Plains of Passage (16 page)

Both the horses were agitated, moving back from the wet edge with prancing steps, whickering, neighing, and tossing their heads. Ayla put the halter with the lead rope on Whinney to help guide the horse across the water. Then, sensing the mare’s growing unease, the young woman hugged the shaggy neck and talked to her with the comforting private language she had invented when they were together in the valley.

She had developed it unconsciously, building on the complex signs, but primarily on the few words that were part of the language of the Clan, and she had added the repetitive nonsense sounds she and her son had begun to use, to which she had assigned meaning. It also included horse sounds, which she had gained a sense of and learned to mimic, an occasional lion grunt, and even a few bird whistles.

Jondalar turned to listen. Though he was accustomed to her speaking to the horse that way, he had no idea what she was saying. She had an uncanny ability to reproduce the sounds the animals made—she had learned their language when she lived alone, before he had taught her to speak verbally again—and he thought the language had a strange, otherworldly quality.

Racer shifted his feet and tossed his head, squealing anxiously. Jondalar spoke to him in soft tones while he stroked and scratched him. Ayla watched, noticing how the tall man’s wonderfully sensitive hands had an almost instant calming effect on the skittish young horse. It pleased her to see the closeness that had developed between them. Then her thoughts turned for a moment to the way his hands could make her feel, and she flushed slightly. He didn’t calm her.

The horses were not the only nervous animals. Wolf knew what was coming and was not anticipating the cold swim. Whining and pacing up and down the bank, he finally sat down and pointed his nose up, voicing his complaint in a mournful howl.

“Come here, Wolf,” Ayla said, stooping down to hug the young animal. “Are you a little frightened, too?”

“Is he going to give us problems again, crossing this river?” Jondalar said, still feeling annoyed at the wolf for bothering him and Racer earlier.

“It’s not a problem for me. He’s just a little nervous, like the horses are,” Ayla said, wondering why Wolf’s perfectly understandable fears seemed to annoy Jondalar, especially when he was so understanding of the young stallion.

The river was cold, but the horses were strong swimmers, and once they were coaxed in, they had no problem reaching the opposite shore, leading the humans as much as being led by them. Even Wolf was no trouble. He danced and whined on the bank, advancing on the cold
water and retreating a few times, then finally he plunged in. With his nose held high, he struck out after the horses that were piled high with packs and bundles, and the humans swimming alongside.

Once they gained the other side, they stopped to change and dry off the animals, then continued on their way. Ayla remembered previous river crossings she had made when she had traveled alone after leaving the Clan, and she was grateful for the sturdy horses. Getting from one side to the other of a river was never easy. At the least, when traveling on foot, it usually involved getting wet. But with the horses, they could cross many smaller watercourses with little more than a splash or two, and even big rivers posed far less difficulty.

   As they continued traveling southwest, the terrain changed. The hills of the uplands, that were graduating into higher foothills as they approached the mountains to the west, were crossed with the deeply cut narrow valleys of rivers they had to cross. Some days Jondalar felt that they spent so much time going up and down, they made little progress forward, but the valleys offered sheltered campsites out of the wind, and the rivers supplied the necessary water in a land that was otherwise dry.

They stopped at the top of a high hill within the central area of the hilly upland plains that ran parallel to the rivers. A vast panorama commanded their view in all directions. Except for the faint gray shapes of mountains far to the west, the expansive vista was uninterrupted.

Though the windy, arid land could not have been more different, the steppes, spread out before the two riders in a monotone of endless waving grass flowing over low rolling hills, evoked the sea with its featureless regularity. The analogy went deeper. For all the monotonous uniformity, the ancient grassland rippling in the wind was deceptively rich and varied, and like the sea, supported a profuse and exotic array of life. Outlandish creatures, displaying a flourish of biologically costly social adornments in the form of luxurious horns and antlers, shags, ruffs, and humps, shared the great steppes with other animals grown to magnificent size.

The woolly giants, mammoths and rhinoceroses, resplendent in dense double furs—long flowing hair trailing over warm downy under-layers—with thick layers of sustaining fat, flaunted extravagant tusks and exaggerated nose horns. Giant deer, bedecked with stately racks of immense palmate antlers, grazed alongside aurochs, the splendid wild forerunners of herds of placid domestic cattle, which were nearly as huge as the massive bison that sported such enormous horns. Even small animals displayed the size that was the result of the richness of the
steppes; there were great jerboas, giant hamsters, and ground squirrels that were among the largest found anywhere.

The extensive grasslands also supported a bounty of other animals, many with remarkable proportions. Horses, asses, and onagers partitioned space and food on the lowlands; wild sheep, chamois, and ibex divided higher ground. Saiga antelopes raced across the flatlands. Gallery forests along river valleys, or near ponds and lakes, and the occasional wooded steppes and tundra played host to deer of all varieties, from spotted fallow and gentle roe deer to elk, red deer, and reindeer—called moose, elk, and caribou when they migrated to other lands. Hares and rabbits, mice and voles, marmots, susliks, and lemmings abounded in huge numbers; toads, frogs, snakes, and lizards had their place. Birds of every shape and size, from large cranes to tiny pipets, added their voice and color. Even insects had a role to play.

The tremendous herds of grazers, as well as the browsers and seed eaters, were culled and kept in check by the ones who ate meat. Carnivores, who were more adaptable in their range of environment and could live wherever their prey lived, also reached tremendous size because of the abundance and quality of their food supply. Gigantic cave lions, up to twice the size of their later southern descendants, hunted the young and old of even the largest grazers, though a woolly mammoth in its prime had little to fear. The usual choice of the great cats were the huge bison, aurochs, and deer, while packs of oversize hyenas, wolves, and dholes selected from more middle-size game. They divided the plentiful prey with lynxes, leopards, and small wildcats.

Monstrous cave bears, essentially vegetarian and only limited hunters, were twice the weight of the smaller brown or black bears, which also preferred an omnivorous diet that often included grass, though the white bear of the icy coasts subsisted on meat from the sea. Vicious wolverines and steppe polecats took their toll of smaller animals, including the vast number and variety of rodents, as did the sinuous sables, weasels, otters, ferrets, martens, minks, and stoats that became ermines in snow. Some foxes also turned white, or the rich gray called blue, to match the winter scenery and hunt in stealth. Tawny and golden eagles, falcons, hawks, crows, and owls snatched unsuspecting, or unlucky, small prey on the wing, while vultures and black kites cleaned up the leavings of others on the ground.

The great diversity and size of the animals that lived on those ancient steppes, and their bonus of exaggerated and richly enhanced appendages and supplementary growths, could only be sustained by an environment of exceptional quality. Yet it was a frigid, sere, demanding land surrounded by mountain-high barriers of ice and bleak oceans of
frozen water. It seemed a contradiction that such a harsh environment could provide the richness that was necessary for the lavish growth of the animals but, in fact, the environment was entirely right for it. The cold, dry climate fostered the growth of grass and inhibited the growth of trees.

Trees, such as oaks or spruces, are luxuriant growths, but they take a long time and ample moisture to mature. Woodlands may feed and support a range of other plants and animals, but trees need resources to maintain themselves, and they do not encourage the development of multitudes of large animals. A few animals may eat nuts or fruits and others may browse leaves, or even twig tips from a tree, but bark and wood are largely inedible, and grow back slowly once destroyed. The same energy and soil nutrients put into an equal weight of grass will feed many, many more, and the grass will constantly renew itself. A forest may be the quintessential example of rich, productive vegetable life, but it was grass that gave rise to the extraordinary and abundant animal life, and it was the complex grassland that supported and maintained it.

   Ayla was feeling uncomfortable, but she wasn’t sure why. It was nothing specific, just a strange, edgy feeling. Before they started down the high hill, they had watched storm clouds gathering over the mountains to the west, seen flashes of sheet lightning, and heard distant rolling thunder. The sky above, however, was a clear, deep blue, with the sun still high, though past the zenith. It was unlikely to rain nearby, but she didn’t like thunder. The deep rolling roar always reminded her of earthquakes.

Maybe it’s just that my moon time should start in a day or two, Ayla thought, trying to dismiss the feeling. I had better keep my leather straps handy, and the mouflon wool Nezzie gave me. She told me it was the best padding to use when traveling, and she was right. The blood washes right out in cold water.

Ayla had not seen onagers before, and with her thoughts turned inward, she wasn’t paying attention as they proceeded down the slope. She thought the animals she saw in the distance were horses. But when they got closer, she began to notice differences. They were slightly smaller, their ears were longer, and their tails were not a flowing trees of many hair strands, but a shorter, thin shaft covered with the same kind of hair that was on their bodies, with a darker tuft at the end. Both kinds of animals had erect manes, but the onagers’ were more uneven. The coats of the animals in the small herd were a light reddish brown on their backs and sides, and a much paler, almost white coloring underneath, even on their legs and muzzles, but they had a dark stripe
along their backbones, plus another across their shoulders, and several bands of the darker shade on their legs.

The young woman compared them with the general coloring of the horses. Though her dun coat was a shade lighter than average, with a rich golden yellow tone, most steppe horses were a similar neutral grayish brown shade and generally resembled Whinney. Racer’s deep brown color was unusual for his breed. The mare’s stiff thick mane was a dark gray, and the color extended down the middle of her back to her long, loose tail. Her lower legs were dark, too, almost black, and above that, only the bare suggestion of stripes showed on her upper legs. The bay stallion’s color was too dark to show the black feral stripe that ran down his backbone very well, but his black mane, tail, and legs followed the typical pattern.

To someone who was knowledgeable about horses, the body conformation of the animals ahead was somewhat different, as well, yet they did seem to be horses. Ayla noticed that even Whinney showed more interest than she usually did at the sight of other animals, and the herd had stopped grazing and was watching them. Wolf was interested, too, and had assumed a stalking posture, ready to take out after them, but Ayla signaled him to stay. She wanted to observe them. One of the onagers suddenly voiced a sound and the woman noticed another difference. It wasn’t a neigh, or a whinny, but rather a more strident braying sound.

Racer tossed his head and neighed an answer, then gingerly stretched his head forward to sniff at a large pile of fresh dung. It looked and smelled like horse dung to Ayla, when she rode up alongside Jondalar. Whinney nickered and sniffed the pile, too, and as the odor wafted up to her a while longer, Ayla thought she detected a faint undercurrent of something else, perhaps from somewhat different food preferences.

“Are those horses?” she asked.

“Not exactly. They’re like horses, the way elk are like reindeer, or moose are like megaceroses. They’re called onagers,” Jondalar explained.

“I wonder why I haven’t seen them before.”

“I don’t know, but they do seem to like this kind of country,” he said, inclining his head in a gesture that indicated the rocky hills and sparse vegetation of the arid, semidesert upland plains they were riding through. Onagers were not a cross between horses and asses, though they appeared to be, rather a unique and viable species, with some characteristics of both, and extremely hardy. They could subsist on even coarser food than horses, including bark, leaves, and roots.

When they got closer to the herd, Ayla noticed a pair of young ones
and couldn’t help smiling. They reminded her of Whinney when she was young. Just then the wolf yelped to get her attention.

“All right, Wolf. If you want to chase those … onagers”—she said the unfamiliar word slowly, getting used to the sound—“go ahead.” She was pleased with the progress she was making in training him, but he didn’t like staying in one place for long. He was still too full of puppyish enthusiasm and curiosity. Wolf yelped and bounded after the herd. With a startled burst, they raced away with a sustained speed that soon left the young, would-be hunter behind. He caught up with Ayla and Jondalar as they were approaching a broad valley.

Though the valleys of rivers carrying the silt of slowly eroding mountains still cut across their path, the land was falling off gradually toward the basin of the Great Mother River delta and Beran Sea. As they were traveling south, the summer was deepening, and warm winds caused by the passage of atmospheric depressions across the sea added to the increasing temperatures of the season, and to weather disturbances.