Quick recap
Cast out of the Clan, Ayla walks north for months until she reaches a valley on the steppes. With no sign of the Others, she readies a cave for winter and lives alone. She tames a filly, Whinney, and nurses a cave lion cub that becomes her hunting partner. Meanwhile Jondalar of the Zelandonii is on his Journey with his half-brother, Thonolan. Along the way he sees the Others treat the Clan like animals and starts to question it. A grown lion kills Thonolan and mauls Jondalar. Ayla saves him, and the two learn to talk. He drops his prejudice, she learns that what made her strange to the Clan is normal among the Others, and they fall in love. In the end they leave the valley and meet the Mamutoi.

