![[Firebringer 03] - The Son of Summer Stars](/res/dh/book4.jpg)
Read Online [Firebringer 03] - The Son of Summer Stars by Meredith Ann Pierce - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Meredith Ann Pierce
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customs, but no Law and no way of enforcing Law had they had any.
Far from admiring his status as prince, the crimson mare pronounced Jan’s position an unspeakable burden, imposed without consent, to be shaken off at the earliest chance. Who, after all, would not wish to be free as was she? All Moondancers must be mad, she exclaimed, only half in jest, to forgo the liberty of Alma’s Back for a rocky, gryphon-haunted Vale.
Six days they roved in search of Calydor, traveling northwest. The Plain became hillier, its terrain more broken. Thunderheads brought showers in the late afternoons. White towers of cloud were building now, Jan noticed as they loped: but too scattered and far to coalesce into a storm. Jan listened to distant thunder growl as the setting sun declined. The wind still smelled dry. Sometimes thunder made the ground tremble—Jan came aware all at once that the tremor he felt was not thunder.
Hoofbeats, he realized. The stamping, tramping cadence of hard heels drumming the Plain, but neither approaching nor receding. It was he and his companions, the dark unicorn decided, who were drawing nearer to the unseen source of that low, rhythmic mutter. With sun just down and sky now a fiery blaze, flushing the scattered thunderheads all shades of melon and rose, the broken landscape of the Plain had grown dusky. His companions’ ears pricked, heads lifted and nostrils flared. Their pace quickened.
“What is it?” he asked. “What do we near?”
Crimson tossed her head. “A Gather—’t can only be that!” Calydor has called a Gather. I hear them dancing the longdance by water’s edge.”
Jan caught sound of snorts and whinnies. Evening breeze brought him the warm, unmistakable scent of unicorns. Ahead, the grey-and-white brindle rounded a hillside and halted. Jan and the crimson mare did the same, followed by the others. The prince drew in his breath. Before him, a dark green river snaked through rolling hills. On the far side, in the broad, inner bend of one meandering curve, moved twelve score Plainsdwellers, perhaps more. Their sinuous line recurved and doubled back upon itself, wending and swirling, veering, unwinding, sometimes at nearly full gallop, sometimes in a complicated stamping pattern.
All ages joined in the winding dance. Jan saw elders, mares and stallions in their prime, half-growns, colts and fillies, foals. The Plainsdwellers, Jan saw, were more variegated than his own folk, who were mostly red or blue with occasional greys. Gold and other shades only rarely appeared in the Vale. Among the Free Folk of the Plain, too, hot reds and cool blues cantered by in abundance, but greys and golds seemed nearly as numerous, with a generous sprinkling of dapples and roans, even spotted coats. Feathers adorned the manes of many.
One figure in particular caught Jan’s eye—that of the one leading the dance: tall and lank-limbed, with a long neck and horn and a slim, straight muzzle, easily the best dancer, a stallion in his prime. His coat was indigo. Three white feathers tossed in his mane, which was silver, as were his hooves and horn. The evening darkness of his coat was spattered with hoary flecks. They wound upward past one eye before spilling down his neck. Turning at the shoulder, the widening runnel of tiny frosted spots flowed diagonally across his back and meandered down one flank. Pale socks washed three pasterns. The rest of him, almost wholly dark, sported only slight speckling, like stray pricks of light in a summer sky.
Jan studied the other. Twilight was fading, the sun well and truly set. A pale sliver of moon floated amid a river of stars just beginning to become visible. The astral path wandered overhead, arching like a bridge from one to the other end of the world. Scattered to all four quarters, tall thunderheads floated motionless in the distance. Occasionally their thunder growled above the thrumming beat of the dancers’ hooves. Lightning illuminated the clouds’
Far from admiring his status as prince, the crimson mare pronounced Jan’s position an unspeakable burden, imposed without consent, to be shaken off at the earliest chance. Who, after all, would not wish to be free as was she? All Moondancers must be mad, she exclaimed, only half in jest, to forgo the liberty of Alma’s Back for a rocky, gryphon-haunted Vale.
Six days they roved in search of Calydor, traveling northwest. The Plain became hillier, its terrain more broken. Thunderheads brought showers in the late afternoons. White towers of cloud were building now, Jan noticed as they loped: but too scattered and far to coalesce into a storm. Jan listened to distant thunder growl as the setting sun declined. The wind still smelled dry. Sometimes thunder made the ground tremble—Jan came aware all at once that the tremor he felt was not thunder.
Hoofbeats, he realized. The stamping, tramping cadence of hard heels drumming the Plain, but neither approaching nor receding. It was he and his companions, the dark unicorn decided, who were drawing nearer to the unseen source of that low, rhythmic mutter. With sun just down and sky now a fiery blaze, flushing the scattered thunderheads all shades of melon and rose, the broken landscape of the Plain had grown dusky. His companions’ ears pricked, heads lifted and nostrils flared. Their pace quickened.
“What is it?” he asked. “What do we near?”
Crimson tossed her head. “A Gather—’t can only be that!” Calydor has called a Gather. I hear them dancing the longdance by water’s edge.”
Jan caught sound of snorts and whinnies. Evening breeze brought him the warm, unmistakable scent of unicorns. Ahead, the grey-and-white brindle rounded a hillside and halted. Jan and the crimson mare did the same, followed by the others. The prince drew in his breath. Before him, a dark green river snaked through rolling hills. On the far side, in the broad, inner bend of one meandering curve, moved twelve score Plainsdwellers, perhaps more. Their sinuous line recurved and doubled back upon itself, wending and swirling, veering, unwinding, sometimes at nearly full gallop, sometimes in a complicated stamping pattern.
All ages joined in the winding dance. Jan saw elders, mares and stallions in their prime, half-growns, colts and fillies, foals. The Plainsdwellers, Jan saw, were more variegated than his own folk, who were mostly red or blue with occasional greys. Gold and other shades only rarely appeared in the Vale. Among the Free Folk of the Plain, too, hot reds and cool blues cantered by in abundance, but greys and golds seemed nearly as numerous, with a generous sprinkling of dapples and roans, even spotted coats. Feathers adorned the manes of many.
One figure in particular caught Jan’s eye—that of the one leading the dance: tall and lank-limbed, with a long neck and horn and a slim, straight muzzle, easily the best dancer, a stallion in his prime. His coat was indigo. Three white feathers tossed in his mane, which was silver, as were his hooves and horn. The evening darkness of his coat was spattered with hoary flecks. They wound upward past one eye before spilling down his neck. Turning at the shoulder, the widening runnel of tiny frosted spots flowed diagonally across his back and meandered down one flank. Pale socks washed three pasterns. The rest of him, almost wholly dark, sported only slight speckling, like stray pricks of light in a summer sky.
Jan studied the other. Twilight was fading, the sun well and truly set. A pale sliver of moon floated amid a river of stars just beginning to become visible. The astral path wandered overhead, arching like a bridge from one to the other end of the world. Scattered to all four quarters, tall thunderheads floated motionless in the distance. Occasionally their thunder growled above the thrumming beat of the dancers’ hooves. Lightning illuminated the clouds’
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