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.”
17.
Spring
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.”