The Valley of Horses Read online

  “I think Charoli’s gang has made some problems for us,” Thonolan said. “We wanted to cross over to the right bank so we wouldn’t have to worry about crossing her later when she’s the Great Mother River.”

  Laduni smiled. Now that they were on another subject, his rage left as quickly as it had come. “The Great Mother River has tributaries that are big rivers, Thonolan. If you are going to follow her all the way to the end, you’re going to have to get used to crossing rivers. Let me make a suggestion. Keep to this side until after the big whirlpool. She separates into channels as she goes across some flat land, and smaller branches are easier to cross than one big river. By then, it’ll be warmer, too. If you want to visit the Sarmunai, go north after you cross.”

  “How far is it to the whirlpool?” Jondalar asked.

  “I’ll scratch out a map for you,” Laduni said, taking out his flint knife. “Lanalia, give me that piece of bark. Maybe some of the others can add some landmarks farther on. Allowing for river crossings and hunting along the way, you should make it to the place where the river turns south by summer.”

  “Summer,” Jondalar mused. “I’m so tired of ice and snow, I can hardly wait until summer. I could use some warmth.” He noticed Lanalia’s leg next to his again, and put his hand on her thigh.

  3

  The first stars pierced the evening sky as Ayla carefully picked her way down the steep rocky side of the ravine. As soon as she cleared the edge, the wind ceased abruptly, and she stopped for a moment to savor its absence. But the walls cut off the failing light as well. By the time she reached the bottom, the dense brush along the small river was a tangled silhouette seen against the moving reflection of the myriad shining points above.

  She took a deep refreshing drink from the river, then felt her way into the deeper black near the wall. She didn’t bother with the tent, just spread out her fur and rolled up in it, feeling more secure with a wall at her back than she had on the open plains under her tent. She watched a gibbous moon show its nearly full face over the edge of the ravine before she fell asleep.

  She woke up screaming!

  She bolted upright—stark terror charging through her, pounding in her temples, and racing her heart—and stared at vague shapes in the black-on-black void in front of her. She jumped as a sharp crack and a simultaneous flash of light blinded her. Shuddering, she watched a tall pine, struck by the searing bolt, split and slowly, still clinging to its severed half, fall to the ground. It was surreal, the flaming tree lighting its own death scene and casting grotesque shadows on the wall behind.

  The fire sputtered and hissed as drenching rain doused it. Ayla huddled closer to the wall, oblivious still to both her warm tears and the cold drops splattering her face. The first distant thunder, reminiscent of an earth-shaking rumble, had kindled another recurring dream from the ashes of hidden memory; a nightmare she never could quite remember when she awoke and that always left her with a nauseous sense of uneasiness and overwhelming grief. Another bright shaft, followed by a loud roar, momentarily filled the black void with eerie brightness, giving her a flashing glimpse of the steep walls and the jagged tree trunk snapped like a twig by the powerful finger of light from the sky.

  Shivering as much from fear as from the wet, penetrating cold, she clutched her amulet, reaching for anything that promised protection. It was a reaction only partly caused by the thunder and lightning. Ayla didn’t like thunderstorms much, but she was accustomed to them; they were often more helpful than destructive. She was still feeling the emotional aftermath of her earthquake nightmare. Earthquakes were an evil that had never failed to bring devastating loss and wrenching change into her life, and there was nothing she feared more.

  Finally she realized she was wet and took her hide tent out of her carrying basket. She pulled it over her sleeping fur like a cover and buried her head beneath it. She was still shaking long after she warmed up, but as the night wore on the fearful storm abated, and she finally slept.

  Birds filled the early morning air with twitterings, chirpings, and raucous caws. Ayla pulled back the cover and looked around her with delight. A world of green, still wet from the rain, glittered in the morning sun. She was on a broad rocky beach at a place where a small river took a turn toward the east in its winding, generally southward course.

  On the opposite bank, a row of dark green pines reached to the top of the wall behind them but no farther. Any tentative strivings above the lip of the river gorge were cut short by the slashing winds of the steppes above. It gave the tallest trees a peculiar blunted look, their growth forced to branching fullness. One soaring giant of near perfect symmetry, spoiled only by a spire growing at right angles to the trunk, grew beside another with a charred, jagged, high stump clinging to its inverted top. The trees were growing on a narrow strip on the other side of the river between the bank and the wall, some so close to the water that bare roots were exposed.

  On her side, upstream of the rocky beach, supple willows arched over, weeping long, pale green leaf-tears into the stream. The flattened stems on the tall aspens made the leaves quiver in the gentle breeze. White-barked birches grew in clumps while their alder cousins were only high shrubs. Lianas climbed and twined around the trees, and bushes of many varieties in full leaf crowded close to the stream.

  Ayla had traveled the parched and withered steppes so long, she had forgotten how beautiful green could be. The small river sparkled an invitation, and, her fears of the storm forgotten, she jumped up and ran across the beach. A drink was her first thought; then, impulsively, she untied the long thong of her wrap, took off her amulet, and splashed into the water. The bank dropped off quickly and she dove under, then swam to the steep opposite side.

  The water was cool and refreshing, and washing off the dust and grime of the steppes was a welcome pleasure. She swam upstream and felt the current growing stronger and the water chilling as the sheer walls closed in, narrowing the river. She rolled over on her back and, cradled by the buoyant water, let the flow carry her downstream. She gazed up at deep azure filling the space between the high cliffs, then noticed a dark hole in the wall across from the beach upstream. Could that be a cave? she thought with a surge of excitement. I wonder if it would be hard to reach?

  The young woman waded back to the beach and sat down on the warm stones to let the sun dry her. Her eye was drawn by the quick perky gestures of birds hopping on the ground near the brush, pulling on worms brought close to the surface by the night’s rain, and flitting from branch to branch feeding on bushes heavy with berries.

  Look at those raspberries! They’re so big, she thought. A flurry of wings welcomed her approach, then settled nearby. She stuffed handfuls of the sweet juicy berries in her mouth. After she had her fill, she rinsed off her hands and put her amulet on, but wrinkled her nose at her grimy, stained, and sweaty wrap. She had no other. When she had gone back into the earthquake-littered cave just before she left, to get clothing, food, and shelter, survival had been her concern, not whether she would need a change of summer wraps.

  And she was thinking survival again. Her hopeless thoughts on the dry and dreary steppes were dispelled by the fresh green valley. The raspberries had stimulated her appetite rather than satisfying it. She wanted something more substantial and walked to her sleeping place to get her sling. She spread out her wet hide tent and damp fur on the sun-warmed stones, then put on her soiled wrap and began looking for smooth round pebbles.

  Close inspection revealed the beach held more than stones. It was also strewn with dull gray driftwood and bleached white bones, many of them piled in a huge mound against a jutting wall. Violent spring floods had uprooted trees and swept away unwary animals, hurled them through the narrow constriction of sheer rock upstream, and slammed them against a cul-de-sac in the near wall as the swirling water tore around the bend. Ayla saw giant antlers, long bison horns, and several enormous, curving ivory tusks in the heap; not even the great mammoth was immune to the force of the tide. L
arge boulders were mixed in the deposit, too, but the woman’s eyes narrowed when she saw several medium-size, chalky gray stones.

  This is flint! she said to herself after a closer look. I’m sure of it. I need a hammerstone to break one open, but I’m just sure of it. Excitedly, Ayla scanned the beach for a smooth oval stone she could hold comfortably in her hand. When she found one, she struck the chalky outer covering of the nodule. A piece of the whitish cortex broke off, exposing the dull sheen of the dark gray stone within.

  It is flint! I knew it was! Her mind raced with thoughts of the tools she could make. I can even make some spares. Then I won’t have to worry so much about breaking something. She lugged over a few more of the heavy stones, flushed out of the chalk deposits far upstream and carried by surging current until they came to rest at the foot of the stone wall. The discovery encouraged her to explore further.

  The wall, that in times of flood presented a barrier to the rushing torrent, jutted out toward the inside bend of the river. Contained within its normal banks, the water level was low enough to allow easy access around it, but when she looked beyond, she stopped. Spread out before her was the valley she had glimpsed from above.

  Around the bend, the river broadened and bubbled over and around rocks exposed by shallower water. It flowed east at the foot of the steep opposite wall of the gorge. Along its near bank trees and brush protected from the cutting wind grew to their full luxuriant height. On her left, beyond the stone barrier, the wall of the gorge veered away, and its slope decreased to a gradual incline that blended into steppes toward the north and east. Ahead, the wide valley was a lush field of ripe hay moving in waves as gusts of wind blew down the north slope, and midway down its length the small herd of steppe horses was grazing.

  Ayla, breathing in the beauty and tranquillity of the scene, could hardly believe such a place could exist in the middle of the dry windy prairie. The valley was an extravagant oasis hidden in a crack of the arid plains; a microcosm of abundance, as though nature, constrained to utilitarian economy on the steppes, lavished her bounty in extra measure where the opportunity allowed it.

  The young woman studied the horses in the distance, intrigued by them. They were sturdy, compact animals with rather short legs, thick necks, and heavy heads with overhanging noses that reminded her of the large overhanging noses of some men of the Clan. They had heavy shaggy coats and short stiff manes. Though some tended to gray, most were shades of buff ranging from the neutral beige of the dust to the color of ripe hay. Off to one side stood a hay-colored stallion, and Ayla noticed several foals of the same shade. The stallion lifted his head, shaking his short mane, and whinnied.

  “Proud of your clan, aren’t you?” she motioned, smiling.

  She started walking down the field close to the brush that hugged the stream. She noted the vegetation without consciously thinking about it, as aware of the medicinal qualities as she was of the nutritional values. It had been part of her training as a medicine woman to learn and collect plants for their healing magic, and there was very little she couldn’t identify immediately. This time food was her aim.

  She noticed the leaves and the dried umbeled flower stalk that pointed to wild carrots a few inches below the ground, but passed them by as though she hadn’t seen them. The impression was misleading. She would remember the place just as precisely as if she had marked it, but vegetation would stay put. Her sharp eyes had picked up the trail of a hare, and at the moment she was concentrating on securing meat.

  With the silent stealth of an experienced hunter, she followed fresh droppings, a bent blade of grass, a faint print in the dirt, and just ahead she distinguished the shape of the animal hiding in camouflaging cover. She pulled her sling from her waist thong and reached into a fold of her wrap for two stones. When the hare bolted she was ready. With the unconscious grace of years of practice, she hurled a stone and the next instant a second one, and heard a satisfying thwack, thwack. Both missiles found their mark.

  Ayla picked up her kill and thought about the time she had taught herself that double-stone technique. An overconfident attempt to kill a lynx had taught her the extent of her vulnerability. But it had taken long sessions of practice to perfect a way to place a second stone in position on the downstroke of the first cast so she could rapid-fire two stones in quick succession.

  On her way back, she chopped a branch from a tree, sharpened a point on one end, and used it to dig up the wild carrots. She put them in a fold of her wrap and chopped off two forked branches before returning to the beach. She put down the hare and the roots and got the fire drill and platform out of her basket, then began gathering dry driftwood from under larger pieces in the bone pile, and deadfall from beneath the protective branches of the trees. With the same tool she had used to sharpen the digging stick, one with a V-shaped notch on the sharp edge, she shaved curls from a dry stick. Then she peeled loose hairy bark from the old stalks of sagebrush, and dried fuzz from the seed pods of fireweed.

  She found a comfortable place to sit, then sorted the wood according to size and arranged the tinder, kindling, and larger wood around her. She examined the platform, a piece of dry clematis vine, dug a little notch out along one edge with a flint borer, and fitted an end of the previous season’s dry woody cattail stalk into the hole to check the size. She arranged the fireweed fuzz in a nest of stringy bark under the notch of the fire platform and braced it with her foot, then put the end of the cattail stalk in the notch and took a deep breath. Fire making took concentration.

  Placing both palms together at the top of the stick, she began twirling it back and forth between her hands, exerting a downward pressure. As she twirled it, the constant pressure moved her hands down the stick until they nearly touched the platform. If she’d had another person to help, that would have been the time for that person to start at the top. But, alone, she had to let go at the bottom and reach quickly for the top again, never letting the rhythm of the twirling stop, nor letting up the pressure for more than an instant, or the heat generated by the friction would dissipate and would not build up enough to start the wood smoldering. It was hard work and allowed no time to rest.

  Ayla got into the rhythm of the movement, ignoring the sweat that formed on her brow and started running into her eyes. With the continuous movement, the hole deepened and sawdust from the soft wood accumulated. She smelled woodsmoke and saw the notch blacken before she saw a wisp of smoke, encouraging her to continue though her arms ached. Finally, a small glowing coal burned through the platform and dropped onto the nest of dry tinder beneath it. The next stage was even more critical. If the ember died, she’d have to begin all over again.

  She bent over so that her face was so near the coal she could feel the heat, and began to blow on it. She watched it grow brighter with each breath, then die down again as she gulped another mouthful of air. She held tiny curled shavings to the bit of smoldering wood and watched them brighten and turn black without igniting. Then a tiny flame burst out. She blew harder, fed it more shavings, and, when she had a small pile burning, added a few sticks of kindling.

  She rested only after the large driftwood logs were blazing and the fire was firmly established. She gathered a few more pieces and piled them nearby; then with another, slightly larger notched tool, she shaved the bark off the green branch she had used to dig up the wild carrots. She planted the forked branches upright on either side of the fire so that the pointed branch fit comfortably between them and then turned to skinning the hare.

  By the time the fire had died down to hot coals, the hare was skewered and ready for roasting. She started to wrap the entrails in the hide to dispose of it as she had done while traveling, then changed her mind.

  I could use the fur, she thought. It would only take a day or so.…

  She rinsed the wild carrots in the river—and the blood off her hands—and wrapped them in plantain leaves. The large fibrous leaves were edible, but she couldn’t help thinking of their other use as sturd
y, healing bandages for cuts or bruises. She put the leaf-wrapped wild carrots next to the coals.

  She sat back and relaxed for a moment, then decided to stake out the furry hide. While her meal cooked, she scraped away the blood vessels, hair follicles, and membranes from the inside of the skin with the broken scraper, and thought about making a new one.

  She hummed a tuneless crooning murmur while she worked, and her thoughts wandered. Maybe I should stay here a few days, finish this hide. Need to make some tools anyway. Could try to reach that hole in the wall upriver. That hare is starting to smell good. A cave would keep me out of the rain—might not be usable, though.

  She got up and turned the spit, then started working from a different side. I can’t stay too long. I’ve got to find people before winter. She stopped scraping the skin, her attention suddenly focused on the inner turmoil that was never far from the surface of her mind. Where are they? Iza said there were many Others on the mainland. Why can’t I find them? What am I going to do, Iza? Without warning, tears welled up and overflowed. Oh, Iza, I miss you so much. And Creb. And Uba, too. And Durc, my baby … my baby. I wanted you so much, Durc, and it was so hard. And you’re not deformed, just a little different. Like I am.

  No, not like me. You’re Clan, you’re just going to be a little taller, and your head looks a little different. Someday you’ll be a great hunter. And good with the sling. And run faster than anyone. You’ll win all the races at the Clan Gathering. Maybe not the wrestling, you might not be that strong, but you’ll be strong.

  But who will play the game of making sounds with you? And who will make the happy noises with you?