“Even a cave lion?” Jeralda asked. “Maybe you should wait until the hunters can go with you.”
Ayla knew she was looking for a reason for her to stay so she’d be there to help her deliver her baby. “Don’t you remember when we hunted a pride of cave lions who tried to settle too close to the Third Cave? It was too dangerous to allow that. Every child or elder would have been considered prey; we had to make them go. When we killed the lion and a couple of the lionesses, the rest of them left.”
“Yes, but that was a whole hunting party. You are just one person,” Jeralda said.
“No, Wolf will be with me, and Whinney. Lions like to go after something they know is weak. I think the scent of all of us together would confuse them, and I’ll keep my spear-thrower close by. Besides, if I leave early in the morning, I should be able to get there before nightfall,” Ayla said, then added to the hunters, “Tomorrow, let’s plan to go southwest.”
Marthona stayed back a ways listening to the conversation. She would make a good leader, the former leader of the Ninth Cave said to herself. She takes charge without even thinking about it, it just comes naturally. I think she’s going to be a strong Zelandoni.
The hunters returned the next day hauling two large red deer with sizable racks. Ayla thought about going to get Whinney to help drag them back, but the other hunters didn’t even think about it. They field-dressed the animals, emptied the stomachs, cleaned the intestines, and threw away the bowels, but saved the rest of the internal organs, then grabbed the antlers and started pulling them. They were used to getting their kills back home by themselves.
Two days later, Ayla was ready to leave. She packed everything on Zelandoni’s large pole-drag, including the deer wrapped in a woven grass mat that Marthona had helped her make, and intended to leave the following morning, planning to reach the Summer Meeting Campsite by nightfall, without having to push Whinney too hard. But there was a delay, not exactly unexpected. Jeralda started labor in the middle of the night. Ayla was rather glad. She had been overseeing her pregnancy all summer, and didn’t really want to leave her now that she was getting close. But she hadn’t been entirely sure when the woman would deliver, a few days, or a whole Moon.
This time, luck was with Jeralda. She gave birth to a girl before midday. Her mate and her mother were as happy and excited as she was. After a meal, when the woman was resting comfortably, Ayla began to get restless. Everything was ready to go; besides, while letting the meat age a bit often added to its flavor, if too much time passed, it could get a little too high, at least to her taste. It wouldn’t take much to pack up and leave; she could go now. But if she did, she would probably have to spend one night out along the way. She decided to leave anyway.
After farewells and last-minute instructions to Jeviva, Jeralda, and Marthona, Ayla started out. She enjoyed riding alone on Whinney, with Wolf loping beside them, and both the animals seemed to enjoy it as well. The weather was quite warm, but the riding blanket on Whinney’s back added some comfort, and absorbed some of the sweat of woman and horse. She wore a short tunic and her loincloth skirt, similar to the one she had worn when she and Jondalar had traveled through the summer heat, and she was reminded of their Journey, but it made her miss him all the more.
Her body, which had thickened slightly from the lack of excercise during the past few years, had been thinned down by her ordeal in the cave. Her breasts, which had filled out when she was heavy with milk while nursing Jonayla, and again with early pregnancy, had gone back to normal size, and her muscle tone was still good. She had always been firm and well shaped, and though she could count twenty-six years now, she thought, she looked very much the same as she had when she could count only seventeen years.
She rode until sunset, then stopped and made camp beside The River. Sleeping alone in her small tent made her think about Jondalar again. She crawled into her furs and closed her eyes, and kept seeing visions of the tall man with the thrilling blue eyes, wishing he were there to wrap his arms around her, wishing she could feel his mouth on hers. She rolled over, closed her eyes, and tried again to go to sleep. She kept tossing and turning but could not get to sleep. Wolf was beside her and started whining.
“Am I keeping you awake, too, Wolf?” Ayla said.
He sat up and poked his nose out of the opening under the closure, a growl deep in his throat. He squirmed his way under the flap that was loosely tied across the triangular-shaped front of the small tent, his growl becoming more menacing.
“Wolf! Where are you going? Wolf?”
She quickly untied the closure and started out, then turned back and reached for her spear-thrower and a couple of spears. The moon was waning, but there was still enough light to see reflected shapes. She saw the pole-drag, then noticed that Whinney was moving away from it. Even in the limited moonglow, she could tell from the way the mare moved that she was nervous. Wolf was crouching low, moving in the general direction of the pole-drag, but slightly behind it. Then, for an instant, she glimpsed a shape, a round head with two ears sticking up ending in tufts.
It’s a lynx!
She’d had memories of the large cat with mottled whitish-yellow fur, short stubby tail, and tufted ears. And long legs that could run fast. It was her first encounter with a lynx that had encouraged her to teach herself to cast two stones in rapid succession with her sling, so she wouldn’t be left weaponless after one hurl. She checked to make sure that she had more than one spear as she mounted one on her spear-thrower, ready to throw.
Then she saw his silhouette slinking toward the pole-drag.
“Aaaiiiii!” she screamed, running toward the cat. “Get out of there! That’s not yours! Go away! Get out of here!”
The startled lynx leaped straight up in the air, then sped away. Wolf took off after it, but after a few moments, Ayla whistled. He slowed down, then stopped, and when she whistled again, finally turned around and headed back.
Ayla had brought along a little kindling. She used it to stir up the coals of the fire she had made earlier to heat some water for tea to drink with the traveling cake that she ate before going to bed. The coals had died, so she got her fire-making kit and started a new one. Once she had the kindling lit, she used a piece as a torch to search around for more fuel. She was on an open plain with The River running through it. There were a few trees near The River, but only green wood was available; dried grass was, though, and a few desiccated animal droppings, probably from a bison or an aurochs, she thought. It was enough to keep the small fire going for a while. She laid out her sleeping roll next to the fire and crawled into it with Wolf beside her. Whinney stayed close to Ayla and the fire as well.
She dozed a little during the night, but the least sound roused her. Without bothering to build up the fire, she was on her way again shortly after first light, stopping only long enough for the horse, the wolf, and herself to get a drink from The River. She ate ano
ther traveling cake along the way, and sighted the smoke of cooking fires from the Camp before noon. Ayla waved to a few friends as she rode along The River, pulling the pole-drag behind, heading first toward the place upstream where the Ninth Cave had camped before.
She went straight to the glen surrounded by trees. The simple corral made her smile. The horses nickered greetings at first scent. Wolf raced ahead to rub noses with Racer, who had been his friend since his puppy days, and Gray, whom he had watched over from the time she was born. He felt nearly as protective toward her as he did toward Jonayla.
Except for the horses, the camp of the Ninth Cave seemed to be deserted. Wolf began sniffing around a familiar tent, and when she brought in her sleeping roll, she saw Wolf near Jonayla’s sleeping furs. He looked at her, whining with anxious need.
“Do you want to go find her, Wolf? Go ahead, Wolf, find Jonayla,” she said, giving him the signal that he was free to go. He raced out of the tent, sniffed the ground to pick up her particular scent among all the others, then ran off, smelling the ground now and then. People had seen Ayla arriving, and before she could unpack the meat, relatives and friends came to greet her. Joharran was the first, Proleva close behind.
“Ayla! You finally made it,” Joharran said, rushing toward her and giving her a big hug. “How’s Mother? You have no idea how much she is missed. Both of you, in fact.”
Proleva was next to embrace her. “Yes, how is Marthona?” she asked, giving Ayla time to answer.
“Better, I think. When I was leaving, she said if she had felt as good when everyone left, she might have come,” Ayla said.
“How’s Jeralda?” Proleva asked next.