The Mammoth Hunters ec-3 Page 29

  Ayla could hardly wait. She slid off Whinney's back and raced up a steep, narrow path alongside the bone pile to the top of the wall, which formed a ledge in front of a hole in the face of the rock cliff. She almost ran inside, but checked herself at the last minute. This was the place where she had lived alone, and she had survived because never for a moment did she forget to be alert to possible danger. Caves were used not only by people. Edging up along the outside wall, she unwound her sling from her head and stooped to pick up some chunks of rock.

  Carefully, she looked inside. She saw only darkness, but her nose detected a faint smell of wood burned long ago, and a somewhat fresher musky scent of wolverine. But that, too, was old. She stepped inside the opening and let her eyes adjust to the dim light, and then looked around.

  She felt the pressure of tears filling her eyes, and struggled to hold them back to no avail. There it was, her cave. She was home. Everything was so familiar, yet the place where she had lived for so long seemed deserted and forlorn. The light streaming in from the hole above the entrance showed her that her nose had been right, and closer inspection brought a gasp of dismay. The cave was in a shambles. Some animal, perhaps more than one, had indeed broken in, and had left the evidence scattered around. She wasn't sure how much damage had been done.

  Jondalar appeared at the entrance then. He came in, followed by Whinney and Racer. The cave had been home to the mare, too, and the only home Racer knew until they met the Lion Camp.

  "It looks as if we've had a visitor," he said when he became aware of the devastation. "This place is a mess!"

  Ayla heaved a big sigh and wiped a tear away. "I'd better get a fire going and torches lit so we can see how much has been ruined. But first I'd better unpack Whinney so she can rest and graze."

  "Do you think we should just let them run free like that? Racer looked like he was ready to follow those horses. Maybe we should tie them up." Jondalar had some misgivings.

  "Whinney has always run free," Ayla said, feeling a little shocked. "I can't tie her up. She's my friend. She stays with me because she wants to. She went to live with a herd once, when she wanted a stallion, and I missed her so much, I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't had Baby. But she came back. She will stay, and, as long as she does, so will Racer, at least until he grows up. Baby left me. Racer might, too, just like children leave their mothers' hearths when they grow up. But horses are different from lions. I think if he becomes a friend, like Whinney, he might stay."

  Jondalar nodded. "All right, you know them better than I do." Ayla was, after all, the expert. The only expert when it came to horses. "Why don't I make the fire while you unpack her, then?"

  As he went to the places where Ayla had always kept the fire-starting materials and wood, not realizing how familiar her cave had become to him in the short summer he had lived there with her, Jondalar wondered how he could make Racer a good friend. He still didn't understand completely how Ayla communicated with Whinney so that she went where the woman wanted her to when they were riding, and stayed nearby though she had the freedom to leave. Maybe he'd never learn, but he would like to try. Still, until he learned, it wouldn't hurt to keep Racer on a rope, at least when they traveled where there might be other horses.

  A check of the cave and its contents told its story. A wolverine or a hyena, Ayla couldn't tell which since both had been in the cave at different times and their tracks were intermixed, had broken into one of the caches of dried meat. It was cleaned out. One basket of grain they had picked for Whinney and Racer, which had been left fairly exposed, had been chewed into in several places. A variety of small rodents judging by the tracks – voles, pikas, ground squirrels, jerboas, and giant hamsters – had made off with the bonanza and hardly a seed was left. They found one nest stuffed with the plunder beneath a pile of hay nearby. But most of the baskets of grains and roots and dried fruits, which had either been set into holes dug into the dirt floor of the cave, or protected by rocks piled on them, suffered far less damage.

  Ayla was glad they had decided to put the soft leather hides and furs she had made over the years in a sturdy basket and stash it in a cairn. The large pile of rocks had proved too much for the marauding beasts, but the leather left over from the clothes Ayla had made for Jondalar and herself before they left, which had not been put away, was chewed to shreds. Another cairn which held, among other things, a rawhide container filled with carefully rendered fat stored in small sausagelike sections of deer intestines, had been the object of repeated assaults. One corner of the parfleche had been torn out by teeth and claws, one sausage broken into, but the cairn had stood.

  In addition to getting into the stored food, the animals had prowled through other storage areas, knocked over stacks of hand crafted and smoothed wooden bowls and cups, dragged around baskets and mats twined and woven in subtle patterns and designs, defecated in several places, and in general created havoc with whatever they could find. But the actual damage was much less than it first appeared, and they had essentially ignored her large pharmacopoeia of dried and preserved herbal medicines.

  By evening, Ayla was feeling much better. They had cleaned and restored order to the cave, determined that the loss was not too great, cooked and eaten a meal, and even explored the valley to see what changes had taken place. With a fire in the hearth, sleeping furs spread out over clean hay in the shallow trench which Ayla had used as a bed, and Whinney and Racer comfortably settled in their place on the other side of the entrance, Ayla finally felt at home.

  "It's hard to believe I'm back," Ayla said, sitting on a mat in front of the fire beside Jondalar. "I feel as though I've been gone a lifetime, but it hasn't been long at all."

  "No, it hasn't been long."

  "I've learned so much, maybe that's why it seems long. It was good that you convinced me to go with you, Jondalar, and I'm glad we met Talut and the Mamutoi. Do you know how afraid I was to meet the Others?"

  "I knew you were worried about it, but I was sure once you got to know some people, you'd like them."

  "It wasn't just meeting people. It was meeting the Others. To the Clan, that's what they were, and though I'd been told all my life I was born to the Others, I still thought of myself as Clan. Even when I was cursed and knew I couldn't go back, I was afraid of the Others. After Whinney came to live with me, it was worse. I didn't know what to do. I was afraid they wouldn't let me keep her, or would kill her for food. And I was afraid they wouldn't allow me to hunt. I didn't want to live with people who wouldn't let me hunt if I wanted to, or who might make me do something I didn't want to do," Ayla said.

  Suddenly the recollection of her fears and anxieties filled her with discomfort and nervous energy. She got up and walked to the mouth of the cave, then pushed aside the heavy windbreak and walked out onto the top of the jutting wall that formed a broad front porch to the cave. It was cold out and clear. The stars, hard and bright, glittered out of a deep black sky with an edge as sharp as the wind. She hugged herself, and rubbed her arms as she walked toward the end of the ledge.

  She started to shiver, and felt a fur being wrapped around her shoulders, and turned to face Jondalar. He enfolded her in his arms and she snuggled up close to his warmth.

  He bent to kiss her, then said, "It's cold out here. Come back inside."

  Ayla let him lead her in, but stopped just past the heavy hide that she had used for a windbreak since her first winter.

  "This was my tent… no, this was Creb's tent," she corrected herself. "He never used it, though. It was the tent I used when I was one of the women chosen to go along with the men when they hunted, to butcher the meat and help carry it back. But it didn't belong to me. It belonged to Creb. I took it along with me when I left because I thought Creb wouldn't have minded. I couldn't ask him. He was dead, but he wouldn't have seen me if he'd been alive. I had just been cursed." Tears had begun to stream down her face, though she didn't seem to notice. "I was dead. But Durc saw me. He was too young to know
he wasn't supposed to see me. Oh, Jondalar, I didn't want to leave him." She was sobbing now. "But I couldn't take him with me. I didn't know what might happen to me."

  He wasn't sure what to say, or what to do, so he just held her and let her cry.

  "I want to see him again. Every time I see Rydag, I think of Durc. I wish he was here with me now. I wish we both were being adopted by the Mamutoi."

  "Ayla, it's late. You're tired. Come to bed," Jondalar said, leading her to the sleeping furs, but he was feeling uneasy. Such thinking was unrealistic, and he didn't want to encourage her.

  She turned obediently and let him guide her. Silently, he helped her out of her clothes, then sat her down and pushed her gently back, and covered her with the furs. He added wood and banked the coals in the fireplace to last longer, then quickly undressed, and crawled into bed beside her. He put his arm around her and kissed her, gently, barely touching her lips with his.

  The effect was tantalizing, and he felt her tingling response. With the same light, almost tickling touch, he began kissing her face; her cheeks, her closed eyes, and then her soft full lips again. He reached up and tilted her jaw back, and caressed her throat and her neck the same way. Ayla made herself lie still, and instead of feeling tickled, shivers of exquisite fire followed his lambent touch, and dispelled her sorrowful mood.

  His fingertips traced the curve of her shoulder and brushed the length of her arm. Then, slowly, with a whisper of touch, he drew his hand back up the inside of her arm. She shook with a tingling spasm that sensitized every nerve with quickened expectation. As he followed the outline of her body down her side, his skillful hand glanced over her soft nipple. It rose up firm and ready as an intense shock of pleasure shot through her.

  Jondalar couldn't resist, and bent over to take it in his mouth. She pressed up to him as he suckled and pulled and nibbled, feeling a warm wetness between her thighs as the acute sensations sent corresponding twinges deep inside. He smelled the woman-scent of her skin, and felt a drawing fullness in his loins as he sensed her readiness. He never seemed able to get enough of her, and she was always ready for him. Not once, that he could remember, had she ever turned him away. No matter what the circumstances, indoors or out, in warm furs or on cold ground, however he wanted her, she was there for him, not just acquiescing, but an active, willing partner. Only during her moon time was she a little subdued, as though she felt shy about it, and respecting her wishes, he held back.

  As he reached to caress her thigh and she opened to him, he felt so strong an urge he could have taken her that instant, but he wanted it to last. They were in a warm dry place, alone, for probably the last time all winter. Not that he hesitated in the longhouse of the Mamutoi, but being alone together lent a special quality of freedom and intensity to their Pleasures. His hand encountered her moistness, then her small, erect center of Pleasure, and he heard her breath explode in gasps and cries as he rubbed and fondled it. He reached lower, and entered with two fingers and explored her depths and textures as she arched her back and moaned. Oh, how he wanted her, he thought, but not yet.

  He let go of her nipple, and found her mouth, slightly open. He kissed her firmly, loving the slow sensuous touch of her tongue that found his as he reached hers. He pulled back for a moment, to exercise some control before he gave in entirely to his overpowering drive and this beautiful, willing woman he loved. He looked at her face until she opened her eyes.

  In daylight, her eyes were gray-blue, the color of fine flint, but now they were dark and so full of longing and love his throat hurt with the feeling that arose from the depths of his being. He touched her cheek with the back of his forefinger, outlined her jaw, and ran it over her lips. He couldn't get enough of looking at her, of touching her, as though he wanted to etch her face into his memory. She looked up at him, at eyes so vividly blue they looked violet in firelight, and were so compelling with his love and desire, she wanted to melt into them. If she wanted to, she couldn't have refused him, and she didn't want to.

  He kissed her, then moved his warm tongue down her throat and to the depression between her breasts. With both hands, he cupped their full roundness, then reached fur a nipple and suckled. She kneaded and massaged his shoulders and arms, moaning softly as waves of tingling sensation coursed through her body.

  He worked his way down with his tongue and his mouth, wetted the depression of her navel with his tongue, then felt the texture of soft hair. She arched a little in invitation, and with a moist and sensitive tongue found the top of her slit, and then the small center of Pleasure. She cried out as he reached it.

  Then she sat up, curled around until she found his rigid manhood, and took it into her mouth as far as she could. He gave way a little, and she tasted a spurt of warmth, while her hands reached for his soft pouches.

  He felt the pressure building, the drawing from his loins, and the throbbing pulsations in his full member as he tasted of her womanness, and rediscovered her folds and ridges and her deep lovely well. He almost couldn't get enough. He wanted to touch every part of her, taste every part of her, wanted more and more of her, and felt her warmth and a pulling sensation, and both her hands moving up and down his long and full shaft. He ached to enter her.

  With supreme effort, he pulled away, turned around and found the source of her womanhood again, explored her with his knowing hands. Then bent down to her node, nuzzling until her breath came in spasms and cries. She felt the surging, building of inexpressible and exquisite tension. She called for him, reached for him, and then he rose up between her thighs, and with a trembling of expectation and control, finally entered her, and exulted in her warm welcome.

  He'd held back so long it took a moment to let go. He drove in again, deep, reveling in the wonder of her who could accept all his full size. With joyous abandon, he pushed in again, and out, and in, faster, surging to higher peaks, while she rose up to meet him, matching him stroke for stroke. Then with cries that rose in pitch, he felt it coming, it surged within her, and they burst forth in that final overwhelming rush of energy and pleasure, and release.

  They were both too drained, too sensually spent, to move. He was sprawled on top of her, but she always loved that part, the weight of his body on her. She smelled the faint odor of herself on him, which always reminded her how loved she had just been, and why she felt so deliciously drowsy. She still felt the sheer unexpected wonder of the Pleasures. She hadn't known her body could feel such delight and joy. She had only known the degradation of being mounted out of hatred and contempt. Until Jondalar, she didn't know there was any other way.

  He pulled himself up, finally, kissing a breast and nuzzling her navel as he backed off and got up. Then she got up, and headed toward the back, dropping some cooking stones in the fire.

  "Will you pour some water in that cooking basket, Jondalar? I think the large waterbag is full," she said, on her way to the far corner of the cave, which she used when it was too cold to go outside to relieve herself.

  When she returned, she picked the hot stones out of the fire the way she had learned from the Mamutoi, and dropped them into the water that was in a watertight basket. They hissed and steamed as their heat warmed the water. She fished them out and put them back in the fire, and added others that were hot.

  When the water was simmering, she scooped out a few cupfuls, put them in a wooden basin, and from her supply of herbals, added a few dried lilaclike ceanothus flowers. A fragrant, spicy perfume filled the air, and when she dipped in a soft scrap of leather, the solution of plant saponin foamed slightly, but it would need no rinsing and leave only a pleasant scent. He watched her standing by the fire while she wiped her face and washed her body, drinking in her beauty as she moved, and wishing he could begin again.

  She gave Jondalar a piece of absorbent rabbit skin and passed the basin to him. While he cleansed himself – it was a custom she developed after Jondalar arrived, which he adopted – she looked over her herbs again, pleased to have her entire supply avail
able. She selected individual combinations for a tea for each. For herself, she started with her usual golden thread and antelope root, wondering again for a moment if she should stop taking it and see if a baby would start growing inside her. In spite of his explanations, she still believed it was a man, not spirits, that started the life growing. But whatever the cause, Iza's magic seemed to work, and her woman's curse, or rather moon time, as Jondalar called it, still came regularly. It would be nice to have a baby that came from Pleasures with Jondalar, she thought, but maybe it was best to wait. If he decides to become a Mamutoi, too, then perhaps.

  She looked at thistle next for her tea, a strengthener of the heart and breath, and good for mother's milk, but she chose damiana instead, which helped keep women's cycles in balance. Then she selected red clover and rose hips for general good health and taste. For Jondalar she picked ginseng, for male balance, energy, and endurance, added yellow dock, a tonic and purifier, then licorice root, because she had noticed him frowning, which was usually a sign that he was worried or stressed about something, and to sweeten it. She put in a pinch of chamomile for nerves as well.

  She straightened and rearranged the furs, and gave Jondalar his cup, the wooden one she had made that he liked so well. Then, a little chilly, they both went back to bed, finished their tea, and snuggled together.

  "You smell nice, like flowers," he said, breathing in her ear, and nibbling her earlobe.

  "So do you."

  He kissed her, gently, then lingered, with more feeling. "The tea was good. What was in it?" he asked, kissing her neck.

  "Just chamomile and some things to make you feel good, and give you strength and endurance. I don't know your names for all of them."

  He kissed her then, with more heat, and she responded with warmth. He propped himself up on one elbow, and looked down at her.