The Wheel of Time

by Robert Jordan

  Each step Rand took dripped blood to the ground. Nynaeve and Moiraine clung to stalagmites as if something were battering them, a wind that Rand could not sense. Nynaeve closed her eyes. Moiraine stared straight ahead as if determined not to look away, no matter the price.

  Rand turned aside Moridin’s latest attack, the blades throwing sparks. He had always been the better swordsman of the two, during the Age of Legends.

  He had lost his hand, but thanks to Tam, that no longer mattered as it once might have. And he was also wounded. This place … this place changed things. Rocks on the ground seemed to move, and he often stumbled. The air grew alternately musty and dry, then humid and moldy. Time slipped around them like a stream. Rand felt as if he could see it. Each blow here took moments, yet hours passed outside.

  He scored Moridin across the arm, drawing his blood to spray against the wall.

  “My blood and yours,” Rand said. “I have you to thank for this wound in my side, Elan. You thought you were the Dark One, didn’t you? Has he punished you for that?”

  “Yes,” Moridin snarled. “He returned me to life.” Moridin came swinging hard in a two-handed blow. Rand stepped backward, catching the blow on Callandor, but he misjudged the slope of the ground. Either that, or the slope changed on him. Rand stumbled, the blow forcing him down on one knee.

  Blade against blade. Rand’s leg slipped backward, and brushed the darkness behind, which waited like a pool of ink.

  All went black.

  * * *

  The distant Ogier song was comforting to Elayne as she slumped in her saddle atop the hill just north of Cairhien.

  The women around her weren’t in any better shape than she was. Elayne had gathered all of the Kinswomen who could hold on to saidar—no matter how weak or tired—and formed two circles with them. She had twelve with her in her own circle, but their collective strength in the Power at the moment was barely more than that of a single Aes Sedai.

  Elayne had stopped channeling in an attempt to let the women recover. Most of them slumped in their saddles or sat on the ground. In front of them extended a ragged battle line. Men fought desperately before the Cairhienin hills, trying to hold against the sea of Trollocs.

  Their victory over the northern Trolloc army had been short-lived, as they now found themselves strung-out, exhausted and in serious danger of being surrounded by the southern one.

  “We almost managed,” Arganda said from beside her, shaking his head. “We almost made it.”

  He wore a plume in his helmet. It had belonged to Gallenne. Elayne hadn’t been there when the Mayener commander had fallen.

  That was the frustrating part. They were close. Despite Bashere’s betrayal, despite the unexpected arrival of the southern force, they had almost pulled it off. If she’d had more time to position her men, if they’d been able to catch more than a moment’s breather between defeating the northern army and then turning to meet this southern one …

  But that was not the case. Nearby, the proud Ogier fought to protect the dragons, but the Ogier were slowly being overrun. The ancient creatures had begun to collapse, like felled trees, pulled down by Trollocs. One by one, their songs broke off.

  Arganda held a bloodied hand to his side, pale-faced, barely able to speak. She didn’t have the strength to Heal him. “That Warder of yours is a fiend on the battlefield, Your Majesty. Her arrows fly like light itself. I’d swear…” Arganda shook his head. He might never hold a sword again, even if Healed.

  He should have been sent with the other wounded … somewhere. There wasn’t really anywhere to take them; the channelers were too exhausted to make gateways.

  Her people were fracturing. The Aiel fought in clumps, the Whitecloaks nearly surrounded, the Wolf Guard in no better shape. The Legion of the Dragon heavy cavalry still rode, but Bashere’s betrayal had shaken them.

  Now and then, a dragon fired. Aludra had rolled them back up to the top of the highest hill, but they were out of ammunition, and the channelers didn’t have strength to make gateways to Baerlon to fetch the new dragons’ eggs. Aludra had fired bits of armor until her powder ran low. Now they had only enough for the occasional shot.

  The Trollocs would push through her lines soon, fragmenting her army like ravenous lions. Elayne watched from one of the hilltops, guarded by ten of her Guardswomen. The rest had gone to fight. Trollocs broke through the Aiel to the east of her position, right near the dragoner hilltop position. The beasts charged up the hill, killing the few Ogier defenders on that side, roaring their victory as the dragoners pulled out sabers and grimly stood to defend.

  Elayne wasn’t ready to let the dragons go yet. She gathered strength through the circle; women groaned around her. She took up barely a dribble of the Power, far less than she’d hoped, and directed Fire at the lead Trollocs.

  Her attack arced in the air toward the Shadowspawn. She felt she was trying to stop a storm by spitting at the wind. That lone ball of fire hit.

  The earth exploded beneath it, ripping the hillside and hurling dozens of Trollocs back in the air.

  Elayne started, causing Moonshadow to shuffle beneath her. Arganda cursed.

  Someone rode up beside her on a large black horse, emerging as if from smoke. The man was tall and well-built and had darks curls of hair down to his shoulders. Logain looked thinner than she remembered from last time she’d seen him, his cheeks sunken, but his face was still handsome.

  “Logain?” she said, shocked.

  The Asha’man gestured sharply. Explosions sounded all across the battlefield. Elayne turned to see over a hundred men in black coats marching through a large gateway on top of her hill.

  “Pull those Ogier back,” Logain said. His ragged voice was raw. Those eyes of his seemed darker now than they once had been. “We will hold this position.”

  Elayne blinked, then nodded for Arganda to pass the command. Logain shouldn’t give orders to me, she thought absently. For the moment, she let it pass.

  Logain turned his horse and rode to the side of the hilltop, looking down at her army. Elayne followed, feeling numb. Trollocs fell as Asha’man called up strange attacks, gateways that seemed tied to the ground somehow. They stormed forward, killing the Shadowspawn.

  Logain grunted. “You’re in bad shape.”

  She forced her mind to work. The Asha’man were here. “Did Rand send you?”

  “We sent ourselves,” Logain said. “The Shadow has been planning this trap for a long time, according to notes in Taim’s study. I only just managed to decipher them.” He looked at her. “We came to you first. The Black Tower stands with the Lion of Andor.”

  “We need to get my people out of here,” Elayne said, forcing her mind to think through the cloud of fatigue. Her army needed a queen. “Mother’s milk in a cup! This is going to cost us.” She’d probably lose half her force withdrawing. Better half than all of them. “I’ll start bringing my men back in ranks. Can you make enough gateways to lead us to safety?”

  “That wouldn’t be a problem,” Logain said absently, looking down the slope. His impassive face would have impressed any Warder. “But it will be a slaughter. There’s no room for a good retreat, and your lines will grow weaker and weaker as you pull back. The last ranks will be overwhelmed and consumed.”

  “I don’t see that we have any other choice,” Elayne snapped, exhausted. Light! Here, help had come, and she was snapping. Stop it. She composed herself, sitting up straighter. “I mean to say that your arrival, while appreciated greatly, cannot turn a battle that is this far gone. A hundred Asha’man cannot stop a hundred thousand Trollocs on their own. If we could arrange our battle lines better, get at least a short rest for my men … but no. That is impossible. We must retreat—unless you can produce a miracle, Lord Logain.”

  He smiled, perhaps at her use of “lord” for him. “Androl!” he barked.

  A middle-aged Asha’man hurried over, a plump Aes Sedai joining him. Pevara? Elayne thought, too exhausted to make sense of
it. A Red?

  “My Lord?” the man, Androl, asked.

  “I need to slow that army of Trollocs long enough for the army to regroup and refield itself, Androl,” Logain said. “How much will it cost us for a miracle?”

  “Well, my Lord,” Androl said, rubbing his chin. “That depends. How many of those women sitting back there can channel?”

  * * *

  It was a thing of legends.

  Elayne had heard of the great works performed by large circles of men and women. Every woman in the White Tower was taught of these feats from the past, stories of different days, better days. Days when one half of the One Power had not been a thing to fear, when two halves of one whole had worked together to create incredible wonders.

  She wasn’t sure the days of legend had truly returned. Certainly, the Aes Sedai during those times hadn’t been so worried, so desperate. But what they did now left Elayne in awe.

  She joined in the circle, making the total fourteen women and twelve men. She barely had any strength to lend, but her trickle added to the increasingly large stream. More importantly, a circle had to have at least one more woman than it had men—and now that she had joined, Logain could come in last of all and add his considerable strength to the flow.

  At the head of this circle was Androl, an odd choice. Now that she was part of the circle, she could feel his relative strength. He was extremely weak, weaker than many women who were turned away from the Tower, refused the shawl because of their lack of innate talent.

  Elayne and the others had relocated to the far side of the battlefield. The rest of the Asha’man held back the attacking Trolloc horde as Androl prepared. Whatever he did, it would need to be swift. Elayne still had trouble believing anything could be done. Even with this much power, even with thirteen men and fourteen women working together.

  “Light,” Androl whispered, standing between her horse and Logain’s. “Is this what it feels like to be one of you people? How do you handle so much of the One Power? How do you keep it from consuming you alive, burning you away?”

  Pevara rested her hand on his shoulder in a gesture that was unmistakably tender. Elayne could barely rub two thoughts together amid her fatigue, but she still found herself shocked. She had not expected affection from a Red for a man who could channel.

  “Move the soldiers back,” Androl said softly.

  Elayne gave the order, worried. The man beside her had never held this kind of power before. It could go to someone’s head; she had seen it happen. Light send that he knew what he was doing.

  The soldiers and others retreated, passing by Elayne’s group. Several tired Ogier nodded to her in passing, their shoulders slumped, their arms scored with cuts. The Trollocs poured forward, but the Asha’man who weren’t in the circle disrupted their attack with weaves of the One Power.

  It wasn’t enough. Though the Asha’man fought well, there were just so many Trollocs. The Asha’man could not stop this tide. What did Logain think could be done?

  Androl smiled widely, and held his hands out in front of himself as if pressing against a wall. He closed his eyes. “Three thousand years ago the Lord Dragon created Dragonmount to hide his shame. His rage still burns hot. Today … I bring it to you, Your Majesty.”

  A beam of light split the air, easily a hundred feet tall. Moonshadow shied back and Elayne frowned. Why a column of light? What good would that … The beam of light began to twist in the air, rotating upon itself. Only then did Elayne recognize it for the start of a gateway. An enormous gateway, large enough to swallow buildings. She could have moved an entire wing of the Caemlyn palace through that thing!

  The air shimmered in front of them, the way a gateway always looked from behind. She couldn’t see where the gateway was leading. Did they have an army waiting on the other side?

  She could see the expressions on the slavering Trolloc faces as they looked into the opening. Absolute horror. They broke away, running, and Elayne felt a sudden heat, almost overpowering.

  Something exploded out of the gateway, as if pushed by an incredible force. A column of lava a hundred feet in diameter, blazing hot. The column broke apart as the lava crashed down, splashing to the battlefield, gushing forward in a river. The Asha’man outside the circle used weaves of Air to keep it from splashing back on the circle and to shepherd it in the right direction.

  The river of fire washed through the foremost Trolloc ranks, consuming them, destroying hundreds in an eyeblink. The lava was under pressure on the other side; that was the only way she could explain the force with which it sprayed from the enormous gateway, turning Trollocs into cinders, burning a large swath through their army.

  Androl held the gateway for long minutes as the Shadow’s army pulled back. Asha’man to the sides used gusts of wind to blow the Shadowspawn back into the ever-widening river. By the time Androl finished, he had created a barrier of red-hot death between Elayne’s army and the bulk of the Trollocs, whose backs were against the northern walls of Cairhien.

  Androl took a breath, closed the gateway, then pivoted and made two others in quick succession, one pointing southeast, the other southwest.

  A second and third column of lava spurted forth—smaller this time, as Androl was obviously weakened. These went tumbling over the land to the east and west of Cairhien, singeing away dead weeds and casting smoke into the air. Some of the Trolloc army had pulled back, but many others had perished, boxed in, with the walled city on one side and lava on others. It would be some time before the Fades could organize the survivors to resume their attacks on Elayne’s forces.

  Androl let the gateway close. He slumped, but Pevara caught him.

  “One miracle, my Lord,” Androl said, voice soft, as if strained. “Delivered as requested. That should hold them back for a few hours. Long enough?”

  “Long enough,” Elayne said. “We will be able to regroup, bring through supplies for the dragons, and fetch as many Aes Sedai from Mayene as we can get to Heal our men and wash away their fatigue. Then we can sort through who is strong enough to continue and reposition our ranks for a much more effective battle.”

  “You intend to keep fighting?” Androl asked, surprised.

  “Yes,” Elayne said. “I can barely stand, but yes. We cannot afford to leave that Trolloc horde here intact. You and your men give us an edge, Logain. We will use it, and everything we have, and we will destroy them.”

  CHAPTER

  31

  A Tempest of Water

  Egwene looked across the river at the struggle raging between her forces and the Sharan army. She had arrived back at her camp on the Arafellin side of the ford. She was itching to join the battle against the Shadow again, but she also needed to talk with Bryne about what had happened at the hills. She had arrived to find the command tent empty.

  The camp continued to fill with Aes Sedai and the surviving archers and pikemen who were coming through gateways from the hilltops to the south. The Aes Sedai were milling about and speaking to each other with some urgency. They all seemed worn out, but it was clear from their frequent glances toward the battle taking place across the river that they were as eager as Egwene was to rejoin the fight against the Shadow.

  Egwene summoned the messenger who was standing in front of the command tent. “Get word to the sisters that they have less than an hour to rest. Those Trollocs we were fighting will be joining the battle at the river soon, now that we have left the hills.”

  She’d move the Aes Sedai downriver on this side, then attack them across the water as they moved across the fields to attack her soldiers. “Tell the archers they’ll be marching with us as well,” she added. “They may as well put their remaining arrows to good use, until we can get them another supply.”

  As the messenger rushed off, Egwene turned to Leilwin, who was standing with her husband, Bayle Domon, nearby. “Leilwin, those look like Seanchan cavalry troops across the river. Do you know anything about that?”

  “Yes, Mother, they are S
eanchan. That man standing over there–” She pointed to a man with shaved temples standing by a tree down toward the river; he wore voluminous trousers and, incongruously, a tattered brown coat which looked as if it might have come from the Two Rivers. “—he told me that a legion commanded by Lieutenant-General Khirgan had come from the Seanchan camp, and that they had been summoned by General Bryne.”

  “He also said that they do be accompanied by the Prince of Ravens,” Domon interjected.

  “Mat?”

  “He did more than accompany them. He do be leading one of the cavalry banners, the ones giving the Sharans a hiding on our army’s left flank. He got there just in time, our pikemen were getting the worst of it before he showed up.”

  “Egwene,” Gawyn said, pointing.

  To the south, a few hundred paces below the ford, a small number of soldiers were hauling themselves from the river. They had stripped to their smallclothes and carried swords tied to their backs. It was too far to be sure, but one of their leaders looked familiar.

  “Is that Uno?” Egwene frowned, then waved for her horse. She mounted and galloped, with Gawyn and her guards, along the river to where the men lay gasping on the bank, and the sound of one man cursing filled the air.

  “Uno!”

  “It’s about bloody flaming time someone came!” Uno stood as he saluted in respect. “Mother, we’re in bad shape!”

  “I saw.” Egwene gritted her teeth. “I was in the hills when your force was attacked. We did what we could, but there were just too many of them. How did you get out?”

  “How did we flaming get out, Mother? When the men started dropping all around us and we figured we was goners, we flaming rode out of there like a flaming lightning bolt had struck our flaming hindquarters! We got to the frog-kissing river on the run, stripped and jumped in, swimming for all we were bloody worth, Mother, with all due respect!” Uno’s topknot danced as he continued to blaspheme, and Egwene could have sworn the eye painted on his eyepatch became a more intense red.