“The time turns short that it would be proper to remain here,” the blue unicorn said. “Soon it will be the kites’ time.”

Jan’s gaze went once more to the fallen mare, pale middle blue against the dark earth of the Plain. Her blood on the grass was dry. She looked as though she were springing free of the Ring that encircled her. He glanced at the dark blue unicorn with feathers in his hair.

“Did you know her?” Jan asked him. The other shook his head. Jan turned back to the fallen one. “We have a song for the dead,” he said, “when we lay them out to greet the sky:

He was no singer, but his voice was young and strong. Jan stopped himself at the last word.

“I don’t know her name,” he said.

“The Mother knows,” said the blue unicorn beside him.

The filly told him, “Álm’harat knows.”

Jan turned, drawn up short again with wonder—though he was already so stunned it almost seemed nothing should surprise him anymore—that any dared speak the truename of Alma here, so openly. He had always been taught that those outside the Ring had cast off the Mother-of-all, had forgotten her.

The plainsdwellers joined him at the Circle’s edge. He saw them dip their heads, going down on one knee first to the fallen mare, then to the pard. Jan blinked, frowning. It was no gesture he had ever seen before. He bowed his own head to the mare, then after a pause, to the grasscat as well. The plainsdwellers rose.

Then the pale orange mare turned to him and went down again on one knee for a moment before him. Jan drew back, not knowing what to make of it.

“My words were harsh to you before, young stranger,” she said, rising. “For that, I ask your pardon. You have honored our dead in accordance with your custom, and that is unlike any southlander I have ever heard of.”

“And you have honored her slain enemy as well, as is fitting,” the blue unicorn said. “That, too, is unlike what we have heard of southlanders.”

“I didn’t,” Jan started. “We don’t….” He stopped and gazed at the three plains dwellers before him. Then he blurted out, “ A gryphon came, a month ago….”

“Gryphon?” the red filly said.

“It’s like a pard,” cried Jan, “but winged.” He caught himself. Why was it so urgent he give these strangers only the truth?

“ ‘Wingcats,’ my mother called them,” the pale mare murmured. “They don’t come here.”

Jan drew breath and made his voice as steady as he could. “We killed it—it had attacked us—but we didn’t bury it. We cast it over the cliff.”

The dark blue unicorn frowned. “That is strange.”

“Why do you dishonor your enemies?” the red filly asked. “Was this wingcat not brave?”

“Is all that is true to its own nature not worthy of honor,” the evening blue said, “being part of the Cycle?”

A kite passed very close overhead. Jan felt the wind of its passing against his brow. He flinched, frowning. “I thought you said you disdained our Circle….”

The Plainsdweller shook his head. “Nay. That is not the Cycle of which I spoke…hist. Come away.”

A kite had alighted on the grass, across the Circle from them. Jan came with them, following the plainsdwellers up the slope. The sky in the south was dark with cloud. More kites were settling on the grass below. The blue unicorn raised his head, his nostrils wide.

“A storm’s in the wind,” he said.

Jan glanced at the sun. “I have to go back,” he told them. “Noon’s almost done.”

“Farewell, then, young stranger,” the evening blue said.

“Swift running,” said the pale mare, “and no pards behind you.”

“Light sleeping,” the filly bade him. “Far seeing.”

“Alma keep you,” Jan found himself saying. He was bowing—he almost wished he could stay. They were so strange—unicorns, yet not like his own people at all. He wished he could understand them, grasp more of what they had said to him, but he dared not linger. The band would be breaking camp before long. He could not stay.

The plainsdwellers dipped to their knees in leave-taking, then wheeled, whinnying and tossing their heads, and galloped off across the Plain to the west. Jan shook himself, then turned at last. The storm in the south had drawn nearer. He sprinted northward. Behind him, the spotted kites were dropping from the sky.

He found the gully he had followed before and slipped into its shelter long before the gray speck of a sentry could take note of him. He sprinted along the dry channel’s flat, even bed until he was almost to camp. The lookout on the hill above was still attending to Teki’s lay. Jan crept past, around the rise. The unicorns yet rested in their Ring, all eyes upon the healer reciting his tale:

“So that is the lay of Aras, the first Renegade, false Ring breaker, who spurned Halla the princess’s rule and forsook the herd….”

Jan spotted Dagg across the Ring, staring off miserably at nothing. Korr’s gaze was turned pointedly away from Jan’s empty spot. As Jan slipped into place beside the healer’s daughter, Tek hardly glanced at him. Teki was singing:

“So he perished horribly, as I have told, for Alma’s wrath. And all of this took place after the unicorns had been cast out of the Hallow Hills, but before they came upon the Vale that is now our home. My tale is done.”

Jan lay at the Ring’s edge, catching his breath. No one even seemed to have noticed he had been gone.

Teki finished his tale, and the unicorns broke camp. They trotted at first to loosen their limbs. Jan felt wobbly, short of breath—he had spent none of the noon halt resting—and Korr still kept Dagg between him and the healer, apart from Jan. A line of tall, dark thunderheads crowded the distance behind.

By midafternoon they had swallowed the sun, bringing in their shadow a rush of cool, southern air. Jan felt his old wildness at thunderstorms rising. Stormwind riffled his winter coat, lifting the dust, bowing the grass. The smell of water hung in the wind. Then the gusts grew stronger suddenly, buffeting, the dust rising in whirlwinds.

Korr whistled the band to a faster lope, and Jan wondered if he hoped to outrun the storm. If so, it was to no avail, for within minutes rain began to lash at them. The stormshadow around them had grown very dark. Great bolts of blue lightning vaulted overhead.

And then Jan caught sound of something, another sound above the rain. It was a rushing as of many gryphons’ wings, a roar like hillsides breaking and plunging away. One moment it sounded faint and far, the next almost upon them, coming and going in the gusts of storm. Ahead of him, Jan saw his father’s head come up.

“Gallop!” thundered the prince. “Full gallop, all!”

The band sprang into a run.

“What is it?” cried Jan, drawing alongside Tek.

“Serpent-cloud,” she shouted at him. “A great destroyer!”

Jan felt his legs tangle, his breath grow short. The old lays sang of Serpent-clouds, great tunnels of storm that ran down Ring breakers and Renegades. He cast a wild glance over one shoulder, but could see nothing for the blinding, choking rain.

“Where is it?” he shouted at Tek. “How if it catches us?”

“Fling us to bits,” the young mare answered. “So fly!”