The tree had to be cut through again, just below the lowest branches. The top of the tree would not go to waste; carvers and toolmakers were already eyeing the wealth of wood, and any sc.r.a.ps would be used to feed fires. A feeding trough for the horses was made from the same tree. Following the tradition of the Sharamudoi, pinecone seeds were planted near the fallen tree, in thanks to the Great Mother. Zelandoni was quite impressed with the simple ceremony.

Next, they demonstrated how to extract planks out of the log using wedges and mauls. The resulting wooden boards, tapering to a thin edge from the outside toward the center, found many uses, including as shelves. The kerfed boxes were an ingenious idea. Using a flint burin, or similar chisel-like tool, they carved through a plank to cut off a long section with straight ends. The cut ends were then tapered at an angle along the edge. At three measured distances, they cut a kerf across the wooden board, a wedge-shaped groove that was not cut all the way through. With the help of steam, the plank was bent along the grooves with the uncut side out, allowing the tapered edges of the groove to meet inside to form a rectangular box. With a flint borer, several holes were hand-drilled into the tapering ends. Rubbing with sand and stones gave the plank a smooth finish.

For the bottom, another piece of plank was evened and shaped with knives and sanding stones to fit inside, and eased into a groove cut all the way around the inside lower edge of the box. When it was all shaped and maneuvered together, the tapered edges of the fourth corner of the box were fastened together with pegs that were pounded through the pre-drilled holes. Although it leaked at first, when soaked in water, the wood swelled, making the box waterproof, which made it a good storage container for liquids or fats and, using hot stones, an effective cooking vessel. They were also good containers to hold water and feed for horses. It was likely that more boxes would be made in the future.

Marthona watched Ayla, cheeks red and exhaling steam with every cold breath, climbing up the path. She wore thick-soled moccasins with attached uppers that wrapped around the calf over her fur leggings, and the fur-lined parka Matagan's mother had given to her. It did not conceal her obvious pregnancy, especially with her belt, worn rather high, from which her knife and some pouches were dangling. The hood was thrown back and her hair was caught up in a serviceable bun, but loose strands were whipping around in the wind.

She still used her Mamutoi carrying bag rather than one in the Zelandonii style, but it was full of something. She had gotten used to the haversack, the pack that was worn over one shoulder, and usually wore it when she went on short trips. It left a shoulder free to carry back her catch. At the moment, three white ptarmigan, tied together by their feathered feet, hung down her back over the other shoulder, balanced by two good-size white hares down the front.

Wolf followed behind her. She usually took him when she went out. He was not only good at flushing out birds or small animals, he could show her where the white birds or hares had fallen in the white snow.

"I don't know how you do it Ayla," Marthona said, falling in step beside her when she reached the stone porch. "When I was as far along as you are, I felt so big and awkward, I didn't even consider hunting anymore, but you are still going out, and nearly always bring something back."

Ayla smiled. "I feel big and awkward, but it doesn't take much to throw a stick or sling a stone, and Wolf helps me more than you know. I'll have to stay home soon enough."

Marthona smiled down at the animal padding along between them. Though she had been worried about him when he was attacked by the other wolves, she rather liked his slightly drooping ear. For one thing, it made him much easier to recognize. They waited while Ayla dropped off the game in front of her dwelling area on a block of limestone that was used sometimes as a place to put things and sometimes as a seat.

"I never was much good at hunting smaller animals," Marthona said, "except with a snare or a trap. But there was a time when I enjoyed going out with a group on a big hunt. It's been so long since I've hunted, I think I've forgotten how, but I used to have a fair eye for tracking. I don't see that well anymore."

"Look what else I found," Ayla said, taking off her bulging carrying bag to show Marthona. "Apples!" She had found an apple tree, bare of leaves but still decorated with small, shiny red apples, less hard and tart now after freezing, and had filled her haversack with them.

The two women walked toward the horse shelter. Ayla didn't expect to find the horses there in the middle of the day, but she checked the container that held their water. In winter, when it was below freezing for long periods of time, she would melt water for them, though horses in the wild fended for themselves just fine. She put several apples in the kerfed feeding trough.

Then she walked to the edge of the stone ledge and looked down at The River, bordered by trees and brush. She didn't see the horses, but she whistled the distinctive signal that the horses had been trained to answer, hoping they were close enough to hear. Before long she saw Whinney climbing the steep path, followed by Racer. Wolf rubbed noses with Whinney when she reached the ledge in a greeting that seemed almost formal. Racer nickered at him and received a playful yip and a nose rub in return.

When she was confronted with such direct evidence of Ayla's control over the animals, Marthona still found it hard to believe. She had gotten used to Wolf, who was always around people, and who responded to her. But the horses were more skittish, not as friendly, and seemed less tame, except around Ayla and Jondalar, more like the native wild animals she had once hunted.

The young woman was making the sounds that Marthona had heard her use before around the horses as she stroked and scratched the animals, then led them to the shelter. She thought of it as Ayla's horse language. Ayla picked out an apple for each one, and they ate from her hand as she continued talking to them in her strange way. Marthona tried to discern the sounds Ayla made. It was not quite a language, she thought. Although there was a similar feel to some of the words Ayla used when she demonstrated the language of the flatheads.

"You're getting a big belly, Whinney," Ayla was saying, patting her round stomach, "just like I am. You'll probably give birth in spring, maybe late spring, after it warms up a bit. By then, I should already have my baby. I'd love to go for a ride, but I guess I'm too far along. Zelandoni said it might not be good for the baby. I feel fine, but I don't want to take chances. Jondalar will ride you, Racer, when he gets back."

That was what she meant to say to the horses, and what she did say in her mind, although the combination of Clan signals and words and the other sounds of her private language would not have translated quite the same-if someone could have translated it. It didn't matter. The horses understood the welming voice, the warm touch, and certain sounds and signals.

Winter came unexpectedly. Small white flakes started to fall late in the afternoon. They turned big and fat, and by evening it was a swirling blizzard. The whole Cave breathed a sigh of relief when the hunters who had gone out in the morning stomped onto the stone ledge before dark, empty-handed but safe.

"Joharran decided to turn back when we saw the mammoths heading north as fast as they could," Jondalar said after greeting Ayla. "You've heard the saying 'Never go forth when mammoths go north.' It usually means snow is on the way, and they head north, where it's colder but drier and the snow doesn't pile up as deep. They get mired in deep, wet snow. He didn't want to take chances, but those storm clouds blew up so fast, even the mammoths may get caught in it. The wind shifted north, and before we knew it, the snow was blowing so hard that we could hardly see. It's halfway up to the knees out there already. We had to use snowshoes before we got back."

The blizzard lasted through the night, the following day, and the next night. Nothing could be seen except the moving curtain of white, not even just across The Riven At times the snow, caught in a crosscurrent of moving air buffeting the high cliff and finding no outlet, rebounded against the primary direction of the prevailing winds in a vortex of swirling flakes. At other times, when the driving winds died down, snow fell heavily straight down in a constant hypnotic motion.

Ayla was glad for the protective overhang of the abri that extended all the way to the horses' area, though during the first night she was concerned, not knowing whether they had found their way to the shelter before the snows became too deep. If her horses had found some other shelter, she was afraid she would have been cut off from contact with them and they would be isolated, imprisoned, by the thick white mantle of snow.