The Edge of the World (First Americans Saga, Band 7) - Softcover

Buch 7 von 10: First Americans Saga

Sarabande, William

 
9780553560282: The Edge of the World (First Americans Saga, Band 7)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 055356028X ISBN 13: 9780553560282
Verlag: Random House Publishing Group, 1993

Inhaltsangabe

From William Sarabande, whose brilliant  re-creation of the prehistoric world of the First American  has thrilled readers everywhere, comes a major new  novel that awakens us to the true spirit of our  ancestors. Following their destiny into an unknown  land took more than courage--it demanded a belief  in a future they would never see, a certainty that  braving a path no human had ever taken was their  only choice. Now, in a time of mystery and magic,  when all they had protected the People from their  enemies for the eons of prehistory seemed to be  vanishing along with the animals they once hunted,  the young shaman Cha-kwena must break a terrifying  taboo, estranging him from his woman and his  tribe. Driven by a vision, he vows to follow the  forbidden trail of the mammoth to where the fate of his  kind will be known: extinction or the possibility  of a land where all their dreams may become real.

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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

From William Sarabande, whose brilliant re-creation of the prehistoric world of the First American has thrilled readers everywhere, comes a major new novel that awakens us to the true spirit of our ancestors. Following their destiny into an unknown land took more than courage--it demanded a belief in a future they would never see, a certainty that braving a path no human had ever taken was their only choice. Now, in a time of mystery and magic, when all they had protected the People from their enemies for the eons of prehistory seemed to be vanishing along with the animals they once hunted, the young shaman Cha-kwena must break a terrifying taboo, estranging him from his woman and his tribe. Driven by a vision, he vows to follow the forbidden trail of the mammoth to where the fate of his kind will be known: extinction or the possibility of a land where all their dreams may become real.

Aus dem Klappentext

From William Sarabande, whose brilliant re-creation of the prehistoric world of the First American has thrilled readers everywhere, comes a major new novel that awakens us to the true spirit of our ancestors. Following their destiny into an unknown land took more than courage--it demanded a belief in a future they would never see, a certainty that braving a path no human had ever taken was their only choice. Now, in a time of mystery and magic, when all they had protected the People from their enemies for the eons of prehistory seemed to be vanishing along with the animals they once hunted, the young shaman Cha-kwena must break a terrifying taboo, estranging him from his woman and his tribe. Driven by a vision, he vows to follow the forbidden trail of the mammoth to where the fate of his kind will be known: extinction or the possibility of a land where all their dreams may become real.

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1

They came like wolves across the land. Slowly, cautiously, into the wind they came, lean men and youths painted black and red with ash and ocher and their leaner dogs, the color of storm skies and late-summer grass.

In the pure, savage light of the Ice Age noon, Cha-kwena looked down at the dog closest to him. He held no affection for its kind; nevertheless he envied it. Like the others with which it ran this day, the dog was among the best of the tribe's hunting pack, and Cha-kwena knew that it would instinctively do what was needed when the moment came to signal it into action.

May I do as well as you this day upon the hunt, Dog, brother of Wolf and Coyote! He exhaled a tight, unaudible sigh of hope and longing. For if I do not, there are those among this man pack who would have the meat of my bones roasting on the spits tonight!

Cha-kwena had not spoken aloud, but somehow the dog sensed his thoughts and turned up its head. Cha-kwena took little notice. His dark, angular eyes were now fixed on other animals.

He moved forward with the others, soundlessly insinuating himself around boulders and sidestepping loose stones. Cha-kwena was a young man, small and spare of frame, but as strong and agile and quick to react to his surroundings as the tawny little pronghorn antelope of his distant homeland. Downslope and perhaps as many as a thousand paces ahead, a small herd of striped, broad-bellied brown horses grazed at the base of high bluffs and at the neck of a dead-end draw toward which he and the other hunters had been maneuvering them since dawn.

At last we have them where we want them! Cha-kwena was so tense with anticipation, he could barely breathe. Too long have my fellow hunters gone without man-worthy meat and a kill that will make our women sing with pride! As he looked down at the horses, his youthful face split with a wide, white grin of satisfaction. Earlier in the day he had feared that the hunt might be over before it had a chance to begin. Fresh bear sign had made the horses skittish. The hunters had tethered the dogs and proceeded warily, realizing that they must not fail to walk wisely or take every precaution to remain in favor with the spirits. Otherwise they might lose the herd and themselves fall prey to a carnivore of infinitely greater and more terrifying magnitude than man.

At this moment Cha-kwena remembered that he was a shaman with a considerable reputation to maintain. With his medicine bag around his neck and his sacred owl-skin headdress securely upon his head, he reminded himself that once--and not so long before--he had led his followers to victory in a great war against their enemies. Secure in this knowledge, he uttered a special chant to Bear, reminding Walks Like a Man that if he were wise, he would avoid confrontation with so powerful a shaman as Cha-kwena of the Red World. "If you are looking for sweet roots and season-end berries and mouse tunnels to dig," he added, "you are going in the wrong direction, for the land through which my hunters now travel offers none of these."

His invocation must have been heard, for after a while the hunters lost all sign of the bear and gratefully pursued the horses into long, weather-eroded hills that were as dry and barren and creased by time as an old woman's genitals. The others called it bad land, but they continued on following the horses across country that offered nothing more threatening than rodent droppings, owl casts, and occasional mammoth spoor. Now, at last, the herd reached its destination. There were grass and water at the neck of the draw. The horses were almost within spear range. Thanks to the rocky terrain, the constancy of the wind, and the skill of the hunters in using both to their advantage, the horses detected no sight, sound, or scent of the human and canine predators that were about to make meat of them.

Cha-kwena sighed with relief. It was going to be a good day, after all! Soon the chase would be over. Soon his fellow hunters would have cause to smile at their shaman once more while they rejoiced in the taking of much meat to their hungry women and children. Then they would settle into a temporary butchering camp and rest before they began the long journey back to the village. For this Cha-kwena was supremely grateful. The overland trek had not wearied him; but his feet hurt, and he longed to take off the new moccasins that his woman had made for him. She had done something wrong with the seams, and several grass seeds had penetrated the sinew stitching to prick mercilessly at the soft skin between his ankles and the hard, thick rime of his callused heels.

Cha-kwena frowned. As soon as he returned to the village, he was going to have a serious talk with his headstrong little girl-of-a-woman about her careless workmanship. Mah-ree remained stubbornly disdainful of the complex sewing skills and customs of the People of the Land of Grass with whom the recent war had placed their little band in uneasy but beneficial alliance. Despite her status as a chieftain's daughter of the southern tribes of the distant Red World, where they had both been born, and her considerable gifts as a medicine woman, many of the hard-living northerners looked askance at her these days.

Cha-kwena's frown became a scowl under his beaked, stone-eyed headdress. It was all he could do to resist the urge to reach down and rub the soreness from his feet, but resist he did. It was dangerous for a shaman who claimed to walk strong in the power of the totem to suffer sore feet on a hunting expedition upon which everyone was depending for winter meat. If the onetime warriors from the Land of Grass lost faith in their shaman now, only the Four Winds could say what would happen to him and his small band of followers. He had led them all into this land with bold promises of a new and better life, but so far they had suffered hunger and discouragement.

Now, just ahead of Cha-kwena and slightly to his right, Shateh, leader of the hunt and warrior-chieftain of the combined bands of the People of the Land of Grass and the People of the Red World, raised his spear arm as he came to a halt. Cha-kwena stopped midstep. Everyone else did the same. No one moved. Even the dogs were frozen in place. All eyes, including Cha-kwena's, were on Shateh. Like nearly all of the hunters from the Land of Grass, the chieftain was tall and visibly powerful. The irregular vertical stripes of his body paint made him seem even larger, and his scars and graying, hip-length hair marked him as a survivor of many hunts and battles. Around his neck was a magnificent collar of golden eagle flight feathers.

Cha-kwena, forgetting all about his aching feet, positioned his bone spear hurler and long, wood-shafted, stone-tipped lances in anticipation of the kill. He could see tension in the chieftain's broad back and upraised arm. The final phase of the hunt had begun.

The young shaman held his ground as others readied their weapons and fanned out to assume prearranged positions along the high, bare, boulder-strewn ground. As shaman, his place close to Shateh was one of great prestige, and Cha-kwena knew it. The hunters were watching him now, taking slow, thoughtful measure of him from beneath lowered brows as they waited for him to begin the final invocation to the spirits of the hunt on their behalf. Whatever happened from this moment on, be it good or bad, he knew that the men would hold their shaman accountable.

Sobered by the weight of responsibility, he sent his sun-browned left hand rising to enfold the leather medicine bag that hung by a braided sinew cord around his neck. As he did so, he saw an immediate change in those around him. There was an ancient and all-transcendent magic in the sacred stone that lay within. His hand flexed around the talisman, which had been in the possession of...

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Verlag
Random House Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
1993
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
055356028X
ISBN 13 
9780553560282
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
480
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
gpsr@phaidon.com
gpsr@phaidon.com

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Berlin
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Deutschland