Thirteen of them. And thirteen Myrddraal, gathering beneath that clouded sky. For the first time since the start of the vision, Rand felt fear. Not this. Anything but this.
What if they Turned him? This wasn’t real, but it was a version of reality. A mirror world, created by the Dark One. What would it do to Rand if they Turned him here? Had he been trapped that easily?
He began to struggle, panicked, against the bonds of Air. It was useless, of course.
“You are an interesting one,” Nynaeve said, turning to him. She didn’t look a day older than when he had left her in the cavern, but there were other differences. She wore her hair in a braid again, but her face was leaner, more … harsh. And those eyes.
The eyes were all wrong.
“How did you survive out there?” she asked him. “How did you go undiscovered so long?”
“I come from a place where the Dark One does not rule.”
Nynaeve laughed. “Ridiculous. A tale for children. The Great Lord has always ruled.”
Rand could see it. His connection to the Pattern, the glimmering of half-truths and shadowed ways. This possibility … it could happen. It was one path the world could take. The Dark One, here, had won the Last Battle and broken the Wheel of Time.
That had allowed him to remake it, to spin the pattern in a new way. Everyone alive had forgotten the past, and now knew only what the Dark One had inserted in their minds. Rand could read the truth, the history of this place, in the threads of the Pattern he had touched earlier.
Nynaeve, Egwene, Logain and Cadsuane were now members of the Forsaken, Turned to the Shadow against their will. Moiraine had been executed for being too weak.
Elayne, Min, Aviendha … they had been given over to torture, endlessly, at Shayol Ghul.
The world was a living nightmare. Each member of the Forsaken ruled as a despot over their own little section of the world. An endless autumn played out as they threw armies, Dreadlords, and factions against one another. An eternal battle.
The Blight had extended to every ocean. Seanchan was no more, ruined and scorched until not even rats and crows could survive there. Anyone who could channel was discovered as a youth and Turned. The Dark One did not like the risk that someone would bring hope back to the world.
And nobody ever would.
Rand screamed as the thirteen began to channel.
“This is your worst?” Rand yelled.
They pressed their wills against his own. He felt them, like nails being pounded into his skull, parting his flesh. He pushed back with everything he had, but the others started a thrumming pressure. Each thump, like the chop of an axe, came closer and closer to boring into him.
AND SO I WIN.
The failure hit Rand hard—the knowledge that what happened here was his fault. Nynaeve, Egwene, Turned to the Shadow because of him. Those he loved, becoming playthings for the Shadow.
Rand should have protected them.
I WIN. AGAIN.
“You think I am the same youth that Ishamael tried so hard to frighten?” Rand shouted, fighting down his terror and shame.
THE FIGHT IS OVER.
“IT HAS NOT YET BEGUN!” Rand screamed.
The reality around him shattered again into ribbons of light. Nynaeve’s face shredded, coming apart like lace with a loose thread. The ground disintegrated, and the fortress ceased to exist.
Rand dropped from bands of Air that had never been completely there. The reality the Dark One had created, fragile, unwove into its component parts. Threads of light spiraled out, quivering like the strings of a harp.
They waited to be woven.
Rand drew breath, deeply, through his teeth and looked up at the darkness beyond the threads. “I will not sit passively and suffer it this time, Shai’tan. I will not be captive to your nightmares. I have become something greater than I once was.”
Rand seized those threads spinning about him, taking them—hundreds upon hundreds of them. There was no Fire, Air, Earth, Water or Spirit here … these were somehow more base, somehow more varied. Each one was individual, unique. Instead of Five Powers, there were thousands.
Rand took them, gathered them and in his hand held the fabric of creation itself.
Then he channeled it, spinning it into a different possibility.
“Now,” Rand said, breathing deeply, trying to banish the horror of what he had seen. “Now I will show you what is going to happen.”
* * *
Bryne bowed. “The men are in position, Mother.”
Egwene took a deep breath. Mat had sent the White Tower’s forces across the dry riverbed below the ford and around the western side of the bogs; it was time for Egwene to join them. She hesitated for a moment, looking through the gateway to Mat’s command post. Egwene met the eyes of the Seanchan woman across the table, where she sat imperiously on her throne.
I have not finished with you, Egwene thought.
“Let’s go,” she said, turning, waving for Yukiri to close the gateway to Mat’s building. She fingered Vora’s sa’angreal, held in one hand as she strode out of her tent.
She hesitated when she saw something there. Something slight, on the ground. Tiny spiderweb cracks in the rocks. She bent down.
“There are more and more of those around, Mother,” Yukiri said, stooping down beside her. “We think that when Dreadlords channel, the cracks can spread. Particularly if balefire is used…”
Egwene felt them. Though they seemed like ordinary cracks to the touch, they looked down into pure nothing. Blackness, far too deep for simple cracks to have caused through shadows of the light.
She wove. All five powers, together, testing at the cracks. Yes …
She wasn’t certain exactly what she did, but the fledgling weave covered the cracks like a bandage. The darkness faded, leaving behind only ordinary cracks—and a thin film of crystals.
“Interesting,” Yukiri said. “What was that weave?”
“I don’t know,” Egwene said. “It felt right. Gawyn, have you…” She trailed off.
Gawyn.
Egwene stood up with a start. She vaguely remembered him leaving her command tent for some air. How long ago had it been? She turned around slowly, sensing where he was. The bond let her tell his direction. She stopped when she was pointing toward him.
She was looking toward the riverbed, just up from the ford, where Mat had positioned Elayne’s forces.
Oh, Light …
“What?” Silviana asked.
“Gawyn has gone to fight,” Egwene said, keeping her voice calm with effort. That wool-headed idiot of a man! Could he not wait an hour or two until her armies were in position? She knew that he was eager to fight, but he should have at least asked!
Bryne groaned softly.
“Send someone to fetch him,” Egwene said. Now her voice was cold, angry. She could not make it otherwise. “He has apparently joined the Andoran armies.”
“I will do it,” Bryne said, one hand on his sword, his other arm raised toward one of the grooms. “I cannot be trusted to lead armies. At least I can do this.”
It made sense. “Take Yukiri with you,” she said. “Once you’ve found my fool Warder, Travel to us west of the bogs.”
Bryne bowed, then retreated. Siuan watched him, hesitant.
“You may go with him,” Egwene said.
“Is that where you need me?” Siuan asked.
“Actually…” Egwene lowered her voice. “I want someone to join Mat and the Seanchan Empress and listen with ears accustomed to hearing what is not spoken.”
Siuan nodded, approval—even pride—in her expression. Egwene was Amyrlin; she had no need of either emotion from Siuan, and yet it lifted a little of her grinding fatigue.
“You look amused,” Egwene said.
“When Moiraine and I set out to find the boy,” Siuan said, “I had no idea the Pattern would send you to us as well.”
“Your replacement?” Egwene said.
“As a queen a
ges,” Siuan said, “she begins to think about her legacy. Light, every goodwife probably starts to think the same things. Will she have an heir to hold what she has created? As a woman grows in wisdom, she realizes that what she alone can accomplish pales compared to what her legacy can achieve.
“Well, I suppose I can’t claim you entirely as my own, and I wasn’t exactly pleased to be succeeded. But it is … comforting to know I’ve had a hand in shaping what is to come. And if a woman were to wish for a legacy, she could not dream of greater than one such as you. Thank you. I’ll watch this Seanchan woman for you, maybe help poor Min crawl out of the fangfish net she’s found herself in.”
Siuan moved away, calling for Yukiri to make her a gateway before going with Bryne. Egwene smiled, watching her give the general a kiss. Siuan. Kissing a man in the open.
Silviana channeled, and Egwene climbed into Daishar’s saddle as a gateway opened for them. She embraced the Source, holding Vora’s sa’angreal before her, and trotted through behind a group of Tower Guards. She was immediately assaulted by the scent of smoke.
High Captain Chubain waited for her on the other side. The dark-haired man had always struck her as being too young for his position, but she supposed not every commander had to be silvered like Bryne. After all, they were entrusting this battle to someone only a bit older than she, and she herself was the youngest Amyrlin ever.
Egwene turned toward the Heights and found that she could barely see them through fires that were burning along the slope and the eastern edge of the bogs.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Flaming arrows,” Chubain said, “fired by our forces at the river. I thought Cauthon was mad at first, but I can see his reasoning now. He fired at the Trollocs to set the fields alight there on the Heights and at their base to give us cover. The undergrowth over there is dry and brittle as tinder. The fires drove the Trollocs and Sharan cavalry back up the slope for the time being. And I think Cauthon is counting on the smoke masking our movement around the bogs.”
The Shadow would know someone was moving over here, but how many troops and in what configuration … they would have to rely on scouts, rather than their superior vantage atop the Heights.
“Our orders?” Chubain said.
“He didn’t tell you?” Egwene asked.
He shook his head. “He just put us in position here.”
“We continue on up the west side of the bog and come at the Sharans from behind,” she said.
Chubain grunted. “This is fragmenting our forces a great deal. And now he assaults them on the Heights after relinquishing it to them?”
She didn’t have an answer to that. Well, she had been the one—essentially—to put Mat in charge. She spared a glance across the bogs again, toward where she sensed Gawyn. He would be fighting at the …
Egwene hesitated. Her previous position had let her sense Gawyn in the direction of the river, but after moving through the gateway, she had a better sense of his position. He wasn’t at the river with Elayne’s armies.
Gawyn was on the Heights themselves, where the Shadow held the strongest.
Oh, Light! she thought. Gawyn … What are you doing?
* * *
Gawyn strode through smoke. Black tendrils of it curled around him, and the heat of smoldering grass warmed his boots, but the fire had mostly burned out here atop the Heights, leaving the ground dark with ash.
Bodies and some broken dragons lay blackened, like heaps of slag or coal. Gawyn knew that sometimes, to renew a field, farmers would burn the previous year’s weeds. The world itself was alight now. As he slipped through the twisting black smoke—his kerchief wetted and tied across his face—he prayed for a renewal.
There were spiderweb cracks all over the ground. The Shadow was destroying this land.
Most of the Trollocs were gathering on the Heights overlooking Hawal Ford, though a handful busied themselves prodding at bodies on the slope. Perhaps they had been drawn by the scent of burning flesh. A Myrddraal emerged from the smoke and began scolding them in a language Gawyn did not understand. It lashed a whip at the Trollocs’ backs.
Gawyn froze in place, but the Halfman did not notice him. It drove the stragglers toward where the rest of the Trollocs had gathered. Gawyn waited, breathing softly through his handkerchief, feeling the shadows of the Bloodknives wreathe him. The three rings had done things to him. He felt heady, and his limbs moved too quickly when he stepped. It had taken time to grow accustomed to the changes, to keep his balance each time he moved.
A wolf-featured Trolloc rose up from behind a nearby pile of rubble and sniffed the air, looking after the Fade. The Trolloc then crept out of hiding, a corpse thrown over its shoulder. It walked past Gawyn, passing not five feet away, where it paused and sniffed the air again. Then, hunching low, it continued. The body it carried over its shoulder trailed the cloak of a Warder. Poor Symon. He would never play another hand of cards. Gawyn growled softly, and before he could stop himself, leaped forward. He moved into Kissing the Adder, spinning and relieving the Trolloc’s shoulders of its head.
The carcass crashed down to the ground. Gawyn stood with sword out, then cursed himself, crouching and moving back into the smoke. It would mask his scent, and the twisting blackness his blurred form. Fool, to risk exposing himself to kill one Trolloc. Symon’s corpse would end up in a cookpot anyway. Gawyn couldn’t kill the entire army. He was here for one man.
Gawyn crouched, waiting to see if his attack had been noticed. Perhaps they wouldn’t have been able to see him—he wasn’t certain how much the rings clouded him—but anyone watching would have seen the Trolloc fall.
No warning call. Gawyn rose and continued. Only then did he notice that his fingers were showing red among the black of the ash. He had burned them. The pain was distant. The rings. He had difficulty thinking straight, but that didn’t—fortunately—stop his ability to fight. If anything, his instincts were stronger now.
Demandred. Where was Demandred? Gawyn sped back and forth across the top of the Heights. Cauthon had troops stationed at the river near the ford, but the smoke made it impossible to see who was involved. On the other side, the Borderlanders were engaged with a Sharan cavalry unit. Yet here, on top, it was peaceful, despite the presence of Shadowspawn and Sharans. Now Gawyn crept along the back lines of the Shadowspawn, keeping to the rougher patches of deadwood and weeds. Nobody seemed to notice him. There were shadows here, and shadows were protection. Down below, in the corridor between Heights and bog, the fires were going out. That seemed too quick for them to have burned themselves out. Channeling?
He had intended to find Demandred by seeking the origin of the man’s attacks, but if he was just channeling to put out fires, then—
The Shadow’s army charged, racing down the slope toward Hawal Ford. Though the Sharans remained behind, the bulk of the Trollocs moved. They obviously intended to push over the now-dry riverbed and engage Cauthon’s army.
If Cauthon had intended to lure all of Demandred’s forces off the Heights, he had failed. Many Sharans remained behind, infantry and cavalry units, watching impassively as the Trollocs thundered toward battle.
Explosions pounded along the slope, throwing Trollocs into the air like dirt from a beaten rug. Gawyn hesitated, crouching low. Dragons, the few working ones. Mat had set them up somewhere across the river; it was difficult to see an exact position because of the smoke. By the sound, there were only half a dozen or so, but the damage they caused was enormous, particularly considering the distance.
A burst of red light from nearby atop the Heights launched toward the smoke of the dragons. Gawyn smiled. Thank you kindly. He put his hand on his sword. Time to test just how well these rings worked.
He dashed, low and quick, out of cover. Most of the Trollocs were piling down the slope, loping toward the dry riverbed. Crossbow bolts and arrows assaulted them, and another round of dragon fire came from a slightly different location. Cauthon had the dragons moving, and Dem
andred had trouble pinpointing them.
Gawyn ran between howling Shadowspawn. The ground thumped like a beating heart from the impacts along the ground behind him. Smoke whipped around him, thick in his throat. His hands had been blackened, and he assumed his face had been as well. He hoped that would help keep him hidden.
Trollocs turned about, screeching or grunting, but none of them fixed upon him. They knew something had passed, but to them, he was merely a blur.
Egwene’s anger poured through the bond. Gawyn smiled. He had not expected her to be pleased. As he ran, arrows slicing the earth around him, he found peace with his choice. Once, perhaps, he would have done this for the pride of the battle and the chance to pit himself against Demandred.
That was not his heart now. His heart was the need. Someone had to fight this creature, someone had to kill him or they would lose this battle. They could all see it. Risking Egwene or Logain would be too great a gamble.
Gawyn could be risked. No one would send him to do this—no one would dare—but it was necessary. He had a chance to change things, to really matter. He did it for Andor, for Egwene, for the world itself.
Ahead, Demandred bellowed his now familiar challenge. “Send me al’Thor, not these so-called dragons!” Another streak of fire flew from him.
Gawyn passed the charging Trollocs and came up behind a large group of Sharans with strange bows, almost as big as those of the Two Rivers. They surrounded a mounted man in interlinking armor of coins, bound at holes in the centers, with a gorget and armguards. The faceplate on his fearsome helmet was open. That proud face was eerily familiar to Gawyn, handsome and imperious.
This will have to be quick, Gawyn thought. And Light, I’d better not give him a chance to channel.
The Sharan archers stood at the ready, but only two of them turned as Gawyn slipped between them. Gawyn pulled his knife from his belt sheath. He’d have to drag Demandred off his horse, then go for the face with his knife. It felt like a coward’s attack, but it was the best way. Trip him, and Gawyn could—
Demandred spun, suddenly, and looked toward Gawyn. A second later, the man thrust his hand forward, and a beam of white-hot fire—thin as a twig—shot for Gawyn.
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