Read [Firebringer 02] - Dark Moon for Free Online Page B

patterned with raw, raised welts. His mind felt poisoned, numb. The salt air breathed against his wet coat, chilled him to shivering. The waves foaming placidly against his pasterns and shanks felt soothingly warm.
    Turning, he gazed cross the calm, grey expanse: no longer storm-tossed, the sky above pearly with a thin overcast of cloud. The wind shouldered against him insistently, full of salt and particles. He faced away from the sea, climbed laboriously higher onto the beach. His hooves sank deep into the soft, dry sand. He set his rump to the wind’s relentless, gentle gusts and bowed his head. The sting-welts ached. His shoulders ached. Heat burned in him, guttering against the cold.
    “Fever,” he muttered.
    Feebly, he slapped the draggle of wet mane from his eyes and gazed at the trees beyond the dunes. Trees would shelter him, provide forage. Maybe water. The gummy, salt taste of his own tongue constricted his gorge.
    “Water,” he told himself dully. “Find water.”
    Aye, a soft voice answered now. Get out of the wind and cold. Find shelter. You’ve drifted a long time.
    The dark unicorn blinked. No speaker met his eye. The wind swept beach lay empty, deserted. Strange. The words had seemed to come from within. Feverchills danced along his ribs and limbs. Still muddled, he shook his head.
    “Water first,” he croaked. “Then…find the others.”
    He remembered companions vaguely: unicorns like himself. What were their names and whence had they come? Somehow he knew the golden, cliff-lined strand he recalled was not their home. Yet neither was this flat expanse of silvery shore.
    Find the fire, the inner voice said clearly.
    Glimmers of warmth and tremors of cold gusted through him. The dark unicorn shook his head.
    “Fire?” he muttered.
    He had forgotten his own name. Small grey-and-white seabirds wheeled overhead: dark hooded, with darting pinions. The strange voice commanding him sounded half like the sighing of shore wind and half like their high, piping calls.
    Behold.
    The dark unicorn started, stared as a brilliant red streak arched burning across the sky in the far, far distance. A dark wisp of vapor or dust blossomed up leagues upon leagues away, beyond horizon’s western edge. Long seconds afterwards, a faint concussion reached him: the earth trembled.
    Head west, the inner voice instructed him. Along the shore.
    The dark unicorn staggered, nearly fell. Standing took almost more effort than he could muster. “What is my name?”
    West, the voice reiterated. When you have found my fire, you will once more know yourself.
    The voice faded, faint as a gull’s trill on the wind. The dark unicorn blinked dizzily. Shelter, food, and water—he must find them soon, or he would die. Painfully, he dragged his hooves across the low, white dunes, heading westward toward the distant, tangled trees.

6.

    Home

    The sky spanned clear, the air crisp with the breath of fall. Tek shook her head. Had they been but three days crossing the Pan Woods, returning from the Summer Sea? It felt like dozens. Solemn half-growns straggled around her as they emerged from the trees onto the Vale’s grassy lower slopes. Tek beheld the waiting herd below: mares and stallions, fillies and foals milling expectantly. Her heart froze as she spotted Korr, the king; his mate, Ses; and their yearling filly, Lell: princess of the unicorns now. The pied mare shivered, glad Dagg had come forward to walk alongside her.
    “What has happened?” thundered Korr as they reached the bottom of the slope. “We awaited your return days since! Why do you, healer’s daughter, head the band instead of Jan? Where is my son?”
    Heartsick, she met Korr’s gaze.
    “Jan is not among us,” she answered. “Gryphons took him. He is slain.”
    The dark stallion’s eyes widened. Around him, the whole herd started, shying. Tek heard shrill whinnies of astonishment. Before her, the king reared, snorting wildly.
    “Gryphons?” he demanded. “On