The response came back to Mags, redoubled. All those minds, some shocked awake, all taken by surprise, all jolted by his panic and responding with panic of their own. What! What! WHAT!!
Feeling as if he was in the center of a cave-in, Mags struggled to get his shields back up. Struggled, and failed. It felt as if his head was going to break into a million pieces; a hundred images flashed in front of him, and he couldn’t tell which belonged to him. Voices in his mind babbled, shouted, at him, and he couldn’t understand any of them. His brain burned and it was all he could do to stand erect and he felt his very hold on sanity slipping.
But Dallen was in danger.
Dallen was in danger.
Scarcely able to see for the conflicting images in his head, stumbling and disoriented, nevertheless, he rushed for Temper. Dallen was in danger. That was all that mattered; he had to get to Temper before Temper could move.
He reached the man just as Temper recovered from the mental blow, and somewhere under the battering of a thousand confused thoughts, he knew that he had never done anything this stupid before . . .
He lurched at Temper with his hands out, staggering like a drunk, barely able to control his own body enough to run at the man. He—and a hundred others through his eyes—saw Temper pull his dagger and slash at him with it. Temper was moving slowly though, very slowly, not like—a hundred others saw/felt the memory of Temper’s kill—when he murdered that poor thief.
Temper recoiled, his mind reflexively lashing out. Mags stumbled and fell, which is what saved him from Temper’s first slash.
Enraged, afire with uncontrolled anger, Temper came at him again, just as—a myriad of confused minds tried to shove him away—Mags managed to get to his feet. Temper slashed at him again—not the controlled and calculated movement of a skilled knife-fighter, but the flailing of someone who barely knew which end of the knife to hold.
It didn’t matter. The knife scored a painful slash across Mags’ ribs.
The pain was what saved him, momentarily at least.
As the blade burned across his chest, that same pain made his shields snap back up.
He gasped with mingled agony and relief as his mind cleared. Unfortunately, so did Temper’s. The man’s stance changed immediately, and he snapped into a knife-fighter’s crouch. Mag knew in an instant that he was in trouble. The best he could hope for would be to stay out of reach.
Which, as Temper’s arm lashed out, was not looking likely; he moved faster than anyone that Mags had ever seen. Mags managed to evade him, but barely, and Temper was right on top of him before he had any right to be.
Mags’ shields dropped again; he staggered as too many minds to count shrieked into his. Nearest was the white rage of Temper, incandescent with fury—and somehow, Mags reflected some of that incoherent anger right back at him, causing him to stagger and miss.
Vaguely he was aware of every window in Heralds’ Collegium lighting up, of people boiling out of the building, of the Companions in their stable beside him screaming with rage and battering at the barricaded doors. Temper slashed at him again, then rushed him.
Temper’s shoulder hit him right where he’d been cut; he gasped with pain, and his shields snapped back up again. He managed to shove Temper off, and stagger a few paces away.
Temper rushed him again; he ducked to the side, getting another cut across the bicep in the process.
The pain kept him steady, kept his shields up, but he was fighting for his life, and he knew it. And he was in worse shape than he had been when he’d been fending off Bear’s kidnapper. He was wheezing already, and his side burned.
Temper’s eyes narrowed, and he glanced to the side. People seemed to have figured out that the stable was where they should be, and a mob was heading in their direction.
Mags half expected Temper to say something when his eyes returned to Mags. He didn’t. In fact, he gave Mags no warning at all.
One moment he was crouched a few arm-lengths away. Mags didn’t even see him start to move.
Then Mags’ back hit the stable wall, knocking the breath out of him. Temper’s forearm was across his throat.
And white-hot pain lanced out from the center of his gut.
He screamed and his shields went down—he blasted his agony out and Temper staggered back, both hands to his temples. Mags lunged at him, his gut still on fire, both hands going for Temper’s knife. He had to get it away from the man—had to, or he was dead.
He grappled with Temper, feeling his strength ebbing. Somehow he got both his hands on the knife-hand. His knees gave, and he pulled Temper down as he dropped to the ground. Somehow Temper ended up underneath him. He smashed Temper’s knife-hand on the ground but the man would not let go of the blade.
Mags snarled, stooped, and bit the hand holding the knife, his teeth sinking into the flesh below the thumb until he drew blood, tasted the flat, sweetness of the blood, felt bones snap under his teeth.
The dagger fell away, into the dirt.
Mags snatched it up.
Now it was only one mind, filling his, and overpowering it with anger and death. His eyes widened and he ground his teeth with rage. He didn’t even think—he just picked up the knife in both hands and drove it down into the thing underneath him, over and over and over again—
Temper uttered a surprised sounding gurgle—and died.
The rage died with him.
Abruptly emptied, Mags sat there for a moment, the bloody knife still poised in midair.
Then someone else hit him from the side, and his gut erupted with fire again. He curled in around the agony, blood oozing into his hands as he clutched his middle. His shields came down, snapped up, came down, snapped up, as the world spun around him and—dozens of babbling, angry voices—his gut screamed and—Who, what, why, who—his vision blurred, he looked up to see the King with the knife in his hands, and the front of his Whites dyed with blood, and—blood, death, rage, rage, rage—he looked down to see his own hands dripping with blood and—who, death, what, blood, rage—
Somehow he staggered to his feet. Somehow, with one hand clutching his stomach, he started to reach out. Somehow—
Then all the voices in his head shrieked at once, and he reflected, blasted it all back at them and—
He felt impact at the back of his head.
Then . . .
An explosion of light.
He went down. But he held to a thin, thin strand of consciousness, falling in and out of blankness.
“. . . how did he get in . . .”
“. . . how did both . . .”
“. . . saw him stabbing . . .”
Shouting. Hooves battering wood. Splintering wood.
Blankness. Then, something white, enormous, big as a house, and white, standing over him. Warm, sweet, hay-scented breath washing over him, taking some of the pain. Closing off some of the minds screaming in his head.
“Rolan! What in the name of—”
A snort. A hoof pawing the ground impatiently beside Mags’ head.
“That’s who? Mags? Then who is—”
“Never mind that, for the gods’ sake, get a Healer here!”
And that was when, mercifully, it all began to fade, voices, pain and all, leaving behind nothing but quiet, darkness, and peace.
He woke up with the warm sunlight pouring down on him, and the familiar sharp scents of herbs and soap around him. Huh. Reckon I know where I am.