[Firebringer 03] - The Son of Summer Stars (16 page)

The eyes of the one great head snapped open, stared for a moment at the newly darkened chamber. The only light now illuminating the den was a distant lightwell’s feeble glow. Lynex’s central head reared on its muscular stalk. All around, the other crania writhed, wailing, even the second– and third-largest. The great head ignored them, glaring straight at the empty fireledge, now nothing but ashes and char. The wyrmking’s knifelike claws dug into his gleaming belly below his savagely scarred breast.

“Which?” he growled, voice deeper than any Jan had ever heard. “Which one of you let my fire go out?”

Jan felt himself in motion again, rising, pulling aloft. He left the crystalline dens of wyverns beneath the Hallow Hills and crossed the Plain, traversed the Pan Woods. He found himself hovering above the Vale once more. The snows had passed. Another ceremony, similar to the kindling that had marked winter’s onset, was now under way. Again unicorns circled the great bonfire, still burning. The air had warmed, cool yet, but with the promise of balmier days ahead. Some of the herd were already shedding their heavy shag. It had been another mild winter, Jan could see: thanks, no doubt, to the weather wych, Jah-lila.

After the dancing, Teki again ascended the council rise. This time he sang of Tek’s flight from the Vale, how his foster daughter had carried Jan’s unborn offspring through bitter snows and taken refuge in the wilderness with her then-exiled dam. He praised the pan sisters Sismoomnat and Pitipak who had delivered Tek and described the torrential floods that had overwhelmed the murderous warparty Korr had sent against her in the spring.

That had been the ending of Korr’s power, if not his madness. Jan had returned from captivity among the firekeepers just as Tek and her newborns had made their own return. The lay ended with the reunion of mates and Jan’s embracing his twin filly and foal. Many of the youngest listeners had drifted into sleep. The fire priestess, Ryhenna, addressed the herd, reminding them that once moon reached its zenith, the bonfire would be tended no more, its flames allowed to flicker out, coals left to cool.

This night, however, she added new words, urging all full-grown unicorns to sharpen their hooves and horns, then tread as she now trod upon the embers rimming the dwindling tongues of flame. Into these she dipped her horn, holding it in the swirl of fire that it, like her fire-hardened hooves, might toughen beyond all previous strength, the better to pierce the wyverns’ bony breasts.

Eagerly, all of fighting age complied: newly initiated half-growns, seasoned warriors, elders, a dozen of whom formed the Council which confirmed all kings’ judgments and granted each succeeding battleprince his right to rule. First Tek, then Dagg, then Jah-lila and Ses, followed by Teki and the rest, bent to run keen ridges of spiral horn against flint-edged heels, honing both edges in the same smooth stroke, then came forward to join Ryhenna.

Those colts and fillies and suckling foals still waking looked on with longing. Too tender for war, they were forbidden to sharpen their hooves and horns. At last, the long procession ended. Their elders, weaponry now tempered, returned from the council rise and lay down among their offspring to doze the weary night till dawn.

Jan watched the moon climb, pass zenith, decline. The whole valley lay silent, still—except for furtive movement atop the rise. Jan beheld his own sister Lell, barely five years old, not yet initiated, clumsily keening her hooves and horn. At last achieving a respectable edge, she crept forward, ears pricked and eyes darting. Gingerly, she stepped onto the bonfire’s coals, dipping her young hoof into the last red wisps of flame.

“I don’t count what Ses says,” Jan heard her muttering between clenched teeth. “I
am
ready. I’m not too young. I mean to be a warrior, and I might as soon begin by battling wyverns. She’ll not keep me from this fray.”

“Bravely spoken,” a voice behind her quietly replied.

The timbre was a low, throaty growl like the purr of a hillcat. Lell jumped stiff-legged as a startled hare and whirled. Silhouetted, a gryphon sat on the council rise. Jan himself was amazed. He had not observed the other’s approach, nor heard his wings. The tercel had alighted in utter silence, cat’s eyes dilated in the blazing moonlight.

“Illishar!” Lell hissed, her joyous whisper just short of a shriek that would have wakened others and given them both away.

“The same, little one,” he replied. “I bid you hail. Only lately arrived, I wished not to disturb your folk.”

“You are most welcome,” Lell answered fervently, then hesitated, casting a glance at her sharpened hooves, then over at the fire. “I beg you,” she burst out softly, urgently, “do not speak of what you have just seen…”

The wingcat smiled. “I see naught but a gracious filly who, waking at my approach, arose to welcome me.”

Lell eyed him fiercely. “I mean to be a warrior,” she said. “Jan would let me. I know he would! If he were here—I mean to join this fray against the wyrms.”

The green-winged tercel nodded. “So I see. And now, little one, may I beg a boon? Fall back, if you will, a pace or two and allow me a place beside your fire. My flight this day has been long and chill.”

Lell stumbled back from the bonfire hurriedly, allowing the gryphon space to move into the glow of the coals. He crouched, then stretched himself, forelegs laid upon the ground, wings not folded, but raised, the better to catch the fire’s heat. Jan heard the deep, steady rumble of his purr. Lell stood awkwardly, seeming not to know what next to do. The gryphon beckoned her.

“Step closer, little darkamber,” he bade. “Do not grow cold on my account. Rest and tell me of your warrior dreams. I, too, sought to join my clan’s battleranks against great odds. I succeeded, as you see, and have won a perch high on the ledges beside my leader’s wing.”

Lell happily approached and lay down facing the green-and-gold tercel. Jan marveled at his sister’s lack of fear. She treated Illishar as she would her own folk, appeared to regard him as no different from a unicorn.

“Gladly,” she answered. “I welcome your company.”

The gryphon bowed his head in a flattered nod. “And I yours, little darkamber, for I sense that like me, you mean to win your way to the ledges of honor among your flock.”

Spring, Jan saw, and no longer first spring. A month or more had passed since equinox. Watching in the dragon’s pool, Jan felt uneasiness. He saw the future Vale spread green below him, his fellows grazing its hillsides, their winter shag long shed. But he saw no sign of himself, no indication that by the time predicted in this foreseeing, he had returned. And he would need to be returned by spring if he were to lead the march to the Hallow Hills.

Jan saw his sister Lell high on the Vale’s grassy steeps. She looked older, less a filly than a half-grown. Her legs had lengthened, as had her neck and mane, her horn no longer a colt’s blunt truncheon, but a slim flattened skewer, pointed and edged. Standing on a rocky outcrop overhanging the Vale, she looked a young warrior. Illishar sat beside her. His feline form—huge almost as a formel—dwarfed his unicorn companion. Lell had not yet reached a half-grown’s size, but she had attained the shape, leaving fillyhood behind. Within the year, Jan felt sure, she would be initiated. How soon, he wondered, before she joined the courting rites by the Summer Sea?

Breeze lifted Lell’s mane, her face grown longer and more slender, a young mare’s. Beside her, Illishar’s raised wings cupped the breeze, one curving above Lell’s back. He and she watched a group of warriors sparring far below on the valley floor. Jan spotted the black-and-rose figure of Tek directing the exercises, the dappled yellow and grey of Dagg alongside her. Lell tossed her head.

“They won’t let me join in,” she said. “They say I’m too young. Jan would never exclude me so! So every day I watch them, then steal off and practice by myself.”

Illishar stretched to let breeze rime his feathers. “So, too, did I in my youth—until I had won me a spot among the formels. They would not grant it willingly. I had to prove myself beyond all quarrel. They called me a little, useless tercel squab, keen enough for hunting, perhaps, but never so much as considered for a perch beside the wingleader or for serious war.” He laughed his throaty, purring laugh. “I proved every one of them wrong.”

Lell turned to him. “We don’t do that. Among my folk, we don’t discount our he-colts. All half-growns are expected to become warriors. Besides, with unicorns, it is the stallions who are heftier.”

Again Illishar laughed. “I know! Such an odd and fascinating flock. Though Malar did not deem my joining your war a savory task, I relish it, for I have learned more of your folk in one short moon than ever I could have done in a lifetime otherwise.”

Together they watched the maneuvers below. Tek and Dagg’s shrill whistles reached the heights. Jan had never seen the warriors so crisp. He felt a surge of pride, gratitude to Tek and Dagg, then regret that he was not to be among them. He shook it off. The herd need fear naught from lack of practice or skill when they met the wyrms. He could not have trained them better himself.

“You see? You see?” he heard Lell whispering. “The left flank doesn’t swing fast enough. They must wheel more sprightly if they’re to close the trap ere wyverns flee. When Jan arrives, he’ll chase them into step.”

Beside her the green-winged tercel nodded. “My flock employs similar stratagems, but ours are all airborne.”

“Will you teach me?” Lell asked him. The other laughed, eyeing her wingless shoulders. Lell sighed heavily. “I wish I could fly.”

“Become a gryphon, and you shall,” her companion teased.

The darkamber filly whickered and kicked at him.

“I want you to teach me another lay!” she cried.

“What?” the tercel reared back in mock surprise. “I have already taught you Ishi’s Hatching. It is the talk of all your flock. Next they will say you are my acolyte.”

Lell shook herself. “I would not mind a bit. I want to learn every song I can ere you must go.” Her tone abruptly saddened. “After we fight the wyverns, you will return to your mountains, and I’ll not see you more.”

The gryphon folded his wings, some of the feathers just brushing Lell’s back as they closed. “No fear, little darkamber,” he told her. “My pinions are strong. We gryphons do not let friendships lapse. But touching on your coming war, is it not high time your herd departed?”

Lell nodded, her eyes on Tek far, far below. “We all hoped Jan would have returned by now. But he has not come. So Tek waits. But I heard her telling Dagg we can bide no more than another fortnight before we must begin our trek. I think we should wait! Yet all the herd champs to face the wyverns. We have been waiting four hundred years.”

Jan felt himself rising away from the Vale. the air around him thinned and darkened. His view dimmed. He had the brief sensation of hurtling through stars, then of sudden descending. He became aware of himself underground once more, beneath the Hallow Hills. Lynex the wyvern king lay in his barren chamber, all seven snaking heads wakeful now. Despite the absence of fire, the den was lighter than it had been. Illumination from the lightwells had the warmer intensity of spring. The wyvern heaved his scarred and bloated form upright to stare at the charred fireledge. The single greatest head among the writhing tangle of necks pulled transparent lips back from splintery fangs.

“First these stingless peaceseekers,” it snarled. “Then my queen slain. Now the last of our fire burnt out.” Its voice was deep, all gravel and broken flint.

The tiniest head struck out at nothing, flattening its hoodlike gill ruff, hissing, “Burnt out. Burnt out!”

“No thanks to
you,”
one of the middle-sized pates muttered, glaring at the smaller ones.

The little nob turned, spat at its companions. “You!”

“Silence!” roared the one great head.

Five countenances flinched, but the sixth, the tiniest, turned and hissed. The large head snapped savagely at the little thing. With a shriek, the tiniest nob ducked. The great head eyed each smaller one in turn.

“I hold you all responsible,” it snarled. “I might still cull the lot of you and rear a new crop of secondary skulls—ones with brains this time!”

The last words were a shout. Again the smaller heads cowered. None spoke.

“If only my queen lived still, she would know what to do. Winters have been so cold. Our torch dimmed, and the stingless freaks thwarted the wood gatherers. How they must have celebrated when they learned the torch was out. ‘Devour them all!’ my queen would have said.”

The great head turned away, muttering. The half-dozen subsidiaries watched, all turning in unison as their leader wove. Jan was reminded suddenly of pacing among his own kind, or the random pecking of nervous birds. The wyvern shifted from one thick, badger-like forepaw to the other. Knifelike nails bit into the chamber’s crystalline floor.

“So many of them now,” the great head continued peevishly. “Their mothers hide them from me. They even breed. Whole nests of stingless offspring from stingless progenitors! There must be away to find and seize them.”

“A way,” one of the two middle-sized heads echoed warily. The great head ignored it.

“Perhaps we should command loyal followers to hunt them, harry them from one end of the warren to the other,” the companion middle-sized pate suggested softly.

Two of the other nobs nodded vigorously. “Harry them! A clean sweep.”

“Yes,” the great head mused, picking at the ancient scars on the royal breast. “Yes. A sweep.” Abruptly the One frowned. The smaller pates tensed. “But not all with stings can be relied upon. Most have nieces or nephews who are stingless, sisters or brothers, even daughters and sons! Some have gone so far as to begin to believe the ravings of those…those barbless lunatics.”

“Ravings,” the tiniest maw fizzed. “Lunatics!”

“How do they stay alive?” the wyvern king’s largest pate exclaimed. “They will not hunt living prey. They must eat carrion!”

“Carrion!” the littlest head spat.

“What sort of existence is that for a wyvern?” the largest nob growled at a middle-sized head.

“No existence at all,” it responded hastily.

Preoccupied, the large one turned away. “They are reverting to what we once were, when we dwelled among the thrice-cursed red dragons: stingless rubbish clearers, eaters of the dead!”

“Never again!” one of the small pates echoed.

Its fellows joined it: “Such indignity.”

“The degradation.”

“All our woes are the unicorns’ doing,” one of the middle-sized muzzles ventured. “Had they not deprived us of our queen, the stingless ones would never have multiplied.”

“We must wreak revenge against the unicorns as well,” the other middle-sized nob added.

The largest, central head considered. “That we must,” it murmured. “But they only come in spring, and only a score or two, to keep their nightlong vigil by the wellspring atop the limestone steep. Truth to tell,” he mused, “they come a few weeks after equinox. It is that time now.”

The wyvern king reared suddenly. The other heads jerked in surprise.

“The stingless traitors can wait,” Lynex’s oldest pate said sharply. “We’ll arrange an ambush for the unicorn pilgrims instead. My loyalists shall have the meat—and I’ll know my supporters by who agrees to taste this living prey. Once we have feasted, time enough to fall upon the stingless and their collaborators!”

“Yes! Yes!” the other nobs rejoiced. “We’ll lie in wait for unicorns along the path to their vigil pool. They will never sip its healing draught! We’ll rend the flesh of our enemies, then devour our own kind—stingless cowards and any others not wyvern enough to use their stings.”

The seven-stranded laughter of the wyvern king echoed through the limestone hollows. Again Jan felt himself lifted, drawn up through tons of earth covering the wyverns’ dens, out into the light and air again. A blur of motion, the momentary feel of rushing. He found himself hovering above the Vale once more. Spring had advanced another half moon. Tek stood upon the council rise. Dagg and Ryhenna, Teki and Jah-lila, Ses, Illishar and Lell flanked her. Once more the whole herd stood assembled.

“He is not yet among us, but he will return,” Tek told them. “We have waited as long as we dare. To delay more would betray his vision. I doubt not that Jan will rejoin us, but our march must now begin. We have just-weaned colts and fillies among us. This trek will last the remainder of the spring. It will be new summer when we reach the Hills, where wyverns wait our hooves and horns!”

Shouts of approval rose from the press. The cry of “Jan, Jan the prince!” went up, while some—more than a few—shouted, “For Tek! Tek, regent and prince’s mate!”

Aye,
Jan thought with sudden bitterness.
They
should
cheer her, for she is their rightful battleprince, not I.
Regret seized him, and envy.
Would that I were wholly other’ than who I am,
he thought,
some Renegade, even, not the late king’s son. Sooth, I could gladly give any office up if only I might keep my pledge with Tek.
He shoved his painful thoughts aside. It was all hopeless. Below him, Tek cried: “Away” then. To our homeland! To the Hills.”

She sprang from the council rise, her mane of mingled black and rose streaming. Her companions on the rise sprang behind her: red Jah-lila, painted Teki, dappled Dagg and his copper mate, Ryhenna, darkamber Lell with the milk-pale mane, and her mother, Ses, the color of cream with a mane like crimson fire. Illishar rose into the air in a green thrashing of wings. Sunlight flashed on his golden flanks. Beneath, the herd surged after Tek, all eager to depart the Vale, hearts bound for the far Hallows.

Jan became aware of an echo, oddly hollow, as though originating deep underground. His view of the herd climbing the steeps of the Vale shrank, grew distant. Before them, he knew, lay the Pan Woods and the Plain. Once more he pulled back, traveling at speed. It seemed that darkness fell, until he realized he had merely come to himself in the vast and sunless dragon’s den. Glare of the molten firelake flickered across the pool of water in the red queen’s brow. The chanting that had drawn him from the Vale echoed somewhere overhead, in the caves above. Awareness of himself and of Wyzásukitán once more faded as his mind floated upward to the source of the sound:

“Now fare we forth, far Hallows bound…”

Jan beheld the Hall of Whispers, burial crypt of Mélintélinas. He saw the Scouts of Halla dispersed among the old queen’s bones. Oro stood by the great skull with its pool of lustrous, dark water. He led the chant, bidding his comrades come forward one by one, take a single sup from that pool, which seemed never to run dry. Having sipped, each shaggy unicorn filed away across the great chamber, disappeared into shadows beyond the gleam of the dragon’s jewels. Their recitation never faltered.

 

“When time betides, a way be found.

Afar, ancestral comrades call.

We answer ably, ardent all…”

 

Their words puzzled Jan. They moved with orderly determination, as though embarking upon some quest.
Far Hallows bound
–could Oro’s fellows truly mean to cross Salt Waste and Plain? He distinctly remembered the dark maroon telling him no egress led from the Smoking Hills. How, then, did the Scouts intend to leave? Though the unexpected possibility of allies buoyed Jan, his skin prickled—for even if Oro and the rest managed to win free of these mist-enshrouded mountains, how would they avoid deadly wyvern stings?