Bastion

moment, I’m not sure I can trust anyone!” Jakyr shouted, and glared down at Mags. “And that’s a pretty fine pass for a Herald to come to!”
    Mags could not have agreed with him more. He was absolutely miserable. He’d have been even more miserable if it hadn’t been for Dallen quietly supporting him—literally standing next to where he was sitting—on one side, and Amily on the other.
    “You keep telling him to trust his instincts, Jakyr,” she finally said. “And now you’re telling him his instincts, and Dallen’s, and Jermayan’s can’t be trusted.”
    Jakyr glared at her, and so did Lita. “You are neither Herald nor Trainee, Amily,” he said coldly. “I suggest you stay out of this. Being besotted is no excuse for being a fool.”
    “I am my father’s daughter, Jakyr,” she replied stiffly, looking him right back squarely in the eyes. “Never forget that.”
    If Jakyr’s glare had been a storm, Amily would have been a statue of ice at that moment. But she held up under it, raising her chin and never dropping her gaze. “I have been among Heralds all my life. I have assisted my father. I have watched him train Mags. I watched him train you. If this were Mags’ judgment alone you doubted, I would agree. But it wasn’t, and by his account it was Dallen and Jermayan who persuaded him to do this, not the other way around. And besides that,” she persisted, “he participated in a full mind-share with this Bey person. You know no one can lie in a full mind-share!”
    “This is some foreign murderer with talismans and magic we don’t understand!” Jakyr exclaimed, throwing up his hands. “I don’t know anything anymore! For all I know, he was able to somehow enthrall the Companions as well!”
    Dallen gave such a snort of disgust that he left a wet spot on the shoulder of Mags’ tunic—and to underscore how he felt, he deliberately turned his hindquarters to Jakyr.
    The message could not have been plainer. With a wordless growl, Jakyr stalked off toward the front of the cave. “I’m going to shovel snow!” he snarled. “At least I can count on one thing doing what it’s supposed to around here!”
    Lita followed, pausing only long enough to call back over her shoulder, “This isn’t over, young man.”
    •   •   •
    Jakyr and Lita returned, tired, snow-caked, and still angry with Mags.
    By this point, Mags was exhausted and nearly beside himself. :What do I do?: he wailed inwardly to Dallen. :It’s not like I can take it all back!:
    :Leave them alone,: Dallen advised. :Sooner or later it will dawn on them that no one is dead, no one is drugged, or possessed by an evil spirit, or otherwise compromised. Or else Jermayan and I will finally get through to Rolan, and Rolan will—well, I am not sure what he will do, but he’ll do something.:
    And until then, it seemed, Mags was just going to have to put up with being treated like the clodhopper who tracked stable muck into the Healers’ room. During a plague.
    Amily went off to the entrance, probably to get away from all the hostility. Mags didn’t blame her. But he wasn’t going to back down on this, and the only way to make that plain was to stay there and take it. Jakyr and Lita finished eating, skewering Mags with accusing glares the entire time. They got up—
    And that was when Amily screamed from the front of the cave.
    Mags had no idea how he got from the rug to the entrance in what seemed to have been a single leap. He only knew that at one moment, he was standing, hangdog, waiting for another tirade to erupt, and the next he was pulling Amily away from the opening, away from the huge spear that was quivering in the snow not more than a couple of arm lengths away from where she had been standing, looking out.
    “Everybody get back!” Jakyr shouted, unnecessarily. Mags was already pulling Amily away, and no one else was inclined to put themselves in the line of fire.
    The spear stopped quivering. It was . . . large. The size of a boar spear, and whoever had thrown it had managed to get it over the snow parapet and well into the cave-mouth. Mags’ heart practically stopped when he thought about what that wicked point would have done had it hit Amily. There was something wrapped around the end of it and secured with a piece of bright red string or yarn. A message?
    Jakyr went back into the cave, and returned with the lid of their biggest pot. Crouching low and getting as much of himself as he could