Walkers of the Wind: Walkers On The W (First Americans Saga, Band 4) - Softcover

Buch 4 von 10: First Americans Saga

Sarabande, William

 
9780553285796: Walkers of the Wind: Walkers On The W (First Americans Saga, Band 4)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0553285793 ISBN 13: 9780553285796
Verlag: Bantam, 1990

Inhaltsangabe

A breathtaking epic of humanity’s first courageous struggles . . . for survival

Mesmerizing, dramatic, unsurpasses in scope and suthenticity, this is the fourth exciting volume of the magnificent new series THE FIRST AMERICANS, which began with Beyond the Sea of Ice and continued with Corridor of Storms and Forbidden Land. Following the trek of the woolly mammoth, the great hunter Torka leads a brave band of survivors across the Arctic tundra. But his leadership is threatened from within by a deadly rivalry between the handsome twins Umak and Manaravak for the love of a beautiful, sensual girl, and from without by a mysterious creature called the wanawut, whose howling awakens primitive and terrifying fears. Now, as a firestorm races across the frost-brittle land, Torka and his faithful woman, Lonit, must begin a dangerous odyssey to the home of the wind—a dark and forbidding region from which no human has ever returned.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Joan Hamilton Cline is the real name of William Sarabande, author of the internationally bestselling First Americans series. She was born in Hollywood, California, and started writing when she was seventeen. First published in 1979, Joan has been writing as William Sarabande for eleven years. She lives with her husband in Fawnskin, California.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

Mesmerizing, dramatic, unsurpasses in scope and suthenticity, this is the fourth exciting volume of the magnificent new series THE FIRST AMERICANS, which began with "Beyond the Sea of Ice and continued with "Corridor of Storms and "Forbidden Land. Following the trek of the woolly mammoth, the great hunter Torka leads a brave band of survivors across the Arctic tundra. But his leadership is threatened from within by a deadly rivalry between the handsome twins Umak and Manaravak for the love of a beautiful, sensual girl, and from without by a mysterious creature called the wanawut, whose howling awakens primitive and terrifying fears. Now, as a firestorm races across the frost-brittle land, Torka and his faithful woman, Lonit, must begin a dangerous odyssey to the home of the wind--a dark and forbidding region from which no human has ever returned.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1

The land burned--not with flame, not with heat, but with the raw, savage colors of the Ice Age autumn. The girl seemed to burn with the tundra as, knee-deep in the dry, wind-whipped grasses of the rolling Arctic steppe, she deliberately slowed her pace and allowed old Grek to lead the other girls and women on. With their heavily laden gathering baskets hefted on their hips and the children and dogs trotting at their sides, they were far too busy chattering to notice that Naya had fallen behind. They leaned into the wind, their dark hair streaming behind them. The bone, shell, and stone-beaded leather fringes of their garments flapped, tangled, and clicked noisily as they hurried on with never a backward glance.

Naya stopped, waiting for old Grek to sense her absence. When he did not, she smiled. She had made a careful game of her sudden need to be alone. No one had missed her. On and on walked old Grek, proudly assuming the role of woman watcher, aggressively stabbing the wind with his bone-shafted, stone-tipped spears. Loudly and respectfully he appealed to the lions, bears, leaping cats, and wolves. The wind carried his deep voice to Naya; she could hear it clearly.

"The women and children of Torka come, yes!" he cried. "Grek leads them now to the lake, yes! The women and children will drink! The women and children will bathe! Look not with hungry eyes as they pass, for Mother Below has made the lake for all creatures who live upon her skin. Let us come safely through the country of the flesh-eaters."

It occurred to Naya that she should be afraid to stand alone in the country of the flesh-eaters; but the sun was so warm and the day so fair that not even fear could chill her--only pity could do that, and did. The men of the band were hunting bear in the far hills, and she wondered if her grandfather resented being with the females instead of with the other hunters, who were tracking the great three-pawed bear that had been raiding the winter storage pits of the People. Grek gave no sign of resentment. He walked arrogantly ahead of his charges in his timeworn shaggy leggings and long-haired black shirt cut from the skin of an adult bison. It took a big man to wear such a heavy tide. Grek was big, and the shirt made him seem even bigger. With his massive head bent and his broad back humped against the wind, Naya understood why the children of the band called him Bison Man.

A cloud passed before the sun. Naya looked up. Shadows swept across the world, then vanished as the cloud was consumed by the hard, dry wind. The euphoria that had brought Naya to pause was gone. She felt tired now, irritable. The fringes of her lightweight coltskin dress were tangled from the wind, and she did not savor the prospect of separating them. The morning's gathering of lichens, fungi, tubers, and the seeds and berries of the dying summer had wearied her.

Naya scowled. She was all too easily wearied these days. Was it any wonder? Soon the thirteenth winter of her life would begin. Thirteen! The concept staggered her. It seemed an enormous number of years for a girl who had yet to come to her first time of blood.

True, the spirit of a woman's life would come to a girl in its own good time, and she was not the only girl in the band to come late to womanhood. Many a chant and medicine smoke had been offered to the forces of Creation on behalf of Swan, the headman's youngest daughter, and Larani, daughter of the hunter Simu; yet neither girl had come to her first time of blood even though they were the same age as Naya.

She frowned as she thought about this. The girls' slow maturation had prompted the older band members to whisper with concern. Naya had seen the women seeking omens in the organs of female animals taken by hunters. The women assured the headman that all boded well for the "new women to be," but saw to it that Naya, Swan, and Larani shared equally in the small, fatty glands that were cut from above the kidneys of every kill. It was well-known that rare and wondrous spirits lived in these little glands--spirits that favored women and had the power to bring girls more quickly to their time of blood.

Naya made a face of revulsion. She did not like the taste of the little glands, but she always dutifully ate her portion. Swan found them pleasant enough, and Larani actually liked them. Nevertheless, while Swan and Larani were visibly blossoming toward impending womanhood, the granddaughter of Grek still looked like a child.

She sighed wistfully. Swan had grown tall during the last long winter, and Larani actually looked like a woman under her clothes. The hunters of the band were gazing at her with new eyes. Soon gifts would be brought to her parents, and she would become some man's new woman.

Naya sighed again. No man looked at her as they looked at Larani. She would always be called Little Girl because she was little--a small, bird-boned, skinny sprout who would never bleed as a woman bleeds, never be looked at by the men of the band, and never be given gifts by those who would wish to invite her away from the fire circle that she had shared with her grandfather since the death of her parents so many long years ago.

Old Grek promised that someday she would win the finest gifts of all because she was the daughter of a great shaman. He had told her that she would be mated to one of the headman's sons. But Naya was not certain if she believed him. Unlike Swan and Larani, she was not growing up--she was simply growing old! Soon days and nights would pass and one morning she would wake to find that her entire life had gone by. She would limp around camp, mumbling about the past, and sucking food through the rubble of her teeth.

The girl's eyes widened as she realized that the distance between her and the others was much greater than before. "Grek! Everybody! Wait!"

The wind blew the words back into her round little face. Her small, perfectly matched, but oddly serrated upper teeth chewed her lower lip thoughtfully. The others walked on, not looking back. Not even Squirrel Killer, her favorite among the dogs, had missed her. Vexed, she hurried on.

Now a wild dog--or was it a dire wolf?--yapped somewhere in the tawny, windswept hills to the east. Naya turned, startled, to stare across the open, rolling steppe toward the hills and the vast, tumbled, ice-ridden mountain ranges that lay beyond. She could see no sign of dog or wolf, but that did not mean that one or more of these animals was not there.

She held her breath and listened, straining to see. To become a straggler was asking to become meat for the watching yellow-eyed carnivores of the wide, savage steppe.

Yet, somehow, she did not feel threatened. The most unusual sensations were sweeping through her body and mind, as pleasant as they were disconcerting. She had never felt like this before.

Her right hand strayed to her throat and rested there on her newly strung necklet of berry beads. In her gathering basket was a generous collection of the seedy, summer-dried little fruits, which she had at first mistaken for craneberries. Thinking them pretty, she had made a necklet of them while the other women and girls had been busy with their own morning's gleaning. With a bone needle taken from the feather-shaft quill case that she wore like a tiny ornament inserted through the base of her nose, she had carefully strung the berries onto a slender thong ripped from the fringes of her knee-length dress. The result had been a pretty adornment, and Naya liked pretty things.

Now--and not for the first time since stringing the berries--she absently raised the strand to her mouth and nervously moved the tip of her tongue against the slick, oily skin of the tiny orb of fruit. Although nearly completely dehydrated, the berries still oozed a little juice....

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Verlag
Bantam
Erscheinungsdatum
1990
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0553285793
ISBN 13 
9780553285796
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
448
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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Softcover