Then he remembered seeing Ayla riding Racer, but having trouble controlling him. He wondered how the stallion had ended up in the middle of the stampeding herd when he had left him tied to a bush.

Jondalar had almost panicked then, afraid the horse would respond to his herding instinct and follow the others over the edge, taking Ayla with him. He remembered running toward them with his spear ready in his spear-thrower. As much as he loved that brown stallion, he would have killed Racer before allowing him to carry Ayla over the cliff. That was the last thing he remembered, except for a fleeting recollection of a sharp pain before everything went dark.

Someone must have hit me with something, Jondalar thought. It was a hard blow, too, because I don't remember anything about being brought here, and my head still hurts. Did they think I was spoiling their hunting strategy? The first time he'd met Jeren and his hunters, it had been under similar circumstances. He and Thonolan had inadvertently run off a herd of horses the hunters had been driving toward a trap. But Jeren had understood, once he got over his anger, that it wasn't intentional, and they had become friends. I didn't spoil the hunt of these people, did I?

He tried again to sit up. Bracing himself on his side, he pulled his knees up, then strained to roll and bob up into a sitting position. It took a few tries and left his head throbbing from the effort, but he finally succeeded. He sat with his eyes closed, hoping the pain would soon subside. But as it eased off, his concern for Ayla and the animals grew. Had Whinney and Racer been swept over the edge with the herd, and had Racer taken Ayla with him?

Was she dead? He felt his heart beat with fear just thinking about it. Were they all gone, Ayla and the horses? What about Wolf? When the injured animal finally reached the field, he would find no one. Jondalar imagined him sniffing around, trying to follow a trail that went nowhere. What would he do? Wolf was a good hunter, but he was hurt. How well could he hunt for himself with his injury? He would miss Ayla and the rest of his "pack." He wasn't used to living alone. How would he get along? What would happen when he came up against a pack of wild wolves? Would he be able to defend himself?

Isn't anyone going to come? I'd like a drink of water, Jondalar thought. They must have heard me. I'm hungry, too, but mostly thirsty. His mouth felt drier and drier, and his craving for water grew stronger. "Hey, out there! I'm thirsty! Can't someone bring a man a drink of water?" he shouted. "What kind of people are you? Tying a man up and not even giving him a drink of water!"

No one answered. After shouting a few more times, he decided to save his breath. It was only making him more thirsty, and his head still hurt. He considered lying down, but it had taken so much effort to get up that he wasn't sure if he could do it again.

As more time passed, he began to feel morose. He was weak, bordering on delirious, and he imagined the worst, vividly. He convinced himself that Ayla was dead, and both the horses as well. When he thought of Wolf, he pictured the poor beast wandering alone, injured and unable to hunt, looking for Ayla and open to attack by local wolves or hyenas or some other animal… better, perhaps, than dying of starvation. He wondered if he was going to be left to die of thirst, and then almost hoped he would, if Ayla was gone. Identifying with the plight he envisioned for the wolf, the man decided that he and Wolf must be the last surviving members of their unusual band of travelers, and that they would soon be gone.

He was pulled out of his despair by the sound of people approaching. The entrance flap of the small structure was thrown back, and through the opening he saw a figure standing, feet apart and hands on hips, silhouetted by torchlight. She issued a sharp command. Two women entered the enclosed space, walked to either side of him, lifted him up, and dragged him out. They propped him up on his knees in front of her, his hands and feet still bound. His head was throbbing again, and he leaned unsteadily against one of the women. She pushed him away.

The woman who had ordered him to be brought forward looked down at him for a moment or two and then she laughed. It was harsh and dissonant, a demented, jarring curse of a sound. Jondalar recoiled involuntarily and felt a shudder of fear. She spoke a few sharp words at him. He didn't understand, but he tried to straighten up and look at her. His vision blurred, and he weaved unsteadily. The woman scowled, barked more orders, then turned on her heel and stalked out. The women who were holding him up dropped him and followed her, along with several others. Jondalar toppled over on his side, dizzy and weak.

He felt the bindings on his feet being cut, and then water was poured on his mouth. It almost choked him, but he tried eagerly to swallow some. The woman who was holding the waterbag spoke a few words in tones of disgust, and then she thrust the bladder of liquid at an older man. He came forward and held the waterbag to Jondalar's mouth, then tipped it up, not more gently, exactly, but with more patience, so that Jondalar could swallow and finally slake his ravenous thirst.

Before he was fully satisfied, the woman impatiently spat out a word, and the man took the water away. Then she pulled Jondalar to his feet. He staggered with dizziness as she pushed him ahead, out of the shelter, and in with a group of other men. It was cold, but no one offered him his fur parka or even untied his hands so he could rub them together.

But the cool air revived him, and he noticed that some of the other men had their hands tied behind their backs, too. He looked more closely at the people among whom he had been thrust. They were all ages, from young men – more like boys actually – to oldsters. All of them looked thin, weak, and dirty, with tattered, inadequate clothes and matted hair. A few had untended wounds, full of dried blood and dirt.

Jondalar tried to speak to the man standing next to him in Mamutoi, but he just shook his head. Jondalar thought he didn't understand, so he tried Sharamudoi. The man looked away just as a woman holding a spear came and threatened Jondalar with it, barking a sharp command. He didn't know her words, but her actions were plain enough, and he wondered if the reason the man had not spoken was that he didn't understand him, or if he had, had not wanted to speak.

Several women with spears spaced themselves around the group of men. One of them shouted some words and the men started walking. Jondalar used the opportunity to look around and try to get a sense of where he was. The settlement, consisting of several rounded dwellings, felt vaguely familiar, which was strange because the countryside was totally unknown to him. Then he realized it was the dwellings. They resembled Mamutoi earthlodges. Though they were not exactly the same, they appeared to be constructed in a similar fashion, probably using the bones of mammoths as structural supports that were covered with thatch, then sod and clay.

They started walking uphill, which afforded Jondalar a broader view. The countryside was mostly grassy steppeland or tundra – treeless plains on land with frozen subsoil that thawed to a black mucky surface in summer. Tundra was able to support only dwarfed herbs, but in spring their conspicuous blossoms added color and beauty, and they fed musk-oxen, reindeer, and other animals that could digest them. There were also stretches of taiga, low-growing evergreen trees so uniform in height that their tops could have been sheared off by some gigantic cutting tool, and in fact they were. Icy winds driving needles of sleet or sharp bits of gritty loess cut short any individual twig or tip that dared to strive above its brethren.

As they trudged higher, Jondalar saw a herd of mammoths grazing far to the north, and somewhat closer, reindeer. He knew horses roamed nearby – the people had been hunting them – and he guessed that bison and bear frequented the region in the warmer seasons. The land resembled his own country more than it did the dry grassy steppes to the east, at least in the types of plants that grew, although the dominant vegetation was different, and probably the proportional mix of animals, too.