“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?’
“The king’s Companions, unwilling to risk injury to either Ses or Lell, could only return—defeated—to Korr. He was furious, but what could he do? By day, while Ses foraged, Lell sheltered in Teki’s cave with his acolytes. Public sentiment was now such that Korr dared not risk removing her in Ses’s absence. The herd might have been moved to open rebellion then.
“Instead, Korr threw himself into planning the expedition to track you down. He dared not leave the Vale himself—for his position was now so precarious he feared his absence might lend the Council opportunity to declare another regent. On the eve of equinox, he sent his Companions out. In place of the traditional spring pilgrimage to the Hallow Hills, Korr ordered this quest for vengeance instead. Indeed, we’d few uninitiated colts and fillies left by then, and those too sickly for any trek.
“The Companions were to cross into the southeastern hills through the snowbound pass the moment enough snow had melted to make the way passable. Then they were to disperse, combing every inch of wilderland until they found you. My parents were among them, but even they, I think, had begun to scent which way the wind was blowing. Those Companions who remained behind with Korr were mostly old, injured, or sick.
“Great storms had been building in the southeast for days, the end of winter finally in sight. A violent deluge broke at last on equinox eve. Snow-locked mountainsides turned suddenly to muddy slush. Despite the downpour, so my parents tell, the Companions climbed struggling toward the pass. All at once, near the trail’s highest point—between one heartbeat and the next—a vast wall of mud hurtled down upon them. The slope above had given way beneath the weight of melting snow and torrential rain.
“A scant few, among them my sire and dam, gained shelter beneath a jutting overhang of stone. They watched in horror as their fellows were swept away. Not one that had been caught by the slide remained to be found. The survivors, fleeing for their lives, returned to Korr and told their tale. Many who listened concluded it must have been a sorcerous storm, conjured by the red wych Jah-lila to punish Korr for seeking her daughter’s life. Some are even calling your dam a prophet of Alma now, and Korr the false, blaspheming raver.”
The trail had leveled out, threading along the side of the cliff. Dagg spotted the meadow and ravine far below. The pied mare paced silently, thoughtfully beside him.
“I knew nothing of this,” she said at last. “If my dam indeed conjured that storm, she has not told me so. Nor has she spoken of the loss of the king’s Companions, though I cannot doubt she knows of it. What ensued after the herd received this news?”
“Great mourning,” Dagg replied. “Though the king’s wolves had been much resented, they were still our blood, warriors of the Ring and loyal to their king—if unwisely so—and kith or kin to many. Their deaths put the herd’s loss this winter past at nearly half our former numbers.”
“And Korr?” Tek asked.
Dagg shook his head. “The king was devastated, seemed to regard the calamity as divine judgment. He has been silent since, issuing no proclamations, holding no rallies, making no demands. Many see it as a good sign, the beginning of a return to sanity. He moves about solely in the company of his few remaining Companions—most have dared to desert since equinox, and been accepted back into the herd after fitting penance. Ses still remains in Sa’s grotto. Korr has neither called for her nor gone to her.
“Most of the winter’s survivors are so relieved at the dispersal of the snows, the early warmth of spring, and the green buds growing that they spend their time foraging ravenously and give little thought to the herd’s leadership. Their mood, for the moment quiet, seems to be one of waiting. No word has been heard of you, and though most are anxious for news, none have dared come in search since learning the fate of the king’s Companions.”
Tek smiled at him. “None till you,” she said quietly.
Dagg snorted. “As your shoulder-friend, I doubt your dam would see cause to do me harm. Besides, the snow’s long melted, and it scarce looks like rain.”
Tek let out a great laugh, and Dagg could not help joining her. They had made good progress up the
trail. He spotted a cave suddenly, a narrow slit in the cliff’s side—it looked like a mere crease in the rock, not the entrance to a grotto.
“Come in; come in,” Tek told him, entering. “My mother set out foraging early this morn. I doubt that she is yet returned, but we can wait within, sheltered from gnats and the cool spring wind.”
Dagg hesitated, unease gripping him suddenly. He did not relish meeting the Red Mare face to face. Her veiled powers, her foreignness and mystery unnerved him. Lashing his tail, he followed the pied mare reluctantly into the cave. Its upper walls and ceiling clustered with glowing lichens and fungi in rose, ghost blue, saffron, and plum. Their faint light seemed to brighten as his eyes adjusted. Tek threw herself down in one corner of the cave. Small heaps of last year’s herbs and grass lay about. The pied mare nodded to it.
“A little of the forage my mother laid in remains, even yet. Eat, if you will.”
But Dagg shook his head, settling himself opposite Tek. Though weary, he felt no hunger pangs. He smelled the absent Red Mare now, her unmistakable scent like rosehips and ripening cherries. She had always carried about her that spice fragrance of the magical milkwood pods. The substance of them, so it was said, was in her very bones, imparting the unique brilliant mallow color to her coat.
But though the Red Mare’s scent was strong, she herself was not in evidence. Dagg allowed himself a relieved sigh. A respite, then, before he met the magicker. He caught as well an unmistakable whiff of pan: salty and sharp, an odor he had loathed since having been ambushed as a colt by pans for trespassing their Woods. He could only conclude that this cave must have been used as a den by the fetid creatures before the Red Mare chased them out. Politely, he ignored the stench.
“You spoke of the herd’s mood of waiting,” Tek said, her own mood lifting suddenly. Indeed, she seemed almost ebullient now, in sharp contrast to her gravity of only moments past. “Well, they need not wait long now. Though I am by no means my mother’s confidante, she has imparted to me this much: Jan lives and at this moment journeys homeward. He will reach the Vale in ten days’ time.”
Taken wholly unprepared, Dagg started, restraining himself just short of springing up. He stared astonished at the pied mare across from him. Had Tek, too, run mad? His mentor and shoulder-friend watched him expectantly, eyes bright. She seemed to relish his startlement.
“What…are you saying?” Dagg stammered. “Jan is not—he was killed by gryphons….”
Smiling, the pied mare shook her head. “None of us saw. We could only surmise—wrongly, it seems, for my mother has seen by her sorceries that he was taken and held captive in a far place by a strange, two-footed race. Now that he has slipped their grasp, he will be home soon.”
She spoke with such anticipation, such confidence that Dagg was loath to contradict her. Yet clearly what she was telling him could not be so. He shifted uneasily. The pied mare watched him amiably, her expression calm.
“You don’t believe me,” laughed Tek. “Well enough. Were I you, I, too, would doubt. I will let Jah-lila convince you when she returns. But I tell you now that learning of my mate’s imminent return has sustained me this last moon and some. I can scarcely wait to show him our union’s fruit, which will surprise even him, I think.”
Dagg blinked. “Fruit…?” he started, stopped. “But—”
Again Tek laughed. “I bore my young at equinox. Can you not see I am no longer in foal? And such young! Such miraculous progeny as never before seen among the unicorns—Jan will be delighted, as I hope you will be, and indeed all the herd. I must return to the Vale with my prince’s get as soon as may be, that we may greet my mate at his homecoming.”
Tek spoke quietly, yet with unmistakable excitement. Snorting, the dappled warrior shook his head. Wild dreams of reunion with her perished mate and young obviously comforted the mad mare, he thought desperately. The very notion made his skin crawl. He had always believed in facing the truth head-on, even if truth were a shrieking gryphon. Jan was dead, and Tek had obviously miscarried long before term. Sighing, his companion shook herself, seemingly from sheer joy.
“You will see,” she told him gently. “As soon as Sismoomnat and Pitipak return, you will behold my prince’s get.”
“Sismoo– Piti—” Dagg stumbled over the unfamiliar names. “Who…?”
“My sisters,” Tek replied, so that Dagg could only stare anew. Sisters? He had never heard the pied mare speak of sisters—yet even in Jah-lila’s self-imposed exile, he knew, Teki had not forsworn the Red Mare: neither healer nor magicker had ever taken another mate.
“Ah,” the pied mare said suddenly, pricking her ears. “I hear them.”
Dagg turned his head toward the cave’s entryway. He heard a strange fluting and twittering mixed with hisses and grunts. The sound sent slivers of ice along his ribs as a salty rankness filled his nose. He smelled pans! That was pan-chatter he heard! Tek continued to lounge at ease. Was her madness so deep she did not realize their danger?
His limbs tensed, preparing to vault him to his heels just as a slight, upright figure ducked through the grotto’s egress and called a greeting to Tek. The pied mare whistled back the same phrase. The pan child—for it was a child, only a small thing, not nearly full grown—was followed by other figures, one of which was two-footed like herself.
For a moment, Dagg lay frozen, staring at the pans—and then his eyes turned in even greater astonishment to what had followed these goatlings through the entryway, stepping on delicate hooves as docilely as deer. What dream was this? Dagg could do little more than gape. He had never seen such a thing. What stood before him in the entryway beside the pans could only be Tek’s progeny, given form perhaps by the Red Mare’s sorcery, or by Teki’s miraculous herb? Born under the dark moon of equinox—touched by Alma surely, but in blessing or curse?
“Behold,” Tek proudly bade, rising to nuzzle her young. “Behold what Jan and I have made: my prince’s get, heir to the leadership of the unicorns.”
25.
Enemies
Jan trotted eastward along the silvery strand, the direction he and Ryhenna had been traveling since their rescuers, the unicorns-of-the-sea, had set them ashore many days ago. It had been hard going at first. In the beginning, he and the coppery mare had done far more grazing than traveling, plucking every green shoot and bud they could set teeth upon. Soon enough their pace picked up as his companion’s flanks hardened, her wind improved, and Jan’s own bruised ribs healed.
Ryhenna grew bolder by the day. Skittish at first, she had started at everything: crabs scuttling across the sand, diving sea gulls, beachrunners nimbly skirting the incoming waves. Her years imprisoned in the City of Fire had robbed her of all knowledge of the world outside. Now she took it in with the wonder and eagerness of a filly.
Yet despite her innocence, her youth, Jan reminded himself, she was no filly, but a young mare just coming into flower. A beauty, too. Her odd, coppery pelt flashed in the sunlight, so unlike the hue of any unicorn. Her exotic, upright mane—badly singed at equinox—had since regrown. Now it once more bristled the slim, elegant rise of her neck.
Early on, Jan had managed to chew through the chin strap of her water-logged halter and tug it free. His own, fashioned of silvery skystuff, proved impossible to remove without the nimble digits of two-foots to unfasten its closure. The dark unicorn could only snort and shake his head in frustration while the hard, linked loops clapped at his cheeks and muzzle, chafing him.
Though the spring days warmed, nights along the windswept beach remained bitingly chill. Most evenings he and the coppery mare managed to gather a stack of grey driftwood dry enough for Jan to set alight with a spark made by striking the tip of his horn against one heel and large enough to smolder the night through once the flames died down. He and Ryhenna rarely needed to seek shelter in the scrub beyond the dunes.
Ryhenna asked him constantly for tales of the Vale, her appetite insatiable. Jan told her the old lays, the history of his people
: how, four hundred summers past, treacherous wyverns had driven the unicorns from their rightful home, the Hallow Hills, far to the north across the Plains. He told her how the princess Halla and her weary band of refugees had first stumbled across the deserted Vale and claimed it for their new home in exile only to be attacked each spring by marauding gryphons: savage predators with great wings of green or blue.
He did not speak of the rest of the legend, of Alma’s Firebringer, prophesied to deliver the unicorns from exile by restoring to them their ancestral lands and driving the hated wyverns out. Questions! His heart was full of questions still. The voice of the goddess had been silent since equinox—yet he could harbor no doubts now it was her own divine spark which burned in him.
He found himself sometimes dreaming of the City of Fire, of its two-footed sorcerers and their mysteries. Yet each day they fell farther behind him. More often he dreamed of what lay ahead: the Vale and all his kith, especially Tek. Memory of their joy on the night of courting more than a half year gone and of the pledge that they had shared made each day he remained parted from her an agony.
Memory, too, of the confused and disordered dreams Jah-lila had managed to send him in the City—of Korr’s madness, the herd’s starvation, and the pied mare’s flight—filled him with unease. How much of their message did he—dared he—understand? No such visions came to him during his and Ryhenna’s trek homeward along the silvery shore.
Three half-moons to the day after equinox, Jan noted a change in the beach along which he and the coppery mare trotted. The pale, ash-colored sand began gradually to mix with particles of yellow amber. Barely enough at first to warm the cool silver into dove, before long the shade had strayed into dun, and then to deep, true gold. Jan tossed his head, whinnying, his pace accelerating to a flying canter. Startled, Ryhenna kicked into a run beside him.
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