Firedeathragehate—
Ilea scrambled down from the pillion running for Pol. Lan barely noticed. He was bathed in fire, tiny flamelets dancing from the tips of his fingers, floating in the air around him. This was what he had been born for—
The dragon within him exulted in its freedom, and ravaged the Karsite within and without. Bound to the dragon, one with the dragon, he was the dragon now, and the dragon was rage and flame and hunger. The Karsite died instantly, but death was not enough, not nearly enough! He spun in a circle of fire and danced a volta of revenge as the Karsite burned and burned and burned.
*
THE knife fell, as Pol tried to squirm out of the way, and the blackened steel sliced across his face.
Gods!
A streak of agony, darkness, the hot gush of his own blood over his cheeks.
He screamed, the sound tearing from his throat, but kept fighting. The next stroke could be the final one—
He held to consciousness and twisted the Karsite's ankles until the man himself shouted in pain, then wrenched himself free of the Karsite somehow, still screaming in agony.
He scrambled away over the snow on hands and knees, horrible pain making him want to curl himself into a ball and just lie there screaming. He heard a strange sound behind him, as if something very large and soft had plummeted out of the sky to land in the snow as he scrambled, blind and still howling with agony, toward the place where he thought the rest of them were—
Teeth grabbed his collar and hauled him unceremoniously out of harm's way, dropping him literally in Ilea's lap.
Only then did he fall into blessed unconsciousness.
*
:LAN! Lan!:
Lan ignored the mind-voice—until it resorted to a sort of mind-kick that finally got his attention.
Shaken out of his entrancement, this time the mind-voice penetrated the wash of fire and the terrible joy.
:Lan, enough! Pol needs you!:
Oh, gods— He shook his head and wrenched himself out of the meld with the dragon, fighting to get his eyes open.
Without his full attention feeding it, the dragon found itself quickly enchanted again by Kalira. Sullenly, it coiled itself deep inside his mind, and dropped into uneasy slumber. Jolted back into the real world, Lan opened his eyes on a black patch in the snow that held nothing, nothing but a bit of melted metal—not a body, not even bones. Nothing but ashes.
Ilea sat on the bare road, Pol's bloody head in her lap, a frown of fierce concentration in her face. The gash across Pol's eyes closed even as Lan watched, but there was no doubt that the knife had cut right across Pol's eyes, blinding him, perhaps forever.
Gut-wrenching guilt hit him and nearly knocked him out of the saddle. Oh, gods, what have I done—
"Don't sit there feeling sorry for yourself," Ilea snarled with a touch of hysteria in her voice, without looking up. "I need hot water and bandages, and I need them now. And a fire, before he goes into shock. And don't wallow in guilt until after you've got it going."
Elenor was useless; that much was obvious; she knelt in the snow and sobbed into her hands next to her father. That left Lan and Tuck; Lan went for wood while Tuck slid off his Companion and emptied the contents of all the saddlebags onto the ground.
When Lan returned with the wood, afoot now, with the wood piled onto Kalira's back, Tuck had spread blankets over the snow and Pol lay on them, his face neatly bandaged. There was a strange scent in the air, not of burned meat, but a metallic scent, hot stone and scorched earth. Lan piled the wood near Pol and Ilea and ignited it, turning it into a roaring fire in an instant. As he went back for more wood, Ilea pushed a small pot holding clean snow near the flames to melt for water.
When he returned the second time, Elenor was finally doing something, cleaning some of the blood off her father's face and clothing and helping her mother, although she was sobbing as she worked. Tuck was off getting more wood himself.
Ilea was on the verge of hysteria. "I can't stop now!" she shouted at Elenor, in response to a tear-choked entreaty. "I am not going to let your father go blind! I will Heal him, I swear it, if I have to die trying!"
At that, Elenor took her hands off her mother's and grabbed Ilea's shoulders, shaking her. "And what good will that do?" she shrieked, as Ilea went limp with surprise and her head jerked back and forth from the shaking. "You'll kill him if you die!"
That seemed to snap Ilea out of her crazed state. She stared at Elenor in shock, then the two of them fell into each other's arms, weeping. Lan stared at them all, and it was only Kalira who snapped him out of his trance.
:Drape blankets over all of them and get some more wood!: his Companion said harshly, then actually walked over to her sire and bit him on the neck. Satiran's sagging head flew up. Lan didn't hear what went on between them, but he didn't wait to see anything more. Draping blankets over the sobbing women and over Pol, he escaped to the forest again, and a job he could understand.
He went back, and back again, until he was stumbling through dusk that obscured everything in his path and was forced to give up. By then, Ilea was sleeping, and Elenor organizing a crude camp. The three Companions arranged themselves in three sides of a square around the blankets spread on the snow, lying down. Pol lay still unconscious, with his eyes bandaged and his head pillowed on Satiran's flank, between Ilea and Kalira. The fire formed the fourth side of the square. Tuck wearily ate a handful of bread, and Elenor looked up at Lan's entrance.
"Get some sleep," she said shortly, her voice nasal and thick with weeping. "If we can, we'll have to leave in the morning. We've no food and no shelter; we can't stay here."
Lan didn't say anything; guilt devoured him and killed any appetite he might have had. He lay down obediently and turned his face away from Elenor, sure that he wasn't going to get a wink of sleep all night.
And he was right. He stared at Dacerie's flank and the firelight flickering on it for candlemarks, stomach knotted with misery while the stars wheeled overhead. He heard Tuck lie down and eventually begin breathing deeply. He heard Elenor gently fall over sideways—
When he looked, she was asleep, half-propped by Tuck's body, up against Satiran's shoulder.
He sat up. :I'll take care of the fire,: he told Satiran, Mind-speaking so as not to make a sound.
Satiran nodded, ever so slightly, but did not reply. Lan found some relief from his guilt by making certain the fire burned evenly and without smoke, feeding it diligently as the stars paraded overhead.
As dawn neared, he felt a tap on his shoulder.
"I'll take over now," Tuck said, giving him an understanding smile. He nodded, finally so dull with exhaustion he couldn't feel anything. He curled up against Dacerie's shoulder, and knew nothing more.
*