Resumo de The Valley Of Horses

She was dead. What did it matter if icy needles of freezing
rain flayed her skin raw. The young woman squinted into the
wind, pulling her wolverine hood closer. Violent gusts
whipped her bearskin wrap against her legs.Were those
trees ahead? She thought she remembered seeing a scraggly
row of woody vegetation on the horizon earlier, and wished
she had paid more attention, or that her memory was as good
as that of the rest of the Clan. She still thought of
herself as Clan, though she never had been, and now she was
dead.She bowed her head and leaned into the wind. The
storm had come upon her suddenly, hurtling down from the
north, and she was desperate for shelter. But she was a
long way from the cave, and unfamiliar with the territory.
The moon had gone through a full cycle of phases since she
left, but she still had no idea where she was
going.North, to the mainland beyond the peninsula, that
was all she knew. The night Iza died, she had told her to
leave, told her Broud would find a way to hurt her when he
became leader. Iza had been right. Broud had hurt her,
worse than she ever imagined.He had no good reason to
take Durc away from me, Ayla thought. He's my son. Broud
had no good reason to curse me, either. He's the one who
made the spirits angry. He's the one who brought on the
earthquake. At least she knew what to expect this time. But
it happened so fast that even the Clan had taken a while to
accept it, to close her out of their sight. But they
couldn't stop Durc from seeing her, though she was dead to
the rest of the clan.Broud had cursed her on impulse born
of anger. When Brun had cursed her, the first time, he had
prepared them. He'd had reason; they knew he had to do it,
and he'd given her a chance.She raised her head to
another icy blast, and noticed it was twilight. It would be
dark soon, and her feet were numb. Frigid slush was soaking
through her leather foot coverings despite the insulating
sedge grass she had stuffed in them. She was relieved to
see a dwarfed and twisted pine.Trees were rare on the
steppes; they grew only where there was moisture enough to
sustain them. A double row of pines, birches, or willows,
sculptured by wind into stunted asymmetrical shapes,
usually marked a watercourse. They were a welcome sight in
dry seasons in a land where groundwater was scarce. When
storms howled down the open plains from the great northern
glacier, they offered protection, scant though it was.A
few more steps brought the young woman to the edge of a
stream, though only a narrow channel of water flowed
between the ice-locked banks. She turned west to follow it
downstream, looking for denser growth that would give more
shelter than the nearby scrub.She plodded ahead, her hood
pulled forward, but looked up when the wind ceased
abruptly. Across the stream a low bluff guarded the
opposite bank. The sedge grass did nothing to warm her feet
when the icy water seeped in crossing over, but she was
grateful to be out of the wind. The dirt wall of the bank
had caved in at one place, leaving an overhang thatched
with tangled grass roots and matted old growth, and a
fairly dry spot beneath.She untied the waterlogged thongs
that held her carrying basket to her back and shrugged it
off, then took out a heavy aurochs hide and a sturdy branch
stripped of twigs. She set up a low, sloping tent, held
down with rocks and driftwood logs. The branch held it open
in front.She loosened the thongs of her hand coverings
with her teeth. They were roughly circular pieces of fur-
lined leather, gathered at the wrist, with a slit cut in
the palms to poke her thumb or hand through when she wanted
to grasp something. Her foot coverings were made the same
way, without the slit, and she struggled to untie the
swollen leather laces wrapped around her ankles. She was
careful to salvage the wdge grass when she removed
them.She laid her bearskin wrap on the ground inside the
tent, wet side down, put the sedge grass and the hand and
foot coverings on top, then crawled in feet first. She
wrapped the fur around her and pulled the carrying basket
up to block the opening. She rubbed her cold feet, and,
when her damp fur nest warmed, she curled up and closed her
eyes.Winter was gasping its last frozen breath,
reluctantly giving way to spring, but the youthful season
was a capricious flirt. Amid frigid reminders of glacial
chill, tantalizing hints of warmth promised summer heat. In
an impulsive shift, the storm broke during the night.

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