“Liar,” muttered Jan.
“Be still,” hissed Dagg.
“ ‘Whence do you come?’ said Halla to the wyverns. ‘Why have you journeyed across the Plain?’
“ ‘Ah,’ cried Lynex, ‘we come from the north, the north and east where once we dwelled in harmony with our cousins, the red dragons. But our cousins cast us off—for envy, we think. We are too beautiful for their liking, though that is not the reason they would give.’
“The wyvern’s eyes reddened with rancor.
“ ‘They said we were too many; they said….’ He stopped himself suddenly. ‘Ah, but…as you see, we are only a very few.’
“Halla stood gazing out over the backs of the wyverns. She swatted a deerfly on her haunch and picked testily at the ground with one forehoof. Now that she scanned, she saw the white wyrms matched the diminished herd of the unicorns nearly beast for beast. ‘Not so few,’ she muttered to herself.
“ ‘More than that,’ her scout beside her murmured. ‘Our lookouts spotted many more than that.’
“ ‘Are all your people here assembled?’ Halla asked aloud.
“ ‘All that yet are left to us alive,’ Lynex replied.
“ ‘Well enough,’ Jared replied. Then turning to Halla and her advisors, he said—seemingly to them, but loud enough for the wyrms to hear—‘Harmless enough, they seem. I say we should succor them.’
“ ‘A moment, father,’ the princess cried. ‘They appear to me less harmless than you think.’ She turned again to the drove of wyverns. ‘What do you eat?’
“And at this, for the first time, the wyverns did not answer at once, but turned to consult among themselves in their soft, sliding whispers.
“ ‘Fish,’ said Lynex, turning, ‘when we can get them, small lizards, birds’ eggs. But when those cannot be found, we may subsist on grass for a little, as we have done these past months—that same sweet grass which you yourselves eat.’
“Halla eyed their needle teeth.
“ ‘Aye, fine sharp cusps they have,’ murmured Zod the singer, ‘for the grinding of grass.’
“ ‘You have poison stings on your tails,’ said Halla.
“Then the wyverns flicked their tails and hissed till Lynex stilled them. ‘Mere decoration only,’ he replied, brandishing the barbed tip of his tail. ‘And no defense against dragons, I fear.’
“ ‘Then why…’ the princess began.
“ ‘Well enough, well enough!’ her father cried. ‘Let us put an end to this bickering. It grows late, and I am weary.’ Before his daughter could protest he continued: ‘Hear my judgment. Let the wyverns make dens in the rocks for one season. At the end of that time let us assemble again to parley their further stay.’
“Then Lynex the wyvern king bellied down to the dust. ‘You will not regret this largess, O king. We are used to living inconspicuously; we will not disturb you—and we sleep all winter.’
“Coming forward then, he and Jared sealed their bargain with the pledge-kiss rulers give one another. But as her father turned away, Halla saw that the ear above the cheek where the wyvern king had kissed him lay crumpled, stood upright no more.
“Then the wyverns gave a great hissing shout and disappeared quick as a twitch into every burrow and cranny and cave in the rocks, so that at the end of ten heartbeats there was not tip nor tail to be seen of them, nor hardly any sign that they had been there at all.
“ ‘And now that they are slithered in,’ said Zod to no one, softly, ‘however shall we get them out again?’
“And Halla said quietly to her scout beside her, ‘Let us send runners over Alma’s back to north and east to find the red dragons. I would know what reason they give for the casting out of these slithery cousins of theirs.’ ”
Shadow Under the Moon
Tek paused again and bowed her head. The second cant was done. She stood facing wholly away from Jan and Dagg now, gazing out over the far half of the Circle. The moon had floated well up into the sky, its cool light spilling as pale as water.
“So the runners were sent,” chanted Tek from her ledge. Jan heard the faintest echo of her words bounding back from the far hillside. “…at Halla’s behest and without the king’s knowing. Summer paled slowly into autumn, and hardly a scale was seen of the wyverns. They kept to their rock shelves, to themselves, until the unicorns nearly forgot their presence with the feasting and the dancing and the gathering of fall.
“But Halla was troubled. Her messengers did not return, and it seemed that her father made merrier than the rest, strange merriment. His thoughts strayed and rambled. And the ear where the wyvern had kissed him still drooped, so that now he was a little deaf. It uneased her.
“Zod, too, seemed uneasy. Haunting were the lays, all danger and betrayal, that fell from his tongue, mostly for her ears, though the princess did not know him well. And when on cold autumn nights from beneath some spreading fir Halla awoke to a distant, mournful cry, she knew it was the singer at his dreams.
“Winter came, and with it, snow. The well-springs froze, and then no sight or sound of the wyverns came. They lay curled tight in sleeping knots below ground, so the unicorns supposed—though sometimes wisps of acrid mist rose from the airholes to their dens. It was a puzzle passing strange. No one could make it out.
“Then the unicorns ate of their stores, pawing through the snow to find forage, and chewed the leaves of spruce and fir, warm in their winter shag, thinking nothing of the wyrms—while Zod sang songs of doom all winter and Halla waited for her runners to return.”
Tek had turned just past halfway around in her circling. Jan began to be able to see her face again, though she faced still toward the far side of the Circle. The lightest of echoes sang back from the distant slope as she chanted, shadowing her words. The moon hung two-thirds of the way to its zenith. Jan listened to Tek’s singing under the moon.
“Spring came. The snows dissolved. Ice that had locked the pools melted, and the new grass sprang upon the Plain. Then two young colts disappeared within a day of one another and were not seen again. Searchers combed diligently, but no trace could be found.
“Companions said they had last seen them in the south and east, near the wyvern cliffs, but no sign of wyverns either could be found, and no answer came when the searchers shouted down into their caves. Jared the king said the year was early yet for wyrms to be abroad. No more was said. No more could be done.
Then a young mare heavy in foal went up to the Mirror of the Moon to bear, but returned not, nor her companion the midwife. They were not seen again. This time the searchers found wyvern tracks and belly marks about the poolside and crystallized droppings under the trees. But still no answer came from beneath the shelves when the searchers called, and no wyverns emerged.
“Jared the king said still the white wyrms were asleep, fast slumbering, and the searchers must have mistook the signs, that the tracks must be those of banded pards, or other grasscats wandered in from the Plain. But when urged by his advisors, he would post no lookouts. So scouts were posted at Halla’s word, against the orders of the king.
“Soon some of them said they had seen wyverns moving about the shelves at night. Others spoke of wyverns bathing in the sacred Mirror of the Moon before dawn. Hearing this, the princess grew alarmed, and ordered mineral salt thrown down about the Mere to keep them off.
“But when clear traces were found at last that the wyverns had visited the salt-clay cliffs where the dead are laid beneath the stars and had carried off the bodies of warriors put to rest there, Halla went with this knowledge to her father and confronted him before his counselors.”