[Firebringer 03] - The Son of Summer Stars Page 2

  Just paces from the wood’s edge, Jan stared at nothing. Win back the Hills? The possibility rocked him. He had been waiting years for a sign from Alma that the time at last grew ripe to reclaim his people’s homeland. Now the goddess had spoken with the mouth of a serpent, slithering out of his children’s dreams to leave a bloodmark on his shank. The black prince of the unicorns shook himself, pressed on downslope. He must speak of this with Tek at once. The moment the thought formed in his mind, Dhattar glanced at him.

  “Not our dam,” he exclaimed. Beside him, Aiony added eagerly, “Lell’s the one you must go to now.”

  Jan turned at the mention of his younger sibling, barely four, a filly still herself. “Why is that?” he asked, baffled. “Where is Lell?”

  “With the great green eagle-thing,” the white foal answered.

  “The… the…” He frowned, searched for the word. “Catbird?”

  “Wingcat,” Aiony corrected, then turned to nip at her father’s beard. “Lell’s below us, just beyond the trees—at parley with a gryphon.”

  2.

  Parley

  Then Isha, mistress of the sky, turned to Ishi, lord of winds. ‘These gryphons, fiercest of all my chicks, shall know a token of my favor.’ With one mighty talon, she scratched the earth, creating a valley. With the touch of one wingtip, she brought it life: wooded slopes and grassy meadow. Here the wind god pastured his goats and deer. Here the blue-fletched formels sped each spring to capture first meat for their newly hatched young—until, four hundred winters past, your kind displaced Ishi’s sacred flocks. Now the formels find nothing to nourish their squabs but your bitter flesh. That is why, little unicorn, this vale belongs to my folk, not yours, no matter how many generations your forebears have trespassed here.”

  Green-feathered with a golden pelt, the gryphon poised on a jut of rock above the amber filly’s head. His coloring clearly marked him a tercel—a male—but so large a one that the young unicorn stood amazed: nearly the size of a blue-winged formel this grass-green raptor crouched. Lell stood motionless, half mesmerized by the tercel’s soft, guttural tone midway between a purr and a growl. The prince’s sister started suddenly. Not yet half-grown, her slim, straight horn still unkeened, Lell tossed her head, snorted and stamped. Her dam had warned her of wingcats’ charming their prey before they sprang.

  “A pretty song!” she cried. “But you must trill a sweeter one to capture me.” She shook her dark chestnut coat, shaggy from winter yet, unshed. Her pale mane splashed like milk. “Forty generations have my people defended this vale—we shall guard it forty more if need be. My brother the prince shall hear of your intrusion.” She ramped. “Wingcats are forbidden here. Begone!”

  One corner of the tercel’s mouth twitched in what might have been a smile.

  “Little unicorn,” he answered mildly, “attend. We gryphons are not the ones who trespass Ishi’s Vale. But consider: with the birth of your flock’s long-sought Firebringer, does not time at last betide you to depart and reclaim your Hallow Hills?”

  Lell felt her jaw loosen with surprise. How could this outlander know her people’s sacred prophecies? Green as river stones, the crouching gryphon’s cat’s eyes watched her.

  “Tell Prince Moonbrow,” he said, “that his shoulder-friend, Illishar of the Broken Wing, flies emissary from my kindred Malar, now wingleader of all the clans. She would parley a peace if, as your brother claims, you truly mean to relinquish this vale.”

  “We do! We must. He is Alma’s Firebringer!” Lell exclaimed, more than a little impressed at her own bravery in answering the huge raptor without a moment’s hesitation. The gryphon shrugged. His pinions flexed. The darkamber filly felt the wind they stirred. The sensation made her skin draw. She demanded, “When would your wingleader treat with my prince?”

  The tercel clucked. “When the new-hatched chicks are well grown enough to be left in their fathers’ care. Spring’s end, or early summer.”

  Lell frowned, thoughts racing. How would her brother, Jan, have responded? “Solstice falls at Moondance this year. Come then,” she called up, “on the night of the full moon marking the advent of summer.”

  The raptor spread huge, jewel-green wings. “So be it. I fly to bring word to my kin before the hatchlings pip.”

  Pinions fully extended, he stroked the air. Lell’s mane whipped. She stood astonished that he should accept her words so readily in her brother’s stead. Her heart quailed. An impulse filled her suddenly to bolt, but she stood her ground.

  “Tell Jan that in token of faith,” the gryphon said, “Malar will bar the formels from hunting Ishi’s Vale again this spring, so sparing your young a third year in a row.”

  Powerful wingbeats hummed. His voice sounded like a cat’s purr still. With a mighty bound and blurred thrashing of wings, the tercel was suddenly airborne. Despite herself, Lell flinched. The sweep of his pinions was startling. His shadow passed over her back and flanks.

  “We meet again in three months’ time, little unicorn,” he called, skimming out from the steep hillside and down.

  Had she leapt upward then, Lell realized, she could have grazed him. The rush of air dizzied her. Her horn tingled. The blood in her veins sang. Wheeling, she glimpsed the gryphon’s back before his furiously threshing wings gained him lift enough to veer, glide upward toward vale’s edge. She wheeled again, following his path with her eyes. The Pan Woods lay beyond the top of the rise.

  “Lell!” she cried after him, bounding up slope in his wake. “My name is Lell!”

  The gryphon neither checked nor turned. Still seeking altitude, his grass-green pinions winnowed the air. He soared away from her. Lell stumbled to a halt. The bright air seemed to burn where he had been. She wondered what it must be like to sail, free as a hawk, so far above the ground. Her withers tightened unexpectedly, aching almost, longing for wings. Grown small, the tercel passed beyond the hillcrest, disappeared from view. Heart still at full gallop, she realized she had been holding her breath.

  A sudden drumming of heels brought Lell’s head sharp around. The crack of trampled twigs reached her, and the crashing of brush. From wood’s edge, scant paces from her, rang out the battle-whistle of a warrior. A moment later, the black prince of the unicorns burst from the trees. Snorting, ramping, he cast fiercely about as though seeking a foe. Lell whinnied and reared, thrusting her young horn toward the empty sky.

  “Jan! Jan! Did you see him?” she cried. “My gryphon! He says his wingleader will come parley with us—at summer solstice, Moondance.”

  The solstice night fell still and clear, with sky above transforming to the dark, even blue of deep water. The round moon, burning silver as it climbed, paled a heaven pricked with summer stars. Pied Tek, the prince’s mate, danced in the great ring of unicorns cantering under the moon. White Dhattar and painted Aiony frisked beside her, pummeling one another with their soft weanlings’ hooves. The dancers trampled the thick, fragrant grass, kicking and scattering turf. Night breathed warm with coming summer and the panting and sweating of unicorns.

  All around her, Tek watched her fellows bowing and turning their heads to scratch their flanks with keen horntips, then reaching to prick the flanks of their fellows. Each full moon since equinox, they had done the same, ever since her mate had spoken of his battle with Alma’s serpent and of the magic in his blood. He had vowed to bestow it upon the entire herd. She herself had been the first. Each Moondance since, those already scratched had mingled their blood with the blood of others until after this night, all—from youngest newborn to most venerable elder—would by Alma’s grace stand forever proof against serpents and their stings.

  The pied mare shook herself for sheer exuberance and danced. She gazed at her weanling filly and foal traipsing ahead amid the swirling rush to butt at Lell with their blunt, barely sprouted horn-nubs. Laughing, the older filly chivvied and nipped at them. They sought refuge behind their granddam Ses. Pale cream with a mane and tail of flame, the mother of Jan and Lell ne
ver faltered in her step while the three colts cavorted, playing peekover and tag. Tek whistled Aiony and Dha back to her side.

  She spotted Jan ahead of them, emerging from the dancers. He ascended the council rise, a low mass of stone thrusting up from the valley floor. Around it the great moondance circled. Reaching the top of the rock, the young prince halted, his lean stallion’s form just entering its prime etched in shadow against the moon-washed hills. What a wonder I pledged as my mate, Tek smiled to herself, scant three years gone, by the Summer Sea. She admired the crest of his neck, length of his horn, his fine runner’s limbs.

  Around her, the dance began to subside, moon halfway along its journey to surmount the sky. She halted, gazed about as one by one, unicorns circling her and her offspring strayed to a stop, stood cropping grass or lay down on soft, cushioned earth. Tek, too, lay down with Dha and Ai, not far from Ses and Lell. She sensed the others’ expectancy from their skittish prancing, their restive whinnies and snorts. Her own mingled anticipation and trepidation made the pied mare’s skin twitch.

  On the rise above, her mate tensed suddenly. A ripple passed through the herd. Heads lifted. Necks craned. Gazing into the seamless silver sky, she, too, caught sight: gryphons, a dozen of them in a hollow wedge sailing the moonlit air, dark as cinders, silent as haunts or dreams. Tek’s herdmates shifted, jostled, murmured uneasily as the vee descended. A huge wingcat formel occupied the point, the intense blue of her plumage discernible even by moonlight. All were formels, the pied mare realized, save for one flanking the leader’s wing, the tips of his green tercel’s feathers nearly brushing hers. Scarcely smaller than his fellows, the lone male glided.

  Closer they drifted, and closer yet. Their shadows swept the silent herd. Tek felt the hairs of her pelt stiffen and lift. The thud of paws on rippled rock sounded in the stillness as the gryphons alighted on the council rise, first the wingleader, then the tercel beside her, then all the other blue-and-tawny formels of the vee. Tek felt her fellows tense, recoil ever so slightly. Only her mate stood at ease before their enemies, still fanning the air.

  The pied mare’s ears pricked. “Do you see him, Mother?” she heard Lell whispering. “The green one? My gryphon.”

  Tek saw the pale mare stroke her daughter once with a motherly tongue. “I see him,” Ses murmured. “Be still.”

  On the rise, the gryphon leader crouched before Jan, her blue feathers sheened with moonlight. Her monstrous wings thrashed vigorously. Tek felt their buffeting even here. The musky odor of raptors and pards reached her, making her flesh draw. Above, Jan stood quiet, waiting until the formel subsided, lashing her lion’s tail against one tawny flank. Her feathers roughed, then lay smooth.

  “Hail, Jan, prince of unicorns.”

  The pied mare started. The formel’s voice was surprisingly cat-like, throaty and smooth, with none of the raucousness of eagles’ cries.

  “Hail, Malar, wingleader of the gryphons,” the prince replied. “Be welcome in our Vale.”

  Tek heard him perfectly. His words traveled to the rocky slopes, rang ever so softly there. The formels behind their leader stirred, muttering, their green eyes glinting. Only the tercel remained impassive. The gryphon leader cocked her head, eyeing Jan with one cat-slit eye.

  “This was our Vale once,” she said, “entrusted to us by the sky goddess Isha, fold to the sacred flocks of her consort Ishi. Your kind’s coming drove those flocks away.”

  Again, the formels behind her shifted, snapping bills. Tek thought she heard a low-pitched growl. Her own people moved restlessly. She caught sound of a snort, a stamp, a toss of mane. Dhattar and Aiony leaned sleepily against her. Tek bent to nuzzle them, her eyes still on the rise.

  “And at our departure,” the prince answered Malar firmly, “it is my hope that your wind god’s sheep and deer will abundantly return. My people took refuge in this place centuries past. Driven from our home, we never knew we trespassed here. But now our goddess tells us to reclaim ancestral lands. We must depart, but we would not go as enemies. Hear the tale of our first coming to the Vale. My mate would sing you that lay of our long exile and the treachery of wyverns. Ho, Tek! Will you come?”

  Tek felt her heart thump. This was the moment she had awaited all evening and dreaded all spring. The warm odor of wingcats filled her nostrils as she rose. Dhattar and Aiony slept. The pied mare’s hooves grated on the hard, worn stone as she ascended the council rise. She and her mate exchanged a glance. Jan pressed his shoulder to hers, but said no word. His presence steadied her. The gryphons’ beaks and talons glinted. Their moon-shot eyes gleamed.

  “Greetings, Malar, queen of gryphons,” Tek hailed them. Her voice sounded even enough. Within her ribs, her heart bucked and churned. “I have met your kind in battle time and again and never dreamed to stand at peaceful parley with you. But my mate assures me that two years past, he and your cousin set aside their enmity.”

  She glanced toward the green-winged tercel flanking the queen. He acknowledged her gesture with a nod, but spoke no word. His wingleader kept her eyes fixed on Tek.

  “I stand ready to make that same peace with you, Queen Malar,” the pied mare said, “though we children-of-the-moon have suffered much at the claws of wingcats.”

  She inclined her head toward her sleeping young, nestled side to side on the grass below, and glimpsed the gryphon leader’s headcrest rear, subside. Malar’s bill snicked shut. Tek felt her mate’s side pressed to hers. He was holding his breath. Behind their queen, the gryphons shifted. One of the formels hissed, but at a sharp glance from the tercel, fell still. Tek felt Jan’s breath let out and dared to breathe.

  “I would sing you the Lay of the Unicorns,” the pied mare told the wingcat queen, “which tells of my people’s expulsion from the Hallow Hills. Then the Lay of Exile would I sing, recounting how we found and claimed this unsettled valley, gaining haven from wandering.”

  Malar seemed to consider, her moonlit eyes half-shut. From the hard clench of Jan’s neck beside her, Tek knew his teeth were set. His breath came in little silent spurts. Her own heart thundered.

  “In return,” the prince’s mate continued, “will you sing us your own tales of this vale, that we may learn the whole history of the place we mean soon to leave forever?”

  The wingleader of the gryphons glanced furtively at the green-winged tercel beside her. He preened one shoulder, all seeming unconcern. Tek saw one corner of the gryphon queen’s mouth quirk momentarily into a smile. Returning her gaze to the pied mare, Malar bowed her great eagle’s head and moved back to give the pied mare ground.

  “So be it,” the gryphon leader purred.

  Jan, too, fell back, leaving Tek alone on the center of the rise. All around, her herdmates listened. The gryphons waited with up-pricked ears. She felt her mate’s eyes watching her. Tek raised her voice and sang of how, forty generations past, wyverns had invaded the unicorns’ rightful lands far to the balmy north. Under guise of friendship, the white wyrmlord Lynex had befriended the unicorns’ aged king, then used sorcery to addle the old stallion’s wits, blinding him to the wyverns’ schemes.

  Only Princess Halla had spied the coming betrayal—but her warnings were ignored. In treacherous ambush, wyverns stung to death most of the unicorn warhost, and slew nearly all the rest with fire. Only Halla and her few, desperate followers escaped, fleeing coldward—south—across the Plain. Coming at last upon a vast, deserted vale, the unicorns gladly claimed it, here to spend long exile awaiting the coming of Alma’s appointed, who was to lead them back in triumph to the Hallow Hills.

  Tek fell silent, the tale run out. Her words rebounded from the distant slope, hung singing faintly under the round white belly of the pregnant moon now poised high overhead. Below, colts and fillies slept beside their walking sires and dams, all recumbent now. Even some of the gryphons reposed, pard-like, their wings no longer ruffled and half-raised, but folded close. All around burned the thousand thousand summer stars which were the goddess Alma’s eyes. T
he pied mare swallowed, throat dry as dust. Her singer’s calm broke then, leaving her stranded on the moonlit council rise, confronting gryphons.

  3.

  Gryphonsong

  I am that Firebringer,” the black prince of the unicorns said, “which our prophets foretold.”

  Tek fell back as her mate moved forward. She lay down on the council rise, not far behind Jan. The stone held no warmth. The late spring air had cooled. Her mate and Malar faced one another across a low pile of brush to which the pied mare had paid no heed earlier. Jan’s words hung in the motionless air. The gryphon wingleader’s eyes seemed never to blink. The prince spoke on.

  “Time approaches for my people to end our long exile.”

  The next instant, in one deft motion, he bowed his head and struck the tip of his horn against one heel. A rain of sparks leapt up. The pile of deadwood crackled and caught. Tek realized then it must have been for this purpose that the brush had been gathered. The gryphons’ eyes grew wide at the sight of fire, their cats’-pupils slitting. Behind their leader, panicked formels crowded back. Only Malar’s nearest companion, the tercel, held steady. He had seen her mate’s firemaking before, the pied mare mused, when they had made their privy peace on the shores of the Summer Sea. Ruffled, Malar herself did not retreat, but peered into the crackling blaze.

  “How soon? How soon will you depart?” A purr thrummed in her throat. She leaned closer to the warmth.

  “Next spring,” Jan answered, “once the grass on the Plain is sprung and last year’s nurslings are weaned.”

  The formel raised one feathered brow.

  “Suckling mares cannot join in battle,” the prince of the unicorns explained. “And battle there will be, despite our having grown proof against the stings of our foes. The Hallow Hills will not be easily won.”

  Malar stirred beside the fire, lifting one wing to allow its heat to reach her side. She was silent so long, Tek wondered if she had fallen asleep.