The Shelters of Stone (Earth's Children 5)

“This works best for me,” Ayla explained. “Jondalar used to hold it this way, but now he prefers to hold it his way. Either way is fine. You can hold it whatever way is most comfortable for you.”

Kareja nodded, then said, “Your spears are smaller and lighter than usual, too.”

“At first we used bigger spears, but Jondalar came up with these smaller ones after a while. They are easier to handle and better for accuracy,” Ayla said.

Jondalar continued with the demonstration. “When you throw, notice how the back of the spear-thrower raises up, giving the spear an extra push?” With the spear and thrower in his right hand, he took hold of the spear with his left to show the movement in slow motion without letting the spear drop. “That’s what gives it the extra force.”

“When that spear-thrower is fully extended, it’s as though your arm is half again as long,” Brameval said. He hadn’t said much before, and it took Ayla a moment to recall that he was the leader of the Fourteenth Cave.

“Would you throw the spear again? Show us once more how it works?” Manvelar said.

Jondalar pulled back, took aim, and let fly. The spear punched through the target again. Ayla’s spear followed a heartbeat later.

Kareja looked at the woman Jondalar had brought home and smiled. She hadn’t known Ayla was so accomplished. It rather surprised her. She had assumed the quite obviously attractive woman would be more like Marona, the one he had chosen before he left, but this woman might be worth getting to know better.

“Would you like to try it, Kareja?” Ayla asked, offering her spear-thrower.

“Yes, I would,” the leader of the Eleventh Cave said, smiling broadly. She took the thrower and examined it while Ayla got another spear shaft with a detachable point. She noticed the bison carved on the bottom and wondered if Jondalar had made it, too. It was a decent carving, not exceptional, but adequate.

Wolf wandered off while Ayla and Jondalar showed people the techniques they would have to practice in order to effectively use the new hunting weapon. While some managed to make some good distance throws, it was obvious tha

t accuracy would take more time. Ayla was standing back, watching, when she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned to see Wolf chasing something. When she caught a glimpse of it, she took her sling out of a pouch, along with a couple of smooth, rounded stones.

She placed the stone in the pouch of leather in the middle of the sling, and when the ptarmigan in full summer plumage flew up, she was ready. She hurled it at the plump bird and saw it drop. A second ptarmigan flew up, and a second stone from Ayla’s sling brought it down. By then, Wolf had found the first one. She intercepted him as he was carrying it off and took it out of his mouth, then picked up the second and carried them both by their feet. Suddenly she realized it was the right season and started looking around in the grass. She spied the nest and, with a grin of delight, picked up several eggs as well. She would be able to cook Creb’s favorite dish, ptarmigan stuffed with its own eggs.

She was pleased with herself as she walked back with Wolf at her side and didn’t notice until she drew near that everyone had stopped practicing and was staring at her. Some were smiling, but most people looked surprised. Jondalar was grinning. “Didn’t I tell you about her skill with a sling?” Jondalar said. He was feeling smug, and it showed.

“But you didn’t say she used the wolf to flush out game. With her sling and the wolf, why did you need to come up with this thing?” Joharran said, holding up the spear-thrower.

“In fact, it was her sling that gave me the idea for it,” Jondalar said, “and she didn’t have Wolf then, though she had hunted with a cave lion.”

Most people thought Jondalar was joking, although looking at the woman holding a couple of dead ptarmigan, with the wolf at her side, they weren’t sure what to believe.

“How did you develop this spear-thrower, Jondalar?” Joharran asked. It had been his turn to try, and he still had the thrower in his hand.

“Watching Ayla throw a stone with that sling made me wish I could throw a spear like that. In fact, my first tries were with a kind of sling, but then I realized I needed something stiffer, less flexible. Eventually, I came up with this idea,” Jondalar explained. “But at that time, I didn’t know what you could really do with one. It takes practice, as you can guess by now, but we have even learned to use them from horseback. Now that you’ve had a chance to try them, maybe we should give you a real demonstration. Too bad we didn’t bring the horses, but at least I can give you a better idea of their range.”

Several spears had been retrieved from the targets. Jondalar picked one up, took the thrower from Joharran, and walked back a few feet. He sighted toward the targets, but instead of aiming directly for the hay bundles, he gave it as hard a cast as he could. The spear sailed over the bundles, going more than half again the distance before landing in the distant grass. Sounds of amazement could be heard.

Ayla went next, and though she didn’t have quite the power of the tall, muscular man, her spear fell only a little short of Jondalar’s. Ayla’s physical strength was greater than that of most women; it was the result of her upbringing. The people of the Clan were stronger and more robust than the Others. For her to keep up with them, to simply perform the ordinary work that was expected of Clan women and girls as she grew up, she had had to develop stronger bones and more muscle power than was normal for her kind.

As the spears were gathered, the people talked about the new weapon they had just seen. Casting a spear with a spear-thrower did not appear to be much different from throwing a spear by hand. The difference was in the results. It flew more than twice as far and with much greater force. That was the aspect most discussed, because it was immediately understood how much safer it would be to throw a spear from a greater distance.

Hunting accidents, while not common, were also not rare. More than one hunter had been maimed or killed by a pain-maddened, wounded animal. The question was how long and how much effort it would take to gain, if not the level of expertise displayed by Jondalar and Ayla, at least enough skill to use the spear-thrower competently. Some seemed to feel that they already had adequate techniques to hunt effectively, but some, especially the younger ones who were still learning, were more interested.

At first glance, the new weapon seemed so simple, and in fact it was. But it was based on principles that, although understood intuitively, would not be codified until much later. The spear-thrower was a handle, a unique detachable handle that utilized the mechanical advantage of leverage to add impetus to a spear, making it fly much farther and faster than a spear thrown with just an arm.

People had been using handles of various kinds for as long as they could remember, and any handle would amplify the force of muscles. For example, a sharp chip of stone—flint, jasper, chert, quartz, obsidian—was a cutting tool when held in the hand, but a handle multiplied the force that could be applied to the edge, increasing the effectiveness of the knife and giving the user more control.

But the spear-thrower was more than a new use of principles that were innately known. It was an example of an inborn characteristic of people like Jondalar and Ayla that made their survival more likely: the ability to conceive of an idea and turn into a useful object, to take an abstract thought and make it real. That was their greatest Gift, though they didn’t even recognize it for what it was.

The visitors spent the rest of the afternoon discussing strategies for the upcoming hunt. They decided to go after the herd of bison that had been sighted, since there were more animals in that group. Jondalar mentioned again that he thought they could hunt both the bison and the giant deer, but he didn’t press the matter. Ayla said nothing, deciding to wait and see. The visitors were fed another meal and urged to stay the night. Some people chose to stay, but Joharran had some things he wanted to prepare before the hunt, and he had promised Kareja to stop for a short visit with the Eleventh Cave on the way back.

It was still light, though the sun was falling in the west when the Ninth Cave started down the path. When they reached the relatively flat stretch of land near the bank of The River, Ayla turned and looked up again at the multiple levels of shelflike shelters of Two Rivers Rock. Some people were waving at them with a beckoning “come-back” gesture that was used by many people. She noticed that the visitors waved back with a similar motion; theirs meant “come-and-visit.”

Walking near the bank, they followed the cliff around to the right, back toward the north. As they continued upstream, the rock wall on their side of The River became less and less high. Near the lowest part at the bottom of a slope they saw a stone shelter. Slightly farther back and up the slope, perhaps one hundred twenty feet away, was a second abri, but stretching more or less continually along the same terrace level. A small cave could also be seen nearby. The two shelters, the cave, and the long terrace constituted the living site of another community in this densely populated regional settlement—the Eleventh Cave of the Zelandonii.

Kareja and the people of the Eleventh Cave had left Two Rivers Rock before the Ninth, and the leader was standing beside Zelandoni of the Eleventh as the group approached, waiting to greet them. Seeing them together, Ayla noticed that Kareja was taller than Zelandoni of the Eleventh. It was not that she was so tall, Ayla realized as they drew near, but that he was rather short. As he greeted her, she noticed again his strong grip. But she sensed something else about him. The man had certain mannerisms that had confused her when she first met him and came across quite strongly as he greeted and welcomed the visitors.