The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [425]
Ibex, chamois, and mouflon were at home in mountain meadows, including those in more precipitous rugged regions, and frequented higher ground, though usually not so late in the season, but horses were an anomaly at this high elevation. Even the gentler slopes of the massif did not usually encourage their kind to climb so high, but Whinney and Racer were sure-footed.
The horses, with their heads bent low, plodded up the incline at the base of the ice hauling supplies and brownish-black burning stones that would mean the difference between life and death for all of them. The humans, who led the horses to places they would not ordinarily go, were looking for a level spot to set up a tent and make camp.
They were all weary of fighting the intense cold and sharp wind, of climbing the steep terrain. It was exhausting work. Even the wolf was content to stay close rather than to run off and explore.
“I’m so tired,” Ayla said as they were trying to set up camp with gusty winds blowing. “Tired of the wind, and tired of the cold. I don’t think it’ll ever get warm again. I didn’t know it could be so cold.”
Jondalar nodded, acknowledging the cold, but he knew the cold they had yet to face would be worse. He saw her glance at the great mass of ice, then look away as though she didn’t want to see it, and he suspected she was concerned with more than cold.
“Are we really going to go across all that ice?” she asked, finally acknowledging her fears. “Is it possible? I don’t even know how we’re going to get up to the top.”
“It’s not easy, but it’s possible,” Jondalar said. “Thonolan and I did it. While there is still light, I’d like to look for the best way to get the horses up there.”
“It feels like we’ve been traveling forever. How much farther do we have to go, Jondalar?”
“It’s still a way to the Ninth Cave, but not too far, not near as far as we have come, and once we get across the ice, it’s only a short distance to Dalanar’s Cave. We’ll stop there for a while; it will give you a chance to meet him, and Jerika and everyone—I can hardly wait to show Dalanar and Joplaya some of the flint-knapping techniques I learned from Wymez—but even if we stay and visit, we should be home before summer.”
Ayla felt distressed. Summer! But this is winter, she thought. If she had really understood how long the Journey would be, she wondered if she would have been so eager to go with Jondalar all the way back to his home. She might have tried harder to persuade him to stay with the Mamutoi.
“Let’s go take a closer look at that glacier,” Jondalar said, “and plan the best way to get up on it. Then we should make sure we have everything and are ready to cross the ice.”
“We’ll have to use some of the burning stones to make a fire tonight,” Ayla said. “There’s nothing to burn around here. And we’ll have to melt ice for water … we shouldn’t have any trouble finding enough of that.”
Except for a few shaded pockets of negligible accumulation, there was no snow in the area where they camped, and there had been very little for most of their trek up the slope. Jondalar had only been that way once before, but the whole area seemed much drier than he remembered. He was right. They were in the rain shadow of the highland, the back side; the sparse snows that did fall in the region usually arrived a little later, after the season had begun to turn. He and Thonolan had run into a snowstorm on their way down.
During the winter, the warmer, water-laden air, riding the prevailing winds coming from the western ocean, rose up the slopes until it reached the large level