The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children 4)

Six men had been struggling with the one on the ground, yet having a hard time of it. Her sling had brought two down, and the woman who had been attacked was pummeling a third, to good effect. The man was holding up his arms in defense. Another, who had gotten too close to the man they had been trying to restrain, was jarred by a powerful blow. He staggered back. Ayla had two more stones ready to go. She let fly with one, aimed at a nonvital muscular thigh, giving the downed man—a man of the Clan, as Ayla had guessed—an opening. Though he was sitting, he grabbed the man closest to him, lifted him off the ground, and threw him at another man.

The Clan woman renewed her frenzied attack, finally driving away the man she had been struggling with. Though not accustomed to fighting, women of the Clan were as strong as their men, in proportion to their size. And though she would have preferred to acquiesce rather than fight to defend herself against a man who wanted to use her to relieve his needs, this woman had been moved to fight in defense of her injured mate.

But there was no fight left in any of the young men. One lay unconscious near the leg of the Clan man, a wound on his head oozing blood that matted his dirty blond hair and was swelling into a discolored bruise. Another was rubbing his arm, glowering at the woman who held her sling ready. The others were bruised and battered, one with an eye that was puffing up and closing. The three who had been after the woman were cowering in a huddle on the ground, their clothes in tatters, in fear of a wolf who was standing watch over them with fangs bared and a mean snarl in his throat.

Jondalar, who had also taken a share of punishment but didn't seem to notice, walked over to make sure Ayla was unharmed, then looked closely at the man on the ground and was suddenly struck by the fact that it was a man of the Clan. He had known it when they first came upon the scene, but it hadn't made an impression until that moment. He wondered why the man was still down. He pulled the unconscious man away from him, and rolled him over; he was breathing. And then he saw why the man of the Clan did not get up.

The reason was immediately apparent. The thigh of his right leg, just above the knee, was bent at an unnatural angle. Jondalar looked at the man with awe. With a broken

leg, he had been holding off six men! He knew flatheads were strong, but he hadn't realized how strong, or how determined. The man had to be in great pain, but he was not showing it.

Suddenly another man, who had not been involved in any of the struggles, swaggered into view. He looked around at the battered band and raised an eyebrow. All the young men seemed to squirm with discomfort under his disdain. They didn't know how to explain what had happened. One moment they were in the midst of roughing up and making sport with the two flatheads unfortunate enough to have crossed their path, and the next they were at the mercy of a woman who could sling rocks, hard, a big man with fists as hard as rocks, and the biggest wolf they had ever seen! Not to mention the two flatheads.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Your men have finally gotten a little back," Ayla said. "It will be your turn next."

The woman was a total stranger. How did she know this was his band, or anything else about them? She spoke in his language, but with a strange accent, and he wondered who she was. The woman of the Clan turned her head at the sound of Ayla's voice and studied her closely, though it was not apparent to anyone else. The man with the bump on his head was waking up, and Ayla went to see how badly he was hurt.

"Get away from him," the man said, but the bravado was belied by the fear she detected in his voice.

Ayla paused, frankly appraised the man, and realized his objection was for the benefit of the band of men, not because he particularly cared about the one who was wounded.

She continued her examination. "He'll have a headache for a few days, but he'll be fine. If I had seriously meant to harm him, I would not have held back. He would be dead, Charoli."

"How do you know my name?" the young man blurted out, frightened but trying not to show it. How did this stranger know who he was?

Ayla shrugged. "We know more than your name."

She glanced in the direction of the man and woman of the Clan. To most of the people there, they seemed impassive, but Ayla could see their shock and uneasiness in the subtle shadings of expression and posture. They were warily watching the people of the Others, trying to make sense out of the strange turn of events.

For the time being, the man thought, they seemed to be in no danger of further attack, but that big man, why had he helped them ... or seemed to help them. Why would a man of the Others fight men of his kind to help them? And what about the woman? If she was a woman. She used a weapon, one he understood, better than most men he knew. What kind of woman used a weapon? Against men of her own kind?

Even more disquieting was the wolf, an animal that seemed to be threatening those men that had been hurting his woman ... his own very special new woman. Perhaps the tall man had a Wolf Totem, but totems were spirits, and that was a real wolf. All he could do was wait. Hold the pain inside himself and wait.

Seeing his subtle glance at Wolf, and guessing his fears, Ayla decided to get all the shocks over with at once. She whistled, a distinctive, imperative sound that resembled the call of a bird, but no bird anyone had ever heard. Everyone stared at her, apprehensively, but when nothing happened immediately, they relaxed. Too soon. Before long, they heard hoofbeats, and then two docile horses, a mare and an unusual brown stallion, appeared and went straight to the woman.

What kind of strangeness was this? Was he dead, and in the world of the spirits? the man of the Clan wondered.

The horses seemed to frighten the young men even more than the people of the Clan. Though they buried it under sarcasm and bravado, prodding each other into more and more daring and degrading activities, each of them carried a tight knot of guilt and fear deep inside. Someday, each man was sure, he would be discovered and held accountable. Some of them actually wished for it, to get it over with before things got even worse, if it wasn't too late already.

Danasi, the one who had been subject to derision because he was having trouble subduing the woman, had talked about it to a couple of the others that he thought he could trust. Flathead women were one thing, but that girl, not even a woman yet, who cried and fought. Granted, it was exciting at the time—women at that stage were always exciting—but afterward he had been ashamed, and fearful of Duna's retribution. What would She do to them?

And now, suddenly here was a woman, a stranger, with a big fair-haired man—wasn't Her lover supposed to be bigger and more fair than other men?—and a wolf! And horses that came at her call. No one had ever seen her before, yet she knew who they were. She had a strange way of speaking, she must have come from far away, but she knew their language. Did they speak where she came from? Was she a dunai? A Mother spirit in human form? Danasi shuddered.

"What do you want with us?" Charoli said. "We weren't bothering you. We were just having a little fun with some flatheads. What's wrong with having a little sport with some animals?"

Jondalar watched Ayla struggle to restrain herself. "And Madenia?" he asked. "Was she animal, too?"

They knew! The young men looked at each other, and then to Charoli for guidance. The man's accent was not the same as hers. He was Zelandonii. If the Zelandonii knew, they wouldn't be able to go there and hide if they needed to, pretending to be on a Journey, the way they'd planned. Who else knew? Was there any place they could go?

"These people are not animals," Ayla said, with a cold rage that made Jondalar look twice. He had never seen her quite so angry, but she was so controlled that he wasn't sure if the young men knew it. "If they were animals, would you even try to force them? Do you force wolves? Do you force horses? No, you are looking for a woman, and no woman wants you. These are the only women you can find," she said. "But these people are not animals." She glanced at the Clan couple. "You are the animals! You are hyenas! Snuffling around the middens and smelling rotten, smelling of your evil. Hurting people, forcing women, stealing what is not yours. I will tell you, if you don't return now, you will lose everything. You will have no family, no Cave, no people, and you will never have a woman at your hearth. You will spend your life as a hyena, always taking the leavings of others, and having to steal from your own people."

"They know about that, too!" one of the men said.

"Don't say anything!" Charoli said. "They don't know, they're only guessing."

"We know," Jondalar said. "Every people know." His command of their language was not perfect, but perfectly understandable.