[Firebringer 03] - The Son of Summer Stars (3 page)

“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. The pied mare swallowed, throat dry as dust. Her singer’s calm broke then, leaving her stranded on the moonlit council rise, confronting gryphons.

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.

“Like you, prince of unicorns,” the formel responded at last, “we gryphons now desire peace. We are wearied of raids and your bitter flesh. If you pledge to relinquish Ishi’s Vale to our stewardship, we shall nest content.”

Turning her head ever so slightly, she glanced back at her dozen followers crouching or reclining behind her.

“But we, too, have a tale to sing, a chorus of the making of this sacred place, ages past at the pipping of the world. Our singer is blood kin to me—and for all that he is but a green-winged tercel, he holds a heart as brave, talons as keen, and a voice as strong as any formel’s. Hark now, I bid you, as he raises our song.”

The lone male among the gryphons padded forward, skirting his queen and the fire to come directly before Jan. Tek watched as her prince bowed low.

“Hail, Illishar Mended-wing,” Jan greeted him. “When my sister told me who among your folk had carried your leader’s offer of parley, my heart leapt.”

The tercel’s stony countenance eased. Tek saw his ruffled quills settle, the golden fur of his flank grow smooth. His voice, like his queen’s, was low and sweet.

“So you remember me, Prince Jan.”

The dark stallion shook himself. Tek’s own ears pricked. She eyed the green gryphon feather tangled amid her mate’s long black hair. “How not,” he asked, “when I still wear the gift you gave?” His tone was one of genuine gladness and surprise. “You have grown since last we met.”

The tercel chuckled. “You also, prince of unicorns. Two years past I was barely fletched, a gangling squab!”

Jan snorted. “A formidable warrior, by my reck.”

With a shudder, Tek glimpsed the scars lacing her mate’s shoulder blades, indelible reminders of the mortal combat in which he and this tercel once had joined. She glanced at her sleeping filly and foal and felt the pelt rise along her spine. Despite the feather in his hair, to Tek’s mind, Jan’s battlescars were only one among a cluster of reasons to mistrust these flesh-eating gryphons. Crouched before the prince, the tercel flexed one magnificent wing.

“I, too, suffered in that fray,” he murmured. “But you gave me back my life.”

“And what befell after I set your bone?” Jan asked.

Tek peered curiously at the gryphon’s broad, green pinion, doubting she could ever have dared approach such a dangerous creature, even one with a shattered limb. She and every other unicorn in the Vale, she knew, would gladly have left the fallen raptor to starve. Illishar shrugged, preened a stray feather back into place.

“As soon as my pinion grew strong enough, I made haste back to the Gryphon Mountains to rejoin my flock.”

Tek listened. Her mate tossed his head.

“We heard no word of you,” he pressed. “Indeed, we have seen no wingcats since, save for your own brief stop last spring. What kept your folk so far from our Vale?”

Tek tensed as, on the far side of the fire, the gryphon formels suddenly ruffled. Two jostled and paced. Another beat her wings in agitation, so that the fire leapt, flared. Illishar’s eyes flicked to them, then to his wingleader. Malar returned his gaze impassively, with the barest hint of a nod. The tercel turned again to Jan.

“The flocks have been at war,” he said. “Rival clans sought to conquer Malar, but she triumphed in the end. I, too, soared, winning a perch on the high ledge beside her.”

Tek saw another glance pass between the wingcat and his queen. Jan stood listening, offering no word.

“Malar is wearied of war,” Illishar resumed. “As are we all. When I returned two years past with word that the unicorns might consent to relinquish Ishi’s sacred Vale and return to their own lands across the Plain, she pounced at the chance. Others were not so hungry for peace. They sought to seize the wingleader’s place.”

The gryphon queen behind him shifted. It seemed to Tek that Malar’s eyes, still fixed upon Illishar, now shone with inestimable pride. He continued.

“But with my aid and that of all her loyal flock, she has struck her rivals from the sky and pashed their eggs to shards. Mightiest of wingleaders, she soars, and the clans fly united behind her once more!”

Seated upright behind their queen, pinions poised, the formels uttered shrill cries of assent. Tek saw the herd just below the rise tense in alarm, but just as suddenly, the formels fell silent. Malar demurely nibbled one shoulder, as if ignoring their praise.

“Hear my song,” cried Illishar, his wings half-raised. “How Isha laid the clutch that hatched all the creatures of the world, and how we gryphons pleased her best of all.”

Again fluting whistles from the formels, but more melodic, rising and falling in a complex harmony to the tercel’s words.

“Great Isha created her consort Ishi from greenest grass and most golden seed. But he was lifeless, so she closed him in a silver egg, and he hatched out full grown. Half the mottled shell still turns in heaven. Now full, so we see it end-on, beholding only its outward curving edge. A week hence, when it has pivoted, we will see it in profile, the half moon. And in another week’s time, on the night of the new moon, we will discern no silver rim at all but instead gaze into the dark mystery of its inner hollow. Blessed be the goddess and her consort, Ishi!”

Behind him, the formels raised their voices in intricate, effortless accompaniment, the ever-changing position of their wings seeming to accent his words: now lifted, now folded, now outstretched. Only Malar took no part, still as stone, a moonlit sphinx. Shivers feathered the pied mare’s limbs and sides. Tek found herself growing rapt as the herd around her. Jan, too, stood motionless, enthralled.

Illishar sang of Isha’s gift of the winds to her consort Ishi, of her creation of the Vale for his sacred flocks, lovingly husbanded as first meat for the newly hatched. The tune pulsed and lilted. Tek’s heartbeat sped. Her people had no such sinuous music as these gryphons made, the tercel sometimes speaking or chanting while the formels behind him repeated and ornamented his words.

By the time Illishar recounted how centuries past, unicorns had swarmed into Ishi’s Vale, forcing out the delectable sheep and deer, leaving only their own unsavory young as rank pickings for the formel’s new-pipped chicks, the pied mare was almost on her feet, ready to shout,
No, no! Drive the intruders out—
until she realized with a start that it was against her own kind she would have railed. Groggy, Tek shook herself, no winged gryphon, but a four-leggèd unicorn.

The tercel had fallen silent. The formels, too. Dazed, the prince’s mate gazed out over the herd, beheld them coming to themselves, stirring slowly like beasts entranced. She had no doubt now how gryphons managed to bewitch their prey. Shaken and stiff, the pied mare rolled her shoulders, extended her neck. Moon hung low on the other side of a sky paling eastward into dawn.

Below her, Lell reclined beside her mother, the only one of all the colts Tek could see who was not asleep. The amber filly gazed at Illishar, eyes following his every move, ears pricked to the rustle of his quills. Head bowed, the tercel fell back to flank his queen, still crouching beside the dying embers of the fire. Malar rose, stretched, fanning her great blue wings and arching her tawny back like a pard. Before her on the rise, Jan stirred, shifting his limbs. Had he stood the whole night? Tek watched him move forward, gait graceful and loose, unimpeded apparently by any fatigue.

“So, Malar, wingleader of the gryphons,” he asked, “are we agreed?”

The mighty formel straightened, nodded. “We are agreed, Jan, prince of unicorns. Henceforth, our folk shall be at peace, and next spring your kind will depart Ishi’s Vale, returning to your own ancestral Hills.”

The slimmest of morning breezes lifted, died. The formel’s feathers riffled, then smoothed.

“We take with us in gratitude your songs,” she continued, “and leave you ours. We will not soon forget this night’s singing, nor the tales that you have taught us. We trust you will remember ours.”

She gave a guttural snort, the meaning of which Tek could not readily discern—supposed it might be a laugh, the first the pied mare had heard the gryphon queen utter.

“I would never have guessed that so hoarse-voiced and whinnying a sort as unicorns could honor the sky with such fetching airs—and from but a single throat. What brave and lonely songs you sing! I salute you.”

Tek rose, the muscles of her long legs twinging, and stepped to stand beside her mate. She bowed low to the gryphon queen while Jan replied.

“And I salute you, wingleader of all the clans. Song, to my mind, rings far sweeter than war.”

The great blue formel nodded curtly, then half-turned, fanning her massy wings again. Behind her, the other formels did the same.

“We must fly,” she said. “Our chicks have nestled their fathers long enough. But know this.” Malar turned to face Jan over one shoulder. “In emblem of my goodwill, next spring when you march for the Hallow Hills, I will send my kinsmeet Illishar to accompany you.”

Beside Jan, Tek felt his start of pleasure, surprise.

“My thanks to you, Queen Malar,” he answered warmly. “Your cousin is a mighty warrior. The ranks of the unicorns will be glad of his strength.”

Illishar inclined his head. “I shall be as glad to lend it.” His mouth edged into a bare hint of a smile. “My wingleader is most anxious that your war against the wyverns succeed, that hereafter Ishi’s Vale harbor his flocks in peace, untroubled by wandering unicorns.”

Tek saw the expression of the gryphon queen almost imperceptibly sour. Jan gave a whickering laugh.

“I, too, share the great Malar’s urgency for the success of our endeavor. Your airborne eyes will be of great value to us, Illishar. We welcome you.”

The green-winged tercel bowed his head. At a sign from Malar, her formels rose, some rearing to stand on hind legs as if to stretch, others stroking their wings. Jan’s forelock lifted. Tek felt her own mane whipped about her neck. The buffeting grew fiercer. Malar moved a few paces from Jan, seeking room to spring into the air. The other gryphons fell back from her. The mighty wingleader sank into a crouch, half opening her wings, when suddenly a voice from among the unicorns broke the stillness.

“Hold!”

Jan reared and wheeled. Cavaling, Tek turned to see Lell spring to her feet. Before her startled dam could move to stay her, the darkamber filly sprinted for the rise. In three strides and a bound, she had gained the summit. Astonished, the pied mare fell back as the prince’s sister hastened to his side.

“Brother, a moment,” Lell panted. “I would speak! May I speak?”

Tek watched her mate’s baffled eyes scanning his sister. Lell’s urgency made her prance and sidle beside him. He spoke quietly.

“Sister, you already speak. What would you say?”

Lell seemed to take his response for leave. She spun eagerly to face the green-winged tercel.

“Illishar Brokenwing, do you know me?” she asked.

The tercel nodded gravely. “Could I forget?” he replied. “You are the prince’s sister, with whom I set this parley three moons past.”

“Lell,” the chestnut filly answered. “My name is Lell. I wanted you to have my name.”

The tercel’s smile was unmistakable now. “Indeed, Lell Darkamber, I already know it. You called it out to me last spring as I departed. I hope that in three-quarters of a year’s time, when I return, we may speak again.”

“We shall!” exulted Lell, ramping with delight.