:Help my Chosen!: His voice was very clear in Maia's head; he spoke as if he expected a human to hear and understand him.

Maia been able to hear--and converse with--animals as long as she could remember, but this mental voice wasn't like that of any animal she had encountered before. It sounded more like a human, which made her wary. Shortly after the death of her parents three years ago, the people of their village suddenly and inexplicably didn't like her any more--and her brother had never liked her. Now she avoided people whenever possible. Living at the edge of Sorrows helped; she could retreat into the forest and be left alone.

Still, whatever this was, he was in distress, so she dropped the arrows and moved to his side.

"Help your chosen what?" she asked him.

:My Herald,: the horse replied. :Her name is Samira. I am Clyton.:

"Let's get this arrow out of you, Clyton," Maia said, "and then perhaps you can get closer to the ground so I can get her down without dropping her." She looked at the arrow in his leg and frowned. "This looks like one of mine," she remarked, grasping it firmly below the fletching and pulling it straight out. The horse cried out in pain, and Maia stared in horror at the arrow she was holding. It was one of hers, but the last time she had seen it the shaft had simply been sharpened to a point. Since then somebody had added metal barbs to the tip, and it had not slid out as she expected it to. Instead, it had ripped a chunk out of Clyton's leg.

"I am so sorry," she gasped. "It didn't have barbs when I saw it last!" She snatched up a cloth she used to wrap supplies in and pressed it against his leg to stop the bleeding.

:It's not that bad,: Clyton said, although she suspected him of being less than truthful. :At least we're far enough into Sorrows that the bandits aren't likely to track us here.:

"Probably not," Maia agreed. "My brother won't even come in here." Still keeping pressure on the leg, she twisted to look at the woman on his back, who had at least four arrows in her. "Bandits?" she asked. "There are usually no bandits anywhere near here."

:There are now,: Clyton said grimly. Suddenly she found herself looking through his eyes. She recognized the road leading to her family's farm, not that it was much of a farm since her parents died and her brother sold all the animals and stopped working the land.

As Clyton and his Herald approached the farm, men fired arrows--all of them barbed--from the trees on both sides of the road, and then moved into the road to surround horse and rider. She saw her brother's face clearly for a moment as he reached to grab the left side of Clyton's reins, but then everything blurred as Clyton put on a seemingly impossible burst of speed and broke out of the trap.

Maia blinked and found herself back in the present and seeing through her own eyes again. "Was that real?" she asked. "What I just saw, I mean."