"Laduni is leader?" Ardemun said.
"Yes. He told me about the Sarmunai when we were traveling east, but my brother didn't want to stop," Jondalar said.
"It's well you didn't, and too bad you are here now."
"Why?"
The woman in command of the spear holders interrupted again with a sharp order.
"Once I was a Losadunai. Unfortunately, I made a Journey," Ardemun said as he limped out of the earthlodge.
After he left, the woman in command said some sharp words to Jondalar. He guessed that she wanted to lead him someplace, but he decided to feign complete ignorance.
"I don't understand you," Jondalar said. "You'll have to call Ardemun back."
She spoke to him again, more angrily, then poked her spear at him. It broke the skin, and a line of blood trickled down his arm. Anger flared in his eyes. He reached over and touched the cut, then looked at his bloody fingers.
"That wasn't necess – " he started to say.
She interrupted with more angry words. The other women circled him with their weapons as the woman walked out of the earthlodge; then they prodded Jondalar to follow. Outside, the cold made him shiver. They went past the palisaded enclosure, and though he couldn't see in, he sensed that he was being watched through the cracks by those inside. The whole idea puzzled him. Animals were sometimes driven into surrounds like that, so they couldn't get away. It was a way of hunting them, but why were people kept there? And how many were in there?
It's not all that large, he thought, there can't be too many in there. He imagined how much work it must have taken to fence in even a small area with wooden stakes. Trees were scarce on the hillside. There was some woody vegetation in the form of brush, but the trees for the fence had to come from the valley below. They had to chop the trees down, trim them of branches, carry them up the hill, dig holes deep enough to hold them upright, make rope and cord, and then tie the trees together with it. Why had these people been willing to put forth so much effort for something that made so little sense?
He was led toward a small creek, largely frozen over, where Attaroa and several women were overseeing some young men who were carrying large, heavy mammoth bones. The men all looked half-starved, and he wondered where they found the strength to work so hard.
Attaroa eyed him up and down once, her only acknowledgment of him, then ignored him. Jondalar waited, still wondering about the behavior of these strange people. After a while he became chilled, and he began moving around, jumping up and down and beating his arms trying to warm himself. He was getting more and more angry at the stupidity of it all, and, finally deciding he wasn't going to stand there any longer, he turned on his heel and started back. In the earthlodge, at least he'd be out of the wind. His sudden movement caught the spear wielders by surprise, and when they put up their phalanx of points, he pushed them aside with his arm and kept on going. He heard shouts, which he ignored.
He was still cold when he got inside the earthlodge. Looking around for something to warm himself, he strode to the round structure, ripped off the leather cover, and wrapped it around him. Just then several women burst in, brandishing their weapons again. The woman who'd pricked him before was among them, and she was obviously furious. She lunged at him with her spear. He ducked aside and grabbed for it, but they were all stopped in their tracks by harsh and sinister laughter.
"Zelandonii!" Attaroa sneered, then spoke other words that he didn't understand.
"She wants you to come outside," Ardemun said. Jondalar hadn't noticed him near the entrance. "She thinks you are clever, too clever. I think she wants you where she can have her women surround you."
"What if I don't want to go outside?" Jondalar said.
"Then she'll probably have you killed here and now." The words were said by a woman, speaking in perfect Zelandonii, without even a trace of an accent! Jondalar shot a look of surprise in the direction of the speaker. It was the shaman! "If you go outside, Attaroa will probably let you live a little longer. You interest her, but eventually she'll kill you anyway."
"Why? What am I to her?" Jondalar asked.
"A threat."
"A threat? I've never threatened her."
"You threaten her control. She'll want to make an example of you."
Attaroa interrupted, and though Jondalar didn't understand her, the barely restrained fury of her words seemed to be directed at the shaman. The older woman's response was reserved but showed no fear. After the exchange, she spoke again to Jondalar. "She wanted to know what I said to you. I told her."
"Tell her I'll come outside," he said.
When the message was relayed, Attaroa laughed, said something, then sauntered out.
"What did she say?" Jondalar asked.
"She said she knew it. Men will do anything for one more heartbeat of their miserable lives."
"Perhaps not anything," Jondalar said, starting out, then he turned back to the shaman. "What is your name?"
"I am called S'Armuna," she said.
"I thought you might be. Where did you learn to speak my language so well?"
"I lived among your people for a time," S'Armuna said, but then she cut off his obvious desire to know more. "It's a long story."
Though the man had rather expected to be asked to give his identity in return, S'Armuna simply turned her back. He volunteered the information. "I am Jondalar of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii," he said.
S'Armuna's eyes opened with surprise. "The Ninth Cave?" she said.
"Yes," he said. He would have continued to name his ties, but he was stopped by the look on her face, though he could not fathom its meaning. A moment later her expression showed nothing, and Jondalar wondered if he had imagined it.
"She's waiting," S'Armuna said, leaving the earthlodge.
Outside, Attaroa was sitting on a fur-covered seat on a raised platform of earth, which had been dug from the floor of the large semisubterranean earthlodge just behind her. She was opposite the fenced area, and, as he walked past it, Jondalar sensed again that he was being watched through the cracks.
As he drew near, he was sure the fur on her seat was from a wolf. The hood of her parka, thrown back off her head, was trimmed with wolf fur, and around her neck she wore a necklace made primarily of the sharp canine teeth of wolves, although there were some from arctic fox, and at least one cave-bear tooth. She was holding a carved staff similar to the Speaking Staff Talut had used when there were issues to be discussed or arguments to be resolved. That stick had helped to keep the talk orderly. Whoever held it had the right to speak, and when someone else had something to say, it was necessary first to ask for the Speaking Staff.
Something else was familiar about the staff she held, though he couldn't quite place it. Could it be the carving? It bore the stylized shape of a seated woman, with an enlarging series of concentric circles representing breasts and stomach, and a strange triangular head, narrow at the chin, with a face of enigmatic designs. It wasn't like Mamutoi carving, but he felt he'd seen it before.
Several of her women surrounded Attaroa. Other women he hadn't noticed before, only a few of them with children, were standing nearby. She observed him for a while; then she spoke, looking at him. Ardemun, standing off to the side, began a stumbling translation into Zelandonii. Jondalar was about to suggest that he speak Mamutoi, but S'Armuna interrupted, said something to Attaroa, then looked at him.
"I will translate," she said.
Attaroa made a sneering comment that made the women around her laugh, but S'Armuna did not translate it. "She was speaking to me," was all she said, her face impassive. The seated woman spoke again, this time to Jondalar.