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HORSEMASTERS
 Reviewed
in the Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 1993.
It’s a couple of generations after the
end of Daughter of the Red Deer (1991), Wolf’s
first sally into prehistory, when this sequel gets into gear;
but we’re still talking plenty long ago, 13,000 years
or so, during the time of Cro-Magnon man—he of the cave
paintings in the south of France. And, as before, we’re
back in the marilineal Tribe of the Red Deer, where the Mistress’s
disfavored son, Ronan, champs at the bit for power and responsibility,
only to be set up as a rapist by his lustful sister, Morna.
Mistress Arika, who sees Ronan’s charisma as a threat
to her tribe’s female hegemony, sides with Morna and
drives him out. So he strikes off into the Pyrenees, where
he forms a new tribe composed of other outcasts like himself,
and with the help of his new wife, Nel, tames wild horses.
And it’s a good thing, since all of the Kindred tribes
of the region are about to be harried by invaders who come
from the northena tundras and are known as the Horsemasters.
While Ronan organizes the Kindred into a fighting force, Wolf
introduces us to more prehistoric types—the cave painter,
Thorn; Siguna, captured daughter of the Horsemaster chief;
and Culen, the squalling babe Nel and Ronan take in when Morna
dies in childbirth. Wolf gives the tale a happy conclusion,
even though, as everyone knows, the thundering hordes from
the north eventually did murder, plunder, and pillage the
gentler folk from the south.
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