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Hastily she scrambled back, readied herself for another clash then realized he had no wish to engage
her, only to peer over the steep slope s edge to where his fellow now lay, struggling weakly. The older
stallion stared a long moment at the writhing form far below before returning his gaze to Tek, his eyes
glassy.
 Wych, he whispered.  You truly are a wych! No mare in foal could overcome a stallion in full
prime& .
She stood panting hoarsely, desperate for breath. Had she allowed him even a moment to consider, he
surely would have seen how close to spent she was. She doubted herself capable of another such
frenzied effort as had allowed her to overcome her first, rashly foolish assailant.
 Would you be the next? she demanded. The blue stallion flinched. Her voice seemed thunderous.
 Make but one move to harm the life I carry, and I ll pitch you over the side as easily as I did your
comrade.
A faint whinny came from far down the slope, weak and strangled with pain. The blue glanced toward
his injured companion, then warily back at Tek. The snowfall had become smotheringly heavy, the wind
rising even higher and more fierce. Was it dusk yet? The pied mare shook her head, dizzy with panting.
The afternoon had grown so dark she could not tell the hour. The dark blue unicorn glared at her, then
with a champ of helpless fury, turned and started picking his way cautiously down the steep, slippery
hillside toward the younger stallion below.
 Flee while you may, wych, he spat at her.  I must see to my comrade. But be warned, the king will
send my fellows to hunt you down.
Grey snow whipped between them in the dusky air, and for a moment Tek half expected him to change
his mind, come charging back up the slope. She let no trace of fear show in her eye, making herself
breathe slow and deep. The other s injured fellow whinnied again. Angrily, he turned from her and
continued gingerly down. Weak with relief, Tek wheeled in the opposite direction and fled.
15.
City of Fire
Tai-shan shook himself full awake with a start. The warm enclosure was very still. Shadows slanted
steep around him. All the lamps had been doused hours ago. Since resolving the evening before to
explore the two-foots city of fire, he had little more than dozed the long, slow night through. He leaned
to tug with his teeth at the peg fastening the gate of his stall, swung it open with a nudge.
He trotted down the aisle between empty stalls. The wide wooden closure of the shelter s egress stood
ajar. A thin mewl of protest sang from its hinges as the dark unicorn shouldered through. The courtyard
outside lay deserted in the predawn darkness. A near-full moon hung low in the sky, barely topping the
timber wall.
Tai-shan galloped hard, hooves ringing hollow on the frozen cobbles. He sprang and cleared the wall,
clipped one hind heel painfully on the rough upper edge. Too long he had been lazing, feeding over-well
in the palace of the chon. Time to be done with that! Coming down on the other side of the wall, he
shook himself, full of energy. His breath steamed, curling in the frosty air. The layer of fat beneath his pelt
kept out the cold. The stone-paved path sloping away from him lay empty and snow-covered, ghostly
white. He trotted toward a distant glimmer of firelight.
Through a small, square opening in the wall of one of the wooden dwellings lining the cobbled way, he
glimpsed a firelit room. The heat of the place was fierce. Two-foots bustled about, their falseskins folded
back to reveal forelimbs coated in a fine, white dust. The stoutest punched at a substance resembling pale
mud while her assistants plopped pawfuls of the stuff onto dustcovered flats. They pressed berries and
nuts into each gooey pat before thrusting the flats into small stone chambers that were full of fire.
A savor of honey, oil, and grain pervaded the air. Tai-shan watched, fascinated, as the soft blobs
sighed and expanded, then dried, hardened, and began to turn brown. The dark unicorn s jaw dropped.
What lay forming in the heated vaults were honey nutpods! As the two-foots retrieved the flats from the
firechambers, Tai-shan shied away from the hole in the wall, his senses reeling. These two-foots created
their own provender by means of fire! He would never have guessed such a thing to be possible.
Once more, he trotted down the cobbled path. Lamplight bled through a crack between wooden
panels covering one of the square wall-openings in another shelter he passed. Halting, the dark unicorn
nosed at the shutter, eased it back and peered cautiously through. A pair of two-foots knelt in the
chamber within. The elder, a bearded male, kneaded a pale, doughy substance resembling the grain
paste, but grey instead of white. It smelled like river silt.
Carefully, the elder male smoothed the silt into the shape of a hollow vessel. The dark unicorn had seen
the two-foots stone jars used to store unguents, oil, and drink but what possible use, he wondered,
could exist for a jar made of mud, too soft to hold even its own shape for long?
Beside the bearded male, his assistant, a smooth-cheeked halfgrown, stood bundling himself into a
thick falseskin. Carefully, his elder handed him the wet mud jar, and the half-grown ducked with it
through an egress to the outside. Tai-shan let the wooden shutter swing softly shut. He trotted to the edge
of the building and peered around.
The young half-grown stood in a small yard before a conical structure of stone. Heat rippled the air
above. Another firechamber, the dark unicorn guessed. The young two-foot opened a port in the
chamber s side, placed the soft vessel of mud within and slammed the port. More vessels stood
alongside the chamber, Tai-shan noticed. Stamping his feet against the cold, the halfgrown bent to catch
up a pair, then turned and hastened back toward shelter. The jars clinked solidly against one another as
he did so, the sound sharply musical.
Once again the dark unicorn s mind raced. Had these hard vessels already been in the chamber of fire?
Had flame somehow transformed the yielding clay as it had the grain paste? Were the firechambers
themselves indeed, the very streets of the two-foots city made of stone at all, or of blocks of
heat-hardened clay? Tai-shan shook his head, marveling at the vast and complicated city around him.
Had fire been the tool to create it all? [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]