The Mammoth Hunters

Though some portion of the ground was always frozen, permafrost was not a permanent, unchanging state; it was as inconstant and fickle as the seasons. In the depths of winter when it was frozen solid all the way through, the land seemed passive, hard, and ungiving, but it was not what it seemed. When the season turned, the surface softened, only a few inches where thick ground cover or dense soils or too much shade resisted the gentle warmth of summer, but the active layer thawed down several feet on su

The yielding layer was an illusion, though. Beneath the surface the iron-hard grip of winter still ruled. Impenetrable ice held sway, and with the thaw and forces of gravity, saturated soils, and their burden of rocks and trees, crept and slid and flowed across the water-lubricated table of ground still frozen below. Slumps occurred and cave-ins as the surface warmed, and where the summer melt could find no outlet, bogs and swamps and thaw-lakes appeared.

When the cycle turned once more, the active layer above the frozen ground turned hard again, but its cold and icy countenance disguised a restless heart. The extreme stresses and pressures caused heaving, thrusting, and buckling. The frozen ground split and cracked and then filled with ice, which, to relieve stress, was expelled as ice wedges. Pressures filled holes with mud, and caused fine silt to rise in silt boils and frost blisters. As the freezing water expanded, mounds and hills of muddy ice-pingos – rose up out of swampy lowlands reaching heights up to two hundred feet and diameters of several hundred.

As Ayla and Jondalar retraced their steps, they discovered that the relief of the landscape had changed, making landmarks misleading. Certain small streams they thought they remembered had disappeared. They had iced over closer to their source, and become dry downstream. Hills of ice had appeared where none had been before, risen out of summer bogs and swampy lowlands where dense, fine-textured substrates caused poor drainage. Stands of trees grew on talik – islands of unfrozen layers surrounded by permafrost – which sometimes gave a misleading impression of a small valley, where they could not recall having seen one.

Jondalar was not familiar with the general terrain and more than once deferred to Ayla's better memory. When she was unsure, Ayla followed Whi

In the morning, they drank a hot tea for warmth while they packed up, then on the way they ate ground dried meat and dried berries that were mixed with fat and shaped into small cakes. Except for a hare they accidentally flushed, which Ayla brought down with her sling, they didn't hunt. But they did supplement the traveling food Nezzie had given them with the oily rich and nutritious pignon seeds from the cones of stone pines, gathered at stopping places along the way, and thrown on the fire to open with a pop.

As the terrain around them gradually changed, becoming rocky and more rugged with ravines and steep-walled canyons, Ayla felt a growing sense of excitement. The territory had a familiar feel, like the landscape south and west of her valley. When she saw an escarpment with a particular pattern of coloration in the strata, her heart leaped.

"Jondalar! Look! See that!" she cried, pointing. "We're almost there!"

Even Whi

"The water is sweeter here. Look how clear it is!" she exclaimed. "It's not muddy at all. You can see the bottom. And look, Jondalar, the horses are here!"

Jondalar smiled affectionately at her exuberance, feeling a similar, if milder, sense of homecoming at the sight of the familiar long valley. The harsh winds and frost of the steppes brushed the protected pocket with a lighter touch, and even stripped of summer leaves, a richer, fuller growth was apparent. The steep slope, which they had just descended, rose precipitously to a sheer rock wall as it advanced down the valley on the left. A wide fringe of brush and trees bordered the opposite bank of the stream ru

Halfway down, a small herd of steppe horses had stopped grazing and was looking their way. One of them neighed. Whi

Racer, with head high and ears pitched forward, followed them as far as his lead would allow, then stood with neck outstretched and nostrils wide, watching after them. Whi

As they hurried upstream toward the narrow end of the valley, they could see the small river swirling in a sharp turn around a jutting wall and a rocky beach on the right. On the other side of it was a large pile of rocks, driftwood, and bones, antlers, horns, and tusks of every variety. Some were skeletons from the steppes, others were the remains of animals caught in flash floods, carried downstream, and thrown against the wall.

Ayla could hardly wait. She slid off Whi

Carefully, she looked inside. She saw only darkness, but her nose detected a faint smell of wood burned long ago, and a somewhat fresher musky scent of wolverine. But that, too, was old. She stepped inside the opening and let her eyes adjust to the dim light, and then looked around.

She felt the pressure of tears filling her eyes, and struggled to hold them back to no avail. There it was, her cave. She was home. Everything was so familiar, yet the place where she had lived for so long seemed deserted and forlorn. The light streaming in from the hole above the entrance showed her that her nose had been right, and closer inspection brought a gasp of dismay. The cave was in a shambles. Some animal, perhaps more than one, had indeed broken in, and had left the evidence scattered around. She wasn't sure how much damage had been done.