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“Hurry up, Ayla! What’s taking you so long?” Jondalar snapped.

“I can’t find my eye protectors,” she said.

“I told you not to lose them. Do you want to go blind?” he exploded.

“No, I don’t want to go blind. Why do you think I’m looking for them?” Ayla retorted. Jondalar snatched her fur up and shook it vigorously. The wooden goggles fell to the ground.

“Be careful where you put them next time,” he said. “Now let’s get moving.”

They quickly packed up their camp, but Ayla sulked and refused to talk to Jondalar. He came over and double-checked her lashings, as he usually did. Ayla grabbed Whinney’s rope and started out taking the lead, moving the horse away before Jondalar could examine her pack.

“Don’t you think I know how to pack a horse myself? You said you wanted to get moving. Why are you wasting time?” she flung back over her shoulder.

He had just been trying to be careful, Jondalar thought angrily. She doesn’t even know the way. Wait until she wanders around in circles for a while. Then she will come asking me to lead, he thought, falling in behind her.

Ayla was cold and fatigued from the grueling march. She plunged ahead, careless of her surroundings. If he wants to hurry so much, then we’ll hurry, she thought. If we ever get to the end of this ice, I hope I never see a glacier again.

Wolf was nervously racing between Ayla in the lead and Jondalar following behind. He didn’t like the sudden change in their positions. The tall man had always started out ahead before. The wolf struck out ahead of the woman, who was trudging blindly on, oblivious to everything except the miserable cold and her injured feelings. Suddenly he stopped directly in front of her, blocking her way.

Ayla, leading the mare, went around him. He ran back around and stopped in front of her again. She ignored him. He nudged at her legs; she shoved him aside. He ran ahead a short distance, then sat down whining to get her attention. She plodded past him. He raced back toward Jondalar, pranced and whined in front of him, then bounded a few steps toward Ayla, whining, then advanced toward the man once more.

“Is something wrong, Wolf?” Jondalar said, finally noticing the animal’s agitation.

Suddenly he heard a terrifying sound, a muffled boom. His head shot up as fountains of light snow filled the air ahead.

“No! Oh no!” Jondalar cried out in anguish, running forward. When the snow settled, a lone animal stood on the brink of a yawning crack. Wolf pointed his nose straight up and wailed a long, desolate howl.

Jondalar threw himself flat on the ice at the edge of the crevasse and looked over the edge. “Ayla!” he cried in desperation. “Ayla!” His stomach was a hard knot. He knew it was useless. She would never hear him. She was dead, at the bottom of the deep crack in the ice.

“Jondalar?”

He heard a small frightened voice coming from far away.

“Ayla?” He felt a rush of hope and looked down. Far below him, standing on a narrow ice ledge that hugged the wall of the deep trench, was the terrified woman. “Ayla, don’t move!” he commanded. “Stand perfectly still. That ledge could go, too.”

She’s alive, he thought. I can’t believe it. It’s a miracle. But how am I going to get her out?

Inside the icy chasm, Ayla leaned in toward the wall, clinging desperately to a crack and a projecting piece, petrified with fear. She had been plodding through snow halfway to her knees, lost in her own thoughts. She was tired, so tired of it all: tired of the cold, tired of fighting her way through deep snow, tired of the glacier. The trek across the ice had drained her energy, and she was bone-weary with exhaustion. Though she struggled on, her only thought was to reach the end of the massive glacier.

Then she was startled out of her brooding thoughts by a loud crack. She felt the sickening sensation of the solid ice giving way beneath her feet, and she was suddenly reminded of an earthquake many years before. Instinctively she tried to reach for something to hold on to, but the falling