Kerrick looked up at the tracings in the rock and began to understand something of what the hunter was trying to say.
There were beasts there, marked out in color upon the rock, many of them like the deer that he recognized. In pride of place above them all, almost life-size, was a mastodon.
“Waliskis,” the hunter said again and bowed his head towards the representation of the great beast. “Waliskis.”
Kerrick nodded in agreement without understanding the significance of the painting at all. It was a good likeness, as was the black mastodon on the bowl. All of the paintings were most realistic. He reached up and touched the deer, saying deer aloud at the same time. The dark-haired hunter did not seem interested. Instead he stepped back into the sunlight and waved Kerrick after him.
Kerrick wanted to stop and look at all the fascinating activity taking place, but the other hurried him along to one of the notched logs that stretched up the cliff face. He clambered up to the ledge above, then waited for Kerrick. The climb was an easy one. There was a dark opening behind the ledge with a chamber of some kind beyond. They had to stoop to enter. There were pots and other articles on the stone floor, a heaped pile of skins to the rear. The white-clad hunter spoke and a thin voice answered from the skins and furs.
When Kerrick looked more closely he saw that someone was there, a slight figure that lay under the coverings with just the head visible. A seamed and wrinkled face. The lips worked in the toothless mouth and the whispering voice spoke again.
“Where do you come from? What is your name?’
* * *
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
As his eyes adjusted to the gloom of the chamber, Kerrick saw that the old one’s skin, though dark with age, was as fair as his, the eyes blue. The hair that might once have been light was now gray and sparse. When the thin voice spoke again he listened and could understand most of the words. Not Marbak as he knew it, but more like that spoken by Har-Havola’s sammad from beyond the mountains.
“Your name, your name,” the order came again.
“I am Kerrick. I come from beyond the mountains.”
“I knew it, yes I did, your hair so light. Come closer so Huanita can see you. Yes, you are Tanu. See, Sanone, did I not tell you I could still speak as they do?” The weak voice rustled with dry laughter.
Kerrick and Huanita talked then, Sanone, for that was the dark hunter’s name, listening and nodding approval though he could not understand a word. Kerrick was not surprised to discover that Huanita was a woman, captured by hunters when she had been a young girl. Everything that she said was not clear and she tended to ramble. Many times she fell asleep while talking. Once when she awoke she talked to him in Sesek, the language of the Sasku, as these dark-haired people called themselves, and grew angry when he did not respond. Then she called for food and Kerrick ate as well. It was late afternoon by the time Kerrick broke off.
“Tell Sanone I must return to my sammad. But I will be back here in the morning. Tell him that.”
Huanita fell asleep then, snoring and muttering, and could not be aroused. But Sanone seemed to have understood what Kerrick was going to do because he walked with him back to the rock barrier, then called out orders to the two spearmen on guard there.
Once past the barrier Kerrick ran most of the way back to the encampment by the river, trying to reach the tents before dark. Herilak must have been concerned about his day-long absence for there were hunters in the hills waiting for him, calling out eager questions. He waited until he was back among the tents and had drunk deep of the cool water before he spoke. Herilak, Fraken, and the sammadars sat close, the rest of the sammads in the circle around.
“First you must know this,” Kerrick said. “These dark Tanu are called the Sasku. They are not going to fight us or drive us away. They want to be of help, even give us food, and I think that this is because of the mastodons.”