:Don’t worry, she can’t get away from me now; I outweigh her by quite a bit. She might be a little squashed, but she can’t get me off of her.: Although he was nothing like an Empath, he was astonished by the complex emotional overtones that came with her words. Amusement at her own expense, pain, anger, grief, frantic worry for herself, more worry about Selenay and Sendar, and over all, terror held rigidly in check. And yet, her thoughts were so clear, he could hardly believe it. :Even if they get this far, they’ll have to get through me to touch her, and there’s a lot of me to act as a shield.:

He didn’t ask if she was all right; she wasn’t, none of them were. :Are you hurt?:

:My lenses are broken, and I think I broke my ankle, but that’s the least of our worries. Don’t call anyone, and don’t try and get me out of here for now. I won’t be moving anyway until this is over, or unless you have to haul her out of here and run for it. Promise me, though, if that happens, make sure I get back in my saddle? I’m curious about these Tedrels, but not that curious.:

:You have my word.: He wanted to try and summon a Healer for her, for she must be in excruciating pain, but she was right, and with luck her armored boot would hold her ankle well enough in place that no further damage would occur until they had the luxury of worrying about it. Given the kinds of terrible wounds being inflicted out there in the zone of fighting, a broken ankle counted as “minor.” There was no doubt that Myste knew what the right answers were, and was giving them, even though she probably was howling inside with terror and the “right” answers were the last thing she wanted to supply.

Probably? Given the level of terror and pain he sensed, she was howling deep in her own heart, all right. Years ago, when she refused to learn weapons’ work, this was the last thing he would have expected out of Trainee Myste.

And in that, he had done her a tremendous disservice…

And I’ll make it up if we live.

He turned his attention back to the battlefield, and for the first time, felt his heart rise, just a little.

The tide of battle was turning.