Prince Nera Mossveil's Arc

Chapter 20 of 23

Nera crested the ridge and saw the older fawns below him in the valley grass. Six of them, running north along a dry watercourse, heads high and legs stiff with fear. He had no scent cloths left. The linen was gone, the milk jars empty a day behind him. If he charged down at them they would scatter into the trees and he would not gather them again before the fire riders crossed the valley. He pulled the horse up behind a stand of pine and got down to think. He heard the wingbeat before he saw it. A small mount came in low over the ridge, striped and pale, with a rider braced low against its neck. Goggles up on his forehead, one hand on the reins, the other on a satchel that clinked as he landed. Nera knew the animal fairies used couriers on the winged foals. He had not expected one to find him here. "Dusty sent me," the rider said. He swung down and did not waste breath on his own name past the first word. "Tempo Flux. He said you'd run out of lures before you ran out of fawns." Nera stared. "How did he know." "He counted the cloths he gave you." Tempo unbuckled the satchel and pulled out a bundle wrapped in oilcloth. Inside were fresh linen strips, damp and heavy, and a small stoppered jar. "Milk from the healing fawn. He rubbed the cloths this morning. He said the older ones will come to the smell same as the young if you stay downwind and low." He paused. "He said hurry. Riders are close." Behind Tempo, two more shapes came over the ridge on foot, silent as cold. The frost twins, one head watching south, the other watching the fawns in the grass. "We will hold the tree line," the sister said. "If the riders come before you finish," the brother said, "we slow them." The body did not move until both heads had spoken. Then it moved together, down the slope toward the south edge of the valley. Nera took the cloths and went down on his belly through the grass. He tied one strip to a low branch upwind, dropped a second in the dry watercourse, and crouched with the jar open in his hand. The lead fawn lifted her head. She turned. She came, slow at first, then the others behind her, six small bodies drawn on a line of scent through the grass. He caught the first by the neck and she did not fight him. He roped her, then the next, then the next, working fast with his hands shaking from the pace. Six ropes on his saddle horn. Six fawns standing close to his horse, breathing hard, alive. Smoke rose to the south where the twins had gone. Tempo was already back in the air, circling once and turning for the creek. Nera mounted and rode north with the herd tight behind him, gathered, moving as one.