Most of the time Ayla's Zelandonii friends and relatives thought of her as an ordinary woman and mother, and didn't even notice her accent, but when she did something like walking into a pack of hungry hyenas and killing their leader with a stone from her sling without seeming to give it a second thought, then they suddenly became aware of her differences. She was not born to the Zelandonii, her upbringing had been totally unlike any of theirs, and her unusual way of speaking became noticeable.
'We need to cut down some small trees for a new pole-drag. It was Zelandoni's suggestion. I don't think she wants blood on hers. She does consider it hers, you know,' Ayla said.
'It is hers. No one else would think of using it,' Jondalar said.
It took two trips to haul all the meat from the auspicious hunt away, most of it dragged by the horns and pushed by the neighbouring people. By the time the travellers had packed up their campsite, the sun was working its way down to meet the horizon, with shades of orange and red blazoned across the sky. They took the meat they were keeping for themselves and headed for the Cave. Ayla and Jondalar lingered for a while — with the horses they could catch up easily enough. They were making a final tour of the abandoned camp to see if anyone had left anything important behind.
It was obvious that people had been there. Trails between tents had worn paths that now led to flattened and yellow patches of grass; fireplaces were black circles of charcoal; some trees had raw scars of light-coloured wood where branches had been torn off and pointed stumps that looked as though they had been chewed down by a beaver showed where trees had once grown. There was some trash around, a shredded and torn basket near one of the fireplaces, and a small and well-used sleeping roll that Jonlevar had outgrown was open and discarded in the middle of a flattened patch where a tent had been. Scattered chips of flint and broken points, and some piles of bone and vegetable peelings were lying around, but they would soon degrade back into the soil. Yet the vast stretches of cattails and reeds, though well harvested, showed little change, the yellowed grass and the black lenses of firepits would soon be covered with new green, and the trees that were removed made room for new ones to sprout. The people lived lightly on the land.
Ayla and Jondalar checked their waterbags and took a drink; then Ayla felt the urge to pass her water before they started back, and walked around the perimeter of the trees. If they were snowbound in the middle of winter, Ayla wouldn't hesitate to relieve herself in a night basket no matter who was there watching, but if it was possible, she preferred privacy, especially since she had to take down her leggings and not just move aside a loose dress.
She untied the waist thong and squatted down, but when she stood up to pull her leggings back on, she was surprised to see four strange men staring at her. She was more offended than anything. Even if they had come upon her accidentally, they should not have stood there and stared at her. It was very rude. Then she noticed details: a certain griminess in their clothing, rather unkempt beards, stringy long hair, and mostly, lewd expressions. The last made her angry, though they expected her to be frightened.
Perhaps she should have been.
'Don't you have the courtesy to look away when a woman needs to pass her water?' Ayla said giving them a look of disdain as she retied her waist thong.
Her disparaging remarks surprised the men. First because they expected fear, then because they heard her accent. They drew their own conclusions.
One looked at the others with a deriding grin. 'She's a stranger. Probably visiting. Won't be many of her kind around.'
'Even if there are, I don't see any around here,' another man said, then turned to leer at her, as he started toward her.
Ayla suddenly remembered the time they stopped to visit the Losadunai on their Journey here; there had been a band of hoodlums who had been harassing women. She slipped her sling off her head and reached in her pouch for a stone, then whistled loud for Wolf, and followed it by the whistles for both horses.
The whistles startled the men, but the stones did more than startle. The man who was moving toward her yelped with pain as a stone landed soundly on his thigh, another stone hit the upper arm of a second man with a similar response. Both men grabbed their bodies at the points of impact.
'How in Mother's Underworld did she do that?' the first man said angrily. Then looking at the men he said, 'Don't let her get away. I want to give her something back for that.'
In the meantime Ayla had reached for her spear-thrower and armed it with a spear that was aimed at the first man. A voice came from the other side of the stand of trees.
'Just be glad she didn't aim for your head, or you'd be walking the next world now. She just killed a hyena with one of her stones.'
The men turned to face a tall blond man who had a spear in another one of those strange devices aimed at them. He had spoken Zelandonii, but he too had an accent, not the same as the woman's but as though he came from some distance.
'Let's get away from here,' another man said, and started running.
'Stop him, Wolf!' Ayla commanded.
Suddenly a large wolf they hadn't seen raced after the man. He grabbed an ankle with his teeth and brought him down, then stood over him snarling.
'Anyone else feel like running away?' Jondalar said. He looked the four men over and quickly summed up the situation. 'I have a feeling you've been causing lots of trouble around here. I think we need to bring you to the nearest Cave and see what they think.'
With Wolf nearby, he took away the few spears they had among them, and their knives. They weren't used to being compelled to doing anything they didn't want to, but when they resisted, Ayla set Wolf on them again. None of them felt like going against the snarling beast. As they started walking, Wolf herded them, nipping at their heels and snarling. With Ayla on the back of her dun-yellow mare on one side of them and Jondalar on his dark brown stallion on the other, they had little chance to go anyplace but where they were led.
At one point along the way, two of the men decided to make a break for it running in different directions. Jondalar's spear whizzed just past the ear of the man who appeared to be the leader and stopped him short. Ayla's caught a flap of loose clothing of the other man and the momentum unbalanced him and brought him down to the ground.
'I think we should tie the hands of those two together, and maybe the other two as well,' Jondalar said. 'I don't think they want to face the people who live near here.'
They were later coming back than expected. The sun was making a show of fading purples and deep reds in the western sky when they arrived at the stone shelter where the Cave lived.
'They're the ones who did it!' a woman cried when she saw the men. 'They're the ones who forced me and killed my mate when he tried to stop them. Then they took our food and sleeping rolls, and left me there. I walked home, but I was pregnant and lost the baby.'
'How did you meet up with them?' Demoryn asked Jondalar and Ayla.
'Just before we were ready to leave, Ayla went around the stand of trees near our camp to pass water; then I heard her whistle for Wolf and the horses. I went to see what was wrong and found her holding off these four. When I got there, two of them were nursing the bruises she gave them with stones from her sling and she had her spear-thrower armed and ready,' Jondalar said.
'Bruises! Is that all? She killed a hyena with her stones,' Tivonan said.
'I wasn't trying to kill them, just stop them,' Ayla said.
'On our way home from our Journey, there were some young men causing trouble for the people on the other side of the glacier to the west. They had forced one young woman before her First Rites. I wondered if these men might be disturbing people around here,' Jondalar said.
'They've been doing a lot more than disturbing, and they aren't young. It's been going on for years, stealing, forcing women, killing people, but no one has been able to find them,' Syralana said.
'The question is, what do we do with them now?' Demoryn said.
'You take them to the meeting of the zelandonia,' the First said.
'Good idea,' Willamar said.
'But first you should tie them down better than they are. They already tried to run away on our way here. I took away the spears and knives I could find, but I might not have found them all. And someone should guard them overnight. Wolf can help,' Ayla said.
