"I'm going to go see to the horses," she said to Jondalar. "Are you coming, or do you have something else to do?"

"I'll come with you, but wait a moment," Jondalar said. "I want to get the spear-thrower and spears I'm making for Lanidar. I'm almost finished with them and I'd like to test them out, but I'm too big. I was hoping you might be able to do it. I know they will be small for you, too, but maybe you can get a sense if they will work for him."

"I'm sure they'll be fine, but I'll try them," she said. "The best one to know will be Lanidar himself, and he won't even know until he gains some real skill. This will give him something to practice with, and I'm sure he'll be pleased. I have a feeling you are going to make that boy very happy."

The sun was approaching its zenith when they started gathering up their things. They had brushed the horses, and Ayla checked them over carefully. When the season warmed, flying insects often tried to lay eggs in the moist, warm corners of the eyes of various ruminants, deer and horses in particular. Iza had taught her about the clear fluid from the bluish-white plant that was like a dead thing and that grew in shaded woods. It drew its nourishment from decaying wood since it lacked the living green chlorophyll of other plants, and its waxy surface turned black when touched, but there was no better treatment for sore or inflamed eyes than the cool liquid that oozed from a broken stem.

She had tried out the small spear-thrower and decided it would work just fine for Lanidar. Jondalar had finished the spears he was working on, but decided to make a few more when he saw a small stand of straight young alders with slender trunks, just the right diameter for small spears. He cut down several. Ayla wasn't sure what it was that made her want to go into the woods beside the creek beyond the horse enclosure.

"Where are you going, Ayla?" Jondalar asked. "We should be heading back. I need to go to the main camp this afternoon."

"I won't be long," she said.

Jondalar could see her moving through the screen of trees and wondered if she had seen something moving back there. Maybe something that could be a danger to the horses. Maybe he should go with her, he was thinking when he heard her cry out in a loud scream.

"No! Oh, no!"

The man raced as fast as his long legs could go toward the sound, crashing through brush and bruising himself banging into a tree. When he reached her, he cried out a denial, too, and dropped to his knees.

Chapter 35

In the mud at the edge of the small stream, Jondalar bent over Ayla. She was lying almost flat beside the large wolf, who was down on his side, holding his head in her hands. A torn bloody ear was staining the back of her hand. He tried to lick her face.

"It's Wolf! He's hurt!" Ayla said. The tears streaming down her face left white streaks through a muddy smudge on her cheek.

"What do you think happened to him?" Jondalar asked.

"I don't know, but we've got to help him," she said, sitting up. "We need to make a stretcher to carry him to camp." Wolf tried to get up when she did, but fell back.

"Stay with him, Ayla. I'll make a stretcher from those spear shafts I just cut," Jondalar said.

When she and Jondalar brought him in, several people hurried over to see if they could help. It made Ayla understand how many people had come to care about the wolf.

"I'll make a place for him in the lodge," Marthona said, going in ahead of them.

"Is there anything I can do?" Joharran said. He had just returned to the camp.

"You can find out if Zelandoni has any comfrey left from Matagan's injuries, also marigold petals. I think Wolf's been in a fight with other wolves, and wounds from bites can be bad. They need strong medicine, and they have to be well cleaned," Ayla said.

"Will you need to boil some water?" Willamar asked. She nodded. "I'll get a fire going. It's a good thing we just brought in a load of wood."

When Joharran came back from the zelandonia lodge, Folara and Proleva were with him, and Zelandoni had said she would come by shortly. Before long the entire Summer Meeting knew that Ayla's wolf was hurt, and most people were concerned.

Jondalar stayed with her while she examined the wolf and knew from her expression that his wounds were serious. She was sure he had been attacked by an entire pack, and she was surprised that he was still alive. She asked Proleva for a piece of aurochs meat, scraped it the way she did for baby food, then mixed it with ground datura and put it down his throat to help him relax and make him sleep.

"Jondalar, will you get some of that skin from the unborn calf of the aurochs I killed? I need soft absorbent hides to clean his wounds," Ayla said.

Marthona watched her put roots and powders into various bowls of hot water, then handed her some material. "Zelandoni likes to use this," she said.

Ayla looked at it. The soft material was not made from hides. It looked more like the finely woven material that the long tunic Marthona had given her was made of. She dipped it in the water of one of the bowls. The fabric absorbed it quickly. "This will do, very well, in fact. Thank you," Ayla said.

Zelandoni arrived about the time that Jondalar and Joharran were helping her turn the wolf over so she could work on his other side. The First worked with Ayla to clean a particularly bad wound, then Ayla surprised several people when she threaded a thin piece of sinew through the small hole in her thread-puller and used it to sew the worst of the wounds together with some strategically placed knots. She had shown the ingenious device to several people, but no one had ever seen it used to sew living skin. She even sewed his torn ear, though it would still have a jagged edge.

"So that's what you did to me," Jondalar said with a grim smile.

"It does seem to help to hold the wound together so it can heal properly," Zelandoni said. "Is that something you learned from your Clan medicine woman, too? To sew skin together?"

"No. Iza never did this. They don't exactly sew, but they do knot things together. They like to use that sharp little bone that is in the lower foreleg of a deer as an awl to pierce holes in skins, and sinew after it's partially dried and hard at the ends to poke through the holes, and then they tie it into knots. They make birch bark containers that way, too. It was when Jondalar's wounds kept sliding apart and opening up even when I tried to wrap it tight to hold everything together that I wondered if I could make some knots that would keep his skin and muscles in the right place. So I tried it. It seemed to work, but I wasn't sure how soon to take them out. I didn't want the wounds to tear apart, but I didn't want the knots to heal into his skin, either. I might have waited a little too long before I finally cut them.

It probably hurt a little more than it should have when I pulled them out," Ayla said.

"You mean that was the first time you sewed someone's wound together?" Jondalar said. "You didn't know if it would work, but you tried it out on me?" He laughed. "I'm glad you did. Except for the scars, you would hardly know I was mauled by that lion."

"So you invented this technique to sew wounds," Zelandoni said. "Only someone very skilled and with a natural aptitude for healing and medicine would think of something like that. Ayla, you belong in the zelandonia."

Ayla looked unhappy. "But I don't want to be in the zelandonia," she said. "I… I appreciate… I mean… please don't misunderstand me, I feel honored, but I just want to be mated to Jondalar and have his baby, and be a good Zelandonii woman." She avoided looking at the donier.

"Please, don't you misunderstand me," the woman said. "It wasn't an offhand offer, made lightly with only a moment's thought, like a casual invitation to a meal. I said you belong in the zelandonia. I have thought so for some time. A person with your skill needs to associate with others who have a similar level of knowledge. You like being a healer, don't you?"