The great horse reared and screamed unheard as its spirit fought against the fears that would have its body flee from this horror, but Hawklan entered into it and for a timeless moment the two sustained each other, moving beyond the light and the noise.
Then, as the dreadful brilliance lessened and became a shifting, ghastly, bloodstained iridescence, and the sound dwindled into a cascade of tumbling thunderclaps, Hawklan leapt down from Serian.
‘Quiet your own, before they recover their wits enough to flee,’ he shouted, then he ran among the stunned Helyadin, dragging them to their feet, staring into shocked eyes, slapping faces, thrusting unsteady forms on to equally unsteady horses, and roaring his will at all of them.
Two others were doing the same, he noted. One was Isloman; the gr
