Her head was swimming now, but she still recognized the instant in which the incredulous anger was replaced by horrified comprehension. Suddenly the only thing he was shouting was her name. Well, her name and the word 'no'.
"JANE!!" She registered his left arm encircling her, halting her slow slide toward the ground and crushing her to his side as he continued to parry blows with his sword arm – he was fighting purely defensively now, fighting to protect them – to protect her.
"Jane, Jane!" She was slipping in his grasp; she couldn't help it. She dragged one of her own arms up – it felt like she was lifting it through molasses – and fisted a bloody hand in the material of his shirt. Her head fell against his shoulder.
His voice was raw panic. "Jane, no! No, Jane, damn it, NO!"
I have not managed to save him at all, she thought foggily. I came here for nothing – worse than nothing. All I have managed to do is distract him and weigh him down. He will never survive fighting like this…
"Gunther," she managed to force out, though speaking hurt just now; speaking hurt a lot. "Gunther, you cannot… fight like this… you can… not… you have… to let go… let me go."
"Never," he positively snarled. "I hate you for this, Jane, I HATE you for this and I will never – let you – GO!"
The ground was starting to buck and tilt alarmingly beneath Jane's feet; the world to spin sickeningly. She clenched her eyes shut, but that just made the vertigo worse. She didn't want to hit the ground; she didn't think she'd get up again – ever – if she did. Still, she was determined.
She was not going to drag Gunther down.
No matter what he said about it.
She gulped in a harsh, painful breath, bit her lip to ground herself, gathered all the strength she could... and then shoved away from him, hard, letting go of his shirt as she did so.
He tried to hold onto her, but her action had caught him off-guard and he was still occupied fighting for both of their lives. She fell away from him, Gunther uttering an inarticulate cry that seemed two parts rage, one part despair.
The pain that ripped through her when she hit the ground was spectacular. Had she really thought she'd been in pain before? The very idea seemed absurd now. She hadn't known what pain was until this moment. She twisted onto her side at Gunther's feet and curled into the tightest little ball she could manage, knees to chest, as if by making herself as small as possible she could hide from some of the agony that was coursing through her.
Above her, Gunther was fighting on with renewed viciousness. The sounds of combat rolled over her as she fought to maintain consciousness. She was aware, though hazily, when he planted a foot on either side of her body, literally crouching over her in order to defend her. At one point she heard him shout, "You WILL NOT touch her!" followed by the scream of a man in mortal anguish.
After that, everything greyed out for a bit.
She came back to awareness with a jolt. Gunther was shouting her name. She wondered how long she'd been unresponsive, because it sounded as though he'd yelled himself hoarse.
"Jane! Jane, Jane! Damn you, woman, answer me! J –"
She raised her head an inch or two off the ground; swallowed and blinked hard, trying to bring her eyes back into focus. "Guhn… Gunther?" she managed to rasp.
'JANE!" He sounded beyond furious now. Nearly every word he spoke was punctuated by the ringing of metal as the battle raged on and he continued to fight.
"Do not ever –" crash! – "ever –" clang! – "EVER frighten me like that again! You keep talking to me, Jane –" death cry followed by the thud of someone falling quite near her – "I do not care whether it hurts, or how difficult it becomes; you just – keep – talking!"
He sounded mad enough to kill her.
"Wha… what do you want… me to say?" She could barely form the words. Her tongue felt thick, and thoroughly uncooperative.
"I could care less what you say, just talk, damn it, so I know you are not dead!"
She dragged in a hitching breath; it burned her. She couldn't keep her head up any longer. She managed to drag her arm out from beneath herself and crook it, dropping her head onto it instead back down to the muddy ground.
"Not next week, Jane," Gunther snarled down at her, "start talking to me, NOW!"
She had a hard time forming the words; an even harder time getting enough breath behind them to make them even borderline audible. But if this was what Gunther needed to keep him focused and fighting strong, then this was what Gunther would have. She even had a sudden inspiration what to say. Something she could recite be heart – that she wouldn't have to think too hard about.
"We… we are… Knights of the King's Guard," she gasped out, calling up words that Gunther had written when they'd been barely more than children. She had discovered his secret penchant for songwriting by accident one day, and as he had been acting more of a pest than usual just prior, she had teased him quite mercilessly.
Privately she had loved the song, committing every word of it to memory.
"We are… tough and… we are huh-hard."
"Oh, God, Jane." It sounded as if he were either choking or crying, or both at once. Jane put it down to exertion.
"When we… rat… rattle into battle, we can… we can… Gunther…"
The world was going grey again; she could feel reality slipping away from her.
"We can…" her voice was barely more than a whisper now. "We can terrify the… the cattle. We can down a dozen… flagon; we can… juh-joust with… with any…"
She trailed off. She couldn't help it. The darkness was lapping at her. She couldn't fight it. It was pulling her under. And perhaps the most frightening thing was that she wanted to let it. She was so tired, so tired –
"JANE!"
"Gunther," she croaked, "I am falling." That was what it felt like, even though she was vaguely, distantly aware that she was already on the ground. "I am falling, Gunther… help…"
"Jane, you have to hold on! Dragon is coming, I can see him, he can see ME! He is nearly here, Jane, do not let go now! Do you hear me, hold ON!"
"Dragon…?"
"Yes, Jane! Do not give up!"
And sure enough, a second or two later, she could make out the familiar whump-whump sound of his wing-beats as he came in for a landing close at hand; followed a second later by that voice she knew and loved so well.
"You called me?" he was asking tersely.
He must have used the sword again, Jane thought foggily.
"Dragon!" Gunther shouted. "It is Jane! I do not know how, but she is here and she is hurt – hurt worse than when I left her!"
"What!?" Dragon's tone was suddenly dangerous. "I thought you said she was safe at the castle!"
"Damn it, she WAS safe at the castle! Just give us some cover so that I can see how badly she is wounded!"
"Wounded? I am warning you, shortlife –" And then Dragon spotted her. She could tell by the change in his voice. "JANE!!" This was followed by a whooshing sound which Jane knew meant he had loosed an enormous gout of flame – which in turn was followed by a great many agonized screams.
Then Gunther was there, right there, dropping to his knees beside her on the cold, churned ground, smelling of leather and sweat and blood; his voice loud and insistent, right in her ear, dragging her back to full awareness when all she really wanted to do anymore was give herself over to sleep.
She was so very sleepy and besides, being awake hurt. Gunther was here, and now Dragon was here, both apparently safe; that was all she needed to know.
She wanted to let go; to let herself drift away.
And true to form, if it was something she wanted, Gunther was bound and determined to thwart it.
Typical.
He never had let her take the easy way out. Of anything.
"Jane. Jane!" He slid a hand under her, locked his arms around her, and hauled her up into a half-sitting, half-kneeling position facing him. She choked out a cry at the fresh blast of pain that rolled like a sickness through her body.
She felt herself listing to the side and flung out an arm to brace herself against the ground; the other arm she wrapped around her midsection, covering her wound. Gritting her teeth against the darkness, she raised her glassy, shocked green eyes to his.
His eyes were frantic.
She had never seen such depths of fear in them.
"Jane, show me," he said quietly. "Show me, Jane."
But she was still transfixed by his eyes. That she could be the cause of what she saw there… it was hardly conceivable.
Then his hand closed over her arm, prying it gently but firmly away from her wound.
"Oh God," he choked. "Oh, Jane. Oh, God."
Then she was slipping sideways again, but she never hit the ground. All of a sudden, she didn't quite know how, Gunther was sitting with her cradled crosswise in his lap. She heard the ripping of fabric and then something soft and wadded was being pressed against her body, right where the pain was worst.
She hissed a breath in through her teeth; her vision darkened and her eyelids fluttered. Just as the darkness was starting to carry her away, though, Gunther gave her a single, hard shake.
"Jane, no! Do not do that, you hear me!? I need you with me, you have to apply pressure here. Jane, damn you to hell, stay with me now!"
She blinked hard, trying to bring him back into focus, as above them Dragon demanded, "Gunther, what is going ON down there!?!"
"I am trying to stabilize her," Gunther called up, his eyes never leaving Jane's face as he pressed her hand down, hard, over the makeshift dressings on her wound. "Then you have to get her out of here, back to the castle, and fast – get ready to fly."
That was when Jane raised her other hand – the one not pressed to the gash in her body – and cupped Gunther's cheek with shaking fingers.
He would never know the effort it cost her – she had to fight for every inch of the paltry space that separated them. She only managed to keep her hand there for a second or two; then it fell back, leaving faint bloody streaks on his face. But she'd succeeded in her goal – she'd recaptured his full attention.
"Jane," he breathed, and his expression was tortured. "Do you even know what you have done?" And then, a heartbeat later, "That wound was meant for me." It was almost stated as a question… but not quite. And then he nodded, as if answering his own query. "It was supposed to be me."
Jane swallowed hard. She wasn't sure how much speech she had left in her, but she had to try. She had to try to make him see, to understand.
"I am not suh… sorry, Gunther," she whispered hoarsely. "Not sorry. I did… did what… I had to. I could not… sta – hand to lose you. Not now. Not ever."
Gunther's capacity for anger always had managed to surprise Jane at the oddest times, and this was no exception – for it was anger; no, not anger, but fury – that contorted his face in that moment.
"And I suppose it never occurred to you," he shouted down at her, "to consider whether I could so easily stand to lose you! You stupid, selfish – Jane, NO!!
This last was in response to the fact that she simply could not keep her eyes open any longer; they had begun to roll back in spite of her very best efforts. Her whole body was relaxing. Gunther had made it seem important – very important – that she press down precisely where he had instructed her to… but she couldn't anymore.
She just couldn't.
"JANE!" He was shaking her again, even harder now. "Jane, please no! I am sorry – I should not have said that – I am so, so sorry Jane, PLEASE –!!"
"Guh…" she breathed, "Gunth…" and then she was being crushed against him, her face buried in his shoulder, his arms wrapped around her, tighter than a vice.
"Dragon!" He was shouting. "She is not stabilizing! I cannot leave her like this! You will have to carry us both; can you do that?"
"What do you take me for, shortlife, a hatchling!?" came the snarled reply. "Of course I can carry you both, just get her on my back!"
She was being lifted then, which sent a bright new flash of pain through her and jerked a weak cry of protest from her lips. Gunther's arms clenched around her even tighter, and he let loose with an expletive she'd never heard before – one so spectacularly colorful that if she had even a little bit more energy she might have smiled despite everything.
There was nothing humorous, however, about his next words.
Her lips pressed so close to her ear that she could feel them moving, feel his breath, he hissed, "this is costing me my shot at revenge, Jane, and if you go and die on me now, I swear to God, I will never forgive you. You hear me? I will hate you to my dying day."
Then there was the familiar, weightless upsurge of lift off, the earth spiraling away below her… and then, despite the fact that she wanted so badly – so badly – to hold on for Gunther; despite the fact that his last words to her had broken her heart into a thousand tiny pieces… there was absolutely nothing.
Nothing at all.