He barely had time to recognize two of the three as Savil and Jaysen before battle was joined.
Once again he started to black out, feeling as if something was trying to pull his soul out of his body. He fought against unconsciousness, though he felt as if he had nothing left to fight with; both the rage and the despair were gone now, leaving only an empty place, a void that ached unbearably.
He felt a tiny inflowing of strength; it wasn't much, but it was enough to give him the means to fight the blackness away from his eyes, to fight off the vertigo, and to finally get a precarious hold on the world again.
The first thing he saw was Tylendel; still on his knees, but no longer weeping. He was vacant-eyed, white as bleached linen, and staring at his own blood-smeared hands. Where the five creatures had been there was now nothing; only the mangled body of Gala and the burned and churned-up earth.
Taking her hand away from his shoulder was Savil - her face an unreadable mask.
Savil pulled her attention away from Tylendel, who was slumped in a kind of trance of despair beside her, and back to what Vanyel was telling the other two Heralds.
"… then she said, 'I don't know you, you aren't my Chosen,' " the boy whispered, eyes dull and mirroring his exhaustion, voice colorless. "And she turned her back on him, just turned away, and charged those things."
"Buying time for us to get here," Jaysen murmured, his voice betraying the pain he would not show. "Oh, gods, the poor, brave thing - if she hadn't bought us those moments, we'd have come in on a bloodbath."
"She repudiated him," said Lancir, the Queen's Own, as if he did not believe it. "She repudiated him, and then-"
"Suicided," Savil supplied flatly, her own heart in turmoil; aching for Tylendel, for the loss of Gala, for all the things she should have seen and hadn't.. "Gods, she suicaided. She knew, she had to know that no single Companion could face a pack of wyrsa and survive."
Tylendel sat where they had left him; unseeing, unspeaking - all of hell in his eyes. Mage-lights of their own creation bobbed overhead, pitilessly illuminating everything.
Jaysen contemplated Savil's trainee for a long moment, but said nothing, only shook his head slightly. Then he spared a glance for Vanyel, and frowned; Savil heard his thought :The boy is still tied to the Gate, sister. He grows weaker by the moment. If you want him undamaged - :
Unspoken, but not unfelt, was the vague thought that perhaps it would be no bad thing if Vanyel were to be "forgotten" until it was too late to save him from the aftereffects of the Gate-magic. That undercurrent of thought told Savil that Jaysen placed all of the blame for this squarely on Vanyel's shoulders.
:It wasn't his fault, Jaysen: she answered, heartsick, and near to weeping, but unable to be anything other than honest :He didn't do anything worse than go along with what 'Lendel wanted without telling me. What happened was as much due to my negligence as anything he did.:
Jaysen gave a curt nod, but a skeptical one :In that case, we need to get that Gate closed down as soon as possible, or the boy will sicken - or worse.:
No need to ask what that "worse" was; Vanyel was already looking drawn, almost transparent, as the Gate pulled more and more of his life-force from him. How Tylendel, half-trained, and Vanyel, unGifted, had managed that, Savil had no notion - but they dared not break the link until they didn't need the Gate anymore.
:Fine, but what are we going to do about all that mess?: Savil asked, nodding her head at the milling crowd, the mangled corpse of the single victim the wyrsa had killed, and the pathetic body of the Companion :Somebody had better take them in hand, or no telling what they'll get up to. Go in for a wholesale slaughtering-party on Tylendel's people, make up some kind of tale about Heralds being in on this - :Even a hair away from breaking down into tears, she was still thinking; she couldn't help it.
:l'll stay here,: Lancir volunteered :Elspeth can do without me for a moon or so. I'll take care of the Leshara and see to - :his thought faltered : - Gala.:
:And you'll get home how?: Jaysen asked, concerned : We're going to shut the Gate from the other side as soon as we're through, and you aren't up to Gating by yourself these days.:
:Like ordinary mortals,: he replied, with a deathly seriousness :On our feet.:
:What - what are we going to do about - :Savil's eyes flicked to Tylendel and back; the boy was still staring vacantly into space, his face pale and blank, his eyes so full of inward-turned torment that she could scarcely bear to look into them for fear she would break down and cry.
:I don't know,: Lancir replied bleakly.. :I just don't know. There's no precedent. Get the boy home; worry about it when you've got time to think about it. Ask your Companions; it was one of their number that died. That's all I can think of. But you'd better get on with it if you expect to leave the other boy with a mind.:
"Jays, take Tylendel, will you?" Savil said aloud, reaching for Vanyel's arm and pulling him to his feet. "Lance-"
"Gods with you, heart-sibs," said the Queen's Own, pity and compassion momentarily transforming his homely face into something close to saintly, like that of a beautiful carved statue. "You'll need their help. Taver?"
His Companion sidled up to him and held rock-still for Jaysen to help him to mount; like the Queen, like Savil, Lancir was feeling his age these autumn days, and needed the boost into place that Jaysen gave him. But once in the saddle, he resumed the strength and dignity of a much younger Queen's Own - the man he had been twenty years ago. Taver tossed his head, and walked with calm and quiet steps toward the shocked, confused mob of Leshara at the other end of the garden.
Jaysen tugged on Tylendel's arm; the boy rose, but with the automatic movements of someone spellbound, his attention still turned within himself. The Seneschal's Herald led the way to the Gate, followed closely by his Companion, and guiding the boy with a hand at his shoulder.
He cast a look back at Savil. "I don't fancy the notion of the ride we have ahead of us - too many things to go wrong on the way. You know more about this spell than I do - do you think you can reset this Gate to bring us out at the Palace?"
She wrenched her attention away from the unanswerable problem of what to do about the boys, and contemplated the structure of the Gate. The portal at this end was an ornamental gazebo in the center of the blasted garden. Through the arch of the entrance lay the dark of the ruinous cottage yard.
"I don't see any problem," she replied, after study. "I can bring us out in the Grove Temple, if that's all right."
"That should do," Jaysen said, eyeing the sky on the other side of the portal, which was flickering with lightnings. "Good gods - why did that blow in? There wasn't a storm due."
"Don't look so surprised, Jays," she growled, needed to lash out at something and using his absentmindedness to make him the target. "I've told you a dozen times that Gating plays merry cob with the weather. That's why I don't like to use Gates. It's going to get worse when I reset it, and all hell will break out when I collapse it."