Shivering as much from fear as from the wet, penetrating cold, she clutched her amulet, reaching for anything that promised protection. It was a reaction only partly caused by the thunder and lightning. Ayla didn't like thunderstorms much, but she was accustomed to them; they were often more helpful than destructive. She was still feeling the emotional aftermath of her earthquake nightmare. Earthquakes were an evil that had never failed to bring devastating loss and wrenching change into her life, and there was nothing she feared more.
Finally she realized she was wet and took her hide tent out of her carrying basket. She pulled it over her sleeping fur like a cover and buried her head beneath it. She was still shaking long after she warmed up, but as the night wore on the fearful storm abated, and she finally slept.
Birds filled the early morning air with twitterings, chirpings, and raucous caws. Ayla pulled back the cover and looked around her with delight. A world of green, still wet from the rain, glittered in the morning sun. She was on a broad rocky beach at a place where a small river took a turn toward the east in its winding, generally southward course.
On the opposite bank, a row of dark green pines reached to the top of the wall behind them but no farther. Any tentative strivings above the lip of the river gorge were cut short by the slashing winds of the steppes above. It gave the tallest trees a peculiar blunted look, their growth forced to branching fullness. One soaring giant of near perfect symmetry, spoiled only by a spire growing at right angles to the trunk, grew beside another with a charred, jagged, high stump clinging to its inverted top. The trees were growing on a narrow strip on the other side of the river between the bank and the wall, some so close to the water that bare roots were exposed.
On her side, upstream of the rocky beach, supple willows arched over, weeping long, pale green leaf-tears into the stream. The flattened stems on the tall aspens made the leaves quiver in the gentle breeze. White-barked birches grew in clumps while their alder cousins were only high shrubs. Lianas climbed and twined around the trees, and bushes of many varieties in full leaf crowded close to the stream.
Ayla had traveled the parched and withered steppes so long, she had forgotten how beautiful green could be. The small river sparkled an invitation, and, her fears of the storm forgotten, she jumped up and ran across the beach. A drink was her first thought; then, impulsively, she untied the long thong of her wrap, took off her amulet, and splashed into the water. The bank dropped off quickly and she dove under, then swam to the steep opposite side.
The water was cool and refreshing, and washing off the dust and grime of the steppes was a welcome pleasure. She swam upstream and felt the current growing stronger and the water chilling as the sheer walls closed in, narrowing the river. She rolled over on her back and, cradled by the buoyant water, let the flow carry her downstream. She gazed up at deep azure filling the space between the high cliffs, then noticed a dark hole in the wall across from the beach upstream. Could that be a cave? she thought with a surge of excitement I wonder if it would be hard to reach?
The young woman waded back to the beach and sat down on the warm stones to let the sun dry her. Her eye was drawn by the quick perky gestures of birds hopping on the ground near the brush, pulling on worms brought close to the surface by the night's rain, and flitting from branch to branch feeding on bushes heavy with berries.
Look at those raspberries! They're so big, she thought. A flurry of wings welcomed her approach, then settled nearby. She stuffed handfuls of the sweet juicy berries in her mouth. After she had her fill, she rinsed off her hands and put her amulet on, but wrinkled her nose at her grimy, stained, and sweaty wrap. She had no other. When she had gone back into the earthquake-littered cave just before she left, to get clothing, food, and shelter, survival had been her concern, not whether she would need a change of summer wraps.
And she was thinking survival again. Her hopeless thoughts on the dry and dreary steppes were dispelled by the fresh green valley. The raspberries had stimulated her appetite rather than satisfying it. She wanted something more substantial and walked to her sleeping place to get her sling. She spread out her wet hide tent and damp fur on the sun-warmed stones, then put on her soiled wrap and began looking for smooth round pebbles.
Close inspection revealed the beach held more than stones. It was also strewn with dull gray driftwood and bleached white bones, many of them piled in a huge mound against a jutting wall. Violent spring floods had uprooted trees and swept away unwary animals, hurled them through the narrow constriction of sheer rock upstream, and slammed them against a cul-de-sac in the near wall as the swirling water tore around the bend. Ayla saw giant antlers, long bison horns, and several enormous, curving ivory tusks in the heap; not even the great mammoth was immune to the force of the tide. Large boulders were mixed in the deposit, too, but the woman's eyes narrowed when she saw several medium-size, chalky gray stones.
This is flint! she said to herself after a closer look. I'm sure of it. I need a hammerstone to break one open, but I'm just sure of it. Excitedly, Ayla scanned the beach for a smooth oval stone she could hold comfortably in her hand. When she found one, she struck the chalky outer covering of the nodule. A piece of the whitish cortex broke off, exposing the dull sheen of the dark gray stone within.
It is flint! I knew it was! Her mind raced with thoughts of the tools she could make. I can even make some spares. Then I won't have to worry so much about breaking something. She lugged over a few more of the heavy stones, flushed out of the chalk deposits far upstream and carried by surging current until they came to rest at the foot of the stone wall. The discovery encouraged her to explore further.
The wall, that in times of flood presented a barrier to the rushing torrent, jutted out toward the inside bend of the river. Contained within its normal banks, the water level was low enough to allow easy access around it, but when she looked beyond, she stopped. Spread out before her was the valley she had glimpsed from above.
Around the bend, the river broadened and bubbled over and around rocks exposed by shallower water. It flowed east at the foot of the steep opposite wall of the gorge. Along its near bank trees and brush protected from the cutting wind grew to their full luxuriant height. On her left, beyond the stone barrier, the wall of the gorge veered away, and its slope decreased to a gradual incline that blended into steppes toward the north and east. Ahead, the wide valley was a lush field of ripe hay moving in waves as gusts of wind blew down the north slope, and midway down its length the small herd of steppe horses was grazing.
Ayla, breathing in the beauty and tranquility of the scene, could hardly believe such a place could exist in the middle of the dry windy prairie. The valley was an extravagant oasis bidden in a crack of the arid plains; a microcosm of abundance, as though nature, constrained to utilitarian economy on the steppes, lavished her bounty in extra measure where the opportunity allowed it.
The young woman studied the horses in the distance, intrigued by them. They were sturdy, compact animals with rather short legs, thick necks, and heavy heads with overhanging noses that reminded her of the large overhanging noses of some men of the Clan. They had heavy shaggy coats and short stiff manes. Though same tended to gray, most were shades of buff ranging from the neutral beige of the dust to the color of ripe hay. Off to one side stood a hay-colored stallion, and Ayla noticed several foals of the same shade. The stallion lifted his head, shaking his short mane, and whinnied.