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Ayla noticed that he carried the bowl on his right side, supported against his body with his crippled ar a bowl of red ochre paste against his body with the arm that had been amputated at the elbow, just before he naht a s her and wondered Denoda had noticed her expression, too, and wasn’t as shy aboutit

“You looked at Lanidar with such a strange smile,” she said

“He reminds me of so the lower part of his arm He had been attacked by a cave bear when he was a child His grand mother was a healer, and she had to cut it off because it was poisoning his body He would have died if she hadn’t”

“What a terrible thing!” Denoda said

“Yes, it was He was blinded in one eye, too, by that attack, and his leg was hurt He had to ith a stick from then on”

“The poor boy He had to be taken care of the rest of his life, I suppose,” Mardena said

“No,” Ayla said “He made a valuable contribution to his people”

“How did he e? What did he do?”

“He beca-ur—that’s like a Zelandoni—and he was recognized as the First He and his sister were the ones who took care of me after my own family died He was the man of my hearth, and I loved him very much,” Ayla said

Mardena was looking at her with jaw agape and her eyes open wide She could hardly believe the wo like that?

As Ayla talked, Denoda became particularly conscious of her unusual accent, but the storyto Lanidar When sheto be related to some very powerful people, and if she likes hiht be the best thing that ever happened to the boy, she thought

Lanidar had been listening, too Maybe I could learn to hunt, he thought, even if I only have one good ar berries

They were approaching a construction that was like a surround, except that it didn’t seeht alder andpoles lashed together in horizontal Xs with other poles across the top, attached to shorter, soroun

d Bushes and tree branches, already drying out, loosely filled in the spaces between If a herd of bison, for exae male—six feet six inches at the top of the hu black horns—tried to break out, the enclosure would not have held Even the horses could likely break it down, if they were determined

“Do you remember hohistle to call Racer, Lanidar?” Ayla asked