The Valley of Horses (20 page)

This is supposed to be your naming ceremony, she thought, gaining control of herself. The mud had squeezed out between her fingers. She scooped up another handful, then reached toward the sky with the other hand, as Creb had always done with his abbreviated one-handed gestures, calling for the spirits to attend. Then she hesitated, not sure if she should invoke the Clan spirits at the naming of a horse—they might not approve. She dipped her fingers into the mud in her hand and made a streak down the foal’s face, from her forehead to the end of her nose, as Creb had drawn a line with the paste of red ochre from the place where Durc’s brow ridges met to the tip of his rather small nose.

“Whinney,” she said aloud, and finished with the formal language. “This girl’s … this female horse’s name is Whinney.”

The horse shook her head, trying to rid herself of the wet mud on her face, making Ayla laugh. “It will dry up and wear off soon, Whinney.”

She washed her hands, adjusted the basketful of grain on her back, and walked slowly to the cave. The naming ceremony had reminded her too much of her solitary existence. Whinney was a warm living creature and eased her loneliness, but by the time Ayla reached the rocky beach, tears had come unbidden, unnoticed.

She coaxed and guided the young horse up the steep path to her cave, which roused her out of her grief somewhat. “Come on, Whinney, you can do it. I know you’re not an ibex or a saiga antelope, but it only takes getting used to.”

They reached the top of the wall that was the front extension of her cave and went in. Ayla rekindled the banked fire and started some grain cooking. The young filly was now eating grass and grain and didn’t need specially
prepared food, but Ayla made mashes for her because Whinney liked them.

She took a brace of rabbits, caught earlier in the day, outside to skin them while it was still light, brought them in to cook, and rolled up the skins until she was ready to process them. She had accumulated a large supply of animal skins: rabbits, hares, hamsters, whatever she caught. She wasn’t sure how she was going to use them, but she carefully cured and saved them all. During the winter she might think of a use for them. If it got cold enough, she’d just pile them around her.

Winter was on her mind as the days grew shorter and the temperature fell. She didn’t know how long or harsh it would be, which worried her. A sudden attack of anxiety sent her checking her stores, though she knew exactly what she had. She looked through baskets and bark containers of dried meat, fruits and vegetables, seeds, nuts, and grains. In the dark corner farthest from the entrance, she examined piles of whole, sound roots and fruits to make sure no signs of rot had appeared.

Along the rear wall were stacks of wood, dried horse dung from the field, and mounds of dry grass. More baskets of grain, for Whinney, were stashed in the opposite corner.

Ayla walked back to the hearth to check the grain cooking in a tightly woven basket and turn the rabbits, then past her bed and personal belongings along the wall near it, to examine herbs, roots, and barks suspended from a rack. She had sunk the posts for it in the packed earth of the cave not too far from the fireplace, so the seasonings, tea, and medicines would benefit from the heat as they dried, but would not be too close to the fire.

She had no clan to tend and didn’t need all the medicines, but she had kept Iza’s pharmacopoeia well stocked after the old woman became too weak, and she was accustomed to gathering the medicines along with food. On the other side of the herb rack was an assortment of various materials: chunks of wood, sticks and branches, grasses and barks, hides, bones, several rocks and stones, even a basket of sand from the beach.

She didn’t like to dwell too much on the long, lonely, inactive winter ahead. But she knew there would be no ceremonies with feasting and storytelling, no new babies to anticipate, no gossiping, or conversations, or discussions of
medical lore with Iza or Uba, no watching the men discuss hunting tactics. She planned instead to spend her time making things—the more difficult and time-consuming, the better—to keep herself as busy as possible.

She looked over some of the solid chunks of wood. They ranged from small to large so she could make bowls of various sizes. Gouging out the inside and shaping it with a hand-axe used as an adze, and a knife, then rubbing it smooth with a round rock and sand could take days; she planned to make several. Some of the small hides would be made into hand coverings, leggings, footwear linings, others would be dehaired and worked so well that they would be as soft and pliable as baby’s skin, but very absorbent.

Her collection of beargrass, cattail leaves and stalks, reeds, willow switches, roots of trees, would be made into baskets, tightly woven or of looser weave in intricate patterns, for cooking, eating, storage containers, winnowing trays, serving trays, mats for sitting upon, serving or drying food. She would make cordage, in thicknesses from string to rope, from fibrous plants, barks and the sinew and long tail of the horse; and lamps out of stone with shallow wells pecked out to be filled with fat and a dried moss wick which burned with no smoke. She had kept the fat of carnivorous animals separate for that use. Not that she wouldn’t eat it if she had to, it was just a matter of taste preference.

There were flat hipbones and shoulder bones to be shaped into plates and platters, others for ladles or stirrers; fuzz from various plants to be used for tinder or stuffing, along with feathers and hair; several nodules of flint and implements to shape it with. She had passed many a slow winter day making similar objects and implements, necessary for existence, but she also had a supply of materials for objects she was not accustomed to making, though she had watched men make them often enough: hunting weapons.

She wanted to make spears, clubs shaped to fit the hand, new slings. She thought she might even try a bola, although skill with that weapon took as much practice as the sling. Brun was the expert with the bola; just making the weapon was a skill in itself. Three stones had to be pecked round, into balls, then attached to cords and fastened together with the proper length and balance.

Would he teach Durc? Ayla wondered.

Daylight was fading and her fire was nearly out. The
grain had absorbed all the water and softened. She took a bowlful for herself, then added water and prepared the rest for Whinney. She poured it into a watertight basket and brought it to the animal’s sleeping place against the wall on the opposite side of the cave mouth.

For the first few days down on the beach, Ayla had slept with the little horse, but she decided the foal should have her own place up in the cave. While she used dried horse dung for fuel, she found little use for fresh droppings on her sleeping furs, and the foal seemed unhappy about it as well The time would come when the horse would be too big to sleep with, and her bed wasn’t big enough for both of them, though she often lay down and cuddled the baby animal in the place she had made for her.

“It should be enough,” Ayla motioned to the horse. She was developing a habit of talking to her, and the young horse was beginning to respond to certain signals. “I hope I gathered enough for you. I wish I knew how long the winters are here.” She was feeling rather edgy and a little depressed. If it hadn’t been dark, she would have gone for a brisk walk. Or better, a long run.

When the horse started chewing on her basket, Ayla brought her an armload of fresh hay. “Here, Whinney, chew on this. You’re not supposed to eat your food dish!” Ayla felt like paying special attention to her young companion with petting and scratching. When she stopped, the foal nuzzled her hand and presented a flank that was in need of more attention.

“You must be very itchy.” Ayla smiled and began scratching again. “Wait, I have an idea.” She went back to the place where her miscellaneous materials were assembled and found a bundle of dried teasel. When the flower of the plant dried, it left an elongated egg-shaped spiny brush. She snapped one from its stem, and with it gently scratched the spot on Whinney’s flank. One spot led to another and before she stopped, she had brushed and curried Whinney’s entire shaggy coat, much to the young animal’s evident delight.

Then she wrapped her arms around Whinney’s neck and lay down on the fresh hay beside the warm young animal.

Ayla woke up with a start. She stayed very still with her eyes open wide, filled with forboding. Something was
wrong. She felt a cold draft, then caught her breath. What was that snuffling noise? She wasn’t sure if she had heard it, over the sound of the horse’s breath and heartbeat. Did it come from the back of the cave? It was so dark, she couldn’t see.

It was so dark.… That was it! There was no warm red glow from the banked fire in the hearth. And her orientation to the cave wasn’t right. The wall was on the wrong side, and the draft … There it was again! The snuffling and coughing! What am I doing in Whinney’s place? I must have fallen asleep and forgotten to bank the fire. Now it’s out. I haven’t lost my fire since I found this valley.

Ayla shuddered and suddenly felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She had no word, no gesture, no concept for the presentiment that washed over her, but she felt it. The muscles of her back tightened. Something was going to happen. Something to do with fire. She knew it, as certainly as she knew she breathed.

She’d had these feelings occasionally, ever since the night she had followed Creb and the mog-urs into the small room deep in the cave of the clan that hosted the Gathering. Creb had discovered her, not because he saw her, but because he felt her. And she had felt him, inside her brain in some strange way. Then she had seen things she couldn’t explain. Afterward, sometimes, she knew things. She knew when Broud was staring at her, though her back was turned. She knew the malignant hatred he felt for her in his heart. And she knew, before the earthquake, that there would be death and destruction in the clan’s cave.

But she had not felt anything so strongly before. A deep sense of anxiety, fear—not about the fire, she realized, and not for herself. For someone she loved.

She got up, silently, and felt her way to the hearth, hoping there might be a small ember that could be rekindled. It was cold. Suddenly she had an urgent need to relieve herself, found the wall and followed it toward the entrance. A cold gust whipped her hair back from her face and rattled the dead coals in the fireplace, blowing up a cloud of ashes. She shivered.

As she stepped out, a strong wind buffeted her. She leaned into it and hugged the wall as she walked to the end of the stone ledge opposite the path, where she dumped her refuse.

No stars graced the sky, but the overcast cloud layer diffused
the moonlight to a uniform glow, making the black outside less complete than the black within the cave. But it was her ears, not her eyes, that warned her. She heard snuffling and breathing before she saw the slinking movement.

She reached for her sling, but it wasn’t at her waist. She hadn’t brought it. She had grown careless around her cave, depending on the fire to keep unwanted intruders away. But her fire was out, and a young horse was fair game for most predators.

Suddenly, from the mouth of the cave, she heard a loud whooping cackle. Whinney neighed, and it had a note of fear. The little horse was inside the stone chamber, and its only access was blocked by hyenas.

Hyenas! Ayla thought. There was something about the mad cackling sound of their laughter, their scruffy spotted fur, the way their backs sloped down from well-developed forelegs and shoulders to smaller hind legs giving them a cowering look, that irritated her. And she could never forget Oga’s scream as she watched, helpless, while her son was dragged away. This time they were after Whinney.

She didn’t have her sling, but that didn’t stop her. It wasn’t the first time she had acted without thinking of her own safety when someone else was threatened. She ran toward the cave, waving her fist and shouting.

“Get out of here! Get away!” They were verbal sounds, even in Clan language.

The animals scuttled off. Partly it was her assurance that made them back down, and, though the fire had gone out, its smell still lingered. But there was another element. Her scent was not commonly known to the beasts, but it was becoming familiar, and the last time it had been accompanied by hard-flung stones.

Ayla felt around inside the dark cave for her sling, angry with herself because she couldn’t remember where she had put it. That won’t happen again, she decided. I’m going to make a place for it and keep it there.

Instead, she gathered up her cooking stones—she knew where they were. When one bold hyena ventured close enough for his outline to be silhouetted in the cave opening, he discovered that, even without the sling, her aim was true, and the stones smarted. After a few more attempts, the hyenas decided the young horse wasn’t such easy game after all.

Ayla groped in the dark for more stones and found one of
the sticks she had been notching to mark the passage of time. She spent the rest of the night beside Whinney, prepared to defend the foal with only a stick, if necessary.

Fighting off sleep proved to be more difficult. She dozed for a while just before dawn, but the first streak of morning light found her out on the ledge with sling in hand. No hyenas were in sight. She went back in for her fur wrap and foot coverings. The temperature had taken a decided drop. The wind had shifted during the night. Blowing from the northeast, it was funneled by the long valley until, baffled by the jutting wall and the bend in the river, it blasted into her cave in erratic bursts.

She ran down the steep path with her waterbag and shattered a thin transparent film which had formed at the edge of the stream. The air had that enigmatic smell of snow. As she broke through the clear crust and dipped out icy water, she wondered how it could be so cold when it had been so warm the day before. It had changed fast. She had been too comfortable in her routine. It took only a change in the weather to remind her that she couldn’t afford to become complacent.

Iza would have been upset with me for going to sleep without banking the fire. Now I’ll have to make a new one. I didn’t think the wind would be able to blow into my cave either; it always comes from the north. That might have helped the fire go out. I should have banked it, but driftwood burns so hot when it’s dry. It doesn’t hold a fire well. Maybe I should chop down some green trees. They’re harder to get started, but they burn slower. I should cut posts for a windscreen, too, and bring up more wood. Once it snows, it will be harder to get. I’ll get my hand-axe and chop the trees before I make a fire. I don’t want the wind to blow it out before I make a windscreen.