Oh, you've done very well by yourself, Pires, he congratulated himself as his cowed and frightened sheep - ah, courtiers and mages - gathered to pay him their homage officially. You have done very well by yourself, and all by being clever, watching everything, knowing when to play your hand -
A commotion at the end of the room made him frown. The courtiers swirled like little fish disturbed by the passing of a larger, hungry fish. What now?
A battered and disheveled messenger came pushing through the crowd, his eyes wild, his face sweat- and dirt-streaked. 'The border!' he panted, frantically. 'An attack on the border!'
Damn - the Valdemarans - well, I have no quarrel with them, I can simply make a truce - 'What are the Valdemarans doing?' he asked. 'Who's the commander in charge? How quickly can he retreat from - '
'Not the western border!' the man wailed. 'The eastern border! The towers just relayed a message from the eastern border! There's an army there, a huge army, it outnumbers us by a hundred to one, and it's rolling over everything!'
It was at this time that Pires Nieth realized his throne might not be valuable for very much longer. And he tried to think of who he could go to that would trade Ancar's flattened crown for a fast horse.
* * *
Treyvan mantled his wings over the youngsters, cradling gryphlet and human alike. The salle was warm and bright, but the little ones took no notice of the sunlight, nor of the toys piled all around them. All four were distressed, for all four knew that their parents were going away, and where they were going, people got hurt.
He was making soothing little sounds, when suddenly his feathers all stood on end, and he felt the unique trembling in the forces of magic that signaled a Gate forming in this very room.
His first thought was that Falconsbane had found a way to build a Gate here, to attack the children. He shoved them all behind him, turning with foreclaws outstretched, building his shields and his powers to strike at anything that struck at him. His action took the two Heralds on guard entirely by surprise, but they reacted with the speed of superbly-trained fighters, drawing their weapons and facing the direction he faced.
A haze of power shimmered in the doorway to the salle. Then - the door vanished, to be replaced by a meadow of sad, yellowed grasses -
A meadow?
And Firesong and Elspeth came stumbling through, followed by Nyara and Skif, the dyheli, the birds, and the two Companions, one of whom carried Darkwind on her back, and dragged a slab of wood. The other Companion carried someone else, wrapped up in so much cloth as to be unidentifiable.
The Gate came down immediately. So did Firesong, collapsing where he stood. Darkwind looked none too good either.
'Get a Healerrrr!' Treyvan snapped; one of the Heralds sheathed her blade and took off at a dead run before he even finished the sentence. The other joined him at Firesong's side.
'What happened?' the young man demanded. 'Is - '
'We got Falconsbane, Ancar, and Hulda, in that order, yesterday,' Elspeth replied, helping Darkwind down off Gwena's back. 'All hell broke loose over there. We'll probably see the effects of it on the border, in a day or a week, depending on if anyone thinks to use the relay-towers to get word to the front lines. There was rioting in the city as we left, and we traveled just long enough for Firesong to get back the strength to Gate us home. The unrest was spreading faster than we could move.'
'What isss the wood?'
Darkwind chuckled weakly, still clearly in some pain. 'A trophy. A lifesaver of a trophy.'
Just then, the first Herald returned with not one, but three Healers, and right behind them were Selenay and Prince Daren and their bodyguards, followed by a runner from one of the Valdemaran relay-towers. It looked as if the man had been bringing an urgent message, had seen the Queen and her consort running like dyheli for the salle, and had followed them instead of going to the Palace.
He nearly got skewered by the bodyguards until he flung up both hands, showing himself weaponless, and panted out, 'Message from the border!'
'Ten to one it's starting - ' Treyvan heard Skif mutter to Nyara, who nodded wisely, as she aided the unknown down from the second Companion's saddle. He, she, or it also simply slumped down to the floor, but not until Firesong had gotten to his (her?) side with one of the Healers.
Skif was right. The message from the border was of chaos.
