The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children 4)

He was pushing her parka off, and she shrugged out of it, delighting in the cold wind that felt hot with his mouth on hers and his hands on her body. He untied the drawstring of her leggings; she felt them being pulled down, and off. Then they were both down on her parka, and his hands were caressing her hips, and her stomach, and the inside of her thighs. She opened to his touch.

He moved down between her legs, and the warmth of his tongue as he tasted her shot spikes of excitement through her. She was so sensitive, her reactions so powerful, it was almost unbearable, unbearably stimulating.

He sensed her strong and immediate response to his light touch. Jondalar had been trained as a flint knapper, a maker of stone tools and hunting weapons, and was among the most skilled because he was sensitive to the stone with its fine and subtle variations. Women responded to his perception and sensitive handling the way a fine piece of flint did, and both brought out the best in him. He sincerely loved to see a fine tool emerge from a good piece of flint under his deft touch, or to feel a woman aroused to her full potential, and he had spent a great deal of time practicing both.

With his natural inclination and genuine desire to he aware of a woman's feelings, particularly Ayla's, at that most intimate of moments, he knew that a featherlight touch would arouse her more, at that moment, though a different technique might be suitable later.

He kissed the inside of her thigh, then ran his tongue up and noticed that chill bumps appeared. In the cold wind, he felt her shiver, and though she had her eyes closed and did not object, he could see she was covered with gooseflesh. He got up and took off his own parka to cover her but left her bare below the waist.

Although she hadn't minded, his fur-lined outer garment, still warm from his body and filled with his masculine scent, felt wonderful. The contrast of the cold wind blowing across the skin of her thighs, wet from his tongue, made her shiver with delight. She felt the warm wetness moisten her folds, and the instant shiver from the cold filled her with a fierce heat. With a moan, she arched up to him.

With both hands, he held her folds apart, admired the beautiful pink flower of her feminine self and, unable to restrain himself, warmed the cooling petals with his wet tongue, savoring the taste of her. She felt the warmth, then the cold, and quivered in response. This was a new feeling, not something he had done before. He was using the very air of the mountaintop as a means to bring her Pleasure, and at some inner level she marveled.

But as he continued, the air was forgotten. With stronger pressure and the familiar provocation of his mouth and hands, stimulating, encouraging, inciting her senses to respond, she lost all sense of where she was. She felt only his mouth sucking, his tongue licking and prodding her place of Pleasure, his knowing fingers reaching inside, and then only the rising tide within her reaching a crest, and washing over her, while she reached for his manhood and guided it to her well. She pushed up as he filled it.

He sunk his shaft deeply, closing his eyes as he felt her warm, moist embrace. He waited a moment, then pulled back and felt the caress of her deep tunnel, and pushed in again. He plunged in, retracted, each stroke bringing him closer, the pressure inside him building. He heard her moan, felt her rise to him, and then he was there, and he exploded with the release of wave after wave of Pleasure.

In the silence, only the wind spoke. The horses had waited patiently; the wolf ha

d watched with interest, but had learned to contain his more active curiosity. Finally Jondalar lifted himself, rested on his arms, and looked down at the woman he loved.

"Ayla, what if we started a baby?" he asked.

"Don't worry, Jondalar. I don't think we did." She was grateful she had found more of her contraceptive plants, and she was tempted to tell him, as she had told Tholie. But Tholie had been so shocked at first, even though she was a woman, that Ayla didn't dare mention it. "I'm not certain, but I don't think this would be a time when I could get pregnant," she said, and it was true she wasn't absolutely certain.

Iza did have a daughter, eventually, even though she had taken the contraceptive tea for years. Perhaps the special plants lost their effectiveness after long use, Ayla thought, or maybe Iza forgot to take it, though that was unlikely. Ayla wondered what would happen if she stopped drinking her morning tea.

Jondalar hoped she was right, although a small part of him wished she wasn't. He wondered if there would ever be a child at his hearth, a child born of his spirit, or perhaps, of his own essence.

It was a few days before they reached the next ridge, which was lower, not much above the timberline, but from it they had their first sight of the broad western steppes. It was a crisp clear day, though it had snowed earlier, and in the far distance they glimpsed another, higher range of ice-encrusted mountains. On the plains below they saw a river flowing south into what appeared to be a great swollen lake.

"Is that the Great Mother River?" Ayla asked.

"No. That's the Sister, and we have to cross her. I'm afraid it will be the hardest crossing of our whole Journey," Jondalar explained. "See over there, toward the south? Where the water is all spread out so that it looks like a lake? That's the Mother, or rather where the Sister joins her—or tries to. She backs up and overflows, and the currents are treacherous. We won't try our crossing there, but Carlono said she's a turbulent river even upstream."

As it turned out, the day they looked down toward the west from the second ridge was the last clear day. They woke the following morning to a brooding, overcast sky that drooped so low it merged with fog rising from depressions and hollows. Mist hung palpably in the air and gathered into miniature droplets on hair and fur. The landscape was draped with an insubstantial shroud that allowed trees and rocks to materialize out of indistinct shapes only as they drew near.

In the afternoon, with an unexpected and resounding roar of thunder, the sky opened, lit only heartbeats before by a sudden shaft of lightning. Ayla jerked with surprise, and she shivered with dread as bright flashes of white branching light played with the mountaintops behind them. But it wasn't the lightning that scared her, it was the anticipation of the explosive noise it presaged.

She recoiled each time she heard a distant rumble or a nearby rolling boom, and it seemed with each burst of thunder that the rain came down harder, as though frightened out of the clouds by the noise. As they worked their way down the west-facing slope of the mountains, rain fell in sheets as thick as waterfalls. Streams filled and overflowed, and rivulets spilling over ledges became gushing torrents. The footing grew slick and dangerous in places.

They were both grateful for their Mamutoi rain parkas, made of dehaired deer hides, Jondalar's from megaceros, the giant deer of the steppes, and Ayla's from the northern reindeer. They were worn over their fur parkas, when the weather was cold, or over their regular tunics when it was warmer. The exterior surfaces were colored with red and yellow ochres. The mineral pigments had been mixed with fats, and the color was worked into the hides with a special burnishing tool made of rib bone that brought the garments to a hard, shiny luster that was also quite water repellent. Even wet, it provided some protection, but the burnished, fat-soaked finish was unable to entirely resist the soaking deluge.

When they stopped for the night and put up the tent, everything was damp, even their sleeping furs, and no fire was possible. They brought wood into their tent, mostly the dead lower branches of conifers, hoping it would dry overnight. In the morning the rains still poured and their clothes were still damp, but using a firestone and the tinder she had with her, Ayla managed to get a small fire going, enough to boil a little water to make a warming tea. They ate only the square compressed cakes of traveling food Roshario had given them, which were a variation of the commonly made, filling, nutritious, compact food that could sustain a person indefinitely even if that was all he ate. It consisted of some variety of meat that was dried then ground up and mixed with fat, usually some dried fruit or berries, and occasionally partially cooked grains or roots.

The horses were standing outside the tent impassively, their heads drooping and water dripping from long winter fur, and the bowl boat had fallen over and was half-full of water. They were ready to leave it and the dragging poles behind. The travois that had been so useful for hauling loads across the open grasslands, and with the addition of the round boat effective for transporting their gear across rivers, had been an encumbrance in the rugged, forested mountains. It had hampered and slowed their travel, and it could even be dangerous going down difficult slopes in the pouring rain. If Jondalar hadn't known that for most of the rest of their Journey the passage would still be across plains, he would have left it long before.

They unfastened the boat from the poles and poured out the water, turning the boat upside down and eventually lifting it over them.

Standing underneath, holding the round boat above their heads, they looked at each other and grinned. For a moment they were out of the rain. It hadn't occurred to them that the boat that held them out of the water of a river could also be a roof to keep off the rain. Not while they were moving, perhaps, but they could at least get out of the rain for a short time when it pelted down in earnest.

But that discovery didn't solve the problem of how they were going to transport it. Then, as though they both thought of it at the same time, they lifted the bowl boat over Whinney's back. If they could find a way to hold it in place, it could help to keep their tent and two of the pack baskets dry. Using the poles and some cordage, they worked out a way to support the boat across the patient mare's back. It was somewhat awkward, and they knew it would be too wide, occasionally, requiring either finding another way around, or lifting it off, but they didn't think it would be any more trouble than it had been before, and it might provide some benefit.

They haltered and packed the horses, but with no intention of riding them. Instead, the heavy wet leather tent and ground cloth were draped over Whinney's back, and the round boat was hoisted over them, supported by crossed poles. A heavy tarp made of mammoth hide, which Ayla had used to cover the pack basket in which she carried the food, was draped across Racer's back to cover both his baskets.

Before they started out, Ayla spent some time with Whinney, reassuring and thanking her, using the special language she had developed in the valley. It didn't occur to Ayla to question whether Whinney actually understood her. The language was familiar and calming, and the mare definitely responded to certain sounds and movements as signals.

Even Racer perked his ears, tossed his head, and nickered as she talked, and Jondalar assumed she was communicating with the horses in some special way that he was incapable of grasping, even though he understood a little of it. It was part of the mystery of her that kept him fascinated.