Ayla the orphan and Jondalar the traveller leave the safety of the land of the mammoth hunters by the Black Sea and embark on a seemingly impossible journey across the whole of a continent. Their goal is the Cro-Magnon settlement in what is now southern France from which Jondalar set out years before as a young man. Accompanied by the half-tame Wolf, the superb stallion Racer and the mare Whinney, they brave both savage enemies and the elemental dangers of weather and terrain in their search for the place that will become Home.