Clan of the Cave Bear (82 page)

“What kind of signal?” Rushemar asked.

Joharran paused, then said, “Watch Jondalar. Wait until he throws. That can be our signal.”

“I’ll be your partner, Joharran,” Rushemar volunteered.

The leader nodded.

“I need a backup,” Morizan said. He was the son of Manvelar’s mate, Ayla recalled. “I’m not sure how good I am, but I have been working at it.”

“I can be your partner. I’ve been practicing with the spear-thrower.”

Ayla turned at the sound of the feminine voice and saw that it was Folara’s red-haired friend, Galeya, who had spoken.

Jondalar turned to look, too. That’s one way to get close to the son of a leader’s mate, he thought, and glanced at Ayla, wondering if she had caught the implication.

“I can partner with Thefona, if she would like,” Solaban said, “since I’ll be using a spear like her, not a spear-thrower.”

The young woman smiled at him, glad to have a more mature and experienced hunter close by.

“I’ve been practicing with a spear-thrower,” Palidar said. He was a friend of Tivonan, the apprentice of Willamar, the Trade Master.

“We can be partners, Palidar,” Tivonan said, “but I can only use a spear.”

“I haven’t really practiced much with that thrower either,” Palidar said.

Ayla smiled at the young men. As Willamar’s apprentice trader, Tivonan would no doubt become the Ninth Cave’s next Trade Master. His friend, Palidar, had come back with Tivonan when he went to visit his Cave on a short trading mission, and Palidar was the one who had found the place where Wolf had gotten into the terrible fight with the other wolves, and took her to it. She thought of him as a good friend.

“I haven’t done much with that thrower, but I can handle a spear.”

It’s Mejera, the acolyte of Zelandoni of the Third, Ayla said to herself, remembering that the young woman was with them the first time Ayla went into the Deep of Fountain Rocks to look for the life force of Jondalar’s younger brother when they tried to help his elan find its way to the spirit world.

“Everyone has already picked a partner, so I guess we’re left. Not only have I not practiced with the spear-thrower, I have hardly ever seen it used,” said Jalodan, Morizan’s cousin, the son of Manvelar’s sister, who was visiting the Third Cave. He was planning to travel with them to the Summer Meeting to meet up with his Cave.

That was it. The twelve men and women who were going to hunt a similar number of lions—animals with greater speed, strength, and ferocity that lived by hunting weaker prey. Ayla began having feelings of doubt and a shiver of fear gave her a chill. She rubbed her arms and felt an eruption of bumps. How could twelve frail humans even think of attacking a pride of lions? She caught sight of the other carnivore, the one she knew, and signaled the animal to stay with her, thinking, twelve people—and Wolf.

“All right, let’s go,” Joharran said, “but keep together.”

The twelve hunters from the Third Cave and the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii started out together walking directly toward the pride of massive felines. They were armed with spears, tipped with sharpened flint, or bone or ivory sanded to a smooth, round sharp point. Some had spear-throwers that could propel a spear much farther and with more power and speed than one thrown by hand, but lions had been killed with just spears before. This might be a test of Jondalar’s weapon, but it would test the courage of the ones who were hunting even more.

“Go away!” Ayla shouted as they started out. “We don’t want you here!”

Several others picked up the refrain, with variations, shouting and yelling at the animals as they approached, telling them to go away.

At first the cats, young and old, just watched them come. Then some began to move around, back into the grass that hid them so well, and out again, as though they weren’t sure what to do. The ones who retreated with cubs returned without them.

“They don’t seem to know what to make of us,” Thefona said from the middle of the advancing hunters, feeling a little more secure than when they started, but when the big male suddenly snarled at them, everyone jumped with a start, and stopped in their tracks.

“This is not the time to stop,” Joharran said, forging ahead.

They started out again, their formation a little more ragged at first, but they pulled together again as they continued on. All the lions started moving around, some turning their backs and disappearing into the tall grass, but the big male snarled again, then rumbled the beginning of a roar as he stood his ground. Several of the other big cats were arrayed behind him. Ayla was picking up the scent of fear from the human hunters, she was sure the lions were, too. She was afraid herself, but fear was something that people could overcome.

“I think we’d better get ready,” Jondalar said. “That male doesn’t look happy, and he has reinforcements.”

“Can’t you get him from here?” Ayla asked. She heard the series of grunts that was usually a precursor to a lion’s roar.

“Probably,” Jondalar said, “but I’d rather be closer, so I can be more sure of my aim.”

“And I’m not sure how good my aim would be from this distance. We do need to be closer,” Joharran said, continuing to march forward.

The people bunched together and kept going, still shouting, though Ayla thought their sound was more tentative as they drew closer. The cave lions became still and seemed tense as they watched the approach of the strange herd that didn’t behave like prey animals.

Then, suddenly, everything happened at once.

The big male lion roared, a staggering, deafening sound, especially from such close range. He started toward them at a run. As he closed in, poised to spring, Jondalar hurled his spear at him.

Ayla had been watching the female on his right. About the time that Jondalar made his cast, the lioness bounded forward running, then vaulted to pounce.

Ayla pulled back and took aim. She felt the back of the spear-thrower with the spear mounted on it rise up almost without her knowing it as she hurled her spear. It was so natural for her, it didn’t feel like a deliberate move. She and Jondalar had used the weapon during their entire year-long Journey back to the Zelandonii and she was so skilled, it was second nature.

The lioness soared into her leap, but Ayla’s spear met her more than halfway. It found its mark from beneath the big cat, and lodged firmly in her throat in a sudden fatal slash. Blood spurted out as the lioness collapsed to the ground.

The woman quickly grabbed another spear from her holder, and slapped it down on her spear-thrower, looking around to see what else was happening. She saw Joharran’s spear fly, and a heartbeat later another spear followed. She noticed that Rushemar was in the stance of one who had just thrown a spear. She saw another large female lion fall. A second spear found the beast before she landed. Another lioness was still coming. Ayla cast a spear, and saw that someone else had, too, just a moment before her.

She reached for another spear, making sure it was seated right—that the point, which was affixed to a short length of tapering shaft made to detach from the main spear shaft, was firmly in place and the hole in the butt of the long spear shaft was engaging the hook at the back of the spear-thrower. Then she looked around again. The huge male was down, but moving, bleeding but not dead. Her female was also bleeding, but not moving.

The lions were disappearing into the grass as fast as they could, at least one leaving a trail of blood. The human hunters were gathering themselves together, looking around and beginning to smile at each other.

“I think we did it,” Palidar said, a huge grin starting.

He had barely gotten the words out when Wolf’s menacing growl caught Ayla’s attention. The wolf bounded away from the human hunters with Ayla on his heels. The heavily bleeding male lion was up and coming at them again. With a roar, he sprang toward them. Ayla could almost feel his anger, and she didn’t really blame him.

Just as Wolf reached the lion and leaped up to attack, keeping himself between Ayla and the big cat, she flung her spear as hard as she could. Her eye caught another one hurled at the same time. They landed almost simultaneously with an audible
thunk
, and
thunk
. Both the lion and the wolf crumpled in a heap. Ayla gasped when she saw them fall, swathed in blood, afraid that Wolf was hurt.

EARTH’S CHILDREN
^®
Series Sampler

Read on for excerpts from each of the other novels in
Jean M. Auel’s
Earth’s Children
^®
series
.

THE VALLEY OF HORSES

THE MAMMOTH HUNTERS

THE PLAINS OF PASSAGE

THE SHELTERS OF STONE

S
he was dead. What did it matter if icy needles of freezing rain flayed her skin raw. The young woman squinted into the wind, pulling her wolverine hood closer. Violent gusts whipped her bearskin wrap against her legs.

Were those trees ahead? She thought she remembered seeing a scraggly row of woody vegetation on the horizon earlier, and wished she had paid more attention, or that her memory was as good as that of the rest of the Clan. She still thought of herself as Clan, though she never had been, and now she was dead.

She bowed her head and leaned into the wind. The storm had come upon her suddenly, hurtling down from the north, and she was desperate for shelter. But she was a long way from the cave, and unfamiliar with the territory. The moon had gone through a full cycle of phases since she left, but she still had no idea where she was going.

North, to the mainland beyond the peninsula, that was all she knew. The night Iza died, she had told her to leave, told her Broud would find a way to hurt her when he became leader. Iza had been right. Broud had hurt her, worse than she ever imagined.

He had no good reason to take Durc away from me, Ayla thought. He’s my son. Broud had no good reason to curse me, either. He’s the one who made the spirits angry. He’s the one who brought on the earthquake. At least she knew what to expect this time. But it happened so fast that even the clan had taken a while to accept it, to close her out of their sight. But they couldn’t stop Durc from seeing her, though she was dead to the rest of the clan.

Broud had cursed her on impulse born of anger. When Brun had cursed her, the first time, he had prepared them. He’d had reason; they knew he had to do it, and he’d given her a chance.

She raised her head to another icy blast, and noticed it was twilight. It would be dark soon, and her feet were numb. Frigid slush was soaking through her leather foot coverings despite the insulating sedge grass she had stuffed in them. She was relieved to see a dwarfed and twisted pine.

Trees were rare on the steppes; they grew only where there was moisture enough to sustain them. A double row of pines, birches, or willows, sculptured by wind into stunted asymmetrical shapes, usually marked a watercourse. They were a welcome sight in dry seasons in a land where groundwater was scarce. When storms howled down the open plains from the great northern glacier, they offered protection, scant though it was.

A few more steps brought the young woman to the edge of a stream, though only a narrow channel of water flowed between the ice-locked banks. She turned west to follow it downstream, looking for denser growth that would give more shelter than the nearby scrub.

She plodded ahead, her hood pulled forward, but looked up when the wind ceased abruptly. Across the stream a low bluff guarded the opposite bank. The sedge grass did nothing to warm her feet when the icy water seeped in crossing over, but she was grateful to be out of the wind. The dirt wall of the bank had caved in at one place, leaving an overhang thatched with tangled grass roots and matted old growth, and a fairly dry spot beneath.

She untied the waterlogged thongs that held her carrying basket to her back and shrugged it off, then took out a heavy aurochs hide and a sturdy branch stripped of twigs. She set up a low, sloping tent, held down with rocks and driftwood logs. The branch held it open in front.

She loosened the thongs of her hand coverings with her teeth. They were roughly circular pieces of fur-lined leather, gathered at the wrist, with a slit cut in the palms to poke her thumb or hand through when she wanted to grasp something. Her foot coverings were made the same way, without the slit, and she struggled to untie the swollen leather laces wrapped around her ankles. She was careful to salvage the wet sedge grass when she removed them.

She laid her bearskin wrap on the ground inside the tent, wet side down, put the sedge grass and the hand and foot coverings on top, then crawled in feet first. She wrapped the fur around her and pulled the carrying basket up to block the opening. She rubbed her cold feet, and, when her damp fur nest warmed, she curled up and closed her eyes.