Song of the Summer King

by Jess Owen

  The wolves’ shoulders were even with Shard’s, sloped and thick with muscle. Ears forward, gold eyes intent, Shard thought at first he was being unobservant and couldn’t tell them apart. But the closer he looked as they approached, tails up, hackles smooth, he realized that wasn’t it. Both had pale gold eyes. Both had ghostly white faces that mottled into heavy neck fur of russet and gray and black that glinted indigo in the sunlight. They were identical.

  “Stay back!” Shard opened his wings, muscles tensing to leap into the air. The wolf brothers paused, then looked at each other.

  “But you called,” one said.

  “You called,” the other agreed, and licked his muzzle.

  Shard rumbled a warning growl at the gesture. “I called Catori. Or tried to. Who are you?”

  “I am Ahote,” said the first, “I am Ahanu,” said the second, and Shard knew that if they moved around, he wouldn’t be able to tell one from the other. The first, Ahote, stepped forward, lowering his head, tail low, though he didn’t cringe and cower. He was trying to show respect, Shard thought.

  Hoped.

  “You think our little sister would meet a gryfon alone?”

  “Alone?” echoed the other, Ahanu. “Our poor little sister, without protection?”

  “No, thief.” That word again! Lapu had called him the same. “She would not.” Ahote took another step forward, lifting his head proudly. “But we will take you to her.”

  “If you’re brave.” Ahanu showed his fangs, long, yellowing, sharp. Both wolf brothers looked ragged and fierce, with winter fur hanging in dregs from their coats, the way Shard’s own feathers must look. He twitched a hind-paw to back away, then stopped himself, flexing claws into the ground.

  “Are you brave?” the other taunted. Shard lifted his head, flared his wings and fanned his tail feathers.

  “Take me to her.” He hesitated, and met both sets of golden eyes. “And thank you.”

  The wolf brothers paused, blinked at each other, then raised twin howls of amusement. Or is it approval? And without a word of warning, they bounded across the meadow.

  With no time for second thoughts, Shard snapped his wings to his sides, glanced once at the raven who bobbed its head, and leaped after them into the forest.

  ~7~

  Betrayal

  They plunged through twisting juniper and pines that sang with wind in their needles. The first time they darted under a grove of rowan Shard thought again of red Catori, and tried to remember the place. At first Shard tried to mark their trail, to remember which way they came, then he realized that they often doubled back, that the wolf brothers led him purposefully in circles to confuse him. Shard wondered if they meant to take him to Catori at all.

  The land rose. They climbed a slope broken by black rocks adorned with pale, drying winter moss and crawling white lichen.

  “So slow!” yipped Ahanu. Or Ahote. Shard had lost track and he didn’t care. He kept pace when they ran. His hind paws were well suited to the earth once he found a good rhythm, but the wolves allowed him no time.

  “Maybe if you led me true,” Shard snapped. He let his tail lash. Let them see his anger, let them know he wasn’t foolishly following blind. But both wolves only loosed warbling laughs to see him struggling up the rock hill, dark and chilly from the shade.

  He raised his face to the breeze, which was still warm. They climbed in the lee of a starward facing slope, where cool winds shuddered. It would be a good place to cool down in high summer, he thought. Not that he planned to return, except to hunt.

  “Do you plan to take me to your sister at all, or just lead me in circles until I collapse?”

  Ashamed of his weariness on foot, he sat down for a moment on a broad slab of rock just below where the wolves stood. Kjorn would have clawed his ear off for such stupidity. One brother showed his teeth.

  “Why do you want to see her?”

  Shard’s muscles tightened and he looked around. The wolves lowered their heads, ears perked. He heard the sea. They were near the shore; waves swirled and crashed against rock somewhere close. It sounded as if they had climbed a rise that dropped straight down into the sea.

  He stood, feathers sleeking tight against his body with unease. “I wish to speak to her. That’s all.”

  “Ha.”

  The wolf brothers crossed each other, pacing once. Shard thought it was Ahote who bared his fangs and spoke. “Gryfons don’t speak to wolves. They steal. They kill.”

  “They kill,” echoed the other.

  Maybe I could tell them apart, Shard thought, pinning his ears back. One always follows, always laughs. One is the leader, stronger. Ahote?

  “No,” he said firmly, digging his talons against the rock. “She helped me. She helped all of us to kill the boar. I want to learn more. I owe her my thanks.”

  “Your thanks.”

  “We owe you something too.” Ahote bared his long sharp teeth, dark hackles rising.

  Shard tensed, half crouching. “I came here peacefully.”

  “We lived here peacefully,” snarled Ahanu. “Until you winged thieves came and stole and killed. You and your kings, red with dragon’s blood.”

  Fighting instinct flared. Shard’s gaze darted around. Trees closed them in. The tumbled rocks made footing awkward for him, but suited the wolves, with their long legs and four solid paws. They had chosen their ground, and he walked right into it.

  “I should have known better than to trust wolves. What have I done to—”

  They leaped. Shard flared his wings halfway and scrabbled to the side, which brought him directly under Ahanu’s belly as the wolf landed. Pale and russet fur writhed above Shard and he rolled to his back, clawing upward. He caught only matted, un-shed winter fur.

  “Stop!” Shard squirmed free and scrabbled away from them, loosing an eagle shriek that deepened to a lion snarl. The voice that rumbled from his chest barely sounded his own. “I have no quarrel with—”

  “This is vengeance,” rumbled Ahote, stalking forward. Shard backed away awkwardly over the rock, realizing too late that they were driving him backwards up the slope. Toward a cliff? Fine, I will fly away.

  “For our brother,” yipped Ahanu. “Our nephews–”

  “All our kin,” growled Ahote. “All who have died and suffered at the claws of your thieving, murdering red kings!”

  Shard didn’t realize he’d moved until the wolf slammed into him and they wrestled, talon to claw in a tangled struggle up the slope. Ahanu nipped at Shard’s tail but then skittered away when Shard slashed talons or snapped his beak.

  He felt Ahote drawing back more often, shoving his weight, clawing less, and thought he was winning at last, and saw the blood he’d left in the russet fur.

  “For them,” the big wolf snarled, snapping his jaws toward Shard’s throat. Shard shoved back to dodge—and fell into open air.

  He flared his wings with a yelp of fear. One wing knocked against a tree, his hind paw caught in two rocks and he shrieked. Both wolves leaped forward, snapping and snarling, to shove him backwards down the jagged rock face toward the sea.

  A low howl rang far off. The brothers perked their ears, ducked their heads and loped away. Shard lost his footing and fell, rolling and scrabbling down the rock face. The weak shale crumbled under his claws. His wings struck trees and boulders. He snapped them shut to avoid breaking bones, clawing madly for purchase on the crumbling ground.

  Rocks and shale slid down with him. Shard bumped against a slab of stone, flipped and skidded head-first toward the edge of the cliff. Trees lunged at him. He thrust out talons and snagged a root, but his momentum flung him in a sideways arc to knock his head against a neighboring tree.

  Crashing seawater strewn with rocks filled his vision before his daylight flashed to black.

  Kjorn glided low toward his father on the topmost slab of rock on Copper Cliff. The king gazed far off, windward toward the home of his fathers. Kjorn’s shadow slipped over Sverin and he looked up, k
eening once as Kjorn lighted beside him on the rock.

  “Caj said you wanted to see me?”

  The king, as red as his father, kept his ears perked toward the windward horizon and did not speak.

  “Father,” Kjorn went on, checking himself when one red ear slanted his way. Then he straightened, lifting his head, filling his chest with a breath. “Father, it’s been so many days since the hunt. Everyone is afraid of your decisions. When will you tell them who can remain?”

  Sverin turned his golden eyes on Kjorn at last. “Tell Thyra and her hunters to bring extra kills. Birds, if they can. Hares. Delicacies. We will have a feast at sunset. I have great things to tell our pride.”

  Kjorn’s heart quickened. “Will you tell me first, Father? Will you tell me—at least tell me of Shard. My wingbrother. You won’t banish him? We wouldn’t have taken the boar without him.”

  The son of Per looked at him, golden eyes fierce. Then he blinked once, as if he’d been looking at something far away and only just saw Kjorn. His expression softened, as it always did, for Kjorn knew he had his mother’s coloring and face. Kjorn’s mother had carried him over the Windland Sea to the Silver Isles, and died the first winter before she could raise him.

  Sverin tilted his head, one ear flicking back. “Not yet. No. Forgive me, my son. But even you must wait.”

  Kjorn ruffled, then smoothed his feathers and mantled, dignified. “Of course. I trust your will.”

  “Sunset,” Sverin said as he sat down, now facing the dawnward sky. His tail swept the rocks restlessly, feathers flaring to a fan and closing again. “Here at my rocks. Spread the word, everyone is to attend to hear what I have to say.”

  “Yes, Father.” Kjorn dove from the high rocks and glided across Sun Isle to spread the will of the king and to tell Thyra what she and her hunters must do. He told warriors, fledges, and even mothers to bring their littlest kits. There was only one gryfon he couldn’t find.

  Shard watched a pale gray gryfon plunge alone into the sea. Red clouded out around him when he struck the water.

  A bolt of skyfire split the blue sky, arcing above a vast foreign plain toward jagged white mountains. A roar shook the mountains and huge herds of deer on the plain turned and fled from the sound. In the distance, he thought he saw gryfons flying.

  The water rose around him, filling his eyes, his throat, dragging his wings, and he had no more strength to fly out or swim free—

  Icy salt water seeped under Shard’s feathers to shock the skin around his eyes. He gasped to awareness and tried to flare his wings. They hung heavy as stones from his shoulders. He shook his head once, flinging away water, taking slow breaths.

  An ache pierced his head. Unease and fear clung to him. He tried to remember if he dreamed, and couldn’t, but a fear lingered in him, so heavy it almost didn’t feel his own. I must have had a nightmare.

  Shard looked around slowly, wary of his pulsing head. He’d fallen from the cliff into the sea. Ahote and Ahanu had tried to kill him.

  I’m lucky I didn’t drown. Thank bright Tyr. The waves had dragged him nearly a league out into the broken rocks in the long shoals off Star Island. As Shard shifted he felt one hind leg, pinned between two jagged rocks.

  Maybe that saved me from washing out to deep water.

  The sea stretched out around him. Shard fought a sense of rising panic that also sent pain trotting through his skull. Wedged in the rocks, he was trapped in the sea, his wings waterlogged.

  A gryfon could fly in heavy rain for a time, but Sverin warned so heavily against the sea. Shard didn’t know if he could fly with seawater in his wings. They felt so heavy. He had to have been pinned out in the water for several sunmarks.

  Tide was out, but if he didn’t free himself soon, the rocks that had saved him from deeper water would hold him until he drowned.

  Sverin’s low voice rolled in his head. The sea brings only cold and death. Fighting a burst of panic, Shard let out one gasping yowl.

  But the sun still shone, and he could move. He could fight. He could escape the chill grip of the tugging waves.

  Muttering, panting against numbness, he dragged his wings closed from their useless splay. Not broken, please don’t be broken. He felt twinges, bruises, but no restrictions. Relief swelled and burst to anger inside him. He had been so stupid, trusting wolves, then falling.

  Gryfons don’t fall.

  He fell, broken, dying, into the sea.

  The image leaped to him. Shard sucked a breath and shook his head. A nightmare. He had dreamed, unconscious in the water. It doesn’t matter now. It was a dream, and I have enough trouble.

  He forced one hind leg to move, to lift under the water, working the life back into it as he looked around. Carefully, he flexed the muscles of the leg pinned by the rock, and when there was no pain, continued flexing lightly, feeling for a safe way to tug free without scraping or straining. Heartened, Shard knew that once his muscles relaxed, he could push himself free.

  Don’t panic like a kit, rolled out of its nest. Grimly, Caj’s advice from long ago came back to Shard, when he was still learning to fly. Panic makes kits wander off cliffs, and grown warriors make stupid mistakes.

  He could drag himself out if he stayed calm. If he did it soon, he could climb the higher rocks, let the sun dry his wings and his headache subside. He ground his beak and then swept his free hind foot against the rock, seeking a firm place to push. Pain darted up his hind paw and he remembered feeling it twist as he fell, and went still again.

  Little silver fish darted by, unafraid. Their motion kept catching his attention and he perked his ears, then shut his eyes as the light on the water dazzled like Sverin’s gems.

  His belly clawed as insistently as a gryfon kit yowling for food. And he was thirsty.

  “I am a warrior,” he muttered to the rocks around him. “A proven warrior and hunter of the Silver Isles. I am not afraid of you,” he snarled at the glimmering water. The little fish continued to flicker around him.

  This was a minor trial. He could almost feel his foot now, but shivers trembled uncontrollably through his body. Despite the warm sun, the sea around the Silver Isles remained cold in all seasons.

  The sea is death.

  He panted against the sun’s heat on his face, coupled with the ice of the water. Squirming, he rested his free hind paw against a rock under the water, and lifted his forelegs to grasp the faces of rock that poked above the water. He pulled, straining against heavy wings, exhaustion and the aching bruises that needled to life under every muscle. Saltwater stung like nettles in the scrapes from his fight with the wolf brothers.

  The rocks that pinned his hind leg seemed to squeeze tighter the harder he struggled.

  “Great, golden Tyr,” he gasped, blinking toward the nightward horizon. The sun stalked too close to the edge. Soon the tide would rise.

  “Make me strong,” Shard whispered, clicking his beak once softly. Bracing himself for pain, he pinned his ears back, gripped the rocks harder with his talons, and heaved. His wings weighted him down. The rock tugged his hind leg. Forelegs trembling, Shard forced a firm, steady haul from his muscles, shutting his eyes, and with a roiling snarl, felt his hind leg pull free.

  Legs quivering, wings throwing his balance when he tried to move, Shard clung to the small bits of rock that stuck above the water and looked toward the shore. Free now, he could wade through rock and sea. His hind paw throbbed and ached, but he saw no blood.

  He took a short, slow jump toward a larger rock. His wings dragged him short, he clawed at the rock and his hind legs collapsed under him. A surprised squawk escaped his throat and he dug his talons against the rock, shuddering as waves lapped against his hind paws. He let his wings hang low, too tired to hold them at his sides. Thirst burned his throat and belly. The high wind tossed salt spray into his eyes. At last out of the water, he rested a moment.

  Only a moment, he thought, dizziness and ache twirling his head.

  A wave splashed his f
ace. He twitched awake.

  “You’re nothing,” he growled at the rocks. “I faced down a boar.”

  Ravens circled overhead now, thinking he might soon become their meal. He wondered if he knew any of them and stifled a hysterical chuckle.

  This time he moved slower, carefully feeling the weight of his damp wings, the bruises and trembling of his limbs, pausing on each rock to rest and catch a breath. The sandy shore rippled in front of his eyes.

  “Almost there,” he growled. The little silver fishes seemed to follow him, as if his progress amused them. He wondered how large they were, and if they were good for eating. He thrust his talons into the water and they scattered. Relief at missing filled him when he realized what he’d done. It was forbidden to hunt from the deadly sea.

  Shard huffed and turned his gaze toward land again. Before being pinned, it appeared he’d drifted a good dozen leaps from the cliff where Ahote and Ahanu attacked. A narrow, rocky strip of beach stretched in front of him now, only a few paces deep before surging up into another hulking cliff face. Shard realized tide would swallow that little beach when the tide rose. He couldn’t rest there; he would have to climb.

  The last distance was the hardest, crawling through sharp, slick rocks, the wind soaring along the cliff face and trying to batter him down.

  With one last short, weak jump Shard landed in a heap of feather and fur on the rocky shore. For a moment he lay quivering and digging his talons in the gravel. But he couldn’t stay. Sun hung nightward and the moon crept up, nudging the tide higher. He forced himself to his feet and limped along the narrow beach to find high ground. Thirsty, hungry, pain from bruises lancing with each step, and an ache from salt in his blood wounds, he moved forward on blank instinct.

  Is this how the witless creatures move?

  With the thought, he became aware of himself again. The water slipped against the rocks below.