The Mammoth Hunters (Earth's Children 3)

But when Jondalar thought he saw the outline of vague shapes looming ahead, and stopped to try to make them out, Whinney pushed on and they all followed her lead. Low-bent trees and a screen of brush marked the edge of a watercourse. The man and woman could have crouched behind it, but the mare kept going downstream until they reached a turn where the water had cut deep into a bank of hard-packed soil. There, next to the low bluff, out of the full force of the wind, Whinney urged the young horse, and stood on the outside to protect him.

Ayla and Jondalar quickly removed the horses’ loads and set up their small tent almost under the mare’s feet, then crawled inside to wait out the storm.

Even in the lee of the bank, out of the direct force of the wind, the storm threatened their simple shelter. The roaring gale blew from all directions at once, and seemed determined to find a way inside. It succeeded often. Drafts and gusts stole under the edges or in through cracks where the skin across the opening overlapped or the smoke-hole cover was fastened, often bringing a dusting of snow. The woman and the man crawled under their furs to keep warm, and talked. Incidents of their childhood, stories, legends, people they’d known, customs, ideas, dreams, hopes; they never seemed to run out of things to talk about. As night came on, they shared Pleasures, and then slept. Sometime in the middle of the night, the wind stopped its assault on their tent.

Ayla awoke and lay with her eyes open, looking around the dim interior, fighting down a growing panic. She didn’t feel well, she had a headache, and the muffled stillness felt heavy in the stale air of the tent. Something was wrong, but she didn’t know what. She sensed a familiarity about the situation, or a memory, as though she’d been there before, but not quite. It was more like a danger she ought to recognize, but what? Suddenly she couldn’t bear it and sat up, pushing the warm covers off the man lying beside her.

“Jondalar! Jondalar!” She shook him, but she didn’t need to. He was awake the moment she bolted up.

“Ayla! What is it?”

“I don’t know. Something is wrong!”

“I don’t see anything wrong,” he said. He didn’t, but something was obviously bothering Ayla. He wasn’t used to seeing her so close to panic. She was usually so calm, so completely in control even when she was in imminent danger. No four-legged predator could bring such abject terror to her eyes. “Why do you think something is wrong?”

“I had a dream. I was in a dark place, darker than night, and I was suffocating, Jondalar. I couldn’t breathe!”

A familiar look of concern spread across his face as he looked around the tent once more. It just wasn’t like Ayla to be so frightened; perhaps something was wrong. It was dark in the tent, but not completely dark. A faint light filtered through. Nothing seemed out of place, the wind hadn’t torn anything or snapped any cords. In fact, it wasn’t even blowing. There was no movement at all. It was absolutely still.…

Jondalar threw back the furs, scrambled to the entrance. He unfastened the tent flap, exposing a wall of soft white, which collapsed into the tent, but showed only more of the same beyond.

“We’re buried, Jondalar! We’re buried in snow!” Ayla’s eyes were wide with terror and her voice cracked with the strain of trying to keep it under control.

Jondalar reached for her and held her. “It’s all right, Ayla. It’s all right,” he murmured, not at all sure that it was.

“It’s so dark and I can’t breathe!”

Her voice sounded so strange, so remote, as though it came from afar, and she had become limp in his arms. He laid her down on her furs, and noticed her eyes were closed, but she still kept crying out in that eerie, distant voice that it was dark, and she couldn’t breathe. Jondalar was at a loss, frightened for her, and of her, a little. Something strange was going on, something more than their snowy entombment, as frightening as that was.

He noticed his pack near the opening, partly covered with snow, and stared at it for a moment. Suddenly he crawled over to it. Brushing off the snow, he felt for the side holder and found a spear. Rising to his knees, he unfastened the smoke-hole cover that was near the middle. With the butt end of the spear he poked up through the snow. A pile plopped down on their sleeping furs, and then sunlight and a gust of fresh air swept through the small tent.

The change in Ayla was immediate. She visibly relaxed and soon opened her eyes. “What did you do?” she asked.

“I poked a spear through the smoke hole and broke through the snow. We’ll have to dig our way out, but the snow may not be as deep as it seems.” He looked at her closely with concern. “What happened to you, Ayla? You had me worried. You kept saying you couldn’t breathe. I think you fainted.”

“I don’t know. Maybe it was the lack of fresh air.”

“It didn’t seem that bad. I wasn’t having much trouble breathing. And you were really afraid. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so scared.”

Ayla was uncomfortable under his questioning. She did feel strange, a little light-headed still, and seemed to recall unpleasant dreams, but she couldn’t explain it.

“I remember once that snow covered up the opening of the small cave I stayed in when I had to leave Bruns clan. I woke up in the dark and the air was bad. That must have been it.”

“I suppose that could make you afraid if it happened again,” Jondalar said, but somehow he didn’t quite believe it, and neither did Ayla.

The big red-bearded man was still outside working, though the twilight was fast fading into dark. He was the first to see the strange procession round the crest at the top of the slope and start down. First came the woman, plodding wearily through the deep snow, followed by a horse whose head was hanging with exhaustion, with a load on her back and dragging the travois behind her. The young horse, also carrying a load, was led by a rope held by the man following the mare. His way was easier going since the snow had already been trampled down by those in the lead, though Jondalar and Ayla had traded places on the way to give each other a rest.

“Nezzie! They’re back!” Talut shouted as he started up to meet them, and tramped the snow down for Ayla for the last few steps of the way. He led them, not to the familiar arched entrance at the front end, but to the middle of the longhouse. To their surprise a new addition to the structure had been built in their absence. It was similar to the entrance foyer, but larger. From it, a new entrance opened directly to the Hearth of the Mammoth.

“This is for the horses, Ayla,” Talut announced once they were inside, with a huge, self-satisfied grin at her expression of stunned disbelief. “I knew after that last windstorm that a lean-to would never be enough. If you, and your horses, are going to live with us, we needed to make something more substantial. I think we should call it the ‘hearth of the horses’!”

Tears filled Ayla’s eyes. She was tired to the bone, grateful to have finally made their way back, and she was overwhelmed. No one had ever gone to so much trouble because they wanted her. As long as she lived with the Clan, she had never felt fully accepted, never quite belonged. She was sure they would never have allowed her to keep horses, much less build a place for them.

“Oh, Talut,” she said, a catch in her voice, then she reached up and put her arms around his neck and pressed her cold cheek to his. Ayla had always seemed so reserved to him, her spontaneous expression of affection was a delightful surprise. Talut hugged her and patted her back, smiling with obvious pleasure and feeling very smug.

Most of the Lion Camp crowded around them in the new annex, welcoming the w

oman and man as though they were both full-fledged members of the group.