Bastion

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Everybody get back!” Jakyr shouted, unnecessarily. Mags was already pulling Amily away, and no one else was inclined to put themselves in the line of fire.

  The spear stopped quivering. It was . . . large. The size of a boar spear, and whoever had thrown it had managed to get it over the snow parapet and well into the cave-mouth. Mags’ heart practically stopped when he thought about what that wicked point would have done had it hit Amily. There was something wrapped around the end of it and secured with a piece of bright red string or yarn. A message?

  Jakyr went back into the cave, and returned with the lid of their biggest pot. Crouching low and getting as much of himself as he could behind its shelter, he should have looked ridiculous. But he didn’t. He looked impossibly brave.

  He crept up crouching crabwise on the spear; he got his hand on the shaft just behind the head and, with a yank, pulled it free of the floor. Then he slid it behind him as hard as he could, and retreated. He didn’t stand up until he was well clear of any place projectiles could possibly land.

  Bear got hold of the spear. He was wearing gloves as he handled it. “Don’t nobody touch this thing till I get a chance to wash it down,” he said shortly, and he glared at Jakyr. “And you go wash your hands five times. The gods only know what kind of poison they might have put on the shaft. I don’t want to see you back here until they’re red from scrubbing.”

  Jakyr ducked his head guiltily and left for the sink.

  Mags ran for bows and arrows and returned with three sets, handing two to Lita and Amily and keeping one for himself. Meanwhile Bear had cut the string holding what looked like paper wrapped around the shaft. It unwound; it was either paper or very stiff fabric of some kind. And there was writing on it.

  Jakyr returned as Bear gingerly spread out the long scroll on the floor. “It’s in Valdemaran!” he said in surprise.

  “Yes,” Lena agreed, “But it was never written by anyone born and raised in Valdemar.” Slowly, she began to read the words aloud as Mags, Lita and Amily watched the entrance, arrows nocked and ready.

  “To you within the cave. You have among you Meric Aket Inaken, son of the son of the Shadao Meric Beket Inaken. Too long have you held this one of the House of Sleepgivers. We call upon you to tell him to come to his people. Our blood calls to him. He has seen the Ancient Memories. He must return to be made whole. We know he holds himself to be of honor. We honor the pledge we made not to harm your Shadao, your King, and his family. But we made no such promise regarding the low-caste of your land, who have such favor in your eyes. If he does not give himself over to us, we will gather up the low-caste, of whom we made no promises, and we shall give them unto Sleep.”

  Mags stared stonily at the entrance, although he no longer expected anything to come in that way. There probably weren’t too many of the Sleepgivers out there—not like an army—but there were more than enough to pick them off one at a time, and far more than enough to keep them penned in with arrows and other projectiles. Probably there were not enough for a frontal assault. Then again, a frontal assault was not their way. And maybe there were more than he thought.

  “Well, you’re the expert in these people, Mags,” Jakyr said, bitter and angry. “I assume that means what I think it means?”

  “It does,” Mags replied, his heart turning cold. “It means unless I give myself up and let them take me off with them, they’re gonna start rounding up villagers and killing ’em. They’ll do it, too. If I make a run for it, they ain’t gonna chase me, they’re gonna start killin’ villagers or you. Or both. Goin’ to ’em is the only way I can make it stop.”

  Jakyr set his chin stubbornly. “That’s not going to happen. And you aren’t going to give yourself up. I’m going for help.”

  • • •

  No one tried to talk Jakyr out of his plan, because it was obvious he wasn’t in any state to be talked out of it. Instead, they all hunted for anything in the supplies that they could make armor out of. Mags and Jakyr both had their own armor, with them, but it was light armor, made to guard against glancing sword strokes and broad-headed arrows. If the Sleepgivers were going to start flinging spears the size of the one they had put their message on at him, he was going to need a lot more.

  So they put Mags’ armor on him first, to be worn under his own. It didn’t fit, of course, and they laced it on with thongs, leaving gaps, but it would serve as reinforcement. Then they made a sort of horse armor of leather, canvas, and more leather, for Jermayan. It looked horrible, but it gave some protection for his most vulnerable spots.

  “The one advantage I have is that they’re going to be no better in the snow than I am,” Jakyr said grimly, as they laced some padding over the top of his armor.

  “Worse,” said Mags. “They’re from a desert. They ain’t never seen snow afore, much less fought in this much.”

  Jakyr stopped for a moment and stared off into space. Jermayan’s talkin’ to him, Mags surmised. The guess was confirmed when Jakyr’s eyes focused again, and he looked straight at Mags—this time without hostility.

  “Jermayan and Dallen have been assessing our foes, and it seems we have . . . quite a lot,” he said, quietly. “About a dozen, and all with those rather nasty talismans, rather than the one your . . . cousin . . . wore.”

  Mags didn’t ask about Bey. But he rather thought that if Bey had joined the rest, or had brought them there, Jakyr would have used that as further ammunition, so he just kept quiet.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea, Jak,” Lita said, harshly. Her face looked as if she were struggling between rage and tears. Her hands were clenched at her sides, and Mags wondered if she was actually thinking of trying to knock Jakyr cold to keep him from riding out. “I don’t think this is any kind of a good idea. A dozen, with spears that we know of, probably bows and arrows too, and you floundering through chest-high snow—you’ll just be an easy target. We should let Jermayan and Dallen see if they can reach another Companion that can get his Herald to the Guardpost. We can wait it out.”

  “And if we wait it out, they start killing villagers!” Jakyr snapped. “Do you want to be responsible for that? I don’t!” Mags finished lacing the last of the padding onto Jermayan, and the Companion trotted over to the Herald, waiting for him to mount. “If I can get as far as the cleft, we’ll be fine. It’s not that far. They’re up on the tops of the hills.” He turned and put one foot in the stirrup.

  “So they have clean shots at you, brilliant!” she snarled right back. “I—oh damn you!” She grabbed his head and kissed him, hard. “If you get killed I’ll—I’ll kill you all over again!”

  He said nothing, just mounted without looking at her, and backed Jermayan all the way to the back of the cave so they could get a running start. They paused for just a moment, then with a clatter of hoofs on stone, they were off.

  Mags had a sickening feeling as soon as they reached the cave entrance; Dallen responded to it by galloping toward him, and he grabbed mane and hauled himself on bareback as they had practiced so many times at the Collegium. Dallen skidded around and launched himself in Jakyr’s wake, just as the Herald and Jermayan went down in a hail of arrows right where the deep snow began.

  Mags saw it all from Dallen’s back, and somehow Dallen put on some more speed. They burst out into the light.

  Jermayan and Jakyr were within easy reach of the cave, and already Jakyr’s makeshift armor was reddening in a dozen places. From the way Jakyr was bleeding, he wasn’t going to last long. Those arrows had all been aimed at his back and they had gone through the cobbled-together armor as if it had been paper. Only one of them had hit Jermayan, but it had been the shoulder, causing him to fall before he even cleared the snow parapet.

  Mags and Dallen leaped into the snow beside the downed Companion and interposed themselves between Jakyr and the archers. Mags stared up at the Sleepgivers, daring them to hit him, forcing them to concentrate on him, and not Jakyr.

  He could see their faces clearly—da
rk hair, dark eyes, deeply suntanned skin, features not unlike his own. He wasn’t wearing his cloak, and they could see him clearly. They had to know who he was.

  And they knew he wasn’t to be killed. It was a standoff. No matter how accurate they were with those bows, there was always the chance they’d hit Mags instead of Jakyr. They wouldn’t take that chance.

  He had been afraid he’d see Bey’s face up there, but his cousin wasn’t anywhere in sight. If Bey was with ’em, he wouldn’t hide. So Bey wasn’t part of this. It was a small crumb of comfort in the middle of disaster.

  So he and the Sleepgivers stared back at each other as Lita and Lena and Bear and Amily ran behind him to get to Jakyr and pull him into the cave, and as Jermayan struggled to his feet and limped inside himself, leaving red splotches in the churned-up snow. He didn’t dare look behind himself even to see how terribly wounded Jakyr was. He had to keep the attention of the Sleepgivers riveted on him. If he lost their concentration for even a moment, they could easily decide to start taking shots at everyone but Mags.

  Mags said nothing, did nothing; he and Dallen were as still as a statue. This wasn’t the time to escalate things. When Jermayan was clear, the others were finally under cover again, and Jakyr was deep in the cave, he signaled Dallen, and they backed, one slow step after another, until they were in the cleared entrance . . . and then under the rock. . . .and then, at last, safely deep inside.

  Then he threw himself off Dallen and ran for his friend and mentor.

  Amily was tending Jermayan, using all the skill she had acquired as Bear’s assistant. The arrow was out, and fortunately it had hit at a shallow angle along the shoulder, the head just skimming under the skin and cutting the muscle. Like a knife wound along the shoulder. Painful, and laming, but no major blood vessels had been hit, and Amily could bandage it up unaided.

  Jakyr was another story.

  He was face down on the floor with his head in Lita’s lap; the wounds were all in his back. They were cutting him out of the armor and his clothing and taking the arrows off with the armor. These were arrows meant specifically to piece armor, with heads hardly bigger than the shafts, so they came out easily. A little too easily; when they came out, the wounds started gushing blood before Bear could get pressure on them. And many of them had gone deep.

  “What can I do?” Mags asked, falling to his knees beside them, feeling that familiar sickness in his gut. The sight of all the blood, of the wounds, the exposed flesh—it made him want to flee. But Bear needed all the help he could get.

  “Put pressure here—” Bear pointed. Mags obeyed, trying not to look at the blood. He tried not to think that Jakyr could die. Bear couldn’t do any more than this—take out the arrows, try to stop the bleeding, hope nothing vital had been hit, watch for infection. He wasn’t a Gifted Healer. He couldn’t mend the wounds or make the bleeding stop.

  And he knew it, and tears were running down his face, his expression a scowl of desperate concentration. “I can’t save him,” he said, half snarling, half sobbing. “I can’t! He’s bleeding inside, and he’s losing blood too fast!” The Herald breathed raggedly, in gasps, his skin pale as wax, and he was completely unconscious. Blood oozed from wounds that Mags, Lena, Lita, and Bear were putting pressure on and pulsed out of more that they weren’t.

  :Mags,: said Dallen. :I might be able to do something.:

  The Companion rested his muzzle on Jakyr’s leg, about the only part of him that wasn’t wounded. :Become the link between me and Bear. Tell Bear to think hard about what he would do if he were Gifted. Quick!:

  “Dallen says think hard about what you’d do if you had a Gift,” Mags blurted out, and then dropped every shield he had, opening himself to Bear and Dallen and joining the two, as he did when he united the Mindspeakers and those who were not on the Kirball team.

  And then . . . he felt as if he were somehow containing Bear, Dallen, and Jakyr. It wasn’t as if he were forcing them together, it was more as if—as if they were three balls of soft, warm wax, and he the hands that held them, making them into a whole. He, himself, was not part of that whole; he stood apart; he had to stay apart, because he was providing the vessel that held them all and the pressure that held them together.

  He didn’t understand anything of what went through him, and he didn’t try. He only knew that strength was flowing out of him as fast as the blood was flowing out of Jakyr, and that this was a good thing. Because that strength had to be going somewhere, it wasn’t going into Dallen, so it had to be going to the Herald.

  Mindspeaking Heralds can aid Healers, if they are strong enough. That was something—from Dallen’s memory? It must have been—Dallen had taught him all he knew about Mindspeaking. But Bear wasn’t Gifted—

  No, but in the attempt to somehow make him Gifted, Bear’s father and brothers had described, over and over, what it was like for Gifted Healers to Heal. They had told him, shown him, day and night for over a year. He knew what should be done, just as someone who is not a dancer knows what the moves of a dance should look like. He just couldn’t do it himself.

  And Dallen didn’t know what to do . . . but had the power to do it anyway, under guidance?

  Mags started to feel dizzy, but he fought it back. He opened his eyes a moment to snatch a glance at Jakyr. The Herald wasn’t quite so pale, and the worst of the bleeding had stopped. The wound under his hands in Jakyr’s back stopped making that strange sucking sound, and the Herald wasn’t struggling to breathe anymore.

  But he could only spare that moment. When he took his attention off it, the bridge between Bear and Dallen wavered, the wall that held all three, Jakyr, Bear and Dallen, began to fade, and he had to get himself centered on it again. He closed his eyes and concentrated hard on holding, as if he were climbing a wall and fighting for every handhold.

  Then, just when he thought he was going to pass out himself, Dallen said, :Enough.:

  Mags let go of both ends of his bridge, dropped the containment that held them all, sagged back on his heels, and caught himself with one hand on the floor as he started to fall over sideways.

  But as he opened his eyes, he realized with a sob of relief that Jakyr was going to live.

  He was—perhaps—half-healed. Nothing like what a fully Gifted Healer could do under the same circumstances. Actually, half-healed was being generous. Bear—who did not seem to have suffered the same sort of exhaustion that Mags had—was cleaning out the punctures, tamping in powder of some sort, and moving on while Amily and Lita applied clean bandages. But the punctures themselves had stopped bleeding, the wounds into the lungs weren’t making that sucking noise, and . . . somehow Jakyr had gotten—some blood back? He certainly didn’t look as pale and waxen.

  Dallen slowly sank to his knees and then started to lay himself down on the floor of the cave. Amily scrambled to her feet. “Don’t do that!” she snapped at the Companion, who looked up at her in startled weariness. “The rock will just suck heat out of you! That’s the last thing you need, as exhausted as you are! Come on, get up!” She urged Dallen back to his feet and slowly walked him over to the area where the Companions normally slept. There, she allowed him to sink down onto the thick layer of straw that served them as a bed, got his blankets, and bundled him up.

  “What—happened?” Mags asked thickly.

  “You told me to think of what I’d do if I had a Gift, so I did. It was daft, but I did it. Then everything started healing. Like I had a Gift, only it wasn’t coming from me. I know what it was supposed to feel like if I was the one doing the Healing, the gods know my father drummed it into me for a year or more, thinking if he just told me enough times, I’d somehow sprout a Gift.” Bear finished the last of the wounds and sat back on his heels. “I can’t figure it out. It wasn’t me.”

  “It—was Dallen,” Mags replied, and sagged a little more. “An’ me too, I guess. I kinda bridged you two t’gether. Smushed you an’ Dallen an’ Jakyr into a big ball, and Dallen was able to fix some things.” />
  “From the look of you, you did more than that,” Bear said skeptically.

  “Heralds with Mindspeech can feed energy to Healers so they can do more,” Amily said, as she led Jermayan, limping, to the straw. She came back as soon as she had him settled. “Father’s done it once or twice, when the Healer started to fail. It happens more often in the Field, I suppose, especially if there’s only one Healer and a lot of sick or wounded. Dallen must have been able to take what Bear knew, and energy from himself and Mags, and somehow make it all work. I guess among the three of you, Bear, Mags, and Dallen, you make half a real Healer. Which is pretty amazing if you ask me. We need to get Jakyr off the floor too.”

  “Right.” Bear got to his feet, and so did Lena. Jakyr was starting to come around again. He opened his eyes and realized his head was in Lita’s lap. Face down.

  “I’m dead,” he said, voice muffled in her leg. “Because if I’m here, she’s going to kill me.”

  “Shut up, you idiot. Or I’ll tell your village where to find you.” She leaned down and kissed his cheek. “Can you stand?”

  “Not without a lot of help.” He made an effort to move. “Not without somebody else hauling me to my feet.”

  Together they managed to get him up and get his arms draped around Bear’s neck and Lita’s. Bear and Lita more or less carried him that way, as he could barely set one foot in front of the other. They got him to Lita’s bed, which was the nearest, and put him in it, with a couple of hot stones. He passed out.

  Amily helped Mags get up, and he slumped over to the firepit and half collapsed there on the rugs. Lena bustled about, getting food warmed and making tea with plenty of honey in it. Mags felt as drained as could be.

  “How did we do that?” he wondered aloud.

  “Your Gift,” Amily repeated. “I told you already. It’s very strong. I suppose Dallen can Heal, but can’t see how to do it. Bear knows what to do, but can’t Heal. You bridged them and made up the difference in energy.”