Birth of the Firebringer Read online

  Almost at the same moment, the sound of breaking brush distracted him. He turned in time to see Tek shoving Dagg out of the trees into the clearing of the knoll. Dagg was laughing so hard he staggered. The half-grown mare clamped the nape of his neck in her teeth and hauled him back as he made halfheartedly to bolt. She stood taller than either he or Jan, and had been initiated a full two years ago. Her young beard was already silky on her chin.

  “Gryphons—save me!” shouted Dagg, struggling some, but laughing harder. “I told you it wasn’t my game. Ouch! Not so hard—it was Jan’s. The whole of it was Jan’s.”

  “I know that very well, Dagg son-of-Tas,” replied his captor through clenched teeth. She released him, and Dagg collapsed to the carpet of fir needles at the wood’s edge. He rolled there, hooting. “I have heard of the games you two are so fond of.” She turned now toward Jan. “And you, prince-son. By Korr, you at least should know better.”

  Jan tossed his head, laughing in his teeth, and shrugged. His father—no, he would not think of Korr. The prince was far below, seeking shelter in the Vale from the coming rain, and Jan was free of him for a little while at least. Free. He sprang down from the lookout knoll and trotted to Dagg, eyeing the hairless patches on his friend’s neck and flank.

  “Are you hurt?”

  Dagg groaned, laughing still. “Hale enough. She champs hard. By the Beard, Jan, you should have seen her when she realized I wasn’t some storm-riding gryphon.”

  Dagg rolled his eyes, ears akimbo, nostrils flared, and tossed his head like one who had just trod upon a snake. Jan put his head down, helpless with mirth. He laughed until his legs felt weak.

  “Both of you have borne yourselves like brainless foals,” the young mare snapped. “You, Jan son-of-Korr, haven’t you grace enough to speak when you’re spoken to?” Jan ignored her. Her tone crackled. “I am talking to you.”

  She marked that, when the prince’s son neither answered nor turned, by nipping him smartly on the shoulder. Jan jumped and wheeled. Disbelief, and a sudden odd heedless-ness uncoiled in him. No one had ever set teeth to him, not in earnest, but his father. No one had ever dared. He felt the blood surging in his head. His ears grew hot.

  “You champed me!” he cried.

  Dagg on the ground had swallowed his grin.

  “You set teeth to me.”

  “Aye, and I’ll do so again the next time you ignore me. What have you to say for yourself?”

  Jan stared at her. Not even a word of regret—the arrogance! The astonishment in him turned to rage. He’d let no one, not even the healer’s daughter, treat him like a foal. He plunged at her, his head down, before he was even aware what he was doing—perhaps a slash across the flank would teach this half-grown better manners. Tek countered with her own horn, fencing him expertly, and threw him off with a sharp rap on the head.

  Jan staggered, startled. He had always been the victor, the easy best in the mock battles among the uninitiated colts. Now—first bitten, then baited, then parried in three blows. Jan regained his footing and stood stunned, humiliated. A cold little voice in the back of his mind teased and taunted him, but he shoved it away, shoved everything away. His breath was coming hard between clenched teeth. Tek had not fallen back even a step.

  Dimly, he came aware that Dagg beside him was speaking. “Jan. Hear me. She’s half-grown.” His friend started to rise. “Colts don’t spar with warriors. List, come on, let’s . . .”

  Jan ignored him, flattening his ears. He was not a colt, not just any colt. He was the son of the prince of the unicorns, and he would not be beaten off a second time. Tek snorted, shifting her stance. She squared to meet him. He lowered his head, gathering his legs.

  “Enough!”

  The word rolled hard and deep above the rising wind. Jan pulled up, startled, spinning around. Tek glanced past him, and he glimpsed her falling back now in surprise. The prince of the unicorns stood before them on the lookout knoll, black against the grayness of the storm. Lightning clashed, throwing a blue sheen across him. Jan flinched at the suddenness, feeling his rash temper abruptly vanish, like a snake into a hole. He gazed uneasily into his father’s dark and angry eyes.

  “Leave off these foals’ games,” ordered the prince. “You, Dagg, son of my shoulder-friend, off home with you—at once.”

  Jan felt his friend beside him scrambling to his feet. Dagg bowed hastily to the prince, then wheeled and was gone. His hoofbeats on the slope grew faint.

  “You, Tek, healer’s daughter, begone as well.”

  “Prince,” Tek started, but he shook his head.

  “Rest sure, young mare, I put no blame on you in this.”

  “Korr, prince,” she said, “I am on lookout. . . .”

  He tossed his head then. “Never mind. No gryphons will be flying once the rain comes. Now off, or you will be soaked.”

  Tek bowed her long neck to the prince, then wheeled and bounded away like a lithe deer through the trees. Korr waited until the gusting wind had swept the sound of her heels away.

  “Foal!” he burst out then, and Jan flinched beneath his father’s rebuff. “Witless thing! Have I not expressly forbidden any colts so high on the slopes, and warned all against interfering with the lookouts?”

  Jan eyed his hooves and mumbled assent.

  “Can you not understand gryphons may slip into these woods under cover of cloud in two bats of an eye? A moment’s distraction . . .” He broke off with a strangled snort.

  Jan hung his head. His father spoke the truth; he remembered the hunting eagles, how swiftly they had fallen from cloudbottom to treetops while Dagg had been baiting Tek. What if, rather than hawks, there had come wingcats instead? Jan picked at the turf with his hoof.

  “It was just a game,” he murmured, more to himself than to Korr. “We meant no harm.”

  “Your games,” muttered Korr. “But enough.”

  The black prince launched down from the lookout knoll and gave his son a shove to turn him.

  “Be grateful this storm’s brought no gryphons, young princeling, or you might well have made feast-flesh for some formel’s hatchlings—or Tek might, or Dagg. Hie now! Get you home.”

  Gryphons

  3

  Jan sprang down the slope, his pace abruptly quickened by a few hard nips on the flank from his father. He galloped blindly, careless of the hillside’s steepness, reckless where he set his hooves. The prince ran beside him, herding him away from the sheer drops, the loose rock shelves.

  Jan ducked, dodging through the trees. He wished he could fly, fly away and outpace his father. His breast was tight, his eyes stinging. All he had wanted to do was watch the storm. Nothing, no ill would have come of it if it had not been for Tek. Arrogant half-grown! Jan wished the pied mare bad footing.

  How he hated the young warriors, half-grown, already initiated—hated, yet in the same breath envied them. He was weary to death of colts’ games and foals’ playing, and longed to the center of his bones to be allowed to sharpen his hooves and horn and join the Ring of Warriors. Why had Korr held him back from Pilgrimage last year, despite his pleading?

  Deep down, he knew. And thinking of it brought a bitter taste into his mouth. There was in his nature a grievous fault. He could never do as he was told, as others did. He always plunged ahead without thinking, forgetting the Law—or deliberately breaking it. He was a vexation to everyone, a bitter disappointment to Korr, and secretly he wondered if he would ever learn to bear himself as befitted the prince’s son.

  Jan plunged down the steep hillside. A stitch had grown between his ribs. It ached like a wound. He and his father left the wooded slope for the rolling meadow of the valley floor. The sky above was wholly dark. Jan felt a great drop splash against his back, soaking into the long hairs of his winter coat. Another drop struck him, and then two more. The air was thick suddenly with falling water. He heard Korr snorting in disgust.

  They headed across the open meadow toward their cave halfway up the near slope
of the Vale. Korr sprang onto the rock ledge before the cave mouth, Jan scrambling up behind. The entrance to the grotto was narrow. In the gloom beyond, Jan saw his mother, Ses, cream colored with a mane as amber as autumn grass. She was heavy in foal.

  Korr moved two steps into the cave, tossing his head, and the water slung from his long, jet mane. Jan crowded in behind, out of the rain, though he knew by his father’s abrupt, forceful movements that he was angry still. The prince of the unicorns shook himself, and Jan ducked, but he could not avoid the spray short of retreating into the rain again. His mother stood back out of range.

  “A wet day for bathing,” she laughed when Korr was done. “How clement of the weather to soak you both so handsomely.” Her light, sure tone seemed to mollify her mate a little. “Jan, come out of the door now; you’re wet enough. Korr, let him by.”

  Jan saw his father glance over one shoulder at him. The prince advanced a pace, no more, cleaning the muck from between the toes of his hooves with his horn. “I found him up on the high slopes again,” he said shortly, “near the lookout knoll.”

  Jan saw his mother’s eye grow rueful for a moment, but then she smiled. “But he always goes up there. You know that. He always has.”

  “It’s forbidden,” his father snapped. “And not just to Jan—to all the colts. It’s too dangerous, especially when the storm’s from the southeast.” Korr gave a snort. “He had Dagg with him. Bringing others into his Ringbreaking.”

  His father started on another hoof. Jan had to shrink past him along the wall. He saw his mother glance at him, then felt a few strokes of her rough, dry tongue against his neck, pressing out the damp. He hadn’t dared to shake off yet, and now his mother’s gentle tolerance was suddenly more than he could bear. He broke from her, from Korr, and clattered away from both of them, deeper into the cave.

  Around the bend at the back of the hollow, a little pool of earthwater lay, still as stone, reflecting the dim light rounding the corner. Pale toadstools and lichens scattered the walls and shore, casting faint illuminations. Jan threw himself down on the pebbly bank and lay there wet and miserable. Staring at nothing, he listened to the voices of his sire and dam.

  “If that were all,” his father’s deep voice said, “if that were all, I might let it pass. But Ses, the colt has no sense. He and Dagg weren’t on the ridge just to watch the storm.”

  Jan heard a sigh. “More games?”

  Silence a moment. Korr must have nodded. “They were baiting the lookout, drawing her away with gryphon cries. What am I to do with him? That’s willful trespass . . .”

  “Be patient with him,” the prince’s mate was saying. Then, softer, “He was born under a dark moon.”

  Jan dropped his head to the bank and felt his heart clench shut like teeth. He wished she wouldn’t defend him—he wished there weren’t the need. There was the sound of someone shifting. Jan imagined his mother lying down beside her mate, helping to sponge the rest of the moisture from his coat.

  “He’s moody, high-spirited.”

  “Unruly,” the prince returned. “A hothead.”

  “Like you.”

  “Love, he’s not a colt anymore!” Jan flinched at the force of his father’s anger.

  “He is until you let him join the initiates.” His mother’s sudden vehemence surprised him. “How often has he begged you to let him go on Pilgrimage?”

  Jan heard his father’s snort. “How can I, now? Do you think he’d make a warrior? He’s nearly half-grown, and still he acts like a spoiled weanling. That wildness . . .” Jan hardly caught the last. What had his father said: “frightens me” ? No, he could not have heard it right.

  “Just let him prove himself,” his mother murmured. “More than anything, he wants to prove himself.”

  Their voices grew softer, dropping into quiet unintelligibility beneath the drumming of the rain. Jan stretched his forelegs in front of him, laying his head along their length. Born under a dark moon. Dark moon, she’d said. He stared off into the darkness, with its wan lichenlight, brooding.

  He must have dozed, for the next thing he knew was that the grotto had grown a little lighter, and the sound of the rain had stopped. He lifted his head from his knees, blinking and feeling stiff from sleep. He had dreamed something—he was aware of that, but could not remember what. He never remembered his dreams. Jan plucked a pale toadstool from the shore and ground its musty, woody flesh across his teeth, trying to remember. From the light reaching him around the bend, he guessed it must be midafternoon.

  The dream had been something about the water, or something in the water. Something swimming in the lichenlight, like a longfish, or an eel. Had it stood up before him, the white thing in the water? Swaying and flickering like . . . like . . . he could not say what. The image faded from him even as he strained for it. But he remembered he had shuddered, squirming as he looked at it, unable to turn away. And it had spoken his truename: Aljan, dark moon.

  When he had been very young, scarcely weaned, he had begun to have such dreams: dreams of snakes and stinging worms that woke him struggling, screaming night after night, till others of the herd began to mutter that the prince’s son must be accursed. Korr, in desperation, had sent for the healer’s mate, Tek’s mother, Jah-lila, to come and steal away Jan’s dreams.

  He had been so little then, it had been so long ago, and he had not seen the wild mare since. She rarely ever came into the Vale, and then always secretly, silently, like a shadow barely glimpsed; and she was gone again in an hour, about whatever business a magicker’s business might be, of which she never spoke. He remembered only dimly that time she had come to him, while his parents had stood back silent, troubled, out of the way. Dark rose in color, Jah-lila had knelt, lying down beside him, gazing into and through him with her black-green eyes.

  “Ho, little hotblood,” she had murmured. “Such a fighter, such a dreamer! Eat this now, and breathe in this. Sleep . . . dreamless . . . sleep.”

  She had given him bitter herbs to eat and chewed sweet herbs herself, breathed upon him and let him breathe her breath. He had slept then, at once, deep and restfully. And since that time he had never been able to remember his dreams.

  Jan finished the last of the woody toadstool and sipped from the dark cave pool beside him. The water was cool, tasteless. He watched the ripples widen and still. When the surface grew eye-smooth again, the lichens reflected there like a scatter of rose and pale blue stars. From the outer chamber, he heard his mother murmuring, as she had used to do for him, a lullaby to her unborn foal:

  “Hist, my lambling, quiet now,

  Lest a waiting wingcat hear

  With ears up-pricked and eyes aglow—

  Hush! Let him not find you, little pan.

  Still your cry, lie soft, and sleep.”

  Jan felt himself just slipping into sleep again. He clicked his teeth, stifling a yawn, when all at once something caught his eye. He blinked. The surface of the cave pool beside him was dancing. The images of the lichens trembled there. Sounds like something scraping, then sliding reached his ears. The pebbles beneath him shifted and seethed. There came a sudden rumbling roar in which the whole cave shuddered. Chips of stone from the ceiling fell. Dust rose in the air like winter fog.

  He heard his mother whinnying, his father snorting, choking on dust. Jan scrambled to his legs and dashed into the forepart of the grotto. A great rock shard from overhead smashed to the floor barely a pace from him. He shied and, as he did so, glimpsed Ses dodging out the cave’s entrance into the light.

  He sprang to follow, then stopped himself in a sudden panic. Where was Korr? Jan wheeled, casting about him through the dimness, through the dark, crying his father’s name. Then he heard the prince’s deep voice, “Go on!” and felt Korr’s massive frame shouldering him through the cave mouth into the outside air.

  Jan plunged through a rain of earth. Stones, some large as skulls, crashed with the rest. The rock ledge ahead was nearly buried. He saw his mother movi
ng heavily down the muddy, sliding slope to solid ground on the valley floor below.

  Jan felt a great concussion and wheeled to see Korr shying from a boulder’s path. It smashed to fragments. Jan felt a splinter dig into the flesh of his thigh. He stumbled, the soft earth sliding beneath his hooves. Muddy soil and pebbles pelted him as he struggled to rise—then his father’s teeth closed over the nape of his neck, half dragging, half hauling him out of the muck.

  Jan’s legs gave beneath him as he reached the valley floor. The pain in his injured leg was fierce. Ses was standing well back, out of the path of the slide, and he was aware, dimly, of other unicorns dashing from their caves, crying out in consternation, galloping toward them over meadow and slope. Jan tore his gaze back to the grotto.

  He saw the last of the rain-softened earth cascading down the slope, the broken stone and fragments of the great, smashed boulder . . . and then, above that, a flash of green, dusty blue, and gold. Two gryphons, a mated pair, perched on an outcropping above the cave. With an uprooted sapling, they levered root and soil, sending it surging down the hillside.

  Gryphons. Jan felt cold talons seize his heart. He remembered the flash of color, the two wingèd forms he had glimpsed from the lookout. Not eagles, gryphons—who had slipped into the Pan Woods beneath his very gaze.

  Jan heard his father trumpeting a war cry. Then a second cry sounded, joining Korr’s. Turning, Jan saw Dagg’s father, Tas. Other battle yells rose on the air: stallions trumpeting full and deep and wild, high clarions from the mares. Jan saw the wingcats dropping their lever, beginning to scramble up the hillside as Korr and a half-dozen others charged the slope.

  Jan staggered to his feet, moving to join them, but Ses swung in front of him, barring his path. “No, Jan,” she told him. “Let the warriors have it.”

  He tried to dodge her, but his bad leg made him slow. She caught him by the nape of the neck.