“We shall!” exulted Lell, ramping with delight.
Her mother, Ses, had ascended the rise. She nudged her filly with one firm but unobtrusive shoulder. Lell caught her breath, and with a glance at her dam, managed to collect herself. She swallowed.
“That is, I would welcome it,” she answered formally. With a deep bow first to Malar, then to Illishar, she added, “I thank you.”
The prince’s sister fell back with Ses to stand at the far edge of the rise. Malar crouched again and, with one prodigious leap, launched herself into the air. The gryphon queen rose, wings stroking rapidly at first, then locking to glide as she gained sufficient height. In a bound, green-winged Illishar followed. He seemed to have less trouble rising aloft than his larger, heavier companion. One by one, in swift succession, other formels followed, straining for lift in the windless air. None faltered. In another moment, all were airborne, wafting upward in a ragged vee. They headed south toward the valley’s nearer slope. The Gryphon Mountains lay a day’s flight beyond, across the Pan Woods that bordered the Vale. Tek moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with her mate.
“Do you see, Mother?” Lell behind her whispered excitedly. “How he flies! How he sang. He remembered my name. In under a year’s time, he will return to us. My gryphon.”
Baffled, the pied mare turned to watch the amber filly gazing after the green-gold tercel. Her eyes shone like those of some moonstruck half-grown. Tek snorted. Nay, ridiculous! It would be a year or more before Lell could join the Ring of Warriors, probably two or three before she pledged a mate by the Summer Sea. Whickering, the pied mare shook her head, convinced she had misconstrued the other’s youthful enthusiasm. She leaned against her mate. Above and to the southwest, the tercel’s form and those of the formels grew smaller and smaller yet.
“Do you think he would teach me gryphonsong?” she heard the prince’s sister breathe. “Mother, what must it be like to fly?”
4.
Wind
A puff of breeze played across Jan’s face. The young stallion closed his eyes, relishing it. A moment later, when he opened them, the last of the soaring gryphons were just disappearing beyond the edge of the Vale. Dawnlight illumined the sky, burning it saffron and rose. The few remaining stars winked out. Tek leaned against him. The prince of the unicorns breathed deep, savoring the clean, warm scent of her, pied black as spent night, rosy as the coming dawn. Gently, he nipped her neck and watched his dam, Ses, and sister, Lell, descend the rocky rise. Below, he glimpsed unicorns walking, rolling, rising and shaking off. With a soft whicker, Ses bent to nose Dhattar and Aiony. They stirred. On the rise, his mate beside him murmured.
“Next spring, then.”
He nodded. “Aye.”
“Good.”
He turned, surprised. “You’ve no fear?”
The warrior mare shrugged, chivvying him. “More relief than fear. Six years have I awaited this trek—since I beheld the Firebringer rush burning from heaven in the vision of my initiation.” She nipped playfully at the tassels of his ears till they twitched. “Our folk have waited longer still. Four hundred years.”
Her nips grew smarter, more insistent. He half reared, wheeling to fence with her. Laughing, she met him stroke for stroke, their horns clanging loudly in the morning stillness. Breeze lifted, and they broke off, panting. He saw his mate’s gaze fall lovingly on Dhattar, up now and harassing Lell. Aiony rolled in the grass at her granddam’s forehooves, refusing to get up. Around them, other unicorns frisked and grazed. Tek nudged him.
“My thanks for your waiting till the twins were weaned,” she murmured. “I’m no strategist like you, no diplomat. Just a warrior—and a singer of sorts. And now a dam. I could not have borne forgoing the coming fray for the sake of suckling young.”
She rested her chin at the crown of his head, lips nibbling the base of his horn, beard tickling his cheek. Jan laughed, sneezing, and shook her off.
“Alma chose the time, not I.”
He turned to press his muzzle to her. Doing so, he caught sight of a figure just topping the rise. Two figures, in truth—and then he realized it was three. One had the form of a beardless unicorn deep mallow in color, redder than the dawn. She descended the slope on round, uncloven heels, her black mane standing upright as a newborn’s along her neck, her tail silky and full.
Alongside her trotted a very different figure, moving upright on goatlike hind limbs. From the square shoulders of this figure’s flattened torso hung two nimble forelimbs, one resting easily upon the withers of the red mare, the other swinging with each stride. A small, round head topped the creature’s short, slender neck. Her hairless face held dark, expressive eyes. Curving horns and drooping, goatlike ears sprouted amid a shaggy mane.
A slighter, fairer version sat astride the strange unicorn mare, clinging to her brush, making the third member of the trio. Jan heard his mate beside him give a peal of joy. She reared, flailing the air. All around, on the valley floor below, unicorns turned and took note. Their delighted cries echoed the pied mare’s:
“Jah-lila! The midwife! The magicker!”
Reaching the valley floor, the red mare answered, “Well met!”
The herd surged toward her and her goatling companions, who waved upheld forelimbs and whistled in perfect imitation of unicorns. Mares with suckling young especially moved to greet them. Jan glimpsed his own filly and foal sprinting with gleeful shrieks to welcome their maternal granddam. They, like most of the colts in the herd, had been delivered by the red mare and the pan sisters, her acolytes.
“Sismoomnat! Pitipak!” he heard Aiony and Dhattar exclaim. The younger pan slipped from her foster mother’s back and joined her sister in frisking with them. The red mare waded on through the press, exchanging greetings with stallions and mares, all of whom fell back respectfully before her, even as fellows behind them crowded forward.
Good fortune, the herd murmured, to breathe the wych’s breath, stand in her shadow, tread her track.
The half-growns, warriors, and elders were old enough to remember the awe in which the herd had, only a few short years ago, once held her—a fear now turned to reverence. She acknowledged them all but never paused, forging determinedly toward her daughter, the pied mare, still standing beside Jan on the rise. He fell back to let daughter and dam exchange caresses and greetings. Jah-lila nickered and called to him.
“Well met, my daughter’s mate,” she laughed, her dusky voice a deep, sweet echo of Tek’s. “My fosterlings and I spied wingcats overhead as we entered the Vale. They kept their parley as agreed?”
The prince of the unicorns nodded. “Aye. Peace is pledged. We are sworn to depart for the Hills at spring.”
The red mare nodded, said firmly, “Good.”
“How do my foster sisters fare?” Tek inquired.
Jah-lila nuzzled her affectionately. “As you see. They spend much time in the Pan Woods now, midwiving their own folk’s young.”
“And our allies there?” Jan asked.
The red mare whickered. “Again, very well. The peace you forged in the Woods has been a lasting one.”
Below, at herd’s edge, the elder of the pan sisters, Sismoomnat, chased half a dozen wildly fleeing foals while Aiony charged Pitipak, trying to butt her off her feet. Lell laughed and circled. Dhattar’s coat blazed fire-white among the burning colors of the rest. “Whence have the three of you come,” Tek was asking, “my pan sisters and you?”
The red mare smiled. “From the shores of the Summer Sea,” she said. “We watched the narwhals calve…”