The Valley Of Horses

9

"Don't be so greedy, Whinney," Ayla cautioned, watching the hay-colored horse lapping up the last drops of water from the bottom of a wooden bowl. "If you drink it all, I'll have to melt more ice." The filly snorted, shook her head, and put her nose back in the bowl. Ayla laughed. "If you're that thirsty, I'll get more ice. Are you coming with me?"

Ayla's steady flow of thought directed at the young horse had become a habit. Sometimes it was no more than mental pictures, and often the expressive language of gestures, postures, and facial expressions with which she was most familiar, but since the young animal tended to respond to the sound of her voice, it encouraged Ayla to vocalize more. Unlike the rest of the Clan, a variety of sounds and tonal inflections had always been easy for her; only her son had been able to match her facility. It had been a game for both of them to mimic each other's nonsense syllables, but some of them had begun to take on meanings. In her streams of conversation to the horse, the tendency extended into more complex verbalizations. She mimicked the sounds of animals, invented new words out of combinations of sounds she knew, even incorporated some of the nonsense syllables from her games with her son. With no one to glare disapprovingly at her for making unnecessary sounds, her oral vocabulary expanded, but it was a language comprehensible only to her – and in a unique sense, to her horse.

Ayla wrapped on fur leggings, a wrap of shaggy horsehair, and a wolverine hood, then tied on hand coverings. She put a hand through the slit in the palm to tuck her sling in her waist thong and tie on her carrying basket. Then she picked up an icepick – the long bone from a horse's foreleg cracked with a spiral break to get out the marrow and then sharpened by splintering and grinding against a stone – and started out.

"Well, come on, Whinney," she beckoned. She held aside the heavy aurochs hide, once her tent, attached to poles sunk into the earth floor of the cave as a windbreak at the mouth. The horse trotted out and behind her down the steep path. Wind whipping around the bend buffeted her as she walked out on the frozen watercourse. She found a place that looked as if the crumbled crystal of the ice-locked stream could be broken, and hacked off shards and blocks.

"It's much easier to scoop up a bowl of snow than chop ice for water, Whinney," she said, loading the ice into her basket. She stopped to add some driftwood from the pile at the foot of the wall, thinking how grateful she was for the wood, for melting the ice as much as for warmth. "The winters are dry here, colder, too. I miss the snow, Whinney. The little bit that blows around here doesn't feel like snow, it just feels cold."

She piled the wood near the fireplace and dumped the ice into a bowl. She moved it near the fire to let the warmth begin to melt the ice before she put it into her skin pot, which needed some liquid so it wouldn't burn when she placed it over the fire. Then she looked around her snug cave at several projects in various stages of completion, trying to decide which one to work on that day. But she was restless. Nothing appealed to her until she noticed several new spears completed not long before.

Maybe I'll go hunting, she thought. I haven't been up on the steppes for a while. I can't take those, though. She frowned. It wouldn't do any good, I'd never get close enough to use them. I'll just take my sling and go for a walk. She filled a fold in her wrap with round stones from a pile she had brought up to the cave, just in case the hyenas returned. Then she added wood to the fire and left the cave.

Whinney tried to follow when Ayla hiked the steep slope up from her cave to the steppes above, then neighed after her nervously. "Don't worry, Whinney. I won't be gone long. You'll be all right."

When she reached the top, the wind grabbed her hood and threatened to make off with it. She pulled it back on and tightened the cord, then stepped back from the edge and paused to look around. The parched and withered summer landscape had bloomed with life compared to the sere frozen emptiness of the winter steppes. The harsh wind gusted a dissonant dirge, ululating a thin penetrating whine that swelled to a wailing shriek and diminished to a hollow muffled groan. It whipped the dun earth bare, swirling the dry grainy snow out of whitened hollows and, captive of the wind's lament, flung the frozen flakes into the air again.

The driven snow felt like gritty sand that burned her face raw with its absolute cold. Ayla pulled her hood closer, bowed her head, and walked into the sharp northeast wind through dry brittle grass bent to the ground. Her nose pinched together and her throat ached as moisture was snatched away by the bitter air. A violent blast of wind caught her by surprise. She lost her breath, gulped for air, coughing and wheezing, and brought up phlegm. She spit it out and watched it freeze solid before it hit the rock-hard ground and bounced.

What am I doing up here? she thought. I didn't know it could be so cold. I'm going back.

She turned around and stopped still, for the moment forgetting the intense cold. Across the ravine a small herd of woolly mammoths was lumbering past; huge moving hummocks of dark reddish brown fur with long curving tusks. This stark, seemingly barren land was their home; the rough grass burned crisp with cold was life-sustaining nourishment for them. But in adapting to such an environment, they had forfeited their ability to live in any other. Their days were numbered; they would last only as long as the glacier.

Ayla watched, spellbound, until the indistinct shapes disappeared into the swirling snow, then hurried on and was only too glad to drop over the edge and out of the wind. She remembered feeling the same way when she first found her sanctuary. What would I ever have done if I hadn't found this valley? She hugged the filly when she reached the ledge in front of her cave, then walked to the edge and looked out over the valley. The snow was slightly deeper there, especially where it had blown into drifts, but just as dry, and just as cold.

But the valley did offer protection from the wind, and a cave. Without it, and fur and fire, she could not have survived; she was not a woolly creature. Standing on the ledge, the wind brought the howl of a wolf to her ears, and the yipping bark of a dhole. Below, an arctic fox walked across the ice of the frozen stream, its white fur almost hiding it from view when it stopped and held a stiff pose. She noticed movement down the valley and made out the shape of a cave lion; its tawny coat, lightened to almost white, was thick and full. Four-legged predators adapted to the environment of their prey. Ayla, and her kind, adapted the environment to themselves.

Ayla started when she heard a whooping cackle close by, and looked up to see a hyena above her at the rim of the gorge. She shivered and reached for her sling, but the scavenger moved off with its distinctive shuffling lope along the edge of the ravine, then turned back to the open plains. Whinney moved up beside her, nickered softly, and nudged her gently. Ayla pulled her dun-colored wrap of horse fur closer around her, put her arm around Whinney's neck, and walked back to her cave.

Ayla lay on her bed of furs, staring at a familiar formation of rock over her head, wondering why she was suddenly wide awake. She lifted her head and looked in Whinney's direction. Her eyes were open too, and looking toward the woman, but she displayed no anxiety. Yet, Ayla was sure something was different.

She snuggled back down in her furs, not wanting to leave their warmth, and looked around the home she had made for herself by the light shining in the hole above the mouth of the cave. Her projects were scattered around, but there was a growing stack of completed utensils and implements along the wall on the other side of the drying rack. She was hungry, and her eye was drawn back to the rack. She had poured the fat she had rendered from the horse into the cleaned intestines, giving it a pinch and a twist at intervals, and the little white sausages were dangling near a variety of dried herbs and seasonings hanging by their roots.

It made her think of breakfast. Dried meat made into a broth, a little fat added for richness, seasonings, maybe some grain, dried currants. She was too wide awake to stay in bed, and threw back the covers. She quickly tied on her wrap and foot coverings, then reached for the lynx fur from her bed, still warm from body heat, and hurried to go out and pass her urine off the far corner of the ledge. She pushed aside the windbreak and caught her breath.

The sharp angular contours of the rock ledge had been softened during the night by a thick blanket of white. It glistened in uniform brilliance, reflecting a transparent blue sky hung with mounded fluff. It took a moment longer to comprehend a more astounding change. The air was still. There was no wind.

The valley, nestled in the region where the wetter continental steppes were giving way to the dry loess steppes, partook of both climates, the south holding sway for the moment. The heavy snow resembled the winter conditions that usually prevailed around the cave of the clan, and to Ayla it was a taste of home.

"Whinney!" she called. "Come out! It snowed! It really snowed for a change."

She was suddenly reminded of the reason she had come out of the cave, and made virgin tracks in the pure white expanse rushing to the far edge. Returning, she watched the young horse step gingerly on the insubstantial stuff, lower her head to sniff, then snort at the strange cold surface. She looked at Ayla and nickered.

"Come on, Whinney. It won't hurt you."

The horse had never experienced deep snow in such quiet abundance before; she was accustomed to it blowing in the wind or piled up in drifts. Her hoof sunk in when she took another tentative step, and she nickered at the woman again, as though asking for reassurance. Ayla led the young animal out until she felt more comfortable, then laughed at her antics when the filly's natural curiosity and sense of fun took over. It wasn't long before Ayla realized she wasn't dressed for an extended stay outside of the cave. It was cold.

"I'm going in to make some hot tea and something to eat. But I'm low on water, I'll have to get some ice…" She laughed. "I don't need to chip ice from the river. I can just get a bowlful of snow! How would you like a warm mash this morning, Whinney?"

After they ate, Ayla dressed warmly and went back outside. Without the wind, it felt almost balmy, but it was the familiarity of ordinary snow on the ground that delighted her most. She brought bowls and baskets of it into the cave and set them near the fireplace to melt. It was so much easier than chipping ice for water that she decided to use some for washing. It had been her custom to wash herself with melted snow regularly in winter, but it had been difficult enough to chip sufficient ice for drinking water and cooking. Washing was a forgone luxury.

She built up the fire with wood from the pile in the rear of the cave, then cleared the snow from the additional firewood stacked outside and brought more in.

I wish I could stack water up like wood, she thought, looking at the containers of melting snow. I don't know how long this will last once the wind starts blowing again. She went out for another load of wood, taking a bowl out with her to clear the snow away. As she scooped up a bowlful and dumped it beside the wood, she noticed that it held its shape when she lifted the bowl away. I wonder… Why couldn't I stack snow like that? Like a pile of wood?

The idea fired her with enthusiasm, and soon most of the untrodden snow from the ledge was piled against the wall near the cave entrance. Then she began on the pathway down to the beach. Whinney took advantage of the cleared trail to go down to the field. Ayla's eyes were glistening and her cheeks were rosy when she stopped and smiled with satisfaction at the mound of snow just outside her cave. She saw a small section at the end of the ledge that hadn't been entirely cleared, and she headed for it with determination. She looked out over the valley and laughed at Whinney picking her way through the unaccustomed drifts with high dainty steps.

When she glanced back at the pile of snow, she paused and a quirky grin lifted one corner of her mouth as a peculiar idea overcame her. The large pile of snow was made up of many bowl-shaped bumps and from her viewpoint suggested the contours of a face. She scooped up a bit more snow, then walked back, patted it in place, and stepped away to assess the effect.

If the nose were a little bigger, it would look just like Brun, she thought and scooped up more snow. She packed it in place, scraped out a hollow, smoothed down a lump, and stepped back to survey her creation again.

Her eyes twinkled with a mischievous grin. "Greetings, Brun," she motioned, then felt a little chagrined. The real Brun would not appreciate her addressing a pile of snow with his name. Name-words were too important to assign them so indiscriminately. Well, it does look like him. She giggled at the thought. But maybe I should be more polite. It isn't proper for a woman to greet the leader as though he were a sibling. I should ask permission, she thought, and, elaborating on her game, sat in front of the snowpile and looked down at the ground – the correct posture for a woman of the Clan to assume when she was requesting an audience with a man.

Smiling inwardly with her playacting, Ayla sat quietly with her head bowed, just as though she really expected to feel a tap on her shoulder, the signal that she would be allowed to speak. The silence grew heavy, and the stone ledge was cold and hard. She began to think how ridiculous it was to be sitting there. The snow replica of Brun wouldn't tap her on the shoulder, any more than Brun himself had the last time she sat in front of him. She had just been cursed, however unjustly, and she had wanted to beg the old leader to protect her son from Broud's wrath. But Brun had turned away from her; it was too late – she was already dead. Suddenly her playful mood evaporated. She got up and stared at the snow sculpture she had made.

"You're not Brun!" she gestured angrily, knocking away the part she had shaped so carefully. Rage swelled up inside her. "You're not Brun! You're not Brun!" She pummeled the mound of snow, with fists and feet, destroying every semblance to the shape of a face. "I'll never see Brun again. I'll never see Durc. I'll never see anyone again, ever! I'm all alone." A keening wail escaped her lips, and a sob of despair. "Oh, why am I all alone?"

She crumpled to her knees, lay down in the snow, and felt warm tears grow cold on her face. She hugged the frigid moisture to her, wrapping herself around it, welcoming its numbing touch. She wanted to burrow into it, let it cover her and freeze out the hurt, and anger, and loneliness. When she began shivering, she closed her eyes and tried to ignore the cold that was beginning to seep into her bones.

Then she felt something warm and wet on her face, and heard the soft nicker of a horse. She tried to ignore Whinney, too. The young animal nudged her again. Ayla opened her eyes to see the large dark eyes and long muzzle of the steppe horse. She reached up, put her arms around the filly's neck, and buried her face in the shaggy coat. When she let go, the horse neighed softly.

"You want me to get up, don't you, Whinney?" The horse shook her head up and down, as though she understood, and Ayla wanted to believe it. Her sense of survival had always been strong; it would take more than loneliness to make her give up. Growing up in Brun's clan, though she had been loved, in many ways she had been lonely all her life. She was always different. Her love for others had been the stronger force. Their need for her – Iza when she was sick, Creb as he grew old, her young son – had given reason and purpose to her life.

"You're right, I'd better get up. I can't leave you alone, Whinney, and I'm getting all wet and cold out here. I'll put on something dry. Then I'll make you a nice warm mash. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

Ayla watched the two male arctic foxes snarling and nipping at each other, fighting over the vixen, and smelled the strong foxy odor of males in rut even from the elevation of her ledge. They are prettier in winter; in summer they're just a dull brown. If I want white fur, I should get it now, she thought, but made no move to get her sling. One male had emerged victorious and was claiming his prize. The vixen announced his act with a raucous scream as he mounted her.

She only makes that sound when they couple like that. I wonder if she likes it, or if she doesn't? I never liked it, even after it didn't hurt anymore. But the other women did. Why was I so different? Just because I didn't like Broud? Why should that make any difference? Does that female fox like that male? Does she like what he's doing? She doesn't run away.

It wasn't the first time Ayla had refrained from hunting in order to observe foxes and other carnivorous animals. She had often spent long days watching the prey her totem allowed her to hunt, to learn their habits and habitats, and she had discovered they were interesting fellow creatures. The men of the clan beamed hunting by practicing on herbivorous animals, food animals, and though they could track and hunt them when a warm fur was wanted, carnivores were never their favorite prey. They did not develop the special bond with them that Ayla had.

They still fascinated her, though she knew them well, but the rapidly pumping fox and the screaming vixen set her to wondering about more than hunting. Every year in late winter they come together like that. In spring, when her coat is turning brown, that vixen will have a litter. I wonder if she'll stay here under the bones and driftwood, or dig a burrow someplace else. I hope she stays. She'll nurse them, then give them baby food partly chewed from her own mouth. After that she'll bring dead prey, mice and moles and birds. Sometimes a rabbit. When her babies are bigger, she'll bring them animals still alive and teach them to hunt. By next fall, they'll be almost grown, and next winter the vixens will screech like that when the males mount.

Why do they do it? Come together like that? I think he's starting her babies. If all she has to do to have them is swallow a spirit, like Creb always told me, why do they couple like that? No one thought I'd have a baby. They said the spirit of my totem was too strong. But I did. If Durc was started when Broud did that to me, it wouldn't matter if my totem was strong.

People are not like foxes, though. They don't have babies only in spring, women can have them anytime. And women and men don't couple just in winter, they do it all the time. A woman doesn't have a baby every time, though. Maybe Creb was right, too. Maybe the spirit of a man's totem has to get inside a woman, but she doesn't swallow it. I think he puts it inside her when they come together, with his organ. Sometimes her totem fights it, and sometimes it starts a new life.

I don't think I want a white fox fur. If I kill one, the rest will leave, and I want to see how many kits she'll have. I'll get that ermine I saw downstream before she turns brown. Her fur is white, and softer, and I like the black tip on her tail.

But that little weasel is so small, her pelt is hardly big enough to make one hand covering, and she'll have babies in spring too. Next winter there will probably be more ermines. Maybe I won't go hunting today. I think I'll finish that bowl instead.

It didn't occur to Ayla to wonder why she was thinking about the creatures who might be in her valley next winter, when she had planned to leave in spring. She was growing accustomed to her solitude, except in the evening when she added a new notch to a smooth stick and put it on the growing pile of them…

Ayla tried to push the stringy, oily lock of hair out of her face with the back of her hand. She was splitting a feeder root of a tree in preparation for making a large mesh basket, and couldn't let go. She had been experimenting with new weaving techniques, using various materials and combinations of them to produce different textures and meshes. The whole process of weaving, tying, knotting and the making of webbing, strands, and cords had captured her interest to the exclusion of almost everything else. Though occasionally the end products were unworkable, and sometimes laughable, she had made some startling innovations, encouraging her to try more. She found herself twining or plaiting nearly everything that came to hand.

She had been working since early morning on a particularly intricate weaving process, and it wasn't until Whinney entered, nosing aside the hide windbreak, that Ayla noticed it was evening.

"How did it get so late, Whinney? You don't even have water in your bowl," she said, getting up and stretching, stiff from sitting in one place for so long. "I should get something to eat for us, and I was going to change my bedding."

The young woman bustled about, getting fresh hay for the horse, and more for the shallow trench under her bed, dumping the old grass off the ledge. She chopped through the coating of ice to get at the snow inside the mound piled near the cave mouth, grateful again she had it there. She noticed there was not much left and wondered how long it would last before she'd have to get water below. She debated with herself about bringing in enough to wash, then, thinking she might not have the opportunity again until spring, brought in enough to wash her hair as well.

Ice melted in bowls near the fire while she prepared and cooked a meal. As she worked, her thoughts kept turning back to the processes of working with fibers that she was finding so engrossing. After she had eaten and washed, she was pulling tangles out of her wet hair with a twig and her fingers when she saw the dried teasel she had been using to comb and untangle some shaggy bark for twining. Combing Whinney regularly had given her the idea to use the teasel on the fibers, and it was a natural step to try it on her own hair.

She was delighted with the results. Her thick golden tresses felt soft and smooth. She had not paid particular attention to her hair before, aside from an occasional washing, and she usually wore it pushed out of the way behind her ears with a haphazard part down the middle. Iza had often told her it was her best feature, she remembered, after she had brushed it forward to examine by firelight. The color was rather nice, she thought, but even more appealing was the texture, the smooth long strands. Almost before she realized it, she was plaiting a section into a long braided cord.

She tied a piece of sinew to the end, then started on another section. She had a passing thought of how odd it would seem if anyone saw her making cords of her own hair, but it didn't deter her and before long her entire head was covered with many long braids. Swinging her head from side to side, she smiled at the novelty of them. She liked the braids, but she couldn't tuck them behind her ears to keep them off her face. After some experimenting, she discovered a way to coil and tie them down on her head in front, but she liked to swing them and left the sides and back hanging down.

It was the novelty that appealed to her in the beginning, but it was the convenience that persuaded her to keep her hair in braids. It stayed in place; she wasn't always tucking loose tendrils out of the way. And what did it matter if someone might think her strange? She could make cords of her hair if she wished – she had only herself to please.

She used up the snow on her ledge not long after, but it wasn't necessary to chip ice for water anymore. Enough snow had accumulated in drifts. The first time she went down for it, though, she noticed that the snow below her cave had a sifting of soot and ash from her fire. She walked upstream on the frozen surface to find a cleaner location to collect it, but when she entered the narrow gorge, curiosity kept her going.

She had never swum as far upstream as she could have. The current was strong, and it hadn't seemed necessary. But walking was no effort, except for watching her footing. Along the gorge, where falling temperatures caught sprays of water or pressures built up ridges, fantasies in ice created a magical dreamland. She smiled with pleasure at the wondrous formations, but she was unprepared for the sight ahead.

She had been walking for some time and was thinking of turning back. It was cold in the bottom of the shaded gorge, and the ice added its measure to the chill. She decided to go only as far as the next bend in the river. When she reached it, she stopped and stared in awe. Beyond the turn, the gorge walls came together forming a stone wall that reached to the steppes high above, and cascading down it were the glittering stalactite icicles of a frozen waterfall. Hard as stone but cold and white, it seemed a spectacular inversion, like a cave turned inside out.

The massive ice sculpture was breathtaking in its grandeur. The entire force of the water held by the grip of winter seemed ready to break upon her. It was dizzying in its effect, yet she was rooted to the spot, held by its magnificence. She shivered in the face of the restrained power. Before she turned away, she thought she saw a glistening drop of water at the tip of a high icicle, and shivered with a deeper chill.

Ayla awoke to cold gusting drafts and looked up to see the opposite wall out of the entrance of the cave, and the windbreak whipping against the post. After she repaired it, she stood for a while with her face to the wind.

"It's warmer, Whinney. The wind isn't as cold. I'm sure."

The horse twitched her ears and looked at the woman expectantly. But it was just conversation. There were no signals or sounds requiring a response from the young mare: no gestures beckoning her to approach or back away; no sign that food was forthcoming, or currying or patting or other forms of affection. Ayla had not been consciously training the horse; she thought of Whinney as a companion and friend. But the intelligent animal had begun to perceive that certain signals and sounds were associated with certain activities and had learned to respond to many of them appropriately.

Ayla, too, was beginning to understand Whinney's language. The horse didn't need to speak with words; the woman was accustomed to reading fine shades of meaning in nuances of expression or posture. Sounds had always been a secondary aspect of communication in the Clan. During the long winter that had enforced close association, the woman and the horse had formed a warm bond of affection and achieved a high level of communication and understanding. Ayla usually knew when Whinney was happy, content, nervous, or upset, and responded to signals from the horse that she required attention – food, water, affection. But it was the woman who had assumed the dominant role, intuitively; she who had begun to give purposeful directions and signals to which the horse responded.

Ayla stood just inside the cave entrance examining her repair work and the condition of the hide. She'd had to make new holes along the top edge, below the ones that had ripped out, and thread a new thong through them to lash the windbreak back to the horizontal crosspiece. Suddenly she felt something wet on the back of her neck.

"Whinney, don't… " She turned around, but the horse had not moved. Just then another drop splatted her. She looked around, then up at a long shaft of ice hanging down from the smoke hole. The moisture from cooking steam and breath, carried up by the warmth of the fire, met the freezing cold air coming in the hole, causing ice to form. But the dry wind drew off just enough moisture to keep it from growing very long. For most of the winter, only a fringe of ice had decorated the top of the hole. Ayla was surprised to see the long dirty icicle, full of soot and ash.

A drop of water at the tip let go and splashed her forehead before she overcame her amazement enough to move out of the way. She wiped away the wetness, then let out a whoop.

"Whinney! Whinney! Spring is coming! The ice is starting to melt!" She ran to the young mare and threw her arms around the shaggy neck, calming the horse's startled nervousness. "Oh, Whinney, soon the trees will be budding, and the first greens will be starting. Nothing is as good as the first greens of spring! Wait until you taste spring grass. You'll love it!"

Ayla ran out on the broad ledge as though she expected to see a world of green instead of white. The chill wind drove her back inside quickly enough, and her excitement at the first drops of meltwater turned to dismay when spring took back its promise and the worst blizzard of the season whistled down the river gorge a few days later. But despite the mantle of glacial ice, spring inexorably followed on the heels of winter, and the warming breath of the sun melted the frozen crust of the earth. The drops of water did, indeed, herald the change from ice to water in the valley – more than Ayla ever imagined.

The early warm drops of melt were soon joined by spring rains which helped soften and wash out the accumulated snow and ice, bringing the seasonal moisture to the dry steppes. There was more than local accumulation, however. The source of the valley's river was meltwater from the great glacier itself, and during the spring melt it acquired tributaries all along its route, many that had not existed when Ayla first arrived.

Flash floods in formerly dry washes caught unsuspecting animals by surprise and churned them downstream. In the wild turbulence, whole carcasses were torn apart, battered, bashed, and bared to the bone. At times previous streambeds were ignored by the runoff. The meltwater cut new channels, tearing out by the roots brush and trees that had struggled to grow in the hostile environment for years, sweeping them away. Stones and rocks, even huge boulders, made buoyant by the water, were carried off, urged along by the scouring debris.

The narrow walls of the river gorge upstream from Ayla's cave constricted the rampaging water that poured over the high waterfall. The resistance added force to the current and, with the excess volume, the level of the river rose. The foxes had their kennel under the former year's pile long before the rocky beach below the cave was awash.

Ayla could not keep herself in the cave. From the ledge she watched the swirling, churning, foaming river rising daily. Surging through the narrow gorge – she could see the water fall over itself as it broke free – it slammed into the jutting wall, dropping portions of its load of debris at the foot. She finally understood how the pile of bones, driftwood, and erratic stones that she had found so useful had lodged there, and she came to appreciate how fortunate she was to have found a cave so high up.

She could feel the ledge shudder when a large boulder or tree crashed against it. It frightened her, but she had developed a fatalistic view of life. If she was meant to die, she would die; she had been cursed and was supposed to be dead anyway. There must be forces more powerful than she controlling her destiny, and if the wall was going to give way while she was on top of it, there wasn't anything she could do to prevent it. And the mindless violence of nature fascinated her.

Each day presented a new aspect. One of the tall trees growing near the opposite wall gave in to the tide. It fell against her ledge but soon was swept away by the swollen stream. She watched it hurtled around the bend by the current that spread out into a long narrow lake across the lower meadow, flooding or entirely inundating vegetation that had once lined the bank of quieter waters. Limbs of trees and tangled brush, that clung to the earth beneath the turbulent river, snatched and held the fallen giant. But resistance was fruitless. The tree was torn from their grasp or they were torn by their roots.

She knew the day winter lost its final grip on the ice falls. A crash echoing down the canyon announced the appearance of water-worn ice floes bobbing and swirling on the current. They crowded together at the wall, then careened around it, losing shape and definition as they proceeded.

The familiar beach had a different character when the waters finally receded enough for Ayla to walk down the steep path to the river's edge again. The muddy pile at the foot of the wall had taken on new dimensions, and among the bones and driftwood were carcasses and trees. The shape of the rocky bit of land had changed, and familiar trees had been washed out. But not all of them. Roots went deep in a land essentially dry, especially those of vegetation set back from the edge of the stream. The brush and trees were accustomed to the yearly inundation, and most of those that had survived several seasons were still firmly entrenched. When the first green rubs on the raspberry bushes began to show, Ayla began to anticipate the ripe red berries, and that precipitated a problem.

It was pointless to think about berries that wouldn't be ripe until summer. She wouldn't be in the valley, not if she was going to continue her search for the Others. The first stirrings of spring had brought the need to make a decision: when to leave the valley. It was more difficult than she imagined it would be.

She was sitting at the far end of the terrace in a favorite place. On the side facing the meadow was a flat place to sit and, at just the right distance below it, another to rest her feet. She could not see the water as it turned the bend or the rocky beach, but she had a clear view of the valley, and if she turned her head she could see the upstream river gorge. She had been watching Whinney in the meadow and had seen her head back. The mare had disappeared from view when she rounded the jutting nose of the wall, but Ayla could hear her coming up the path and was waiting for her to appear.

The woman smiled when she saw the large head of the steppe horse, with her dark ears and stiff brown mane. As she continued up, Ayla noticed the scraggly shedding coat of the yellow horse and the dark brown feral stripe down her spine ending in a full long dark horse's tail. There was a faint suggestion of stripes on her forelegs above the dark brown lower part. The young horse looked at the woman and nickered softly, waiting to see if Ayla wanted something, then proceeded into the cave. Though not quite filled out, the yearling had reached her adult size.

Ayla turned back to the view, and to thoughts that had been occupying her for days, keeping her awake nights. I can't leave now – I need to hunt a little first and maybe wait for some fruits to ripen. And what am I going to do about Whinney? That was the crux of her problem. She didn't want to live alone, but she didn't know anything about the people whom the Clan called the Others, except that she was one. What if I find people who won't let me keep her? Brun would never let me keep a full-grown horse, especially one so young and tender. What if they wanted to kill her? She wouldn't even run away, she'd just stand there and let them. If I told them not to, would they pay attention? Broud would kill her no matter what I said. What if men of the Others are like Broud? Or worse? After all, they did kill Oda's baby, even if it wasn't on purpose.

I have to find someone sometime, but I can stay a little longer. At least until I do some hunting, and maybe until some of the roots are ready. That's what I'll do. I'll stay until the roots are big enough for digging.

She felt relieved after her decision to postpone her departure, and ready to do something. She got up and walked to the other side of the ledge. The stench of rotting meat wafted up from the new pile at the base of the wall. She noticed movement below and watched a hyena crush with powerful jaws the foreleg of what had likely been a deer. No other animal, predator or scavenger, had such strength concentrated in jaw and forequarters, but it gave the hyena an ungainly disproportionate build.

She'd had to restrain herself the first time she saw the back end of one, with its low hindquarters and slightly crooked legs, nosing into the pile. But when she saw it dragging out a rotting piece of carcass, she left it alone, for once grateful of the service they performed. She had studied them, as she had observed other carnivorous animals. Unlike the felines or wolves, they didn't need powerful springing hindleg muscles to attack. When they hunted, they went for the viscera, the soft underbelly and mammary glands. But their usual diet was carrion – in any condition.

They reveled in corruption. She had seen them scavenge human refuse piles, disinter bodies if they weren't carefully buried; they even ate dung, and they smelled as foul as their diet. Their bite, if not immediately fatal, often caused death later, from infection; and they went after the young.

Ayla made a face and shuddered with disgust. She hated them, and she had to resist an urge to chase off the ones below with her sling. Her attitude was irrational, but she couldn't help her revulsion at the brown-spotted scavengers. To her they had no redeeming features. She was not nearly as offended by other scavengers, though they often smelled as bad.

From the vantage point of the ledge she saw a wolverine going after a share of the offal. The glutton resembled a bear cub with a long tail, but she knew they were more like weasels, and their musk glands were as noxious as a skunk's. Wolverines were vicious scavengers. They would vandalize caves or open sites for no apparent reason. But they were scrappy, intelligent animals and absolutely fearless predators that would attack anything, even a giant deer, though they could content themselves with mice, birds, frogs, fish, or berries. Ayla had seen them drive off larger animals from their own kills. They were worthy of respect, and their unique frost-doffing fur was valuable.

She watched a pair of red kites take wing from their nest high in a tree across the stream, and fly rapidly into the sky. They spread long reddish wings and deeply forked tails and soared down to the rocky beach. Kites fed on carrion, but, like other raptors, they also preyed on small mammals and reptiles. The young woman wasn't as familiar with carnivorous birds, but she knew the females were usually larger than the males, and they were beautiful to watch.

Ayla could tolerate the vulture, despite its ugly bald head and a smell as evil as its looks. Its hooked beak was sharp and strong, built for shearing and dismembering dead animals, but there was majesty to its movements. It was breathtaking to see one gliding and soaring so effortlessly, riding air currents with large wings, then, on spying food, plummeting to the ground and running toward the corpse with outstretched neck and wings half open.

The scavengers below were having a feast, even carrion crows were getting a share, and Ayla was delighted. With the stink of decaying corpses so near her cave, she could even abide the hated hyena. The faster they cleaned it up, the happier she would be. Suddenly she felt overpowered by the fulsome reek. She wanted a breath of air untainted by malodorous emanations.

"Whinney," she called. The horse poked her head out of the cave at the sound of her name. "I'm going for a walk. Do you want to come with me?" The mare saw the beckoning signal and walked toward the woman, tossing her head.

They walked down the narrow path, gave the rocky beach and its noisome inhabitants a wide berth, and edged around the stone wall. The horse seemed to relax as they strolled along the fringe of brush that lined the small river, quietly contained within its normal banks again. The smell of death made her nervous, and her unreasoning fear of hyenas had a basis in early experience. They both enjoyed the freedom allowed by the sunny spring day after a long restricting winter, though the air still had a chilly dampness. It smelled fresher on the open meadow, too, and flying scavengers were not the only birds feasting, although other activities seemed more important.

Ayla slowed to watch a pair of great spotted woodpeckers, the male with a crimson crown, the female white, indulge in aerial displays, drum on a dead snag, and chase each other around trees. Ayla knew woodpeckers. They would hollow out the heart of an old tree and line the nest with wood chips. But once the six or so brown-spotted eggs were laid and incubated, and the young hatched and reared, the couple would go their separate ways again to search tree trunks within their territory for insects and make the woods resound with their harsh laughing call.

Not so the larks. Only during breeding season did the sociable flocks separate into pairs and the males behave like feisty gamecocks with former friends. Ayla heard the glorious song as a pair soared straight up. It was sung with such volume that she could hear them as they hovered above, hardly more than specks in the sky. Suddenly, like a pair of stones, they dropped, then swooped up singing again the next moment.

Ayla reached the place where she had once dug a pit to hunt a dun mare; at least she thought it was the place. No trace remained. The spring flood had swept away the brush she had cut and smoothed out the depression. Farther on, she stopped for a drink and smiled at a wagtail running along the water's edge. It resembled a lark, but was slimmer with a yellow underbelly, and it held its body horizontal to keep its tail from getting wet, which caused it to wag up and down.

A flood of liquid notes brought her attention to another pair of birds who had no qualms at all about getting wet. The water ouzels were bobbing at each other in courtship display, but she always wondered how they could walk underwater without getting their plumage waterlogged. When she went back to the open field, Whinney was grazing the new green shoots. She smiled again at a pair of brown wrens scolding her with their chick-chick when she passed too close to their shrub. Once beyond it, they changed to a loud clear flowing song that was sung first by one, and then by the other in an alternating response.

She stopped and sat on a log listening to the sweet songs of several different birds, and then was surprised when a bush warbler imitated the whole chorus in one burst of melody. She sucked in her breath at the virtuosity of the small creature, and surprised herself with the whistling sound she produced. A green bunting followed her with his characteristic note that sounded like an indrawn whistle, and the mimicking bush warbler repeated it again.

Ayla was delighted. It seemed she had become part of the avian chorus, and she tried again. Pursing her lips, she sucked in her breath but managed to produce only a faint windy whistle. The next time she got more volume, but filled her lungs so full of air that she had to expel it, making a loud whistle. It was much closer to the sounds of the birds. With the next effort, she only blew air through her lips, and she had no better luck with several more tries. She went back to the indrawn whistle and had more success making a whistling sound, though it lacked volume.

She kept trying, pulling in and blowing out, and occasionally she produced a sharp sound. She became so involved with the attempts that she didn't notice Whinney perking up her ears whenever the piercing whistle was made. The horse didn't know how to respond, but she was curious and took a few steps toward the woman.

Ayla saw the young mare approaching with a quizzical forward cocking of her ears. "Are you surprised that I can make bird sounds, Whinney? So am I. I didn't know I could sing like a bird. Well, maybe not quite like a bird, but if I keep practicing, I think I could come close. Let me see if I can do it again."

She drew in a breath, pursed her lips, and, concentrating on it, let out a long solid whistle. Whinney tossed her head, whinnied, and pranced to her. Ayla stood up and hugged the horse's neck, suddenly realizing how much she had grown. "You're so big, Whinney. Horses grow so fast, you're almost a grown woman horse. How fast can you run now?" Ayla gave her a sharp slap on the rump. "Come on, Whinney, run with me," she motioned, starting across the field as fast as she could.

The horse outdistanced her in a few paces and raced ahead, stretching out as she galloped. Ayla followed after, running just because it felt good. She pushed herself until she could go no farther, panting to a breathless halt. She watched the horse gallop down the long valley, then veer around in a wide circle and come cantering back. I wish I could run like you, she thought. Then we could both run together wherever we wanted. I wonder if I'd be happier if I were a horse instead of a human? I wouldn't be alone then.

I'm not alone. Whinney is good company, even if she isn't human. She's all I have, and I'm all she has. But wouldn't it be wonderful if I could run like her.

The filly was lathered when she returned, and made Ayla laugh when she rolled in the meadow, kicking her legs up in the air and making little noises of pleasure. When she got up, she shook herself and went back to grazing. Ayla kept watching her, thinking how exciting it would be to run like a horse, then fell to practicing her whistle again. The next time she managed a shrill piercing sound, Whinney looked up and cantered to her again. Ayla hugged the young horse, rather pleased that she had come at the whistle, but she couldn't get the thought of running with the horse out of her mind.

Then an idea struck her.

Such an idea would not have occurred to her if she hadn't lived with the animal all winter, thinking of her as a friend and companion. And certainly she would not have acted on such a thought if she were still living with the Clan. But Ayla had become more used to following her impulses.

Would she mind? Ayla thought. Would she let me? She led the horse to the log and climbed up on it, then put her arms around the horse's neck and lifted a leg. Run with me, Whinney. Run and take me with you, she thought, then straddled the horse.

The young mare was unaccustomed to weight on her back, and she flattened her ears back and pranced nervously. But, though the weight was unfamiliar, the woman was not, and Ayla's arms around her neck had a calming influence. Whinney almost reared to throw the weight off, then tried to run away from it instead. Breaking into a gallop, she raced down the field with Ayla clinging to her back.

But the young horse had already had a good run, and life for her in the cave was more sedentary than was usual. Though she had grazed the standing hay of the valley, she hadn't had a herd to keep up with or predators to run from.

And she was still young. It wasn't long before she slowed, then stopped, her sides heaving and her head drooping.

The woman slid off the horse's back. "Whinney, that was wonderful!" Ayla motioned, her eyes sparkling with excitement. She lifted the drooping muzzle with both hands and laid her cheek on the animal's nose; then she tucked the mare's head under her arm in a gesture of affection which she hadn't used since the horse was small. It was a special embrace, saved for special occasions.

The ride was a thrill she could hardly contain. The very idea of going along with a horse when it galloped filled Ayla with a sense of wonder. She had never dreamed such a thing was possible. No one had.