William Sarabande - Beyond the Sea of Ice: The First Americans, Book 1

The First Americans #1: Beyond the Sea of Ice by WILLIAM SARABANDE

BANTAM BOOKS BY WILLIAM SARABANDE

The First Americans Series

Beyond the Sea of Ice

Corridor of Storms

Forbidden Land

Walkers of the Wind

The Sacred Stones

Thunder in the Sky

Edge of the World

Shadow of the Watching Star

Face of the Rising Sun

Spirit Moon

Time Beyond Beginning Wolves of the Dawn

And coming soon

To the Far Horizon

THE FIRST AMERICANS

BEYOND THE SEA OF ICE

WILLIAM SARABANDE

Created by the producers of Wagons West, White Indian, Wolves of the Dawn, and Children of the Lion.

Book Creations Inc.. Canaan. NY Lyle Kenyan Engel. Founder

BANTAM BOOKS NEW YORK TORONTO LONDON SYDNEY AUCKLAND

the first americans: beyond the sea of ice A Bantam Book December 1987

All rights reserved.

Copyright 1987 by Book Creations, Inc.

Cover art copyright 1987 by Jerry La Faro.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

For information address: Bantam Books.

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

ISBN 0-553-26889-9

Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

0PM 24 23 22 22 21 20 To Lyle

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Torka's band

Torka -Twenty-year-old Ice Age Paleo-Indian hunter from northeast Asia

*Umak -- Torka's grandfather, an ancient man at forty-five

Egatsop -- Torka's wife, eighteen years old

Kipu -- Torka's son, five years old

Lo nit -- Torka's female, twelve years old and on the brink of womanhood

Galeena's band

Galeena -Hunter from farther east than Torka's people

Ai- Galeena's favorite woman Mana ak -Hunter Torka's age

Iana -- Manaak's woman

Ninip -Young boy *Naknaktup -Matron

Oklahnoo -Matron

Supnah's band

Supnah -Mammoth-spurning hunter *Karana -- Supnah's son

Navahk -Magic man

Left the cavelike ledge with Torka

ANIMAL

GLOSSARY

Woolly mammoth- Gigantic elephant like mammal with huge curling tusks and flat teeth perfect for grinding leaves and twigs. The skull was double domed, and the body was covered with thick red hair. Stood sixteen feet at the shoulder.

Dire wolf- A wolf that was taller and heavier than today's wolves.

Saber-toothed lion- Almost as large as today's African lion, the saber-toothed cat had strong front legs and shorter hind legs. Its upper canine teeth were enlarged into two great sabers with serrated edges, with which it would stab its victims.

Ptarmigan -Small bird, slightly larger than today's quail.

Short-faced bear- One-third larger than today's bears, this beast was primarily a carnivore.

Teratorni -- A condor with a wingspan of more than twelve feet.

PART I.

THE CROOKED SPIRIT

Something walked within the night something huge. Something silent. Something terrible.

The hunter stopped dead in his tracks, listening, attuned to some inner thrum of warning that caused adrenalin to run hot within his veins as all his senses screamed: Danger!

He was a young man, winter lean, graceful even though he stood tense within his multilayered garments of skins and furs. Braced upon strong, heavily clad limbs like a running beast, he was poised and ready to hurl himself from danger.

He had felt it stalking him for hours, as relentlessly as death. Twice he had doubled back to check for tracks, but blowing ground snow had mocked his efforts, and he had seen nothing only the vast, wind-driven distances of snowcovered, perpetually frozen tundra and the endless darkness of the Arctic winter night. As the wind wicked away whorls of dry snow and sent them rive ring beneath the shimmering blue patterns of the northern lights, he had seen a ridge that rose out of the broad, flat, tundral face like the broken nose of a long-dead giant.

He had made for that veiled, distant refuge at a trot, not looking back, knowing that Alinak and Nap would follow. During the last few days they had tacitly allowed him to lead them. He had not been surprised for he was Torka, and the blood of many generations of spirit masters flowed within him. It was well known that his hunting instincts never failed him. Alinak and Nap would know that he had sought safety on the high ground of the ridge, which would allow them at least some advantage over whatever it was that was stalking them.

Now he looked back, out across the vistas fogged by thick clouds of blowing ground snow. Through these he could see his companions, two figures emerging out of the freezing mists, ascending the spine of the ridge toward him. Hunching against the wind, leaning on their spears for balance, they wore the skins of beasts. Antlers branched outward from their hooded heads. Half-human, half-animal, Alinak and Nap had the look of horned apparitions ripped from the nightmare fabric of a dream.

But this was no dream. This was the Age of . At least forty thousand years would pass before hunters of another epoch would call this land Siberia. There would be forests here then, and new races of men and beasts. Now there was only a dark and savage landscape across which the wind wailed and the cries of dire wolves ululated like women keening their dead.

Far to the east, above the towering, ice-girdled mountain ranges that encircled the treeless tundral plain, the first glow of dawn was leaching the sky to gold. It was the faintest banding of light, but it would stay long enough to be called morning, to set shadows of mauve and gray upon a land that had not seen sunlight for months. The time of the long dark was ending. The time of light was returning after the longest, cruelest winter that Torka had ever known.

His two antlered companions came to stand beside him. Like Torka, they were shielded against the weather in many layers of clothing. Their undergarments were of the supplest skins of caribou fawns. Trousers of dog pelts protected their legs from the subzero bite of the Arctic wind. Within these were stockings of buckskin, chewed by their women to the consistency of velvet, and over the trousers were hairy leggings of bison hide, cross-laced over knee-high boots lined in fur and triple-soled to form a barrier against the cold. Each man wore a tunic of caribou hide and, over this, with the hair facing inward, a coat cut from the skins of the same reindeer like animal.

No skins were wanner than those of winter-killed caribou. Although the caribou was relatively short-haired when compared to the pelage of the shaggy musk ox or the woolly shouldered giant bison, each shaft of caribou hair was an air-filled, insulating cylinder, which kept the warmth of a man in and the death-dealing cold of the Arctic out. In garments sewn of such fur, a hunter could stay out upon the wind-ravaged tundra indefinitely without feeling the cold. But, although these men were warm, they had been away from their people's winter encampment for three days. The warmth of their clothing could not protect them from fatigue or hunger. Or from bad judgment.

They stood together with the light of dawn upon them, and Torka went dry-mouthed with apprehension as he eyed his companions' horned cloaks. It was sacrilege to don the stalking cloak before the game was sighted. His own cloak was still strapped to his pack frame, rolled tightly, with the antlers upright like skeletal wings projecting outward from his back.