Gryphons. Jan felt cold talons seize his heart. He remembered the flash of color, the two winged forms he had glimpsed from the lookout. Not eagles, gryphons–who had slipped into the Pan Woods beneath his very gaze.

Jan heard his father trumpeting a war cry. Then a second cry sounded, joining Korr’s. Turning, Jan saw Dagg’s father, Tas. Other battle yells rose on the air: stallions trumpeting full and deep and wild, high clarions from the mares. Jan saw the wingcats dropping their lever, beginning to scramble up the hillside as Korr and a half-dozen others charged the slope.

Jan staggered to his feet, moving to join them, but Ses swung in front of him, barring his path. “No, Jan,” she told him. “Let the warriors have it.”

He tried to dodge her, but his bad leg made him slow. She caught him by the nape of the neck.

“Let go,” he cried. “They made to trap us. They wanted to kill Korr!”

He struggled furiously. His mother’s strong, square teeth only clasped tighter. “No,” she panted. “You’re not a warrior.”

“But I will be,” Jan shouted, fighting harder. “This spring I’ll be initiated….”

“Not yet,” Ses answered. His bad leg gave as she forced him to the ground and stood over him. Jan clenched his teeth, his ears burning with wrath. There was nothing he could do.

He watched the hillside. The two gryphons had reached the crest of the unwooded slope. Now they reared Upon their hind limbs, beating their wings, but the draggled pinions seemed unable to get a purchase on the air. Jan felt his blood quicken as he realized the warriors would catch them.

The larger gryphon, the formel, launched into the air and hovered unsteadily, her blue wings laboring. Her mate’s wings, still streaked with mud, seemed as yet too heavy to fly. With a shout, the prince of the unicorns charged and drove his horn into the tercel’s side.

Cat snarl rising to a falcon’s scream, the wingcat lashed back. Jan heard his mother’s little snort of breath as the prince of the unicorns went down—but then he rolled and was up again in a moment, hammering the gryphon with his hooves.

The unicorn warriors ringed the tercel. Tas seized one talon; others stabbed at his great, green wings. The gryphon fought, raged, broke free of their circle at last and retreated, one pinion dragging. The formel stooped and feinted in the air above.

Jan saw the wounded tercel rise, his wingbeats ragged. He hovered, struggling, above the Warriors’ heads. Jan saw his father backing, his hindquarters bunched. Korr leapt, catching the wingcat in the belly. The tercel shrieked, wrenching away. The formel clutched him in her claws.

The unicorns watched their uneven flight, the gryphons staggering through the air toward the south. They trailed low over the ridges ringing the Vale. The tercel’s wingbeats slowed suddenly, grew more erratic. The formel labored to bear him up. They barely cleared the lookout knoll.

Then the wounded wingcat stiffened. His green-gold pinions thrashed, stretched taut. His body sagged in the formel’s grasp and a long, hoarse scream rose from his mate; her wings beat strong and frantically. Jan could not discern whether she would not release him even then, or whether his talons still clutched her so tightly she could not pull free. Together they plunged into the trees beyond the ridge.

The unicorns were coming down the slope. Korr leaned against Tas, blood running down the prince’s neck. He bled from a gash above one eye. Jan realized Ses no longer stood above him. He rose with difficulty and stood, three-legged, putting no weight on his injured leg.

“Where’s the healer?” Jan heard Tas calling, as he and the prince reached the bottom of the hill. Ses went to Korr. Other unicorns were moving forward. They drifted around him. Jan alone stood still.

“No, it’s a scratch,” his father was saying, but the prince’s voice was breathless, all thunder gone. Someone brushed past him, and Jan caught a glimpse of Teki, the healer, moving toward Korr.

Fear, like a sea-jell, lay cold on Jan’s breast. He felt someone else slip up beside him. “Are you hale, Jan? Your leg’s bleeding.”

Jan shook his head, blinking hard, and did not turn.

Dagg seemed to take no notice. “By the Circle, I never thought I’d see a real one, a gryphon! I never thought they’d dare come here. And after the prince…!”

Jan drew in his breath and held it then, for he felt somehow he might begin to shake, or fall, if he so much as breathed. Ses and Tas were supporting Korr back up slope a little way, toward better light. Teki followed them, his distinctive white and black coloring catching the sun. The valley floor was slipping into shade.

“…you go with them?” he heard Dagg saying. “The healer should look at you, too.”

And suddenly Jan did not think he could bear to be near another living creature, even Dagg. He wheeled, bolting away from his friend, and struck out across the meadow toward the near wooded slope. He had no earthly notion of where he was going, but he had to be alone.

Jan sprinted toward the wooded slopes, his thoughts in a roil. He felt the others were looking at him, as though his guilt somehow blazed visible. But more than that, he feared Korr knew. It was his fault gryphons had slipped into the Vale, his fault his father had been wounded.

How badly? Jan shoved the thought away and galloped harder as the floor of the valley turned upward. The splinter of stone in his thigh muscle gouged him, but the shame he felt stung him more. He was unworthy—he had always known. Unworthy of Korr or to be called the prince’s heir. Why was he so different from others? He clenched his teeth against the tightness in his throat, and fled into the trees.

It was late afternoon. The clouds above had spent themselves and were pulling apart like wet seed tufts. Swatches of the yellow sky shone through. Jan climbed a little way, then rested, surveying the wood about him bleakly. Droplets glistened on the fir needles; the cedar bark was damp. The sun hung westering, and everything smelled clean.

His injured leg had begun to ache in earnest now. The thigh muscle felt strained. Jan nibbled at the wound, working the splinter free, then spat it out, tasting blood: It had cut his tongue. He climbed on. When he reached the lookout knoll, he found Tek standing there and halted, startled. She wheeled.

“You,” she cried, her eyes bright, throat tense. “And what brings you back, prince’s son—come to gaze on the sunset after the storm?”

Jan stood, hardly knowing what to say. “I came to be alone,” he managed.

She studied him. “I saw what befell,” she said. Her voice was husky. “From across the meadow—the gryphons. I’d just emerged; the others were all still under hill. I saw a form of green and gold, then one of tawny blue come down the far hillside, dragging a great tree limb. They began to lever up the rock and earth above your grotto. I gave a cry—I don’t think anyone heard—but I was too far away to join the warriors.”

Jan gazed at her, but could think of nothing. “My father’s wounded.”

Tek nodded. “My father was sent for.”

Jan eyed his hooves. The breath caught in his throat. “It’s my doing,” he mumbled.

Tek threw up her head, eyes flashing. He thought at first it was with anger. “You?” she cried, and he realized then it was with astonishment. “I was the one posted lookout.” Her voice grew tighter, almost choking. She gasped between clenched teeth. “But I let myself be tricked away…oh! Just like a foal not yet a warrior. Just like an uninitiated foal.”

Jan started to interrupt. “No. I saw them from afar. I thought…” But then he choked himself off, realizing what she had said. Initiation. The spring rite of Pilgrimage lay less than a month off.