Rounding a bend in the hillside at last, she saw Sismoomnat, the elder of the pan sisters, standing in the grotto’s egress, casting about worriedly, a bundle of newly gathered bitterbark still clasped in her forepaws. Was Jah-lila with her? Tek did not see her dam. Gasping, she managed a wounded warrior’s whistle just as another spasm, the most severe yet, swept hard through her. She stumbled, crying out, heard Sismoomnat’s answering hail and the rapid two-footed patter of the young pan’s heels. A moment later, she felt the other’s nuzzling touch as her mother’s acolyte surveyed her with a few quick sniffs and glances.

“How goes it with you, sis-ter?” Sismoomnat asked gently, her flat, goatling brow furrowed with concern.

The pressure began to abate, not completely this time. Tek was barely able to raise her head and speak.

“Something…is wrong. Sharp pains…”

She felt the other’s tongue tasting the salt of her sweat—more than a gesture of affection, the pied mare knew. A midwife could tell much by a taste.

“Come,” the goatling urged her. “Walk while you may. Storm nears. Jah-ama is not yet home. We must make haste to shel-ter.”

Drenched in sweat, Tek stumbled along the narrow path. Its gradual incline seemed almost insurmountable to her now. Though the pain had eased somewhat, she still had to halt, panting, every half dozen steps to rest. The cold wind cut into her coat. Sismoomnat leaned against her, supporting Tek with her own frail goatling’s strength.

The cave’s mouth loomed. Sismoomnat whistled shrilly through her teeth. Her sister, Pitipak, scampered from the grotto’s mouth and hurried toward them. Tek put down her head. Her belly clenched again. She felt as though a relentlessly tightening band encompassed her. She heard the soft guttural cries of the younger pan, felt hairless forepaws caressing her. As she struggled through the cave’s entryway, the warmth and windlessness of the ghostlit chamber hit her like a blow. She lost her footing, nearly fell.

“On-ly a few more steps,” Sismoomnat murmured.

Pitipak darted ahead, shoving a thick bedding of dried grass into the pied mare’s path. Tek collapsed onto it gratefully. “What…what is it?” she gasped, in agony again.

“Birth pangs,” Sismoomnat replied calmly.

Panic shot through the pied mare, redoubling the clenching jabs. “No! The foal isn’t due…for months!”

The two pans had sunk to their haunches beside her, one on either side, buttressing her lest she heel over completely. Tek struggled feebly, but found herself too weak to rise.

“Too soon!“ she panted. “I’ll…lose the foal!”

She stared around her at the grotto full of roots and herbs—if only she had known which ones to take! A healer’s fosterling, she held some knowledge of the worts that treated wounds and other ills, but none at all of those used in the midwife’s art. Wild with frustration and pain, she half whinnied, half groaned. Where was Jah-lila? If the Red Mare were here, she would know what to do.

“Peace, sis-ter,” Sismoomnat soothed, stroking the pied mare’s neck and mane. “You need no herb to delay this birth. The pains are ear-ly, but Jah-ama has prepared for this. Have no fear. She will return from her task ver-y soon. Till then, we will aid you. She has instruct-ed us tho-roughly in mat-ters of mid-wifery.”

The goatling’s nimble forepaws smoothed and kneaded Tek’s heaving sides with firm, steady strokes. The ache remained excruciating. Shuddering, the pied mare sensed the younger pan bustling about under her sister’s direction, fetching this herb and that. A bundle of bruised and fragrant leaves was thrust beneath her nose. Sismoomnat urged her to breathe deeply to dull the pain. Tek tried futilely to deepen her rapid, shallow panting but the pangs were coming harder and faster now.

The pains crowded out all else. She felt the unborn within her shifting, shifting with maddening slowness, as though overly cramped within her tightly constricted womb. Tek writhed and rolled, unable to find any position that could relieve the unrelenting contractions. Outside, the downpour grew deafening. Violent flashes of lightning seared her vision even through her clenched eyelids. Roaring thunder rumbled unendingly as though the mountain were preparing to fall.

Her mind glazed, only dimly aware how late the evening had grown. The birth was taking too long. In the Vale, she knew, most mares accompanied the midwife to the birthing grounds in the morning, were safely delivered by noon, then returned before dusk. But this arduous labor had already lasted hours without issue. A monstrous sense of foreboding gripped her. After a time, she realized it was full night.

No moon shone outside. Even without the storm, she knew Alma’s heavenly daughter would not have lit the sky—for tonight was moondark, the time of the nothing moon, when the pale moon mare ran paired with the sun on the other side of the world. This was the night each month when unicorns of the Vale huddled underhill, hiding from haunts and spirits: a time of hazard and evil influence, the hour of freaks and miracles.

Superstitious nonsense, all of it, Tek tried to tell herself, contracting and crying out yet again. The young within her, striving so gamely to be born, would not come forth. At last her strength gave out. She could not even moan anymore. Breech birth. The realization rolled through her like the thunder. Neither she nor her foal would survive this travail. Mad Korr would have his victory after all.

Hollow hooffalls suddenly, barely audible above the booming of thunder and the clatter of rain. Tek smelled the sweet, spice scent of her dam shaking off in the entryway.

“Daughter!” Jah-lila’s voice called, full of urgency and dread. “I came with all speed but could not outrun the storm. Curse the work that called me from you this day….”

The pied mare could not answer, could not even open her eyes. She lay on her side exhausted, unable even to twitch an ear. No curiosity stirred in her to wonder what task had kept the midwife so long from her side. Jah-lila had come too late. Tek knew no herb could save her now. She waited only for death.

“Haste!” her mother was saying. “Sismoomnat, Pitipak—rub your forelimbs with bitterbark.”

Someone lay gasping hoarsely nearby. Dimly, Tek realized it was herself and clenched her teeth against the sound.

“Reach, Sismoomnat,” she heard her mother saying. “Aye, slow and smoothly—reach deep.”

The pied mare felt a sudden pressure moving through her, gliding upward toward the womb. She kicked reflexively, but someone was kneeling on her hind legs, pinning them. She smelled her mother’s rain-soaked scent, felt her reassuring nuzzle.

“Peace. Peace, daughter,” she murmured. “All will be well soon. Soon.”

Tek thrashed feebly, too weak to drag herself away.

"Have you got firm hold, Sismoomnat?” the Red Mare was saying. “Pull, then—pull hard!”

Something slipped struggling from her womb. Tek felt a rush of blood-warm fluid.

“Well done!” she heard Jah-lila exclaim. “Well done, my fosterling. Now, Pitipak, you must do the same: reach deep and pull, exactly as your sister did.”

Tek felt again the sliding reach, the clench and pull—and her womb emptied suddenly, the sense of unbearable distention abruptly gone. She felt herself subsiding, her heartbeat slowing, pulse beating fainter, fainter yet. Weariness smothered her. She knew she must be dying now, only distantly aware of the young pans’ joyous cries.

“Behold, Jah-ama!”

“So vig-orous—and so well grown!”

“Rejoice, daughter,” the Red Mare whispered in her ear. “In thy progeny and Jan’s brought hale into the world.”

A sensation of warmth stole over her. The pied mare managed a wordless sigh. Her young lived. She had accomplished the task she had set herself in fleeing the Vale: to see Jan’s offspring safely born. Her own life scarcely mattered any more. Surely her magicker dam could rear an orphaned filly or foal—even a suckling newborn—as she had the two young pans. Utterly spent, Tek drifted toward beckoning darkness.