Bastion

back stopped making that strange sucking sound, and the Herald wasn’t struggling to breathe anymore.
    But he could only spare that moment. When he took his attention off it, the bridge between Bear and Dallen wavered, the wall that held all three, Jakyr, Bear and Dallen, began to fade, and he had to get himself centered on it again. He closed his eyes and concentrated hard on holding, as if he were climbing a wall and fighting for every handhold.
    Then, just when he thought he was going to pass out himself, Dallen said, :Enough.:
    Mags let go of both ends of his bridge, dropped the containment that held them all, sagged back on his heels, and caught himself with one hand on the floor as he started to fall over sideways.
    But as he opened his eyes, he realized with a sob of relief that Jakyr was going to live.
    He was—perhaps—half-healed. Nothing like what a fully Gifted Healer could do under the same circumstances. Actually, half-healed was being generous. Bear—who did not seem to have suffered the same sort of exhaustion that Mags had—was cleaning out the punctures, tamping in powder of some sort, and moving on while Amily and Lita applied clean bandages. But the punctures themselves had stopped bleeding, the wounds into the lungs weren’t making that sucking noise, and . . . somehow Jakyr had gotten—some blood back? He certainly didn’t look as pale and waxen.
    Dallen slowly sank to his knees and then started to lay himself down on the floor of the cave. Amily scrambled to her feet. “Don’t do that!” she snapped at the Companion, who looked up at her in startled weariness. “The rock will just suck heat out of you! That’s the last thing you need, as exhausted as you are! Come on, get up!” She urged Dallen back to his feet and slowly walked him over to the area where the Companions normally slept. There, she allowed him to sink down onto the thick layer of straw that served them as a bed, got his blankets, and bundled him up.
    “What—happened?” Mags asked thickly.
    “You told me to think of what I’d do if I had a Gift, so I did. It was daft, but I did it. Then everything started healing. Like I had a Gift, only it wasn’t coming from me. I know what it was supposed to feel like if I was the one doing the Healing, the gods know my father drummed it into me for a year or more, thinking if he just told me enough times, I’d somehow sprout a Gift.” Bear finished the last of the wounds and sat back on his heels. “I can’t figure it out. It wasn’t me.”
    “It—was Dallen,” Mags replied, and sagged a little more. “An’ me too, I guess. I kinda bridged you two t’gether. Smushed you an’ Dallen an’ Jakyr into a big ball, and Dallen was able to fix some things.”
    “From the look of you, you did more than that,” Bear said skeptically.
    “Heralds with Mindspeech can feed energy to Healers so they can do more,” Amily said, as she led Jermayan, limping, to the straw. She came back as soon as she had him settled. “Father’s done it once or twice, when the Healer started to fail. It happens more often in the Field, I suppose, especially if there’s only one Healer and a lot of sick or wounded. Dallen must have been able to take what Bear knew, and energy from himself and Mags, and somehow make it all work. I guess among the three of you, Bear, Mags, and Dallen, you make half a real Healer. Which is pretty amazing if you ask me. We need to get Jakyr off the floor too.”
    “Right.” Bear got to his feet, and so did Lena. Jakyr was starting to come around again. He opened his eyes and realized his head was in Lita’s lap. Face down.
    “I’m dead,” he said, voice muffled in her leg. “Because if I’m here, she’s going to kill me.”
    “Shut up, you idiot. Or I’ll tell your village where to find you.” She leaned down and kissed his cheek. “Can you stand?”
    “Not without a lot of help.” He made an effort to move. “Not without somebody else hauling me to my feet.”
    Together they managed to get him up and get his arms draped around Bear’s neck and Lita’s. Bear and Lita more or less carried him that way, as he could barely set one foot in front of the other. They got him to Lita’s bed, which was the nearest, and put him in it, with a couple of hot stones. He passed out.
    Amily helped Mags get up, and he slumped over to the firepit and half collapsed there on the rugs. Lena bustled about, getting food warmed and making tea with plenty of