Skyfire

by Jess E. Owen

  Sverin crouched. “You won’t be following them long.”

  “Long live the gray kings! Long live Shard, the Stormwing!” Einarr’s voiced cracked as he shoved up to his hind legs. “Rashard, the Summer King!”

  “Silence!”

  “The Vanir never die—”

  Sverin lunged. Gryfons screeched and scattered as he met Einarr in a clash of tearing beak and talon.

  Sigrun whipped around and shouldered hard into white Astri. “Run! Now! To the trees!”

  Astri’s scream ripped the air. Sigrun turned wildly to see.

  Einarr lay crumpled in the snow, red staining out from his copper feathers. Sigrun’s heart cracked, breaking open the grief she had sealed tight and safe in her chest. Instantly, she saw there would be no healing him. Einarr had been a better singer and friend than fighter. Sverin, like a mountain cat, went for the throat.

  Sorrow tattered the edge of Sigrun’s mind and she shoved Einarr’s widow forward. Gryfons streamed around to escape—or attack—and the Guard drove them back. A flurry of bodies and wings and limbs squirmed and clashed into each other. Sigrun couldn’t tell if others were retreating or trying to help her. Ahead, Ragna gave a battle cry and charged the line of the Guard. Sigrun whirled, seeking another way out with Astri.

  A surprising streak of violet crashed through the snow toward Sigrun.

  Halvden’s mate, her gaze deadly.

  “Kenna!” After the cry, Sigrun’s voice left her, for Kenna didn’t attack her. She plunged past and charged the line of the Guard with Ragna.

  Few of the males dared fight Kenna, even round as she was with kit. The line broke and Vanir and half-Vanir streamed after the violet huntress.

  “Flee!” Sigrun ordered Astri. “Come with me!”

  “But Einarr,” wailed Astri. “My mate, my—”

  “He flies with bright Tyr now,” Sigrun gasped, breathless. The words were automatic, and she didn’t mean them to sound so heartless. “He flies victorious in the Sunlit Land and he is with you in your kit. The Vanir never die. Run with me now and stay alive for him.”

  A young male of the king’s Guard leaped up in her face with a violent hiss. Thinking of Caj, of Kjorn, of brave, foolish Einarr, Sigrun ramped up and slapped her claws against his eyes. He shrieked, too stunned to fight back.

  “We need to hide! Ragna!” Sigrun couldn’t count how many had fled with them. The snow and growing dark hid many things. They ran across the plain toward the tree line, toward the river. Beyond that, Sigrun had no plan.

  Behind, Sverin shouted orders. Halvden echoed them. The King’s Guard pursued the fleeing pride members, harrying from above until they reached the trees. Then they scattered into chaos. Sigrun heard fighting in brush, kept Astri close, tried to find her wingsister.

  A flashed of crimson warned her of Sverin, fighting ahead. Sigrun barreled in the opposite direction.

  He doesn’t want to exile us, he wants to kill us!

  A rush of talon and feather made her turn, snarling.

  Vald broke out of the underbrush, his orange feathers out of place in the snow. Long talon scars ran down one side of his face, oozing blood. Sigrun backed away, shoving a wing against Astri to encourage her to run. Instead, she cowered behind Sigrun and called for help.

  “Vald,” Sigrun strained her voice to sound reasonable. “I brought you into this world. Your mother is a friend—”

  “Quiet,” he growled, stalking close, his gaze darting to either side.

  “Did Halvden kill Caj?” Sigrun rasped, crouching low, prepared to meet the fit sentinel in battle if she had to.

  “I don’t know,” Vald said. For the first time, Sigrun noticed his expression—lost, angry. Afraid. “He split us up, and stayed with Halvden. We did hear wolves, and did smell boar. I don’t know what happened…”

  With his tumbling confession, Sigrun realized he was not there to kill her. He was there to help her. Astri lifted her ears to the sound of fighting.

  “We have to hide,” Sigrun said, letting a healer’s calmness steal over her.

  Vald nodded, his gaze cold. “There’s one place I know the Guard won’t go.” He looked grim, speaking fast to keep Sigrun’s attention. “There is an entrance to the wolf caves near the river. I found it with Halvden this autumn. If you’ll trust me, I’ll show you.”

  If he’d meant ill, Sigrun reasoned, he would’ve attacked. She had to trust. “Then we go underground,” she said.

  Astri whimpered. “The wolves—”

  “The wolves are safer to us than the Red King ever has been,” Sigrun growled. “Vald show me the way. Vanir to me! Ragna! Thyra!”

  Sigrun gave a ringing call.

  Gryfons wormed through the undergrowth to follow Sigrun’s voice, but soon she fell silent. In the growing dark, all of them could see Astri, bright as a star, and they tried to put the King’s Guard behind them. Fights broke along the edges of the group when the Guard found them, but steadily, they fell back as the storm cloaked the woods in early dark.

  Dimly they heard Sverin’s hollow shouts, calling his precious Guard back from the dark, calling a retreat for the night.

  The fleeing band that Sigrun still hadn’t put a number to followed Vald, Sigrun and Astri through the forest to the Nightrun river. In little meadows between the trees, the snow swirled and pelted them freely, the light strange and purple as Tor tried to glow through the clouds.

  “Here,” Vald called, stopping at the bank. The woods fell back there and bare rock sloped down to the river. Vald trotted up to a piled of boulders. Cracks in the rock face opened deep in the earth, and he pointed a talon down one ramp of stone that led to a dark hole. It smelled, freshly, of wolf.

  Ragna loped up from the back of the line to Sigrun’s side. She ordered any gryfons in fighting shape to enter the cave last, and to fan out and make sure none of Sverin’s followed them. Then she looked to Sigrun. Blood stained her feathers. “If the wolves will trust and forgive any of us, it will be you. Lead us in.”

  Even in the night Sigrun saw her clearly, like a pale feather of Tor in the strange light, saw that she was a queen again, fearless, proud, taking charge.

  Courage, bravery, all too late, Sigrun thought, turning obediently toward the dark cave. Shard would return gloriously some day with the lost Vanir at his heels and the will to rule.

  All too late.

  Too late for Einarr. Too late for Caj.

  Sigrun stumbled, her muscles locking at the knowledge that she would never again curl up safe under a broad, blue wing. Never again would she hear his warm, rough voice teaching fledges how to fight, hear him complain of the herb stench in their den, or whisper his simple devotion in her ear. For the first time she knew Ragna’s pain at losing Baldr.

  Sorrow threatened to disable her, so she clung to what she had, what she had always had. She must be strong for others. Healer to the pride. Daughter-of-Hrafn. She crooned comfort to Astri and other terrified younger gryfons, repeated Ragna’s commands into the dark, and gave what strength she had left to those around her.

  Heart aching, her mind slipping toward witless sorrow, Sigrun forced herself to bury her anguish, once again, to survive.

  46

  Nameless

  The moon rose and set on him many times, low on the edge of the world. The first time the sun set, he knew with surety more than he knew his own self, that he must not fly in the dark. So he landed and ran, loped, trotted, until his hind heels bled raw. When the sun rose again, he flew.

  One wing stroke, then another.

  The cold winter sun laid watery heat on his back. He didn’t count days, only aware of light and dark.

  I must not fly in the dark.

  One foot in front of the other.

  Checking over his shoulder for sign of gryfon pursuit, he ran. He had failed somehow. He knew that. Deaths and the anger and sorrow were behind him, and his fault, and they’d banished him from the pride. When he remembered the dragons, a pain grew so sharply in
his chest that he had to bury it, to focus on fleeing, to forget.

  Now he flew starward, just skirting the line between gryfon territory, and the Outlands. It seemed best to remain on the ground. Gradually the earth under his paws faded from red to dead grayish brown, cracked and peeling from itself with dryness.

  He slunk low, ears perked. A sulfuric smell seeped up into his beak and it brought flashes of another place. A sparkling bright sea, a little clump of islands, hidden hot springs that leaked the same scent…

  He stopped and lifted his ears. Nothing moved but a stale, dank wind. On it curled the smell of brackish water and a rotting animal carcass. He gagged and loped forward, favoring one hind paw. A small ache flashed another memory. Two wolves chasing him up a wooded slope.

  Ahanu.

  He stopped, scenting the air. It was clearer there, and ahead the ground dropped sharply away into a dark, yawning canyon. Larger even than the one in which he had hunted with the others, with a red, beautiful female.

  The Voldsom Narrows.

  He turned from the gap and padded alongside, looking for a way across. Instinct kept him on the ground. He was near the home of the dragons, though they wouldn’t fly in the day.

  Ahead, vultures quarreled over the remains of a dead goat, hopping and flaring at each other. He gave them wide berth. Ache crawled in his belly, reminding him he had not eaten. Above, clouds glided in from the starward sky, heavy and as deep gray as his wings.

  I am the Stormwing—

  The first gruff voice to speak that name flared in his memory and he stifled it back.

  He shoved to a run, whimpering at the pain in his bleeding hind paws, the ache in his shoulders. There was no way over the canyon but to fly. The idea of climbing down one side and up the other froze him with dismay. Wind rushed him, and through the haze he caught the threat of snow or rain. Pausing, he cast around for shelter.

  A cluster of rocks crouched against the horizon far ahead, and stunted, bare trees clawed at the sky. Scenting carefully, he loped forward.

  The rocks piled on each other to form a cave and he stuck his head inside. The scent inside should have warned him. When he walked in, a vicious shriek drove him right back out.

  Two gryfons of muddy coloring leaped up challenge him. One was an older female, the other young enough to be a son. The young male leaped on him and he collapsed under the weight, fragile from hunger and thirst.

  His instinct fought for him, slapped talons against the stronger gryfon’s face to protect his own throat, kicked his weakened hind legs. Some odd fighting knowledge welled in him, not to bite randomly but to think, to twist like a sparrow, quick and nimble.

  He writhed free of the other and backed away, wings lifted, feathers ruffed high in threat. He uttered a low growl and dangerous hiss, tail lashing. The winter wind sang around them, filling the murky canyon and the sky. The clouds pressed low, and tiny flakes drifted down, caught in the wind, to sting their eyes.

  The old female stalked up, ears back. Worry buzzed through him and he turned, ramping, and forced a lion’s roar from his chest.

  She checked, crouching back. He caught her gaze. Something lit in her brown eyes, some awareness. Her beak opened and a strange, sorrowful sound crept out of her. When the young male moved to attack, she snagged his tail to stop him.

  He didn’t waste the chance to escape. Risking more dangerous enemies in the sky, he shoved straight up, flying hard.

  A strange noise followed him on the wind, a strange, raw, gryfon’s cry.

  “Wait!”

  More sounds. He didn’t know their meaning.

  “Wait, come back!”

  “Surely I know you! Wait!”

  “Son of Baldr!”

  His own angry eagle scream drowned the old female’s strange, meaningless cries.

  Snow flashed all around him, heavy, coating his wings, then sliding free as it melted. Gray filled his world, and though his wings ached, a strange relief. This was better than running across the ground. He looked down and dimly saw the canyon. Caves and rocks dotted the landscape and now and then he would see a gryfon form darting toward one for shelter from the storm.

  Outcasts. Exiles.

  I am wind, feather and bone.

  He needed no shelter. Gliding freely through the freezing snow, he laughed into the wind.

  A dark shadow flickered ahead of him. A crow. Dusty black wings.

  A talon snagged his heart.

  Wait, the female gryfon’s cry came to his mind. He echoed it, shouting after the crow. “Wait! Wait!”

  The black bird mimicked him, then dropped, laughing, into the snowy gloom. He flared, hovering, and a dream took his mind.

  A dark gryfon soared toward a white mountain.

  The swirling snow filled his vision.

  The white owl.

  The white mountain. The Horn of Midragur.

  Wheeling around, he ducked below the clouds to find his horizon, oriented himself starward, and flew fast. The canyon that bordered the Outlands cut a path starward and he followed it, wary of the scent of dragon but not wanting to stray from his goal. The white mountain peak from his dream.

  Darkness cloaked over him. Familiar, venomous roars welled up in the distance behind him. He knew he had to land, that he shouldn’t fly in the dark.

  Rebellious anger lanced through him. I am the Stormwing. Instead of flying lower, he loosed a frustrated shriek and spiraled up high. Snow pelted his face. A chilling roar answered him, leagues away.

  He flew out of the clouds into the clear night.

  He had flown out of the storm, so high his breath fell short. Cold, cold air cleared his head and starlight dazzled his eyes. Bjorna, Sig, Midragur…he glided more easily as the names of the star beasts floated to him. The distant roars he’d heard grew closer, and he clenched his talons to keep from panicking. He flew high, and eventually the clouds cleared from below him.

  The moon crouched at the edge of the world, sending milky beams along a bare plain that ended in a range of raw, young mountains. They broke the starry skyline like a yawning wolf’s jaw.

  A dream took him again. A dark gryfon, grasping skyfire, soared in a cloudless blue sky, toward a white mountain peak.

  The tallest peak in front him stood jagged and hard and black against the sky, but its white peak glittered white with snow in the moonlight. For a moment he breathed relief. But it was night, not day, the sky black and starry, and he had no skyfire in his talons.

  The dream in his head didn’t match the outside world, and he didn’t understand what to do.

  A cloudless blue. A mountain peak.

  Horrible roars thundered through the storm at his back. He thought of seeking shelter in the distant mountain. But something blocked him. He couldn’t go there at night. He couldn’t lead the dragons there. Something flickered…

  Help, he thought. I need help.

  He had to land, to hide, to wait until the dawn, but the dragons already chased him. He needed a distraction. Something to draw the dragons away from him.

  Help…

  Moonlight spread itself across the plain, opening out like a white gryfon wing. He looked down. A massive herd of deer dotted the ground below. Some grazed, some slept. He dove so fast his eyes streamed.

  He barely thought about what he was doing. He thumped down in the middle of the herd and slapped the nearest buck with his talons. Terrified, warbling cries drowned out the sound of the wind. The herd seemed to rise up as one panicked creature, and stampeded. He leaped to one side and then the other, dodging thrashing bodies and the half-hearted swipe of a hoof or antler.

  Dragons erupted from the bank of clouds. They saw the herd, angled to dive and hunt.

  He hunched low, gaze darting through the moonlit plain. A gnarled stand of trees stood twenty leaps away. Grateful for dull coloring in the dark, he crept low on his belly, panting hard, eyes on the dragons. As he’d hoped, they didn’t notice him through the tumult of deer.

  When t
he herd had run past their reach, the dragons keened to each other and climbed the sky again, hunting him. Slowly, he crawled to the stand of trees, and curled up as small as he could make himself. Dragon shadows rippled across the ground in front of him. He held his breath, every feather still. One of the dragons flared, about to land in front of the trees.

  A hoarse, croaking gryfon’s call echoed from the sky.

  He blinked, staying absolutely still. It didn’t sound like a true gryfon. To him, it sounded like a raven, but they turned from scouring the ground to stare up at the sky.

  Dragon wings beat the air as the closest hovered, hesitating. The cry came again.

  His own breath caught as the dragon’s head whipped up, searching. The moonlight only caught faint flashes on black wings.

  Small black wings, or distant? His eyes were useless in the dark. Either way, it took the dragons’ attention. At last they reached a roaring agreement and the little shadow led them high and away.

  The gray gryfon stared after them until his eyes ached. Then he turned to perk ears toward the snow-crested peak, only a short flight away.

  The Horn of Midragur.

  He closed his eyes, grinding his beak against memory.

  Midragur, the star dragon that coils around the world as a serpent around its egg, until the egg hatches and brings the glorious end of the world.

  The legend of the earth’s unmaking told itself in another’s voice, gruff, ironic. He blocked it, fell away from himself, too close to remembering his name and all the pain that came with it. There was only one thing left to do.

  At dawn, he would fly to the snowy mountain.

  47

  The Long Day Brings Rest

  Hours of stalking through the damp, narrow caves left Sigrun and the others weary, aching and snappish. Sigrun squeezed back through the tunnels to check the pregnant females often, and would call halts if anyone seemed too tired. After the madness of their escape, she feared any of them might miscarry. She kept an especially close watch on Astri, who walked with her head bowed. Kenna, once she’d found Astri, didn’t leave her side, and Sigrun was grateful.