"What do you know? You were not here. You don't know how they treated us," the dark-eyed woman said.

"Did they make you stay outside when it was cold? Did they not give you food and clothing?" Some of the women who had gathered around looked a little uneasy. "Are you any better than they were if you treat them worse than you were treated?"

Attaroa did not bother to reply to the words repeated by the shaman, but her smile was harsh and cruel.

Ayla noticed movement beyond the fence, and she saw some of the men standing aside so the two boys who had been in the lean-to could limp to the front. All the others crowded around them. It angered her even more to see the injured youngsters, and other boys cold and hungry. Then she saw that some of the Wolf Women had entered the Holding with their spears. She felt such fury that she was hardly able to suppress it, and she addressed the women directly.

"And did these boys also treat you badly? What did they do to you to justify this?" S'Armuna made sure all could understand.

"Where are the mothers of these children?" she asked Epadoa.

The leader of the Wolf Women glanced at Attaroa after hearing the words in her own language, looking for some kind of direction, but the headwoman only looked back with her cruel smile, as though waiting to hear what she would say.

"Some are dead," Epadoa said.

"Killed when they tried to run away with their sons," one of the women from the crowd standing nearby said. "The rest are afraid to do anything for fear their children will be hurt."

Ayla looked and saw it was an old woman who had spoken, and Jondalar noticed it was the one who had grieved so loudly at the funeral of the three young people. Epadoa shot her a threatening look.

"What more can you do to me, Epadoa?" the woman said, stepping boldly to the forefront. "You've already taken my son, and my daughter will soon be gone, one way or another. I'm too old to care if I live or die."

"They betrayed us," Epadoa said. "Now they all know what will happen if they try to run away."

Attaroa gave no sign of approval or disapproval to indicate that Epadoa had voiced her own feelings. Instead, with a bored look, she turned her back on the tense scene and walked to her lodge, leaving Epadoa and her Wolf Women to guard the Holding. But she stopped and spun around when she heard a loud, shrill whistle. A fleeting expression of dread replaced her cold, cruel smile when she saw both horses, who had been almost out of sight at the far edge of the field, galloping toward Ayla. She quickly entered her earthlodge.

Feelings of stunned amazement filled the rest of the settlement as the blond woman, and the man with even lighter yellow hair, leaped on the backs of the animals and galloped away. Most of those remaining wished they could leave as quickly and easily, and many wondered if they would ever see the two again.

"I wish we could keep on going," Jondalar said, after they had slowed down and he had pulled Racer up alongside Ayla and Whinney.

"I wish we could, too," she said. "That Camp is so unbearable; it fills me with anger and sadness. I'm even angry about S'Armuna allowing it to go on for so long, though I pity her and understand her remorse. Jondalar, how are we going to free those boys and men?"

"We're going to have to work that out with S'Armuna," Jondalar said. "I think it's obvious that most of the women want things to change, and I'm sure many of them would help, if they knew what to do. S'Armuna will know who they are."

They had entered the open woods from the field, and they rode through its cover, though in places it was quite sparse, toward the river and then back around to the place they had left the wolf. As soon as they neared, Ayla signaled with a soft whistle, and Wolf bounded out to greet them, almost beside himself with happiness. He had been watching from the place Ayla had told him to stay, and they both gave him praise and attention for waiting. Ayla did notice he had hunted and brought his kill back, which meant he had left his hiding place at least for a while. It worried her, since they were so close to the Camp and its Wolf Women, but she found it hard to blame him. It made her all the more determined, however, to get him away from the hunting women who ate wolves as soon as possible.

They walked the horses quietly back toward the river, to the grove where they had hidden their packs. Ayla got out one of their few remaining cakes of traveling food, broke it in two, and gave the larger piece to Jondalar. They sat amidst the brush, eating their snack, glad to be away from the depressing environment of the S'Armunai Camp.

Suddenly she heard a low rumbling growl from Wolf, and the hair on the back of Ayla's neck stood on end.

"Someone's coming," Jondalar whispered, feeling a quick rush of alarm at the sound.

Snapped to the sharp edge of awareness by the warning, Ayla and Jondalar scanned the area, certain that Wolf's keener senses had detected immediate danger. Noticing the direction Wolf's nose was pointing, Ayla looked carefully through the screen of brush and saw two women approaching. One of them, she was almost certain, was Epadoa. She tapped Jondalar's arm and pointed. He nodded when he saw them.

"You wait, keep horses quiet," she signed to him in the silent language of the Clan. "I make Wolf hide. I go stalk women, keep women away."

"I go," Jondalar signed, shaking his head.

"Women more listen to me," Ayla replied.

Jondalar nodded reluctantly. "I watch here with spear-thrower," he said with gestures. "You take spear-thrower."

Ayla nodded in agreement. "And sling," she signaled back.

With silent stealth, Ayla circled around in front of the two women, then waited. As they slowly approached, she heard them talking.

"I'm sure they came this way after they left their campsite last night, Unavoa," the head Wolf Woman said.

"But they already came to our Camp since last night. Why are we still looking here?"

"They may come back this way, and even if they don't, we may find out something about them."

"Some people are saying they disappear, or turn into birds or horses when they leave," the younger Wolf Woman said.

"Don't be silly," Epadoa said. "Didn't we find where they camped last night? Why would they have to make a camp if they could turn into animals?"

She's right, Ayla thought. At least she uses her head and thinks, and she's not really so bad at tracking. She's probably even a decent hunter; it's too bad she's so close to Attaroa.

Ayla, crouching behind bare tangled brush and yellowed knee-high grass, watched as they drew closer. At a moment when both women were looking down, she silently stood up, holding her spear-thrower poised.

Epadoa started with surprise, and Unavoa jumped back and let out a little squeal of shock when they looked up and saw the blond stranger.

"You look for me?" Ayla said, speaking in their language. "I am here."

Unavoa appeared ready to break and run, and even Epadoa seemed nervous and frightened.

"We were… we were hunting," Epadoa said.

"No horses here to chase over edge," Ayla said.

"We weren't hunting horses."

"I know. You hunt Ayla and Jondalar."

Her sudden appearance, and the strange quality to the way Ayla said the words in their language, made her seem exotic, from someplace far away, perhaps even from another world. She made both women want nothing more than to get as far away as possible from this woman, who seemed endowed with attributes that were more than human.

"I think these two should return to their Camp, or they may miss the big feast tonight."

The voice came from the woods, and it was speaking Mamutoi, but both women understood the language and recognized that it was Jondalar who spoke. They looked back in the direction from which his voice had come and saw the tall blond man leaning nonchalantly against the bole of a large white-barked birch, holding his spear and spear-thrower ready.