Jan wrenched his gaze back to the pair. They had passed the midpoint of his gaze, and he had to turn to keep them in view. Renegades—those who had deserted the Vale, forsaken Alma and broken the Ring of Law. Outcasts, criminals, infidels. And I almost became one of them, he found himself thinking, his mind going back to the day of the gryphons. Jan stared at the figures on the hill.

“Watch,” Tek was telling him.

She let loose a long, loud warrior’s cry. The pair upon the hillside started and wheeled, vanishing over the crest of the rise. Jan thought he could hear their wild, high whinnies very faintly on the breeze. He saw his father snorting, refusing to acknowledge the Ringbreakers’ presence by so much as a glance. The band galloped on.

Time passed. Hours, and then days, almost a dozen of them. Sunrises and moonsets fell behind them as they ran, and the land seemed to roll away under their hooves. For Jan, their days were all loping, snatched rest, and sparring. The warriors taught them battlecraft, how to stalk, how to follow a trail. The healer told them the properties of herbs and where to find water on the Great Grass Plain.

Their nights were all greedy feeding and singers’ tales and sleep. Korr showed them how to find their way using the stars. The whole sky had become strangely tilted now; new starshapes looming before them as they traveled north, the old ones slipping beyond the world’s rim behind.

Sometimes at night now, gazing into the pattern of Alma’s eyes, Jan felt himself taken from himself, made hollow. If only he gazed long enough, deeply enough, it seemed he might begin to read some great mystery in their turning, something deeper than simply where on the world he stood. As if the stars might, very gently, bear him away.

But despite the unceasing cycle of busyness and rest, busyness and rest, Jan felt a restlessness within him growing. Though he guarded himself very close now, keeping himself always within the band as his father had commanded, more and more he found himself gazing off across the Plain. That strange little voice he could not quite hear whispered in his mind still: What lies beyond your band, beyond the vastness of the Plain? Come, come away. Come see.

Sometimes, in the distance behind, he glimpsed a figure that did not stop and stare at them, as Renegades did. And sometimes he caught the far, faint drum of heels after the band had already come to a halt. Only Tek seemed restless, too, though she said no word. Twice more he glimpsed her slipping off into the dark.

Something moved out there, just beyond his range. He felt it to the marrow of his bones. Not all its cunning could keep him from beginning to suspect that something watched him, or awaited him, or both. Its hold on him that had blocked his vision for so long, at last was growing tenuous.

So it kept itself nearby, but circumspect. And the prince’s son stayed baffled still, for it dared not risk letting him—letting any of them—learn who it was that ran behind.

The twelfth day of their travel upon the Mare’s back was stretching on toward noon. Jan and Dagg ran with Tek near the middle of the band. A light rain must have fallen the night before, for the ground over which they ran was damp. They had seen no hard rains yet upon the Plain.

The prince before them crested a rise, and Jan saw his father come suddenly to a standstill. At his whistle, the pilgrims plunged to a halt. Jan stood a moment, puzzled; the day was early yet for halting. The sun had not yet topped the sky.

Jan trotted forward, and a few others followed. He halted near his father, who stood gazing down the slope. Then Jan started and cavaled as he saw what had caught the prince’s eye. Below them lay a unicorn, pale blue and bloodied, her horn stained red. The great vein of her throat had been torn; talons had scored her flank and neck. Nearby lay a banded pard, gored through one shoulder and the ribs of one battered side staved in from a mighty kick.

No spotted kites yet circled the sky. The blood upon the grass was wet. Jan stared, realizing: It could not have happened an hour gone. He heard his father give a great snort, then, as though he had unwittingly smelled fetor.

“Pard,” Korr muttered, starting downslope at an angle, away from the dead. “Renegade.”

“See the mistake she made,” Jan heard Tek telling Dagg. “She let it clasp her by the throat.” Her warrior’s voice was flat, dispassionate. Jan wheeled to stare. “If ever one of those springs on you, buck—roll. Don’t gore. Use your heels—and run.”

Jan turned back to the fallen mare, pity mingling with his horror. She was so young; she could not have been much older than Tek. And she had died bravely, fighting for her life—as I once fought for my life, Jan found himself thinking, not so long ago.

Others of the band, he realized, were already following the prince. Though some of the initiates still stood staring, the warriors turned them, hurrying them off, themselves trotting by the dead with hardly a glance.

“But,” Jan started, “shouldn’t we bury her?”

The prince broke into a lope at the bottom of the hill, whistling the others to follow him.

“But,” cried Jan, “she’s dead. Shouldn’t there be rites?”

His father wheeled. “Less noise,” he called. “We move on.”

Jan stared in disbelief. They could not simply abandon the dead. It was against Alma’s Law. It was shameful. “We can’t go yet,” he burst out. “A warrior deserves….”

At that, Korr wheeled and smote the ground with his forehooves. “Hold your tongue,” he thundered. “That is no warrior.” He tossed his head toward the fallen mare. “She was a Renegade, and died as all outside the Circle must—unmarked and unmourned. The Law is not for her. Now come.”

Others of the band had strayed to a stop, stood watching the prince of the unicorns and his son. Korr wheeled away. Jan stood confounded. A Renegade? But she bore a horn upon her brow. Her hooves were cloven still, not solid round and single-toed. And even if she were a Renegade, what could that matter now? She was a unicorn, and she was dead.

His father gave no backward glance. Jan found himself shouting, “This isn’t right!”

But a sharp nip on the flank cut him short. He spun around. Tek shouldered against him, shoving him after the herd.

“Enough,” she whispered. “Don’t contest with your father.”

“No, it’s wrong,” cried Jan, “leaving her.” He threw his weight back, resisting. He felt hot and rash.

Tek bullied him forward, nearly knocking him down.

“Be still, Jan. Just come!” he heard Dagg call.

The prince and the others were cantering away. Dagg lingered, but Teki shouldered against him, turning him. Dagg tried to duck around, dodge back to Jan, but the healer herded him away after the rest. Dagg gazed back over his shoulder helplessly. Jan stared. The others’ dust clouded the air. Another sharp nip on the flank brought him back to himself.

“Hie!” Tek shouted. “Now, or we’ll not catch them till noon.”

Jan kicked into a gallop, seething with rage. He and Tek breathed dust, running hard for a mile until they caught the herd. Korr called a halt not long after. Jan threw himself down at the edge of the Ring. At the prince’s nod, Teki kept Dagg with him across the Ring, away from Jan. The healer began to sing them a lay.

“I’ll tell you now of the Renegades, how each was a unicorn once, but failed initiation, or else was banished for murder or some other crime, or else faithlessly broke Ring and ran away to live wild, godless, Lawless, hated of Alma upon the Plain….”

Jan could not listen. His thoughts were in a snarl. Fury made his jaw ache, his ears burn. His blood felt feverish. After a moment, he pitched to his feet and left the Ring. Tek beside him showed no interest at his going. The others were all either absorbed in the tale or intentionally ignoring him, as Korr was. Jan trotted around a low rise, out of sight of the camp. He had to get away.