The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children 4)

S'Armuna stepped outside her lodge and watched the two visitors as they walked away toward the edge of the Camp. She saw that Attaroa and Epadoa, standing in front of the headwoman's lodge, had turned to watch them, too. The shaman was about to go back in when she noticed Ayla suddenly changing direction and heading for the palisade. Attaroa and her chief Wolf Woman also saw her veer, and both moved forward in quick strides to intercept the blond woman. They reached the fenced enclosure almost simultaneously. The older woman arrived a moment later.

Through the cracks, Ayla looked directly into the eyes and faces of silent watchers on the other side of the sturdy poles. On close inspection, they were a sorry sight, dirty and unkempt, and dressed in ragged skins, but even worse was the stench emanating from the Holding. It was not only malodorous; to the perceptive nose of the medicine woman it was revealing. Normal body odors of healthy individuals did not bother her, even a certain amount of normal bodily wastes was not offensive, but she smelled sickness. The foetid breath of starvation, the noisome filth of excrement resulting from stomach ailments and fever, the foul odor of pus from infected, suppurating wounds, and even the putrid rot of progressed gangrene, all assaulted her senses and infuriated her.

Epadoa stepped in front of Ayla, trying to block her view, but she had seen enough. She turned and confronted Attaroa. "Why are these people held here behind this fence, like animals in a surround?"

There was a gasp of surprise from the people who were watching when they heard the translation, and they held their breaths waiting for the headwoman's reaction. No one had ever dared to ask her before.

Attaroa glared at Ayla, who stared back with dauntless anger. They were nearly equal in height, though the dark-eyed woman was a shade taller. Both were physically strong women, but Attaroa was more muscular as a natural attribute of her heredity, while Ayla had flat and wiry muscles developed from use. The headwoman was somewhat older than the stranger, more experienced, crafty, and totally unpredictable; the visitor was a skilled tracker and hunter, quick to notice details, draw conclusions, and able to react swiftly on her judgments.

Suddenly Attaroa laughed, and the familiar manic sound sent a shiver through Jondalar. "Because they deserve it!" the headwoman said.

"No one deserves that kind of treatment," Ayla retorted, before S'Armuna had a chance to translate. The woman instead respoke Ayla's comment to Attaroa.

"What do you know? You were not here. You don't know how they treated us," the dark-eyed woman said.

"Did they make you stay outside when it was cold? Did they not give you food and clothing?" Some of the women who had gathered around looked a little uneasy. "Are you any better than they were if you treat them worse than you were treated?"

Attaroa did not bother to reply to the words repeated by the shaman, but her smile was harsh and cruel.

Ayla noticed movement beyond the fence, and she saw some of the men standing aside so the two boys who had been in the lean-to could limp to the front. All the others crowded around them. It angered her even more to see the injured youngsters, and other boys cold and hungry. Then she saw that some of the Wolf Women had entered the Holding with their spears. She felt such fury that she was hardly able to suppress it, and she addressed the women directly.

"And did these boys also treat you badly? What did they do to you to justify this?" S'Armuna made sure all could understand.

"Where are the mothers of these children?" she asked Epadoa.

The leader of the Wolf Women glanced at Attaroa after hearing the words in her own language, looking for some kind of direction, but the headwoman only looked back with her cruel smile, as though waiting to hear what she would say.

"Some are dead," Epadoa said.

"Killed when they tried to run away with their sons," one of the women from the crowd standing nearby said. "The rest are afraid to do anything for fear their children will be hurt."

Ayla looked and saw it was an old woman who had spoken, and Jondalar noticed it was the one who had grieved so loudly at the funeral of the three young people. Epadoa shot her a threatening look.

"What more can you do to me, Epadoa?" the woman said, stepping boldly to the forefront. "You've already taken my son, and my daughter will soon be gone, one way or another. I'm too old to care if I live or die."

"They betrayed us," Epadoa said. "Now they all know what will happen if they try to run away."

Attaroa gave no sign of approval or disapproval to indicate that Epadoa had voiced her own feelings. Instead, with a bored look, she turned her back on the tense scene and walked to her lodge, leaving Epadoa and her Wolf Women to guard the Holding. But she stopped and spun around when she heard a loud, shrill whistle. A fleeting expression of dread replaced her cold, cruel smile when she saw both horses, who had been almost out of sight at the far edge of the field, galloping toward Ayla. She quickly entered her earthlodge.

Feelings of stunned amazement filled the rest of the settlement as the blond woman, and the man with even lighter yellow hair, leaped on the backs of the animals and galloped away. Most of those remaining wished they could leave as quickly and easily, and many wondered if they would ever see the two again.

"I wish we could keep on going," Jondalar said, after they had slowed down and he had pulled Racer up alongside Ayla and Whinney.

"I wish we could, too," she said. "That Camp is so unbearable; it fills me with anger and sadness. I'm even angry about S'Armuna allowing it to go on for so long, though I pity her and understand her remorse. Jondalar, how are we going to free those boys and men?"

"We're going to have to work that out with S'Armuna," Jondalar said. "I think it's obvious that most of the women want things to change, and I'm sure many of them would help, if they knew what to do. S'Armuna will know who they are."

They had entered the open woods from the field, and they rode through its cover, though in places it was quite sparse, toward the river and then back around to the place they had left the wolf. As soon as they neared, Ayla signaled with a soft whistle, and Wolf bounded out to greet them, almost beside himself with happiness. He had been watching from the place Ayla had told him to stay, and they both gave him praise and attention for waiting. Ayla did notice he had hunted and brought his kill back, which meant he had

left his hiding place at least for a while. It worried her, since they were so close to the Camp and its Wolf Women, but she found it hard to blame him. It made her all the more determined, however, to get him away from the hunting women who ate wolves as soon as possible.

They walked the horses quietly back toward the river, to the grove where they had hidden their packs. Ayla got out one of their few remaining cakes of traveling food, broke it in two, and gave the larger piece to Jondalar. They sat amidst the brush, eating their snack, glad to be away from the depressing environment of the S'Armunai Camp.

Suddenly she heard a low rumbling growl from Wolf, and the hair on the back of Ayla's neck stood on end.

"Someone's coming," Jondalar whispered, feeling a quick rush of alarm at the sound.

Snapped to the sharp edge of awareness by the warning, Ayla and Jondalar scanned the area, certain that Wolf's keener senses had detected immediate danger. Noticing the direction Wolf's nose was pointing, Ayla looked carefully through the screen of brush and saw two women approaching. One of them, she was almost certain, was Epadoa. She tapped Jondalar's arm and pointed. He nodded when he saw them.