“You two!” Faile yelled.
“Ho, my Lady!” Harnan said, laughing.
“How?” she yelled at them over the sound of the hooves.
“We let a caravan find us,” Harnan yelled back, “and let them take us captive. They brought us through the gateway a few hours back, and we’ve been preparing the captives to break free. Your arrival gave us the opportunity we needed!”
“The Horn! You tried to steal the Horn!”
“No,” Harnan yelled back, “we tried to steal some of Mat’s tabac!”
“I thought you had buried it to leave it behind!” Vanin yelled from the other side. “I figured Mat wouldn’t care. He owes me a few marks anyway! When I opened that sack and found the bloody Horn of Valere … bloody ashes! I’ll bet they heard my yell all the way in Tar Valon!”
Faile groaned, imagining the scene. The yell that Faile had heard was a yell of surprise, and it was what had drawn the bear-thing to attack.
Well, there was no going back to that moment. She clung to Bela with her knees, urging the horse forward. Ahead, Aravine galloped between Trollocs, heading toward where the steep slopes tapered off. Aravine yelled frantically for Trollocs to help her. The racing horses traveled faster than any Trollocs could, however.
Demandred. Aravine had said she would take the Horn to one of the Forsaken. Faile growled softly, leaning down further, and amazingly, Bela pulled ahead of Vanin and Harnan. She didn’t ask where they’d found the horses. She directed her entire attention toward Aravine.
A cry went up through camp, and Vanin and Harnan split off, intercepting riders who came for Faile. She cut to the side, urging Bela to leap a pile of supplies and charging through the center of a group of people in strange clothing, eating beside a small fire. They yelled after her with thick accents.
Inch by inch, she gained on Aravine. Bela snorted and puffed, sweat darkening her coat. The Saldaean cavalry was among the best in the land, and Faile knew horses. She’d ridden all breeds. In those minutes on the battlefield, she would have put Bela up against the Tairen best. The shaggy mare, of no particular breed of note, moved like a champion runner.
Feeling the rhythm of the hoofbeats beneath her, Faile slipped a knife from her sleeve. She urged Bela to jump over a small dip in the land, and they hung in the air for a moment, Faile judging the wind, the fall, the moment. She reached her arm back, and flipped the knife through the air right before Bela’s hooves touched the ground.
The knife flew true, burying itself in Aravine’s back. The woman slipped from the saddle, crumpling to the ground, sack sliding from her grip.
Faile leaped off Bela, landing while still in motion and sliding to a stop beside the sack. She untied the strings that secured its opening, and saw the glittering Horn inside.
“I’m … sorry…” Aravine whispered, rolling over. Her legs did not move. “Don’t tell Aldin what I did. He has … such terrible taste … in women…”
Faile stood up, then looked down with pity. “Pray that the Creator shelters your soul, Aravine,” Faile said, and climbed back onto Bela’s back. “For if not, the Dark One will have you as his. I leave you to him.” She nudged Bela back into motion.
There were more Trollocs ahead, and they fixed their attention on Faile. They shouted, and several Myrddraal slid forward, pointing toward Faile. They began to shift around her, blocking her path.
She set her jaw, grim, and heeled Bela back in the direction she had come, hoping to meet up with Harnan, Vanin or anyone else who would help.
The camp was abuzz with activity, and Faile picked up riders chasing after her, yelling, “She has the Horn of Valere!”
Somewhere high atop the hill, Mat Cauthon’s forces fought the Shadow. So close!
An arrow hit the ground beside her, followed by others. Faile reached the captive pens, the broken fence lying in pieces and bodies littered about. Bela was huffing, perhaps at the end of her strength. Faile caught sight of another horse nearby, a roan gelding that was saddled, nudging at a fallen soldier at his feet.
Faile slowed. What to do? Switch horses, but then what? She glanced over her shoulder and then ducked down as another arrow passed overhead. She’d picked up some dozen Sharan soldiers on horseback, all chasing her, wearing cloth armor sewn with small rings. They were followed by hundreds of Trollocs.
Even with a fresh horse, she thought, I can’t outrun them. She led Bela behind some supply wagons for cover and leaped off, intending to dash for the fresh mount.
“Lady Faile?” a small voice asked.
Faile glanced down. Olver huddled beneath the wagon, holding his knife.
The riders were almost upon her. Faile didn’t have time to think. She whipped the Horn from its sack and pushed it into Olver’s arms. “Keep this,” she said. “Hide. Take it to Mat Cauthon later in the night.”
“You’re leaving me?” Olver asked. “Alone?”
“I must,” she said, stuffing some bundles of arrows into her sack, her heart thundering in her chest. “Once those riders pass, find another place to hide! They will come back to search where I’ve been, after…”
After they catch me.
She would have to take her knife to herself, lest they torture out of her what she’d done with the Horn. She gripped Olver by the arm. “I’m sorry to place this upon you, little one. There is no one else. You did well earlier; you can do this. Take the Horn to Mat or all is lost.”
She ran into the open, making the sack she carried obvious. Some of those strangely dressed foreigners saw her, pointing. She lifted the sack high and climbed into the saddle of the roan, then kicked it into a gallop.
The Trollocs and Darkfriends followed, leaving the young boy and his heavy burden to huddle beneath a wagon in the middle of the Trolloc camp.
* * *
Logain turned the thin disc over in his fingers. Black and white, split by a sinuous line. Cuendillar, supposedly. The flakes that rubbed off beneath his fingers seemed to make mockery of its eternal nature.
“Why didn’t Taim break them?” Logain asked. “He could have. These are as brittle as old leather.”
“I don’t know,” Androl said, glancing at the others of his team. “Maybe the time wasn’t right yet.”
“Break them at the right time, and it will help the Dragon,” said the man who called himself Emarin. He sounded worried. “Break them at the wrong time … and what?”
“Nothing good, I suspect,” Pevara said. A Red.
Would he ever have his vengeance against those who had gentled him? Once, that hatred—and it alone—had driven him to survive. He now found a new hunger inside of him. He had defeated Aes Sedai, he had beaten them down and claimed them as his own. Vengeance seemed … empty. His long-building thirst to kill M’Hael filled a little of that emptiness, but not enough. What more?
Once, he had named himself the Dragon Reborn. Once, he had prepared himself to dominate the world. To make it heel. He fingered the seal to the Dark One’s prison while standing at the periphery of the battle. He was far to the southwest, below the bogs, where his Asha’man held a small base camp. Distant rumbles sounded from the Heights—explosions of weaves firing back and forth between Aes Sedai and Sharans.
A large number of his Asha’man had fought there, but the Sharan channelers outnumbered the Aes Sedai and Asha’man combined. Others prowled the battlefields, hunting down Dreadlords, killing them.
He had been losing men faster than the Shadow. There were too many enemies.
He held up the seal. There was a power to it. Power to protect the Black Tower, somehow? If they do not fear us, fear me, what will happen to us once the Dragon is dead?
Dissatisfaction radiated through the bond. He met Gabrelle’s eyes. She had been inspecting the battle, but now her eyes were upon him. Questioning. Threatening?
Earlier, had he really been thinking that he’d tamed Aes Sedai? The idea should have made him laugh. No Aes Sedai could be tamed, not ever.
Logain pointedly placed the seal a
nd its fellows in the pouch at his belt. He drew its strings closed, meeting Gabrelle’s eyes. Her concern spiked. For a moment, he’d felt that concern of hers to be for him, not because of him.
Perhaps she was learning how to manipulate the bond, to send him feelings she thought would lull him. No, Aes Sedai could not be tamed. Bonding them hadn’t contained them. It had made more complications.
He reached to his high collar, undoing the dragon pin he wore there, and offered it to Androl. “Androl Genhald, you have walked into the pit of death itself and returned. Twice now, I am in your debt. I name you full Asha’man. Wear the pin with pride.” He had already given the man back his sword pin, restoring him to Dedicated.
Androl hesitated, then reached out and took the pin in reverent hands.
“And the seals?” Pevara asked, arms folded. “They belong to the White Tower; the Amyrlin is their Watcher.”
“The Amyrlin,” Logain said, “is as good as dead, from what I have heard. In her absence, I am a fitting steward.” Logain seized the Source, subjecting it, dominating it. He opened a gateway back to the top of the Heights.
The war returned to him in full force, the confusion, the smoke and screams. He stepped through, the others following. The powerful channeling from Demandred shone like a beacon, the man’s booming voice continuing to taunt the Dragon Reborn.
Rand al’Thor was not here. Well, the closest thing to him was Logain himself. Another substitute. “I’m going to fight him,” he told the others. “Gabrelle, you will remain behind and wait for my return, as I may need Healing. The rest of you deal with Taim’s men and those Sharan channelers. Let no man live who has gone to the Shadow, whether by choice or force. Bring justice to the one and mercy to the other.”
They nodded. Gabrelle seemed impressed with him, perhaps for his decision to strike at the enemy’s heart. She did not realize. Not even one of the Forsaken could be as powerful as Demandred seemed to be.
Demandred had a sa’angreal, and a powerful one. Similar in power to Callandor, maybe stronger. With that in Logain’s hands, many things in this world would change. The world would know of him and the Black Tower, and they would tremble before him as they never had for the Amyrlin Seat.
* * *
Egwene led an assault the likes of which had not been seen in millennia. The Aes Sedai pulled themselves out of their defensive fortifications and joined with her, pushing up the western slope in a steady stride. Weaves flew in the air like an explosion of ribbons caught in the wind.
The sky broke with the light of a thousand bolts, the ground groaning and trembling with the hits. Demandred continued to fire upon the Andorans from the other side of the plateau, and each shot of balefire sent ripples through the air. The ground cracked with spiderwebs of black, but now tendrils of something sickly began to sprout from those cracks. It spread like a disease across the broken stones of the hillside.
The air felt alive with the Power, the energy so thick that Egwene almost thought the One Power had become visible to all. Through this, she drew as much strength as she could hold through Vora’s sa’angreal. She felt as she had when fighting the Seanchan, only somehow more in control. Then, her rage had been fringed by desperation and terror.
This time, it was a white-hot thing, like a metal heated beyond the point of being worked by a smith.
She, Egwene al’Vere, had been given stewardship of this land.
She, the Amyrlin Seat, would not be bullied by the Shadow any longer.
She would not retreat. She would not bow as her resources failed.
She would fight.
She channeled Air, building a swirling storm of dust, smoke and dead plants. She held it before herself, obscuring the view of those above as they tried to pinpoint her. Lightning crashed down around her, but she wove Earth, digging deeply in the rock and bringing up a spurt of iron that cooled in a spire next to her. The lightning struck at the spire, sparing her as she sent the windstorm howling up the incline.
A movement at her side. Egwene felt Leilwin nearing. That one … that one had proven faithful. Such a surprise. Having a new Warder did not take the edge off her despair at Gawyn’s death, but it did help in other ways. That knot in the back of Egwene’s mind had replaced itself with a new one, very different, yet shockingly loyal.
Egwene raised Vora’s sa’angreal and continued her attacks, moving up the hillside, Leilwin at her side. Ahead, Sharans huddled down, weathering the winds. Egwene struck them with ribbons of fire. Channelers tried to attack her through the windstorm, but their weaves went astray, their eyes clogged with dust. Three regular soldiers attacked from the side, but Leilwin dispatched them efficiently.
Egwene brought the wind around and used it like hands, scooping the channelers up and flinging them into the air. The lightning bolts from above took the men in a fiery embrace, and smoking corpses plummeted to the hillside. Egwene pressed forward, her army of Aes Sedai advancing, flinging weaves like arrows of light.
Asha’man joined them. Those had fought alongside the White Tower on and off, but now they seemed committed in force. Dozens of men gathered as she led the way. The air became thick with the One Power.
The winds stopped.
The dust storm suddenly fell, smothered like a candle beneath a blanket. No natural force had done that. Egwene mounted a rocky outcrop, looking up toward a man in black and red standing at the top, his hand out. She had finally drawn out the one who led this force. His Dreadlords fought alongside the Sharans, but she sought their leader. Taim. M’Hael.
“He’s weaving lightning!” a man yelled behind her.
Egwene immediately brought up a spire of molten iron and cooled it to draw the lightning that fell a moment later. She glanced to the side. The one who had spoken was Jahar Narishma, Merise’s Asha’man Warder.
Egwene smiled, looking toward Taim. “Keep the others off me,” she commanded loudly. “All but you, Narishma and Merise. Narishma’s warnings will prove useful.”
She gathered her strength and began to release a storm at the traitor M’Hael.
* * *
Ila picked through the dead on the battlefield near the ruins. Though the fighting had moved downriver, she could hear distant shouts and explosions in the night.
She hunted for the wounded among the fallen, and ignored arrows and swords when she found them. Others would gather those, though she wished they would not. Swords and arrows had caused much of this death.
Raen, her husband, worked nearby, prodding at each body then listening for a heartbeat. His gloves were stained red, and blood smeared his colorful clothing, because he had been pressing his ear against the chests of corpses. Once they confirmed someone was dead, they left an X drawn on a cheek, often in the person’s own blood. That would keep others from repeating the work.
Raen seemed to have aged a decade in the last year, and Ila felt as if she had, too. The Way of the Leaf was an easy master at times, providing a life of joy and peace. But a leaf fell in calm winds and in the tempest; dedication demanded that one accept the latter as well as the former. Being driven from country after country, suffering starvation as the land died, then finally coming to rest in the lands of the Seanchan … such had been their life.
None of it matched losing Aram. That had hurt far more deeply than had losing his mother to the Trollocs.
They passed Morgase, the former queen, who organized these workers and gave them orders. Ila kept moving. She cared little for queens. They had done nothing for her or hers.
Nearby, Raen stopped, raising his lantern to examine a full quiver of arrows that a soldier had been carrying as he died. Ila hissed, lifting her skirts up to step around corpses and reach her husband. “Raen!”
“Peace, Ila,” he said. “I’m not going to pick it up. Yet, I wonder.” He looked up, toward the distant flashes of light downriver and atop the Heights where the armies continued their terrible acts of murder. So many flashes in the night, like hundreds of lightning bolts. It was well
past midnight now. They’d been on this field, looking for the living, for hours.
“You wonder?” Ila asked. “Raen…”
“What would we have them do, Ila? Trollocs will not follow the Way of the Leaf.”
“There is plenty of room to run,” Ila said. “Look at them. They came to meet the Trollocs when the Shadowspawn were barely out of the Blight. If that energy had been spent gathering the people and leading them away to the south…”
“The Trollocs would have followed,” Raen said. “What then, Ila?”
“We have accepted many masters,” Ila said. “The Shadow might treat us poorly, but would it really be worse than we have been treated at the hands of others?”
“Yes,” Raen said softly. “Yes, Ila. It would be worse. Far, far worse.”
Ila looked at him.
He shook his head, sighing. “I am not going to abandon the Way, Ila. It is my path, and it is right for me. Perhaps … perhaps I will not think quite so poorly of those who follow another path. If we live through these times, we will do so at the bequest of those who died on this battlefield, whether we wish to accept their sacrifice or not.”
He trailed away. It’s just the darkness of the night, she thought. He will overcome it, once the sun shines again. That’s the right of it. Isn’t it?
She looked up at the night sky. That sun … would they be able to tell when it rose? The clouds, lit from the fires below, seemed to be growing thicker and thicker. She pulled her bright yellow shawl closer, feeling suddenly cold.
Perhaps I will not think quite so poorly of those who follow another path …
She blinked a few tears from her eyes. “Light,” she whispered, something twisting inside. “I shouldn’t have turned my back on him. I should have tried to help him return to us, not cast him out. Light, oh Light. Shelter him…”
Nearby, a group of mercenaries found the arrows and picked them up. “Hey, Hanlon!” one called. “Look at this!”
When the brutish men had originally started helping with the Tuatha’an work, she had been proud of them. Avoiding battle to help care for the wounded? The men had seen beyond their violent past.
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