He'd kept Gadrial back at the very edge of their own formation, flat in a shallow ravine where she-and the men he'd assigned specifically to guard her-were out of the line of fire. Why the hell hadn't these men done the same?

Because, the stubborn back of his mind whispered in self-loathing and disgust, you left them no choice, circling around them to cut off their escape . . .

Someone came crashing toward him through the underbrush, and he lifted his gaze to see Gadrial running recklessly through the tangled wood, past dead soldiers and smoking rubble.

"Where?" she gasped, and Jasak reached out and lifted her across the five-foot fallen trunk as if she'd been a child. He set her down beside the wounded, and her breath choked on a sound of horror.

All three of the male survivors were burned. Two had been caught facing the fireball when the dragon's breath detonated amongst them, and their crisped skin and the stench of their burnt flesh twisted Jasak's stomach all over again. The third man had been facing away, or at least partially away, leaving him burned across the back. His shirt was a tattered wreck of blackened cloth. He'd been slammed into a jutting limb and fallen sideways, landing on one shoulder before sprawling across the ground, and broken ribs were visible through the tattered shirt.

"Rahil," Gadrial whispered. Jasak looked at her, saw her eyes, and flinched inwardly.

"Can you save them?" he asked, his voice hoarse. "Can you save any of them?"

She swallowed hard and nerved herself to test the pulse of the nearest burn victim. He was semi-conscious, and a hideous, gurgling scream ripped loose as his arm shifted. Gadrial whimpered, but she didn't let go.

"Rahil's mercy," she breathed, then forced herself to inhale deeply. "The others?"

Jasak led her to them. She tested their pulses in turn, her eyes closed, whispering under her breath. Power stirred about her, gripping hard enough to twist Jasak with a sharper nausea.

"It's bad-Heavenly Lady, it's bad. I can't save them all. I'm sorry. I might-I can probably keep one of them alive. Maybe . . ."

She stood, staring down at them, and Jasak felt her inner, helpless horror as she realized the hideous choice which lay before her. He started to open his mouth, to tell her which to try to save, to take the burden of that choice from her. It was both his responsibility and all he could offer her, but before he could speak, her shoulders twitched suddenly.

"Look!" She pointed at the woman's wrist, and Jasak frowned. The tiny, unconscious stranger wore a bracelet-a cuff of flexible metal that looked like woven gold. He'd already noticed that, but Gadrial was pointing at one of the wounded men, as well. He wore a matching cuff.

"That one," the magister said. "I'll-"

Her voice broke as she turned away from the others, the two who would die. The two she must let die.

She knelt beside the man with the wrist cuff. He was broken, as well as burned. The savagery of his wounds bled back through her hands, carried by her minor healing Gift, and she moaned involuntarily in the face of so much pain, so much damage . . .

She closed her eyes, rested her hands carefully on his chest, and summoned the power of her Gift. Whispered words poured from her lips, helping her shape and direct the energy she plucked from the air about her. That energy was everywhere, a vast, unseen, seething sea that rolled and thundered like a storm-swept tide. It poured out of the emptiness between mortal thoughts and the power of God and scorched down her arms, out through her hands into the injured man. It was enormous, that sea of energy, an unimaginable, infinite boil of power flying loose and wild for anyone with the Gift strong enough to touch and take it.

But Gadrial's healing Gift was only a minor arcana. She could take only a little, only a sliver of the power someone with a major healing Gift could have taken, and even that small an amount had a price.

"He's . . . stabilized . . ." she managed to whisper, and the smoke-filled clearing looped and whirled around her.

Someone caught her shoulders, steadied her, and she leaned against a shoulder that took her weight effortlessly.

She needed that support-badly-as voices swam in and out of focus. The universe seemed to dip and swerve, curtsying like a ship in a heavy sea, and the start of a brutal headache throbbed somewhere behind her eyes.

Gift shock, her trained mind told her through the chaos. The strain of someone pushing a Gift far beyond its safe limits. It had been a long time since she'd felt it, and she wandered through seconds and minutes which stretched and contracted weirdly as she tried to find her way through the chaos of the backlash.

It took what seemed a very long time, but then her senses finally cleared, and she realized she was sitting propped against Sir Jasak Olderhan himself. His arm was about her, holding her there, while he issued a steady stream of orders.

"-and when that's done, Chief Sword, I want you to take one man and confirm that class eight portal. I want to finish that, at least, whatever else we do. I hate to give you up, but I want my best man in charge out there. Just be damned careful. We didn't-I didn't-mean to massacre these people, and I don't want anyone shooting at anyone else. Is that clear?"

"Very clear, Sir."

"Good. Just tiptoe in and tiptoe out, do whatever it takes to avoid further contact. Any questions?"

"No, Sir."

"Move out, then. The sooner you go, the likelier you are to get there and back before anyone realizes these people aren't coming home."

Jasak's voice went bleak and grim on the final few words. He could only hope the other side hadn't sent a runner ahead with a message. If they had . . .

"Keep your eyes open, Chief Sword, but don't dawdle. If they've dispatched a runner, I want him-alive and unharmed."

"Yes, Sir."

Threbuch saluted and turned away. Jasak watched him go, then noticed that Gadrial was watching him.

"Feeling better?" he asked quietly, moving the arm which had held her upright, and she nodded and sat up.

"Yes. Thanks." Her voice was hoarse, but it didn't quiver. "What we do now?"

Jasak glanced at the still-unconscious woman and the man Gadrial had pulled back from the brink.

"We have to get them back to the swamp portal before we can airlift them out. We can't get a dragon here in time. The nearest is at the coast, seven hundred miles from our entry portal. First it'd have to get there, then fly cross-country to meet us, and once it touched down out here-" he pointed at the clearing "-it wouldn't be able to take off again. Not enough wing room to get airborne fast enough to clear the trees. A battle dragon might be different-they're smaller, faster. They can dive, strike, and lift off again in a much smaller space. But transport dragons need a lot of wing room."

He sounded so calm, so controlled, Gadrial thought. Except for the fact that that calm controlled voice of his was telling her things he knew perfectly well she already knew.

"What about clearing a landing zone?" she asked. "Could you burn down some of the trees with the infantry-dragons?"

Jasak shook his head and gestured at the scorched trunks the enemy had found shelter among. They were smoldering, badly scorched, but mostly intact.

"Look for yourself. A dragon is designed to burn people," he said bitterly, "not to knock down trees. We do have some incendiary charges that could bring down even a tree that size," he nodded towards a towering giant, six feet thick at the base, "but not enough to clear a landing field long enough for a dragon to take off again. We'd need ten times as many as we've got to do that.

"We're Scouts, Magister Kelbryan, not heavy-combat engineers. No. The only hope is to get the wounded back to the swamp portal, or at least to someplace with enough open space for a transport dragon to take off, as well as land." Jasak glanced at the man Gadrial had saved. "Can he be moved? Without jeopardizing his life?"

"I don't know." She ran a weary hand through her hair while she struggled to focus her thoughts. "Probably. I'll know more when I touch him again. He shouldn't be moved right away, though. We'll have to get them out of this, I know." She motioned at the smoldering wreckage surrounding them. "But not far-not yet. Even the little I've done so far will have exhausted him."

Jasak nodded somberly. He'd seen what saving the man had done to Gadrial, and the healing Gift drew deeply upon the reserves of the injured person, as well.

"We can do that," he said. "And he'll have at least a little while to stabilize before we can pull out. We have a few things to do that will take some time."

He looked out across the open ground where so many of his men-good men, among the best in the Andaran Scouts-had died because of one man's colossal stupidity. And because of another man's even greater stupidity in not relieving a dangerous, incompetent fool of command, whatever regulations and the articles of war said.

Gadrial turned her head, following his gaze, and her eyes were dark.

"What will you do with them?" she asked softly.

"The same thing the Chief Sword did for Osmuna." Jasak had to clamp his jaw tighter for a moment.

"Field rites," he said then, and looked down at her. She looked back, her expression puzzled, and his lips tightened. "I take it you've never seen them?" he said almost harshly.

Gadrial shook her head. The only thing she knew about "field rites" was that military commanders were sometimes forced by necessity to abandon their dead. Procedures had been developed for just that sort of emergency, but that was all she knew about it. She thought he might explain, but he didn't. Instead, he turned to Platoon Sword Harnak, his senior noncom now that he'd sent Otwal Threbuch away, and indicated the other two wounded men with a gentle, curiously vulnerable wave of his hand.

"Have someone stay with these men until . . . until they're not needed, Sword. No man should die alone."

Harnak nodded grimly, and Jasak inhaled and nodded at the girl and the man Gadrial had saved.

"I want these two moved out of this hellish pile of timber. But for pity's own sake, take care with him. He's got to survive, Harnak."

Gadrial realized there was more to Jasak's almost desperate insistence than any mere intelligence value living prisoners might represent. Jasak Olderhan was a soldier, but no murderer, Gadrial realized, and even she recognized that these people hadn't stood a chance once his support weapons opened fire on them. Now she felt his granite determination to snatch at least some of them back from the jaws of death . . . whatever it took.

"Yes, Sir." Harnak's acknowledging salute, like his voice, was subdued. Exhausted.

Gadrial knew how the sword felt. She watched Jasak smooth a tendril of long, dark hair away from the unconscious woman's face. His fingertips were so gentle, so tender, Gadrial felt tears prickle at the corners of her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she thought she heard him whisper, but it might have been only the wind. Then he pulled himself together and got busy organizing his surviving troopers for the farewell they would soon bid to far too many brave men.

And to one arrant coward, a small voice whispered deep inside Gadrial Kelbryan. She looked at the wounded, the dying, the dead, and knew it would be hard not to spit on Garlath's grave.

Shaylar didn't want to wake up. She wanted to be dead. For long moments, she couldn't remember why-she was just certain that whatever ghastly thing waited for her was too terrible to bear living through. She whimpered, wanting her mother. Wanting someone who could hold her close and whisper that everything was all right. That everything would be as it should, and not as it was, torn with screams and flame, the sight of her beloved- She jerked back from the memory, but not in time. Pain-hot and terrible-gripped her heart with savage, shredding claws.

Jathmar!

She tried to touch him through the bond, but there was something wrong, dreadfully wrong, inside her head. Pain throbbed relentlessly, leaving her dizzy and sick. And, far worse, Voiceless. She couldn't Hear Jathmar, and even though she tried, she couldn't Hear Darcel, either. There was nothing but pain. Nothing else in the universe . . .

Someone touched her.

She flinched violently, whimpering again as fresh pain exploded through her. But the touch returned, gentle, soothing her, drawing her back from the crumbling edge of sanity. Reluctantly, she opened her eyes and blinked in the dappled light streaming down through golden treetops.

A woman knelt beside her. Not a uniformed soldier-a woman, dressed much the way Shaylar was, in sturdy and practical clothes. She was lovely, in the delicate, porcelain way of Uromathian women, but Shaylar knew this woman didn't come from Uromathia. Nor from anywhere else Sharonians had ever set foot.

The stranger's dark eyes were shadowed with grief and the lingering shock of having witnessed something too horrible to face. There was strength in those eyes, the strength of gentle compassion and something else Shaylar couldn't quite define.

The not-Uromathian woman moved slowly and carefully, as if she understood without words that a rapid movement would send Shaylar skittering in terror. She held up a canteen-despite its unfamiliar shape, it couldn't be anything else-and poured carefully into a small metal cup. A hand eased under Shaylar's head, lifted a little- -and pain exploded through her. A cry choked loose, and her hands dug into the ground in spastic response. But she felt the other woman touch the side of her head. She murmured something, so softly Shaylar wasn't even sure she'd heard words at all, and then the pain in her head eased a little. Shaylar opened her eyes and stared, wondering what had just happened. She knew from experience what the touch of a telempathic Healer felt like, and this was nothing like that.

Fear stirred uneasily once more, despite the dampening down of the pain and nausea. Whoever-and whatever-she was, the woman held the cup to Shaylar's lips, and Shaylar drank deeply. The water felt glorious to a throat made raw by screams and smoke.

Memory struck her down again. Smoke. Flame. Jathmar burning in the center of the fireball. She began to cry, helplessly, and the woman held her, rocked her gently.

Shaylar's Talent roared wide open. She couldn't hear thoughts; her wounded head throbbed without mercy, and the language would have been wrong, in any case. But the other woman's emotions spilled into her, hot as peppered Ricathian whiskey, yet gentle and filled with sorrow and compassion.

They didn't mean for this to happen.

She didn't know how she knew it, but Shaylar knew. As certainly as if the woman had told her, mind to mind, she knew . . . and knew it was the truth. They hadn't meant for the fighting, the death, to happen at all. Deep currents of someone else's emotions washed over her: bitter regret, a sorrow so deep it ached, a sense of helpless grief, smoldering anger at someone-a specific person, somehow to blame for all the agony and destruction. Shaylar felt it all, and with it came a bleak, terrible desolation all her own.

Deep, wrenching sobs shook her, and then the other woman was urging her to turn around. Was speaking softly but urgently, pointing at something nearby. Shaylar turned reluctantly, resisting the pressure, unwilling to face whatever it was, but the not-Uromathian was gently, implacably insistent, and Shaylar was too weak to resist.

And then her breath caught. He lay beside her. His hair was singed; his shirt-what little remained of it-was scorched; and her breath faltered at the sight of the raw, oozing burns along his back. But his ribs were lifting and falling, slowly, steadily.

"Jathmar!"

The shriek came from her soul, and she tried to fling herself at him. But the other woman caught her back, speaking urgently again. Her fear gradually seeped through Shaylar's wild need to throw her arms about her husband and protect him from further harm. The other woman had captured Shaylar's face between her hands, was speaking in a frantic tone, trying to make Shaylar understand something vitally important.

And then she did. Jathmar was badly, desperately injured. He might yet die, and Shaylar stopped struggling to reach him. The relief in the other woman was so strong it caused the slender not-Uromathian to sag and gulp in air. Then she released Shaylar, and watched as Shaylar ruffled Jathmar's flame-damaged hair, brushed a fingertip across his cheek.

Shaylar's eyes were wet. When she looked up, so were the other woman's. They sat beside Jathmar, both of them weeping, and somehow the worst of the horror faded away. Whoever these people were, whatever ghastly "mistake" had ended in such carnage, there were decent and caring people among them.

Other sounds gradually penetrated Shaylar's awareness. Voices-men's voices, close by, sounding well organized, busy, and deeply grim. She looked around, trying to find other survivors, and saw no one else she knew. They were no longer in the clearing at all. Someone had carried them under the trees, away from the toppled timber and the scene of the massacre.

But some of that massacre's slaughter had come with them. She, Jathmar, and the woman trying to help them were surrounded by other men, men in torn and bloody uniforms. Many of them were swathed in bandages. Some lay motionless, faces waxen, hardly breathing. Others moaned in pain, and Shaylar felt a sudden, shockingly vicious stab of satisfaction as she saw the proof that her friends-her family-had not gone easily into death.

There were two other people in sight. Two more men in uniform, but these weren't wounded. They stood less than two yards away, although they weren't watching Shaylar, which both surprised and relieved her. She felt far too fragile to be stared at by men who had, just minutes previously, tried their best to murder her.

Instead, they were staring into the trees, their gazes sharp and alert. Sentries, Shaylar realized abruptly, and bitterness choked her. They might as well have saved themselves the effort standing guard. They'd already slaughtered the only Sharonians in this universe, except Darcel Kinlafia, and he was probably on his way back to the previous portal, taking with him the horrifying last minutes they'd spent in linked communication.

He probably thought she was dead-that all of them were dead. There would be no rescue attempt, unless she somehow found a way around the pain and the fracture in her Talent that had left her Voiceless. Without that, Darcel would have to believe they were dead, and Company-Captain Halifu had too few men to risk confronting these people's terrible firepower just to recover a dozen dead bodies.

Her fragile self-control wavered, threatened to break apart. She was alone, cut off from anyone who could help her, awaiting only the gods knew what fate. . . . Then she thought of Jathmar and his terrible injuries. He would need her even more desperately than she would need him, she told herself fiercely, and felt fear and the beginnings of hysteria recede. They were alive and together, and Jathmar needed her. That was all that mattered.

She looked up dully as someone walked across and stopped in front of her. He was tall and ruggedly handsome, but his eyes were burnt holes, filled with the afterimage of what he'd witnessed. There was a huge, invisible weight on his shoulders, one she'd seen a handful of times in her life. Most recently, it had rested on Ghartoun chan Hagrahyl's shoulders. It had been there when he decided they couldn't wait for Jathmar. And again, when he stood up and faced armed men without so much as a pocket knife in his hands.

He's their commander, she realized with a shock like icewater. He was simply standing there, looking at her, and his eyes held hers the way Ghartoun's had, pleading with her to understand. To somehow refrain from hating him.

Jasak watched the play of emotions across the tiny woman's face. They were as transparent as glass, and his heart ached. He'd never felt so helpless in his entire life, but there was literally nothing he could do to erase the agony that lived behind her eyes. He didn't even dare to step closer; he didn't want to see her flinch away from him.

He looked at Gadrial. She'd been crying, but she wiped her face dry, waiting for him to say what he'd come to tell her.

"Were ready to begin the field rites," he said quietly. "If you'd rather not watch . . ."

"I knew some of those men well enough to grieve for them," she said, her own voice low but steady as she stood.

"Field rites aren't for the faint of heart."

"Not everyone has an Andaran view of death." Her voice was as level as before, but it had suddenly turned much cooler.

"No, not everyone does," he said, holding her eyes steadily. "But there's been too much burning of flesh already for anyone to relish witnessing more. That's what field rites do, Gadrial. Cremation."

He'd heard the harsh burr in his own voice, and her face changed. The cool aloofness vanished, replaced by something almost like contrition.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I was thoughtless and rude. They were your men. . . ."

She looked away, but not before he saw fresh tears glittering on her eyelashes. That nearly proved his undoing, but she pulled herself back together and her eyes met his once more.

"Thank you for letting me know it was time," she said softly, and glanced down at the woman Jasak had carried here. Then she looked back at him.

"If I were her, I'd want to know," she said, even more softly.

Jasak's soul flinched, but he nodded, and Gadrial crouched beside the other woman, speaking very softly. She urged the tiny, injured woman to her feet and steadied her as her balance wavered. She was probably suffering from a concussion, at the very least, Jasak thought bitterly, hoping fervently that the blow hadn't fractured her skull.