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

past, by the shores of the Summer Sea.
    The young prince shook himself, struggled free of the firs. Time to make himself known. The panpipes still crooned their haunting soft song amid the cheerful hubbub. The two elders resumed their places beside the piper as Jan reached the edge of the glade.
    “ Emwe!” he hailed them, framing with care the difficult, champing syllables of pan speech. “Tai-shan nau shopucha.” Moonbrow greets you.
    He moved forward slowly, so as not to startle them, until the firelight illumined his dark form.
    “Have no fear. I am Jan, prince of unicorns, come in peace to seek your counsel.”
    The pipe player broke off suddenly as the pan campsite erupted in confusion. Jan heard cries of “Pella! Pell’!”— Look, behold –and “Sa’ec so!” Him! It’s him. Sires and dams caught up their young as though to flee. Others snatched and brandished wooden stakes. He saw children quickly gathering stones. The dark unicorn snorted in bewilderment. Peace with the pans had held these two years running without a whisper of strain.
    “Nanapo: peace,” he exclaimed. “I am no foe. I seek another of my race who has fled and taken shelter here.”
    The pans hesitated. Jan himself poised, determined to run if he must and shed no blood. With relief, he saw the old male rise from his haunches and hold up one forelimb.
    “Bikthitet nau,” he heard the greybeard urging: Calm yourselves. “This is not the same ufpútlak— four-footed walker—we encountered earlier. Though dark as the other, pella –observe—he does not have that one’s wild, unreasoning air. A great green feather tangles this one’s mane. And this ufpútlak speaks our tongue.”
    Jan’s heart seized at the other’s words. He moved a half pace nearer. The pans twitched, pulled back, but did not flee. The greybeard held his ground.
    “Elder, have you seen another of my kind this day?” Jan asked urgently. “A night-dark stallion such as I, but lawless, gaunt—It is he I seek.”
    Carefully, the bearded male nodded. Around him, the goatlings murmured, uneasily. The aged female, now risen to stand beside her mate, answered, “Such a one came upon us near noon this day. What can you tell us of him?”
    Jan drew a deep breath. “He is Korr, king of the unicorns.” Gasps, angry cries rose again from the goatling band. The furrows in the brows of the two elders deepened.
    “If he is Korr,” the greybeard said evenly, “do you, Jan, prince of ufpútlaki, now come to revel in your broken truce?”
    The young prince’s ribs constricted. “I come seeking him,” he answered slowly, carefully. “He is my sire, and he is mad. Having fled our Vale this day, he now imperils not only himself and his folk, but our allies as well. I must find him and return him to the Vale, that his madness may be healed.”
    More murmuring from the pans. They eyed him, suspicious still. He sensed a slight—if only very slight—easing in the two elders. The fire crackled. The young prince waited. No one spoke. Finally he broke the silence.
    “Tell me, I implore you, where I may find him. What deeds of his have made you so wary and put our peoples’ hard-won truce in jeopardy?”
    Glancing at one another, the elders considered. The rest of the goatlings held silent, watching. At last, the wizened female spoke.
    “This midday,” she said, “while we rested in the shade of the brittle-blossom trees, this mad ufpútlak stampeded among us, cursing us—so we surmise—in his own tongue. None were spared: not elders nor suckling young.” Her tone grew hard. “Even children he would eagerly have trampled, had fathers and mothers not snatched them from his path.”
    Jan felt the blood drain from him at the thought of the mad king charging unchecked among these slight, retiring goatlings, only lately come to trust unicorns. “Did he harm any of you?” the young prince breathed, praying to Alma his worst fears might not prove true.
    “Nay,” the