Birth of the Firebringer ft-1 Page 3

  Fear, like a sea-jell, lay cold on Jan’s breast. He felt someone else slip up beside him. “Are you hale, Jan? Your leg’s bleeding.”

  Jan shook his head, blinking hard, and did not turn.

  Dagg seemed to take no notice. “By the Circle, I never thought I’d see a real one, a gryphon! I never thought they’d dare come here. And after the prince…!”

  Jan drew in his breath and held it then, for he felt somehow he might begin to shake, or fall, if he so much as breathed. Ses and Tas were supporting Korr back up slope a little way, toward better light. Teki followed them, his distinctive white and black coloring catching the sun. The valley floor was slipping into shade.

  “…you go with them?” he heard Dagg saying. “The healer should look at you, too.”

  And suddenly Jan did not think he could bear to be near another living creature, even Dagg. He wheeled, bolting away from his friend, and struck out across the meadow toward the near wooded slope. He had no earthly notion of where he was going, but he had to be alone.

  Outcast

  Jan sprinted toward the wooded slopes, his thoughts in a roil. He felt the others were looking at him, as though his guilt somehow blazed visible. But more than that, he feared Korr knew. It was his fault gryphons had slipped into the Vale, his fault his father had been wounded.

  How badly? Jan shoved the thought away and galloped harder as the floor of the valley turned upward. The splinter of stone in his thigh muscle gouged him, but the shame he felt stung him more. He was unworthy—he had always known. Unworthy of Korr or to be called the prince’s heir. Why was he so different from others? He clenched his teeth against the tightness in his throat, and fled into the trees.

  It was late afternoon. The clouds above had spent themselves and were pulling apart like wet seed tufts. Swatches of the yellow sky shone through. Jan climbed a little way, then rested, surveying the wood about him bleakly. Droplets glistened on the fir needles; the cedar bark was damp. The sun hung westering, and everything smelled clean.

  His injured leg had begun to ache in earnest now. The thigh muscle felt strained. Jan nibbled at the wound, working the splinter free, then spat it out, tasting blood: It had cut his tongue. He climbed on. When he reached the lookout knoll, he found Tek standing there and halted, startled. She wheeled.

  “You,” she cried, her eyes bright, throat tense. “And what brings you back, prince’s son—come to gaze on the sunset after the storm?”

  Jan stood, hardly knowing what to say. “I came to be alone,” he managed.

  She studied him. “I saw what befell,” she said. Her voice was husky. “From across the meadow—the gryphons. I’d just emerged; the others were all still under hill. I saw a form of green and gold, then one of tawny blue come down the far hillside, dragging a great tree limb. They began to lever up the rock and earth above your grotto. I gave a cry—I don’t think anyone heard—but I was too far away to join the warriors.”

  Jan gazed at her, but could think of nothing. “My father’s wounded.”

  Tek nodded. “My father was sent for.”

  Jan eyed his hooves. The breath caught in his throat. “It’s my doing,” he mumbled.

  Tek threw up her head, eyes flashing. He thought at first it was with anger. “You?” she cried, and he realized then it was with astonishment. “I was the one posted lookout.” Her voice grew tighter, almost choking. She gasped between clenched teeth. “But I let myself be tricked away…oh! Just like a foal not yet a warrior. Just like an uninitiated foal.”

  Jan started to interrupt. “No. I saw them from afar. I thought…” But then he choked himself off, realizing what she had said. Initiation. The spring rite of Pilgrimage lay less than a month off.

  Each new year, as soon as the forage had sprung upon the Great Grass Plain, the prince of the unicorns led a chosen band to the sacred well of their race. A few of the band were warriors, acting as escorts; the rest, initiates, those fillies and foals adjudged worthy of drinking from the well. In doing so, they would cast off their childhood and join the Ring of Warriors.

  Jan and Dagg had hoped to join the Circle this season, together, though Dagg was younger than the prince’s son. Jan’s parents had held him back from Pilgrimage the spring before—it was not uncommon. His mother had said gently that he needed another year of colt’s play. Korr had told him more curtly that his hot head needed to cool.

  Jan felt a sinking in his chest. Korr would hold him back again—the thought stung him more sharply than shame. He would be scorned, thought of forever not as the prince’s son, but as the young firebrand who had let the gryphons in and was not fit to be made a warrior. And he knew what became of those who never drank of the well in the sacred rite of passage. He had heard the fate of Renegades in singers’ tales.

  They ceased to be unicorns. Banned from the herd, they saw their horns rot to the skull bone and fall away, their heels lose their fringe of feathery hair and their ears their tufted tassels. No fine, soft beards ever sprouted along their chins. Their cloven hooves grew together, each into a single toe: strange solid hooves that left round imprints in the dust. Renegades grew old before their time, and died young.

  Jan started suddenly, coming back to himself. He saw Tek’s green eyes on him from the lookout knoll.

  “He’ll hold me back,” he blurted out. “My father will keep me from the rite again.”

  Tek’s gaze had lost its hardness. She nodded a bare trace and said quietly, “Aye, princeling. I think he may.”

  Anguish welled in Jan. What could he do? Despair enveloped him and he felt himself sliding down its dark throat toward nothing. The prince would make no announcement. Nothing would be said at large—he would not be publicly disgraced.

  But everyone would hear of it. His unworthiness would be revealed at last. It would be known—it would be known! Panic gripped him. Jan wheeled, clenching his teeth to keep from crying out, and bolted away into the trees. Tek called after him, but did not follow. Her shouts soon faded.

  He found himself running along the ridge and plunged over the hillcrest down the wooded slope. He was on the far side now, the side that faced the Pan Woods. This was forbidden territory, even to warriors—but no matter. Better to wander the rest of his days in the goatling woods than to go back disgraced and face another year denied the Ring.

  He halted suddenly and bowed his head, running the tip of his horn along the outer edge of each forehoof once, twice, a half dozen times in short, unpracticed strokes. This, too, was forbidden. Colts were banned from sharpening their hooves and horns. By Law, only the warriors were allowed.

  But he was an outcast now, a Renegade, and must be his own Law. And if the pans came upon him in the woods, he meant to draw their blood before they dragged him down. He ran on then, blindly, fleeing a great, looming fear he could not name. He wished the earth might open and swallow him.

  Without warning the ground beneath him shifted, gave way suddenly, and he was plunging. Rain-soaked soil crumbled about his legs and he slid headlong, dropping abruptly, and landed with a jolt that knocked the breath from him. Something tumbled past his head, struck him a glancing blow behind the ear, then thudded softly to the dirt beside him. A stone.

  The place was very dim; he could scarcely see. Straining for breath, he shook his head. It was exceedingly quiet. The fall of earth and rock had made almost no sound. He lay a few moments, his legs folded awkwardly beneath him, a little stunned, and not at all certain what had just happened.

  His head cleared. His breath came back, and Jan was able to take in his surroundings. He lay on a heap of earth in the narrow opening of a cave, a mere crack in the hillside, very close and dark. Glancing up, he saw some of the roof overhanging the grotto’s mouth must have collapsed when he stumbled across it. And a good thing, too, he realized with a start, or else in his blind gallop he might have run right off the cliff.

  He picked himself up warily, still giddy with relief. None of his bones seemed to be broken. Only his bad leg
hurt. He stood now half in, half out of the cave, and the sky behind him was brightening to flame. What rags of cloud were left were infused with red. A little of that light reflected off the lip of the entryway.

  Jan peered ahead of him into the dimness, but could make out nothing. He listened, hearing nothing. The narrow space smelled old and goaty. But presently, his nostrils quivered as a new scent reached him, strange and musky—not one he recognized. Jan frowned, breathing deeper, and limped forward a few paces into the earthy darkness of the cave.

  His eyes had grown accustomed now, and he discerned the uneven wall opposite the one near which he stood, the continuation of the grotto’s crevice back into the rock. He started forward again—but halted suddenly. A large mound lay at the back of the cave, just before where the chamber narrowed to a crack too close and dark to see beyond.

  The half-light from the outside had grown warmer, redder as the unseen sun dropped lower in the sky. Jan’s vision improved: tawny fur and azure feathers. The musky odor swam in his head. At the back of the grotto, not five paces from him, lay some animal….

  His heart contracted, jerking him back. Jan recognized a gryphon curled upon its side, wings folded, limbs drawn against its body. Its head was turned to one side, beak tucked beneath one wing. Its eyes were closed.

  Its furred and feathered side rose, fell softly with each breath. There was blood upon its feathers, its talons rust colored with blood. Its wings looked battered, its fur muddy and wet. It lay still and bedraggled, like a newly pipped hatchling, as though the earth itself had just given it birth.

  The formel. Jan started backward again as he realized. This was the formel of the pair that had attacked them—but she was dead! She must be. He himself—they had all seen her plunge out of the sky beyond the lookout knoll, surely to her death? He wondered now, his thoughts spinning. Perhaps she had struggled free of her dead mate at the last moment. Perhaps the drop had not been so great as it had seemed.

  All at once a new thought brought him up short: Even his father had been deceived. If Korr had so much as suspected one of the pair had survived, he would have sent warriors to comb the woods and hunt it down. Once again Jan’s mind sprinted. If this wingcat were allowed to escape safe home, next storm she might return, bringing others of her kind, well assured how easily they might strike against the prince of the unicorns and live.

  Jan eyed the sleeping formel. All thoughts of his self-made exile vanished; his coltish boasts to Dagg vanished as well. The wingcat was three times his size. Alone against her, he had no chance; but if he ran like wildfire, he might just have time to raise the alarm in the Vale and summon the warriors before dusk. Jan backed slowly toward the egress of the cave.

  The sun must have moved very slightly in the sky. The light on the cave wall shifted. A ray of red sunlight eased across the gryphon’s eye, and Jan felt himself go rigid. The formel stirred, sighing heavily, then coiled herself tighter in her napping ball. Jan in midstep waited, waited, waited. The wingcat did not stir again. Jan put his hoof down very carefully and raised the next.

  “Jan!”

  He started. The voice echoed so loud in the close, oppressive stillness that for a moment he could have sworn it had sounded just beside him.

  “Jan!”

  He realized then it was a long shout, coming from the outside. Someone was calling him from up the slope. The call came again, nearer this time: Dagg. Dagg had come looking for him. Jan stood frozen in the dusky dimness barely ten paces from the sleeping wingcat. He wished feverishly that his friend would hurry and pass on, give up the search, or else be still.

  “Jan!”

  This last shout was closer, louder, more insistent. He saw the formel’s ears twitch once. Her cat’s eye opened slowly, fixing on him—then snapped wide. He felt as if the air had vanished from his throat.

  “Jan!”

  Dagg’s voice had grown impatient, anxious now. The wingcat started up. Jan shied and scrambled back from her, feeling his hindquarters come up hard against the wall. He stared at the gryphon. The gryphon stared at him.

  “Come hunting, little princeling?” the gryphon said. “Found me out in my cave just as we found you out in yours, my mate and I.”

  The formel moved, leaning forward into the sunlight. Her pupils constricted into slits. Jan felt his heart galloping inside his ribs.

  “Your father killed my mate not this hour past,” she told him quietly, tentatively, cat-and-mouse. “Your father is a mighty warrior, is he not? Kilkeelahr was a mighty warrior as well among my people, was my mate.”

  Jan was aware of the hard stone wall pressing his flank and side, of the sweat beneath the long hairs of his coat. Cold fear had begun to numb him.

  “But he fell out of favor with the high clans,” the formel murmured, singsong, seductively. “Fell out of favor, did my mate. But I dreamed a dream. A white salamander spoke to me. So I proposed this foray, to kill the black prince of the unicorns, and buy our way back into power with glory.”

  The light of dusk played across the colors of her eyes as she spoke, poured in and among them like water, making them gleam. Gazing into those eyes, Jan felt his mind slacken. It seemed he could see mountains, canyons, many gryphons in the formel’s eye. Her voice took on a cutting edge. He hardly noticed.

  “Why ever did you ítichi come here? Northern plainsdwellers, asking no one’s leave to settle. Our leaders have had enough of you; it will not be many years before all the clans are united and Isha grants our prayers for fair winds. Then we will come in a body and harry you out.”

  The light in the formel’s eye shifted and spangled. Jan saw flocks of gryphons swooping and fighting, tearing each other’s nests, pashing each other’s eggs and carrying off one another’s young—things such as he had never seen or heard in ballad or lay.

  “Why do you trouble the demesnes of the gryphons? This was our land before you stole it.”

  Around the iris of each of her eyes circled a narrow band of gold: a thin, bright ring that went round and over, over and round. Jan felt his limbs melting away. There was a serpent in the gryphon’s eye, he realized slowly, a snake and a hawk that danced and circled one another. The formel’s voice lilted, drifting in and out of his thoughts.

  “Your father escaped our plans and cut down my mate. This night the pans will feast on him—on me as well, they would have, had I not torn myself free among the trees…. But do not think you will escape me, little princeling.”

  The hawk snatched the snake in its talons. The serpent coiled about the falcon’s feet and stung it in the throat. The falcon screamed, clutched at its prize and rose in the air, to carry the serpent, still writhing and stinging, away.

  “I have a nest of hungry hatchlings. Do not think you will escape me….”

  “Jan!”

  That other voice cut across his senses like a slap of cold seawater. Jan started, coming to himself. The cave stood narrow and solid about him. The wingcat crouched, eyeing him, and Dagg was calling him from somewhere up the slope.

  He heard the formel clucking in frustration as she saw him wake. Only then did he realize what she had been doing—mesmerizing him while she crept close enough to spring. The distance between them had halved. Jan saw the formel’s pupils dilate, ruby colored in the flame-colored sunset. She sprang.

  Jan dodged, his bad leg giving under him, and his knees struck the stone floor of the cave. The gryphon shrilled as she missed her strike, coming up hard against the wall. The narrow grotto echoed with her cry. The lunge had taken her past him. Jan skittered to his feet and spun around, vaulting over the staggered gryphon. With a surge of speed he never knew he had, Jan sprinted for the egress of the cave.

  Battle

  Jan bolted for the mouth of the cave, clambering over the heap of fallen earth, and suddenly stopped short. There was nowhere to flee. The ground a pace ahead of him dropped away in a sheer precipice. He caught a flash of green and gold among the tops of the trees below: the dead tercel.


  Then he heard a rush in the cave behind him and sprang hard to one side just as the beak of the formel snapped empty air. A narrow goat trail appeared from nowhere, threading the cliff side before him. Jan dashed along it. The gryphon shrieked, scrambling after him, her wings thrashing. He heard her talons scathing the soft, wet rock.

  “Jan!”

  The cry rang out from the slope above. He saw Dagg standing near the lookout knoll.

  “Fly!” Jan shouted. “Dagg, fly!”

  Behind him the gryphon screamed and rose into the air. Dagg stood staring, too astonished to move. The goat trail had vanished. Jan threw himself up the steep, rocky slope, the ground crumbling and sliding beneath his hooves. His injured leg wobbled like a dead tree limb.

  “Shy!” shouted Dagg.

  Jan shied, stumbled, and fell to one side, too late. The formel’s talons dug into his shoulders. Jan thrashed wildly. He heard Dagg crying out—alarm or battle yell, he could not tell—as the wingcat hoisted Jan aloft. They hovered just below the hillcrest, almost eye to eye with Dagg.

  Jan kicked and twisted, and felt one heel strike home. He kicked again, harder—again. The formel shrieked and snarled, holding him away from her. Then Dagg was charging, rearing, lashing out with his forehooves. The formel pulled back from the hillside, straining to rise.

  Jan felt dizzied, as though he had been dancing in circles. His vitals turned. The world below him was sinking, sinking by hoofspans away. Beneath, Dagg yelled, flailing desperately, but the formel had managed to rise beyond his range. Her wings heaved and struggled. Jan’s senses swam. He knew beyond all hope that he was lost.

  Then another unicorn burst from the trees. She sprang past Dagg, her wild, ringing battle yell snapping Jan back to himself. Tek lunged at the gryphon with head down, her horn aimed. Jan felt the formel tense and twist away as the skewer grazed her side. She writhed.