The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [243]
“Warn us? What could be north that he would warn us against?” Ayla said.
“Could it be the great wall of ice?” Jondalar wondered.
“We know about the ice. We hunted mammoth near it with the Mamutoi. It’s cold, but not really dangerous, is it?”
“It does move,” Jondalar said, “over many years, and sometimes it even uproots trees with the changing seasons, but it doesn’t move so fast that you can’t get out of its way.”
“I don’t think it’s the ice,” Ayla said. “But he’s telling us not to go north, and he seems very concerned.”
“I think you’re right, but I can’t imagine what could be so dangerous,” Jondalar said. “Sometimes people who don’t travel much beyond their own range imagine that the world outside their territory is dangerous, because it’s different.”
“I don’t think Jeren is a man who fears very much,” Ayla said.
“I have to agree,” Jondalar said, then faced the man. “Jeren, I wish I could understand you.”
Jeren had been watching them. He guessed from their expressions that they had understood his warning, and he was waiting for their response.
“Do you think we should go with him and talk to Tamen?” Ayla asked.
“I hate to turn back and lose time now. We still have to reach that glacier before the end of winter. If we keep going, we should make it easily, with time to spare, but if anything happens to delay us, it could be spring and melting, and too dangerous to cross,” Jondalar said.
“So we’ll keep going north,” Ayla said.
“I think we should, but we will be watchful. I just wish I knew what I should be watching for.” He looked at the man again. “Jeren, my friend, I thank you for your warning,” he said. “We will be careful, but I think we should keep on going.” He pointed south, then shook his head and pointed north.
Jeren, trying to protest, shook his head again, but he finally gave up and nodded acceptance. He had done what he could. He went to talk to the other man in the horse-head cape, spoke for a moment, then returned and indicated they were going.
Ayla and Jondalar waved as Jeren and his hunters left. Then they finished up their packing and, with some reservations, started out toward the north.
As the Journeyers traveled across the northern end of the vast central grassland, they could see the terrain ahead was changing; the flat lowlands were giving way to rugged hills. The occasional highlands that had interrupted the central plain were connected, though partly submerged beneath the soil in the midland basin, to great broken blocks of faulted sedimentary rock running in an irregular backbone from northeast to southwest through the plain. Relatively recent volcanic eruptions had covered the highlands with fertile soils that nurtured forests of pine, spruce, and larch on the upper reaches, with birch and willows on the lower slopes, while brush and steppe grass grew on the dry lee sides.
As they started up into the rugged hills, they found themselves having to backtrack and work their way around deep holes and broken formations that blocked their way. Ayla thought the land seemed more barren, though with the deepening cold she wondered if it might be the changing season that gave that impression. Looking back from the heightened elevation, they gained a new perspective of the land they had crossed. The few deciduous trees and brush were bare of leaves, but the central plain was covered with the dusty gold of dry standing hay that would feed multitudes through the winter.
They sighted many large grazing animals, in herds and individually. Horses seemed most prevalent to Ayla, perhaps because she was especially conscious of them, but giant deer, red deer, and, particularly as they reached the northern steppes, reindeer were also abundant. The bison were gathering into large migratory herds and heading south. During one whole day, the great humpy beasts with huge black horns moved over the rolling hills of the northern grassland in a thick, undulating carpet, and Ayla and Jondalar stopped often to watch. The dust rose to cast an obscuring pall over the great moving mass, the earth shook