Brightly Burning

saddle, and his pony dragged Satiran behind him by main force as they joined the flight to safety.

With a terrible moan, Satiran broke the connection between himself and his Herald, leaving Pol in darkness, intolerable anguish, and bleakness of heart and soul to match the dark behind his eyes.

He simply clung to the saddle, bent and broken, weeping hoarsely, as he had not been able to weep for himself, and it seemed to him that he would never find his way out of the darkness and the grief. His tears scalded his eyes, soaked through his bandage, and still they fell; he tasted their salt on his lips, bitter and harsh, but no more bitter than his heart. Satiran trembled under his legs, shaking as if the Companion, too, sobbed.

How long he sank in that hell of grief, he didn't know; suddenly, there were hands on his arms and voices urging him to dismount. The roar of the fire was gone, and the air, cooler now, was scented with scorched rock. He slid off Satiran's back into arms waiting to catch him.

Ilea's arms.

He crumbled into her embrace, and gave himself and his grief into her care.

Satiran collapsed beside him; Ilea helped him down to the snow where he blindly groped for his Companion's neck and wrapped his arms around it as Ilea cradled both of them, crooning wordlessly.

Out of the chaos of shouting and noises around him, a single voice cut through his grief.

'Pol! Pol!'

He raised his head, responding to the frantic sound of Tuck's voice.

'Pol!' The boy's hands were on his shoulders, pulling at his tunic, despite Ilea's attempts to stave him off. 'Pol, what happened to Lan? They dragged me away and won't let me go back—this Guard here won't let go of me! What's going on?'

He tried to answer, but could not get a word out of his throat.

But an answer came.

Pol had heard the Death Bell in the Grove toll before; he knew the sound of it as well as he knew the sound of his own name. But he had never before heard it with his heart—and never at such a distance from Haven.

Every Herald across the land must be hearing it—

It vibrated through him, somber, throbbing with unshed tears, and there was no doubt in his mind who it tolled for. Tuck collapsed beside him with a sob, and Ilea held them all while they wept until they could weep no more.

*

IT was four days before Pol could stand and walk again, four days before Satiran, surrounded by all the comfort the rest of the Companions could give, was able to act as his Herald's eyes again. Four days of sleep and grief, while the shattered army of Valdemar pulled itself back together, and put together the pieces of what had happened.

The only Karsite officer to survive the inferno had confessed that once the source of the hellfires had been identified, a hand-picked set of marksmen had been sent up the mountain with orders to shoot, not the Herald, but the Companion. The priests wanted the secret of the fires, and they knew the quickest way to disable a Herald was to slay his demon-horse.

The firestorm raged for no more than a candlemark, but in that short time, it destroyed everything on the mountain and in the pass below it. Where there had been a pine forest, there was now a totally lifeless plain, with no sign of anything but ashes. No remains, no smoldering tree stumps, nothing. Everything from the ground up had been reduced to gray-white powder.

As Pol woke on the morning of the fifth day and struggled for the first time to sit up, Ilea told him all this in a few stark sentences.

'Elenor?' he ventured.

'We were in the rear, with the baggage,' Ilea pointed out. 'I don't think she had any idea what was happening until the firestorm—and I don't think she even realized then what had happened until she saw you and Satiran.'

Pol fumbled for her hands, and found them clasped tightly together in Ilea's lap. He coaxed them apart. 'And?' he prompted hoarsely, his voice ravaged by weeping.

'And—she's taking it hard.' That, and the softening of Ilea's stiff pose, bringing her into his arms where she finally wept, told him all he needed to know.

'I know this doesn't help now—but she'll recover, though I doubt she thinks she can. We all will....' He held her close, and let her cry herself out, she who so seldom wept, and more often for others than herself. He let her cry until she was exhausted, which took so little time that he knew she had been staying sleepless at his side until this moment. Then he made her curl up in his place, and stayed beside her until she slept.

:Satiran?: he called then, hesitantly, not certain that he would have an answer.

:Coming,: was the reply, lead-heavy with mourning, but at least it was a reply.

He heard plodding hoofbeats outside his tent, then, blessedly, vision returned, the view of his tent from Satiran's eyes. He stumbled to his feet, through the tent flaps, and flung both arms around Satiran's neck.

When they both emerged from a sea of mourning, and took notice of the rest of the world again, Satiran rubbed his soft nose against Pol's cheek, tasting his tears. :They want to send Fedor up the mountain this morning,: Satiran said, hesitantly. :To see what is there. Tuck wants to go, and Elenor, and the rest of the scouts. Ilea is going with Elenor. Do you?:

He already knew that Satiran did, and he did not want his oldest and dearest friend to go alone. :Of course I do,: he said instantly.