23.
Wyrmking
The pale mare tossed back her poppy-colored mane and lunged again at another wyvern, piercing the fibrous breastplate beneath its skin and bringing it down. It writhed and thrashed, already dead. She felt its sting glance heavily against one flank. The wyvern’s colorless blood ran down her horn, soaking her brow, burning. Ses slung her damp forelock out of her eyes and fought on.
The clatter of battle rattled around her. The sun hung low, already hidden by the limestone cliff overlooking the wyvern shelves. The Mirror of the Moon lay on that forested plateau, she knew. She killed another wyvern. Were the wyrms being routed? She did not know, fought the more fiercely to keep from having to think. She had kept her thoughts from many such thorny mires of late—quandaries such as what she would do after this war, when Lell was grown. When she was free.
What would she do if Jan never returned? Nay, he must! Alma had shown her in the vision of her initiation night that she was to bear the long-awaited Firebringer. Surely he would appear. The only mystery was when. But what then? Dared she tell him the truth, as she had sworn to Jah-lila she would do?
She thought once more of that secret she had hidden from him and all the world since before his birth. Why had she done so? Self-preservation, surely. And at the urging of the Red Mare, who had assured her over and over that Jan must be born unto the Ring and reared as prince-to-be. Her own status as prince’s mate had meant little to Ses. She had kept silent to protect her son and to spare her mate, whom she had truly loved—hoping ever against hope that he would one day free himself of the dreadful guilt that had ridden him to his death.
And yet, more than for any other reason, she had held her tongue for Lell. On the night of her initiation, long before either of her children’s births, Ses had seen not only her destiny to bear the herd a Firebringer, but another to come after him: a wingèd thing. What her filly’s dream pinions might mean, the pale mare could not guess. But she had named her daughter Álell, Wing. Regardless of her firstborn’s fate, the poppy-maned mare trusted her filly was safe, secure in the care of the Free Folk of the Plain, three days’ journey from this war.
She fought on. The dust of battle rose all around, a white haze. The figures surrounding her seemed pale as haunts. Sky above now edged from golden into flame. The unicorns had secured most of the entries to the wyverns’ dens, she saw, preventing retreat back under the earth. The wyrms lay slain by heaps and dozens about the shelves. Her own folk’s losses, she noted with relief, were fewer than the wyrms’. The unicorns had formed a solid line, pushing the wyverns slowly, inexorably toward the Plain.
The wyrms’ resistance was frenzied. After initial panic at the arrival of the stranger roans, some among the wyvern horde had rallied. Had they yielded, or rushed headlong with their companions for the Plain, Ses was certain Tek would have spared further bloodshed and let them go. But all who remained refused surrender. Seven-headed Lynex, surrounded by bodyguards, shrieked with multiple shrill voices at the remains of his horde to fight to the death and not to yield.
Where was his fire, the pale mare wondered? All her life she had heard of wyverns hoarding flame, stolen from the red dragons so many years ago. Yet the foe had not used the deadly stuff even once this day. In dousing the wyrmqueen’s flame years past, had her firstborn robbed the wyverns of all they possessed? She could not say. She only knew Lynex wielded none as he towered above the wedge-shaped attack formation led by Tek.
His bodyguards writhed and reared, striving to keep Tek’s warriors at bay, but one by one, the double-headed guardians were being seized and pulled down. Of the great scarred wyrmking’s original score, only a dozen remained. The odd-colored strangers, who called themselves Scouts of Halla, rallied around Tek, aiding her assault against the seven-headed wyrm. They fought tirelessly, like creatures possessed. Their leader, a small maroon stallion, conferred with the pied mare and followed her commands, singing out to his followers in a ringing chant that was nothing like the piercing whistles Vale unicorns used.
For what did Lynex wait? Why did he still fight on? Ses could not fathom him. The golden-orange sky above grew more and more intensely flame. A sudden commotion interrupted her thoughts. She wheeled, half expecting to find wyverns had broken her fellows’ ranks, gotten behind her somehow. Instead, she saw a unicorn stallion come charging around the cliffside onto the battlefield. He cast feverishly about with the look of one taking no part in the fray, but desperately seeking among the fighters.
He was tall and lean and long-maned. The gloom of the cliff’s shadow muted his coloring. From the toss of his head, from his gait and stance, she thought for one wild instant he was Jan. Then the actual hue of his coat registered: midnight blue scattered with silvery stars. A shock went through her: Calydor! What could his purpose be? Like his fellows, he had refused to join this fray, agreeing only to ward those of the Vale too young or old or infirm to fight. Spotting the pale mare now, Calydor sped toward her.
“Ses,” he cried. “Is she here? Is she with you?”
With the wyvern directly before her now dead, the pale mare turned to meet the Plainsdweller.
“What do you mean?” she panted. “Whom do you seek? Why are you not with Lell and the others? “
Searching still, the star-covered stallion pitched to a halt. “’Tis your daughter I seek! We discovered her missing the morn after your warhost departed.”
“Missing?” exclaimed Ses. “What, how…?” Her balance reeled.
“We combed the oasis, but found no trace—no pards,” he told her quickly. “I am certain she followed the host. Did she catch you up? Have you seen her?”
“Come to enter the fray?” Ses cried, fear thudding against her heart. “My Lell is no match for these monstrous wyrms! She’s but a filly—and each of them larger than a full-grown warrior…”
Hastily, she, too, began to scan the battle. The wyrmhorde teetered on the brink of overthrow. In time, the unicorns’ steady forward push would surely overwhelm them. But time, she realized, noting the brilliant color of the sky, might be what the unicorns did not have. As soon as the sun sank away, all odds might change. If Lynex could hold on just so long… Beside her, the star-strewn stallion spoke.
“You have not seen her? She is not among you here?”
“Nay,” the pale mare gasped, nearly frantic now, aware that simply because she had not laid eyes on Lell amid the day’s mayhem did not mean her daughter had not hurled herself foolishly into the fray. Even impervious to wyverns’ venom, the amber filly could still easily have been torn to bits by their teeth or claws. Calydor’s brow furrowed.
“Mayhap she did not last this far,” he murmured. Ses wheeled to stare at him. He swiftly added, “She may have had sense enough to abandon her wild scheme, to turn back, and I missed her. By my reck, even with pards, she’s safer on the Plain than amid this slaughter…”