Brightly Burning

It won't happen that way again.

Pol patted Ilea's hand. 'He's done you a favor, my love,' the senior Herald said, with an attempt at a laugh. 'They're hardly going to allow me on a battlefield now.' Elenor choked on a sob, and he hugged her with his free arm.

''The tempest ruined the orchard, but applewood makes a sweet fire,'' Tuck quoted under his breath.

'Exactly,' Pol replied.

Ilea's stare went right through Lan, as if she was daring him to display any more guilty feelings.

'Rest,' she told Pol. 'This is just temporary. I will Heal you.'

But Pol said nothing, and Lan got a peculiar and gut-twisting feeling that Pol was far from confident that she would be able to do that, and was humoring her with his silence.

Oh, gods—what have I done?

Lan was happy to escape into the woods for yet more wood, although he couldn't outrun his guilt.

*

BY late afternoon, Pol was strong enough to drink something hot, and was insisting that he could and must ride.

'No,' Ilea replied, although weakly; he was wearing her arguments down.

'Yes,' he insisted. 'I've ridden with worse wounds than this.' He did sound stronger, although there was still an edge of pain in his voice.

'And you were twenty years younger at the time,' she responded waspishly, trying to cover up the fact that she was weeping again.

He shrugged and sat up slowly. 'I don't think I've lost too much blood, thanks to your quick work. We can't stay here. Where there was one assassin, there may be more. We haven't any more food and no shelter. And I can see well enough through Satiran's eyes—'

'How is that going to help?' Ilea asked.

'I can see to ride,' was all he said. 'Help me up.'

To Lan's astonishment, with Ilea and Elenor on either side of him, he got slowly to his knees. Satiran went to him immediately and knelt down beside him. With great effort, and Ilea's help, he mounted. Ilea unpacked the straps meant to hold a wounded and unconscious Herald in the saddle, and strapped him in.

Satiran lurched to his feet; hindquarters coming up first, then forequarters, as Pol controlled his swift intake of breath, producing the slightest hiss of pain.

He stayed quietly in his saddle for a long time, as Satiran swung his head about. 'Yes. This will be fine, I think. Ilea, come up behind me; I might need a little help with managing the pain.'

How can he do this? Lan wondered. He's blind! Shouldn't he be crying or screaming or—something? As another stab of self-recrimination lanced through Lan, the bandaged head swung accurately to point in Lan's direction.

'Before you start in on berating yourself and deciding that you are the only one to blame for this, Satiran says to inform you that you have to take second place to him,' Pol told him then offered a hand to his wife.

She refused it. Instead, she motioned to Tuck, who made a stirrup of his hands for her. She grabbed the high cantle of the saddle, stood in Tuck's hand, and swung her free leg over Satiran's rump up onto the pillion to ride astride, one arm carefully around her husband, the other gripping the cantle for her real support. Lan and Tuck cleaned up the hasty camp, extinguished the fire, and gathered up their belongings, stuffing them any way they would fit into the saddlebags and strapping them all on the pillion-pad of Tuck's saddle.

Elenor chose to ride behind Lan, who was very much of a mixed mind about that. But he wasn't about to voice an objection; he didn't exactly have a right to. Her arms closed around his waist, and she kept sniffling in his ear.

'We're leagues from the battlefield—how did a Karsite get here?' Tuck said aloud. 'How did he pass the lines?'

Ilea was the first to respond, and though her voice sounded controlled, Lan could see she was still white and tight-lipped. 'Why drop down on us as if he was waiting for us? What was he shouting?'

'Death to demons, or something like that,' Tuck supplied. 'He couldn't have been waiting for us, could he?'

Pol put one hand on the saddle-pommel. 'Let's hold a moment. We need to let others know what happened to us, so it doesn't happen to anyone else. Satiran?'

The other two Companions moved forward to touch their noses to Satiran's while Lan averted his eyes so he wouldn't have to look at Pol's face or into Ilea's swollen, bloodshot eyes.

I will never hesitate again.

Beneath him Kalira tensed with the effort of Mindspeaking; this was no ordinary Mindspeech; the three Companions had joined efforts so that Satiran could warn every other Companion within range of what had just happened—and they would, in turn, warn others.

It didn't take long; a few heartbeats, and Kalira relaxed again, then backed up, shaking her head and snorting.

Only Pol and Satiran remained still a moment longer, and when Satiran moved, there were no signs in him of relaxation.

:Lan,: Kalira said, tensing beneath him, :There's trouble.: