[Firebringer 02] - Dark Moon Read online

  Listening, Jan found his thoughts straying to the fierce, furtive pans, whose territory he and his band must on the morrow begin to cross in order to reach the Summer Sea. Bafflement and frustration over the worsening gryphon raids crowded his mind as well, mingled with thoughts of the distant wyverns and this fitful, generations-long impasse his people termed a war.

  Heavily, Jan shook his head. The moon upon his forehead burned. Somehow, he must find a way to conquer all these enemies and return his people to the Hallow Hills. Legend promised that he could do so only with fire. Yet he possessed no fire and no knowledge of fire, no notion of where the magical, mystical stuff could be found—not even the goddess’s word on where to begin.

  Alma, speak to me! he cried inwardly.

  But the divine voice that had once guided him so clearly held silent still. Despair champed at him. Teki quit the rise, his lay ended. Jan sighed wearily and stretched himself upon the springy turf. Dagg sprawled alongside him, head down, eyes already closed. Before him, Jan saw Tek, too, lay down her head. The moon, directly above, gazed earthward in white radiance. Jan shut his eyes. Others all around, he knew, already slumbered.

  He felt himself drift, verge into dreams. Tangled thoughts of his people’s adversaries and his own impossible destiny washed away from him. Even memory of Korr’s harsh, disapproving stare faded. In dreams, the young prince moved through mysterious dances along a golden-shored green sea. Before him galloped a proud, fearless mare, her name unknown to his dreaming self, though she reminded him of none so strongly as the legendary princess Halla—save that this nameless, living mare had a coat not red, but parti-colored jet and rose, and green, green gryphon’s eyes.

  2.

  Summer

  Tek tossed her mane, wild with the running. Wet golden sand scrunched between the two great toes of each cloven hoof. Alongside her, companions frisked through cool green waves. Summer sea breeze sighed warm and salt in her nostrils, mingling with the distant scent of pines. Ahead of her, the prince loped easily along the strand, his long-shanked, lean frame well-muscled as a stag’s. She loved the look of him, all energy and grace. What a stallion he would make when he was grown! Tek laughed for sheer delight.

  High grassy downs bordered the shore. Jan led the band toward the maze of tidal canyons known as the Singing Cliffs. Wind fluted through their honeycombs like panpipes, a plaintive, sobbing, strangely beautiful sound. Above their soughing rose the shrieks and ranting of the seabirds which nested there.

  Far overhead one speck among the myriad began spiraling earthward. Head up, the pied mare halted alongside Dagg as the prince whistled his band to a standstill. Other specks glided effortlessly down, blue as the sky in which they sailed. Soon they dropped low enough for Tek to distinguish long wings and slender necks, sharp, bent bills and lanky, web-footed legs.

  In another moment, they began alighting on the sand. One heron, taller than the rest, her eye roughly level with Jan’s shoulder, fanned her feathery head-crest to reveal deep coral coloring under the dusty blue.

  “Greetings, Tlat, far-roving windrider,” Jan hailed her. “Peace to you and to your flock.”

  The leader of the herons clapped her bill and studied Jan with one coral-colored eye. Behind and around her, her people bobbled, folding their elongated wings with difficulty.

  “So. Jan,” she called in her high, raucous voice. “The prince of unicorns returns.”

  “Yes, I am returned,” the dark stallion answered. “Last year found me no mate, so this year I must try again.”

  “Ah!” the seaheron cried. Bobbing and clattering, her people echoed her.

  “How fared your own courting this past spring?” Jan inquired as the herons subsided.

  Obviously pleased, Tlat groomed her breast. “Ah!” she piped. “The crested cranes—tried to steal our nesting grounds again this year. Ah! We drove them off.”

  The prince nodded solemnly. Breathing in the tangy sea breeze and feeling the deep, steady warmth of sun upon her back, Tek bit down a smile. Every year the same report. Though the cliffs held ample nesting sites for all, the ritual clash between herons and cranes continued spring after spring. Tlat gabbled on.

  “Now the nests are built, the hatchlings fat and sleek with down. My own brood numbers six! My consorts and I press hard to feed them all.”

  Behind her, several of the smaller birds, males, began to step in circles, ruffling and fanning their crests. Tek counted half a dozen of them: one consort to father each chick? Jan bowed to them.

  “My greetings to your mates, and to your unseen young as well. I trust we will meet when their wing-feathers grow?”

  “Yes! Doubtless!” screamed Tlat proudly. “But we cannot stay. Our squabs cry out to us from the cliffs, and we must not let them hunger. Greetings and farewell!”

  Tek glimpsed the red chevron on the underside of each pinion as the windriders shook out their wings.

  Bowing, Jan replied, “The herons have been our allies for generations. We do not forget the debt we owe. Our courting dances will be the more joyous for your greeting.”

  “Good!” screeched Tlat. “Beware the stinging sea-jells washed up on shore today. Though they are delicious to our kind, we know you find them unpleasant.”

  The heron queen stretched her neck and stood on toes.

  “Welcome, children-of-the-moon! May your summer here prove fruitful—though how odd that your kind takes but a single mate. Unicorns are strange beasts.” Abruptly, the stiff wind caught her, plucking her away almost before the pied mare could blink. Other seaherons followed, rising light as chaff. Tek joined Jan and her fellows in bowing again to the departing herons.

  “Good winds and fair weather attend you,” the prince called after them. Tek was not sure they could hear him above the thrash of surf and eerie crooning of the Cliffs. The windriders had already dwindled to mere motes overhead. A moment later, she lost sight of them, swallowed by the fierce blue, cloudless sky.

  Stinging sea-jells did indeed lie beached downshore as the windriders had warned. Jan kept his people out of the waves until the next tide swept the bladderlike creatures with their trailing tendrils away. Summer passed in a headlong rush. The young prince felt himself growing, bones lengthening, muscles massing. He was ravenous and glad of the freely abundant forage. The sky held mostly warm and fair.

  He devoted a good part of his day to chasing the other young half-growns and setting them to races and mock-battles, dances and games. Herons brought news of shifts in the wind so that Jan could whistle his band to shelter in the tangled thickets well before any storm. What time he did not spend tending the band he passed with Dagg, exploring inland at low tide along the Singing Cliffs, stopping now and again for a furious round of fencing.

  Tek’s admirers, he noted testily, were even thicker this year than last. Yet she seemed to pay them as little heed as ever. Once or twice, he even noted her ordering some overly bold young stallion smartly off. More and more, the young prince observed, the healer’s daughter sought him out, teasing him away from the band—even from Dagg—to run with her along the wet, golden beach, dodging through dunes, or up onto the highlands above the cliff-lined shore.

  Though he knew she could only be doing so to gain respite from bothersome suitors, Jan found himself increasingly willing to be led away. The pied mare’s every word, her every move fascinated him. He loved to brush against her smooth, hard flank in play or simply prick ear to the cadence of her voice.

  Long summer days ambled lazily by, the starry evenings fleetingly brief. With each passing moon, the high sun of summer gradually receded toward the southern horizon. Now it shone nearly directly overhead at noon. Nights lengthened: soon they would overtake the days in span. Equinox, marking the summer’s end, crept up on the young prince unawares.

  He and Tek chased across the high downs above the shore, wind whipping their manes and beards. Overhead, herons soared, diving like dropped stones into the shallows of the Sea, fishing for squid. Te
k laughed, plunging to a halt at cliff’s edge. Frothed with foam, the surging green waters below shaded into ultramarine at the far horizon. Shouldering beside her, Jan was surprised to find himself now taller than she. Had he truly grown so in these last swift months?

  Tek tossed her head. The rose and black strands of her mane stung against his neck. The Gryphon Mountains stood barely within sight across the vast bay, but Jan spared them scarcely a thought. Never had unicorns summering upon the Sea been troubled by raiders. Wingcats attacked unicorns only within the Vale, and only at first spring. Spotting his shoulder-friend on the smooth beach below, in the thick of a group of sparring warriors, Jan felt a sudden chill.

  “We should go back,” he said. “We’ve left Dagg.”

  The healer’s daughter shrugged. “He is with companions”—she eyed him coolly—“and seems content.”

  Jan snorted, champing. “We leave him much alone these days.” Even so high above the shore, he still caught the faint click of parrying horns. Wind gusted and sighed. Farther down the strand, another knot of young half-growns frisked, fishing fibrous kelp from the waves and playing tussle-tug. Salt seethed heavy in the wind. Abruptly, Jan turned to Tek.

  “You are ever luring me off these days, even from our shoulder-friend. Will not Dagg’s company do as well as mine to keep your admirers at bay?”

  Tek laughed. “Dagg may be my shoulder-friend as well,” she answered, watching him aslant. “But he is not the one I am courting, prince.”

  Jan felt surprise slip through him like a thorn. He stared at her. She could not have knocked the wind from him more thoroughly if she had kicked him.

  “What, what do you mean?” he demanded. “I’m far too callow—”

  “Are you?” the healer’s daughter asked. “So speaks your sire! But what say you?” She sidled, teasing, nipping at him with her words. “Three times before have I come to the courting shore—each time only to depart unpaired. The first two summers, I was newly initiated, just barely half-grown. Last year, it was the one on whom I’d set my eye who was just freshly bearded, unready yet to eye the mares. This year, though, while young yet, he has wit enough to know his own heart—and I count him well grown.”

  She shouldered him. Jan looked at her, unable to utter a word. A sudden fire consumed him at her touch.

  “Hear me, prince,” the pied mare said, “for I begin to chafe. Long have I waited for you to catch me up.” She shied from him, circling, leading him. The dark unicorn followed as by a gryphon mesmerized. “Surely you do not mean to make me wait forever?”

  Trailing after Tek, Jan felt himself growing lost. Her eyes drew him in like the surging Sea. In their jewel-green depths, he saw of a sudden possibilities he had never before dared contemplate: Tek dancing the courting dance with him under the equinox moon, the two of them running the rest of their days side to side, unparted by any other—and in a year or two years’ time, fillies, foals….

  “I—I must think on this,” he stammered, stumbling to a stop, and cursed himself inwardly for sounding like a witless foal. Tek only smiled.

  “Think quickly, prince. Equinox falls in only six days’ time. Five nights hence, we dance the dance.” She snorted, shaking her mane. The scent of her was like rosehips and seafoam. “Remember my words,” she said saucily, “come equinox.”

  She sidled against him, nuzzled him, her teeth light as a moth’s wing against his skin. Jan shivered as Tek broke from him, flying away across the downs, skirting the cliff’s edge and heading for the steep slope angling down toward shore. Dumbstruck, the prince of the unicorns stared after her. By the time he had gathered both wit and limb, she was already gone.

  “So you’ve decided,” the dappled warrior remarked. Jan and he trotted along the narrow strand flanking the Singing Cliffs. Tide was out, affording them passage. The sea breeze hooted and sighed through the twisting canyons.

  The young prince halted, unable to mistake his shoulder friend’s meaning. “How did you know?”

  Dagg whinnied. “I’ve known since spring. I wish you both joy.”

  His mirth had a strangely painful ring. Hearing it, Jan became suddenly aware that Dagg had no young mare like Tek with whom to spend his hours and dream of one day dancing court. Jan shook himself. The thought of making the pledge himself and leaving Dagg behind, unpaired, made his skin taut.

  “Hist, nothing’s decided until the eve of equinox!” he cried, shouldering against the younger stallion. “Come, you’ve time yet to make a choice—any number of mares would spring to pledge with you. What of that filly I saw you sparring with the other day? The slim, long-legged blue…”

  “What—Gayasa’s daughter, Moro?” Dagg laughed again, in earnest this time. “She’s barely got her beard; she was only made warrior this spring past—far too young.” He shook his head. “And so am I. Another year.”

  Turning, he broke into a trot. Jan loped after him. “It doesn’t have to be,” he said urgently.

  Dagg halted, stood gazing off across the green and foaming waves. “She’s not among us,” he said at last. “She’s not yet here for me to pledge.”

  Jan frowned, not following. The dappled warrior turned.

  “Do you recall,” he asked quietly, “the night of our initiation two springs past?”

  Jan nodded slowly: the night when initiates to the Ring of Warriors became, for one brief instant, dreamers, to whom Alma granted glimpses of their destinies.

  “Tek says she saw the foretold Firebringer,” continued Dagg, “moon-browed, star-heeled.”

  The young prince shook the forelock out of his eyes, digging nervously at the shell-embedded shore with his left hind heel. Aye, marked as the Firebringer, he thought miserably, but without so much as an inkling of where I’m to find my fire! Dagg glanced at him.

  “You yourself beheld visions of the goddess’s Great Dance.”

  Jan shrugged and sidled. And only darkness since: not even a whisper of a dream.

  “What did you see?” he asked his friend suddenly. “You’ve never said.”

  Dagg closed his eyes. “I saw a mare,” he said, “small, but exquisitely made, high-headed, her coat a strange bright hue such as none I’ve ever seen. Each Moondance, I’ve scanned the assembled herd….” He opened his eyes and turned to look at Jan. “Even though I know my search is hopeless. Her mane stands upright along her neck. Her tail falls silky as a mane. Her chin is beardless, no horn upon her brow. Each hoof is one great solid, single toe.”

  The young prince stared at him, dumbstruck. Dagg nodded. “Aye. She’s not of the Ring, Jan,” he whispered. “She’s a renegade.”

  Frowning, Jan shook his head. “You and I both know those legends of outlaws losing their horns when banished from the Vale are only old mares’ tales.”

  Dagg stood silent. Again, the young prince shook his head.

  “Yet, if not a Plainsdweller,” he murmured, “what manner of mare could this dream creature be?”

  The dappled warrior snorted, shrugged, his pale eyes full of pain. “I’ve no notion. I only know she is my destiny—and I’ll never find her in the Vale.”

  They both stood silent then. The breeze through the near Cliffs hummed and shuddered. Cranes wheeled screaming among the herons overhead. Tide came foaming in, wetting the two unicorns’ cloven hooves, eating away the beach. The prince’s shoulder-friend leaned hard against him.

  “Jan, don’t wait for me,” he said. “Alma alone knows when I’m to find my mate. You’ve already found yours. Don’t hold off. Don’t spoil your own happiness—and Tek’s—because I can’t join you this year in the pledge.”

  Jan turned to study his friend. Favoring one foreleg, Dagg forced a grin. Half-rearing, he smote at the dark unicorn smartly with his heels. Jan whistled and shied, fencing with him, grateful and relieved. He felt as though he had tossed a hillcat from his shoulders. Wheeling, Dagg sprinted away. Jan sprang to follow, and the two galloped back along the seacliffs to rejoin the band.

  On t
he night before equinox, the firefish were running: small, many-armed creatures that swirled luminous like stars through the great bay’s pellucid water. They filled its breadth with a blaze of rose and pale blue light. The herons celebrated the advent of the firefish with noisy whoops, diving from moonlit air into the midst of those swarming near the surface of the waves, tentacles entwined, about their own strange courting rites.

  Other windriders skimmed low, their bent bills laden with tangled, suckered arms as they snatched prey from the combers. Their eerie, loonlike cries and staccato splashes sounded through the cool, motionless air. For once, the Singing Cliffs held silent, no wind to wake their ghostly song. Jan and Dagg stood at the edge of a tangled thicket, watching herons and firefish and foaming sea as evening fell.

  “Moon’s up,” Dagg told him.

  The huge, mottled disk hung just above the far Gryphon Mountains to the east, dwarfing them, paling the stars. Its light made a long path of brightness across the placid bay. Jan nodded.

  Dagg fell in beside him as he turned and trotted through the verges of the thicket. Jan’s ears pricked. Above the herons’ distant plash and cry, the quiet rush of waves along the shore, he heard the sounds of unicorns gathering: snorts and shaking, the dunning of hoofbeats, a restless stamp.

  He and Dagg emerged from the trees. Horn-browed faces turned expectantly as the dark prince loped to the center of the dancing glade, a circular, open space at grove’s heart, trampled clean of vegetation by generations of unicorns. He halted, chivvying, his own blood running high. His restless followers milled and fidgeted, anxious to declare their choices in the dance. Jan tossed his head.

  “This is the night we have all awaited,” he told them. “Let those who know their hearts choose mates tonight, pledging faith to one another in the eyes of Alma for all time!”