With each turn the rock walls rose higher, the river beside them rushed faster. They walked along a narrow bank of rock and sand that would surely be covered by the high waters of spring. Parts of the rock wall had broken loose here and the water splashed and broke into spray over giant boulders in the stream. They had to climb up an ever larger slide of tumbled stone that must have filled the deep ravine for the river now roared over and among the rocks, foaming high against the vertical rock face on the other side. The climb was getting more difficult. Kerrick looked up — and stopped suddenly.
Dark-haired, spear-armed hunters were looking down at him from above. He called out to the hunters climbing ahead of him and pointed. They looked up and understood, shouting orders that sent the others back out of sight. Kerrick went on then to the top and stood, panting, looking back the way they had come.
The mounded boulders fell away from him to the dark waters of the river, far below. High cliffs rose from the river on both sides. This natural barrier could be easily defended by the armed hunters who had drawn aside to let him pass. It was a perfect defensive position — but what was it guarding? Curiosity now replaced fear as he clambered down the inner face of the barrier and hurried after the others.
As they walked the landscape changed. The rock walls receded and sandy mounds appeared beside the river, dotted here and there with vegetation and stunted trees. After a short distance the land became flatter and greener, with low shrubs stretched out in even rows. Kerrick wondered at this regularity until they passed a group of men digging at one of the rows.
He marveled then at two things: the rows had been planted that way on purpose. And there were hunters working among the plants, doing woman’s work. It was most unusual. But the Yilanè had planted fields around their city; there was no reason that Tanu could not do the same, that men should labor in them as well as women. His eyes followed the green rows to the rock wall of the valley beyond, up to the dark openings in the stone.
They passed a group of women next, all of them wrapped in the soft white substance, pointing at him and chattering in high-pitched voices. Kerrick knew that he should be feeling fear here in this valley, among these dark strangers, but he did not. If they had wanted to kill him they would certainly have done it long before this. He might still be in danger, but his curiosity was overwhelming any fears he still had. There was smoke from fires ahead, children running, the cliffs were closer — and he stopped with sudden realization.
“A city!” he said aloud. “A Tanu city, not a Yilanè one.”
The hunters he had been following stopped and waited while he looked about him. Notched beams of wood, they must have been entire treetrunks, reached up the cliffside to the openings above. The beams could be climbed for he saw faces peering down at him. There was a rush and bustle here, also like a Yilanè city, with many activities he could not understand. Then he noticed that the hunter he had first met was waving him forward, towards a long, dark opening in the base of the cliff. Kerrick followed him inside and looked up at the rock wall that slanted back above. He blinked at it in the gloom, barely able to make out details after leaving the bright sunlight outside. The hunter was pointing at the rockface above.
“Waliskis,” he said, the same word he had used when he pointed at the water vessel.
Kerrick looked up at the tracings in the rock and began to understand something of what the hunter was trying to say.
There were beasts there, marked out in color upon the rock, many of them like the deer that he recognized. In pride of place above them all, almost life-size, was a mastodon.
“Waliskis,” the hunter said again and bowed his head towards the representation of the great beast. “Waliskis.”
Kerrick nodded in agreement without understanding the significance of the painting at all. It was a good likeness, as was the black mastodon on the bowl. All of the paintings were most realistic. He reached up and touched the deer, saying deer aloud at the same time. The dark-haired hunter did not seem interested. Instead he stepped back into the sunlight and waved Kerrick after him.
Kerrick wanted to stop and look at all the fascinating activity taking place, but the other hurried him along to one of the notched logs that stretched up the cliff face. He clambered up to the ledge above, then waited for Kerrick. The climb was an easy one. There was a dark opening behind the ledge with a chamber of some kind beyond. They had to stoop to enter. There were pots and other articles on the stone floor, a heaped pile of skins to the rear. The white-clad hunter spoke and a thin voice answered from the skins and furs.
When Kerrick looked more closely he saw that someone was there, a slight figure that lay under the coverings with just the head visible. A seamed and wrinkled face. The lips worked in the toothless mouth and the whispering voice spoke again.
“Where do you come from? What is your name?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
As his eyes adjusted to the gloom of the chamber, Kerrick saw that the old one’s skin, though dark with age, was as fair as his, the eyes blue. The hair that might once have been light was now gray and sparse. When the thin voice spoke again he listened and could understand most of the words. Not Marbak as he knew it, but more like that spoken by Har-Havola’s sammad from beyond the mountains.
“Your name, your name,” the order came again.
“I am Kerrick. I come from beyond the mountains.”
“I knew it, yes I did, your hair so light. Come closer so Huanita can see you. Yes, you are Tanu. See, Sanone, did I not tell you I could still speak as they do?” The weak voice rustled with dry laughter.
Kerrick and Huanita talked then, Sanone, for that was the dark hunter’s name, listening and nodding approval though he could not understand a word. Kerrick was not surprised to discover that Huanita was a woman, captured by hunters when she had been a young girl. Everything that she said was not clear and she tended to ramble. Many times she fell asleep while talking. Once when she awoke she talked to him in Sesek, the language of the Sasku, as these dark-haired people called themselves, and grew angry when he did not respond. Then she called for food and Kerrick ate as well. It was late afternoon by the time Kerrick broke off.
“Tell Sanone I must return to my sammad. But I will be back here in the morning. Tell him that.”
Huanita fell asleep then, snoring and muttering, and could not be aroused. But Sanone seemed to have understood what Kerrick was going to do because he walked with him back to the rock barrier, then called out orders to the two spearmen on guard there.
Once past the barrier Kerrick ran most of the way back to the encampment by the river, trying to reach the tents before dark. Herilak must have been concerned about his day-long absence for there were hunters in the hills waiting for him, calling out eager questions. He waited until he was back among the tents and had drunk deep of the cool water before he spoke. Herilak, Fraken, and the sammadars sat close, the rest of the sammads in the circle around.
“First you must know this,” Kerrick said. “These dark Tanu are called the Sasku. They are not going to fight us or drive us away. They want to be of help, even give us food, and I think that this is because of the mastodons.”
There was a murmur of surprise at this and he waited until they were quiet before he went on.
“I feel just as puzzled by this as you do since I do not understand them completely. There is an old woman there who speaks in a way that I can understand, but what she says is not always clear. The Sasku do not have mastodons. But they know of them, you can see the mastodon on the bowl here, and they have a large painting of a mastodon and other animals in a cave. Again the meanings are not that clear, but something about mastodons is very important to them even though they do not have any. They have seen ours, seen that the mastodons obey us, so therefore they will aid us if they can. They do not wish to harm us. And they have many important things like stores of food set aside for the winter, bowls like this, too much to remember all at once. In the morning I return to them with Herilak. We will talk with them, with their sammadars. I do not know exactly what will happen but there is one thing that is certain. We have found a safe place for the winter.”