CRO-MAGNON (35 page)

She shrank back. Wim had been right. If she’d traveled alone, she and Brann would be on their way to the Land of Shadows.

Gar’s wordless shout and Fel’s canine growl rode atop the tiger’s drawn-out roar as it bunched its muscular hindquarters. The deep sound, a portion of which Leya sensed was too low-pitched to hear, rattled her bones and roiled her blood, paralyzing her senses.

Not so, Gar, apparently. But he had time only for a shake of his spear before the animal launched.

Fel leaped, his canines slashing at the furry throat. There was a tawny blur, a yelp, and the wolf sailed through the air. But his distraction lasted long enough for Gar to set his feet as the big cat bowled him over. Man and beast went down with a ground-jarring thud.

The tiger’s roar ended in a cough that coincided with Gar’s explosive grunt. He must have managed to brace the butt against the ground, Leya saw, because the stone point had rammed completely through the cat’s deep chest and out its back.

Even so, its great head was poised above the prone man’s neck, jaws stretching for the kill bite, when the bloodied Fel landed atop its back and clamped the bowed neck.

The tiger shook its head, roared again, and thrashed. Finally it gave a drawn-out
chuff
and collapsed, pinning Gar to the frozen ground.

Fel worried the tiger’s neck a few moments longer before opening his jaws and sliding off the carcass. Gar’s great muscles bulged as he pried the massive weight and squirmed from beneath.

Leya sighed with relief. She had feared that even Gar’s heavy-duty ribs would not absorb the weight of the massive animal.

Unslinging his knot-headed club, Gar set his feet and bashed the animal’s skull. Fel lay to one side, a welter of slashes turning his flank red. Seeing that the tiger was dead, Leya set Brann aside and ran to the downed wolf. He licked her hand weakly as her fingers pried at the slashes.

Behind her she heard Gar bash the animal again. Many hunters had been killed by supposedly dead animals, she knew. Glancing back, she saw him crouch to inspect the tiger, and heard him grunt,
“
Ghub!
”

She looked at the thick maple shaft protruding from the tiger’s backbone. If Gar had been armed with a lightly built javelin of ash with a blunter bone point, she realized, they would all be dead. Likewise, if he wasn’t as strong as two or three of her own people. Maybe, she thought, in view of the small size of their hunting parties, these rugged men were correct to rely on thrusting-spears.

Running her fingers along Fel’s ribs, she thought they seemed intact. She felt him move and heard him draw breath. The young wolf’s wind had been knocked out, but now he struggled to his feet. The knife-tooth’s claws had laid open his hide, but Leya thought he would suffer no permanent damage as long as the wounds did not fester.

And she would see to that.

Amazingly, Gar looked none the worse and did not even seem unduly disturbed. He knelt to make his own inspection of Fel and grunted his relief.

Watching the wolf lap Gar’s face, Leya realized that Fel loved the big brute. A thought tugged at a corner of her mind. Why couldn’t she and Brann . . .

No, that would never do. Her son needed to grow up among her own people, in a secure tribe with civilized customs.

Gar bent to touch the tip of his spear. The flint point, Leya knew, was so sharp that it would slice a finger if one weren’t careful. She thought Gar would not be able to retrieve the weapon until he had butchered the big animal. And even with both of them working full out, that would take time. Meanwhile, they would all be at risk.

She glanced nervously at where Brann lay in his back pouch. “What if another tiger—”

Gar’s knees flexed, his outsized shoulders bunching. Exerting a steady pressure, he drew the thick spear straight through the tiger’s body until it sucked free. Setting the bloody weapon aside, he slipped his flint knife from its sheath and looked up, big front teeth gleaming in the watery sunlight.

“
Eat good tonight,” he said.

#

The tiger meat, all they could eat and carry, would see them through the trip. Gar cut off the limbs, rolled the pelt, and buried it beneath rocks and snow. He would pick it up on the way back, he thought.

On the afternoon of the second day following, they reached a windy pass overlooking the People’s winter encampment. Gar gazed in wonder at the two bark-covered structures in the ravine. He had never seen their like. Each longhouse stood as tall as two men and was half again as broad. The farthest looked eight lengths end to end, the closest twice as long. Smoke issued from multiple vents in the rounded roofs.

Leya said, “The tribe has four camps. In spring, we set up individual tents near foaling areas by the river you found me in. Summers, we camp just south of the tundra, where it’s too windy for mosquitoes. In fall, we pitch the tents near reindeer migration routes and rutting grounds. In winter, we retreat to this protected valley near the Arya.”

Gar nodded, surveying the bleak-looking ravine. “Food?”

“
There is game but it takes coordinated hunting to bag it.”

“
How?”

“
In winter the red deer depart south, but some bison move from the tundra to forests, where they spread out and paw through the lighter snow cover. It takes a line of beaters to force one into a brush trap where it can be safely dispatched.”

“
Dispatched?”

“
Another word from the tribe of my
mator.
Killed.”

“
We just charge bison. Stick with spear. Bash with club.”

“
I know.” Leya glanced at his bulging left thigh, which Gar knew that Wim had told her he had broken in a set-to with a bison. “The men also hunt ibex and argal in the forest, and the women go after hares, foxes, minks and other small animals in the river bottoms. Sometimes even pigs if we can corner one.”

“
Women hunt?” Gar did not know quite what to make of this. In the clan, men did the hunting.

Leya nodded. “The whole tribe works in concert. “After a storm we mount an expedition to the tundra, where we compete with wolves for winter-killed animals like wisent, aurochs, and even the occasional mammoth.”

“
Wisent?”

“
Tundra bison. The kind that stay there all year.”

Gar nodded. He knew there were two kinds of bison, but his people had no reason to distinguish.

“
How get meat to camp?”

“
We butcher it on the spot and sling it from poles.”

He nodded again. That was what the clan did with animals to large to carry.

“
Often, the women drag the meat back on travois,” Leya said. “We store it in frost pits, like your people, only more of it.”

“
Travois?”

“
Another word from the tribe of my
mator—
two poles joined by a webbed frame.”

“
Ah. Clever.” Gar constructed one in his mind and saw its utility. Why had he not thought of that?

Below, he could see no activity in the Shortface camp. Apparently, he and Leya had not yet been spotted. Gazing down at the long dwellings, he felt ill at ease. Although he had previously encountered Shortfaces, he had always been with companions. And never near their home.

“
Gar go back down trail,” he said, butting his spear.

Leya shook her head, her dark hair swishing about her shoulders in a way that further unsettled him. Her hair, her way of moving . . .

He glanced away, annoyed that he had allowed such thoughts to intrude.

“
You’re coming with me,” Leya said.

Considering the size of the encampment, that did not seem such a good idea. He nodded at their back trail.

“
Gar camp in last valley till see Leya all right.”

She flashed him a look he could not fathom. “As long as you are with me, the tribe will not bother you. And probably not even if you were alone.”

She gestured at his spear, the shaft still stained with the tiger’s blood. “As a sign of peace, you should leave that here.”

With a sigh, Gar propped the sturdy weapon against an icy rock. As they surveyed the settlement, he saw Leya reach into a pocket of her tunic, take out the crocus blossom she had picked in the protected valley and tuck it above her left ear.

He sensed that it was a sign. “What flower mean?”

“
That I am not eligible for mating.”

He shrugged. He would never understand some Shortface ways, such as why Leya bathed so often in camp or why she cut her meat into small pieces, mixed it with her cattail shoots, and ate using two little sticks. To keep her fingers clean? He himself liked to suck grease.

The mournful hoot of a shell horn ruptured the tranquility of the narrow valley, floating up to the travelers before dying away. Fel, standing at Gar’s side, extended his snout, sniffed the cold air, and gave a low whine. Gar reached down and ruffled the wolf’s fur.

“
A lookout has spotted us,” Leya said. “We should wait here.” Reaching over her shoulders, she lifted Brann from his pouch, then pulled Fel close against her leg.

“
Lookout?” Gar said.

“
The older boys take turns watching the approaches.”

Gar scanned the high ground on either side of the pass but did not see anyone. These people must be both disciplined and numerous, he thought. In the clan, the boys practiced thrusting their spears, throwing rocks, and wielding clubs. And when older, they hunted the less dangerous game. But he knew they would not have the patience to watch a patch of terrain for hours. Nor were there enough of them to share the task.

He ran his gaze over the two longhouses, the number of smoke holes telling him they were densely occupied. “How many in clan?”

“
Tribe,” Leya said. “The Tribe of the Twin Rivers. Two score and one hand.”

Gar whistled. Even given the size of the two shelters, he had not expected that many. No wonder his people were being crowded out. He glanced at the tall woman.

“
How feed so many?”

“
We hunt in large groups and take many animals at once.”

As he stood marveling at the big encampment, Gar saw three armed Shortfaces exit from the nearer longhouse and two more from the farther structure. All were dressed in tailored fur garments with pants and sleeves, and hoods that hung down their backs.

As the men came together, a boy ran out of the nearer longhouse and spoke to the eldest, a grizzled individual with an eagle feather in his hair. The man turned and gazed at the pass, and Gar could see that his face was weather-beaten, his eyes sunk even deeper than the usual Shortface’s.

“
Ronan,” Leya said. “The chief.”

All the men were gazing at the pass now. The boy turned and called out, and Gar saw a shadow stir in a cleft in the far wall of the ravine. Peering, he made out the narrow entrance to a cave. A man in a white robe stepped into the pale sunlight, glanced at the pointing boy, and then at the pass. Gar could see that the man was gaunt even for a Shortface. His lined face looked older than the grizzled leader’s, and he carried a staff of snakewood and wore a necklace of rounded bones.

“
Sugn,” Leya said. “The shaman. In winter he lives in a tent inside the entrance to the cave.”

“
Shaman?” Gar said.

“
A man of magic. Able to call on spirits to assure the success of the hunt.”

The man walked down the slope below the cliff, his leathery robe flapping above bony ankles as he approached the group. To Gar, the obviously deep cave seemed the ideal residence.

“
Why tribe not live in cave?”

“
A colony of vipers dens there in winter,” Leya said. “They are harmless while sleeping. But the heat from fires and people’s bodies . . .”

Gar had heard of a similar case with cobras. “Why use cave then?”

“
Sugn conducts ceremonies. Also, he says the spirits of enemies reside in the serpents, and his presence keeps them penned in the cave.”

Gar nodded. His own people knew about magic but not about ‘spirits,’ whatever they might be.

The group, now including the shaman, began walking up the ravine toward the pass. Gar saw that all except the magic-man carried slim javelins. The grizzled man in the lead limped slightly. Like Bor, he must have age-stiffness.

Gar felt Leya’s slim fingers clamp his biceps. “Mungo is with them.”

“
Mungo?”

“
The tall one behind Ronan and Sugn. The tribe’s best hunter. He’s the one I ran from.”

Gar focused on the third man in line and saw a rangy individual who looked fit and strong. Although it was difficult to tell the age of a Shortface, particularly a scowling one, Gar thought the man might be a few years older than himself.

“
Hodr is also with them,” Leya said. Gar felt her grip relax. “And Jarv, and Drem.”

Gar flicked his gaze at the three men bringing up the rear. “They bad too?”

“
No. But Hodr follows Mungo.”

Fel, poised between Leya and Gar, quivered and gave a whine. They both caressed his stiff ruff, and he went silent.