[Firebringer 03] - The Son of Summer Stars (2 page)

“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.”

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.”

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 never 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.