The Mammoth Hunters Read online

  Even in his frenzy, he marveled at the wonder of her, at how suited they were, that her depths matched his size. He felt her warm folds embrace him fully, and almost, at that first instant, reached his peak. For a moment, he struggled to hold back, to exercise the control he was so accustomed to, then he let go. He plunged in, and again, and once more, and then with an inexpressible shudder, he felt a rising peak of wonder, and cried out her name.

  “Ayla! Oh, my Ayla, my Ayla. I love you!”

  “Jondalar, Jondalar, Jondalar …”

  He finished a last few motions, then with a groan, buried his face in her neck and held her as he lay still, spent. She felt a stone jabbing her back, but she ignored it.

  After a while he raised himself and looked down at her, his forehead furrowed with concern. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Why are you sorry?”

  “It was too fast, and I didn’t make you ready, didn’t give you Pleasures, too.”

  “I was ready, Jondalar, I had Pleasure. Did I not ask you? I have Pleasure in your Pleasure. I have Pleasure in your love, in your strong feeling for me.”

  “But you did not feel the moment as I did.”

  “I did not need it. I had different feeling, different Pleasure. Is it always necessary?” she asked.

  “No, I suppose not,” he said, frowning. Then he kissed her and lingered over it. “And this night is not over yet. Come, get up. It’s cold out here. Let’s go find a warm bed. Deegie and Branag have already pulled their drapes closed. They will be separated until next summer and are eager.”

  Ayla smiled. “But not as eager as you were.” She couldn’t see it, but she thought he blushed. “I love you, Jondalar. Everything. All you do. Even your eager …” She shook her head. “No, that’s not right, that’s the wrong word.”

  “The word you want is ‘eagerness,’ I think.”

  “I love even your eagerness. Yes, that’s right. At least I know your words better than Mamutoi.” She paused. “Frebec said I didn’t speak right. Jondalar, will I ever learn to speak right?”

  “I don’t speak Mamutoi quite right, either. It’s not the language I grew up with. Frebec just likes to make trouble,” Jondalar said, helping her up. “Why does every Cave, every Camp, every group have to have a troublemaker? Don’t pay any attention to him, no one else does. You speak very well. I’m amazed at the way you pick up languages. You’ll be speaking Mamutoi better than I do before long.”

  “I have to learn how to speak with words. I have nothing else now,” she said softly. “I don’t know anyone who speaks the language I grew up with, any more.” She closed her eyes for a moment as a feeling of bleak emptiness came over her.

  She shook it off and started to put her legged garments back on, and then stopped. “Wait,” she said, taking them off again. “Long ago, when I first became a woman, Iza told me everything a woman of the Clan needed to know about men and women, even though she doubted that I’d ever find a mate and would need to know it. The Others may not believe the same way, even the signals between men and women are not the same, but the first night I sleep in a place of the Others, I think I should make a cleansing after our Pleasures.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m going to wash in the river.”

  “Ayla! It’s cold. It’s dark. It could be dangerous.”

  “I won’t go far. Just here at the edge,” she said, throwing down her parka and pulling her inner tunic up over her head.

  The water was cold. Jondalar watched from the bank, and got himself just wet enough to know how cold it was. Her feeling for the ceremony of the occasion made him think of the purifying rituals of First Rites, and he decided a little cleansing wouldn’t hurt him either. She was shivering when she got out. He held her in his arms to warm her. The shaggy bison fur of his parka dried her, then he helped her get into her tunic and parka.

  She felt alive, and tingly, and fresh as they walked back to the earthlodge. Most people were settling down for the night when they entered. Fires were banked low, and voices were softened. The first hearth was empty, though the mammoth roast was still in evidence. As they moved quietly along the passageway through the Lion Hearth, Nezzie got up and detained them.

  “I just wanted to thank you, Ayla,” she said, glancing at one of the beds along the wall. Ayla followed her eyes and saw three small forms sprawled out on one large bed. Latie and Rugie shared it with Rydag. Danug, sprawled out in sleep, took up another bed, and Talut, stretched to his full length propped up on an elbow waiting for Nezzie, smiled at her from a third. She nodded and smiled back, not sure what the proper response was.

  They moved to the next hearth as Nezzie crawled in beside the red-haired giant, and tried to pass through silently, so as not to disturb anyone: Ayla felt someone watching her and looked toward the wall. Two shining eyes and a smile were observing them from the dark recess. She sensed Jondalar’s shoulders stiffen and looked quickly away. She thought she heard a soft chuckle, then thought it must have been the snores coming from the bed along the opposite wall.

  At the large fourth hearth, one of the beds was hung with a heavy leather drape, closing the space off from the passageway, though sounds and movement could be detected within. Ayla noticed that most of the other sleeping places in the longhouse had similar drapes tied up to mammoth bone rafters above or to posts alongside, though not all of them were closed. Mamut’s bed on the side wall opposite theirs was open. He was in it, but she knew he wasn’t asleep.

  Jondalar lit a stick of wood on a hot coal in the fireplace, and shielding it with his hand, carried it to the wall near the head of their sleeping platform. There, in a niche, a thick, flattish stone in which a saucer-shaped depression had been pecked out, was half-filled with fat. He lit a wick of twisted cattail fuzz, lighting up a small Mother figure behind the stone lamp. Then he untied the thongs that held up the drape around their bed, and when it fell, motioned to her.

  She slipped in and climbed up on the platform bed piled high with soft furs. Sitting in the middle, closed off by the drape and lit by the soft flickering light, she felt secluded, and secure. It was a private little place all their own. She was reminded of the small cave she had found when she was a girl, where she used to go when she wanted to be alone.

  “They are so clever, Jondalar. I would not have thought of this.”

  Jondalar stretched out beside her, pleased by her delight. “You like the drape closed?”

  “Oh, yes. It makes you feel alone, even if you know people are all around. Yes, I like it.” Her smile was radiant.

  He pulled her down to him, and kissed her lightly. “You are so beautiful when you smile, Ayla.”

  She looked at his face, suffused with love, at his compelling eyes, violet in the light of the fire instead of their usual vivid blue; at his long yellow hair disarrayed on the furs; at his strong chin and high forehead so different from the chinless jaw and receding forehead of the men of the Clan.

  “Why do you cut off your beard?” she asked, touching the stubble on his jaw.

  “I don’t know. I’m used to it, I guess. In summer, it’s cooler, not as itchy. I usually let it grow in winter. Helps keep the face warm when I’m outside. Don’t you like it shaved?”

  She frowned in puzzlement. “It is not for me to say. A beard is a man’s, to cut or not as he pleases. I only asked because I had not ever seen a man who cut his beard before I met you. Why do you ask if I like it or not?”

  “I ask, because I want to please you. If you like a beard, I’ll let it grow.”

  “It does not matter. Your beard is not important. You are important. You give me please … No.” She shook her head angrily. “You give me pleases … Pleasures … you please me,” she corrected.

  He grinned at her efforts, and the unintended double meaning of her word. “I would like to give you Pleasures.” He pulled her to him again, and kissed her. She snuggled down beside him, on her side. He rolled over, then sat up and looked down at her. �
��Like the first time,” he said. “There’s even, a donii to watch over us.” He looked at the niche with the firelit ivory carving of the motherly figure.

  “It is the first time … in a place of the Others,” she said, closing her eyes, feeling both anticipation and the solemnity of the moment.

  He cupped her face in his hands and kissed both eyelids, then gazed for a long moment at the woman he thought more beautiful than any woman he’d ever known. There was a quality of the exotic about her. Her cheekbones were higher than Zelandonii women, her eyes more widely spaced. They were framed with thick lashes, darker than her heavy hair that was gold as autumn grass. Her jaw was firm, her chin slightly pointed.

  She had a small straight scar in the hollow of her throat. He kissed it, and felt her shiver with pleasure. He moved back up and looked down at her again, then kissed the end of her fine, straight nose, and the corner of her full mouth, where it turned up in the hint of a smile.

  He could feel her tension. Like a hummingbird, motionless but full of quivering excitement he couldn’t see, only sense, she was keeping her eyes closed, making herself lie still and wait. He watched her, savoring the moment, then he kissed her mouth, opened his and sought entry with his tongue, and felt her receive it. No prodding this time, only gently seeking, and then accepting hers.

  He sat up, saw her open her eyes and smile at him. He pulled off his tunic, and helped her off with hers. Easing her back down, he leaned over and took a firm nipple in his mouth, and suckled. She gasped as a shock of excitement coursed through her. She felt a warm wet tingling between her legs, and wondered why Jondalar’s mouth on her nipple should make her feel sensation where he hadn’t even touched.

  He nuzzled and nibbled lightly, until she pushed toward him, then sucked in earnest. She moaned with pleasure. He reached for the other breast, caressed its full roundness and turgid tip. She was already breathing hard. He let go of her breast and began to kiss her neck and throat, found her ear and nibbled on a lobe, then blew in it, caressing her arms and her breasts with both hands. Shivers shook her.

  He kissed her mouth, then ran his warm tongue slowly over her chin, down the middle of her throat, between her breasts, and down to her navel. His manhood had grown again, and pushed insistently against the restraints of the drawstring closure. He untied her drawstring first, and pulled the long pants off, then starting at her navel, continued in the direction he was going. He felt soft hair, and then his tongue found the top of her warm slit. He felt her jump when he reached a small, hard bump. When he stopped, she gave a small cry of dismay.

  He untied his own drawstring then, and let his striving member free as he pulled off his trousers. Ayla sat up and took it in her hand, letting it slide back and forth over the full length, feeling the warmth, the smooth skin, the hard fullness. He was pleased that his size did not frighten her, as it had so many women when they first saw him, not even the first time. She bent down to him, and he felt her warm mouth enclose him. He felt pulling as she moved up and down, and he was glad he had already released his strongest urge or he might not have found the control now.

  “Ayla, this time I want to Pleasure you,” he said, pushing her away.

  She looked at him with eyes dilated, dark and luminous, kissed him, and then nodded. He held her shoulders and pushed her back down on the furs, and kissed her mouth and throat again, giving-her chills of Pleasure. He cupped both breasts in his hands, held them together, and went from one sensitive nipple to the other, and in between. Then his tongue found her navel again, and he circled it with an ever-increasing spiral, until he reached the soft hair of her mound.

  He moved over between her thighs, spreading them, then spread her folds back with his hands and savored a long slow taste. She shuddered, half sat up, cried out, and he felt himself surge anew. He loved to Pleasure her, to feel her response to his skill. It was like drawing a fine blade out of a piece of flint. It gave him a special feeling of joy to know he had been the first to give her Pleasure. She had only known force and pain before he had evoked in her the Gift of Pleasure which the Great Earth Mother had given to Her children.

  He explored her tenderly, knowing where her pleasurable sensations lay, teasing them with his tongue, and with his skilled hands, reaching inside. She began to move against him, crying out and tossing her head, and he knew she was ready. He found the hard bump, began to work it, while her breath came fast, his own thrusting manhood eager for her. Then she cried out, he felt a wetness, as she reached for him.

  “Jondalar … ahhh … Jondalar!”

  She was beyond herself, beyond any knowing except him. She wanted him, wanted to feel his fullness inside her. He was on her, she was helping him, guiding him, then he was sliding in, and felt a surge that brought him to that inexpressible peak. It backed off, and he plunged in again, deep; she embraced him all.

  He pulled out, and then pushed in again, and again, and again. He wanted to draw it out, make it last. He wanted it never to end, and yet he couldn’t wait for it. With each powerful push, he felt closer. Sweat glistened on their bodies in the flickering light as they matched their timing, found their stride, and moved with the rhythm of life.

  Breathing hard, they strained to meet at each stroke, reaching, pulsing, all will, all thought, all feeling concentrated. Then, almost unexpectedly, the intensity peaked. In a burst beyond them both, they reached the crest, and broke through with a spasm of joy. They held for a moment, as though trying to become one with each other, and then let go.

  They lay unmoving, catching their breaths. The lamp sputtered, dimmed, flared up again, then went out. After a while Jondalar rolled over and lay beside her, feeling in a twilight state between sleeping and waking. But Ayla was still wide awake, her eyes open in the dark, listening, for the first time in years, to sounds of people.

  The murmur of low voices, a man’s and a woman’s, came from the bed nearby, and a little beyond it, the shallow rasping breath of the sleeping shaman. She could hear a man snoring at the next hearth, and from the first hearth, the unmistakable rhythmic grunts and cries of Talut and Nezzie sharing Pleasures. From the other direction, a baby cried. Someone made comforting sounds until the crying stopped abruptly. Ayla smiled, no doubt a breast had been offered. Farther away voices of restrained anger rose in an outburst, then hushed, and still farther a hacking cough could be heard.

  Nights had always been the worst time during her lonely years in the valley. During the day she could find something to do to keep busy, but at night the stark emptiness of her cave had pressed heavily. In the beginning, hearing only the sound of her own breath, she even had trouble sleeping. With the Clan, there was always someone around at night—the worst punishment that could be inflicted was to be set apart, alone; avoidance, ostracism, the death curse.

  She knew only too well that it was, indeed, a terrible punishment. She knew it even more at that moment. Lying in the dark, hearing the sounds of life around her, feeling the warmth of Jondalar beside her, for the first time since she met these people, whom she called Others, she felt at home.

  “Jondalar?” she said softly.

  “Hmmmm.”

  “Are you sleeping?”

  “Not yet,” he mumbled.

  “These are nice people. You were right, I did need to come and get to know them.”

  His brain cleared quickly. He had hoped, once she met her own kind of people and they were no longer so unknown, they would not seem so fearful to her. He had been gone many years, the Journey back to his home would be long and difficult, she had to want to come with him. But her valley had become home. It offered everything she needed to survive, and she had made a life for herself there, using the animals as a substitute for the people she lacked. Ayla did not want to leave; instead she had wanted Jondalar to stay.

  “I knew you would, Ayla,” he said warmly, persuasively, “if you just got to know them.”

  “Nezzie reminds me of Iza. How do you suppose Rydag’s mother got pregnant with him?�
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  “Who knows why the Mother gave her a child of mixed spirits? The ways of the Mother are always mysterious.”

  Ayla was silent, for a while. “I don’t think the Mother gave her mixed spirits. I think she knew a man of the Others.”

  Jondalar frowned. “I know you think men have something to do with starting life, but how could a flathead female know a man?”

  “I don’t know how, but women of the Clan don’t travel alone and they stay away from the Others. The men don’t want Others around the women. They think babies are started by a man’s totem spirit, and they don’t want the spirit of a man of the Others to get too close. And the women are afraid of them. There are always new stories at Clan Gatherings of people being bothered or hurt by the Others, particularly women.

  “But Rydag’s mother wasn’t afraid of the Others. Nezzie said she followed them for two days, and she came with Talut when he signaled her. Any other Clan woman would have run away from him. She must have known one before, and one who treated her well, or at least did not hurt her, because she wasn’t afraid of Talut. When she needed help, what gave her reason to think she might find it from the Others?”

  “Maybe it was just because she saw Nezzie nursing,” Jondalar suggested.

  “Maybe. But that doesn’t answer why she was alone. The only reason I can think of is that she was cursed and driven from her clan. Clan women are not often cursed. It is not their nature to bring it on themselves. Perhaps it had something to do with a man of the Others.…”

  Ayla paused for a moment, then added thoughtfully, “Rydag’s mother must have wanted her baby very much. It took a lot of courage for her to approach the Others, even if she did know a man before. It was only when she saw the baby and thought he was deformed that she gave up. The Clan doesn’t like mixed children, either.”