[Firebringer 02] - Dark Moon

by Meredith Ann Pierce

  “What is it?” she cried.

  Alongside them the waves had changed from grey to green. Jan laughed, tossing his head.

  “The sand, Ryhenna. It’s gold!”

  His companion half shied, shaking her mane. “Then, truth, the Singing Cliffs cannot be far! How I have longed to see the groves where thou and thy fellows danced court, the spot where ye were set upon by gryphons, and the beachhead where thou wert swept away….”

  She whickered in delight, spurred, pulled ahead of him. “I scarce can wait. O Moonbrow, let us run!”

  Laughing, Jan sprinted to close the gap. He nipped at the coppery mare’s flank. She kicked playfully, veered into the foaming surf to cast up spray after spray of shining droplets, then charged back onto the ribbon of golden beach again. Jan pounded after, heart racing, drew even and crowded her back toward the waves.

  With a gay shriek, the coppery mare twisted free of him, and halted stiff-legged, panting. Jan wheeled and also plunged to a halt, breathing heavily. His companion stood looking at him with her bright, brown eyes. She laughed again, pawing at the sand with one round, solid hoof, swished her long-haired, silky tail against one flank, her beardless chin held up impertinently. How like and yet unlike a unicorn she was!

  Laughing, he shouldered against her. She nipped him lightly, a playful champ—then started back with a cry of alarm as the shadow of some winged thing in the air above fleeted over them. Jan, too, looked up, then wheeled and stared. A blue-pinioned shape was diving toward them out of the cloudless morning sky.

  “Get behind me, Ryhenna!” the prince of the unicorns cried, dodging in front of the hornless mare.

  Above them, the winged figure banked suddenly, rearing back. Its elongated pinions stroked the air as it touched down with a spindle-shanked, gangling grace on the golden sand. Jan stared. Though all over dusty blue—the color of a gryphon formel—the creature before them was much smaller than a wingcat.

  It stood upright on two lanky, coral legs. Its slender neck crooked, head tilting from side to side, examining him and Ryhenna first with one salmon-colored eye, and then with the other. Fanning its rosy crest, the figure before them trilled happily, a hollow cooing from deep in its throat. Red chevrons beneath its pinions flashed as it folded wing. Ryhenna crowded against Jan, her voice hushed, terrified.

  “What is it, my lord?” she whispered. “Is it a gryphon?”

  Jan whickered with relief. “Nay,” he cried, euphoria filling him. “No enemy, but a friend. Greetings, Tlat, queen of the seaherons. Well met!”

  The queen of the wide-roving windriders nodded, mincing toward them across the sand. “Greetings!” she shrieked. “Greetings, Jan-prince! Welcome, welcome. We feared cat-eagles had seized you. We feared you lost!”

  Jan fought the impulse to rush forward and rub shoulders with Tlat as he would with one of his own people. The delicate herons, he knew, were ever wary of being knocked down or trampled by the heavy hooves of unicorns. The young prince restrained himself, keeping his heels planted and still.

  “Not lost,” he assured Tlat. “Not seized by gryphons—though I was pursued by them. A terrible storm swept me out to sea. It has taken me all this time to find my way back.”

  “Ah!” cried the heron queen. “So the cat-eagle spoke truth after all. We thought he lied to save himself. But who is your companion? What is this odd, hornless one that stands beside you?”

  Jan blinked, lost for a moment. The darting thoughts of herons shifted like the winds. Tlat stood craning and eyeing Ryhenna. Jan moved aside to allow her a better view. The coppery mare shifted nervously as the other approached, stabbing her bill into the air and fluttering her folded wings with growing excitement.

  “Color of sunsets! Color of burning!” the heron queen exclaimed. “Such a hue among unicorns we have never seen. And round feet—not pairs of half-moon toes, but only single ones: solid as a mussel shell, round as the ripe egg of the moon. Amazing! Where is your beard, burning-colored mare? Where is your horn?”

  Ryhenna seemed disconcerted, at a loss for words. “I…I am no unicorn, as my lord Moonbrow is,” she managed. “I am only a da from the City of…of Two-foots, far to the west.”

  “Two-foots? Two-foots?” cackled Tlat. “My tribe know something of these. They glide the waves in great hollowed-out treefish. Sometimes we see their windwings on our journeys, but we veer clear lest they hurl their hunting sticks at us. They eat our kind and steal our feathers. They are our enemies, as the cat-eagles are! If you have shared nest with our enemies, non-unicorn mare, then you, too, must be our enemy! Be off!”

  The heron queen’s agitation grew even as she spoke. Her crest fanned in anger, not welcome, now. Bill cocked, she danced grimly before Ryhenna, ready to fly at her. Hastily, Jan stepped between.

  “Peace, great queen of the windriders,” he soothed. “Ryhenna’s people are prisoners of the two-foots, as was I this winter past. When spring arrived, she aided my escape. Now we are grateful to have come once more among our fast allies, the noble herons, instead of among our common enemies, the two-foots or the gryphons.”

  “Ah!” clucked Tlat, ruffling. “Ah! I see. My apologies, fiery colored mare. I spoke in haste. Prisoners! Yes. Did the two-foots steal your horn?”

  Ryhenna cast about her helplessly. The other’s brash manner had clearly unnerved her. Quickly, Jan addressed the heron queen.

  “The two-foots’ captives grow no horns,” he began, but Tlat’s raucous cries interrupted him.

  “No horns? How misfortunate—useless! Crippled. Like a broken wing! My commiserations, imperfect mare.”

  The dark prince saw his companion’s face fall, her frame droop. She seemed utterly crushed at the heron queen’s screeches of sympathy. He drew breath.

  “Indeed it is a great pity, but it cannot be helped. But tell me, Tlat, what has passed since the storm separated me from my band this autumn past. Has word reached you of how the unicorns fare?”

  The heron queen bobbed, her gaze turning once more to Jan. “No word,” she cried. “Badly, we fear. Winter here was harsh. Too stormy to risk flying far from our cliffs. Many deaths. Our Mother-the-Sea did not yield much fish. Much courting this spring, though! Each hen has chosen her mates and begun to lay. Soon a great hatching will follow: a great squeaking and crying from the squabs just pipped from their shells. Then will the flock of the herons be renewed! Then will we forget the deaths and sorrows of this winter past.”

  Her words sent a chill through Jan.

  “But no word from the Vale?” he asked. “You do not know for certain how my own people fared?”

  Tlat wagged her head, beginning to dance again, her tone dolorous. “No word. Though the winds have moderated since equinox, we have been too busy replenishing our lost numbers to think of travel. We fear your people wintered as poorly as did we, but we have sent no envoys to inquire. Scouting for cat-eagles and fishing to feed my mates, I spotted you upon the strand. Great will be the rejoicing among the herons when I bring word of your return!”

  Her words, shrieked and croaked in heron fashion, warmed Jan.

  “I am grateful, great Tlat, for the ardor of your welcome. Truly the far-ranging herons are the invaluable allies of the unicorns. May your consorts be many and your nests bountiful. I would stay longer, enjoying your company, but I dare not. I must return to my people. Already I have been absent too long.”

  Tlat started with a cry, flapping her wings. Ryhenna half shied. “Too long! Yes! I, too, have been gone a great while. My mates hunger, their warmth dwindling. Each now sits his nest, incubating one of my rosy eggs. Soon the hatchlings will pip! I must return. Having fished, my crop is full. But first, come. You must not depart our shores until I show you the thing we have been keeping all winter. It put us to great trouble, but we persevered out of loyalty to our allies, the unicorns. We knew that you would want us to. I had planned to send fliers to your Vale soon to alert your people of its presence upon our shores. The cat-eagle we captured. One
of those who attacked you this autumn past.”

  Now it was Jan’s turn to half shy in surprise. Captured a gryphon—one of the raiders that had harried him and his fellows upon the strand more than a half year gone? He marveled the gracile seaherons had managed to capture such a formidable enemy, much less hold it prisoner for over half a year. But before he could so much as draw breath to question Tlat, the heron queen had spread her wings to the stiff sea breeze and risen into the air. In another moment, she was out of earshot. Earthbound below, Jan and Ryhenna could only follow.

  The windrider flew high and slowly, circling back from time to time. Jan and the coppery mare cantered along the damp, gleaming road of sand between wet green wave and dry golden dune. They passed along the sandstone canyons of the Singing Cliffs. Ryhenna cocked her head to the sweet, weeping soughing of breeze through their odd formations, sculpted by centuries of wind and tide.

  They came to a familiar stretch of beach and cliff. Jan recognized the break in the cliff wall, the half-submerged rocks, the deep, uneven trough in the sand where, at high tide, the surf washed through with treacherous force. Here was the point at which, last autumn, he had emerged from the cliffs, felt the gryphon’s claws along his back, then been swept away by the furious sea.

  He remembered the gryphon—a green-and-gold male overwhelmed by the same vast wave that had claimed Jan. He remembered glimpsing the other’s limp form floating on the waves afterward, seeing it cast back up on shore—perhaps not dead. Had the wingcat survived? Something moved upon the rocks just above the waterline ahead. Jan halted, staring at the creature as yet unaware of his gaze, while overhead Tlat veered and circled. The creature’s dull golden pelt was sandy and scabbed, his foreparts a mass of shabby green feathers: a gryphon on the brink of starvation.

  Jan shook himself. Beside him, Ryhenna pressed against his flank, peering over his back at the wasted predator. The lionlike haunches were sunk in, his rib cage showing starkly through thin, patchy fur. One wing lay folded against his side. The other dragged awkwardly across the rock. The wingcat lay in a heap above the swirling tide. One eagle’s claw reached down into the sea. From time to time, the gryphon jerked his submerged forelimb from the water, talons clenched—but always empty.

  The wingcat was fishing, Jan realized, as with a weak but triumphant cry, the gryphon at last hefted into sight a small, struggling fish. With one snap of his hooked, razor-sharp bill, the fish disappeared down the raptor’s scrawny gullet. A moment later, the wingcat returned to scanning the water, foreclaw once more extended beneath the surface of the tide. How many fish could he hope to catch thus in a day? Jan wondered. Surely not enough to keep himself alive. Overhead, Tlat dipped, cawing and feinting at the fishing gryphon.

  “Haw! Cat-eagle! Enemy!” she shrieked. “Look up! Look up!” The tercel hunched, ignoring her, but she persisted, swooping just close enough to scatter any fish. At last the starving gryphon raised his head.

  “Take yourself off, you accursed seabird,” he rasped. “Has your kind not taunted me enough?”

  “We feed you!” cried Tlat. “Our generosity kept you alive this winter past.”

  “I never asked for your food!” the gryphon snarled, swiping at her with sudden, unexpected vigor. Tlat hovered flapping in the air above him, merrily out of reach.

  “You never ask,” she shouted, “but you always eat what we bring. Without us, you would be dead!”

  “Better death,” the gryphon spat, “than to live, starving and maimed, on the leavings of arrogant sealice.”

  With a caw of delighted contempt, Tlat alighted upon a stone just barely within the gryphon’s reach. Her gorge heaved. Had she given him time, he could have lunged and caught her, but in less than an eye blink, she had disgorged three large fish and darted away into the air again. Jan watched appalled as, driven by hunger too great to deny, the wingcat snatched up Tlat’s gifts and wolfed them down.

  Yet the gryphon’s own look of disgust told Jan he hated himself for accepting, for living as a prisoner of the mocking seaherons. As I once lived a prisoner of the two-foots, Jan could not help thinking. A disturbing sense of empathy touched him. Angrily, he shoved it aside. This tercel, along with companions, had sought to kill him and his band half a year ago. Beside him, Ryhenna stood shuddering.

  “You do not keep me alive for charity,” the wingcat shouted after Tlat, who now circled overhead, chattering derisively. “I know that well enough! But your taunts cannot move me, who destroyed the unicorns’ black prince. Surely now my flock will drive the hated intruders from Ishi’s sacred Vale. My life no longer matters, already sacrificed to the wind-god’s almighty glory. I pray only for an end to my misery.”

  “Kah! Haw! Nonsense!” screamed Tlat. “The first storm of autumn battered your companions to bits. None survived to report the outcome of your raid. Your flock will assume you failed—as indeed you have failed. Behold! The prince of unicorns returns, alive and hale, unscratched by treacherous cat-eagle claws.”

  She wheeled to circle above Jan and Ryhenna. Turning, the wingcat started, green cat-eyes wide. An instant after, they winced, grimacing at the pain his sudden movement had caused his injured wing. Cautiously, Jan moved forward, careful to remain well beyond the wingcat’s reach. After a moment’s hesitation, Ryhenna accompanied him, still peering with fascination and terror at the wounded gryphon. Jan snorted, lashing his tail.

  “What Tlat, noble queen of our allies, says is true, wingcat,” the prince of the unicorns flung at him. “Your raid did not succeed, though the sea washed me far. It has taken me a long time to return to the spot where last we met, enemy.”

  “Great god of winds,” the gryphon exclaimed. “It is you, cursed prince of trespassers. The sea has not been kind to deliver you back unharmed, while mangling me beyond repair. Have you come merely to mock, as this harridan seabird does, or will you kill me at last and end my shame?”

  “I go!” cried Tlat from above. “My mates hunger and my unborn chicks grow cold! I leave you to do with this predator whatever seems good in your eyes, friend Jan. Do not forget it was your allies, the seaherons, who preserved his worthless life to await your vengeance.”

  “I will never forget your invaluable service, Tlat!” called Jan. “May your flock ever increase!”

  Overhead, the queen of the dust-blue herons wheeled, winging swiftly toward the Singing Cliffs. A moment later, she was lost against the hot, flame blue of the cloudless morning sky.

  26.

  Peacemaking

  Jan stood eyeing the wounded gryphon, who despite obvious weakness and pain refused to cower. The prince of the unicorns had no idea what to do with him. Surely prudence demanded that he kill this savage foe. To attack any grounded wingcat on sight had always been the practice among his people. And yet—

  “So, unicorn,” the tercel snapped, “did you come merely to gawk? I am Illishar, of the nest of Shreel and Kilkeelahr, kin to great Malar, matriarch of all my clan. I fear no unicorn!”

  Were he one of my own people, Jan mused, we would call him brave.

  The young prince snorted with frustration. Why was it so hard for him to despise this enemy as he should? The tercel’s fellows had attacked Jan’s peaceful band. This very wingcat’s talons had scored his shoulders to the bone. Yearly, the gryphon’s kind raided the Vale to steal away the unicorns’ newborn fillies and foals.

  “Well?” the wingcat taunted hoarsely. “Have you nothing more to say before you end my life, prince of thieves? Or do you mean to take the coward’s way and simply leave me? The herons are done with me. Without their fish to add to my own meager catch, I’ll quickly starve.”

  Jan stood silent, considering. The gryphon shifted painfully, hissing. The dark prince felt Ryhenna huddled against him.

  “Come, my lord,” she whispered urgently. “Let’s depart. His hate-filled words frighten me.”

  “Have you lost your tongue?” the gryphon Illishar shrieked. Jan felt the coppery mare start, flinch. “Or has
that silvery chain now clamped shut your jaws? Kill me now, invader—infidel—or else be off! I’ve little leisure to spend arguing with unicorns.”

  “Moonbrow,” Ryhenna urged him, “let’s away.”

  Jan nodded abruptly and turned. “Aye, Ryhenna. I’ve long promised to show you all our haunts along the Summer shore. I’ll do so now while I ponder what’s to be done with this foe.”

  He started off across the sand, and with a relieved sigh, the coppery mare fell in beside him. Glancing back, Jan glimpsed the tercel sagging as though only anger had kept him upright to challenge Jan. Once more the young prince champed his heart tight against pity. Marauding wingcats deserved none! Quickening his trot, he led Ryhenna away from his injured enemy, eastward along the shore.

  For the better part of the morning, Jan showed the coppery mare the beaches along which he and his fellows had galloped that half year past, the cliffs under which they had sparred, the sparse coastal woodlands in which they had foraged and bedded and sought shelter against mild summer storms. He described for her his people’s alliance with the dust-blue herons and spoke of how he and Tek had courted and pledged. Ryhenna harkened, rapt, but as she walked through the vast courting glade, he heard her soft and bitter sigh.

  “Why do you sorrow?” he asked, puzzled.

  The coppery mare tossed her head. “I think on the day, not long distant now, when we shall join your herdmates in the Vale.”

  Jan frowned, moving to stand in front of her. “I thought you welcomed the prospect!”

  The coppery mare refused to meet his gaze. “I do,” she murmured, “and yet I dread it. What will become of me among thy people, Moonbrow? Will I ever dance court in this sacred glade?”

  Jan cocked his head, trying to see her better. “Ryhenna, such is my dearest wish,” he told her, “that one day you may find in this glade that same joy which I so lately found with Tek.”

  His companion sighed again, as though swallowing down some hard little pricking pain. “Who among your people would want me?” she said heavily. “Hornless—crippled. Useless. Imperfect.”