It was Rolan—unsaddled. He did not pause as he passed her, knowing that she would not be able to mount unless he came to a dead stop. Hard on his heels came Tantris carrying Kris—who was leaning over as far as he dared, one hand wrapped in Tantris’ mane, the other extended toward her, his legs clenched so tightly she could almost feel the muscles ache. As Companion and rider passed her, Talia caught him, hands catching forearms, as she leaped and Kris pulled her up in front of him. Tantris had had to slow a trifle, and Rolan was ahead of him, but they’d not had to stop.

But there was one last obstacle to pass—the narrow passage between the inner and outer walls that led to the portcullis and the outer gate. And Talia had succeeded in shielding herself once again—so they had no warning that the walls were manned.

They galloped straight into a hail of arrows.

It was over in seconds. Fire lanced through Talia’s shoulder—just as Tantris screamed in agony, shuddered, and crashed to the ground. She was thrown forward and hit the ground stunned, with the impact breaking off the shaft of the arrow and driving the head deeper. But more agonizing than her own pain was what Kris was enduring.

Rolan paused in his headlong flight—the marksmen had let the unburdened beast go by. There was one thought only in Talia’s mind besides the agony of pain—that one of them must escape.

“Rolan—run!” she screamed with voice, heart, and mind.

He hesitated no longer, but shot through the gate just as the portcullis came crashing down, so close that she felt the sharp pain and his surge of fear as it actually carried away a few hairs from his tail.

Kris lay crumpled beside the motionless body of Tantris, so racked with agony that he could not even cry out. She tried to rise, and half-stumbled, half-dragged herself to his side. She took his pain-tortured body into her arms, desperately trying to think of anything that would help him. He was transfixed by arrows so that he looked like a straw target—but a target that bled; it had been his body and Tantris’ that had shielded her. Even in the flickering torchlight she could see that his Whites were dyed in creeping scarlet blotches that spread while she held him. She groped mindlessly for the Healing energy Kerithwyn had used; not sure what she could do with it, but driven beyond sanity with the overwhelming need to take the burden of his torment from him. She felt a kind of pressure building within her, as it had in those past times when desperation had driven her to pass the bounds of what she knew. It built past the point where she was conscious of anything outside of herself, conscious even of the agony lancing her own shoulder—