"No," Jondalar said. "You're the only human runner that was sent, but wolves can run faster."
Suddenly Ludeg noticed the young wolf. "He didn't go hunting with you, how did Wolf get here?"
"I think Rydag sent him," Ayla said. "He found us on the other side of the bog."
"It's a good thing, too," Jondalar added. "You might have missed the hunters. They've decided to go around the bog on the way back. It's easier when you're heavily loaded to stay on dry ground."
"So they found mammoth. Good, that will make everyone happy," Ludeg said, then he looked at Ayla. "I think you'd better hurry. It's lucky you're this close."
Ayla felt the blood drain from her face.
"Would you like a ride back, Ludeg?" Jondalar asked, before they hurried away. "We can ride double…"
"No. You need to go ahead. You've already saved me a long trip. I don't mind the walk back."
Ayla raced Whinney all the way back to the Summer Meeting. She was off the horse and in the tent before anyone knew she was back.
"Ayla! You're here! You made it in time. I was afraid he would be gone before you got here," Nezzie said. "Ludeg must have traveled fast."
"It wasn't Ludeg who found us. It was Wolf," Ayla said, throwing off her outerwear and rushing to Rydag's bed.
She had to close her eyes to overcome the shock for a moment. The set of his jaw and the lines of strain told her more than any words that he was in pain, terrible pain. He was pale, but dark hollows circled his eyes, and his cheekbones and brow ridges protruded in sharp angles. Every breath was an effort and caused more pain. She looked up at Nezzie, who was standing beside the bed.
"What happened, Nezzie?" She fought to hold back tears, for his sake.
"I wish I knew. He was fine, then all of a sudden he got this pain. I tried to do everything you told me, gave him the medicine. Nothing helped," Nezzie said.
Ayla felt a faint touch on her arm. "I glad you come," the boy signed.
Where had she seen that before? That struggle to make signs with a body too weak to move? Iza. That's how she was when she died. Ayla had just returned from a long trek then, and a long stay at the Clan Gathering. But she just went to hunt mammoth this time. They weren't gone very long. What happened to Rydag? How did he get so sick so fast? Had it been coming up on him slowly all along?
"You sent Wolf, didn't you?" Ayla asked.
"I know he find," the boy motioned. "Wolf smart."
Rydag closed his eyes then, and Ayla had to turn her head aside, and close her eyes. It hurt to see the way he labored to breathe, to see his pain.
"When did you last have your medicine?" Ayla asked, when he opened his eyes and she could look at him.
Rydag shook his head slightly. "Not help. Nothing help."
"What do you mean, nothing will help? You're not a medicine woman. How do you know? I'm the one who knows that," Ayla said, trying to sound firm and positive.
He shook his head slightly again. "I know."
"Well, I'm going to examine you, but first, I'm going to get you some medicine," Ayla said, but it was more that she was afraid she would break down right there. He touched her hand as she started to leave.
"Not go." He closed his eyes again, and she watched him struggle for one more tortured breath, and then another, powerless to do anything. "Wolf here?" he finally signed.
Ayla whistled, and whoever it was outside that had been trying to keep Wolf from going in the tent, suddenly found it impossible. He was there, jumping up on the boy's bed, trying to lick his face. Rydag smiled. It was almost more than Ayla could stand, that smile on a Clan face that was so uniquely Rydag. The rambunctious young animal could be too much. Ayla motioned him down.
"I send Wolf. Want Ayla," Rydag motioned again. "I want…" He didn't seem to know the word in signs.
"What is it you want, Rydag?" Ayla encouraged.
"He tried to tell me," Nezzie said. "But I couldn't understand him. I hope you can. It seems so important to him."
Rydag closed his eyes and wrinkled his brow, and Ayla had the feeling he was trying to remember something.
"Durc lucky. He… belongs. Ayla, I want… mog-ur."
He was trying so hard, and it was taking so much out of him, but all Ayla could do was try to understand. "Mog-ur?" The sign was silent. "You mean a man of the spirit world?" Ayla said, aloud.
Rydag nodded, encouraged. But the expression on Nezzie's face was unfathomable. "Is that what he's been trying to say?" the woman asked.
"Yes, I think so," Ayla said. "Does that help?"
Nezzie nodded, a short, clipped nod of anger. "I know what he wants. He doesn't want to be an animal, he wants to go to the spirit world. He wants to be buried… like a person."
Rydag was nodding now, agreeing.
"Of course," Ayla said. "He is a person." She looked perplexed.
"No. He's not. He was never numbered among the Mamutoi. They wouldn't accept him. They said he was an animal," Nezzie said.
"You mean he cannot have a burial? He cannot walk the spirit world? Who says he can't?" Ayla's eyes blazed with fury.
"The Mammoth Hearth," Nezzie said. "They won't allow it."
"Well, am I not the daughter of the Mammoth Hearth? I will allow it!" Ayla stated.
"It won't do any good. Mamut would, too. The Mammoth Hearth has to agree, and they won't agree," Nezzie said.
Rydag had been listening, hopeful, but now his hope was dimming. Ayla saw his expression, his disappointment, and was more angry than she had ever been.
"The Mammoth Hearth doesn't have to agree. They are not the ones who decide if someone is human or not. Rydag is a person. He is no more an animal than my son is. The Mammoth Hearth can keep their burial. He doesn't need it. When the time comes, I will do it, the Clan way, the way I did it for Creb, the Mog-ur. Rydag will walk the world of the spirits, Mammoth Hearth or no!"
Nezzie glanced at the boy. He seemed more relaxed now. No, she decided. At peace. The strain, the tension, he had been showing was gone. He touched Ayla's arm.
"I am not animal," he signed.
He seemed about to say something else. Ayla waited. Then suddenly she realized there was no sound, no struggle to take one more tortured breath. He was not in pain any more.
But Ayla was. She looked up and saw Jondalar. He had been there all along, and his face was as racked with grief as hers, or Nezzie's. Suddenly all three of them were clinging together, trying to find solace in each other.
Then another showed his grief. From the floor beneath Rydag's bed, a low whine rose in a furry throat, then yips that extended and deepened and soared into Wolf's first full, ringing howl. When his breath ran out, he began again, crying out his loss in the sonorous, eerie, spine-tingling, unmistakable tones of wolfsong. People gathered at the entrance of the tent to look, but were hesitant to enter. Even the three who were awash in their own sorrow paused to listen and wonder. Jondalar thought to himself that animal or human, no one could ask for a more poignant or awesome elegy.
After the first racking tears of grief were spent, Ayla sat beside the small thin body, unmoving, but her tears had not stopped. She stared into space, silently remembering her life with the Clan, and her son, and the first time she saw Rydag. She loved Rydag. He had come to mean as much to her as Durc and, in a certain way, stood in for him. Even though her son had been taken from her, Rydag had given her an opportunity to know more about him, to learn how he might be growing and maturing, how he might look, how he might think. When she smiled at Rydag's gentle humor, or was pleased at his perceptiveness and intelligence, she could imagine that Durc had the same kind of understanding. Now Rydag was gone, and her tenuous link to Durc was gone. Her grief was for both.