Bastion

things. When Jermayan was clear, the others were finally under cover again, and Jakyr was deep in the cave, he signaled Dallen, and they backed, one slow step after another, until they were in the cleared entrance . . . and then under the rock. . . .and then, at last, safely deep inside.
    Then he threw himself off Dallen and ran for his friend and mentor.
    Amily was tending Jermayan, using all the skill she had acquired as Bear’s assistant. The arrow was out, and fortunately it had hit at a shallow angle along the shoulder, the head just skimming under the skin and cutting the muscle. Like a knife wound along the shoulder. Painful, and laming, but no major blood vessels had been hit, and Amily could bandage it up unaided.
    Jakyr was another story.
    He was face down on the floor with his head in Lita’s lap; the wounds were all in his back. They were cutting him out of the armor and his clothing and taking the arrows off with the armor. These were arrows meant specifically to piece armor, with heads hardly bigger than the shafts, so they came out easily. A little too easily; when they came out, the wounds started gushing blood before Bear could get pressure on them. And many of them had gone deep.
    “What can I do?” Mags asked, falling to his knees beside them, feeling that familiar sickness in his gut. The sight of all the blood, of the wounds, the exposed flesh—it made him want to flee. But Bear needed all the help he could get.
    “Put pressure here—” Bear pointed. Mags obeyed, trying not to look at the blood. He tried not to think that Jakyr could die. Bear couldn’t do any more than this—take out the arrows, try to stop the bleeding, hope nothing vital had been hit, watch for infection. He wasn’t a Gifted Healer. He couldn’t mend the wounds or make the bleeding stop.
    And he knew it, and tears were running down his face, his expression a scowl of desperate concentration. “I can’t save him,” he said, half snarling, half sobbing. “I can’t! He’s bleeding inside, and he’s losing blood too fast!” The Herald breathed raggedly, in gasps, his skin pale as wax, and he was completely unconscious. Blood oozed from wounds that Mags, Lena, Lita, and Bear were putting pressure on and pulsed out of more that they weren’t.
    :Mags,: said Dallen. :I might be able to do something.:
    The Companion rested his muzzle on Jakyr’s leg, about the only part of him that wasn’t wounded. :Become the link between me and Bear. Tell Bear to think hard about what he would do if he were Gifted. Quick!:
    “Dallen says think hard about what you’d do if you had a Gift,” Mags blurted out, and then dropped every shield he had, opening himself to Bear and Dallen and joining the two, as he did when he united the Mindspeakers and those who were not on the Kirball team.
    And then . . . he felt as if he were somehow containing Bear, Dallen, and Jakyr. It wasn’t as if he were forcing them together, it was more as if—as if they were three balls of soft, warm wax, and he the hands that held them, making them into a whole. He, himself, was not part of that whole; he stood apart; he had to stay apart, because he was providing the vessel that held them all and the pressure that held them together.
    He didn’t understand anything of what went through him, and he didn’t try. He only knew that strength was flowing out of him as fast as the blood was flowing out of Jakyr, and that this was a good thing. Because that strength had to be going somewhere, it wasn’t going into Dallen, so it had to be going to the Herald.
    Mindspeaking Heralds can aid Healers, if they are strong enough. That was something—from Dallen’s memory? It must have been—Dallen had taught him all he knew about Mindspeaking. But Bear wasn’t Gifted—
    No, but in the attempt to somehow make him Gifted, Bear’s father and brothers had described, over and over, what it was like for Gifted Healers to Heal. They had told him, shown him, day and night for over a year. He knew what should be done, just as someone who is not a dancer knows what the moves of a dance should look like. He just couldn’t do it himself.
    And Dallen didn’t know what to do . . . but had the power to do it anyway, under guidance?
    Mags started to feel dizzy, but he fought it back. He opened his eyes a moment to snatch a glance at Jakyr. The Herald wasn’t quite so pale, and the worst of the bleeding had stopped. The wound under his hands in Jakyr’s