Another flash—
A man, looking up from his weeding, eyes wide, then unseeing, as the lance took him through the heart—
—like blue lightning—
Children, screaming, being herded into a pen by a dozen horsemen, while the rest set fire to the village—
"Sunlord save us—" he muttered in Karsite, automatically reverting to the language he knew best. The visions, thank the God, were silent, silent, and he could still hear, dimly, the sounds of the battlefield and the people around him.
"What?" Myste snapped behind him, in the same tongue. Thank the God she did—he wasn't sure he could even understand Valdemaran at this moment, much less respond in it. The visions shook him like a terrier with a rat.
The visions caught him up again and threatened to pull him in so far he would not be able to tell the others what he Saw; he struggled against them, against a Gift that was running away with him. :Kantor!: he cried, and a steadying presence held him out of the chaos of a hundred, a thousand disasters playing out at once inside his head. He could still see them, but at least he could manage to get a few words out.
"The cavalry has flanked us on either side, but not to attack us," he babbled in Karsite, thanking Vkandis yet again that Myste was there. Myste, who knew Karsite, who could tell the King, tell the Lord Marshal— "They're clearing the countryside—burning the villages, killing the adults, rounding up the children—"
He knew why, but he didn't have time to explain; the visions took him again, despite all of Kantor's help. A man pinned to the door of his own house by a spear. A child being wrenched from its mother's arms, and the woman tossed into the flames of her burning barn. The Tedrel cavalry, riding across the land like a wave of locusts, clearing it for its new masters, keeping only the young children, whom they would then take into their own ranks and turn into Tedrels—
He struggled to speak, but his throat and mouth were not his own, not now while the visions held him. He knew dimly that he had gone rigid as a plank, jaw clenched, unable even to whimper.
Fire. Murder. Fear. Death. It went on forever. He was the helpless observer, unable to do anything save—sometimes, in brief moments when the visions released him—babble a report of what he saw, and where it was. Names came to him, the names of villages? Villages that were not going to exist shortly—but he called them out anyway. How much was now and how much soon? How many places were far enough distant that help might come in time?
He was engulfed in a sea of horror, until, without warning, the visions let go of him entirely, and he dropped back into his own time and place.
Head swimming, he looked up through streaming eyes to find that he was clinging with both hands to Kantor's stirrup and the pommel of the saddle, that he had buried his face in Kantor's shoulder.
Sendar and the Lord Marshal were arguing at the tops of their lungs, while Selenay's gaze switched from one to the other. Her face was white and pinched, and her hands in their armored gauntlets shook.
"But then, we'll have no reserves!" the Lord Marshal shouted.
"And what good will reserves do us if every creature older than a child on this side of the Border is dead?" Sendar shouted back. He whirled and turned to Talamir. "This is a royal command, King's Own. You heard where the attackers are, now deploy the reserves and every Herald not in combat to the rescue!"
Talamir bowed his head and closed his eyes for a moment, while Taver stood as steady as a statue. "Done, Majesty," the Herald said in a perfectly calm and slightly distant voice. "But you do realize that this will leave us seriously outnumbered on this field?"
Alberich was aware of movement, massive movement, behind them. The reserve troops were moving out, to the right and the left, the cavalry first. Ahead of them, on the swiftest steeds of all, two wings of Heralds, already speeding out of sight over the crest of the ridge, like a flock of swift, white birds. Behind them, the troops pulled out, leaving their rear unprotected.
"Of course I realize it," Sendar growled, and drew his sword, with a bright metallic scrape. It glittered wickedly in the sun, matching the hard gleam in the King's eyes. "We need to end this—now. Or we won't have a country left when we win the war." There was something wild in the King's eyes that Alberich recognized; something he had felt himself, down in the taverns of Haven....
That feral look matched the savageness that he felt, when he let himself work out his frustration on the bodies of those two-legged beasts that populated Haven's criminal underground.
But he was only one Karsite Herald, and replaceable—not easily, perhaps, but replaceable. He could—marginally—rationalize risking himself. This was the King of Valdemar.
He's not— Alberich thought with sudden terror.
:He is!: said Kantor, grimly.
No—Sendar couldn't—Someone had to stop him!
And as Alberich struggled to pull himself up, the Companion gave a kind of twist and a shove with his nose just under Alberich's rump. That got Alberich most of the way into the saddle, and a gut-wrenching effort of arms and legs got him seated securely enough to turn and try to stop Sendar before he could move—
But the King was already gone, halfway down the hill, though Alberich had no idea how he could have gotten that far in so short a time.
Too late—He could do nothing for Sendar. But Sendar was Talamir's responsibility. Alberich had another.
"Stay here!" he roared to Selenay and her bodyguards, who were only just starting to react. The King's Six had—Vkandis be thanked—acted in concert with the King. They must have realized the moment he drew his blade what he intended to do; they rode with him, knee and knee, with Talamir at Sendar's right and Jadus at his left, a flying wedge that penetrated the ranks of those between them and the struggling front lines. A roar went up as the King, his banner bearer, and his escort of Heralds and Guards (and Healer!) entered the zone of fighting.
Alberich and Myste imposed themselves as a barrier between Selenay and the path to her father's side; the rest of her escort crowded in, hemming her and Caryo in among them. "Stay here!" he bellowed at her, trying to get her attention. "Selenay! Heed me!"
She had no intention of doing any such thing. He could see it in her eyes, wild with fear and grief beneath her light helm. She hit out at them with mailed fists, flailing at them as she sobbed and cursed; she sawed at Caryo's reins, she even tried to fling herself off Caryo's back and follow on foot. But there were no divided loyalties among those who were protecting her. However suicidal Sendar's action might be, however much their hearts and minds cried out to follow him and protect him, their duty was with Selenay. To keep her safe. And if there was one thing that a Herald understood—or a Guardsman—