[Firebringer 02] - Dark Moon

by Meredith Ann Pierce

  The dark prince fell back a step at her quiet vehemence. “You must set no store by Queen Tlat’s thoughtless words….”

  “Even though they be true?” Ryhenna finished, turning to meet his gaze at last. “O Moonbrow, dost think I have not always known that while I might one day walk among thy people, I can never be one of them?”

  The dark unicorn stared at her, astonished. He shook his head vigorously. The halter of silvery skystuff clinked and chinged. “Nay, Ryhenna,” he told her. “You are wrong.”

  The breeze off the golden strand stirred the trees surrounding the glade. Ryhenna’s coat gleamed fiery copper in the late morning sun. Jan looked away, at the seabirds gliding overhead, at distant herons winging home to the Singing Cliffs from fishing in the bay.

  “The sea-unicorns told me—and Jah-lila herself once told me a thing which leads me to hope our rescuer’s tale may be true—that my mate’s dam was once hornless as you are, born in your City of Fire, but fled and, joining our company, became a unicorn.”

  The coppery mare’s gaze changed, intensified, grew full of such wild longing suddenly that he found it difficult to meet.

  “Surely this is but an old mare’s tale thou hast spun to keep my spirit up,” she breathed. “My own dam used to do the same, but I pray thee to have done. I am no filly to be made docile so.”

  Again Jan snorted, shaking his head. “I pledge to you, Ryhenna: my mate’s dam is a powerful sorceress; if any among the unicorns has power to make you one of us, it is she.”

  He saw the coppery mare flinch, shuddering. “And if not?”

  “If not,” the dark prince told her, “then you will be no less welcome among us, admired for your bravery, your counsel, your beauty.” The silver halter jingled as he spoke. He made himself say the words: “A horn upon the brow—it is not the world, Ryhenna. “

  The coppery mare turned away suddenly. He followed her. “Moonbrow,” she breathed, “I fear this above all else: that rejoining old friends in the Vale, thou wilt forget me.”

  “Ryhenna,” the young prince cried. “How could you think it? Such shall never come to pass.”

  The coppery mare turned again to face him. The breeze sighed through the trees. “Thy mate will reclaim thee,” she said bluntly, “and thy duties as prince. I am not thy mate—”

  Jan shook his head. “Nay.”

  “Among daya,” she offered, “a stallion may have many mates.”

  Again the dark prince shook his head. “But not among unicorns.”

  She gazed at him, lost. “In the City,” she whispered, “I was called thy mate, if only from courtesy. What am I now to thee—what can I be—if not thy mate?”

  Her voice was tight, her tone desperate. He moved to stand next to her. “My shoulder-friend,” he answered her, “she to whom I owe my freedom and my life. Those among the unicorns who love me, Ryhenna, will love you as well.”

  “I shall never love any as I love thee, Moonbrow!” she cried.

  He nuzzled her, very gently. “Nor I you, Ryhenna,” he said. “Tek is my mate. I love her. You are my shoulder-friend, and I love you. I love you both, but differently. And when in a year or two years’ time, you dance court within this glade, it will be with one whom you love in a way entirely other than the way that you love me. I am your companion, your friend, Ryhenna, just as you are always and ever mine. Stand fast with me,” he said, “and no foe shall ever part us.”

  The pain so plain upon her features all at once subsided. She whickered low, and champed him lightly once, a comrade’s nip, no more. “Well enough then, my shoulder-friend.”

  He shrugged against her laughing, relieved. Sun overhead was climbing toward noon. He shook himself, snorting.

  “So tell me, Ryhenna, what should I do with this gryphon?”

  The mare beside him shuddered. “Leave him,” she answered. “Leave him to his fate.”

  Jan sidled uneasily. “By rights, I ought to kill him,” he murmured, “as a sworn enemy of the unicorns.”

  He heard Ryhenna gasp. “Too perilous,” she answered quickly. “Weak and starving as he is, Moonbrow, he nonetheless might do thee harm.”

  The dark unicorn nodded. “Aye. And skewering a crippled foe scarce seems honorable—yet simply leaving him to starve smacks hardly more noble….”

  “He frightens me,” Ryhenna whispered, “and yet—”

  “Yet?”

  “I pity him,” she finished, glancing at him, “hobbled by his broken wing as surely as a firekeeper’s tether once hobbled me. Captive of the herons—and now of us—as truly as once we two were captives in the City of Fire.”

  Jan stamped, frustrated, lashing his tail. He longed now only to quit the Summer shore and begin the last, short leg of the journey inland toward the Vale. Yet the gryphon’s fate stymied him.

  Great Alma, guide me, he petitioned silently. Tell me what to do.

  The air around him hung utterly quiet, silence broken only by the whisper of breeze, the soft sigh of Ryhenna’s breath, and the faint, far cries of seabirds fishing. Herons winged swiftly overhead, crops heavy. Some carried more fish, silver gleaming, in their bills. The prince of the unicorns sighed. His goddess remained mute still—or else spoke in words he could not reck.

  “We’ll feed him until I can decide, Ryhenna,” he muttered, trotting across the glade toward the trees and the shore beyond.

  He and Ryhenna spent the early afternoon gathering food for their captive gryphon. Well aware that the tercel needed meat to survive, Jan searched the tide pools for trapped fish. Two of the six he managed to skewer with his horn were of hefty size. Ryhenna meanwhile, at his direction, pawed the wet, golden sand for the fluted clams and rosy crabs that burrowed there, stamping them with her hard, round hooves to crack their shells.

  A dead skate, newly cast up by the tide, rounded their haul into a fair-sized catch by the second hour past noon. Jan set about devising a means to transport their gryphon’s food to him. The two-foots, he recalled, carried all manner of goods in wheeled carts. Though he and Ryhenna possessed no carts, he mused, they could still drag.

  Eventually, the dark unicorn hit upon tangling fish and shellfish in a mat of seaweed and dragging the whole contrivance back to the gryphon on the rocks. Ryhenna suggested that if she lifted the other end of the seaweed clear of the ground, the pair of them might carry it with greater speed. Jan laughed through his teeth, marveling at their innovation as, trotting side to side, he and the coppery mare brought their prisoner his meal.

  Despite obvious hunger, the tercel accepted their offering with little grace: screaming and hissing. Ryhenna refused to approach, so Jan pulled the food-laden mat within a few paces of the shrieking tercel by himself, then sprang away to stand with Ryhenna as the wingcat hauled himself laboriously near enough to snag the seaweed and draw it to him.

  He fell upon its contents with savage relish. Jan watched, fascinated as the gryphon’s razor beak made short work of the skate, slicing and swallowing down the tough cartilage along with the flesh. Strong yet amazingly nimble talons picked lacelike bones from the fish, pried open shellfish, and plucked strings of flesh from the crabs’ hollow limbs.

  At last, the seaweed mat completely pillaged, the wingcat subsided with a heavy sigh, green eyes half shut. Plainly it had been the most sumptuous meal he had eaten in more than half a year. Behind the dark unicorn, Ryhenna twitched nervously, anxious to be gone, but Jan lingered. Slowly, carefully, he approached the tercel, halted just out of reach. “Earlier this day,” he said, “you called my people trespassers. What did you mean by that?”

  The tercel stirred, obviously annoyed at Jan’s proximity—his very presence—but too sated and contented to raise further protest.

  “I called your people what they are, unicorn: thieves,” he answered, almost amiably. “The great vale we call the Bowl of Ishi was ours long before you unicorns came.”

  Jan stared at him. “Yours?” he cried. “How so? No gryphons ever dwelled in our Vale. It w
as deserted when the princess Halla first claimed it, forty generations ago.”

  The wingcat’s eyes snapped open, then narrowed angrily. “Deserted? Pah!” he scoffed. “It housed the sacred flocks of goat and deer Ishi gathered for my people’s use: to provide first meat each spring for our newly pipped hatchlings. But you vile unicorns drove away the tender flocks, profaning the Vale with your presence. Now the formels must hunt your bitter kind in spring, though we prefer the sweet flesh of goats or deer.”

  The prince of the unicorns stood dumbstruck. The Vale of the Unicorns—claimed by gryphons as a sacred hunting ground? He had never heard of such a thing. Yet ever since the first attacks upon the princess Halla and her followers, gryphon raiders had returned to the Vale every spring. At last, after forty generations of conflict, Jan had learned the reason why.

  “Four hundred years have we sought to drive you out,” the wounded gryphon rasped. “My own parents died on such a mission two springs past. They flew to kill the unicorns’ black prince. Not you, the other one—the one before you. But they failed. Their names were Shreel and Kilkeelahr.”

  Jan cast his mind back, two years gone, to the time just before his pilgrimage of initiation, when his father Korr had still reigned as prince and a pair of gryphons had nearly succeeded in assassinating the then-prince Korr, his mate and son. The memory was bitter, tinged with bafflement and fear.

  “My people slew your father and mother,” he told Illishar.

  “How well I know that,” the gryphon snapped. “When they did not return, we knew they must have perished.”

  “They came near to killing my sire and dam,” Jan added, remembering still.” And me as well.”

  “Yes!” Illishar replied angrily. “Had they succeeded, they would have been called heroes, perched high in the pecking order once more. Queen Malar would have rewarded them with a prestigious nesting site, a ledge close to her own upon the Cliffs of Assembly, first pick of the kill. A glorious mission. But it failed.

  “Thus was I orphaned as a half-grown chick, disinherited by powerful factions within my clan: my parents’ enemies. I grew up a nestless beggar, though I am well-born, kin to the matriarch herself. My father was her younger nestmate—but he fell out of favor. That is why he and Shreel were desperate enough to undertake so daring a raid, to win the glory that would buy them back their pride of place. For what is a gryphon without honor? Only a pecked-upon squab. Now I, too, have failed in my bid for glory. The proud line of my parents ends with my death.”

  Jan let him talk, scarcely daring to interrupt. It had not occurred to him how lonely the gryphon must be. The dark unicorn shook himself. He, too, had spent the winter as a prisoner among strangers. When guarded queries did nothing to stem the gryphon’s words, Jan grew bolder, questioning the tercel about his life before the raid, among his own people. Illishar spoke freely, proudly, of the customs of his flock, of their wars and religion, of the constant struggle both within and between the clans.

  No single leader ruled, though Malar, the matriarch of the largest clan, was the most ruthless—and therefore the most respected—leader. She was evidently some sort of cousin—possibly an aunt—to Illishar. Jan could not determine quite which. The wingcats counted kin differently from unicorns.

  As the afternoon drew on, Ryhenna grew more fidgety, and Jan sent her back to the beach to forage again while he stayed with the gryphon—careful always to remain out of reach of the raptor’s beak and claws. She returned as dusk drew on, dragging the ragged tail of a large grey shark, badly picked at by seabirds. Illishar fell on it with ravenous appetite, while the coppery mare grimaced and spat the fetid taste of fishskin from her tongue.

  As evening fell and the air grew chill, Jan collected driftwood and struck a fire. The gryphon reacted first with alarm, then awe, and finally delight, drawing close enough to the blazing driftwood to warm himself. On opposite sides of the fire, he and Jan talked on into the deepening dark. Ryhenna hovered nervously, afraid to approach because of the gryphon.

  Jan sang Illishar the lay of the princess Halla, of his people’s long-ago expulsion from their own sacred lands, the Hallow Hills, by treacherous wyverns, of their long wandering across the Plains until they reached the Vale, seemingly deserted and unclaimed, of their settling for the winter into their new home in exile only to be forced to defend themselves the following spring—and every spring thereafter—against raiding gryphons.

  Illishar grew silent, sobered after Jan’s recounting. The dark prince lay staring into the smoldering coals of driftwood, flameless now, but still shimmering, red with heat. Ryhenna whinnied uneasily in the darkness behind him. He heard her muffled hoof-falls above the calm sea’s wash: trotting, pacing. She had not yet lain down.

  “A great pity, Illishar,” Jan murmured, “that neither of our peoples ever sought converse before: no envoys exchanged, no explanations offered or sought. Much spilling of blood might have been spared, I think, had we chosen to speak before exchanging blows.” He sighed sleepily. “My people long only to depart the Vale, though it has housed us well for many years. We wish to reclaim our own lost lands by driving the hated wyverns out.”

  Wearily, the gryphon nodded, chewing at a stem of seaweed, his crippled wing propped against a stone. “Perhaps you are right, unicorn,” he muttered grudgingly, “much though it pains me to admit that one I have long held my greatest enemy might have a point.”

  A little silence then. The breeze lifted. The waves plashed, lapping. The coals of the dying fire shimmered. Unseen, Ryhenna trotted, circled.

  “Greater pity, yet,” the wingcat added at last, “that with my wing healed wrong, I can never return to my flock to tell them what I have learned. Nor will your people be eager to believe any word you might speak if such word go against their customed hatred of my kind.”

  The tercel’s words trailed off, his breathing deepening, nearly snoring now. Across the coals from him, the young prince sighed again. “Aye,” he murmured. “Unicorns are a boar-headed lot.”

  He dreamed a dream of gryphons and unicorns sharing the Vale without rancor, wingcats perching the cliffs above, his own people grazing the valley floor below. Here and there, on the slopes between valley floor and cliffs, he glimpsed odd creatures, seemingly half wingcat, half unicorn. Their limbs, torsos, and hindquarters were those of unicorns; shoulders, necks, and heads plumed and pinioned like gryphons. Stroking their great wings, they galloped across steep, grassy slopes and, vaulting into the air, took flight.

  He awoke with a start. Ryhenna stood over him, pawing at him with one round forehoof. The embers before him lay cold. Across them, Illishar lounged at ease—alert, awake, but resting. The mat of seaweed lay before him, oddly heaped and twisted. The coppery mare glanced nervously at the gryphon, then pawed Jan again. Cold dawn greyly lit the beach.

  “Wake, Moonbrow,” Ryhenna hissed.” ‘Tis morn.”

  The dark unicorn rolled stiffly, gathered his limbs under him, but did not rise. Still eyeing the gryphon tercel, the coppery mare backed off.

  “All night, I watched,” she told him, “to guard thee. Thy foe is hungry still.”

  Illishar said nothing, watched them, rustling and twisting between his talons the mat of seaweed before him. Jan staggered to his feet, shaking himself. The silver halter rattled. He had not meant to sleep.

  “My thanks, Ryhenna,” he told her sincerely. “You guard me better than I guard myself.”

  The coppery mare tossed her head, bleary-eyed. “I go to the glade to sleep,” she told him. “Come fetch me when thou wilt.”

  Jan nodded, watched Ryhenna lope away along the beach toward the grove. The rustle of seaweed drew his attention back to Illishar.

  “Your hornless mare would have been little hindrance to me, had I sought to steal upon you unawares,” he murmured to Jan.

  Walking around the remains of the fire, the young prince drew closer. “You underestimate Ryhenna,” he answered.” She held off a troop of two-foot warriors on the w
hite cliffs of the City of Fire. She would make no easy match for you. But if—as you say—it were so easy a task,” he asked, “why did you not kill me this night past when you had the chance?”

  The tercel shrugged painfully. “What use, Jan of the unicorns?” he asked. “My wing is bent past repair. I will die soon regardless—why prolong my life a few more days on your bones?”

  The seaweed rustled. Jan cocked his head, eyed Illishar’s nimble digits twisting and plaiting it. “What do you fashion?”

  “A net,” the tercel replied, spreading it so that the dark unicorn might better see. “To help me fish. Perhaps after you and your mare tire of me and depart—if you do not kill me outright—this net may enable me to live a little longer.”

  Jan met the gryphon’s eye, and for the first time, Illishar looked away. Jan allowed himself the ghost of a smile. “I see you have not yet despaired of your life as wholly as you pretend,” he told the gryphon. “Perhaps you yet dream of returning to your people?”

  “Vain dreams!” the tercel exclaimed, casting the seaweed net from him angrily. “The bone set wrong. I will never fly again.”

  Jan lay down on the rocks, still out of reach, but closer to the injured wingcat than he had ever dared to come.

  “Among my people,” he told Illishar, “when one of our number breaks a limb, our pied healer, Teki, plasters it with mudclay to keep it stiff until the bone can heal. If it begins to heal wrong, he breaks it again. I have seen him do this.”

  He thought back to the preceding spring, Dagg cracking one forelimb in a slip on a crumbling slope. He remembered Teki’s ministrations; himself, Tek, and others flanking the injured warrior by turns, keeping him upright, walking him three-legged, bringing him forage. The memory made him shudder. Even in the warmth and abundant provender of last spring, Dagg easily could have died.

  “It was horrible to watch,” Jan told the gryphon who lay before him in the rocks, “but my companion survived, and the bone knit strong and straight. Now he runs again as fleetly as before, as though the limb had never suffered ill.”