The sentry eyed him indifferently, then turned his attention back to the camp. Jan pawed the turf, frustration biting at him. He did not care if the mare had been a Renegade. What they had done was dishonorable, simply leaving her, as if she had been no more than a dead gryphon or pan. No! Jan shook his head. She was a unicorn. She had killed a pard at the cost of her life and deserved a hero’s death rites.

Something occurred to him then, a possibility he had not considered before. He halted, turning it over in his mind. Did he really need anybody’s leave? Anyone might perform the rites. And if he ran quick and light, keeping low behind the brow of the swells before striking out across the Plain, he could be halfway back to the mare before he was spotted—if he was spotted. It was almost like a game.

Jan glanced at the sentry on the hill. The warrior’s ears were still pricked to the sound of Teki’s voice, his gaze inward turned, not scanning the Plain as it should have been. Jan made up his mind in a rush and plunged into the dry gully across from him, putting another rise between himself and the camp.

He followed the streambed back the way they had come, then clambered up the short, steep bank onto the grass again. Behind him, the sentry was a small, gray figure against the sky, and the fallen Renegade lay only a couple of miles’ hard gallop off. Jan sprinted across the Plain.

The Renegade was not difficult to find. Spotted kites had begun to circle now. At home, in the Vale, Jan had seen the rites for the dead, how the fallen were laid upon the outer cliffs with forelegs extended, their heads thrown back, manes streaming and their hind legs kicked out behind. Nearing the spot where the dark birds circled, he told himself he would lay out the fallen mare and be back to noon camp before he could be missed.

Jan topped the gentle rise before the slope on which the Renegade and the pard that had felled her lay—then pitched to a halt, snorting, staring. Someone had been there before him, and whoever it was had been laying out the grasscat as well. The pard lay stretched now, paws folded, a Circle trampled in the grass all around—just as for a warrior.

Jan glanced about him, puzzled, and suddenly uneasy, wondering whom he had interrupted at the rites. He gave a whinny, then another, and listened. No answer came. The legs of the mare had been laid, but her head was not yet lifted. The Circle about her was only half complete. The shadows of the dark birds wheeled and floated over the grass.

He had no time to waste on wondering. Jan descended the slope. He took the young mare’s horn in his teeth—carefully, lest it prove brittle. To his surprise, it was strong and hard. Horn in teeth, he lifted her head and laid it so her silvery mane streamed long and knotted on the grass. He had to work quickly. The kites were dropping lower in the sky.

He had just finished the stamping of the Circle about her when he caught the sound of hoofbeats. He whirled, fearing for a moment that it was members of his own band, before realizing that the sound came from the wrong quarter, from the west.

A unicorn topped the rise. He was young, no older than Dagg’s young mother, Leerah, and color-of-evening-sky. His mane was long, with feathers tangled in it. He bore a horn upon his brow. A pale orange mare joined him in a moment, then a crimson filly almost half-grown. They stared at Jan. Jan stared at them. They all had horns. The evening blue came a few steps down the slope.

“What do you here?” His words were quiet, odd. A moment passed before Jan understood him.

“I was burying them,” he answered. “Weren’t you here before?”

The other shook his head.

“We saw the kites,” the pale mare said.

The blue was eyeing him more closely now. “You have not the look of one from the Plain,” he said. “Nor the speech of one, either. Whence come you?”

Jan gazed at them, startled. “I come from the Vale of the Unicorns. On Pilgrimage.”

All three of the strangers started.

“He’s a Moondancer,” the pale mare muttered. “One of those who drink of the wyvern pool.”

Jan glanced at the dead mare, then turned to the one who stood before him. “I didn’t start to bury her,” he said. “I only finished the rite. Was it none of you?”

The dark blue unicorn shook his head. “Nay. And I know of no one else who runs in these parts this moon. It must have been the Far One.”

“The Fair One,” the pale mare said, and the filly echoed, “The Red One, the Rare One.”

“She is often on the Plain in spring,” the blue unicorn added, and Jan realized he must have looked confounded. “She is a strange, dark mallow color, without any yellow or amber in it. She is holy, and very wise. Her hooves are oddly made, for she comes from a far place. And once, it is said, she was not a unicorn.”

Jan had to listen very hard to be able to follow. Their speech was strange, like a singer’s cant—and much of it he did not understand at all.

“She is known and welcomed everywhere among the Free People,” the crimson filly said.

Jan shook his head; he had never heard of such a one. “You have seen her?” he asked.

Now the filly shook her head.

“They say a young prince of the southlands found her, years ago, lost and wandering,” the orange mare said. She came a few steps downslope to stand beside the blue. “He told her of the wyvern country far across the Plain, that she might go there in summer, and drink of a miraculous spring that would make her a unicorn.”

“What prince was that?” cried Jan. He had never heard of such a deed in song or lay.

“The one whose name means ‘thunder,’ “ the blue one said. “The black one….” He glanced at the mare beside him.

She told him, “Korr.”

Jan started like a deer. “My fa….” He caught himself. “A prince of the unicorns would never do such a thing—let drink of the scared pool one who was not of the Circle.”

“Circle?” the red filly asked.

Jan stared at them. “Don’t you know? You’re Renegades.”

“Renegades,” the evening blue murmured, tasting the word as though it were strange upon his tongue.

“Weren’t you born of the Circle, in the Vale of the Unicorns?”

The blue shook his head. “I was born here, on the Plain.”

Jan breathed out hard, feeling as if his ribs had been kicked. They were not of the Circle, had never been of the Circle. They were not runaways from his people at all. They were, instead, of another clan, another—he searched for the word—tribe altogether, like the gryphons, like the pans. Then his skin grew cold. For they were unicorns. They had never sipped of the Mirror of the Moon, yet their horns had not fallen, nor their cloven hooves grown single and round. Wispy tassels tipped their ears, and their heels were fringed with silky hair. They were bearded. He could not seem to catch his breath.

The blue unicorn shrugged. “I have always lived here.”

“I have heard of this Circle of the southerners,” the pale mare said, coming forward now again, “this Ring of War, this Circle of the Moon—and your Vale. My mother fled them when she was no more than a filly.” Her words were sharp. “She said you southlanders think much of your Ring, and bind yourselves to it until you cannot see or say or think or do a thing that is not within it.”

She tossed her head and snorted.

“Well, we are not bound to your Circle. We come and think and say as we please. We are the Free People.”

Jan blinked and stared at her. He had never been so spoken to in all his life. And what was this they said of Korr—that he had broken the Circle, broken the Law, to tell the secret way to the Mirror of the Moon to one who was not even a unicorn. Or what had they said? Who had once not been a unicorn? He saw the blue unicorn eyeing the sky. The shadows of the kites had grown sharper, their spirals tighter. They circled lower to the ground.