The Earth's Children Series 6-Book Bundle

by Jean M. Auel

  Ayla brought out a partridge as well, served out the stuffing of roots and grains onto a makeshift assortment of bowls and smaller plates, some woven, some made of ivory, and one of wood. She left the men to divide up the meat as they wanted, while she got out a large wooden bowl, one she had made, and filled it with water for tea.

  The men looked much more relaxed after the meal, even when Ayla brought Wolf to sniff them. As they all sat around the fire holding cups of tea, they tried to communicate beyond the level of smiling friendliness and hospitality.

  Jondalar started. “Haduma?” he asked.

  Jeren shook his head and looked sad. He made a motion toward the ground with his hand that Ayla sensed meant she had returned to the Great Earth Mother. Jondalar understood as well that the old woman he had grown so fond of was gone.

  “Tamen?” he asked.

  Smiling, Jeren nodded in an exaggerated fashion. Then he pointed to one of the others and said something that included Tamen’s name. A young man, hardly more than a boy, smiled at them, and Jondalar saw a similarity to the man he had known.

  “Tamen, yes,” Jondalar said, smiling and nodding. “Tamen’s son, or perhaps grandson, I think. I wish Tamen were here,” he said to Ayla. “He knew some Zelandonii, and we could talk a little. He made a long Journey there when he was a young man.”

  Jeren looked around the camp, then at Jondalar, and said “Zel-an-don-yee … Ton … Tonolan?”

  This time Jondalar shook his head and looked sad. Then, thinking about it, he made the motion toward the ground. Jeren looked surprised, but he nodded and said a word that was a question. Jondalar didn’t understand, and he looked at Ayla. “Do you know what he’s asking?”

  Though the language was unfamiliar, there was a quality about most languages she had heard that felt familiar. Jeren said the word again, and something about his expression or his tone gave her an idea. She held her hand in the shape of a claw and growled like a cave lion.

  The sound she made was so realistic that all the men gaped at her with shocked surprise, but Jeren nodded with understanding. He had asked how Thonolan died, and she had told him. One of the other men said something to Jeren. When Jeren responded, Jondalar heard another familiar name, Noria. The one who asked smiled at the tall blond man, pointed at him, and then at his own eye, and smiled again.

  Jondalar felt a flush of excitement. Maybe it meant that Noria did have a baby with his blue eyes. But then he wondered if it was just that the hunter had heard of the man with the blue eyes who had celebrated First Rites with her? He couldn’t be sure. The other men were pointing at their eyes and smiling. Were they smiling about a baby with blue eyes? Or grinning about Pleasures with a blue-eyed man?

  He thought about saying Noria’s name and rocking his arms as though he were holding a baby, but then he glanced at Ayla and held back. He hadn’t said anything to her about Noria, or about the announcement Haduma had made the next day that the Mother had blessed the ceremony and that the young woman would have a child, a boy named Jondal, who would have eyes like his. He knew that Ayla wanted a child of his … or of his spirit. How would she feel about it if she knew Noria already had one? If he were Ayla, he would probably be jealous.

  Ayla was making motions indicating that the hunters should sleep near the fire. Several nodded and got up to get their sleeping rolls. They had stashed them downriver before they approached the fire they had smelled, hoping it was a friendly fire, but not sure. But when Ayla saw them heading around the tent, toward the place where she had staked the horses, she ran in front of the men and held up her hand to stop them. They looked at each other with questioning glances when she disappeared into the dark. When they started to leave again, Jondalar made a motion to wait. They smiled and nodded acquiescence.

  Their expression changed to one of fear when Ayla reappeared leading two horses. She stood between the two animals and tried to explain with motions and even the expressive Clan gestures that these were special horses that should not be hunted, but neither she nor Jondalar was sure they understood. Jondalar was even concerned that they might think she had some unique powers to Call horses and had brought these expressly for them to hunt. He told Ayla that he thought a demonstration might help.

  He got a spear from inside the tent and made motions with it as though he were going to stab Racer, but Ayla stood barring the way with her arms held up and crossed in front of her, shaking her head emphatically. Jeren scratched his head and the other men looked puzzled. Finally Jeren nodded, took one of his own spears out of the holder on his back, aimed it toward Racer, and then stabbed it into the ground. Jondalar didn’t know if the man thought Ayla was telling them not to hunt those two horses, or not to hunt horses at all, but some point had been understood.

  The men slept near their fire that night but were up just after first light. Jeren said some words to Ayla that Jondalar vaguely remembered referred to appreciation for food. The visitor smiled at the woman when Wolf sniffed at him and allowed himself to be petted again. She tried to invite them to share their morning meal, but they left quickly.

  “I wish I had known some of their language,” Ayla said. “It was nice to visit, but we couldn’t talk.”

  “Yes, I wish we could have, too,” Jondalar said, sincerely wishing that he had found out whether Noria ever did have a baby, and if it had his blue eyes.

  “In the Clan, different clans used some words in their everyday language that weren’t always understood by everyone, but everyone knew the silent language of gestures. You could always communicate,” Ayla said. “Too bad the Others don’t have a language everyone can understand.”

  “It would be helpful, especially when you are on a Journey, but it’s hard for me to imagine a language that everyone would understand. Do you really think that people of the Clan everywhere can understand the same sign language?” Jondalar asked.

  “It’s not like a language they have to learn. They are born with it, Jondalar. It is so ancient that it is in their memories, and their memories go back to the beginning. You can’t imagine how far back that is,” Ayla said.

  She shivered with a chill of fear as she remembered the time that Creb, to save her life, had taken her back with them, against all tradition. By the unwritten law of the Clan, he should have let her die. But to the Clan, she was dead, now. It occurred to her how ironic that was. When Broud had cursed her with death, he shouldn’t have. He didn’t have a good reason. Creb did have a reason; she had broken the most powerful taboo of the Clan. Perhaps he should have made sure that she died, but he didn’t.

  They began striking camp and stowing their tent, sleeping rolls, cooking utensils, ropes, and other equipment in the pack-saddle baskets, with the efficiency of unspoken routine. Ayla was filling waterbags at the river when Jeren and his hunters returned. With smiles and many words of what were obviously profuse thanks, the men presented Ayla with a package wrapped in a piece of fresh aurochs hide. She opened it to find the tender rump, butchered from a recent kill.

  “I am grateful, Jeren,” Ayla said, and she gave him the beautiful smile that always made Jondalar melt with love. It seemed to have a similar affect on Jeren, and Jondalar smiled inwardly when he saw the dazed expression on the man’s face. It took Jeren a moment to collect himself; then he turned to Jondalar and began talking, trying very hard to communicate something. He stopped when he saw he was not being understood, and he talked to the other men. Then he turned back to Jondalar.

  “Tamen,” he said, and began walking toward the south and motioning for them to follow. “Tamen,” he repeated, beckoning and adding some other words.

  “I think he wants you to go with him,” Ayla said, “to see that man you know. The one who speaks Zelandonii.”

  “Tamen, Zel-an-don-yee. Hadumai,” Jeren said, beckoning both of them.

  “He must want us to visit. What do you think?” Jondalar said.

  “Yes, I think you’re right,” Ayla said. “Do you want to stop and visit?”

/>   “It would mean going back,” Jondalar said, “and I don’t know how far. If we had met them farther south, I wouldn’t have minded stopping for a little while on the way, but I hate to go back now that we’ve come this far.”

  Ayla nodded. “You’ll have to tell him, somehow.”

  Jondalar smiled at Jeren, then shook his head. “I’m sorry” he said, “but we need to go north. North,” he repeated, pointing in that direction.

  Jeren looked distressed, shook his head, then closed his eyes as if trying to think. He walked toward them and took a short staff out of his belt. Jondalar noticed the top of it was carved. He knew he had seen one like it before, and he tried to remember where. Jeren cleared a space on the ground, then drew a line with the staff, and another crossing it. Below the first line, he drew a figure that vaguely resembled a horse. At the end of the second line pointing toward the channel of the Great Mother River, he drew a circle with a few lines radiating from it. Ayla looked more closely.

  “Jondalar,” she said, with excitement in her voice, “when Mamut was showing me symbols and teaching me what they meant, that was a sign for ‘sun.’ ”

  “And that line points in the direction of the setting sun,” Jondalar said, pointing west. “Where he drew the horse, that must be south.” He indicated the direction when he said it.

  Jeren was nodding vigorously. Then he pointed north and frowned. He walked to the north end of the line he had drawn and stood facing them. He lifted his arms and crossed them in front of him, in the same way that Ayla had done when she was trying to tell Jeren not to hunt Whinney and Racer. Then he shook his head no. Ayla and Jondalar looked at each other and back at Jeren.

  “Do you think he’s trying to tell us not to go north?” Ayla asked.

  Jondalar felt a dawning recognition of what Jeren was trying to communicate. “Ayla, I don’t think he just wants us to go south with him and visit. I think he’s trying to tell us something more. I think he’s trying to warn us not to go north.”

  “Warn us? What could be north that he would warn us against?” Ayla said.

  “Could it be the great wall of ice?” Jondalar wondered.

  “We know about the ice. We hunted mammoth near it with the Mamutoi. It’s cold, but not really dangerous, is it?”

  “It does move,” Jondalar said, “over many years, and sometimes it even uproots trees with the changing seasons, but it doesn’t move so fast that you can’t get out of its way.”

  “I don’t think it’s the ice,” Ayla said. “But he’s telling us not to go north, and he seems very concerned.”

  “I think you’re right, but I can’t imagine what could be so dangerous,” Jondalar said. “Sometimes people who don’t travel much beyond their own range imagine that the world outside their territory is dangerous, because it’s different.”

  “I don’t think Jeren is a man who fears very much,” Ayla said.

  “I have to agree,” Jondalar said, then faced the man. “Jeren, I wish I could understand you.”

  Jeren had been watching them. He guessed from their expressions that they had understood his warning, and he was waiting for their response.

  “Do you think we should go with him and talk to Tamen?” Ayla asked.

  “I hate to turn back and lose time now. We still have to reach that glacier before the end of winter. If we keep going, we should make it easily, with time to spare, but if anything happens to delay us, it could be spring and melting, and too dangerous to cross,” Jondalar said.

  “So we’ll keep going north,” Ayla said.

  “I think we should, but we will be watchful. I just wish I knew what I should be watching for.” He looked at the man again. “Jeren, my friend, I thank you for your warning,” he said. “We will be careful, but I think we should keep on going.” He pointed south, then shook his head and pointed north.

  Jeren, trying to protest, shook his head again, but he finally gave up and nodded acceptance. He had done what he could. He went to talk to the other man in the horse-head cape, spoke for a moment, then returned and indicated they were going.

  Ayla and Jondalar waved as Jeren and his hunters left. Then they finished up their packing and, with some reservations, started out toward the north.

  As the Journeyers traveled across the northern end of the vast central grassland, they could see the terrain ahead was changing; the flat lowlands were giving way to rugged hills. The occasional highlands that had interrupted the central plain were connected, though partly submerged beneath the soil in the midland basin, to great broken blocks of faulted sedimentary rock running in an irregular backbone from northeast to southwest through the plain. Relatively recent volcanic eruptions had covered the highlands with fertile soils that nurtured forests of pine, spruce, and larch on the upper reaches, with birch and willows on the lower slopes, while brush and steppe grass grew on the dry lee sides.

  As they started up into the rugged hills, they found themselves having to backtrack and work their way around deep holes and broken formations that blocked their way. Ayla thought the land seemed more barren, though with the deepening cold she wondered if it might be the changing season that gave that impression. Looking back from the heightened elevation, they gained a new perspective of the land they had crossed. The few deciduous trees and brush were bare of leaves, but the central plain was covered with the dusty gold of dry standing hay that would feed multitudes through the winter.

  They sighted many large grazing animals, in herds and individually. Horses seemed most prevalent to Ayla, perhaps because she was especially conscious of them, but giant deer, red deer, and, particularly as they reached the northern steppes, reindeer were also abundant. The bison were gathering into large migratory herds and heading south. During one whole day, the great humpy beasts with huge black horns moved over the rolling hills of the northern grassland in a thick, undulating carpet, and Ayla and Jondalar stopped often to watch. The dust rose to cast an obscuring pall over the great moving mass, the earth shook with the pounding hooves of their passage, and the combined roar of the multitude of deep rolling grunts and bawls growled like thunder.

  They saw mammoths less often, usually traveling north, but even from a distance the giant woolly beasts commanded attention. When not driven by the demands of reproduction, male mammoths tended to form small herds with loose ties for companionship. Occasionally one would join a female herd and travel with it for a while, but whenever the Journeyers noticed a lone mammoth, it was invariably male. The larger permanent herds were of closely related females; a grandmother, the old and wily matriarch who was their leader, and sometimes a sister or two, with their daughters and grandchildren. The female herds were easy to identify because their tusks tended to be somewhat smaller and less curved, and there were always young ones with them.

  Though also impressive when they were sighted, woolly rhinoceroses were most rare and least social. They didn’t, as a rule, herd together. Females kept to small family groups and, except during mating, males were solitary. Neither mammoths nor rhinoceroses, except for the young and the very old, had much to fear from four-legged hunters, not even the huge cave lion. The males in particular could afford to be solitary; the females needed the herds to help protect their young.

  The smaller woolly musk-oxen, however, who were goatlike creatures, all banded together for protection. When they were under attack, the adults usually packed themselves into a circular phalanx facing outward, with the young ones in the middle. A few chamois and ibex made an appearance as Ayla and Jondalar climbed higher in the hills; they often dropped down to lower ground with the approach of winter.

  Many of the small animals were secure for the winter in their nests burrowed deep in the ground, surrounded by stores of seeds, nuts, bulbs, roots, and, in the case of pikas, piles of hay that they had cut and dried. The rabbits and hares were changing color, not to white, but to a lighter mottled shade, and on a wooded knoll they saw a beaver and a tree squirrel. Jondalar used his spear-thrower t
o get the beaver. Besides the meat, the fatty beaver tail was a rare and rich delicacy, roasted by itself on a spit over the fireplace.

  They usually used the spear-throwers for the larger game they hunted. They were both quite accurate with the weapons, but Jondalar had more power, could throw farther. Ayla often brought down the smaller animals with her sling.

  Though they didn’t hunt them, they noticed that otter, badger, polecat, marten, and mink were also numerous. The carnivores—foxes, wolves, lynxes, and larger cats—found sustenance in small game or the other herbivores. And though they seldom fished on this leg of their Journey, Jondalar knew there were sizable fish in the river, including perch, pike, and very big carp.

  Toward evening they saw a cave with a large opening and decided to investigate it. As they approached, the horses did not show any nervousness, which the humans took to be a good sign. Wolf sniffed around with interest when they entered the cave, obviously curious, but no hackles were raised. Seeing the unconcerned behavior of the animals, Ayla felt confident that the cave was empty, and they decided to camp for the night.

  After building a fire, they made a torch to explore a little deeper. Near the front were many signs that the cave had been used before. Jondalar thought the scrapes on the walls were either from a bear or a cave lion. Wolf smelled out droppings nearby but they were so dry and old that it was hard to tell what animal had made them. They found large, dry leg bones that had been partly eaten. The way they were broken and the teeth marks made Ayla think cave hyenas had cracked them with their extremely powerful jaws. She shuddered with repugnance at the thought.

  Hyenas were no worse an animal than any other. They scavenged the carcasses that had died naturally and the kills of others, but so did other predators, including wolves, lions, and humans, and hyenas were also effective pack hunters. That didn’t matter, Ayla’s hatred of them was irrational. To her they represented the worst of all that was bad.