The Castle Of Hape. Caves Of Fire And Ice. The Joining Of The Stone

“Let them be,” Drudd said. “Let the young ones be. They will help us in battle in their own time.”

They nodded again, turned, went out of the chamber to prepare for war.

*

Telien had slept heavily, as if she were drugged, woke with a throbbing pain in her head and did not know where she was. She tried to understand why the darkness was so red. Why was her room so hot? She smelled smoke. She stared at the walls and saw that this was not her room, not any ordinary room, but a rough cave, and dark. The red light outside was . . . She rose on her elbow to stare. Was—fire! Fire! In a panic she tried to rise and was dizzy, sank down to the stone shelf again, trembling and sick and confused, had to get out, could feel the heat now, terrifying her.

Finally she could sit up, was calmer, saw there was no flame near, only the red sky through the cave’s high opening, remembered the mountains. But how did she get here? She rose, stumbling, knelt beside Meheegan who only raised her head and moaned low. She made her way up to the cave’s mouth. Her heart was pounding. She stood there, facing the flaming mountains.

And she saw that the red light was from reflection in the sky, that fire flared on peaks below and around her, but there was no fire here on this mountain—though below her the ridges shone red where a fiery river ran down, flaring suddenly as it struck a huge tree.

Behind her, Meheegan stirred with a moaning sigh. The smoke made Telien’s eyes water. The mountain rumbled faintly, then the only sound was the hiss of cooling steam and the hush-hush of slow-burning foliage far below. Were the flames dying, was the mountain’s tantrum subsiding? She remembered it all now—their journey up the mountain—but did not remember how she had come to this cave, remembered very little after she had fallen. Her head hurt so. She stared out at the red, angry turmoil of the mountains, sweating, her face prickly. After some moments of the unbearable heat, she made her way down again to the cooler interior, pausing once with the sick dizziness of nausea, which finally passed. She had a vague memory of climbing up rock. Had they climbed here, she and Meheegan? But they must have. She could remember the red stallion forcing and pushing at her.

Below her the mare had risen and begun to move restlessly back and forth. Telien saw the stallion then, at the far side of the cave, lying out full length, his wings folded around him. What was the matter with him? Was he . . . ? He raised his head and nickered to reassure her, and she let out her breath in relief.

Telien stood watching Meheegan pace, driven by the pain of labor. The stallion rose at last and came to push tenderly at Meheegan as, again, nausea swept Telien. She knelt, weak and miserable, and was sick.

She did not see the wolves watching from the deep shadows of the cave, waiting in silence for the mare’s extravagant event. But she felt a calmness suddenly, and a strengthening. She rose and went to touch the mare, to try to comfort her and steady her against the pain. The mare groaned and tightened herself, crouching, straining.

The pains and constrictions came sharper, closer. Then, as the first touch of morning began to wash the sky, so drifts of ash could be seen on the hot wind, the foal began to come slipping out, a silvery sack. There was blood. The mare groaned. Telien knelt, fighting the sickness and nausea, trying to help. Her hands shook.

It was then that the wolves crept out, silent and huge and gentle. The silver-encased foal sought strongly to tear itself away from the last vestige of dark, warm safety,, to leave the womb in a madness of life-lust, in a questing after a mystery it did not understand, yet sought with all its strength. The mare screamed. The foal slipped free. At once a pale wolf came forward and tore the sack open, and then Meheegan turned and began to lick the new young stallion that unfolded from its fetal shape. Telien watched, half-drugged with dizziness and pain, but missing none of the wonder; and then she went limp, sprawled across the cave, her head wound bleeding harder.

The five wolves stood over her. One licked away the blood. The dark dog wolf put his face close to hers and seemed reassured by her faint but steady breathing. They watched the foal begin to wriggle, trying almost at once to loose those tight-folded stubs of wings. The wolves watched as it tried to rise on long, rubbery legs; and they watched Telien wake and saw her fear of them.

She stared up at wolves all around her, huge and shaggy and rank-smelling, and fear cut through her, sharp and cold. The largest, a dark, broad dog wolf, approached her. His head was immense, his eyes stared unblinking.