THE SHELTERS OF STONE

Ayla smiled. "I feel big and awkward, but it doesn't take much to throw a stick or sling a stone, and Wolf helps me more than you know. I'll have to stay home soon enough."

Marthona smiled down at the animal padding along between them. Though she had been worried about him when he was attacked by the other wolves, she rather liked his slightly drooping ear. For one thing, it made him much easier to recognize. They waited while Ayla dropped off the game in front of her dwelling area on a block of limestone that was used sometimes as a place to put things and sometimes as a seat.

"I never was much good at hunting smaller animals," Marthona said, "except with a snare or a trap. But there was a time when I enjoyed going out with a group on a big hunt. It's been so long since I've hunted, I think I've forgotten how, but I used to have a fair eye for tracking. I don't see that well anymore."

"Look what else I found," Ayla said, taking off her bulging carrying bag to show Marthona. "Apples!" She had found an apple tree, bare of leaves but still decorated with small, shiny red apples, less hard and tart now after freezing, and had filled her haversack with them.

The two women walked toward the horse shelter. Ayla didn't expect to find the horses there in the middle of the day, but she checked the container that held their water. In winter, when it was below freezing for long periods of time, she would melt water for them, though horses in the wild fended for themselves just fine. She put several apples in the kerfed feeding trough.

Then she walked to the edge of the stone ledge and looked down at The River, bordered by trees and brush. She didn't see the horses, but she whistled the distinctive signal that the horses had been trained to answer, hoping they were close enough to hear. Before long she saw Whinney climbing the steep path, followed by Racer. Wolf rubbed noses with Whinney when she reached the ledge in a greeting that seemed almost formal. Racer nickered at him and received a playful yip and a nose rub in return.

When she was confronted with such direct evidence of Ayla's control over the animals, Marthona still found it hard to believe. She had gotten used to Wolf, who was always around people, and who responded to her. But the horses were more skittish, not as friendly, and seemed less tame, except around Ayla and Jondalar, more like the native wild animals she had once hunted.

The young woman was making the sounds that Marthona had heard her use before around the horses as she stroked and scratched the animals, then led them to the shelter. She thought of it as Ayla's horse language. Ayla picked out an apple for each one, and they ate from her hand as she continued talking to them in her strange way. Marthona tried to discern the sounds Ayla made. It was not quite a language, she thought. Although there was a similar feel to some of the words Ayla used when she demonstrated the language of the flatheads.

"You're getting a big belly, Whinney," Ayla was saying, patting her round stomach, "just like I am. You'll probably give birth in spring, maybe late spring, after it warms up a bit. By then, I should already have my baby. I'd love to go for a ride, but I guess I'm too far along. Zelandoni said it might not be good for the baby. I feel fine, but I don't want to take chances. Jondalar will ride you, Racer, when he gets back."

That was what she meant to say to the horses, and what she did say in her mind, although the combination of Clan signals and words and the other sounds of her private language would not have translated quite the same-if someone could have translated it. It didn't matter. The horses understood the welcoming voice, the warm touch, and certain sounds and signals.

Winter came unexpectedly. Small white flakes started to fall late in the afternoon. They turned big and fat, and by evening it was a swirling blizzard. The whole Cave breathed a sigh of relief when the hunters who had gone out in the morning stomped onto the stone ledge before dark, empty-handed but safe.

"Joharran decided to turn back when we saw the mammoths heading north as fast as they could," Jondalar said after greeting Ayla. "You've heard the saying 'Never go forth when mammoths go north.' It usually means snow is on the way, and they head north, where it's colder but drier and the snow doesn't pile up as deep. They get mired in deep, wet snow. He didn't want to take chances, but those storm clouds blew up so fast, even the mammoths may get caught in it. The wind shifted north, and before we knew it, the snow was blowing so hard that we could hardly see. It's halfway up to the knees out there already. We had to use snowshoes before we got back."