Ayla heard the eagerness in Jondalar's voice, and she sensed his yearning to be home. She knew he wouldn't hesitate to go with her to look for Brun's clan and her son, if she told him that she wanted to. Because he loved her. But she loved him, too, and knew that he would be unhappy about the delay. She looked at the great sweep of water, then closed her eyes trying to hold back tears.
She wouldn't know where to look for the clan, anyway, she thought. And it wasn't Brun's clan any more. It was Broud's clan now, and she would not be welcome. Broud had cursed her with death; she was dead to them all, a spirit. If she and Jondalar had frightened the Camp on this island because of the animals, and their seemingly supernatural ability to control them, how much more would they scare the clan? Including Uba, and Durc? To them, she would be returning from the spirit world, and the companionable animals would be proof of it. They believed a spirit who came back from the land of the dead came to do them harm.
But once she turned west, it would be final. From this time on, for the rest of her life, Durc would be no more than a memory. There would be no hope of ever seeing him again. That was the choice she had to make. She thought she had made it long ago; she didn't know the pain would be still so sharp. Turning her head so Jondalar would not see the tears that filled her eyes as she stared at the deep blue expanse of water, Ayla said a silent goodbye to her son for the last time. A fresh stab of grief filled her and she knew she would carry the ache in her heart with her forever.
They turned their backs on the sea and started walking through the waist-high steppe grass of the large island, giving the horses a rest and time to graze. The sun was high in the sky, bright and hot. Shimmering heat waves rose up from the dusty ground, bringing the warm aroma of earth and growing things. On the treeless plain atop the long narrow strip of land, they moved within the shade of their grass hats, but the evaporation of the surrounding river channels made the air humid and beads of sweat trickled down their dusty skin. They were grateful for the occasional cool breath from the sea, a fitful breeze filled with the rich scent of the life within its deep waters.
Ayla stopped and unwound her leather sling from her head and tucked it into her waistband, not wanting it to get too damp. She replaced it with a rolled piece of soft leather, similar to the one Jondalar wore, bound across her forehead and tied in the back, to absorb the moisture that dripped from her forehead.
When she continued, she noticed a dull greenish grasshopper spring up, then drop back down and hide in its camouflaged disguise. Then she saw another. More of them chirked sporadically, bringing to mind the swarming locusts. But here they were just one of a variety of insects, like the butterflies flicking their bright colors in a quivery dance across the tops of the fescue, and the harmless drone fly, that resembled a stinging honeybee, hovering over a buttercup.
Though the raised field was much smaller, it had the familiar feeling of the dry steppes, but when they came to the other end of the island and looked out, they were astonished by the vast, strange, wet world of the massive delta. To the north, on their right, was the mainland; beyond a fringe of river brush, a grassland of muted greenish-gold. But to the south and west, spreading all the way to the horizon, and in the distance seeming as solid and substantial as the land, was the marshy outlet of the great river. It was an extensive bed of rich green reeds, swaying in a motion as constant as the sea with the gusty rhythm of the wind, broken only by occasional trees casting shadows across the waving green and the winding paths of open waterways.
As they moved down the slope through the open woods, Ayla became aware of the birds, more varieties than she had ever seen in one place before, some of them unfamiliar. Crows, cuckoos, starlings, and turtledoves each called to their kind in distinctive voices. A swallow, chased by a falcon, swooped and twisted, then dived into the reeds. High-flying black kites and ground-skimming marsh harriers searched for dead or dying fish. Small warblers and flycatchers flitted from thicket to tall tree, while tiny stints, redstarts, and shrikes darted from branch to branch. Gulls floated on air currents, hardly moving a feather, and ponderous pelicans, majestic in flight, sailed overhead flapping wide powerful wings.
Ayla and Jondalar emerged at a different section of the river when they reached water again, near a clump of goat willow bushes that was the site of a mixed colony of marsh birds: night herons, little egrets, purple herons, cormorants, and at this place, mostly glossy ibises all nesting together. In the same tree, the grassy roosting place of one variety was often only a branch away from the nest of an entirely different species, and several held eggs or young birds. The birds seemed to be as indifferent to the people and animals as they were to each other, but the busy place, bustling with incessant activity, was an attraction impossible for the curious young wolf to ignore.
He approached slowly, trying to stalk, but was distracted by the plethora of possibilities. Finally he made a dash toward a particular small tree. With loud squawking and flapping of wings, the nearby birds lifted into the air and were immediately followed by more who noticed the warning. Still others took to wing. The air was filling with marsh birds, clearly the dominant bird life in the delta, until more than ten thousand individuals of several different species from the mixed colony were wheeling and turning in dramatic flight.
Wolf raced back toward the woods, his tail between his legs, howling and yipping in fear over the commotion he had caused. Adding to the tumult, the nervous, frightened horses were rearing and screaming; then they galloped into the water.
The travois acted as a restraining force on the mare, who was more even tempered to begin with. She settled down fairly soon, but Jondalar had a great deal more trouble with the young stallion. He ran into the water after the horse, swimming where it deepened, and was soon out of sight. Ayla managed to get Whinney across the channel and back to the mainland. After she calmed and comforted the horse, she unhitched the dragging poles and removed the harness to let the mare run free and relax in her own way. Then she whistled for Wolf. It took several more whistles before he came, and then it was from a different direction much farther downstream, far away from the site of the nesting birds.
Ayla took off her own wet clothes and changed into dry ones from her pack basket, then gathered wood to make a fire while she waited for Jondalar. He, too, would need to change, and fortunately his pack baskets happened to be in the bowl boat, which kept them dry. It was some time before he found his way back, riding toward Ayla's fire from the west. Racer had gone far upstream before Jondalar caught up with him.
The man was still angry with Wolf, and it was apparent not only to Ayla but to the animal. The wolf waited until Jondalar finally sat down with a cup of hot tea after changing clothes, and then he approached, crouching down on his front legs, wagging his tail like a puppy wanting to play and whining with a pleading tone. When he got close enough, Wolf tried to lick his face. The man pushed him away at first. When he did allow the persistent animal closer, Wolf seemed so pleased that Jondalar had to relent.
"It seems as though he's trying to say he's sorry, but that's hard to believe. How could he? He's an animal. Ayla, could Wolf know that he misbehaved and be sorry for it?" Jondalar asked.
Ayla wasn't surprised. She had seen such actions when she was teaching herself to hunt and observing carnivorous animals, which she had chosen to be her prey. Wolf's actions toward the man were similar to the way a young wolf often behaved toward the male leader of a pack.