Song of the Summer King

by Jess Owen

  At the last moment, so close his wing slapped Shard’s face, Halvden banked.

  “Only because they wish it,” he snarled, and shot past.

  Shard hurtled down to gain speed and catch up. His heart still thundered. Halvden had looked ready to attack him. Shard never thought their rivalry was that harsh.

  Shard worried that his nights with Stigr were finally breaking his focus. Everyone on Windwater seemed happy. Bellies full, feathers and coats gleaming.

  With plenty of land to explore and forests full of prey, how could anyone be so angry?

  Shard flicked the worries off his wingtips. Halvden was just hunt-mad, and showing off for the females. He had too much else to think about to dwell on it.

  They herded the deer up the seaside cliff, snapping and grazing them with talons. It was too hard to catch them near the shore, caught between water and cliff. Better to herd them to an open field, the gryfess hunters taught them, narrow in and swoop.

  Hunt-thrill lanced through Shard’s muscles. Stigr had warned him of hunting on Star Island. It belonged to the wolves. Gryfons were meant to hunt from the sea. But even that first night on Black Rock, Catori had said there was enough for everyone. She has to know I’m not really a thief. I try to respect the boundary of the river.

  The deer burst from the cliff trails out into the open field on top. Violet Kenna keened a command. The other two huntresses swooped forward to form a wedge with her, narrowing in on a single target.

  Shard and Einarr glanced at each other and closed in next to Halvden to form a wedge of their own. Soon, there would be meat. Shard’s blood pulsed.

  Motions caught his eye. He turned his head. A wolf sprinted from the trees and Shard nearly smashed into Einarr, who squawked and swerved. The wolf’s tawny fur glimmered with gold under the sunlight. Shard didn’t know him. A trespasser. Hunt-anger burned at the edge of his reason.

  His name was Kwahu, Catori’s voice whispered. He was named after the eagles.

  Shard couldn’t fathom why a wolf would sprint into territory that gryfons claimed.

  And alone? Something’s not right.

  Teal flashed in the trees. Hallr burst from the forest, splitting the air with a killing shriek.

  Choose your path well, Catori’s warning echoed, my family will seek vengeance.

  Without thinking, Shard broke from the hunters and spun into a dive toward Hallr.

  “Stop!”

  Hallr slowed, checked by the unexpected command. He saw Shard, snapped his beak and turned back to the fleeing wolf who crossed toward the trees.

  “Hallr! Leave it!”

  But instead, Hallr called for his son. Halvden turned immediately and streaked toward the trees to fence the wolf in.

  Shard screamed in eagle’s fury and closed his wings to plummet hard to the earth. He slammed into the ground between Hallr, Halvden and the wolf, and flashed his wings wide.

  “I said stop,” the word bellowed as a lion’s roar.

  Halvden veered and Hallr broke short, flaring and flapping hard to keep from smashing into Shard, and landed in front of him.

  “How dare you!” Hallr ramped to his hind legs and fell again to pace once in front of him. Shard heard the wolf rasp a word of gratitude before darting back into the forest. His heart pounded wildly in his chest. Hallr fumed and paced and Halvden stood two leaps off, panting, watching, as if waiting to choose a side.

  “How dare you,” Shard growled, fear of Hallr’s anger needling up through him. But surely the big gryfon wouldn’t attack him. The king had appointed him. “I don’t believe a wolf came alone into our territory again. You sought him out and chased him down.”

  Hallr stopped pacing and stared at Shard. In the bright afternoon light his eyes looked pale as flame. “And if I did?”

  Einarr and the gryfess hunters landed and crept forward, ears perked toward the argument.

  “I told you not to hunt them. Sverin said nothing of hunting wolves, only of making the colony a success. If you bring them down on us, we’ll fail.”

  “You’re a coward.” Hallr folded his wings and raised his head, huge and bright.

  “And you’re close to becoming an oath-breaker.” Shard forced the words out, forced himself to stand his ground. If only he had Kjorn with him.

  If only he had anyone.

  At the edge of his vision he saw Einarr and the huntresses edge forward, muttering to each other. “The king appointed you here to help me—”

  “To help the leader of Windwater.” Hallr glanced to the approaching hunting party and raised his voice. “Witness, all of you. Shard has stopped me from hunting a trespasser. I honor my vow to the king to follow good leadership.” Blazing eyes turned back to Shard. Dry wind whipped the grass between them and sang high notes in the trees. “Not this. Not this weak, watery, rabbiting brand of conquering.”

  “Enough,” Shard whispered, his resolve crumbling like shale under rain. He laid his ears back. “The king will hear of this.”

  “I hope so, son-of-Sigrun.” Hallr stepped forward. “Son of a nameless, coward, bloodless—”

  “I hope you’re all pleased,” snapped a silken female voice. Shard’s breath caught and he lifted his wings, turning to stare. Hallr, stunned at the interruption, blinked around.

  Bright violet under the sun, feathers ruffed up the wrong way in the wind, Kenna stepped forward and, with all eyes on her, lifted her head high.

  “None of this nattering has gotten us a meal. The deer are gone. The wolves are gone. My sisters and I won’t hunt to fill the bellies of boasting, foolish males.”

  Shard’s breath left him and relief swelled so great at her brave interruption that he could have laughed.

  The tawny female raised her head, with a quick glance at Einarr, then Shard, and finally looked haughtily to the sky. “Yes. Go on stretching your wings to see whose span is widest. You can hunt rabbits on your own and brag later that it was boar.”

  With that, the three females turned and launched into the windy sky. Shard released a breath. Hallr loosed a growl and didn’t speak before turning to lope into the grass. Halvden hesitated, then narrowed his eyes at Shard and turned to follow his father.

  For a moment Shard stood in silence.

  “Why did you do it?”

  Shard blinked at Einarr. The younger gryfon still stood with him, copper against the grass. Brave enough to stand with Shard, to ask his reasons honestly.

  “Why did you stop Hallr?”

  Shard couldn’t trust him with the answer. He tried to think of clever half-truths, something to give Einarr information he deserved. But there was only one answer that came to him that was still true.

  “Because Hallr is wrong. Go on now, best you start hunting if you don’t want to go hungry tonight.” Shard turned and walked toward the forest. His belly rumbled and he thought of easy fishing in the tide pools. But fishing was forbidden. It would give him away. After the fight with Hallr, the thought of flying to Black Rock to work with Stigr made him want to faint from exhaustion.

  Copper moved on his left. Shard paused, looking back. Einarr trotted up to him with a set expression, eyes narrowed.

  “Shard,” he said, firmly, as if he’d made a decision. “I’ll hunt with you.”

  Shard blinked as surprise and gratitude glowed in him. “Well. All right. Come on. I smell quail.”

  All I do is to become stronger for the pride. For the king.

  Shard told himself that as the days wore on.

  Stigr told him that he would never be in his full power if he pretended to be an Aesir. As a favored child of Tor he must accept her gifts, or live a half life and never come into his strength.

  With Einarr’s support and the unspoken but steady support of about half the gryfess hunters, Shard let Windwater mostly run its course from day to day without meddling in everyone’s affairs. He didn’t go to the king about Hallr as he had threatened. But neither did Hallr see the king about him.

  We’re both bl
uffing, Shard thought grimly. But Hallr didn’t make a show of herding wolves to Windwater again, and Shard let it rest.

  Happy, confident, but weary during the day and attention slipping, he didn’t make an issue as much when Hallr went hunting on his own. He didn’t think much about the younger gryfons huddled with Halvden, muttering, or when Halvden and Hallr returned from hunting trips with not even a rabbit to show, and didn’t bother with excuses. There were no dead wolves, and so Shard let that rest, too.

  He had secrets of his own that he was busy protecting.

  No one discovered his night journeys. They probably attributed his improved plumage to the hot weather and final molting, suffering through falling feathers and prickling down like all the other gryfons of his year. Like everyone else, he looked happy because of the successful settlement and bounty of late spring.

  Stigr said it was because he finally knew his heritage. Maybe that was true, a little. But Shard knew better. It was his success at Windwater, his improved hunting and fighting skill and all he had to offer the king.

  He still told himself that, every time he disobeyed the king’s laws by flying at night. He told himself that each time he pulled a fish from the sea. Each time he thought of the wolf whose life he saved.

  Everything I do is for the pride and the king.

  That was how it looked to everyone, and Shard still knew it was true. Nothing would change that.

  ~ 15 ~

  Sky and Earth

  Wind tossed the night, and clouds raced over the stars. Shard nearly smashed into the cliff face taking off from his den, but even through the wild, bowing grass he perceived motion at the edge of the woods. The days grew longer, the nights lighter as Tyr remained not far below the rim of the world, and dull blue coated the night.

  Shard banked and landed in the grass. Hesitant, ears perked, he trotted toward the woods, not wanting to shout and alert the others of Windwater.

  “Show yourself.” The wind grabbed his words and threw them into the night. The she-wolf padded forward out of the gloom, her fur ruffled. “Why do you watch me go, each night?”

  She perked her ears. “So you did know I was here.”

  “I’m not blind.”

  She laughed softly, and the moonlight caught a green glow in her eyes before the clouds took it again. “No. Not anymore.”

  “Answer me.” The grass whipped his hindquarters. “Please,” he added more softly.

  “I watch to be sure no one else is.”

  He choked on a laugh. “You’re protecting me?”

  “I don’t know if I could. But I watch. It makes me glad to see another Vanir flying at night.”

  “Like Stigr?” He tried to keep the talon edge from his voice, but she drew it out. I shouldn’t be speaking to a wolf! “Like my father? You speak as if you know and see all. But Stigr told me you’re no older than I am. You never saw my father fly anymore than I did.”

  “I did,” she whispered, “once, when I was a cub. His last flight.”

  Frustration sizzled under his skin, more at himself than at her. I could learn from her, but I can’t betray my king more than I already have. She knows that, and mocks me.

  “You don’t know as much as you pretend to. Stop telling me mysterious songs and riddles.”

  “This is the first time I’ve seen you in three turns.” Her voice was so gentle it grated, like Sigrun when she gave advice. “What riddles have I given you? Or have you thought of your own?”

  It was too close to the truth. The dreams clawed for his attention, rallying for him to determine their meaning. “I want to know what I said to Lapu. What was it that made him lay down and die.”

  “His wounds made him lay down and die.”

  “You know what I mean!” Shard checked his voice and she flattened one ear as if confused.

  “I thought you would have perceived, by now.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Listen,” she whispered. So used to taking instruction from Stigr, from Caj, even Kjorn’s advice, Shard absently obeyed.

  The grass sang. An owl called. Far below, waves washed the shore. Little voices came to him and he shucked them off, not wanting to think of his dreams. Somewhere in the nearby woods, a rabbit scuffled and then froze.

  “You fought well, brother,” Catori whispered. “Be at peace.”

  Shard blinked at her. “What do you mean by that?” There was something strange about the words, the way she spoke, the soft growling undertone.

  “See, you can understand. So we say to all those who die to fill our bellies.”

  “That’s what I said to Lapu?”

  “Yes.” She shook herself and trotted closer, but when Shard tensed, she stopped. “I spoke the words just now in my own tongue, just as you heard them the first time in the woods, just as you said them to Lapu. It isn’t a matter of learning words, but listening. You’ve learned to hear, truly, and if you wish, to speak the language of the earth. It is half your birthright. Son of Tyr and Tor, lord of sky and earth. All you have to do is listen, and you won’t even realize the difference.”

  “Listen. That’s what the raven said, before it led me into a trap.”

  “Which raven?”

  Shard stared at her. “How should I know? They’re all the same.”

  She snuffled the grass and yipped lightly. “Are all gryfons the same, all wolves? Every paw print? There are two ravens of the Silver Isles who bother to speak with gryfons and wolves. One is honorable, and one…has his own ideas. The first is Hugin, the second—”

  “I don’t need to know the names of ravens,” Shard huffed.

  “Oh? But shouldn’t you? Shouldn’t you always know who you’re talking to, and what you’re saying?” She had caught him again in words, almost his own words. He had wanted to know what he’d said to Lapu, after all.

  Echoing his thoughts she said, “Those words you said to Lapu are the words we say to all those about to die, so they remember themselves, so they go with their honor and name into their next life.”

  Shard shifted, the wind teasing him. He had thought the words were some spell, to make Lapu die. “Then it isn’t any special power. Thanking a dying beast doesn’t make me stronger than I was before.”

  Her eyes, dark in the night, glinted. “But it does, Shard. You returned Lapu’s name and honor to him, at the end. There is another song—”

  “No more songs,” he cut in, stepping away. “No more of this.”

  Her ears flattened. “You seemed eager enough to understand. Are you learning nothing from Stigr? Or are you just too afraid of your friends to really learn more?”

  “I’m learning enough. You can stop watching me. I don’t need help, and I’m not afraid of my own pride, if they learn of this. I—” he stopped himself. He had almost told her that all he did was for Sverin the king. But surely she would tell Stigr, or a raven, and that would end his lessons. “I don’t need help.”

  Clouds closed over, the night grew deep, and the sudden winter in her voice told Shard he had come to the end of what seemed mystical patience. “I see. No doubt you’ve told Kjorn, your wingbrother, of your efforts? Since you aren’t afraid?” The wind clawed between them. “Or your mother? Your nest-sister, beautiful Thyra? No?”

  “Leave me alone,” Shard growled. “This night, and every one after.”

  “As you wish,” she whispered, and whirled to bound into the woods. Even on the long flight to Black Rock, Shard couldn’t conceive of why she was angry. I never pretended to want her friendship. I told her the first night that it couldn’t be.

  Don’t forget us, the dreams whispered as he flew back from his lessons with Stigr.

  This time there were dead wolves, too. An ancient king, gnarled and scarred, with fur as dark as a rowan trunk, loped alongside him on a road of stars. The young wolf slain by Hallr, all his wounds still fresh and open, stalked him through the night.

  Don’t forget yourself.

  Where is he? Shard cried at the ghost
s, at the sky, at the earth, but none of them knew, and when he asked, they all fell silent. All except the littlest gryfon kit, who had never said her name but who Shard knew had been killed in the Conquering. Eyes still blind, she curled up around Shard’s claws as he dreamed, whispering war, war, war…

  ~ 16 ~

  The Spar

  “Yes,” boomed Caj, striding down the line of young males who preened and bragged as they waited to be paired up for spars. “You’re all a fine lot of pretty faces.”

  The molting at last seemed done and Shard, at the end of the line nearest the woods, was not the only one relieved. No more constant itching or feathers floating off in the middle of conversation. The relief distracted him from the gathering.

  Fledges as young as two years had joined them, thinking it more a romp than anything, bounding tirelessly around each other while the grown hunters chattered distractedly.

  Caj went on, his voice wry.

  “Mm. I imagine you’ll all win strong beautiful mates and have dozens of fat fluffy kits. And what will you do in winter, make your pregnant mate go out and hunt and fight off wolves while you lounge in your cave?”

  They laughed. Caj ramped with a roar, wings harsh cobalt against a shale gray sky. “Pay. Attention!”

  Silence. Shard pressed his beak tight against amusement. He had seen that coming. Unbidden, the thought fluttered up that Caj reminded him a bit of Stigr. Or maybe it was the other way around. Off a ways, a few of the young females who didn’t need sparring work, Thyra included, lounged and listened to Hallr who told tales of the windlands beyond the sea.

  “Shard and Halvden,” Caj said, naming partners, and Shard flattened his ears. “Shard, you’re the wolf.”

  That only meant he kept wings closed to his sides. He hadn’t sparred with Halvden since they had come to Windwater in spring.