[Firebringer 03] - The Son of Summer Stars (4 page)

Her mother, Ses, had ascended the rise. She nudged her filly with one firm but unobtrusive shoulder. Lell caught her breath, and with a glance at her dam, managed to collect herself. She swallowed.

“That is, I would welcome it,” she answered formally. With a deep bow first to Malar, then to Illishar, she added, “I thank you.”

The prince’s sister fell back with Ses to stand at the far edge of the rise. Malar crouched again and, with one prodigious leap, launched herself into the air. The gryphon queen rose, wings stroking rapidly at first, then locking to glide as she gained sufficient height. In a bound, green-winged Illishar followed. He seemed to have less trouble rising aloft than his larger, heavier companion. One by one, in swift succession, other formels followed, straining for lift in the windless air. None faltered. In another moment, all were airborne, wafting upward in a ragged vee. They headed south toward the valley’s nearer slope. The Gryphon Mountains lay a day’s flight beyond, across the Pan Woods that bordered the Vale. Tek moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with her mate.

“Do you see, Mother?” Lell behind her whispered excitedly. “How he flies! How he sang. He remembered my name. In under a year’s time, he will return to us. My gryphon.”

Baffled, the pied mare turned to watch the amber filly gazing after the green-gold tercel. Her eyes shone like those of some moonstruck half-grown. Tek snorted. Nay, ridiculous! It would be a year or more before Lell could join the Ring of Warriors, probably two or three before she pledged a mate by the Summer Sea. Whickering, the pied mare shook her head, convinced she had misconstrued the other’s youthful enthusiasm. She leaned against her mate. Above and to the southwest, the tercel’s form and those of the formels grew smaller and smaller yet.

“Do you think he would teach me gryphonsong?” she heard the prince’s sister breathe. “Mother, what must it be like to fly?”

“Next spring, then.”

He nodded. “Aye.”

“Good.”

He turned, surprised. “You’ve no fear?”

The warrior mare shrugged, chivvying him. “More relief than fear. Six years have I awaited this trek—since I beheld the Firebringer rush burning from heaven in the vision of my initiation.” She nipped playfully at the tassels of his ears till they twitched. “Our folk have waited longer still. Four hundred years.”

Her nips grew smarter, more insistent. He half reared, wheeling to fence with her. Laughing, she met him stroke for stroke, their horns clanging loudly in the morning stillness. Breeze lifted, and they broke off, panting. He saw his mate’s gaze fall lovingly on Dhattar, up now and harassing Lell. Aiony rolled in the grass at her granddam’s forehooves, refusing to get up. Around them, other unicorns frisked and grazed. Tek nudged him.

“My thanks for your waiting till the twins were weaned,” she murmured. “I’m no strategist like you, no diplomat. Just a warrior—and a singer of sorts. And now a dam. I could not have borne forgoing the coming fray for the sake of suckling young.”

She rested her chin at the crown of his head, lips nibbling the base of his horn, beard tickling his cheek. Jan laughed, sneezing, and shook her off.

“Alma chose the time, not I.”

He turned to press his muzzle to her. Doing so, he caught sight of a figure just topping the rise. Two figures, in truth—and then he realized it was three. One had the form of a beardless unicorn deep mallow in color, redder than the dawn. She descended the slope on round, uncloven heels, her black mane standing upright as a newborn’s along her neck, her tail silky and full.

Alongside her trotted a very different figure, moving upright on goatlike hind limbs. From the square shoulders of this figure’s flattened torso hung two nimble forelimbs, one resting easily upon the withers of the red mare, the other swinging with each stride. A small, round head topped the creature’s short, slender neck. Her hairless face held dark, expressive eyes. Curving horns and drooping, goatlike ears sprouted amid a shaggy mane.

A slighter, fairer version sat astride the strange unicorn mare, clinging to her brush, making the third member of the trio. Jan heard his mate beside him give a peal of joy. She reared, flailing the air. All around, on the valley floor below, unicorns turned and took note. Their delighted cries echoed the pied mare’s:

“Jah-lila! The midwife! The magicker!”

Reaching the valley floor, the red mare answered, “Well met!”

The herd surged toward her and her goatling companions, who waved upheld forelimbs and whistled in perfect imitation of unicorns. Mares with suckling young especially moved to greet them. Jan glimpsed his own filly and foal sprinting with gleeful shrieks to welcome their maternal granddam. They, like most of the colts in the herd, had been delivered by the red mare and the pan sisters, her acolytes.

“Sismoomnat! Pitipak!” he heard Aiony and Dhattar exclaim. The younger pan slipped from her foster mother’s back and joined her sister in frisking with them. The red mare waded on through the press, exchanging greetings with stallions and mares, all of whom fell back respectfully before her, even as fellows behind them crowded forward.

Good fortune,
the herd murmured,
to breathe the wych’s breath, stand in her shadow, tread her track.

The half-growns, warriors, and elders were old enough to remember the awe in which the herd had, only a few short years ago, once held her—a fear now turned to reverence. She acknowledged them all but never paused, forging determinedly toward her daughter, the pied mare, still standing beside Jan on the rise. He fell back to let daughter and dam exchange caresses and greetings. Jah-lila nickered and called to him.

“Well met, my daughter’s mate,” she laughed, her dusky voice a deep, sweet echo of Tek’s. “My fosterlings and I spied wingcats overhead as we entered the Vale. They kept their parley as agreed?”

The prince of the unicorns nodded. “Aye. Peace is pledged. We are sworn to depart for the Hills at spring.”

The red mare nodded, said firmly, “Good.”

“How do my foster sisters fare?” Tek inquired.

Jah-lila nuzzled her affectionately. “As you see. They spend much time in the Pan Woods now, midwiving their own folk’s young.”

“And our allies there?” Jan asked.

The red mare whickered. “Again, very well. The peace you forged in the Woods has been a lasting one.”

Below, at herd’s edge, the elder of the pan sisters, Sismoomnat, chased half a dozen wildly fleeing foals while Aiony charged Pitipak, trying to butt her off her feet. Lell laughed and circled. Dhattar’s coat blazed fire-white among the burning colors of the rest. “Whence have the three of you come,” Tek was asking, “my pan sisters and you?”

The red mare smiled. “From the shores of the Summer Sea,” she said. “We watched the narwhals calve…”

Her words were cut short by a long, harsh wail more like a wolf’s cry than a unicorn’s. Sismoomnat, Pitipak and the foals halted abruptly. Around them, their elders started and wheeled. A haggard figure appeared on the near slope of the Vale, emerging from a dark hollow in the hillside. Jan’s heart jolted. He felt Tek beside him sip her breath. Once massy and robust, the tall unicorn at the cavemouth showed sunken flanks, his ribs visible, limbs bony and starved. Black as storm cloud, he loomed in the grotto’s entryway. Before him, the herd recoiled.

“Gryphons,” the emaciated stallion roared. The cave amplified and echoed the sound. “Wingcats in our midst! First you dance the serpent’s dance, then don the quills of our sworn foes. Now you welcome the beardless wych. Traitors!”

He drew nearer, descending the slope half a dozen paces. With shrills of terror, the youngest colts galloped to their dams. The whole herd fell back. Jan spotted Lell standing before young Ai and Dha, pressed close to the pans. He glimpsed Tek’s gaze of fury and loathing as she watched the dark figure on the hillside. The prince of the unicorns clenched his teeth and advanced.

“Aye, night past we danced the serpent’s dance,” he called, “to make ourselves proof against such stings—in honor of That One who made both serpent and the unicorn. We treated with wingcats to win peace ere we depart this vale. And Jah-lila is our honored guest, dam to my mate and midwife to the herd.”

He left unsaid the other, bitter truth: that the skeletal figure above was responsible for the deaths of countless fillies and foals before these. Their elders had not forgotten, could never forget, that terrible winter two years gone when this stallion had seized power in Jan’s absence and allowed half the herd to starve to death.

“If Alma stands defiled, it is not by us,” the young prince continued. “Cry traitor elsewhere.”

Jan heard his people’s mutters of assent.

“Poison in your blood!” the haunt on the hillside before him shrieked. “You’ll never scratch my flank. No serpent’s taint to sully me!”

The rumble from the herd grew louder. Dark clouds appeared above the edges of the Vale. Dawn wind blew stronger, gusting now. Sun flickered and flared, backlighting the shadowy thunderheads that moved to encircle it. Jan’s ears pricked at restless snorts and whinnies. He heard a mare’s voice call out, “Tyrant!”

A young stallion’s echoed: “Murderer!”

“Rout him,” another shouted. “Cast him from the Vale.”

Jan felt hairs lift along his spine. He spun to face the herd. They shouldered and jostled about the council rise, seething with anger, eyes fixed on the hillside above. The young prince reared, struck the sparking stones of the rise with his hooves till they clanged.

“Hold,” he shouted. “Hold! Think you that banishment can heal madness? All the herd ran mad that terrible winter—and those who meekly submitted to Korr’s tyranny must share his blame. No ruler reigns without the consent of his folk. Had we not rather seek to drive madness from our own hearts? Only then may the herd know peace.”

The unicorns subsided uneasily, eyes cast down and askance, unwilling to face him anymore, or each other, or the figure on the rise. Sires gathered their daughters to their sides and nuzzled them. Dams stroked their tiny foals. Drawing breath, Jan turned once more to the figure on the hillside.

“Father—” but the bony stallion cut him off.

“You are not my son!”

The black prince of the unicorns stopped short. Korr’s words tore him like a wolf’s jaws. Pulse pounding, Jan fought for calm, dismayed that even now, after all this time, his sire could still spit barbs to rankle him.

“You were never my son!” the mad king snarled. “Wild, unschooled, spurning tradition at every turn. Then you pledged with that strumpet, pied daughter of a wych, and got twin horrors from her womb. I never sired you! You’re none of my get—”

“Enough!”

The word burst from Jan, its force bringing the other up short. The young prince of the unicorns shook himself as though to clear a swarm of gnats from his hide. Illishar’s feather batted softly against his neck.

“Enough, I say! Two years have you railed against my mate, calling our progeny abomination, yet offered no justification for your charge.”

The wind quickened, humming, full of moisture. Storm clouds gusted around the dawn-red sun. Jan snorted.

“Where were you, my sire, when I was but a foal and needed your care? Off ramping with the warriors, haranguing them to endless clashes with gryphons, wyverns, and pans! It was I you shunned then. Not one word or deed of mine was ever worthy of your note.”

The old resentment, so long unspoken, roiled up in him now. Jan cavaled.

“Always it was Tek! Her you showered with praise. Tek the warrior, pride of the half-growns, model to all the younger fillies and colts. A stranger would have thought
her
your get and I the fatherless foal. Yet when we pledged, marrying our fates, a bond unshakable under the summer stars—suddenly she was not to be endured, her crimes uncounted, our offspring monstrous. Why?”

The wind blew steadily now, grey clouds obscuring the sun. Jan scarcely heeded it. His smooth summer pelt riffled, teasing his skin. The long hairs of his tail flailed his flank.

“In Alma’s name, father, what drives you mad and turns you against me, my mate and young? Speak! If you will but speak, perhaps whatever torments you can be allayed.”

The mad king stood gazing at him, eyes wide, rolling.

“Nay,” he whispered. “The red wych has cozened you, telling you lies!”

Wind buffeted about them, slapping Jan’s forelock into his eyes.

The Vale lay in shadow. Thunder growled like a hillcat. Dams and stallions bent over their young, shielding them from the coming rain—but none moved to seek shelter, all eyes fixed on the prince and his sire. Jan glimpsed Jah-lila leaving her daughter’s side.

“Korr,” she called, “you know as well as I that I have revealed nothing. I have pledged never to speak of the history we share while your silence holds. I honor that pledge still—unlike the oath you once swore me…”

“Never!” the haggard stallion gasped. “You bewitched me there upon the Plain. I was too young to know my own heart—”

“But not too young to give your word.” The red mare spoke softly. Her black-green eyes gazed at him without hatred, only sorrow. “Speak of what befell us. Your own silence lies at the root of this madness, not the conduct of any other. Only speak! Be healed.”

The gaunt stallion reared, scarcely darker than the storm clouds that towered above. Sudden lightning clashed, followed by deafening thunder. Korr flailed at nothing.

“My mate!” Ses cried. Wind stole her words. “Come back to me. Reveal what troubles you!”

Rain spattered down, stinging as hailstones. Ses moved forward to stand beside the red mare.

“She
troubles me!” Korr thundered back. “My mate—she is my woe. She stole my heir with her sorcery. Wych!” he shouted above the gale, eyes flicking to Tek’s dam, then back to his mate. “You knew. You knew all along. From the time we pledged—you held your tongue and watched…” Again his gaze wavered. “I have no mate, no heir, no son!”

His words had grown so wild Jan could no longer tell to whom the mad king spoke: the red mare or his mate. But the young prince had no time for thought. The king had already launched himself, charging down the rain-slicked slope straight at Ses—or perhaps at Jah-lila. The two mares stood nearly shoulder to shoulder now. Lell cried out and sped forward, as though to fling herself in front of her dam, defend her somehow by coming between her and the mad king’s charge.