The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [367]
The patch of dry standing hay was on higher ground, not subject to the summer runoff of the glacier, and though there were mists, no rain had fallen for many days. The fires that had been used to start the torches were left untended and soon they spread through the grass, encouraged by the sharp wind. The mammoths noticed the fire first, not only the smell of burning grass, but of scorched earth and smoldering brush—the familiar smell of a prairie fire and even more threatening. The old matriarch trumpeted again, joined now by a chorus of blaring screams as the shaggy, reddish-brown beasts, young and old, picked up speed and stampeded toward an unknown but far greater danger.
A crosswind sent a billow of smoke toward the hunters racing to keep up with the herd. Ayla, ready to mount Whinney, glanced back at the blaze, and understood what had impelled the great behemoths in their panic. She watched for a moment as crackling red flames hungrily devoured their way across the field, spitting sparks and belching smoke. But she knew the fire was no real threat. Even if it managed to cross the areas of rocky bare ground, the ice canyon itself would stop it. She noticed Jondalar was already on Racer, following close behind the retreating mammoths, and hurried after him.
Ayla could hear her hard breathing when she passed the young woman from Brecie’s Camp, who had run all the way, staying close behind the great beasts. It would be harder for them to turn aside once they were committed to the route that would take them inevitably into the cold canyon, and the two women smiled at each other when the herd entered the lane between the cairns. Ayla rode ahead; it was her turn to harry them now.
She noticed fires starting up along the way behind the cairns, at the sides and a little ahead of the ponderous giants. They did not want to light the torches too far ahead of them and risk turning the herd aside now that they were so close. Suddenly she was approaching the opening in the ice. She pulled Whinney aside, grabbed her spears and jumped off, and felt the vibrations of the earth as the last mammoth pounded into the trap. She dashed in and joined the chase, following close on the heels of an old bull with tusks crossed over in front. More burnable materials, which had been piled into mounds at the opening, were lit in an attempt to keep the frightened animals inside. Jogging around a fire, Ayla again entered the cold enclosure.
No longer was it a place of stark, serene beauty. Instead blaring screams of mammoths echoed off hard, icy walls, grating on the ears, and racking on the nerves. Ayla was filled with almost unbearable tension, part fear, part excitement. She swallowed her fear, and fitted her first spear into the groove in the middle of the spear-thrower.
The she-mammoth had moved toward the far end, looking for a way to lead the herd out, but Brecie was waiting there, up high on a block of ice. The old matriarch raised her trunk and trumpeted her frustration, and the headwoman of Elk Camp hurled a spear down her open throat. The scream was cut short in a gurgle of liquid that spouted from her mouth and sprayed the cold white ice with warm red blood.
The young man from Brecie’s Camp threw a second spear. The long, sharp flint point pierced the tough hide and lodged deep in the abdomen. Another spear followed, and also found the soft underbelly, tearing a long gash from the weight of the shaft. The mammoth uttered a hoarse rattle of pain as blood and shiny gray-white ropes of intestines gushed from the wound. Her hind legs became tangled in her own viscera.