The Mammoth Hunters ec-3 Read online

  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!

  2

  Ayla was hiding in a tiny cleft of a sheer rock wall watching a huge cave lion's claw reach in to get her. She screamed in pain and fear when it found her bare thigh and raked it with four parallel gashes. The Spirit of the Great Cave Lion himself had chosen her, and caused her to be marked to show he was her totem, Creb had explained, after a testing far beyond that which even a man had to endure, though she had been a girl of only five years. A sensation of quivering earth beneath her feet brought a rush of nausea.

  She shook her head to dispel the vivid memory.

  "What's wrong, Ayla?" Jondalar asked, noticing her distress.

  "I saw that skull," she said, pointing to the decoration over the door, "and remembered when I was chosen, when the Cave Lion became my totem!"

  "We are the Lion Camp," Talut announced, with pride, though he had said it before. He didn't understand them when they spoke Jondalar's language, but he saw the interest they were showing in the Camp's talisman.

  "The cave lion holds strong meaning for Ayla," Jondalar explained. "She says the spirit of the great cat guides and protects her."

  "Then you should be comfortable here," Talut said, beaming a smile at her, feeling pleased.

  She noticed Nezzie carrying Rydag and thought again of her son. "I think so," she said.

  Before they started in, the young woman stopped to examine the entrance arch, and smiled when she saw how its perfect symmetry had been achieved. It was simple, but she would not have thought of it. Two large mammoth tusks, from the same animal or at least animals of the same size, had been anchored firmly in the ground with the tips facing each other and joined together at the top of the arch in a sleeve made from a hollow short section of a mammoth leg bone.

  A heavy curtain of mammoth hide covered the opening, which was high enough so that even Talut, moving the drape aside, could enter without ducking his head. The arch led to a roomy entrance area, with another symmetrical arch of mammoth tusks hung with leather directly across. They stepped down into a circular foyer whose thick walls curved up to a shallow domed ceiling.

  As they walked through, Ayla noticed the side walls, which seemed to be a mosaic of mammoth bones, were lined with outer clothes hung on pegs and racks with storage containers and implements. Talut pulled back the inner drape, went on through and held it back for the guests.

  Ayla stepped down again. Then stopped, and stared in amazement, overwhelmed by bewildering impressions of unknown objects, unfamiliar sights, and strong colors. Much of what she saw was incomprehensible to her and she grasped at that which she could make sense of.

  The space they were in had a large fireplace near the center. A massive haunch of meat was cooking over it, spitted on a long pole. Each end was resting in a groove cut in the knee joint of an upright leg bone of a mammoth calf, sunk into the ground. A fork from a large branching antler of a deer had been fashioned into a crank and a boy was turning it. He was one of the children who had stayed to watch her and Whinney. Ayla recognized him and smiled. He grinned back.

  She was surprised by the spaciousness of the neat and comfortable earthlodge, as her eyes became accustomed to the dimmer light indoors. The fireplace was only the first of a row of hearths extending down the middle of the longhouse, a dwelling that was over eighty feet in length and almost twenty feet wide.

  Seven fires, Ayla counted to herself, pressing her fingers against her leg inconspicuously and thinking the counting words Jondalar had taught her.

  It was warm inside, she realized. The fires warmed the interior of the semisubterranean dwelling more than fires usually warmed the caves she was accustomed to. It was quite warm, in fact, and she noticed several people farther back who were very lightly clad.

  But it wasn't any darker at the back. The ceiling was about the same height throughout, twelve feet or so, and had smoke holes above each fireplace that let in light as well. Mammoth bone rafters, hung with clothing, implements, and food, extended across, but the center section of the ceiling was made of many reindeer antlers entwined together.

  Suddenly Ayla became aware of a smell that made her mouth water. It's mammoth meat! she thought. She hadn't tasted rich, tender mammoth meat since she left the cave of the Clan. There were other delicious cooking odors, too. Some familiar, some not, but they combined to remind her that she was hungry.

  As they were led along a well-trodden passageway that ran down the middle of the longhouse next to several hearths, she noticed wide benches with furs piled on them, extending out from the walls. Some people were sitting on them, relaxing or talking. She felt them looking at her as she walked past. She saw more of the mammoth tusk archways along the sides, and wondered where they led, but she hesitated to ask.

  It is like a cave, she thought, a large comfortable cave. But the arching tusks and large, long mammoth bones used as posts, supports, and walls made her realize it was not a cave that someone had found. It was one they had built!

  The first area, in which the roast was cooking, was larger than the rest, and so was the fourth, where Talut led them. Several bare sleeping benches along the walls, apparently unused, showed how they were constructed.

  When they had excavated the lower floor, wide platforms of dirt were left just below ground level along both sides and braced with strategically placed mammoth bones. More mammoth bones were placed across the top of the platforms, filled in with matted grass between the spaces, to raise and support pallets of soft leather stuffed with mammoth wool and
other downy materials. With several layers of furs added, the dirt platforms became warm and comfortable beds or couches.

  Jondalar wondered if the hearth to which they were led was unoccupied. It seemed bare, but for all its empty spaces, it had a lived-in feeling. Coals glowed in the fireplace, furs and skins were piled up on some of the benches, and dried herbs hung from racks.

  "Visitors usually stay at the Mammoth Hearth," Talut explained, "if Mamut doesn't object. I will ask."

  "Of course they may stay, Talut."

  The voice came from an empty bench. Jondalar spun around and stared as one of the piles of furs moved. Then two eyes gleamed out of a face marked, high on the right cheek, with tattooed chevrons that fell into the seams and stitched across the wrinkles of incredible age. What he had thought was the fur of a winter animal turned out to be a white beard. Two long thin shanks unwound from a cross-legged position and dropped over the edge of the raised platform to the floor.

  "Don't look so surprised, man of the Zelandonii. The woman knew I was here," the old man said in a strong voice that carried little hint of his advanced years.

  "Did you, Ayla?" Jondalar asked, but she didn't seem to hear him. Ayla and the old man were locked in the grip of each other's eyes, staring as though they would see into each other's soul. Then, the young woman dropped to the ground in front of the old Mamut, crossing her legs and bowing her head.

  Jondalar was puzzled, and embarrassed. She was using the sign language which she had told him the people of the Clan used to communicate. That way of sitting was the posture of deference and respect a Clan woman assumed when she was asking permission to express herself. The only other time he'd seen her in that pose was when she was trying to tell him something very important, something she could not communicate in any other way; when the words he had taught her were not enough to tell him how she felt. He wondered how something could be expressed more clearly in a language in which gestures and actions were used more than words, but he had been more surprised to know those people communicated at all.

  But he wished she hadn't done that here. His face reddened at seeing her use flathead signals in public like that, and he wanted to rush to tell her to get up, before someone else saw her. The posture made him feel uncomfortable anyway, as though she were offering to him the reverence and homage that was due to Doni, the Great Earth Mother. He had thought of it as something private between them, personal, not something to show someone else. It was one thing to do that with him, when they were alone, but he wanted her to make a good impression on these people. He wanted them to like her. He didn't want them to know her background.

  The Mamut leveled a sharp look at him, then turned back to Ayla. He studied her for a moment, then leaned over and tapped her shoulder.

  Ayla looked up and saw wise, gentle eyes in a face striated with fine creases and soft puckers. The tattoo under his right eye gave her a fleeting impression of a darkened eye socket and missing eye, and for a heartbeat she thought it was Creb. But the old holy man of the Clan who, with Iza, had raised her and cared for her, was dead, and so was Iza. Then who was this man that had evoked such strong feelings in her? Why was she sitting at his feet like a woman of the Clan? And how had he known the proper Clan response?

  "Get up, my dear. We will talk later," the Mamut said. "You need time to rest and eat. These are beds – sleeping places," he explained, indicating the benches, as though he knew she might need to be told. "There are extra furs and bedding over there."

  Ayla rose gracefully to her feet. The observant old man saw years of practice in the movement, and added that bit of information to his growing knowledge of the woman. In their short meeting, he already knew more about Ayla and Jondalar than anyone else in the Camp. But then he had an advantage. He knew more about where Ayla came from than anyone else in the Camp.

  The mammoth roast had been carried outside on a large pelvic bone platter along with various roots, vegetables, and fruits to enjoy the meal in the late afternoon sun. Mammoth meat was just as rich and tender as Ayla remembered, but she'd had a difficult moment when the meal was served. She didn't know the protocol. On certain occasions, usually more formal ones, the women of the Clan ate separately from the men. Usually, though, they sat in family groups together, but even then, the men were served first.

  Ayla didn't know that the Mamutoi honored guests by offering them the first and choicest piece, or that custom dictated, in deference to the Mother, that a woman take the first bite. Ayla hung back when the food was brought out, keeping behind Jondalar, trying to watch the others unobtrusively. There was a moment of confused shuffling while everyone stood back waiting for her to start, and she kept trying to get behind them.

  Some members of the Camp became aware of the action, and with mischievous grins began to make a game of it. But it didn't seem funny to Ayla. She knew she was doing something wrong, and watching Jondalar didn't help. He was trying to urge her forward, too.

  Mamut came to her aid. He took her arm and led her to the bone platter of thick-sliced mammoth roast. "You are expected to eat first, Ayla," he said.

  "But I am a woman!" she protested.

  "That is why you are expected to eat first. It is our offering to the Mother, and it is better if a woman accepts it in Her place. Take the best piece, not for your sake, but to honor Mut," the old man explained.

  She looked at him, first with surprise, and then with gratitude. She picked up a plate, a slightly curved piece of ivory flaked off a tusk, and with great seriousness carefully chose the best slice. Jondalar smiled at her, nodding approval, then others crowded forward to serve themselves. When she was through, Ayla put the plate on the ground where she had seen others put theirs.

  "I wondered if you were showing us a new dance earlier," said a voice from close behind her.

  Ayla turned to see the dark eyes of the man with brown skin. She didn't understand the word "dance," but his wide smile was friendly. She smiled back.

  "Did anyone ever tell you how beautiful you are when you smile?" he said.

  "Beautiful? Me?" She laughed and shook her head in disbelief.

  Jondalar had said almost the same words to her once, but Ayla did not think of herself that way. Since long before she reached womanhood, she had been thinner and taller than the people who had raised her. She'd looked so different, with her bulging forehead and the funny bone beneath her mouth that Jondalar said was a chin, she always thought of herself as big and ugly.

  Ranec watched her, intrigued. She laughed with childlike abandon, as though she genuinely thought he'd said something funny. It was not the response he expected. A coy smile, perhaps, or a knowing, laughing invitation, but Ayla's gray-blue eyes held no guile, and there was nothing coy or self-conscious about the way she tossed her head back or pushed her long hair out of her way.

  Rather, she moved with the natural fluid grace of an animal, a horse perhaps, or a lion. She had an aura about her, a quality that he couldn't quite define, but it had elements of complete candor and honesty, and yet some deep mystery. She seemed innocent, like a baby, open to everything, but she was every bit a woman, a tall, stunning, uncompromisingly beautiful woman.

  He looked her over with interest and curiosity. Her hair, thick and long with a natural wave, was a lustrous deep gold, like a field of hay blowing in the wind; her eyes were large and wide-spaced and framed with lashes a shade darker than her hair. With a sculptor's knowing sense he examined the clean, elegant structure of her face, the muscled grace of her body, and when his eyes reached her full breasts and inviting hips, they took on a look that disconcerted her.

  She flushed and looked away. Though Jondalar had told her it was proper, she wasn't sure if she liked this looking straight at someone. It made her feel defenseless, vulnerable. Jondalar's back was turned to her when she looked in his direction, but his stance told her more than words. He was angry. Why was he angry? Had she done anything to make him angry?

  "Talut! Ranec! Barzec! Look who's here!"
a voice called out.

  Everyone turned to look. Several people were coming over the rise at the top of the slope. Nezzie and Talut both started up the hill as a young man broke away and ran toward them. They met midway and embraced enthusiastically. Ranec rushed to meet one of those approaching, too, and though the greeting was more restrained, it was still with warm affection that he hugged an older man.

  Ayla watched with a strangely empty feeling as the rest of the people of the Camp deserted the visitors in their eagerness to greet returning relatives and friends, all talking and laughing at the same time. She was Ayla of No People. She had no place to go, no home to return to, no clan to welcome her with hugs and kisses. Iza and Creb, who had loved her, were dead, and she was dead to the ones she loved.

  Uba, Iza's daughter, had been as much a sister as anyone could be; they were related by love if not by blood. But Uba would shut her heart and her mind to her if she saw Ayla now; would refuse to believe her eyes; would not believe her eyes; would not see her. Broud had cursed her with death. She was, therefore, dead.

  And would Durc even remember her? She'd had to leave him with Brun's clan. Even if she could have stolen him away, there would have been just the two of them. If something had happened to her, he would have been left alone. It was best to leave him with the clan. Uba loved him and would take care of him. Everyone loved him – except Broud. Brun would protect him, though, and would teach him to hunt. And he would grow up strong and brave, and be as good with a sling as she was, and be a fast runner, and.

  Suddenly she noticed one member of the Camp who had not run up the slope. Rydag was standing by the earthlodge, one hand on a tusk, gazing round-eyed at the band of happy laughing people walking back down. She saw them, then, through his eyes, arms around each other, holding children, while other children jumped up and down begging to be held. He was breathing too hard, she thought, feeling too much excitement.