[Firebringer 02] - Dark Moon (20 page)

“I believe this Red-One of whom you speak is kin to me,” he said to A’a, “being mother to my mate.”

The narwhal leader reared back, startled, his speech degenerating into a series of squeals and staccato raps, by which, Jan supposed, he transmitted this news to his fellows. The dark prince nearly slid from the backs of his rescuers as other narwhals joined in their leader’s gleeful dither, jostling and chattering.

Across from him, Ryhenna’s supporters seemed to contain themselves better than their podmates, so that the sleeping mare only stirred, but did not wake. Eventually, to Jan’s relief, A’a calmed himself and restored order with a barrage of deep, rapid snaps and bursts of rising notes. As the narwhals quieted, their leader once more resumed the unicorn tongue.

“We were unaware of your kinship to Red-One,” the narwhal replied. “This news pleases us very well.”

“I seek to return to my home,” Jan told him urgently, “and I would bring my companion Ryhenna with me, but I do not know the way….”

“Do not fear,” A’a replied. “You need only travel east along the silver shore to reach the whistling steeps and the golden sands where the blue skimmers flock. From there, you and your companion will be able to find your way inland, will you not?”

Whistling steeps, golden sands, blue skimmers. Quickly, Jan grasped the most likely translations: Singing Cliffs, the shores of the Summer Sea, and the dust-blue herons.

“Aye,” he cried. “We can easily find our way inland from there.”

“Good,” A’a replied. “We are not far from the shallows though you will need to travel many days along the silver strand before you reach the steeps. We should be within sight of the drylands by morning. Until then, sleep, friend Aljan, unicorn of the land, for I see you are as weary as your companion. It is time both of you slept. Rest now till we put you safe ashore.”

He could not believe how quickly the season had changed. The violent storm at equinox, little more than a month gone by, had banished the hard-frozen snows in a single sweep. Dagg shuddered, thinking of the desperate winter past: Jan, gryphon-killed; mad Korr ordering his son’s innocent mate pursued even in her exile beyond the Vale. Then the storm. Common knowledge called Tek’ s dam, to whom she had fled, a magicker. Could the Red Mare truly have conjured the deluge at equinox—and all that had ensued?

Uneasily, Dagg shoved speculation aside. Those tragedies were over—nightmares from which the herd must now awake. He trotted across pathless, rolling hills of mixed forest and meadow. Deep in his breast stirred the fear that had dogged him all winter since Tek’s flight. Had she been able to find her mother, the elusive Red Mare—or had she perished with her unborn in the snows beyond the Vale? Even strengthened as she was by the healer’s herb, her desperate run must have cost her much.

A sharp whistle cut through his troubled musing. The dappled warrior halted dead, his nostrils flared. He cast about him with ears and eyes. He stood in an open meadow beside a narrow ravine, gushing now with spring flood. On the cliffside opposite, a figure moved, partially hidden by trees. His heart lifted suddenly as Tek stepped from the forest’s edge onto the open hillside.

“Ho, Tek!” Dagg shouted, half-rearing. “Well met!”

The pied mare laughed. She seemed surprisingly hale. Dagg himself was only beginning to recover from the privations of the harsh season past. Despite the recent abundance of sprouting shoots and buds, his ribs still showed. Tek, by contrast, looked sleek.

“Come up,” she cried. “I’ll meet you.”

Wheeling, she vanished into the trees. Dagg splashed across the flooded ravine and started up the rocky trail. A thought struck him just as he reached the trees. Though a tall, strapping mare, Tek had always been lean, slim as a filly, without an ounce of spare flesh. So he recalled her from their years in the Vale, and so she had appeared to him on the hillside above only moments before.

A chill bit into Dagg’s breast as he counted the time since the night of courting upon the shores of the Summer Sea. Tek’s pregnancy ought to have been far advanced by now, her unborn progeny not due for close to another moon—yet her slender girth made obvious that she was no longer pregnant. Dagg’s heart fell. She must have lost the foal.

The sound of hoofbeats along the steep trail made him quicken his pace. Through the trees ahead, he glimpsed Tek rounding the bend. She let out a glad whinny and charged him. Dagg braced, laughing, as she shouldered against him, frisking and nipping. He felt like a colt again, dodging the smarting blows of her hooves and fencing her nimble feints of horn. Panting, the two of them subsided at last, Tek tossing the long black-and-rose strands of mane from her eyes. Dagg marveled at her energy.

“Well, Dagg,” she said, a little breathless. “What brings you?”

“You,” he answered, chafing against her companionably. “How are you?” he asked her. “How fared you this winter past?”

Tek laughed, stepping back. “As you see. I found my dam and sheltered in her grotto. But you, Dagg—” Her voice sobered. “How fared you and those I left behind in the Vale?”

Dagg cast down his eyes. “So many perished,” he answered. “Mainly the old and the very young.”

As he thought of Korr keeping huge assemblies standing in the fierce cold for hours daily, sharing only among his favored Companions the secret of where the best forage lay, the dappled warrior’s voice grew hard.

“Many starved, who need not have starved. Many died of cold who need not have died. By the end of winter, even the most loyal acknowledged Korr must be mad.”

Tek nodded, sobered. “I sorrow to hear of it.”

Dagg stamped, pacing restlessly. “Then the tragedy at equinox. That was the final blow….”

The dappled warrior stopped himself, glancing quickly at Tek. He had not meant to mention that catastrophe so soon, to spoil her first joy at their meeting—especially in view of the obvious loss of her unborn. Now the damage was done: he had let the news slip out. Tek’s eyes narrowed.

“Tragedy?” she asked him. “Tell me of this.”

Dagg scuffed one forehoof. Gnats whined, stinging him. He tossed his mane.

“Come.” Tek fell in beside him and started up the slope. “Tell me as we walk.”

The hillside steepened, its narrow trail threading through tough, spindly trees. Reluctantly, he began.

“After you fled at solstice time, some expressed hope, saying that with ‘the pied wych’ now cast out, Alma must once more smile—hah!” He snorted. “But the weather only worsened. Teki and I did our best to foster belief that it must be your exile the goddess found so displeasing. Most conceded that you had had nothing to do with the death of noble Sa and that fear for your life—not guilty shame—had driven you away. Feelings ran even higher in your favor when it became known you…”

Dagg hastily bit his tongue, reluctant to speak indelicately in view of Tek’s obvious miscarriage.

“That is, when your condition became known,” he muttered awkwardly, risking a glance at Tek.

She seemed unperturbed, serene in fact. Dagg frowned. Few mares he knew to have lost their young accepted their misfortune so blithely. Even moons later, he knew, many still mourned. Yet Tek evidenced no such deep-felt grief. Though sober and attentive, her expression was not stricken.

“Go on,” the pied mare prompted. Puzzled, the young stallion continued.

“The king raged when he learned of your escape. One Companion who had attacked you broke his leg in the fall. Teki could not save him. The other, so they say, barely escaped skewering by the king after his tale of your bungled arrest. What saved him, I think, was his revelation of your—your pregnancy.”

Tek nodded. Abashed, the dappled warrior hurried on.

“The news drove the king into a frenzy. He called your union with Jan unholy, the result of your mother’s sorcery. He called your expected progeny ‘abomination,’ which at all costs must be prevented from birth.”

Again, Dagg stopped himself, appalled at how badly he had put it, wishing he could snatch back the words which had just passed his lips. His hide flushed scarlet beneath heavy winter shag. Yet still Tek’s expression seemed only serious and inward-turned, not anguished. Sadly, she shook her head.

“I cannot understand what the king could have meant. Perhaps no meaning lies in the ravings of the mad. But go on, Dagg. How did the herd respond?”

“Even some of the king’s most ardent supporters acknowledged that he ranted then,” continued Dagg, “but all still feared to defy him. Korr ordered his chosen to pursue you at once. Luckily, none knew whither you had fled. Teki was questioned, of course, but he professed bafflement at any suggestions that he had aided you, and his young acolytes backed him, every one, all swearing that they had not seen you in at least a day. Teki insisted on open questioning, before the assembled herd, not some secret interview.

“All the acolytes were let go. Even the king, calling for the blood of your unborn as he was, seemed reluctant to harm them. So many had died by now that the welfare of these young ones was doubly precious to the herd. As for Teki himself, much grumbling ensued among the king’s loyalists over the pied stallion’s being not only your acknowledged sire, but the mate of a ‘known outlaw and magicker’—but the healer answered that you were a grown and wedded mare, responsible for your own actions now, and had not sheltered in his grotto since summer last.

“He also reminded all present that he had not shared a cave with your mother, Jah-lila, since before you were born and could scarcely be held accountable for any actions of a mare who chose to live outside the protection of the Vale and its Ring of Law. And when, he asked, had the Red Mare been adjudged an outlaw? She had never stood before Council or king facing charges for any crime. Strange she might be, a foreigner—but not criminal.

“He further called on all to witness his own long and loyal service to the king. Korr could not very well touch him then. Besides, he and everybody else knew that until his acolytes complete their training—years hence—the pied stallion remains the Vale’s only healer. The very survival of many present might well hang upon his skill that winter. At last Korr let him go, but the king vowed that as soon as the weather broke, he would dispatch his Companions to hunt you down wherever you might be hiding, even beyond the Vale, if need be.”

“And you?” Tek pressed, brow furrowed with concern.” All this you must have heard at second account. Was your absence marked? I lost track of you that night, in the snow. You fell behind….”

Dagg shook his head. “Nay. When I limped home late the following day, I told my sire and dam I had been caught in the storm and wandered for hours, lost, before spending the night huddled in a small, deserted cave: not far from the truth. If they did not believe me, they said nothing to Korr. Blood ties, it seems, still bind them stronger than fealty to a king.

“All the herd attended the grey mare’s funeral, despite the cold. Their grief was unbounded. The loss of Sa seemed to burn in the minds of many as a symbol of all that the herd had lost. Few save his Companions paid heed to Korr’s words that day: no outbursts, no open rebellion, but a persistent, sullen, smoldering resentment against the king. Cold and starving, the unicorns were growing weary of being bitten and kicked. Attendance at Korr’s rallies fell off sharply after that. We needed all our time and energy just to scout for forage. Most simply did not heed the summons of the king’s Companions anymore.

“That pricked him. He dispatched his pack to comb the valley for you as soon as Sa’s funeral rites were done. When they could not find you, the king had little doubt you had fled to your mother’s haunts in the southeastern hills—though Teki and I kept rumors flying of your having hidden deep in the Pan Woods, or even run away wild renegade onto the Plain.

“Some of our allies swore to glimpsing you—or your haunt—on some distant slope of the Vale, crying out to Alma and the spirit of your princely mate to witness your innocence. More than a few of the king’s Companions began to doubt the wisdom of actually finding you. We let them go on thinking you were some sort of wych or sprite. From time to time our sympathizers reported ghostly dreams of you mourning the injustice of your fate.”

Warming to his tale, despite its gravity, Dagg found himself nearly laughing now. Inventing eerie sightings with which to confound Korr’s superstitious followers had proved the winter’s one diversion. Such small, delicious victories, he mused, had often proved the only fodder to chew on during the long, cold, hungry nights. Picking the trail beside him in the warm spring sun, Tek joined his laughter easily.

“You rogues. When spinning tales, neither you nor Teki has ever held the strictest regard for the truth.”

Grinning, Dagg shrugged. “When the king has champed the truth all tatters with his ‘mouthpiece of Alma’ nonsense, I hardly see why others should not join in the feast. At any rate, Korr kept his Companions searching the Vale relentlessly for you all winter. Previously, joining the king had meant ease and privileges, better forage and a bullying self-importance in exchange for little actual toil. Now Korr’s constant search parties grew so burdensome that many longed to quit his service, but dared not, lest their former Companions throw the deserters upon the mercy of a resentful herd. They kept to their posts now out of fear, not loyalty.

“As equinox neared, the king let it be known that he intended to send a party into the southeast hills at first spring to hunt you out before your time of bearing came. Yet sentiment had shifted so heavily in your favor by this time that the Companions were openly jeered as they set out. The king ought to use his wolves, so some muttered loudly, to seek out new forage for the starving. Many said that you were surely dead. Others feared that did you live, Jah-lila would doubtless protect you with her sorcery.”

He glanced again at Tek, but she gave him no indication one way or another regarding her dam’s role in the events of the scant month and a little past, merely glanced at him curiously as they continued up the trail.

“You spoke of tragedy,” she reminded. “Some great loss during the mighty storm at equinox? Tell me of this.”

Dagg looked away, finding the subject almost too painful to relate. But Tek seemed genuinely puzzled. If Jah-lila
had
precipitated the events of equinox, she apparently had not relayed them to her daughter. With a deep sigh, the dappled warrior said:

“At the dispatching of the Companions, the breaking point seemed to come at last. Korr’s mate, Ses, had remained silent all this while. Though clearly not approving, she had spoken no public word against her mate. At equinox, though, Ses declared that if the king sent his wolves to hunt you down, she would leave him.

“Her resolve threw Korr into desperation partly over the threatened loss of his beloved mate and daughter—for with the little filly still suckling, she could not be separated from her dam—and partly, too, because without Lell under his care, his claim to regency would be greatly weakened. Should the remnants of the Council of Elders so choose, they could as easily declare Ses regent as Korr. It was Ses who finally pointed out that were you, Tek, to bring Jan’s unborn heir to term, it would be that foal, not Lell, to rightfully own the title of princess.

“Korr grew wild then, declaring ‘the pied wych’ and your child better dead than left to live. He blamed your dam as somehow the ultimate cause of all the herd’s misfortune, calling her deceiver and seducer. Ses took refuge in Sa’s deserted grotto. Korr sent his Companions to demand Lell’s return, but Ses stood in the egress of the cave and shouted, ‘I’ll not rejoin my mate while he remains in his madness, and if you take my filly from me before she is weaned, she will die. How will that serve your king?’