The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children 4)

Ayla pointed to the slab of ivory on which Talut had carved the map showing the first part of their Journey. "We don't need that any more. Talut's land is far behind us," she said, feeling a touch of sadness.

"You're right, we don't need it. I hate to leave it, though," Jondalar said, grimacing at the thought of getting rid of it. "It would be interesting to show the kind of maps the Mamutoi make, and it reminds me of Talut."

Ayla nodded with understanding. "Well, if you have the room, take it, but it isn't essential."

Jondalar glanced at Ayla's array spread out on the floor, and picked up the mysterious wrapped package he had seen before. "What is this?"

"It's just something I made last winter," she said, taking it out of his hands and looking away quickly as a flush rose to her face. She put it behind her, shoving it under the pile of things she was taking. "I'm going to leave my summer traveling clothes, they're all stained and worn anyway, and I'll be wearing my winter ones. That gives me some extra room."

Jondalar looked at her sharply, but he made no further comment.

It was cold when they awoke the next morning. A fine cloud of warm mist showed every breath. Ayla and Jondalar hurriedly dressed, and after starting a fire for a morning cup of hot tea, they packed their bedding, eager to be off. But when they went outside, they stopped and stared.

A thin coat of shimmering hoarfrost had transformed the surrounding hills. It sparkled and glinted in the bright morning sun with an unusual vividness. As the frost melted, each drop of water became a prism reflecting a brilliant bit of rainbow in a tiny burst of red, green, blue, or gold, which flickered from one color to another when they moved and saw the spectrum from a different angle. But the beauty of the frost's ephemeral jewels was a reminder that the season of warmth was little more than a fleeting flash of color in a world controlled by winter, and the short hot summer was over.

When they were packed and ready to go, Ayla looked back at the summer camp that had been such a welcome refuge. It was even more dilapidated, since they had torn down parts of the smaller shelters to fuel their fireplace, but she knew the flimsy temporary dwellings wouldn't last much longer anyway. She was grateful they had found them when they did.

They continued west toward the Sister River, dropping down a slope to another level terrace, though they were still high enough in elevation to see the wide grasslands of the steppes on the other side of the turbulent waterway they were approaching. It gave them a perspective of the region as well as showing the extent of the river floodplain ahead. The level land that was usually under water during times of flood was about ten miles across, but broader on the far bank. The foothills of the near side limited the floodwaters' normal expansion, though there were elevations, hills and bluffs, across the river, too.

In contrast to the grasslands, the floodplain was a wilderness of marshes, small lakes, woods, and tangled undergrowth with the river churning through it. Though it lacked meandering channels, it reminded Ayla of the tremendous delta of the Great Mother River, but on a smaller scale. The sallows and seasonal brush that seemed to be growing out of the water along the edges of the swiftly flowing stream indicated both the amount of flooding caused by the recent rains and the sizable portion of land already given up to the river.

Ayla's attention was brought back to her immediate surroundings when Whinney's gait suddenly changed, caused by her hooves sinking into sand. The small streams that had cut across the terraces above had become deeply entrenched riverbeds between shifting dunes of sandy marl. The horses floundered as they proceeded, kicking up fountains of loose, calcium-rich soil with each step.

Near evening, as the setting sun, nearly blinding in its intensity, approached the earth, the man and woman, trying to shade their eyes, peered ahead, looking for a place to make camp. Drawing nearer to the floodplain, they noticed that the fine shifting sand was developing a slightly different character. Like the upper terraces, it was primarily loess—rock dust created by the grinding action of the glacier and deposited by the wind—but occasionally the river's flooding was extreme enough to reach their elevation. The clayey silt that was added to the soil hardened and stabilized the ground. When they began to see familiar steppe grasses growing beside the stream they were following, one of the many that were racing down the mountain toward the Sister, they decided to stop.

After they set up their tent, the woman and man went in separate directions to hunt for their dinner. Ayla took Wolf, who ran ahead and in a short time flushed up a covey of ptarmigan. He pounced on one as Ayla whipped out her sling and brought down another that thought it had reached the safety of the sky. She considered allowing Wolf to keep the bird he had caught, but when he resisted giving it up at once, she decided against it. Though one fat fowl could certainly have satisfied both her and Jondalar, she wanted to reinforce to the wolf the understanding that, when she expected it, he would have to share his kills with them, because she didn't know what lay ahead.

She didn't fully reason it out, but the nippy air had made her realize that they would be traveling during the cold season into an unknown land. The people she had known, both the Clan and the Mamutoi, seldom traveled very far during the severe glacial winters. They settled into a place that was secure from bitter cold and wind-driven blizzards, and they ate food they had stored. The idea of traveling in winter made her uneasy.

Jondalar's spear-thrower had found a large hare, which they decided to save for later. Ayla wanted to roast the birds on a spit over a fire, but they were camped on the open steppes, beside a stream with only scanty brush beside it. Looking around, she spied a couple of antlers, unequal in size and obviously from different animals, that had been discarded the previous year. Though antler was much harder to break than wood, with Jondalar's help, sharp flint knives, and the small axe he kept in his belt, they broke them apart. Ayla used part to skewer the birds, and the broken-off tines became forks to support the spit. After all the effort, she decided she would keep them to use again, especially since antler was slow to catch fire.

She gave Wolf his share of the cooked fowl, along with a portion of some large reed roots she had dug from a backwater ditch beside the stream, and the meadow mushrooms that she recognized as edible and tasty. After their evening meal, they sat next to the fire and watched the sky grow dark. The days were getting shorter, and they weren't as tired at night, especially since it was so much easier riding the horses across the open plains than it had been making their way over the wooded mountains.

"Those birds were good," Jondalar said. "I like the skin crisp like that."

"This time of year, when they're so nice and fat, that's the best way to cook them," Ayla said. "The feathers are changing color already, and the breast down is so thick. I wanted to take it with us. It would make a nice soft filling for something. Ptarmigan feathers make the lightest and warmest bedding, but I don't have room for them."

"Maybe next year, Ayla. The Zelandonii hunt ptarmigan, too," Jondalar said, as a gentle encouragement, something for her to anticipate at the end of their Journey.

"Ptarmigan were Creb's favorite," Ayla said.

Jondalar thought she seemed sad, and when she said nothing more, he kept on talking, hoping it would take her mind off whatever was bothering

her. "There's even one kind of ptarmigan, not around our Caves, but south of us, that doesn't turn white. All year it looks like a ptarmigan does in summer, and it tastes like the same kind of bird. The people who live in that region call it a red grouse, and they like to use the feathers on their headwear and clothes. They make special costumes for a Red Grouse ceremony, and they dance with the bird's movements, stamping their feet and everything, like the males do when they are trying to entice the females. It's part of their Mother Festival." He paused, but when she still had no comment to make, he continued, "They hunt the birds with nets, and get many at one time."

"I got one of these with my sling, but Wolf got the other one," Ayla said. When she said nothing more, Jondalar decided she just didn't feel like talking, and they sat in silence for a while, watching the fire consume brush and dried dung that had redried after the rains enough to burn. Finally she spoke again. "Remember Brecie's throwing stick? I wish I knew how to use something like that. She could bring down several birds at one time with it."

The night cooled quickly, and they were glad for the tent. Though Ayla had seemed unusually silent, full of sadness and remembering, she was warmly responsive to his touch, and Jondalar soon stopped worrying about her quiet mood.

In the morning the air was still brisk, and the condensed moisture had brought a ghostly shimmer of frost to the land again. The icy stream was cold but invigorating when they used it to wash. They had buried Jondalar's hare, encased in its furry hide, under the hot coals to cook overnight. When they peeled off the blackened skin, the rich layer of winter fat just underneath had basted the usually lean and often stringy meat, and slow cooking within its natural container made it moist and tender. It was the best time of the year to hunt the long-eared animals.

They rode side by side through the tall ripe grass, not rushing but keeping a steady pace, talking occasionally. Small game was plentiful as they headed toward the Sister, but the only large animals they saw all morning were across the river in the distance: a small band of male mammoths, heading north. Later in the day they saw a mixed herd of horses and saiga antelope, also on the other side. Whinney and Racer noticed them, too.

"Iza's totem was the Saiga," Ayla said. "That was a very powerful totem for a woman. Even stronger than Creb's birth totem, the Roe Deer. Of course, the Cave Bear had chosen him and was his second totem before he became Mog-ur."

"But your totem is the Cave Lion. That's a much more powerful animal than a saiga antelope," Jondalar said.

"I know. It's a man's totem, a hunter's totem. That's why it was so hard for them to believe it, at first," Ayla said. "I don't really remember, but Iza told me that Brun even got angry at Creb when he named it at my adoption ceremony. That's why everyone was sure I would never have any children. No man had a totem powerful enough to defeat the Cave Lion. It was a big surprise when I got pregnant with Durc, but I'm sure it was Broud who started him, when he forced me." She frowned at the unpleasant thought. "And if totem spirits have something to do with starting babies, Broud's totem was the Woolly Rhinoceros. I remember the Clan hunters talking about a woolly rhino that killed a cave lion, so it could have been strong enough, and, like Broud, they can be mean."