The hair on the back of Alberich's neck stood up, and he got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. It traveled rapidly over his entire body, and at that moment, he knew his Gift hadn't deserted him. In fact, it was about to come down upon him with a vengeance. He slid down out of his saddle as dizziness engulfed him, so that he wouldn't have as far to fall when it hit him—which it was going to, in less than a heartbeat—
He clutched Kantor's saddle, as his Companion turned his head to look at him. A flash of blue came between him and the rest of the world—
A woman, barefoot, bareheaded, running, but she couldn't outrun the horseman behind her—
Another flash—
A man, looking up from his weeding, eyes wide, then unseeing, as the lance took him through the heart—
—like blue lightning—
Children, screaming, being herded into a pen by a dozen horsemen, while the rest set fire to the village—
'Sunlord save us—' he muttered in Karsite, automatically reverting to the language he knew best. The visions, thank the God, were silent, silent, and he could still hear, dimly, the sounds of the battlefield and the people around him.
'What?' Myste snapped behind him, in the same tongue. Thank the God she did—he wasn't sure he could even understand Valdemaran at this moment, much less respond in it. The visions shook him like a terrier with a rat.
The visions caught him up again and threatened to pull him in so far he would not be able to tell the others what he Saw; he struggled against them, against a Gift that was running away with him. :Kantor!: he cried, and a steadying presence held him out of the chaos of a hundred, a thousand disasters playing out at once inside his head. He could still see them, but at least he could manage to get a few words out.
'The cavalry has flanked us on either side, but not to attack us,' he babbled in Karsite, thanking Vkandis yet again that Myste was there. Myste, who knew Karsite, who could tell the King, tell the Lord Marshal— 'They're clearing the countryside—burning the villages, killing the adults, rounding up the children —'
He knew why, but he didn't have time to explain; the visions took him again, despite all of Kantor's help. A man pinned to the door of his own house by a spear. A child being wrenched from its mother's arms, and the woman tossed into the flames of her burning barn. The Tedrel cavalry, riding across the land like a wave of locusts, clearing it for its new masters, keeping only the young children, whom they would then take into their own ranks and turn into Tedrels—
He struggled to speak, but his throat and mouth were not his own, not now while the visions held him. He knew dimly that he had gone rigid as a plank, jaw clenched, unable even to whimper.
Fire. Murder. Fear. Death. It went on forever. He was the helpless observer, unable to do anything save—sometimes, in brief moments when the visions released him—babble a report of what he saw, and where it was. Names came to him, the names of villages? Villages that were not going to exist shortly—but he called them out anyway. How much was now and how much soon? How many places were far enough distant that help might come in time?
He was engulfed in a sea of horror, until, without warning, the visions let go of him entirely, and he dropped back into his own time and place.
Head swimming, he looked up through streaming eyes to find that he was clinging with both hands to Kantor's stirrup and the pommel of the saddle, that he had buried his face in Kantor's shoulder.
Sendar and the Lord Marshal were arguing at the tops of their lungs, while Selenay's gaze switched from one to the other. Her face was white and pinched, and her hands in their armored gauntlets shook.
'But then, we'll have no reserves!' the Lord Marshal shouted.
'And what good will reserves do us if every creature older than a child on this side of the Border is dead?' Sendar shouted back. He whirled and turned to Talamir. 'This is a royal command, King's Own. You heard where the attackers are, now deploy the reserves and every Herald not in combat to the rescue!'
Talamir bowed his head and closed his eyes for a moment, while Taver stood as steady as a statue. 'Done, Majesty,' the Herald said in a perfectly calm and slightly distant voice. 'But you do realize that this will leave us seriously outnumbered on this field?'
