Aiony nuzzled him. “Are you angry with us?”
The prince of the unicorns bent to caress her. “Nay, little one,” he murmured, “but you mustn’t keep such things from me.”
Clearly relieved, white Dhattar nipped him. “We’ll not,” he said. “You’ll believe us now.”
Jan gathered his offspring to him and chivvied them gently. “Come. Let’s find your dam.”
The twins fell in alongside, frisking and shrugging as he picked their way down the steep, rocky slope. The thought did not occur to him till they were nearly to the trees.
“I wonder,” he murmured, as they entered the thicket. “Since I am proof against serpents—you two as well—does a way exist that others also might be made proof?”
The trees thickened, blotting out the sky. The prince of the unicorns shook his head.
“Perhaps if I could somehow sting our fellows, as I have been stung…”
Aiony scrubbed her cheek against his flank. “Scratch them with your blood,” she told him.
“We could do it, too,” the white foal added, “if we weren’t so young.”
Aiony sighed. “If we had horns.”
Ahead of them the trees were thinning. Grassy slope lay beyond. Jan just barely glimpsed it.
“If the herd could be made proof against poison,” he mused, “we’d no longer need fear wyverns’ barbs—” The prince of the unicorns stopped in his tracks. “We could win back the Hallow Hills!”
Just paces from the wood’s edge, Jan stared at nothing. Win back the Hills? The possibility rocked him. He had been waiting years for a sign from Alma that the time at last grew ripe to reclaim his people’s homeland. Now the goddess had spoken with the mouth of a serpent, slithering out of his children’s dreams to leave a bloodmark on his shank. The black prince of the unicorns shook himself, pressed on downslope. He must speak of this with Tek at once. The moment the thought formed in his mind, Dhattar glanced at him.
“Not our dam,” he exclaimed. Beside him, Aiony added eagerly, “Lell’s the one you must go to now.”
Jan turned at the mention of his younger sibling, barely four, a filly still herself. “Why is that?” he asked, baffled. “Where is Lell?”
“With the great green eagle-thing,” the white foal answered.
“The… the…” He frowned, searched for the word. “Catbird?”
“Wingcat,” Aiony corrected, then turned to nip at her father’s beard. “Lell’s below us, just beyond the trees—at parley with a gryphon.”
2.
Parley
Then Isha, mistress of the sky, turned to Ishi, lord of winds. ‘These gryphons, fiercest of all my chicks, shall know a token of my favor.’ With one mighty talon, she scratched the earth, creating a valley. With the touch of one wingtip, she brought it life: wooded slopes and grassy meadow. Here the wind god pastured his goats and deer. Here the blue-fletched formels sped each spring to capture first meat for their newly hatched young—until, four hundred winters past, your kind displaced Ishi’s sacred flocks. Now the formels find nothing to nourish their squabs but your bitter flesh. That is why, little unicorn, this vale belongs to my folk, not yours, no matter how many generations your forebears have trespassed here.”
Green-feathered with a golden pelt, the gryphon poised on a jut of rock above the amber filly’s head. His coloring clearly marked him a tercel—a male—but so large a one that the young unicorn stood amazed: nearly the size of a blue-winged formel this grass-green raptor crouched. Lell stood motionless, half mesmerized by the tercel’s soft, guttural tone midway between a purr and a growl. The prince’s sister started suddenly. Not yet half-grown, her slim, straight horn still unkeened, Lell tossed her head, snorted and stamped. Her dam had warned her of wingcats’ charming their prey before they sprang.
“A pretty song!” she cried. “But you must trill a sweeter one to capture me.” She shook her dark chestnut coat, shaggy from winter yet, unshed. Her pale mane splashed like milk. “Forty generations have my people defended this vale—we shall guard it forty more if need be. My brother the prince shall hear of your intrusion.” She ramped. “Wingcats are forbidden here. Begone!”
One corner of the tercel’s mouth twitched in what might have been a smile.
“Little unicorn,” he answered mildly, “attend. We gryphons are not the ones who trespass Ishi’s Vale. But consider: with the birth of your flock’s long-sought Firebringer, does not time at last betide you to depart and reclaim your Hallow Hills?”
Lell felt her jaw loosen with surprise. How could this outlander know her people’s sacred prophecies? Green as river stones, the crouching gryphon’s cat’s eyes watched her.
“Tell Prince Moonbrow,” he said, “that his shoulder-friend, Illishar of the Broken Wing, flies emissary from my kindred Malar, now wingleader of all the clans. She would parley a peace if, as your brother claims, you truly mean to relinquish this vale.”
“We do! We must. He is Alma’s Firebringer!” Lell exclaimed, more than a little impressed at her own bravery in answering the huge raptor without a moment’s hesitation. The gryphon shrugged. His pinions flexed. The darkamber filly felt the wind they stirred. The sensation made her skin draw. She demanded, “When would your wingleader treat with my prince?”
The tercel clucked. “When the new-hatched chicks are well grown enough to be left in their fathers’ care. Spring’s end, or early summer.”
Lell frowned, thoughts racing. How would her brother, Jan, have responded? “Solstice falls at Moondance this year. Come then,” she called up, “on the night of the full moon marking the advent of summer.”
The raptor spread huge, jewel-green wings. “So be it. I fly to bring word to my kin before the hatchlings pip.”
Pinions fully extended, he stroked the air. Lell’s mane whipped. She stood astonished that he should accept her words so readily in her brother’s stead. Her heart quailed. An impulse filled her suddenly to bolt, but she stood her ground.
“Tell Jan that in token of faith,” the gryphon said, “Malar will bar the formels from hunting Ishi’s Vale again this spring, so sparing your young a third year in a row.”
Powerful wingbeats hummed. His voice sounded like a cat’s purr still. With a mighty bound and blurred thrashing of wings, the tercel was suddenly airborne. Despite herself, Lell flinched. The sweep of his pinions was startling. His shadow passed over her back and flanks.
“We meet again in three months’ time, little unicorn,” he called, skimming out from the steep hillside and down.
Had she leapt upward then, Lell realized, she could have grazed him. The rush of air dizzied her. Her horn tingled. The blood in her veins sang. Wheeling, she glimpsed the gryphon’s back before his furiously threshing wings gained him lift enough to veer, glide upward toward vale’s edge. She wheeled again, following his path with her eyes. The Pan Woods lay beyond the top of the rise.
“Lell!” she cried after him, bounding up slope in his wake. “My name is Lell!”
The gryphon neither checked nor turned. Still seeking altitude, his grass-green pinions winnowed the air. He soared away from her. Lell stumbled to a halt. The bright air seemed to burn where he had been. She wondered what it must be like to sail, free as a hawk, so far above the ground. Her withers tightened unexpectedly, aching almost, longing for wings. Grown small, the tercel passed beyond the hillcrest, disappeared from view. Heart still at full gallop, she realized she had been holding her breath.
A sudden drumming of heels brought Lell’s head sharp around. The crack of trampled twigs reached her, and the crashing of brush. From wood’s edge, scant paces from her, rang out the battle-whistle of a warrior. A moment later, the black prince of the unicorns burst from the trees. Snorting, ramping, he cast fiercely about as though seeking a foe. Lell whinnied and reared, thrusting her young horn toward the empty sky.