Gods - now what do I do ?
“What in hell is going on?” a voice shrilled behind him.
He whirled, to find Shandi, clad only in a knee-length shift and barefoot, staring at him out of confused and terrified eyes. Her sleep-tangled hair had fallen half over one of her eyes, and she shoved it out of her face with impatient fingers.
“The camp’s gone crazy, Karles is frantic, and Keisha’s gone and there’s something I - we - have to do with her!” she exclaimed, sounding more than a little frantic herself. “What’s happening? Where’s my sister? What is it we have to do?”
As quickly and succinctly as possible, Darian explained the events of the last twelve candlemarks. He got a little shrill toward the end, himself, and Shandi stared at him with a blank expression, while her Companion fidgeted and pranced with anxiety.
She hit her forehead with the butt of her palm, muttering to herself. “You - me - Keisha. What do we have in common?” Balling both hands into fists and pressing them into her temples, she squeezed her eyes shut and her features contorted with pain. “What in hell do we have in common? Why am I here? Why do I have to be here?”
Gods! he thought bitterly, thinking that she meant that she didn’t want to be there. Why couldn’t she be another Healer? Then at least she‘d have been of some use to -
From out of the thin morning air, the answer came to him, in the dryly amused voice of his teacher, Firesong.
He ran to Shandi and shook her shoulders with impatience. “Can you work with Healers?” he demanded. “Have you?”
Her eyes sprang open and she gaped at him. “Yes, of course - ”
As they stared into each others’ eyes, they all but shouted in unison. “That’s it!”
For the second time that morning, Darian found himself clinging to a Companion’s bare back, this time with Shandi behind him. Karles must have taken directions straight from his memory, for the Companion wove his way through the forest unerringly, and at speeds that would have guaranteed an accident had he been anything but a Companion. He had only time to call to Kuari -
:Find dyheli! Find Tyrsell! Bring him where we were last night and quickly!:
Then there was no time for anything but hanging on.
When they burst into the little glade where the tent was pitched and flung themselves from Karles’ back, Hywel jumped to his feet with his dagger drawn, then stopped himself just short of attacking them. Darian paid the boy no attention. His eyes looked only for Keisha, and when he saw her, he exclaimed in shock.
“Damn!” Shandi swore. “She’s lost! Darian, link with her, now!”
He didn’t have to be told. Keisha was a ghostly white, she trembled where she sat, and it looked as if they hadn’t reached her a moment too soon. She was caught, trapped in battling a disease she couldn’t conquer - if she’d had more practice, she would know how to break free, but of course she had never Healed a life-threatening illness before.
Darian flung himself down beside her and grabbed one hand, as Shandi did the same on her opposite side; they threw their spirits into linkage with hers as swiftly as if they had done so every day for their entire lives.
There was a rude shock for a moment as they jockeyed for position, and then they melded into a seamless whole. He poured energies spun out of the life all around them into the fading Healer; Shandi did the same, but her energies came, not from around her, but from her Companion. Neither of them saw what Keisha saw and fought, but they felt the battle going on within the boy, and Keisha’s renewed strength as she threw off the intolerable burden of exhaustion, gathered her resources, and flung herself back into the fight.
And for a moment, Darian felt her soul-tearing fear that even this would not be enough.
He willed more than energy into her; he willed courage, and the memory of that anguished voice crying out, demanding that his sons be returned to him.
Whether that was the reason or not, at that moment, the tide of battle turned. Keisha began to gain ground against the fever. Shandi and Darian held steady, and with a last desperate outpouring of power, Keisha broke the fever’s hold!
Shandi dropped out of the meld; Darian held longer, as she chased down the last traces of the illness and burned them away. Only then did he separate himself from her, and return his focus to the ordinary world.
“We’re still not done,” Shandi said grimly, as he opened his eyes and caught Keisha as she half-collapsed against him. “There’s a war about to start out there!” She turned to Hywel. “Your father thinks we’ve sent demons to kidnap you and your brother, and he’s got every intention of cutting his way through us to get to you.”
Hywel’s mouth and eyes went round - and Darian’s estimation of his intelligence took a giant leap upward. “Take Jendey!” he cried. “Take him up before you on the Spirit Horse! We will follow with the Wise One!”
Hywel placed one hand on Karles’ forehead as Shandi threw herself on the Companion’s back; Karles snorted and nodded vigorously. The young northerner bent and picked up his brother - sleeping deeply, too deeply to stir, but without the hectic flush of fever in his cheeks, and no longer tossing in delirium. Shandi reached down for the child, and cradled him in front of her, seizing a handful of mane to keep herself steady.
Karles shot off; Hywel leaned down to help Keisha to her feet. She was still coming out of Healing Trance, blinking at them with bewildered eyes, her legs as shaky as a newborn fawn’s.
“Hywel’s the Chief’s son?” she murmured, proving that although she looked no more than half-aware, there was little wrong with her mind or her ears. Darian draped her arm over his shoulder, as Hywel did the same on her other side. “Why didn’t you tell us?” she asked, turning her gaze on the young northerner.
“I did not think of it,” was his honest reply. “For us, to be Chief’s son is to be no different from any other man. It does not mean that I will be chosen as Chief. I am just another hunter of Ghost Cat.”
“Obviously your father doesn’t see things that way,” Darian retorted.
The call of an eagle-owl rang out above their heads, startling all of them. :Bondmate, they come!: Kuari called in his mind, as the hoof-beats of several dyheli at the gallop reached their ears.
Tyrsell skidded to a halt on the moss, with Pyreen and Meree right beside him. Darian helped Keisha up onto Meree’s back, then aided the slightly reluctant Hywel onto Pyreen. This was no time to worry about the mere discomfort of naked dyheli spines. “Don’t grab the horns, grab the neck-brush!” Darian ordered, as he clambered onto Tyrsell. “And hang on tight!”
Dyheli weren’t quite as swift as Companions, but they came a close second; they caught up with Karles and Shandi, who had inexplicably stopped at the edge of the cleared area containing the Ghost Cat encampment.