People of the Nightland by W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear

Once upon a time, the People of the Wolf had escaped a mountain of ice through the help of a spirit called Wolf Dreamer. After they reached safer lands, the people settled down, and reproduced. Eventually, there were so many people that the land could not support them all, and they became two peoples, the Nightlanders, and the Sunpath people. Though they were once one tribe, they no longer consider themselves one, and schisms have racked the people.

Ti-Bish is an outcast, called idiot by his tribe and people, until the night he kills a raven and eats its flesh. Then he is given a dream by Raven Hunter, the supposedly evil brother of Wolf Dreamer, that his people, the Nightlanders, are living in the shadow of an apocalypse that will kill everyone who does not escape through a hole in the ice. Raven Hunter promises Ti-Bish that he will show the Nightlanders how to escape and survive the coming Apocalypse, but his dream is co-opted by a Nightland Elder named Nashat, who uses Ti-Bish's dream to make War on the Sunpath people, wishing to eventually steal their land for the Nightpath people's own. By keeping Ti-Bish isolated from the rest of the tribe, Nashat becomes his mouthpiece and arbiter of what the Guide wants.

The Sunpath people aren't taking this war lying down. Though they were caught off guard by the first years of the war, one war chief named Windwolf has been fighting the Nightland warriors, keeping them off balance, yet hiding himself and his men from their retaliation. But Windwolf is a broken man, still mourning his lost wife and love, Bramble, killed by the Nightland warrior, Karigi.

Kairigi is not only hated by Windwolf for the deed, but also by Keresa, who was once a friend of Bramble's, and still hates him years later for the deed. But she is not the leader of her war party. She follows Kakala, and when they are captured by Windwolf and the people of Lame Bull, both of them will have to make a choice between continuing the conquering ways of their people, or coming together to follow a new vision out of the coming cataclysm.

The Sunpath woman Skimmer and her daughter Ashes have their own destinies to follow. Skimmer blames Ti-Bish for the death of her husband and the near deaths of her and her daughter in a Nightland slave camp, when the warriors slaughtered all the women and children there on Nashat's orders. She only escaped by playing dead and hiding under the other dead bodies. Skimmer has a plan of her own, to kill the Guide, Ti-Bish, and stop the war against the Sunpath people. But when she surrenders herself to the Nightpath warriors to save the Lame Bull people, will she be able to go through with her plan?

Back in the lands of the Lame Bull people, the leader's grandson, Silvertip, has been hearing the voice of the Wolf Bundle calling to him. But to become a dreamer and save all the peoples, he must first die, and that scares him beyond anything he has ever known. Can he bow to the demands of power and find the beloved of Raven Hunter, with whom he is fated to lead both their peoples into the new world they will find past the cataclysm?

I enjoyed this book, as the Gears make their paleolithic world come alive. The story is framed by two paleoarchaeologists discovering the remains of those killed in the cataclysm, and wondering how anybody could have survived such a disaster. Once we are into the story, we are subsumed into the fears, hopes and desires of the main protagonists, and also with those who stand against them as enemies. Nashat, especially, as he is using Ti-Bish's vision as an excuse to slaughter the Sunpath people and take their more fertile lands for the Nightland people. But he also hopes to wipe out the people of the Lame Bull, and the Buffalo and South Wind people, too. He will then declare the Guide's vision to be changed, and take over all the lands, with himself as arbiter and interpreter of the guide's wishes.

Ti-Bish, meanwhile, spends most of his time in isolation, and so doesn't know the slaughter and brutality being comitted in his name. But his vision of the coming cataclysm is true, even if he, himself, will not live to see it happen. The way the story immerses you in the problems and personalities of the people is wonderful, and the story just flies along, carrying you with it. This book took me about a day to read, but it was a most enjoyable experience.