They moved in single file now, the colts and fillies behind the prince and flanked by warriors here and there. Over the long train of backs wending before him, Jan caught glimpses of rose and black, the healer’s daughter, and sometimes white and black, her sire. Others he remembered from the battle of the gryphons, for Korr chose only the worthiest warriors to accompany the initiates over the Plain.
The Hallow Hills lay far to northward, a half month’s running. By then the full moon that had set over the Vale a half hour gone would be dwindled to nothing. By the moon’s dark, then, while the wyverns slept, the unicorns would keep Vigil beside the sacred Mere; and at daybreak they would dip their hooves and horns and drink a single sip of its bitter waters.
So much Jan knew of the ceremony at their journey’s end. So much and no more. He and Dagg filed on through the trees of the Pan Woods, near the tail of the line. And the morning passed. They halted near noon to lie up beside a tangle of berry brush. Splendid curtains of sun streamed into a small clearing nearby. Jan and Dagg threw themselves down upon the soft brown carpet of bracken leaf, near the clearing’s edge but out of the light, and lay there, not talking. The morning’s long walk had tired them.
When Alma first had made the world, so the singers said, she had offered her children the gift of speech. The unicorns took it gladly, and sang their thanks to her. The gryphons took it, and the dragons, even the wyrms. But the goatling pans ran away into the woods, hiding themselves from the Mother-of-all, refusing her gift. And for that, the unicorns despised them.
Jan and Dagg had even seen one once, a pan—a small, cowardly thing. The previous summer they had stolen high upon the slopes, looking for red rueberries to roll in so that, returning to their companions below, they might game them into believing they had been sprung upon by bobtailed hillcats.
But unexpectedly, they had come upon a strange beast: round-headed, flat-faced, and horned like a goat. Its hairless chest was broad and shallow, with a bluish hide, its forelimbs fingered like birds’ feet, and the hind limbs shaggy brown with cloven heels. A slight figure, it would have stood only shoulder high to Korr.
It had been crouching when they had come upon it, plucking ripe berries from the ruebush with the long toes of its forelegs; but it had sprung up and dashed away when it saw them, upon its hind limbs alone, like a wingless bird. He and Dagg had chased it, but it had disappeared over the hillcrest and down into the Pan Woods quick as cunning. What an odd, ungainly looking creature. Ugly as old bones.
Remembering, Jan smiled with the easy arrogance of unicorns and nibbled the young buds from the briar beside him. It was Alma’s frown upon the goatlings that made them so. Only her favored ones, the moon’s children, walked truly in beauty. He swatted at a deerfly that lighted on his rump. The shoots of the bush tasted tender and green.
The handful of warriors stood guard about the dozing initiates, or moved silently among the trees, scouting for pans. Jan watched them idly, and presently he heard a strange sound far in the distance, drawn out and windy, like the whooping of herons. It died down after a few moments, then began again, nearer. And as he listened, it seemed to Jan he could discern a pattern in the cries, calling and replying to one another through the trees.
Dagg was just turning to him, drawing breath to speak, when all at once Jan cut him off with a hiss. He nodded. Teki and another warrior had emerged from the trees a dozen paces from them and stood conferring with the prince.
“Something’s afoot,” murmured Jan, feeling his blood quickening. “Maybe they’ve spotted pans.”
All morning since they had left the Vale, he had been half hoping they might stumble upon the pans. They were not colts anymore, after all. They had nothing to fear. Indeed, it would be a fine game, putting a few of those timid little blueskins to flight. The Woods had been so quiet, the morning so monotonous, with only bird cries for distraction. Boredom nibbled at Jan with tiny, needle teeth.
“It is pans,” whispered Dagg. “It must be.”
The two warriors had broken off from Korr now and were whistling the initiates to be up and off. Jan sprang to his feet and shook himself, laughing with Dagg at the prospect of diversion. The file forming behind Teki was already trotting away into the trees.
“Step brisk,” Jan heard Korr calling, “and less noise.”
Jan champed his tongue and hurried into line. Dagg behind him was doing the same. Since the day of the gryphons, Jan had kept his vow, following the prince’s word always, at once, without questions. His father’s goodwill was too precious, had come too dearly bought to part with now. Jan swallowed his high spirits and stepped brisk.
The gloom of the Pan Woods enfolded them. Behind them, Korr was bringing up the rear of the train. Jan pricked his ears, scanning the trees. Nothing. The Woods were empty, still. He lifted his head, catching the scent of trees and earth, of shady air. No whiff of pans—not yet. But it hardly mattered; they could not be far.
He wrinkled his nose, trotting, feeling the waves of anticipation in him rise. A sense of reckless abandon seethed in him. They were warriors, dangerous and fierce, and on their way into a skirmish. Ears pricked, nostrils wide, his eyes scanning ahead, Jan listened to the crying of herons falling away into the distance behind.
They kept at a jogtrot into the middle afternoon. The whooping voices of the herons had long since faded. Jan snorted, frowning. His anticipation waned; his limbs felt sore. Korr had trotted toward the fore of the line a half hour gone. Now, as Tek strayed near, Jan could bear it no more.
“Hist, Tek,” he whispered, and the young mare turned. “When will we come upon the pans?”
She blinked. “Never, Alma be kind, and if we go carefully.”
Jan shook his head, not understanding. Dagg had come up alongside him now. “But,” he started, “wasn’t it because of pans that we broke camp so suddenly?”
Tek glanced at him. “Aye. But no fear, they’re well behind us now.”
Jan snorted, and astonishment went through him like a barb. “We’ve been going away from them?”
A smile sparked the young mare’s eye. “What, did you think we’d sprung up to go seek them?” She broke into low laughter then. “By Alma’s Beard, princeling. I never yet met a colt who could so not let trouble lie, but always must be up and hunting it.”
Jan felt his ears burning. He wanted to bite something. He wanted to kick. “Trouble?” he cried. “They’re only pans….”
“Hark you,” said Tek then, and her tone had lost its laughter suddenly, become that of a warrior to a foal. “We are not eaters of flesh like the gryphons, nor lovers of death like the wyrms. Nor do we bloody our hooves and our horns save at need.” She eyed him hard a moment more, then broke off and loped toward the head of the line. They had come to a stream. Jan kept his tongue and snatched a drink as they waded across. Fiercely cold, the water ran like ice along his ribs. He lashed furiously at the swarm of tiny waterwings that settled to sip his sweat.
His blood was burning still. Tek’s mocking had made him feel like a fool. He was only grateful Korr had not overheard. How could he ever hope to become prince among the unicorns if he could not even remember the simplest rule of Law—one he had been hearing since birth? Warriors were sworn not to battle without cause. His flash of anger cooling now, Jan’s whole frame drooped in despair.