The Mammoth Hunters (Earth's Children 3)

When his breath ran out, he began again, crying out his loss in the sonorous, eerie, spine-tingling, unmistakable tones of wolfsong. People gathered at the entrance of the tent to look, but were hesitant to enter. Even the three who were awash in their own sorrow paused to listen and wonder. Jondalar thought to himself that animal or human, no one could ask for a more poignant or awesome elegy.

After the first racking tears of grief were spent, Ayla sat beside the small thin body, unmoving, but her tears had not stopped. She stared into space, silently remembering her life with the Clan, and her son, and the first time she saw Rydag. She loved Rydag. He had come to mean as much to her as Durc and, in a certain way, stood in for him. Even though her son had been taken from her, Rydag had given her an opportunity to know more about him, to learn how he might be growing and maturing, how he might look, how he might think. When she smiled at Rydag’s gentle humor, or was pleased at his perceptiveness and intelligence, she could imagine that Durc had the same kind of understanding. Now Rydag was gone, and her tenuous link to Durc was gone. Her grief was for both.

Nezzie’s grief was not less, but the needs of the living were important, too. Rugie climbed up on her lap, hurt and confused that her playmate, and friend, and brother, couldn’t play any more, couldn’t even make words with his hands. Danug was stretched out full-length on his bed, his head buried under a cover, sobbing, and someone had to go and tell Latie.

“Ayla? Ayla,” Nezzie finally said. “What do we have to do to bury him in the Clan way? We need to start getting him ready.”

It took Ayla a moment to comprehend that someone was talking to her. She frowned, and focused on Nezzie. “What?”

“We have to get him ready for burial. What do we have to do? I don’t know anything about Clan burials.”

No, none of the Mamutoi did, she thought. Especially the Mammoth Hearth. But she did. She thought about the Clan burials she had seen and considered what should be done for Rydag. Before he can be buried in the Clan way, he has to be Clan. That means he has to be named, and he needs an amulet with a piece of red ochre in it. Suddenly, Ayla got up and rushed out.

Jondalar went after her. “Where are you going?”

“If Rydag is going to be Clan, I have to make him an amulet,” she said.

Ayla stalked through the encampment, obviously angry, marching past the Camp of the Mammoth Hearth without even a glance, and straight to the flint-workers’ area. Jondalar followed behind. He had some idea what she was up to. She asked for a flint nodule, which no one was ready to refuse her. Then she looked around and found a hammerstone, and cleared herself a place to work.

As she began to preshape the flint in the Clan way, and the Mamutoi flint knappers realized what she was doing, they were eager to watch, and crowded as close as they dared. No one wanted to raise her ire even more, but this was a rare opportunity. Jondalar had tried to explain the Clan techniques once, after Ayla’s background became generally known, but his training was different. He didn’t have the necessary control using their methods. Even when he succeeded, they thought it was his own skill, not the unusual process.

Ayla decided to make two separate tools, a sharp knife and a pointed awl, and bring them both back to Cattail Camp to make the amulet. She managed to make a serviceable knife, but she was so full of grief and anger, her hands shook. The first time she tried to make the more difficult narrow, sharp point, she shattered it, and then noticed that many people were watching her, which made her nervous. She felt that the Mamutoi flint workers were judging the Clan way of making tools, and she was not representing them well, and then was angry that she should even care. The second time she tried, she broke it, too. Her frustration brought angry tears, which she kept trying to wipe away. Suddenly, Jondalar was kneeling in front of her.

“Is this what you want, Ayla?” he asked, holding up the piercing tool she had made for the special Spring Festival ceremony.

“That’s a Clan tool! Where did you get … that’s the one I made!” she said.

“I know. I went back and got it that day. I hope you don’t mind.”

She was surprised, puzzled, and strangely pleased. “No, I don’t mind. I’m glad you did, but why?”

“I wanted … to study it,” he replied. He couldn’t quite bring himself to say he wanted it to remember her by, to tell her he thought he would be leaving without her. He didn’t want to leave without her.

She took her tools back to Cattail Camp, and asked Nezzie for a piece of soft leather. After she got it, the woman watched her make the simple, gathered pouch.

“They look a little more crude, but those tools really work very well,” Nezzie remarked. “What is the pouch for?”

“It’s Rydag’s amulet, like the one I made for the Spring Festival. I have to put a piece of red ochre in it, and name him the way the Clan does. He should have a totem, too, to protect him on his way to the world of the spirits.” She paused, and wrinkled her brow. “I don’t know what Creb did to discover a person’s totem, but it was always right … maybe I can share my totem with Rydag. The Cave Lion is a powerful totem, difficult to live with sometimes, but he was tested many times. Rydag deserves a strong, protective totem.”

“Is there anything I can do? Does he need to be prepared? Dressed?” Nezzie asked.

“Yes, I’d like to help, too,” Latie said. She was standing at the entrance with Tulie.

“And so would I,” Mamut added.

Ayla looked up and saw almost the entire Lion Camp wanting to help and looking to her for direction. Only the hunters were missing. She was filled with a great warmth for these people who had taken in a strange orphaned child and accepted him as their own, and a righteous anger at the members of the Mammoth Hearth who would not even give him a burial.

“Well, first, someone can get some red ochre, crush it up, like Deegie does to color leather, and mix it in some rendered fat to make a salve. That has to be rubbed all over him. It should be Cave Bear fat, for a proper Clan burial. The Cave Bear is sacred to the Clan.”

“We don’t have Cave Bear fat,” Tornec said.

“There are not many Cave Bears around here,” Manuv added.

“Why not mammoth fat, Ayla?” Mamut suggested. “Rydag wasn’t just Clan. He was mixed. He was part Mamutoi, too, and the mammoth is sacred to us.”

“Yes, I think we could use that. He was Mamutoi, too. We shouldn’t forget that.”

“How about dressing him, Ayla?” Nezzie asked. “He’s never even worn the new clothes I made for him this year.”