The dark-charcoal palace walls cupped the courtyard on three sides, the wall they'd just passed beneath forming the fourth. There must have been a hundred lanterns burning.
He only got a glimpse of confusion; to his right, half a dozen armed and armored men, and a Companion down and moaning on the black cobbles. To his left-a younger Companion, blood streaked shockingly red on his white coat, teeth bared and screaming with rage and battle - fury; a blond boy clinging dazedly to his back, and-
It was like something out of his worst nightmares. A Herald, with a heavy carter's whip, beating the stallion until his skin came away in strips and blood striped bright on the snowy hide, trying to separate him from the boy.
Yfandes literally rode the Herald down, swerving at the last moment to shoulder him aside instead of trampling him. Vanyel leaped from her saddle as he had so many times before in Border - fights; hit the cobbles and tumbled to kill his momentum, and sprang to his feet with sword drawn.
He didn't give the other Herald a breath to react. Whatever insanity was going on here had to be stopped. Without thinking, Van reversed the grip on the sword in his hand.
And lashed up to catch the stranger squarely on the chin with a handful of metal.
The other Herald went flying backward, and landed in an untidy heap.
Damn, he's still moving.
Vanyel put himself in righting stance between the young stallion and his abuser. He touched the young ones' minds just long enough to try and get some sense out of either the boy or the stallion - but from the first picked up only shock, and from the second, fear that drowned everything else out.
Vanyel pulled on the power within him, feeling it leap, wild and undisciplined, as the other Herald staggered to his feet, bleeding from a split lip, and prepared to lash out with the whip again. Flinging out his left hand, Van sent a lash of his own, a lash of lightning from his outstretched finger to the whipstock. The spark arced across the space between them with a crackle and the pungent smell of burning leather, and the dark, sallow-faced Herald dropped the whip with an exclamation of pain. Behind him, Yfandes was holding off the armsmen with squeals, lashing hooves and bared teeth; faced with her anger, they were not inclined to come to the Herald's rescue.
"What in hell do you think you're doing?" Vanyel thundered, letting the other feel his outrage, a wave of red anger. The older man backed up an involuntary pace. "What in the name of the gods themselves is going on here?"
Vanyel sheathed his sword then. The other Herald drew himself up, nursing his injured hand against his chest, rubbing the blood off his bruised chin with the other. "Who are you to interfere -" he began, his face a caricature of thwarted authority.
Vanyel tried to Mindspeak, but the other's channel was weak, and he was blocking it besides. And the personality was not one for much hope of compromise. Stolid and methodical - and affronted by the stranger's intervention in his jurisdiction. The young stranger, too young, surely, to have any authority.
Gods bless - I'm going to have to pull rank on this thickheaded idiot. And he's never going to forgive me for that.
And the only reason I didn't put him out is because he's so damn thick - headed!
"Herald-Mage Vanyel Ashkevron," Vanyel cut him off. "Called Demonsbane, called Shadowstalker, First Herald-Mage in Valdemar. I outrank you, Herald, and your damn fool actions tonight called me out of my bed and across the Border. You've exceeded your authority, and I'm ordering you to let this boy be. Who in hell are you?”
Vanyel could feel the older man's resentment and smoldering anger, heavy and hot, a ponderous weight of molten emotional metal. "Herald Lores," he said sullenly, rubbing his hand. "King Randale's envoy to the court of Lineas."
Over his shoulder, Vanyel watched Yfandes backing away from the armsmen. She cautiously nudged the downed Companion's shoulder-still keeping one eye on them. After a couple of false tries, the other mare managed to get back to her feet, but stood with her head down and her legs splayed and shaking.
:'Fandes?:
:She 's Hearing again, and Speaking, a little; when you got her Chosen to stop, it resolved the conflict inside her -
but she is not well. She is still in turmoil, and her heart bleeds :
:Take care of her.: He turned his attention back to Lores. "Tell me – slowly - just what you thought you were doing, taking a whip to a Companion, trying to drive him away from his Chosen."
Lores snarled. "That boy is a bloody-handed murderer, and that thing you call a Companion is his demon shape - changed! He called it up and was trying to escape on it."
"What?" Vanyel backed up a step, inadvertently bumping into the young stallion, who snorted in alarm but stood rock - steady, ready to protect his Chosen against anything, be it man, beast, or creature of magic. Vanyel reached out, still keeping his eyes on Lores, and laid his hand along the stallion's neck. If anyone in the wide world would know what a demon "felt" like, he did, after having them close enough to score his chest with their claws, and after turning them back against Karse! He extended his mind toward the young stallion's, and touched again, gently. No demonic aura met his mind, only the pure, bright, blue - white pulsing that was the signature of a Companion, an aura that only a Companion, of all the creatures he had ever Mindtouched, possessed.
Anger rose in him, as his hand came away bloody, and the young stallion shivered in fear and pain. He clenched his fist and stared at the older Herald. "You -" he groped for words. "If I didn't know Randale, and know that neither he nor Shavri would send anyone at all unbalanced out here as an envoy, I'd say you were insane." The man gaped at him, taken completely aback. "As it is, I'm forced to say I've never encountered anyone so incredibly stupid in my life!" He relaxed his clenched fist and patted the stallion's neck without looking around, then advanced on Lores with such anger filling him that he was having trouble keeping his voice controlled. "What in hell makes you think this youngster is a demon?"
"You could be fooled, spell-touched-"
"Not bloody likely! And a demon could never fool my Companion, nor yours. Gods, man, if they wouldn't know. After she Chose, and after - her Chosen - was pressed past all sanity. It has no bearing on what happened here. You would not listen to your own Companion try to tell you the truth."