Malar seemed to consider, her moonlit eyes half-shut. From the hard clench of Jan’s neck beside her, Tek knew his teeth were set. His breath came in little silent spurts. Her own heart thundered.
“In return,” the prince’s mate continued, “will you sing us your own tales of this vale, that we may learn the whole history of the place we mean soon to leave forever?”
The wingleader of the gryphons glanced furtively at the green-winged tercel beside her. He preened one shoulder, all seeming unconcern. Tek saw one corner of the gryphon queen’s mouth quirk momentarily into a smile. Returning her gaze to the pied mare, Malar bowed her great eagle’s head and moved back to give the pied mare ground.
“So be it,” the gryphon leader purred.
Jan, too, fell back, leaving Tek alone on the center of the rise. All around, her herdmates listened. The gryphons waited with up-pricked ears. She felt her mate’s eyes watching her. Tek raised her voice and sang of how, forty generations past, wyverns had invaded the unicorns’ rightful lands far to the balmy north. Under guise of friendship, the white wyrmlord Lynex had befriended the unicorns’ aged king, then used sorcery to addle the old stallion’s wits, blinding him to the wyverns’ schemes.
Only Princess Halla had spied the coming betrayal—but her warnings were ignored. In treacherous ambush, wyverns stung to death most of the unicorn warhost, and slew nearly all the rest with fire. Only Halla and her few, desperate followers escaped, fleeing coldward—south—across the Plain. Coming at last upon a vast, deserted vale, the unicorns gladly claimed it, here to spend long exile awaiting the coming of Alma’s appointed, who was to lead them back in triumph to the Hallow Hills.
Tek fell silent, the tale run out. Her words rebounded from the distant slope, hung singing faintly under the round white belly of the pregnant moon now poised high overhead. Below, colts and fillies slept beside their walking sires and dams, all recumbent now. Even some of the gryphons reposed, pard-like, their wings no longer ruffled and half-raised, but folded close. All around burned the thousand thousand summer stars which were the goddess Alma’s eyes. The pied mare swallowed, throat dry as dust. Her singer’s calm broke then, leaving her stranded on the moonlit council rise, confronting gryphons.
3.
Gryphonsong
I am that Firebringer,” the black prince of the unicorns said, “which our prophets foretold.”
Tek fell back as her mate moved forward. She lay down on the council rise, not far behind Jan. The stone held no warmth. The late spring air had cooled. Her mate and Malar faced one another across a low pile of brush to which the pied mare had paid no heed earlier. Jan’s words hung in the motionless air. The gryphon wingleader’s eyes seemed never to blink. The prince spoke on.
“Time approaches for my people to end our long exile.”
The next instant, in one deft motion, he bowed his head and struck the tip of his horn against one heel. A rain of sparks leapt up. The pile of deadwood crackled and caught. Tek realized then it must have been for this purpose that the brush had been gathered. The gryphons’ eyes grew wide at the sight of fire, their cats’-pupils slitting. Behind their leader, panicked formels crowded back. Only Malar’s nearest companion, the tercel, held steady. He had seen her mate’s firemaking before, the pied mare mused, when they had made their privy peace on the shores of the Summer Sea. Ruffled, Malar herself did not retreat, but peered into the crackling blaze.
“How soon? How soon will you depart?” A purr thrummed in her throat. She leaned closer to the warmth.
“Next spring,” Jan answered, “once the grass on the Plain is sprung and last year’s nurslings are weaned.”
The formel raised one feathered brow.
“Suckling mares cannot join in battle,” the prince of the unicorns explained. “And battle there will be, despite our having grown proof against the stings of our foes. The Hallow Hills will not be easily won.”
Malar stirred beside the fire, lifting one wing to allow its heat to reach her side. She was silent so long, Tek wondered if she had fallen asleep.
“Like you, prince of unicorns,” the formel responded at last, “we gryphons now desire peace. We are wearied of raids and your bitter flesh. If you pledge to relinquish Ishi’s Vale to our stewardship, we shall nest content.”
Turning her head ever so slightly, she glanced back at her dozen followers crouching or reclining behind her.
“But we, too, have a tale to sing, a chorus of the making of this sacred place, ages past at the pipping of the world. Our singer is blood kin to me—and for all that he is but a green-winged tercel, he holds a heart as brave, talons as keen, and a voice as strong as any formel’s. Hark now, I bid you, as he raises our song.”
The lone male among the gryphons padded forward, skirting his queen and the fire to come directly before Jan. Tek watched as her prince bowed low.
“Hail, Illishar Mended-wing,” Jan greeted him. “When my sister told me who among your folk had carried your leader’s offer of parley, my heart leapt.”
The tercel’s stony countenance eased. Tek saw his ruffled quills settle, the golden fur of his flank grow smooth. His voice, like his queen’s, was low and sweet.
“So you remember me, Prince Jan.”
The dark stallion shook himself. Tek’s own ears pricked. She eyed the green gryphon feather tangled amid her mate’s long black hair. “How not,” he asked, “when I still wear the gift you gave?” His tone was one of genuine gladness and surprise. “You have grown since last we met.”
The tercel chuckled. “You also, prince of unicorns. Two years past I was barely fletched, a gangling squab!”
Jan snorted. “A formidable warrior, by my reck.”
With a shudder, Tek glimpsed the scars lacing her mate’s shoulder blades, indelible reminders of the mortal combat in which he and this tercel once had joined. She glanced at her sleeping filly and foal and felt the pelt rise along her spine. Despite the feather in his hair, to Tek’s mind, Jan’s battlescars were only one among a cluster of reasons to mistrust these flesh-eating gryphons. Crouched before the prince, the tercel flexed one magnificent wing.
“I, too, suffered in that fray,” he murmured. “But you gave me back my life.”
“And what befell after I set your bone?” Jan asked.
Tek peered curiously at the gryphon’s broad, green pinion, doubting she could ever have dared approach such a dangerous creature, even one with a shattered limb. She and every other unicorn in the Vale, she knew, would gladly have left the fallen raptor to starve. Illishar shrugged, preened a stray feather back into place.
“As soon as my pinion grew strong enough, I made haste back to the Gryphon Mountains to rejoin my flock.”
Tek listened. Her mate tossed his head.
“We heard no word of you,” he pressed. “Indeed, we have seen no wingcats since, save for your own brief stop last spring. What kept your folk so far from our Vale?”
Tek tensed as, on the far side of the fire, the gryphon formels suddenly ruffled. Two jostled and paced. Another beat her wings in agitation, so that the fire leapt, flared. Illishar’s eyes flicked to them, then to his wingleader. Malar returned his gaze impassively, with the barest hint of a nod. The tercel turned again to Jan.
“The flocks have been at war,” he said. “Rival clans sought to conquer Malar, but she triumphed in the end. I, too, soared, winning a perch on the high ledge beside her.”
Tek saw another glance pass between the wingcat and his queen. Jan stood listening, offering no word.