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

it far enough and found no sign. The young prince felt the hollow ache between his ribs, the weakness in his limbs as he reentered the trees. He would have to feed soon, rest.
    A glade opened before him, perfectly round, vegetation carefully cleared from its center. Jan recognized it for a pan place, one of their ceremonial circles. A ring of stones enclosed a heap of ash in the circle’s heart. Young oats and rye grass sprouted among the trees bordering the clearing. Inhaling the lush, verdant scent, the dark unicorn bent his head, tearing greedily at the fragrant, juicy stuff. Leaves and buds augmented his fare. The hollow in his belly began to fill.
    A thicket of firs stood near the clearing’s edge. Their strong, resinous aroma beckoned him. Jan nudged aside a spray of boughs and pressed forward, shouldering past outer branches until he reached the hollow interior. The firs stood so close, their spreading foliage so dense, that despite the morning’s rain, the fallen fir needles beneath had remained dry. Only when he had sunk down and folded his limbs under him, did the dark unicorn realize how exhausted he was.
    His heart rocked against his ribs. Breathing deep, he settled himself into the soft, fragrant carpet. Jan laid his head along his outstretched forelegs. His eyes closed once, opened, closed again. He thought of Korr and resolved to rest only briefly before going on. The gaunt, dark unicorn fled before him in dreams. Hooded serpents swarmed. The young prince twitched, eyelids fluttering, as a viper rose to strike the king. He who had never danced the serpent’s dance, never scratched his flank or received the venom-proof blood, cried out as the dream nadder’s fangs pierced him.
    Jan felt himself racing, sprinting to fend off the serpent’s sting—too late. The haggard stallion reared, screaming, then fell endlessly away from Jan into a yawning crevasse. The speckled serpents attenuated into a tangle of stars. The young prince found himself still running, galloping along through dark emptiness high above the rolling globe below. Cold wind whipped his mane. He was crossing a bridge, a precarious curve that spanned the whole sky, arcing ever more steeply down to horizon’s edge. In a rush he realized he could not stop, momentum propelling him, hurtling him swift and inevitably toward the end of the world.

Panpipes woke him, their low, susurrous music fluting through the quiet. Jan stirred, groggy. He lifted his head, felt the closeness of fir boughs. Peering through darkness, he realized it was night. In the clearing, just visible through the trees, graceful, two-leggèd figures crouched or reposed about a flaring fire: young pans and old, full-grown warriors, elders, weanlings and infants. Jan glimpsed roots and other forage passing from forelimb to forelimb, dams suckling their young. The guttural clicks and gestures which were the goatlings’ speech made little more than a murmur above the crackling of the blaze.
    The gentle trilling of their panpipes wove through the summer air. Halfway around the circle Jan spotted the piper. Beside him sat a grey-bearded male, horns ribbed with age, and a bare-cheeked female, skin wizened as willow bark. A much younger pair rose from the circle and approached with forepaws clasped. They bowed low before their elders and handed them sheaves of grass in exchange for garlands. By their rich, sweet scent, Jan knew the flowers to be night-blooming lilies. Their perfume blended with the tang of woodsmoke and the aroma of the trees.
    The young couple embraced, forelimbs entwining, and retired to the far side of the ring. Jan heard glad murmuring among their fellows as, each with a gesture and a word, the two elders rose and cast their sheaves into the fire. Red sparks flared up, subsided. Jan could only conclude he had witnessed some sort of joining, perhaps even the pledging of mates, and was swept suddenly, keenly, by memory of his own pledging to Tek almost three years