The clan of the cave bear_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [86]
The men were practicing with their weapons in preparation for a hunt. She remembered watching them make new spears. They had chopped down slim, supple, straight young trees, stripped them of branches and sharpened one end by charring it in a fire, and scraping the burnt end to a point with a sturdy flint scraper. The heat also hardened the point so it would resist splintering and fraying. She still cringed when she remembered the commotion she had caused by touching one of the wooden shafts.
Females did not touch weapons, she was told, or even any tools that were used to make weapons, though Ayla could see no difference between a knife used to cut the leather to make a sling and a knife used to cut the leather to make a cloak. The newly made spear, offended by her touch, had been burned, much to the irritation of the hunter who made it, and Creb and Iza had both subjected her to long, gestured lectures in an effort to instill in her a sense of the abomination of her act. The women were aghast that she would consider such a thing, and Brun’s glower left no doubt of his opinion. But, most of all, she hated the look of malicious pleasure on Broud’s face as the recriminations rained down upon her. He was positively gloating.
The girl stared uneasily from behind the brushy screen at the men on the practice field. Besides their spears, the men had their other weapons. Except for a discussion at the far end between Dorv, Grod, and Crug about the relative merits of spear versus club, most of the men were practicing with slings and bolas. Vorn was with them. Brun had decided it was time to begin teaching the boy the rudiments of the sling, and Zoug was explaining them to the youngster.
The men had been taking Vorn along with them to the practice field occasionally since he was five, but most of the time he practiced with his miniature spear, jabbing it into the soft earth or a rotten tree stump to get the feel of handling the weapon. He was always pleased to be included, but this was the first attempt to teach the youngster the more difficult art of using a sling. A post had been pounded into the ground, and not far away was a heap of smooth round stones picked up from streams along the way.
Zoug was showing Vorn how to hold the two ends of the strip of leather together and how to place a pebble into the slight bulge in the middle of a well-worn sling. It was an old one that Zoug had planned to throw away until Brun asked him to start the boy’s training. The old man thought it would still be serviceable if he cut it shorter to match Vorn’s smaller size.
Ayla watched and found herself caught up in the lesson. She concentrated on Zoug’s explanations and demonstrations with as much attention as the lad. On Vorn’s first attempt, the sling got tangled and the stone dropped. It was difficult for him to get the knack of whirling the weapon around to build up the momentum of centrifugal force necessary to hurl the stone. The pebble kept dropping before he could get up enough speed to keep it in the cup of the leather strip.
Broud was standing off to the side watching. Vorn was his protégé, and it kept Broud the object of Vorn’s adoration. It was Broud who had made the small spear the boy carried with him everywhere, even to his bed, and it was the young hunter who showed Vorn how to hold the spear, discussing the balance and thrust with him as though the boy were an equal. But now, Vorn was directing his admiring attention to the older hunter and Broud felt displaced. He had wanted to be the one to teach the boy everything and was angry when Brun told Zoug to instruct him in the use of the sling. After Vorn made several more unsuccessful tries, Broud interrupted the lesson.
“Here, let me show you how to do it, Vorn,” Broud motioned, brushing the