A Shard of Sun

by Jess E. Owen

  Hunt thrill shot down Kjorn’s chest and he surged to take chase. The pronghorn was fast, but Kjorn ate ground with huge, long leaps—wings closed—and the elder hoof beast tired fast.

  With a chaos of bleating and leaping animals and the sudden blur of the lionesses and Vanhar falling in on all sides, Kjorn shoved into a final jump and crashed into his prey. He dug his talons into the hindquarters and yanked to one side, bringing down the beast and rolling with him to avoid a cloven hoof to the head.

  Throwing his body on top of the pronghorn, Kjorn went for his throat. A splash of moonlight caught the creature’s eye. For a moment it glowed silver, meeting Kjorn’s eyes with terror, and knowing.

  Flustered, Kjorn hesitated only a moment to stammer, “You ran well.”

  The pronghorn closed his eye, and offered his throat.

  Warm voices rolled behind Kjorn as blood and life spilled over his beak.

  “The herd grazes under the moon,

  and now the dark is high.

  The herd grazes under the moon,

  and one knows his time is nigh.

  The eye of Tor watches, her light guides us on.

  The breath of Tor whispers, we follow her song.

  One goes now to the Sunlit Land

  But his Voice in the wind sings on.”

  Kjorn wiped his beak in the grass, and stepped back from the carcass. He mantled as Ajia slunk forward. “For you, my lady.”

  She dipped her head, rustling the feathers braided there. “You did well.”

  “Not to offend, but this task was not hard. I don’t see the point of making me wait here for days, only to kill an old, simple hoof beast.”

  He distinctly heard Nilsine sigh, and the Vanhar huntress emerged with the others from the grass.

  “It was not the task itself,” Ajia said, “but how you carried it out.” When Kjorn said nothing, she confirmed, “You have proven yourself humble, and honorable. Let us feast.”

  After eating, they walked toward a grove of stunted trees, their shadows stretching long under the low moon.

  Ajia walked beside Kjorn. “The last we knew of Shard, he brought the enemy down on the Dawn Spire, and fled starward. After that we cannot say.”

  “Starward.” Kjorn looked that direction, then to Nilsine.

  She murmured, “The eagles dwell there. The Voldsom Narrows are a great network of canyons, starward, and bordering the Outlands. If Shard isn’t still there, perhaps the eagles will know of him. The Vanhar have no quarrel with them, but neither have we any special friendship.”

  Kjorn wondered if he would have to perform a task for the eagles as well, but bit the thought back. “Then, starward we go. Thank you,” he said to Ajia, stifling frustration that after all that, he’d gained so little information. But he stopped walking and mantled low as if to a queen.

  “Be wary,” murmured Ajia, lifting her nose toward the sky. “You have returned to a land that is cursed by the curse of your forefathers. You must tread and fly very lightly here.”

  Kjorn sensed a threat. “Tell me what you mean by that.”

  A low rumble emanated from the chests of all the lions, as if they warned off some greater danger, as if they guarded against the very curse of which she spoke. Ajia shook her head, rattling the talons and feathers. “Until the return of the first Red King, there were no wyrms who terrorized the night. Your ancestor drew them here.”

  “If that is true, then it may be my destiny to help rid the land of them. But first I must find my wingbrother.”

  “It won’t be so easy,” Nilsine said, and Kjorn looked at her through the dark. “Fighting the wyrms. Their very presence breeds fear and panic. No one flies at night anymore, for it draws their hateful eyes. I’ve never met a gryfon who has seen them and not forgotten his name.”

  “I have,” Ajia murmured, and when they looked at her, she dipped her head to Kjorn. “Your wingbrother. Rashard. The Summer King. Perhaps if you stand together, you will stand a chance.” She flicked her ears, and looked upwards again as Kjorn enjoyed a flush of pride at knowing that Shard had stood his ground against this supposedly unbeatable enemy. Ajia’s low voice drew him back to the moment. “The Horn of Midragur is broken and breathes fire. This, too, is a sign, though only more time will tell.”

  Having proven himself, and sensing a moment when he could ask a question, Kjorn spoke slowly. “The dragon,” he said, wanting desperately to understand her and fearing she wouldn’t speak in any plainer terms, “when we first arrived, you spoke of a dragon who bore hope, and the Summer King, Shard, who brought truth. You said you knew that three of us would come, and I was the third. What do I bring?”

  “You don’t know what you’ve brought?”

  Feeling hollow, thinking of the gold that he’d brought and lost, Kjorn lifted his wings. “I…brought nothing.”

  “That is right. You bring nothing.” The breath seemed to drain from the group, and Kjorn narrowed his eyes. Does she mean to make me look like a fool? Ajia’s eyes glinted in the moonlight. “You brought nothing, but with your wings you will stir the still air, with your wings you will raise the Sunwind.”

  Kjorn glanced around, discomfited by the sudden, worried expressions of the Vanhar. That she used his own words about stirring the winds also unnerved him. She couldn’t have known he’d said that—unless she’d been listening, spying, unseen in the grass that day, and said it on purpose. Somehow he doubted that was what happened.

  Hesitantly, he asked sideways of Nilsine, “You told me of the Sunwind, but not what it means to you.”

  “Change,” she murmured, eyes locked on Ajia. “Sacrifice, and violent change.” She turned to Kjorn with a new, cautious, measuring look in her eyes. “Kjorn, the Sunwind is the wind of war.”

  For a moment every gaze was on him, and the air smelled thickly of ash, and though he had come to the Winderost with peace in his heart, he felt as if a secret purpose even he hadn’t known had just been laid bare under the white, silent moon.

  ~ 19 ~

  Groa of the Vanhar

  “KAJAR?” SHARD LURCHED TO his feet, wincing at the pain that shot up his hind leg, and the fire rippled with the wind of his movement. “That’s not possible!”

  Iluq whined, nose wrinkling in a worried expression.

  Shard settled slowly, embarrassed at his outburst before the old, dignified gryfess. “Forgive me. But how are you still alive?”

  “Iluq keeps me young,” Groa said with a laugh. “My Voice in the wing sings on.”

  Shard glanced over his shoulder, back the way he’d come, but thought better of it. To think that she’d flown with Kajar, followed the first starfire, wasn’t any stranger than anything else he had seen since the last wild spring when he’d first met Catori and learned of the Summer King.

  “I see,” he said, still mulling it over. A still, small flame of understanding flicked to life in his mind. He remembered Amaratsu’s tale of the dragons. He remembered her telling of a feast the great emperor gave for his gryfon guests, but one gryfess didn’t trust him, and fled, never to be heard from again.

  He watched Groa quietly.

  “Here now,” said the ancient gryfess. “Let us tend to that leg. Legend says the Summer King will be a healer as well as a leader…are you a healer?”

  A spark popped and the fire sent up a plume of smoke. The little cave and Groa herself seemed to waver before Shard’s eyes. He’d underestimated his weariness. What she said had to be true. He could think of no reason she would lie to him, or why else she would be there, alone, and so ancient, in the land of the dragons. Slowly, with surety, he began to believe that she was that last gryfess from Amaratsu’s tale, that she alone had escaped the curse of Kajar and his band.

  Realizing she’d asked a question, Shard attempted to gather his thoughts again and form an answer. “I learned a bit of healing from my nest-mother. Yes.”

  “Ah.” She sighed deeply and the fire glowed hotter. “The vala are never wrong.”

>   “Vala?”

  “Prophets of the Vanhar. Enough now.” She tapped talons on the stone floor and it sounded like brittle bones. “Iluq, help Shard fetch strong, supple twigs from our supply for a splint. Shard, if you need sinew for the binding you may pull it from the dream net.” She tilted her head back to indicate the strange, round web over her head.

  “Oh. No,” Shard said, eyeing the intricate pattern of woven sinews. “No, I can use mud to pack and hold it and the torn flesh, until I reach the dragons. They should be able to help me if I need to redo it.”

  Groa turned her ears toward him, then laughed, and laughed, and the sound was oddly strong and true for such an aged creature. “Dragons? Help a gryfon? No, my young friend, better to stay here. Better to stay and learn the ways of dream catching, as befits a seer and a healer such as the Summer King. Are you a seer?”

  “Sometimes.” Shard watched Iluq, who pawed diligently through the pile of kindling for good splint material. “I don’t have much control over it, though.”

  “Many do not. But I learned much from Iluq, here, and the windward-most dwelling ravens of the Sunland, about dreams. With a net such as mine, you may see almost anything, any time you wish.”

  “Were you trying to find me? Is that why I saw Iluq? He appeared to me as a white star.”

  “You saw Iluq because you are the Summer King and your dreams guide you where you should go. Later, I saw you because I wished to. Yes, I was trying to find you.”

  “Why?”

  She made a low, strange noise that Shard recognized after a moment was a purring chuckle. “Because you seek the truth, and I possess it. I can tell you what you need to know about the dragons of the Sunland.”

  Shard leaned forward. “I would like to hear that. And you can teach me about this dream catching? How to see things in my dreams on purpose?” Shard wasn’t even sure if his own father had been able to do that. He’d never asked Stigr, and regret speared him.

  “See,” Groa confirmed, “and speak to others so they hear.”

  Shard marveled, and he almost stood again. A dancing pain shot up his leg. “It would be an amazing gift. Let me set this leg, and we’ll talk more.”

  “Yes,” said Groa simply. “Iluq will help you.”

  That said, Iluq brought his selection of strong pine sticks to Shard. First would be to set the bones straight. Because Iluq had no way to grip and Shard suspected Groa didn’t possess the strength to do it right on the first try, he had to do it himself. Gingerly, he wrapped his talons around the broken ends of the bone, sucked a breath, and with a yank, a twist, and a bright, stunning pain, his leg was straight again.

  “Iluq,” Shard gasped, every muscle trembling. “I need mud. And, the skin must be set back over the muscle.” Tenderly, the little fox helped Shard to correct the torn flesh and muscle, cleaned by salt water but still ripped. A trickle of water ran down a sliver in the rock in the back of the cave, and Iluq clawed enough mud to pack around the splints and the damaged skin, as Sigrun had taught Shard. That done, Shard stretched out, with his throbbing leg toward the fire, hoping the mud dried hard enough to hold it in place.

  When that was finished at last, Iluq brought him smoked fish. With food in his belly he could think clearly, and he hoped Groa would indeed be able to remember all and tell him of Kajar, and the dragons.

  “Lady Groa, I would like very much to hear what you know of dragons, and to learn dream catching from you. But how long might it take? I must find the dragons, find my nest-son and be sure he’s well.”

  Her delicate ears flicked back. “The dragons will not help you as I can help you, but because you already posses the power to see in your dreams, I could teach you in perhaps two nights. Perhaps one, if your strength holds out.”

  “One night?” He ground down and swallowed the last of his fish. “If you can do that, then I would be grateful.”

  “Then I will teach you, even as I tell you my tale of Kajar. I will show you in a dream, the way you may learn to show others images in dreams, if you possess the knack.” Her milky eyes narrowed in concentration, though she stared just beyond Shard in the wrong direction to be looking at him. “First, tell me what you know of Kajar and what you think you know of the dragons.”

  So Shard told all he knew, which was very little, ending with, “. . . then the emperor of the dragons issued them a challenge to choose friendship or more power and riches, and Kajar said he needed to think it over. But when a friendly dragon went to find Kajar, he and the other gryfons betrayed and killed her. Then they gathered what treasures the dragons had given them and left the Sunland.” Shard yawned, sleepy in the warmth, and Iluq curled up at his flank as if they were old friends.

  Groa didn’t say anything, and so Shard continued, watching her expression. “One gryfess didn’t face the emperor dragon’s challenge. She thought it was a trap. She fled, and no one knew what became of her.” Shard lifted his head, raising his voice. “It’s true, isn’t it? And you’re her.”

  “Yes,” she said at last. “I was the gryfess who fled the dragon emperor, I who never returned home, I who avoided the bright curse of Kajar and his followers. And what became of them, do you know?”

  Feeling hesitant, Shard told the end of the story as he knew it. “Their descendants were forced to leave the Winderost when the wyrms—Voiceless, Nameless cousins of the dragons, invaded.”

  “Invaded,” Groa echoed. “And why, I wonder?”

  “I’ve wondered the same thing,” Shard confessed. “I was told that they were jealous of the Sunland dragon’s love for the gryfons, of their esteem, jealous that they were given treasures and it drove them to anger and hatred.”

  Groa scoffed. “And where did you hear this story?”

  Again, Shard hesitated, sensing that Groa grew more frustrated, or angry, at the account, though he didn’t know why. “A dragon,” he said. “A Sunland dragon. A friend. She saved my life and in return I hatched her son.”

  “It’s such a simple tale,” Groa said disdainfully. “Almost like a kit’s story, don’t you think?” She seemed to weave before him and Shard wondered if he was succumbing to the heat of the fire. “So simple. Passed down for a hundred dragon generations. They lead such short lives. And you don’t think some parts might have changed in the telling? You heard this story one hundred times removed from a dragon who was not there.”

  Shard hadn’t considered that, when first he’d met Amaratsu, but now he did, and wondered. Groa lifted herself up and Shard felt like he should rush to her side and assist, but he was so weary. The pain in his leg had finally eased a little with the stability of the splint, the warm fire crackled and he only stared as she opened drab wings to frame the dream net above her head.

  “I will tell you the true account, and you may judge after. Let yourself grow tired, young prince. Let yourself succumb to sleep, and listen to me. I will see you in a dream, and you will see me, as you have once before. Listen and dream as I tell you all as I remember it. I, Groa of the Vanhar, I who was there.”

  Shard’s gaze trailed up her ancient feathers and then along the spiral web of the dream net until he felt caught, the hot fire and his weariness overcame him. The whisper of Groa’s voice that had drawn him to the valley drew him into the dream she wove for him. Together they followed a familiar starfire to a Sunland day that had dawned a hundred years before Shard was born.

  ~ 20 ~

  A New Tale

  “I FLEW WITH KAJAR TO represent the Vanhar on the glorious flight windward, the flight that followed the starfire.” In the dream, Shard saw everything as if he and Groa flew side by side. As if she called up ghosts, gryfons and dragons appeared and moved before them to show Shard the tale.

  “The beginning was, perhaps, much as the dragon told you. We met the dragons when we came to the Sunland and, yes, we were all taken with each other. You’ve seen how majestic, how impressive, how powerful the dragons are. Of course Kajar, who was young and had an eye for strength and op
portunity, was captivated by them.”

  “As the dragon told you, we settled there for some time, learning of fire—though they never told us how to make it, only feed it. We saw them turn raw metals into liquid fire and back into metals again. They possessed great stores of jewels which, with their talons, they could cut into any shape they like.”

  “The dragon kit I’m helping,” Shard said, and his voice sounded far away to his own ears. “His claws can dig through stone.”

  Groa’s blind eyes seemed to flicker. “Yes. And much more when he is grown. I saw dragon claws cut diamond.”

  She laughed at the memory and as she laughed, her age faded and he saw a young, fit huntress the shape and size of a Vanir.

  “The hardest stone imaginable, you know, a relic from the First Age, and precious to dragons. Their most prized gems were the ones of the brightest colors, the ones that reflected their beautiful scales—their scales, which change to at least four miraculous hues through the course of their lifetime. A new skin for each season. They used metal and stone to create adornments which flattered their scales, and it was Kajar who asked if they could make armor. Intrigued, they forged gauntlets, collars, and helms to—”

  “Helms?”

  “To protect the head. Crafted specially for a gryfon’s face. Did Kajar not take any of those home?”

  “No,” Shard said. “Or I’ve never seen them. Maybe they were already so burdened it would’ve been too heavy to take over the sea.”

  “Perhaps. It would make sense.” They hovered effortlessly in the half light of the dream place she had created, a Sunland from long ago. She swept her talons through the air, sculpting a shape from the wind, and held out to Shard a headpiece of gleaming bronze. It was shaped to fit over a gryfon head, contoured around the ears and eyes and with a clasp under the chin easy for talons to manage. Shard studied the vision, intrigued, and then Groa flicked her talons open, and it disintegrated. “Oh, Shard, you should have seen Kajar in the full armor they cast for him. Glorious, young prince. It was glorious, though cumbersome to fly in. There would be no enemy who could defeat him in that dragon armor.”