The Guardian Herd (23 page)

STAR LOWERED HIS NECK AND CHARGED THE
Destroyer. Nightwing flashed his teeth and flew to meet him. They collided over the heads of the Wind Herd steeds, fighting with hooves and teeth. Star bit into Nightwing's neck, tasting blood, while the Destroyer tore into Star's chest with his hooves. They battled each other through the clouds, twisting and kicking, flying higher and higher.

But Nightwing's muscles were weak. He'd spent his time in the Flatlands eating and playing with Petalcloud. Star had spent his time lifting and carrying heavy stones. He reared back and struck Nightwing, sending him hurtling across the sky.

The Destroyer twisted around and returned, hissing
starfire. This is where
he
was stronger—with his powers. Nightwing sucked in a huge breath and then shot hundreds of silver light quills at Star. They arced across the sky with ferocious speed, trailing sparks.

Star threw up his shield and watched the sharp quills bounce off.

Then Nightwing circled closer, blasting him with star bombs. Star ducked and twirled as they exploded against his shield, over and over, lighting up the clouds and sky. Silver smoke billowed, and shocked screams erupted from the watching steeds. The fiery bombs knocked Star's golden orb toward land, and he struggled to right himself.

Nightwing roared in frustration.

Star hovered high above the Flatlands, his thoughts tumbling. He'd once asked his mother in a vision,
“What if I can't defeat him? What if he's stronger?”

“Maybe you're not stronger,”
his mother had answered,
“but you're better, Star. Follow your love, not your fear.”
What did Star love? He loved the pegasi of Anok. What did he fear? That Nightwing would destroy them. But Star didn't fear the Destroyer himself, and suddenly Star had an idea.

All
that mattered was
them
—the pegasi of Anok. And since Star couldn't project his shield around the nearly
twelve thousand steeds, he would project it around one—Nightwing.

But first he would have to get close to him. Star dropped his shield and faced Nightwing with his hooves down, his mouth closed.

“Are you surrendering?” asked Nightwing.

“In a way I am,” said Star.

Nightwing flew closer, studying Star's expression, noticing that he wasn't poised to fight. “What are you playing at?” he asked, spitting sparks. They landed on Star's hide and sizzled through it.

Star winced as the cold embers burned through him, not like fire, but like ice. “I'm not playing,” he said.

Nightwing clacked his teeth in Star's face, close enough to feel his hot breath. Star didn't flinch.

Triumph bloomed in Nightwing's eyes. He inhaled sharply, unhinged his jaw like a viper, and roared starfire, thinking to end Star for good. Star faced it, his heart thrumming, and he sprang his shield, but not to protect himself. He snapped it around them both, sealing their fates together.

The starfire filled the sphere, burning both stallions.

Star gasped and clamped his jaws, biting back his screams.

Nightwing threw out his wings, touching the sides of the golden orb. “Let me out!” he brayed.

Star's teeth rattled, and the burning fire scorched his flesh and feathers, and reached into his bones, but he focused all his energy on keeping his shield intact.

Nightwing panicked and attacked Star harder, burning them both worse.

Star trained his eyes on his enemy, watching Nightwing's flesh blister with his own.

Nightwing withdrew the fire and kicked Star in the knee. The orb fell toward the valley with the two stallions battling inside. Star reared, striking Nightwing across the jaw with his hooves, but kept his attention on projecting his shell and keeping them both trapped inside.

They crashed onto the grass, scattering the Wind Herd steeds into the sky. Star and Nightwing bounced across the Flatlands until the orb rolled to a stop. Star felt his rear leg snap, so he balanced on three.

The Destroyer roared at him. “You're killing us both!”

Star shook his head. “No.
You're
killing us both.”

The Wind Herd pegasi dropped from the clouds and surrounded the two stallions who were trapped inside Star's golden shield. Star saw their terrorized expressions, but also saw that they were safe.

Nightwing lashed his tail. “This just makes you easier to destroy,” he said, and then he re-created the thin beam of silver light that had pierced Star's chest in the Sun Herd lands. He shot it at Star, in the exact same spot, and Star's eyes popped as he felt the power press through his hide, through his chest bones, and into his thumping heart.

Not again
, he thought. Then a soothing voice filled his head:
Don't fight him
. And Star relaxed as peace washed through him. He accepted Nightwing's power and let it spread into his heart and throughout his body, absorbing it as his own, and it didn't kill him.

But with the Destroyer's silver fire came his dark feelings of destruction. They cycled through Star's mind, poisoning his thoughts. He bucked and twisted as his mood blackened.
The world was hateful, despicable. He was despicable.
Star slammed into the side of his shield, every piece of his soul begging him to release Nightwing and fly away.

Nightwing saw Star's agony, and he pressed his hatred deeper and deeper into him.

Star glanced at the Wind Herd steeds surrounding him, gaping at him, and he wanted to destroy them all. But he also knew these weren't
his
feelings but Nightwing's. How the ancient stallion had lived with this poison
in his heart for so long, Star didn't know. He bucked again, and the orb spun around the field.

Nightwing touched Star's neck with his wing, trying a new tactic, appealing to Star as a fellow black foal. “Don't fight me, Star; join me.” His voice was low and tantalizing, as though he were offering Star something delicious.

Star felt how easy it would be to give in. . . .

Then Star's eyes rolled back in his head, and he saw white light—his mother.

Lightfeather roared her secrets into his ears—no, not her secrets, her
instructions
, repeating words he'd heard before:
Don't fight him. Heal him
.

Star shook his head. No, that wasn't what she'd said to him on the night she died. She'd said:
Don't fight
them,
heal
them.

The image of Lightfeather appeared, and she pressed her forehead against his. “It was never about
them
,” she said. “It was always about
him
. Nightwing is the Killer of Light. He is Fear. He is Hatred. Don't fight him, Star.
Heal
him.”

Star shuddered, and his eyes flew open. He stared into the empty eye sockets of Nightwing's skull.
Heal the Destroyer, could he?
He had nothing to lose by trying.

“Destroy me if you must!” Star brayed. He would need
all Nightwing's rage and hatred directed at him if he was going to heal it.

Nightwing's eyes widened, and he gleefully accepted the challenge, blasting Star with the full strength of his powers, and Star absorbed it all and let it fill him, taking four hundred years of Nightwing's hatred into his gut.

The pain of it shredded Star's thoughts and rattled his bones; but he held it inside, and he seared it with his golden fire, cleansing it and turning it back on Nightwing, soaking him in healing light.

The Destroyer froze, stunned. The starfire repaired him. Star watched Nightwing's black heart soften, his injuries heal, his coat turn glossy, and his eyes shine with hope. Star held out his wing, offering Nightwing an opposite truce. “Don't fight me, Nightwing; join me.”

Nightwing stared, his jaw hanging slack. A single tear fell from his eye, landed at the base of the shield, and a white flower blossomed between them. Star's heart pounded with excitement.

But Nightwing groaned like a whale, holding his head and staring at the white flower in awe, then horror. He reared and crushed the flower under his hooves, and then he bellowed at Star. “NEVER!”

Nightwing shut his eyes and squeezed his muscles,
ejecting Star's power from his body. The golden light flashed and disappeared, leaving Star empty. It was all the starfire he had. He'd given it all away. And now it was gone. The shield evaporated, and Star saw Sweetroot fly off to retrieve the death berries.

“I failed,” Star whispered.

Nightwing pounced on Star and blasted him with renewed power.

Around Star the valley burned and the pegasi trembled, watching the two black stallions destroy each other.

Star grit his teeth against the astonishing pain, and the agony of losing. But then he saw an aqua feather floating over his head, and Morningleaf dashing across the sky, rocketing toward him, with Brackentail at her side. Star realized that everyone had been wrong—including her.
Heal him. Embrace him. Fight him.
Star had tried it all. But only one pegasus in Anok had the power to destroy Nightwing—and that was Nightwing himself.

“You don't fight a pegasus on the terms he sets
,
”
Morningleaf had warned him once, when they were still weanlings. He remembered the conversation in a blur.

“It has to be on his terms, Morningleaf. Otherwise it won't mean anything,”
Star had answered her. And with a ragged breath taken through shredded lungs, Star
exhaled and relaxed. He knew exactly what to do, and he'd known it all along. He had to beat the Destroyer on his own terms.

As Nightwing poured all his hatred into the silver fire and blasted it at Star, Star let it fill him. When the weight of death and suffering, guilt and grief all but crushed him, Star faced Nightwing, opened his mouth, and gave it all back.

The Destroyer hid his face and bellowed in terror as his own silver fire blazed from Star to Nightwing, in one colossal burst, and then the ancient stallion's body exploded.

Purple and silver smoke drifted upward and away, revealing one neat pile of black ash.

The Destroyer was dead.

“YOU DID IT, STAR,” CRIED SWEETROOT. “IT'S OVER.”

The pegasi folded their wings and sobbed, overwhelmed.

Silver sparks crackled in Nightwing's black ashes, spooking the pegasi. Then his dust caught fire and vanished in a puff of smoke. And just like that, the Destroyer was gone, borne off by the wind.

Star stared at the singed grass, at the toppled monument, and at the pegasi who sagged with relief. It was over, not just for him, but also for them. “You're free,” he said, and he collapsed, out of breath.

Quick movement caught Star's eye. Morningleaf and Brackentail dropped out of the sky and landed beside him.

Morningleaf sank to her knees, stroking his smoking back and staring into his eyes. “You beat him. I knew you would.” She threw her wings around his neck. Star stifled a moan.

“I'm sorry; you're hurt!” she cried, stepping back.

Star's hide was burned, his chest bruised and bitten, his back leg broken. “Just a little,” he said. He drew on his power and then paused, remembering it was gone.

Sweetroot galloped to him. “Your power?” she asked, sensing the problem.

Star shrugged one wing. “I guess I used it all,” he said.

Sweetroot's eyes flew wide open. “Oh no!”

Star turned his mind inward, feeling into his gut, which was empty of the golden embers that had burned there since he'd turned one and received his power from the Hundred Year Star. Without the embers, he couldn't produce new starfire. He felt heavy and cold, and hungry too. He felt like a normal pegasus.

“Maybe it will return,” said Sweetroot, looking hopeful.

“Maybe,” said Star. “Or maybe it's gone forever.”
Forever
, there was that word again. What did it mean? He'd been immortal, and now he was not.

Suddenly the sky lit up with color, and all the pegasi
lifted their heads. Beautiful lights burst down from the blackness of space and rushed toward them. “It's the Ancestors,” whinnied Sweetroot. The living pegasi couldn't see their ethereal bodies, but the streaks of color from the Ancestors' feathers whirled and twisted around them as if they were celebrating.

But it wasn't just the Ancestors. The Beyond was destroyed with the death of Nightwing, and the pegasi who'd been stuck there were released. Some had been trapped for four hundred years, and now they sailed with their herdmates from the golden meadow, reunited and free, and finally at peace.

But Star could see their translucent spirit bodies clearly, perhaps because they'd visited him before when he'd been thrown into hibernation by Nightwing during their first battle, many moons ago. Star saw Hollyblaze, the ancient Ancestor filly whose weanling army had protected Star in the past. Her eyes glimmered at him with pleasure and approval. And Bumblewind glided overhead, streaking the sky in shades of gold and brown, joyful that his friends were safe. And Star's adoptive mother, Silverlake, played with a crimson-winged stallion: her mate, Thundersky.

“Those are my parents,” said Morningleaf, in a choked
breath, recognizing the colors of her parents' feathers.

Her body shook as she burst into tears, and Star wrapped his wing over her back. They curled together on the grass, watching the Wind Herd steeds lift off and fly with the Ancestors. Beautiful lights illuminated the clouds in every hue of color found in Anok. The spirits of the dead danced higher and higher and then disappeared.

Then pegasi all over the Flatlands met in groups, reunited. The grieving dams found their kidnapped newborns and weanlings, and happy nickers filled the valley.

Star glanced around him, and he saw how his huge herd was really made up of thousands of tiny herds called families. And he thought about his birth mother, Lightfeather. When she'd died, he'd felt alone, but now thinking back, he'd never been alone. Family wasn't just who made you; it was who loved you. It was who raised you, protected you, and believed in you. And Star had been greatly, deeply loved by Silverlake, Sweetroot, Grasswing, Bumblewind, Echofrost, Brackentail, Morningleaf, and finally, his guardian herd. As he gazed about him, he realized that he'd had all along what he'd wanted since he was a dud foal in Dawn Meadow: a family.

Then Star caught sight of Frostfire sneaking away with Larksong and their colt, Starfrost. Disappointment
reared within him. They had unfinished business. Star had one broken leg, but his wings were fine, so he scooted away from Morningleaf, lifted off, and flew to Frostfire, landing three-legged in front of him.

The white stallion froze, and the two faced each other.

“I told you I'd rescue your mare, and I did,” said Star, his hide still steaming where Nightwing had burned him. “All of you are truly free.”

Larksong cringed, and Frostfire just stared, speechless.

Star lowered his muzzle to their young colt. Starfrost trotted bravely closer, exchanging breath with Star and flicking his short, curly tail. Star looked into his light-green eyes, which were shining with curiosity, and his heart opened wide to the colt. “You're my cousin,” he said.

Starfrost bleated and lifted off, hovering over Star like a bumblebee. He tugged gently at Star's mane with his small teeth, enticing him to play. Star's throat closed. He wanted to play with Starfrost, teach him to fly, and watch him grow up, but Frostfire was taking the colt away. He looked at his uncle and understood that he couldn't force Frostfire to accept him any more than he could force Nightwing. He had to want it, and he didn't. “Take good care of him,” Star said to Frostfire and Larksong.

The buckskin mare reached out to Star with her dark-blue wings and burst into tears. “We will. Thank you.”

Frostfire opened his mouth to say something, but at the last moment he turned away. “Come, Starfrost,” he said to his son. And Star watched his uncle walk out of the valley with his family, and he doubted he would ever see Frostfire again.

Morningleaf trotted to his side. “Someday he'll come around,” she said.

Star nodded, but he didn't think so. He turned to Morningleaf, wincing at the pain in his leg and the burns across his black hide, but noticed also her bent wing. “I would heal the two of us, but my starfire is gone,” he whispered.

Morningleaf stared at him. “You mean you're not immortal anymore?”

“No, I don't think so.”

“And you can't fly around in tornadoes?”

“No.” He noticed her amber eyes shining mischievously.

“And you can't go days and nights without eating or sleeping?”

“I don't think so,” said Star.

Morningleaf dropped her wings, looking relieved.
“Good. Because it was getting really hard to keep up with you.”

Star nickered with relief, because he thought she'd be disappointed. “I don't think I'll be going anywhere for a while.” He stared at his broken leg, which throbbed, making him feel sick, and at the burns on his black hide that would leave scars. It would take time to heal.

“Well, you know what this means, don't you?” she asked.

“What?”

“Now we can be best friends forever.”

“For
our
forever,” he clarified, because he was mortal now, and he would one day die. A tear rolled down his cheek and mixed with the burned soil.

He and Morningleaf stared at the ground. Not a single flower appeared. “My power is really gone,” he said, finding it difficult to believe.

“But you're not.”

Star exhaled. “No, I'm not.”

Brackentail joined them, and Star saw how happy Morningleaf was to see him. “The future is ours to create,” said the brown stallion.

“It is,” Morningleaf agreed, and she leaned toward Brackentail, and Star noticed how they'd grown together,
like two trees sharing the same light. And he realized that he was that light, and for once he was pleased instead of jealous.

“What about Echofrost and Hazelwind and the one hundred and forty pegasi?” Star asked his friends. “We need to find them and bring them back.”

Morningleaf shook her head. “They won't come back. We talked about this in the den and decided that, win or lose, we need to spread our kind out of Anok. The pegasi who left are excited; they want to explore and find a new home. But I—I decided not to leave,” said Morningleaf. “I love it here.”

Brackentail gazed at her. “Me too.”

The tip of a loose feather flapped in the breeze, catching their attention. It was trapped under the remains of the tribute—golden in color, with a brown tip. Morningleaf pulled it loose. “This is Bumblewind's feather, isn't it?” she whispered.

A hush fell over the pegasi in the valley when they saw Morningleaf holding the special feather. Star watched her face brighten. “I have an idea.” She galloped away, leaving Star and Brackentail standing in her dust.

Morningleaf flew to the hill where the tribute had stood, and she lifted the feather over her head, waiting
for everyone's full attention. “We're going to rebuild the tribute,” she neighed, her voice ringing clear across the Flatlands. “To mark the day of our freedom.”

The pegasi murmured, staring at the stones strewn across the valley. “Each able adult will take a stone,” she continued. “We'll build our new tribute in the west, at Crabwing's Bay, where the birds don't fly.” She glanced at Star, and he nodded. She was referring to Star's bird friend who'd died there—Crabwing the seagull—and Star was glad she remembered him. Morningleaf continued, her voice quaking. “The monument will stand for Bumblewind, my mother, my sire, and for all the pegasi who gave their lives to free us.”

“But we can't fly if we're carrying stones,” said Sweetroot.

“We should walk anyway,” said Morningleaf, “so we can stay together. I don't want the walkers migrating alone. We'll leave as soon as our injuries are healed.”

After their long captivity in the valley, the pegasi leaped on the idea of returning to Western Anok, where the wolves were smaller and the wind gentler.

They spent the following moon strengthening their flying muscles and eating their fill. Sweetroot dug for herbs and healed the pegasi, doing what she did best. And Star
enjoyed letting her care for him. She set his leg with a straight branch and fed him yarrow for his pain, and he marveled at her knowledge.

“You kept me out of work for a long time,” she said to him, nickering.

On the last day of spring, the nearly twelve thousand pegasi each lifted a stone in their wings, and they trotted out of the Flatlands, the place of their enslavement, that very day.

Star wasn't blind to the group of steeds who refused to join them, mostly Ice Warriors and some weanlings who'd grown to adore Nightwing when he was alive. Stormtail led this herd, and he kept Nightwing's and Petalcloud's orphaned filly, Riversun, close to his side, protecting her as he'd once protected her mother.

“Do you think Riversun has the starfire?” Morningleaf had asked him. “Since her sire is Nightwing.”

“I guess it's possible,” he'd answered.

“That could be a problem.”

Star sighed. “Let's not worry about what
might
be.” Then he'd watched as Stormtail's forces, defeated and angry, traveled north, heading back to the cold region.

Some pegasi wanted to stop them, but Star argued against it. “Freedom isn't just for my followers,” he
explained. “It's for everyone.” Since his birth in Dawn Meadow, Star had learned that no pegasus could be forced to accept a leader—they followed who they chose, and Anok was big enough for all of them. It was when pegasi forced their will on others that Anok became too small.

As they traveled through the fractured grasslands, walking like horses, Star watched Morningleaf with sidelong glances, and noticed how the herd quieted when she was near, how they listened to her, and how they loved her. The vision he'd had of her in the Trap had come true: she was a legend, a living one.