Mammoth Hunters (50 page)

She backed away, confused, as Talut asked for the keeper of the Reindeer Hearth, and had to strike the stone twice to get a spark for Tronie. Fralie took the stone for the Crane Hearth, and by the time Tulie took hers, and she gave one to Mamut, for the Mammoth Hearth, Ayla was feeling dizzy, and more than willing to sit down near the fire where Mamut indicated.

The drums began to have their effect. The sound was soothing and compelling at the same time. The lodge was darkened—a small fire diffused through the screen was the only light. She could hear breathing, close by, and looked to see where it was coming from. Crouched, near the fire, was a man—or was it a lion? The breathing became a low growl, almost, but not quite—to her perceptive ear—like the warning growl of a cave lion. The vocalized drumming picked up the sound, giving it resonance and depth.

Suddenly, with a savage snarl, the lion figure leaped, and the silhouette of a lion moved across the screen. But it almost jerked to a stop in a startled response to Ayla’s unintentional reaction. She challenged the shadow lion with a growl so realistic and so menacing it brought a gasp from most of the people watching. The silhouette recovered its lion stance and answered with the soothing growl of a lion backing down. Ayla voiced an angry snarl of victory, then began a series of
“hnk, hnk, hnk”
grunts that faded as though the lion were walking away.

Mamut smiled to himself. Her lion is so perfect it would fool a lion, he thought, pleased that she had spontaneously joined him. Ayla didn’t know why she did, herself, except that after her first impromptu challenge, it was fun to talk like a lion with Mamut. She hadn’t done anything like it since Baby left her valley. The drums had picked up and enhanced the scene, but now were following the silhouette moving
sinuously across the screen. She was close enough to see that it was Mamut creating the action, but even she became caught up in the effect. She wondered, though, how the normally stiff and arthritic old man could move with such ease. Then she remembered seeing him gulp something down earlier, and suspected it might have been a strong painkiller. He would probably suffer for this the next day.

Suddenly Mamut leaped out from behind the screen and squatted by his mammoth skull drum. He beat on it rapidly for a short time, then stopped suddenly. He picked up a cup Ayla hadn’t noticed before, drank from it, then approaching her, offered it. Without even thinking about it, she took a small sip, and then another, though the taste was strong, musky, and unpleasant. Encouraged by the talking drums, she soon began to feel the effects.

The leaping flames behind the screen gave the animals painted on it a feeling of movement. She was entranced by them, concentrated her entire attention on them, and heard only in the distance the voices of the Camp beginning to chant. A baby cried, but it seemed to come from some other world as she was drawn along by the strange flickering motion of the animals on the screen. They seemed almost alive, as the drum music filled her with pounding hooves, bawling calves, trumpeting mammoths.

Then, it was dark no longer. Instead, a hazy sun overlooked a snowy plain. A small herd of musk-oxen was huddled together, a blizzard swirling around them. As she swooped low, she sensed she was not alone. Mamut was with her. The scene shifted. The storm was over, but wind-driven whirling snow-devils wailed across the steppes like ghostly apparitions. She and Mamut moved away from the desolate emptiness. Then, she noticed a few bison standing stoically on the lee side of a narrow valley, trying to stay out of the wind. She was racing ahead, darting along the river valley that cut deep ravines. They followed a tributary that narrowed into a steep-walled canyon ahead, and she saw the familiar side path up the dry bed of a seasonal stream.

And then she was in a dark place looking down at a small fire and people huddled around a screen. She heard a slow chant, a continuous repetition of sound. When she flickered her eyelids and saw blurred faces, she saw Nezzie and Talut and Jondalar looking down at her with worried expressions.

“Are you all right?” Jondalar asked, speaking Zelandonii.
“Yes, yes. I’m all right, Jondalar. What happened? Where was I?”

“You’ll have to tell me.”

“How do you feel?” Nezzie asked. “Mamut always likes this tea, afterward.”

“I am fine,” she said, sitting up and taking the cup. She did feel fine. A little tired, and a little dizzy, but not bad.

“I don’t think it was as frightening for you this time, Ayla,” Mamut said, coming toward her.

Ayla smiled. “No, I am not frightened, but what we do?”

“We Searched. I thought you were a Searcher. That’s why you are a daughter of the Mammoth Hearth,” he said. “You have other natural Talents, Ayla, but you need training.” He saw her frown. “Don’t worry about it now. There is time to think about it later.”

Talut poured out more of his brew for Ayla and several others while Mamut told them about the Search, where they went, what they found. She gulped it down—it didn’t seem so bad that way—then tried to listen, but it seemed to go to her head quickly. Her mind wandered and she noticed that Deegie and Tornec were still playing their instruments, but with tones so rhythmic and appealing it made her want to move with them. It reminded her of the Women’s Dance of the Clan, and she found it hard to concentrate on Mamut.

She felt someone watching her, and glanced around. Near the Fox Hearth she saw Ranec staring at her. He smiled and she smiled back. Suddenly Talut was filling her cup again. Ranec came forward and offered his cup for filling; Talut complied, then turned back to the discussion.

“You’re not interested in this, are you? Let’s go over there, where Deegie and Tornec are playing,” Ranec said in a low voice, leaning close to her ear.

“I think not. They talk about hunt.” Ayla turned back to the serious discussion, but she had missed so much of it she didn’t know where they were, and they didn’t seem to notice if she was listening or not.

“You won’t miss anything. They’ll tell us all about it later. Listen to that,” he said, pausing to let her hear the pulsing musical sounds coming from the other side of the hearth. “Wouldn’t you rather see how Tornec does that? He’s really very good.”

Ayla leaned toward the sound, pulled by the rhythmic beat. She glanced at the group making plans, then looked at
Ranec and broke into a full beaming smile. “Yes, I rather see Tornec!” she said, feeling pleased with herself.

As they got up, Ranec, standing close, stopped her. “You must stop smiling, Ayla,” he said, his tone serious and stern.

“Why?” she asked with deep concern, her smile gone, wondering what she had done wrong.

“Because you are so lovely when you smile, you take my breath away,” Ranec said, and he meant every word, but then he continued, “And how will I walk with you if I’m gasping for breath?”

Ayla’s smile returned at his compliment, then the idea of him gasping for breath because she smiled made her giggle. It was a joke, of course, she thought, though she wasn’t entirely sure he was joking. They walked toward the new entrance to the Mammoth Hearth.

Jondalar observed them as they approached. He had been enjoying the rhythms and music while he was waiting for her, but he did not enjoy seeing Ayla walking toward the music makers with Ranec. He felt jealousy rise in his throat, and had a wild urge to strike out at the man who dared to advance on the woman he loved. But Ranec, for all that he looked different, was Mamutoi, and belonged to the Lion Camp. Jondalar was only a guest. They would stand up for their own, and he was alone. He tried to exert control and reason. Ranec and Ayla were only walking together. How could he object to that?

He had had mixed feelings about her adoption from the beginning. He wanted her to belong to some group of people, because she wanted it, and, he admitted, so she would be more acceptable to his people. He had seen how happy she was when they were exchanging gifts, and he was pleased for her, but felt distant from it, and more worried than ever that she might not want to leave. He wondered if he should have allowed himself to be adopted after all.

He had felt a part of Ayla’s adoption in the beginning. But he felt like an outsider now, even to Ayla. She was one of them. This was her night, her celebration, hers and the Lion Camp’s. He had given her no gift, and had not received one in exchange. He hadn’t even thought of it, though now he wished he had. But he had no gifts to give, to her or anyone. He had arrived here with nothing, and he had not spent years making and accumulating things. He had learned many things in his travels and had accumulated knowledge, but
he’d had no opportunity to benefit from his acquisitions, yet All he had brought with him was Ayla.

With a dark scowl, Jondalar watched her smiling and laughing with Ranec, feeling like an unwanted intruder.

When the discussion broke up, Talut doled out more of his fermented beverage, made from the starch of cattail roots and various other ingredients, which he was constantly experimenting with. The festivities centered on Deegie and Tornec became more lively. They played music, people sang, sometimes together and other times individually. Some people danced, not the energetic kind of dance Ayla had seen earlier, outside, but a subtle form of body movement made standing in one place in time to the rhythm, often with a singing accompaniment.

Ayla noticed Jondalar often, hanging back somewhat, and started toward him several times, but something always interrupted. There were so many people, and all of them seemed to be vying for her attention. She was not entirely in control of herself from Talut’s drink, and her concentration was easily distracted.

She took a turn on Deegie’s musical skull drum, with enthusiastic encouragement, and remembered some of the Clan rhythms. They were complex, distinctive, and, to the Lion Camp, unusual and intriguing. If Mamut had any doubts left about Ayla’s origins, the memories triggered by her playing eliminated them completely.

Then Ranec stood up to dance and sing a humorous song full of innuendo and double meanings about the Pleasures of Gifts, directed at Ayla. It brought broad grins and knowing glances, and was obvious enough to make Ayla blush. Deegie showed her how to dance and sing the satirical response, but at the end, where a hint of acceptance or rejection was supposed to finish it, Ayla stopped. She could do neither. She didn’t quite understand the subtleties of the game, and while it wasn’t her intention to encourage him, she didn’t want him to think she didn’t like him, either. Ranec smiled.
Disguised as humor, the song was often used as a face-saving means of discovering if interest was mutual. Not even a flat rejection would have stopped him; he considered anything less, promising.

Ayla was giddy with the drink and the laughter, and the attention. Everyone wanted to include her, everyone wanted to talk to her, to listen to her, to put an arm around her and feel close. She couldn’t remember ever having so much fun, or feeling so warm and friendly, or so wanted. And every time she turned around, she saw an enraptured, gleaming smile and flashing dark eyes concentrated on her.

As the evening wore on, the group began to diminish. Children dropped off to sleep and were carried to their beds. Fralie had gone to bed early, at Ayla’s suggestion, and the rest of Crane Hearth followed soon after. Tronie, complaining of a headache—she hadn’t been feeling well that evening—went to her hearth to nurse Hartal, and fell asleep. Jondalar slipped away then, too. He stretched out on the sleeping platform, waiting for Ayla, and watching her.

Wymez was uncommonly voluble, after a few cups of Talut’s bouza, and told stories and made teasing remarks first to Ayla, then to Deegie, then to all the women. Tulie began to find him suddenly interesting, after all this time, and teased and joked back. She ended up inviting him to spend the night at the Aurochs Hearth with her and Barzec. She hadn’t shared her bed with a second man since Darnev died.

Wymez decided it might be a good idea to leave the hearth to Ranec, and perhaps not so unwise to let it be known that a woman could choose two men. He was not blind to the situation that was developing, though he doubted that any agreement could be reached between Ranec and Jondalar. But the big woman did seem particularly attractive this evening, and she was a highly valued headwoman who had a great deal of status to bestow. Who could tell what changes he might want to make if Ranec decided to change the composition of the Fox Hearth?

Not long after the three of them headed toward the back of the lodge, Talut teased Nezzie to the Lion Hearth. Deegie and Tornec got involved in experimenting with their instruments, to the exclusion of everyone else, and Ayla thought she heard some of her rhythms. Then she realized she and Ranec were talking alone, and it made her self-conscious.

“I think everyone go to bed,” she said, her voice a little
slurred. She was feeling the effects of the bouza, and weaved back and forth where she stood. Most of the lamps were gone, and the fire had burned low.

“Perhaps we should,” he said, smiling. Ayla felt the unspoken invitation gleaming in his eyes, and was drawn to it, but she didn’t know how to deal with it.

“Yes. I am tired,” she said, starting toward her bed platform. Ranec took her hand and held her back.

“Ayla, don’t go.” His smile was gone, and his tone was insistent. She turned back, and the next instant, his arms were around her, and his mouth was hard on hers. She opened hers slightly, and his response was immediate. He kissed her all over, her mouth, her neck, her throat. His hands reached for her breasts, then caressed her hips, and her thighs, and cupped her mound, as though he couldn’t get enough of her and wanted her all at once. Unexpected shocks of excitement coursed through her. He pressed her to him, and she felt a hard hot lump against her, and a sudden warmth of her own between her legs.

“Ayla, I want you. Come to my bed,” he said with commanding urgency. With unexpected complaisance, she followed him.

All evening, Jondalar had watched the woman he loved laughing and joking and dancing with her new people, and the longer he watched, the more of an outsider he felt. But it was the attentive dark-skinned carver, in particular, that galled him. He wanted to vent his wrath, step in and take Ayla away, but this was her home now, this was the night of her adoption. What right did he have to interfere in their celebration? He could only put on a face of acceptance, if not pleasure, but he felt miserable, and went to the bed platform wishing for the oblivion of sleep that would not come.