[Firebringer 02] - Dark Moon Read Free Page A

“Ah!” she piped. “The crested cranes—tried to steal our nesting grounds again this year. Ah! We drove them off.”
    The prince nodded solemnly. Breathing in the tangy sea breeze and feeling the deep, steady warmth of sun upon her back, Tek bit down a smile. Every year the same report. Though the cliffs held ample nesting sites for all, the ritual clash between herons and cranes continued spring after spring. Tlat gabbled on.
    “Now the nests are built, the hatchlings fat and sleek with down. My own brood numbers six! My consorts and I press hard to feed them all.”
    Behind her, several of the smaller birds, males, began to step in circles, ruffling and fanning their crests. Tek counted half a dozen of them: one consort to father each chick? Jan bowed to them.
    “My greetings to your mates, and to your unseen young as well. I trust we will meet when their wing-feathers grow?”
    “Yes! Doubtless!” screamed Tlat proudly. “But we cannot stay. Our squabs cry out to us from the cliffs, and we must not let them hunger. Greetings and farewell!”
    Tek glimpsed the red chevron on the underside of each pinion as the windriders shook out their wings.
    Bowing, Jan replied, “The herons have been our allies for generations. We do not forget the debt we owe. Our courting dances will be the more joyous for your greeting.”
    “Good!” screeched Tlat. “Beware the stinging sea-jells washed up on shore today. Though they are delicious to our kind, we know you find them unpleasant.”
    The heron queen stretched her neck and stood on toes.
    “Welcome, children-of-the-moon! May your summer here prove fruitful—though how odd that your kind takes but a single mate. Unicorns are strange beasts.” Abruptly, the stiff wind caught her, plucking her away almost before the pied mare could blink. Other seaherons followed, rising light as chaff. Tek joined Jan and her fellows in bowing again to the departing herons.
    “Good winds and fair weather attend you,” the prince called after them. Tek was not sure they could hear him above the thrash of surf and eerie crooning of the Cliffs. The windriders had already dwindled to mere motes overhead. A moment later, she lost sight of them, swallowed by the fierce blue, cloudless sky.

Stinging sea-jells did indeed lie beached downshore as the windriders had warned. Jan kept his people out of the waves until the next tide swept the bladderlike creatures with their trailing tendrils away. Summer passed in a headlong rush. The young prince felt himself growing, bones lengthening, muscles massing. He was ravenous and glad of the freely abundant forage. The sky held mostly warm and fair.
    He devoted a good part of his day to chasing the other young half-growns and setting them to races and mock-battles, dances and games. Herons brought news of shifts in the wind so that Jan could whistle his band to shelter in the tangled thickets well before any storm. What time he did not spend tending the band he passed with Dagg, exploring inland at low tide along the Singing Cliffs, stopping now and again for a furious round of fencing.
    Tek’s admirers, he noted testily, were even thicker this year than last. Yet she seemed to pay them as little heed as ever. Once or twice, he even noted her ordering some overly bold young stallion smartly off. More and more, the young prince observed, the healer’s daughter sought him out, teasing him away from the band—even from Dagg—to run with her along the wet, golden beach, dodging through dunes, or up onto the highlands above the cliff-lined shore.
    Though he knew she could only be doing so to gain respite from bothersome suitors, Jan found himself increasingly willing to be led away. The pied mare’s every word, her every move fascinated him. He loved to brush against her smooth, hard flank in play or simply prick ear to the cadence of her voice.
    Long summer days ambled lazily by, the starry evenings fleetingly brief. With each passing moon, the high sun