THE SHELTERS OF STONE

"That big one is in his prime," he said. "I'd like to come back and watch him later, they often come back to the same places. In his season of Pleasures, he'll fight for as many females as he can, though many times just displaying that rack is enough to discourage competitors. But they fight hard and will go at it all day. It makes so much noise when they run into each other with those antlers, you can hear them from very far away, and they will even get up on their hind legs and fight with their front legs. As big as he is, he must be a very good, aggressive fighter."

"I've heard them fight, but I've never seen them," Ayla said.

"Once, when I was living with Dalanar, we saw a couple of them locked together with their antlers intertwined. They couldn't get apart no matter how they tried. We had to cut the antlers to separate them so we could use them. They were an easy kill, but Dalanar said we were doing them a favor, they would have died anyway of hunger and thirst."

"I think that big stag has had a brush with people before," Ayla said, signaling Whinney to move back. "The wind just shifted and must have given him our scent, he's getting edgy. You can see he's starting to walk away. They will all go if he goes."

"He does look nervous," Jondalar said, backing off, too.

Suddenly, a lynx that had been lying in wait, unseen, in one of the beech trees, dropped down onto the back of the youngest when he walked underneath. The faintly spotted deer leaped forward, trying to dislodge the wildcat, but the short-tailed feline with the tufted ears held on to the deer's shoulders and bit down, opening his veins. The other deer raced away, but the young cervid with the cat on his back ran in a large arc and circled around. As they watched the panicky animal heading back, both Ayla and Jondalar readied their spear-throwers for protection, just in case, but the lynx had been drinking his blood and the deer was showing signs of exhaustion. He stumbled, the lynx took a new grip, and more blood spurted. The deer took a few more steps, stumbled again, then dropped to the ground. The lynx bit open the head of the young animal and started feeding on the brains.

It was over quickly, but the horses were nervous and the humans were both ready to leave. "That's why he looked nervous," Ayla said. "It wasn't our scent at all."

"That deer was young," Jondalar said. "You could still see his spots. I wonder if his dam died early and left him alone a little too young. He found the male herd, but it didn't matter. Young animals are always vulnerable."

"When I was a little girl, I once tried to kill a lynx with my sling," Ayla said, urging Whinney to a walk.

"With a sling? How old were you?" Jondalar asked.

She thought for a moment, trying to remember. "I think I could count eight or nine years," she said.

"You could have been killed as easily as that deer," Jondalar said.

"I know. He moved and the stone just bounced off. It just irritated him and he sprang at me. I managed to roll aside and found a piece of wood and hit him with it, and he went away," she said.

"Great Mother! That was a close call, Ayla," he said, leaning back on his horse, which caused Racer to slow down.

"I was afraid to go out alone for a while afterward, but that was when I got the idea to throw two stones. I thought if I had had another one ready, I could have hit him a second time before he came for me. I wasn't sure if it could be done, but I practiced and worked it out. Still, it wasn't until I killed a hyena that I felt confident to go hunting again," she said.

Jondalar just shook his head. When he thought about it, it was amazing that she was still alive. On the way back to their current camp, they saw a herd of animals that made Whinney and Racer pay attention: a horselike animal called an onager, which appeared to be a cross between a horse and donkey, but were a viable species of their own. Whinney stopped to smell their droppings, and Racer nickered at them. The whole herd stopped grazing and looked at the horses. The sound they returned was closer to a bray, but both animals seemed to be aware of their similarity.

They also saw a female saiga antelope with two young. Saiga were goatlike animals with overhanging noses who preferred plains or steppes, no matter how barren, to hills or mountains. Ayla remembered that the saiga antelope was Iza's totem. The following day they saw another herd of animals that bothered Ayla more than she wanted to admit: horses. Both Whinney and Racer were drawn to them.