“One for each of your young hunters, seven,” Willamar said.
“Seven! How could you bring so many? Where are they?” a man said.
“Would you like to show them, Ayla?” Willamar said.
“I would be glad to,” Ayla said.
The people nearby noticed her accent and knew she had to be the foreign woman they had heard about. Many of them followed her and Jondalar back to where the horses were patiently waiting. Behind both Racer and Gray were newly made pole-drags that appeared to be piled high with cattail leaves. As Ayla started to remove them, it was quickly revealed that beneath the vegetation were several whole carcasses of red deer of various sizes and ages, female and young. They were covered with cattails mainly to protect them from insects.
“Your young men were very enthusiastic hunters,” Jondalar said. He refrained from adding, “But not very selective.” “These are all their kills. They should make a hearty feast.”
“We can use the cattails, too,” a voice from the watching group said.
“And you are welcome to them,” Ayla said. “There were more growing where we turned away from the river, and other good things to eat as well.”
“I imagine plants growing near your Camp have been picked clean by now,” the One Who Was First said. There were nods and comments of agreement.
“If some of you would be willing to ride on the pole-drags, we can take you to the river where they are, and bring you and your pickings back,” Ayla said.
Several of the younger people looked at each other, then quickly volunteered. They went to get digging sticks and knives, and wide-mesh carrying bags and baskets. On a regular travois, two or three people could semi-recline, but on the one made especially for the First, two normal-size people could sit upright, side by side, three if they were very thin.
When they started out, Jondalar, Ayla, and Jonayla rode on the backs of Racer, Whinney, and Gray, while the horses pulled six more people on the pole-drags. Wolf followed after them. When they reached the place where the travelers had turned away from the river, they halted the horses and the young people got off, feeling rather pleased with themselves for taking the unusual ride; then everyone spread out in several directions to forage. Ayla unhitched the pole-drags to give the horses a rest, and the animals grazed while the gatherers worked. Wolf nosed around, then ran into the woods after a scent he wanted to follow.
They were back at the Camp by midafternoon. While they were gone, many hands had made short work of processing the red deer, and much of it was already cooking. Work had begun on turning some of the pelts into leather that could be worn or made into other useful products.
The feast and celebration went on into the night, but Ayla was tired and as soon as plans were made to visit the Sacred Site, and she could graciously leave, she went to her traveling tent with Jonayla and Wolf to settle in for the night. Jondalar met another flint-knapper and got involved in a discussion about the qualities of flint from various places; the area they were in was the source of some of the best stone in the region.
He told Ayla he would be along soon, but by the time he retired to the tent, both Ayla and Jonayla were sound asleep, along with some of their other tent-mates. The First stayed in the zelandonia lodge that night. Ayla had been invited to stay, and though she knew her Zelandoni would have liked her to get more involved with the local doniers, Ayla wanted to stay with her family and the First didn’t press her. Amelana was the last to return. Though Ayla had told her that while she was pregnant, it probably wasn’t a good idea to drink beverages that would make her intoxicated, she was more than a little tipsy. She went right to bed and hoped Ayla wouldn’t notice.
Early in the morning Amelana was awakened and asked if she wanted to visit the Sacred Site, but she declined, saying she had overdone it the day before and felt she should rest. Both Ayla and the First knew she was suffering from the morning-after malady. Ayla was tempted to let her just suffer it out, but for the sake of her unborn child, she made her some of the special medicine she had developed for Talut, leader of the Lion Camp of the Mamutoi, to overcome the headache and upset stomach that came with too much indulgence. The young woman still wanted nothing more than to stay in her sleeping roll.
Jonayla didn’t want to go either. After her experience with the men who wanted to hunt her horses,
she was worried that someone else might make a try for them, and wanted to stay and guard them. Ayla tried to explain that everyone at the Camp knew they were special horses by now, but Jonayla said she was afraid someone new might come who didn’t know about them. Ayla couldn’t deny that her daughter had done the right thing before, and Dulana was more than happy to watch the child for Ayla, especially since her daughter was close to the same age. So Ayla let her stay.
The rest of those who wanted to see the painted cave started out. The group consisted of the One Who Was First; Jonokol, her First Acolyte, who was now Zelandoni of the Nineteenth Cave; Ayla, her current acolyte; and Jondalar. Willamar came, but not his two apprentices; they had found other objects of interest to distract them. In addition, several of the Zelandonia who were at the Summer Meeting wanted to see the site again, especially if they were going to be led through it by the Seventh, who knew it better than anyone alive.
There were ten satellite Caves in the region, each of which had its own painted cave as a Sacred Site that was complementary to the important one near the Seventh Cave, but many of them had only rudimentary paintings and engravings in comparison. The Fourth Cave of the South Land Zelandonii, which they had just visited, was one of the better ones. The group started up a path that traversed its way up the steep hill they had seen when they first saw the valley.
“This is called Blackbird Hill,” the Seventh explained. “Sometimes the Hill of the Fishing Blackbird. Somebody invariably asks why, but I don’t know. I have occasionally seen a raven or a crow up here, but I don’t know if that’s relevant. The one who was Seventh before me didn’t know, either.”
“The reason for names often gets lost in the depths of memory,” the First said. The big woman was out of breath and huffing a bit as she climbed the hill, but continued doggedly on. The zigzagging trail made the ascent a little easier, if longer.
Finally they reached an opening into the limestone hill at a point that was quite high above the valley floor. The entrance was not very exceptional, and if the path had not led to it, it would hardly have been noticed. The opening was high enough to enter without ducking or stooping and wide enough to accommodate two or three people, but a large bush growing in front of it would have made it difficult to find unless one knew exactly where to look. One of the acolytes brushed away a small spill of rubble spalling off the rocky slope above that had accumulated in front of the entrance. Ayla showed her skill with making fire quickly, which included a promise to show the Seventh how it was done; then lamps and torches were lit.
The Zelandoni of the South Land Seventh Cave led the way into the cave, followed by the First, then Jonokol, Ayla, Jondalar, and Willamar. They were followed by the local zelandonia who chose to come, including a couple of acolytes. The group numbered twelve in all. The entrance opened into the side of a passageway that required them to turn either right or left. They turned right and after a short distance, the passage widened and split into two tunnels. They had entered a room that had a stone blockage in the middle with a narrow passageway around it on one side and a wider one on the other.
“We could go either way; we’d end up in the same place, at a pile of rocks in the back with no way out except the way we came in, but there are some interesting things to see,” the Seventh said.
They took the narrow right fork and immediately came upon some small red dots on the right wall, which the Seventh pointed out. There were more on the left wall; then a little farther on they stopped to look at a horse painted on the right wall and more dots, and near it a lion with a fantastic tail held up but curled toward the back. Ayla wondered if the person who made the image had perhaps seen a lion with a broken tail that had healed with an odd twist. She knew how strangely broken bones sometimes healed.
Then on the right wall, after a few more paces along the narrow passage, they came to a panel that the Seventh called “the Deer.” The drawing made Ayla think of female megaceroses, and she remembered that they had seen the giant deer painted in the Sacred Cave near the South Land Fourth Cave. Across from it on the left were two large red dots. More red dots were painted on the wall beyond the deer, and then on the vaulted ceiling ahead were several rows of large dots.
Ayla was curious about the dots, but she was reluctant to ask questions. Finally she ventured a query. “Do you know what the dots represent?”
The tall man with the full brown beard smiled at the attractive acolyte, whose lovely features had a bit of a foreign aspect, which appealed to him. “They don’t necessarily mean the same thing to everyone, but to me, when I am in the right state of mind, they seem to be pathways leading to the next world and, more important, they show the way back.” She nodded at his answer, then smiled. He liked her look even better when she smiled.
They continued around the middle-section blockage through the narrow passage, which then opened wider. They kept veering toward the left until they were headed in the direction that led back to the place from which they started, through a much larger room that had obviously been used by bears, probably hibernating bears. The walls bore the traces of their claws as they raked them down the limestone. When they approached the opening through which they had entered the cave, the Seventh kept going straight ahead, the direction they would have been going if they had turned left when they first entered the cave.