The Valley of Horses

The second book in Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children series, The Valley of Horses follows two parallel storylines set during the Ice Age, approximately 30,000 years ago. One traces Ayla, a young Cro-Magnon woman raised by a Neanderthal clan, as she survives alone in a remote valley. The other follows two Cro-Magnon brothers on a long journey eastward. The narratives alternate before converging when the travelers reach Ayla's valley. The story continues in The Mammoth Hunters.

Ayla's exile begins after Broud, the new leader of the Clan, a community of Neanderthals, curses her with death out of spite and forces her to leave her son Durc behind. Alone on the frozen steppes, she travels north as her dying adoptive mother, Iza, instructed, searching for the Others, people who look like her. She hunts small game with her sling and learns to carry fire in a hollowed aurochs horn, overcoming the Clan's prohibition against women handling fire. After weeks of wandering, a pride of cave lions forces her westward, and from a plateau she spots a sheltered valley with a stream, trees, and steppe horses.

Ayla discovers a cave in the cliff wall and decides to stay through winter. She digs a pit trap and stampedes the horse herd; a dun mare falls in and is killed. While butchering the carcass, Ayla sees hyenas stalking the mare's orphaned foal, drives them off, and leads the filly to her cave. The animal stirs maternal feelings tied to memories of Durc, and Ayla names the horse Whinney, imitating a horse's whinny in a ceremony modeled on Clan naming rituals. While working flint one day, she accidentally strikes iron pyrite against a flint flake, sending a spark into tinder, and discovers she can start fire far more quickly than with the laborious fire-drill method.

Ayla endures a lonely winter with Whinney. In spring, she climbs onto the horse's back on impulse, and they begin developing an intuitive communication through Ayla's shifts in muscle tension. She hunts from horseback and devises pack baskets for Whinney to carry loads. After killing a buck in a pit trap, she finds a cave lion cub trampled by stampeding deer. She treats his injuries, names him Baby, and trains him to respond to her sounds and hand signals. When Whinney bolts with spear shafts dragging behind her, Ayla recognizes the potential and fashions a travois, a platform slung between two trailing poles, to transport heavy loads.

Baby grows enormous, and the three form an efficient hunting team. Eventually Baby begins leaving to seek mates, and Whinney mates with a wild stallion and follows him. Ayla is devastated but resolves to survive. The following autumn, a blizzard catches her on the steppes. Whinney, who left the wild herd after the stallion died, finds Ayla by following her whistle and carries her home. Ayla develops severe pneumonia but recovers. Baby departs permanently with a mate, and Whinney gives birth to a brown colt.

The parallel storyline follows Jondalar, a tall, blond flint knapper (a craftsman who shapes stone into tools) of the Zelandonii people, and his younger brother Thonolan on a years-long journey east along the Great Mother River. Near the headwaters, they encounter Neanderthals, whom their people call flatheads. Jondalar is impressed by their intelligence but still considers them animals. Farther downstream, the ancient matriarch Haduma of the Hadumai people asks Jondalar to perform First Rites, a ceremonial sexual initiation, for a young woman named Noria. Jondalar performs the ceremony with tenderness.

The brothers continue east until a woolly rhinoceros gores Thonolan, leaving him near death. They are rescued by the Sharamudoi, a people who combine mountain chamois hunting with river fishing. Their healer, the Shamud, a person of deliberately ambiguous gender, treats Thonolan's wounds. Thonolan recovers and falls in love with Jetamio, a young Sharamudoi woman. Jondalar moves in with Serenio, a calm older woman, and her son Darvo, learning boat building and contributing his flint-knapping expertise. Thonolan and Jetamio mate in an elaborate ceremony. Jondalar cares for Serenio but cannot fall in love with her; he nearly proposes once but is interrupted, and later Serenio tells him she will not mate him because he does not truly love her. On a solitary fishing trip, Jondalar is rescued by a young Neanderthal who shares fire with him, further challenging his assumptions about flatheads.

Jetamio suffers repeated miscarriages and dies in a breech delivery along with her baby. Thonolan, shattered, insists on heading east with a fatalistic certainty the Mother will take him soon. Jondalar refuses to leave his brother alone. They lose their boat in the river delta and are rescued from quicksand by Brecie, a Mamutoi mammoth hunter. After wintering with the Mamutoi, they set out again. Thonolan follows a cave lioness into a blind canyon to retrieve a stolen kill.

The lion is Baby, now fully grown. He kills Thonolan instantly but hesitates over Jondalar, whose scent is familiar from the woman who raised him. Ayla, riding Whinney on an unusual westward excursion, hears a scream and finds Baby standing over the two men. She commands him to stop with her Clan hand signal, and he obeys. She performs a Clan burial for Thonolan, hauls Jondalar home on the travois, and invents surgical stitches, using bone slivers and wet sinew to close his deep thigh wound, a technique inspired by the way his clothing was sewn together.

Jondalar regains consciousness as Whinney gives birth. He speaks to Ayla, but she understands nothing. She taps her chest and says her name, beginning a word-by-word exchange in which he teaches her Zelandonii. One night, after a powerful nightmare, she suddenly begins speaking fluently, as though a long-suppressed ability has broken free. She tells Jondalar about her Clan upbringing, including that Broud forced himself on her and she bore a son of mixed heritage. Jondalar reacts with disgust, calling the Clan "animals" and Durc an "abomination." Ayla erupts in fury, defending the people who raised her. Afterward, Jondalar recalls the Neanderthal who saved his life and recognizes his hypocrisy. They begin the slow work of rebuilding trust.

Jondalar demonstrates his blade-making technique; Ayla shows him her Clan method, and he recognizes its skill. He devises a spear-thrower, a flat wooden device that extends the throwing arm and dramatically increases range and force. He tells Ayla she is beautiful; she does not believe him, having grown up among the Clan where she looked unlike anyone and formed a deep self-image of ugliness. They discover their mutual longing was blocked by misread signals: She waited for the Clan gesture commanding a woman to submit, while he held back thinking she was refusing him.

Jondalar offers Ayla First Rites, the ceremonial sexual initiation she never properly received. Their lovemaking is a revelation for Ayla, who experiences pleasure for the first time, and transcendent for Jondalar, who discovers emotional depth beyond any previous relationship. He wakes from a dream in which the Great Earth Mother appears with Ayla's face and realizes he is in love for the first time in his life. When he tells Ayla, she weeps with joy, saying she has known its meaning since he arrived but never had the word.

They prepare to leave the valley together, though Ayla fears rejection by the Others because of her Clan upbringing. Jondalar warns her honestly that prejudice runs deep. They name Whinney's colt Racer and bid farewell to Baby, who has established his own pride. As they travel west, they round a bend and encounter a small group of Mamutoi, mammoth hunters who wave and call out greetings. Ayla turns to Jondalar in astonishment: The approaching people are smiling at her, and she realizes that others of her own kind are welcoming her with warmth.