"I will tell you, Thonolan, it was close. But that female was determined to go north – she didn't want to stay at all."
"You think snow is on the way?" Thonolan asked, glancing down at his poultice, then back to his worried brother.
Jondalar nodded. "But I don't know how to tell Dolando that we'd better leave before the storm comes, when there's hardly a cloud in the sky… even if I could speak their language."
"I've been smelling snow on the way for days. It must be building up to a big one."
Jondalar was sure the temperature was still dropping, and knew it the next morning when he had to break a thin film of ice in a cup of tea that had been left near the fire. He tried again to communicate his concern, seemingly without success, and nervously watched the sky for more overt signs of weather change. He would have been relieved when he saw curdled clouds pouting over the mountains and filling up the blue bowl of the sky, if it weren't for the imminent threat they posed.
At the first sign that they were breaking camp, he struck his own tent and packed his and Thonolan's backframes. Dolando smiled and nodded at his readiness, then motioned him toward the river, but there was a nervousness to the man's smile and deep concern in his eyes. Jondalar's apprehension grew when he saw the swirling river and the wooden craft bobbing and jerking, straining at the ropes.
The expressions of the men who took his packs and stowed them near the cut-up frozen carcass of the rhino were more impassive, but Jondalar didn't see much encouragement either. And for all that he was anxious to get away, he was by no means comfortable about the means of transportation. He wondered how they were going to get Thonolan into the boat, and he went back to see if he could help.
Jondalar watched as the camp was dismantled with speed and efficiency, knowing that sometimes the best assistance one could offer was simply to stay out of the way. He had begun to notice certain details in clothing that differentiated those who had set up shelters on land, and referred to themselves as Shamudoi, from the Ramudoi, the men who stayed on the boat. Yet they didn't quite seem like different tribes.
There was an ease of communication, with much joking, and none of the elaborate courtesies that usually indicated underlying tensions when two different peoples met. They seemed to speak the same language, shared all their meals, and worked well together. He noticed, though, that on land Dolando seemed to be in charge, while the men on the boat looked to another man for direction.
The healer emerged from the tent, followed by two men carrying Thonolan on an ingenious stretcher. Two shafts from the grove of alder trees on the knoll were wound over and around with extra rope from the boat, forming a support between them to which the wounded man was securely lashed. Jondalar hurried toward them, noticing that Roshario had begun taking down the tall circular tent. Her nervous glances toward the sky and the river convinced Jondalar she was not looking forward to the trip any more than he was.
"Those clouds look full of snow," Thonolan said when his brother came into sight and started walking beside the litter. "You can't see the tops of the mountains; snow must be falling up north already. I'll say one thing, you get a different view of the world from this position."
Jondalar looked up at the clouds rolling over the mountains, hiding the frozen peaks, tumbling over each other as they pushed and shoved in their hurry to fill the clear blue space above. Jondalar's frown looked almost as threatening as the sky, and his brow clouded with concern, but he tried to mask his fears. "Is that your excuse for lying around?" he said, trying to smile.
When they reached the log that was jutting out into the river, Jondalar fell back and watched the two river men balance themselves and their burden along the unsteady fallen tree and manhandle the stretcher up the even more precarious gangplank-ladder. He understood why Thonolan had been firmly lashed to the conveyance. He followed after, having trouble keeping his own balance, and looked at the men with even greater respect.
A few white flakes were beginning to sift down from a gray overcast sky when Roshario and the Shamud gave tightly bound bundles of poles and hides – the large tent – to a couple of the Ramudoi to carry on board and started across the log themselves. The river, reflecting the mood of the sky, roiled and swirled violently – the increased moisture in the mountains making its presence felt downstream.
The log was bobbing to a different motion than the boat, and Jondalar leaned over the side and reached a hand toward the woman. Roshario gave him a grateful look and took it, and was almost lifted up the last rung and into the boat. The Shamud had no qualms about accepting his assistance either, and the healer's look of gratitude was as genuine as Roshario's.
One man was still on shore. He released one of the moorings, then raced up the log and clambered aboard. The gangplank was hauled in quickly. The heaving craft that was trying to pull away and join the current was restrained by only one line and long-handled paddles in the hands of the rowers. The line was slipped with a sharp jerk, and the craft jumped at its chance for freedom. Jondalar clung tightly to the side as the craft bobbed and bounced into the mainstream of the Sister.
The storm was building rapidly and the swirling flakes reduced visibility. Floating objects and refuse traveled with them at varying speeds – heavy water-soaked logs, tangled brush, bloated carcasses, and an occasional small iceberg – making Jondalar fear a collision. He watched the shore slipping by, and his glance was held by the stand of alder on the high knoll. Something, attached to one of the trees, was flapping in the wind. A sudden gust broke its hold and carried it toward the river. As it dropped, Jondalar suddenly realized that the stiff, dark-stained leather was his summer tunic. Had it been flapping from that tree all this time? It floated for a moment before it became waterlogged and sank.
Thonolan had been released from his stretcher and was propped up against the side of the boat, looking pale, in pain, and frightened, but he smiled gamely at Jetamio who was beside him. Jondalar settled near them, frowning as he remembered his fear and his panic. Then he recalled his incredulous joy when he first saw the boat approaching, and he wondered again how they had known he was there. A thought struck him: could it have been that bloody tunic flapping in the wind that told them where to look? But how had they known to come in the first place? And with the Shamud?
The boat jounced over the rough water, and, taking a good look at its construction, Jondalar became intrigued by the sturdy craft. The bottom of the boat appeared to be made of a solid piece, a whole tree trunk hollowed out, wider at the midsection. The boat was made larger by rows of planks, overlapped and sewn together, extending up the sides and joined in front at the prow. Supports were spaced at intervals along the sides, and planks extended between them for seats for the rowers. The three of them were in front of the first seat.
Jondalar's eye followed the structure of the craft and skipped over a log that had been shoved against the prow. Then he looked back and felt his heart pound. Near the prow, caught in the tangled branches of the log in the bottom of the boat, was a leather summer tunic stained dark with blood.
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.