[Firebringer 02] - Dark Moon (9 page)

In a bound, Tai-shan sprang over the wooden barrier again and was surprised once more to hear exclamations of astonishment from the two-foots. The
chon
and the
daïcha
both turned, startled. Tai-shan whickered to the lady and made to approach. The ruler’s clasp about her tightened protectively. His purple-plumes tensed. At his sharp command, they raised their pointed staves and hurried to block the dark unicorn’s path.

Tai-shan halted with a puzzled snort. Turning in the
chon’s
grasp, the
daïcha
protested. Reaching out one forelimb to the dark unicorn, she continued talking to the
chon.
The two-foot ruler eyed the young stallion suspiciously, but at a cautious nod from him, his purple-plumes fell back, staves still at the ready. Tai-shan went forward to nuzzle the
daïcha.
She crooned to him and stroked his nose.

Releasing her, the
chon
laid one forepaw briefly upon her shoulder, then turned and strode away across the yard in the direction the mares and the stallion had taken. His purple-plumes marched after him. Dusk had fallen. The snowfall was coming down more thickly now. The
daïcha’s
female companions arrived, carrying firebrands. Tai-shan held himself still as, by their flickering light, the lady ran her slender forepaws gently over his nicks and bruises. She dabbed them with a pungent salve from a hollow vessel that was the color of soft river clay but rigid as stone.

The
chon
returned, striding across the yard once more with his purple-plumes. He bore in one forepaw the same silvery adornment the umber stallion had lately worn. The long, trailing straps had been removed. Its dipping, crescent browpiece gleamed, flashing in the darting firelight.

The
chon
handed his prize to the
daïcha,
who accepted it with a delighted laugh. Curious, the dark unicorn bent forward to examine the thing more closely. It smelled of skystuff and bitter oil. Holding it up in one forepaw, the
daïcha
caressed his muzzle and cheek. Tai-shan had no notion what the purpose of such an odd device might be, yet he felt not the slightest misgiving as, moments later, the lady of the firekeepers fastened it securely about his head.

The weather worsened by the day. Forage grew steadily scarcer and ever more difficult to uncover beneath the hard-frozen snow. King’s scouts no longer reported newfound forage to the herd at large. Korr alone decided who should learn of such. Those who gained his favor were led to the spots: those who earned his displeasure were left to fend for themselves.

The grey mare clenched her jaw. The shame of it: her son playing favorites when a mouthful of withered grass might mean the difference between starvation and survival this winter! Unicorns were dying now, herdmembers frozen or starved to death—nurslings and weanlings first, followed by the oldest stallions and mares.

Sa shook her head grimly as she picked her way over the rocky trail, eyes alert for any patch of green among the constant grey. Next it would be the older, uninitiated fillies and foals. Then the half-growns. Finally the warriors in their prime. The weather remained too harsh even to permit the proper funeral dances for the dead.

The grey mare’s innards rumbled hollowly. She had not eaten since the afternoon before. Hunger had driven her high up the slopes, far from the constant wailing in the valley below: mothers discovering their young dead in the night, warriors stumbling across aged sires and dams too weak to rise. The Council of Elders had been devastated: three of its members already dead, five others gravely ill.

Korr ordered the herd assembled daily now, holding them for hours, captive to his rantings. He spun wild tales of the will of Alma, who mercifully punished her beloved followers for their transgressions. It was all absurd. Exposed to the elements, unable to move about for warmth, the herd listened to their mad king’s tirades under the vigilant eye of his chosen Companions—“wolves,” as many now called them when out of range of their ever-pricked ears.

Yet others, weak and weary, starving and cold, swallowed down the king’s words as though they were sweet graze. The grey mare snorted, shaking her head. To be sure—standing dumbly rapt took far less energy than plowing through the cold, pawing hard-packed snow in search of forage, or breaking the hoof-thick ice of streams to snatch a sip of freezing water, Sa mused bitterly.

Her vitals growled again. Thinking not of her own ills, but of Tek’s, Sa felt her brow furrow. As the pied mare’s belly continued to swell, she kept more and more to herself these days, foraging far from others’ eyes, wary lest they deduce her condition and bring the news to Korr. His eye, Sa noted when it fell upon the healer’s daughter, remained dark and full of fury still. At Korr’s rallies, Sa insisted that Tek stand between her and Dagg, in hopes of disguising the younger mare’s burgeoning belly from the king’s watchful gaze. Did he know? Did he guess? She could not tell.

The grey mare’s only consolation was in noting that her granddaughter Lell was no longer forced to attend: Ses’s influence, surely. Silently, Sa thanked the flame-colored mare for standing up to her mate. Korr had stopped referring to the nursling princess almost entirely, no longer calling upon his daughter’s title as the source of his authority. It was all Alma now: often it proved impossible to discern if the will he spoke of was the goddess’s or his own.

Fortunately, she, Dagg, and Tek had managed to scout out a few others of rebellious mind. Approaches had to be cautious, much discussion slipped into brief spaces, since the king’s wolves maintained close tally on who associated with whom. To her surprise, many of the old traditionalists who had so resisted her grandson’s innovations now spoke with longing of the “fair old days” of Jan’s brief reign.

And yet—infuriatingly—most of the herd continued meekly to submit to Korr’s tyranny. They followed as in a daze, too weak or ill or spiritless to turn away. Disgusted, the grey mare snorted and pawed the frozen earth. Did these poor fools not realize that every waking moment must be devoted to forage if any were to survive to see the spring? With or without Council approval and despite the king’s fanatical personal guard—steps must be taken and
soon
to quell her son’s worsening madness, or he would starve them all.

A flash of green caught her eye suddenly. Sa halted along the rocky trail. The cliffside fell away sheer to one side of her, more than a dozen stridelengths to the slope below. Not far beneath the drop off, clinging to the cliff, rose a tiny spruce, its slender trunk leaning out over open space, its spindly branches tipped with dark, succulent needles, half a dozen mouthfuls at least. The grey mare gazed at the tempting forage, all thought of Korr’s madness and the Vale’s dire plight slipping from her mind as her empty gorge cramped in an agony of hunger.

Cautiously, she moved to the edge of the precipice and leaned out, nostrils flaring to catch the delicious, resinous savor of the greenery. Her long neck reached scarcely halfway to the little fir’s tender tips. No wonder no unicorn had yet managed to claim this prize! Carefully, she inched nearer, straining. The pungent scent of pinesap made her dizzy for a moment. Her hooves skidded. She jerked back from the icy dropoff, tossing her head hard for balance, and managed to catch herself.

Think! She must think. How to get at that marvelous food, the first she had encountered since wolfing down a few old, dried thornberries and the bitter thorn they had hung upon the day before. Not until after she had finished had she stopped to consider—and realized she ought to have taken half back for Tek.

She had returned to the grotto that evening to find her grandson’s mate huddled shivering—having turned up nothing that day. Now, standing at the edge of the precipice, gazing out at the little spruce, the older mare steadied her resolve. She would pluck the fir, but she would eat none of it. Not one twig! Her belly growled again in protest, but she champed her teeth against the grinding pain. Tek’s unborn needed this nourishment far more than she.

Wind gusted harder, nearly overbalancing her on the treacherous ice. Her bones ached. She cavaled awkwardly to regain her equilibrium. She would need to use the greatest care—but she
must
get the branch. A mere scrap in summer, its foliage made a rare feast in these lean times. Sa champed her teeth again, against the aching stiffness in her joints this time. Once more she approached the cliffside’s edge and leaned out.

She reached once, missed, reached again—striving to grasp the branch where it grew slender enough to break. The thin bough wavered in the wind, almost within range of her teeth. She braced her hooves and tried again. The wind whistled, numbingly chill. The icy stones of the cliffside clicked, cracking with the cold. The branch bobbed so near she felt it brush the whiskers of her nose. She snapped and missed.

The wind soughed, tugging, shoving at her. The little branch nodded and danced. She had it! All at once, she had it in teeth. The grey mare felt a rush of triumph as she strained the final infinitesimal distance to capture the elusive twig. Moisture rushed to her mouth. Scabrous, aromatic bark abraded her tongue.

Then without warning, the icy surface beneath her gave way. She jerked in surprise, hooves skidding. The treacherous wind whipped her mane stinging into her eyes. The limber branch tore free of her grasp and sprang away. She tried to rear back, scrambling wildly, but could find no purchase on the crumbling stone. Then she was hurtling headlong through empty space. The hillside below rushed up to meet her.

“Ryhenna!” he had cried out joyfully, trotting forward toward her on the day following their first meeting. A long strip of white falseskin wrapped the young mare’s injured foreshank.

“Emwe, im chon Tai-shan,” she answered boldly. “Greetings, my lord Moonbrow.”

Whickering, the dark unicorn shook his head. The silvery adornment felt odd about his muzzle still, but he was fast growing accustomed to it. It jingled softly when he moved. “Speak, I beg you,” he bade Ryhenna. “Tell me of this place.”

Their conversation proceeded in fits and starts. Every other sentence, it seemed, he had to ask her to explain some unfamiliar word or phrase. The two-foots’ vast settlement, he learned, was called a city, this walled complex housing the
chon
and his retinue, a palace. The
daya
themselves dwelled in a shelter known as a stable. By the time daylight waned and the
daïcha
beckoned him to return with her to his quarters, the dark unicorn’s head was spinning.

As the days passed, he asked Ryhenna to teach him as much as she knew of the two-foots’ odd, guttural tongue. Gradually, over the passage of weeks, he began to pick up other phrases on his own:
tash
for “no”;
homat
for “stop”;
apnor,
“enough”;
himay,
“stay” or “stand still.” To his rue, the
daïcha
remained as oblivious as before to his clumsy attempts at speech—but failure only sharpened his resolve to persevere. Eventually, he vowed, he would make himself understood. Chafing, Tai-shan practiced and bided his time.

Among the flatbrows in the yard, it was mostly the coppery mare to whom he spoke. Her sisters remained unaccountably shy, casting their gazes aside deferently when he spoke. Yet all seemed eager to gambol and frisk. Though most were full-grown mares, not one had any more skill at arms than a nursling filly—but they gladly learned the dances and hoof-sparring games he managed to recall from the haze of his past, and they taught him their own versions of nip and chase.

Theirs seemed an utterly carefree existence, their every need met by willing two-foots, who appeared to ask nothing in return. Meanwhile the
daya,
he noted, followed their keepers’ lead in everything, coming promptly when called, going docilely where directed. Indeed, he did not recall ever glimpsing any of the
daya
moving about the palace grounds without a two-foot escort. Truly an odd arrangement.

While nervous of speaking directly to him, Tai-shan noticed, the
da
mares spoke much of him among themselves. One morning he overheard two mares and a filly discussing him when they thought his attention elsewhere. Unobtrusively, the dark unicorn listened.

“Our new lord seemeth a far sunnier consort than our last.”

“Indeed! So even-tempered, so gentle and mannerly.”

“A great one for sport.”

“Ah, child, but how long ere he tireth of these gambols and seeketh better sport?”

Light, nervous laughter

“Soon, I hope!”

“To be sure, child. Give it but a whit more time—”

“Aye, though wonderfully well-grown, he
is
a very young stallion.”

“And hath lately languished ill.”

“Sooth, his jumping beareth witness that he recovereth apace!” More nickering.

“That it doth.”

“Patience, sisters. By my reck, we shall all stand broody to his stud by spring.”

Tai-shan had not the slightest idea what they could mean. So many of their odd words were unfamiliar to him still. Yet he hesitated to ask for an explanation and in so doing reveal his eavesdropping: more often than not when he singled one out, she merely fidgeted like a filly, exclaiming, “Sooth, lord! Ye honor me too much.”

Only Ryhenna seemed to possess a bolder spark, addressing him frequently as “thou,” a term he surmised to be for use between equals and friends, rather than the more formal “ye” her sisters used. His questions often sent her into peals of mirth. Exasperated, the dark unicorn gave up trying to scowl, for the other’s laughter was infectious and before long, he, too, was nickering. Ryhenna told him all she knew of the marvelous city beyond the palace gate.

“Our gentle keepers are mighty sorcerers,” she said, punching through the knee-high snow blanketing the yard. The strip of white falseskin wrapping her foreshank had been removed only that morn, though she had long since ceased to limp. “The keepers’ mastery of heavenly fire hath enabled them to build all thou seest that sheltereth both themselves and us, their
daya.”

Tai-shan trotted beside her. Their white breath wafted and steamed.

“But where do the
daya
go in spring, after the snow melts?” he asked her. Surely once the weather warmed, her kind must leave this cramped and barren place—perhaps they roamed the grassy slopes beyond the city until the return of winter snows? Ryhenna turned to him, puzzled.

“Go? My lord Moonbrow, the
daya
do not go. We remain here under our keepers’ care.”

Tai-shan blinked, surprised. “Always—even in summer?”

The coppery mare nodded. “In sooth,” she answered proudly. “Our lives here are enviable: fed, groomed, sheltered, and exercised by the
daïcha’s
minions. Why should we wish to leave?”

Dumbstruck, the dark unicorn snorted. His breath swirled in the curling mist between them. Across the yard, Ryhenna’s sisters whickered and chased. Tai-shan gazed about him at the walled grounds of the
chon’s
palace. A pleasant enough idyll for a season, he supposed—and far preferable to winter’s privations and killing cold—but after the thaw at equinox? To be shut up atop this high, rocky cliff while all around the open hills greened and fragrant meadows beckoned to be raced across and rolled in?

The coppery mare shook her head.

“Dwelling within the
chon’s
palace is our privilege as bluebloods, sacred to Dai’chon.”

Dai’chon.
That word again: the one the
daïcha
and her minions had chanted upon the beach before the sky cinder. The same word both she and the
chon
had exclaimed at first sight of him. Tai-shan frowned. He had heard it upon the lips of
daya
as well as two-foots since and never yet asked Ryhenna what it meant. He was just drawing breath to do so when a look of sadness passed over the coppery mare’s features.

“Others, of course, are not so blessed as my sisters and I,” she murmured.

“Others?” Tai-shan forgot all about his intention to ask Ryhenna for the meaning of the word
dai’chon.
“There are other
daya
besides you and your kith—do they dwell in the city beyond?”

During the long uphill procession from the bay to the palace crowning the cliffs, the dark unicorn had caught not so much as a glimpse or a whiff of any four-footed creature besides himself—but then, the crush of two-foots and the confusion of new surroundings had been so great he had been aware of little beyond the tumult and the shower of dried petals and shavings of aromatic wood. The coppery mare shrugged.

“They are only commoners, of course. Of no consequence.”

“Commoners?” Tai-shan pressed, moving nearer. “What are they?”

Again the coppery mare shrugged, moving off. “Merely common
daya
–those not sacred to Dai’chon.”

Before he could question her further, the
daïcha
called out to him from the wooden barrier’s gate. Across the yard, other two-foots clucked to the
da
mares. Ryhenna trotted obediently toward them. The dark unicorn stood gazing after her as she joined her sisters and followed the two-foot escorts from the yard. Behind him, the
daïcha
called again.

That evening, alone in his warm, straw-bedded stall after the
daïcha
had feasted and groomed him, Tai-shan reflected on the coppery mare’s words. Who were these “common”
daya?
Were their lives different from the pampered comforts enjoyed by himself and the sacred bluebloods? In truth, despite its luxuries, now that he had regained his vigor, the unending sameness of life within the confines of the palace grounds had begun to wear on him.

Almost all he knew of the city beyond, he realized, came to him through Ryhenna—yet today she had hinted that she herself had never even ventured beyond the palace gate. Had any of her sisters? Surely some of them must—yet all save Ryhenna remained too shy to converse with him. The dark unicorn snorted. His only direct knowledge of the settlement below was little more than a confused and fading memory. Desire seized him suddenly to explore the two-foots’ city of fire and behold with his own eyes whatever mysteries it might hold.