Ayla and Jondalar set out on horseback across the windswept grasslands of Ice Age Europe. To the hunter-gatherers of their world--who have never seen tame animals--Ayla and Jondalar appear enigmatic and frightening. They mystery surrounding the woman, who speaks with a strange accents and talks to animals with their own sounds, is heightened by her uncanny control of a large, powerful wolf. The tall, yellow-haired man who rides by her side is also...

The Shelters of Stone opens as Ayla and Jondalar, along with their animal friends, Wolf, Whinney, and Racer, complete their epic journey across Europe and are greeted by Jondalar's people: the Zelandonii. The people of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii fascinate Ayla. Their clothes, customs, artifacts, even their homes--formed in great cliffs of vertical limestone--are a source of wonder to her. And in the woman Zelandoni, the spiritual leader of the...