Read Online [Firebringer 03] - The Son of Summer Stars by Meredith Ann Pierce - Free Book Online

halted. The wind was wrong for them. They had not scented him. One of their number nearly bolted, but Jan called again.
    “Peace! I need your aid.”
    The party did indeed consist of a mare, two stallions, and a suckling filly. Feathers of birds entangled their manes. The mare was brilliant crimson, her filly palest blue. The younger and slighter of the two stallions was fair gold, his companion brindled grey. The pair circled forward to protect the mare, who stood to shield her foal.
    “Look! Look!” The gold stallion whistled. “’Tis he of whom Calydor warned: the black Moondancer. Flee!”
    Wide-eyed, the grey looked half persuaded, but the mare held her ground.
    “Nay,” she muttered. “’T cannot be. Calydor described a haggard stallion of middle years…”
    “I am not he,” Jan broke in swiftly. “It is he I seek. He has wronged my folk and our allies. I must capture him ere he harms others…”
    “Already he has wronged others,” the grey snorted. “Pursued, even injured some. Calydor foresaw and warned us from his path. By your speech, you are Vale-born, your hue jet black. What assures us you are not the mad destroyer?”
    Jan turned his head so that the green gryphon feather might come into their view. He remembered from a brief encounter on his initiation pilgrimage years ago that unlike his own folk, who dipped only the neck, Plainsdwellers bowed by going down on one knee. The prince of the unicorns now did the same.
    “Free People of the Plain,” he answered, “I am Aljan Moonbrow, prince of my folk. The one I seek is Korr, our king, though he no longer rules us. For years we contained his madness within our Vale, but now he has broken free. He must be found. This I am come to do.”
    The golden stallion frowned, suspicious still. The grey seemed somewhat less so, but the crimson mare nodded. The brown and the white feather, each tethered in the long strands of her hair, bobbed.
    “Aye, Korr,” she murmured. “The one whose name means thunder… All sooth, you are not he,” she said suddenly. “I know you now—for I have seen you ere time. Recall you this? You were but a colt half grown, and I a filly about the same age. You had slipped away from your pilgrim band to sing the dead rites for a mare of ours killed by a pard. My dam and I and our companion came upon you. You told us your name. ’Twas—’twas…”
    She paused, searching.
    “Aljan, the Dark Moon!” she exclaimed, triumphant. “We later heard you succeeded Korr. You are now called Aljan-with-the-Moon-upon-his-Brow, are you not? A Moondancer, but fair-spoken, aye. And honorable.”
    Jan drew back, astonished. Memory washed him—of his initiation pilgrimage four years before, and the Renegades he had met upon that journey—at the end of which had lain the wyvern in her den. The young mare—had she been the filly he had met? She looked so much older now, a mated mare. “I am Aljan,” he murmured, still struggling to recall, “though I never knew your name.”
    “Crimson,” she told him, whickering, as though the answer were obvious. She nodded toward the other three. “And these, who were not with me when first we met, are Ashbrindle, my sire.” The grey-and-white nodded. “My brother-belovèd, Goldenhair.” The younger stallion tossed his head. “And my filly, called Bluewater Sky till she grow wit enough to choose her own name.”
    Jan bowed his head to each in turn, even Sky, before returning his gaze to the mare.
    “Will you aid me, Crimson?” he implored. “I intend no ill against the Free People of the Plain, only to find my sire. Do you know where I may discover him?”
    Before him, the three warriors exchanged a glance, seemed to reach agreement. The suckling filly began to nurse.
    “Calydor will know,” the grey stallion replied, coming forward now. “Ask of him.”
    Jan looked at him. “Calydor,” he mused. “Who is this Calydor?”
    “Our prophet,” the golden stallion declared. “He