MEN WHO THINK THEY ARE OPPRESSED WILL SOMEDAY FIGHT. I WILL REMOVE FROM THEM NOT JUST THEIR WILL TO RESIST, BUT THE VERY SUSPICION THAT SOMETHING IS WRONG.
“So you leave them without compassion?” Rand demanded, looking into Gill’s eyes. The man seemed terrified that Rand would kill him, as did the three thugs. No remorse. Not a bit of it.
COMPASSION IS NOT NEEDED.
Rand felt deathly cold. “This is different from the world you showed me before.”
WHAT I SHOWED BEFORE IS WHAT MEN EXPECT. IT IS THE EVIL THEY THINK THEY FIGHT. BUT I WILL MAKE A WORLD WHERE THERE IS NOT GOOD OR EVIL.
THERE IS ONLY ME.
“Do your servants know?” Rand whispered. “The ones you name Chosen? They think they fight to become lords and rulers over a world of their own making. Instead you will give them this. The same world… except one without Light.”
THERE IS ONLY ME.
No Light. No love of men. The horror of it sank deep within Rand, shaking him. This was one of the possibilities that the Dark One could choose, if he won. It didn’t mean he would, or that it had to happen, but… oh Light, this was terrible. Far more terrible than a world of captives, far more terrible than a dark land with a broken landscape.
This was true horror. This was a full corruption of the world, it was taking everything beautiful from it, leaving behind only a husk. A pretty husk, but still a husk.
Rand would rather live a thousand years of torture, retaining the piece of himself that gave him the capacity for good, than live a moment in this world without Light.
He turned, enraged, upon the darkness. It consumed the far wall, growing larger. “You make a mistake, Shai’tan!” Rand yelled at that nothingness. “You think to make me despair? You think to shatter my will? This will not do it, I swear to you. This makes me sure to fight!”
Something rumbled inside of the Dark One. Rand yelled, pushing outward with his will, shattering the dark world of lies and men who would kill without empathy. It exploded into threads, and Rand was once again in the place outside of time, the Pattern rippling around him.
“You show me your true heart?” Rand demanded of the nothingness as he seized those threads. “I will show you mine, Shai’tan. There is an opposite to this Lightless world you would create.
“A world without Shadow.”
Mat stalked away, calming his anger. Tuon had seemed really angry at him! Light. She would come back when he needed her to, would she not?
“Mat?” Min said, hurrying up beside him.
“Go with her,” Mat said. “Keep an eye on her for me, Min.”
“But—”
“She doesn’t need much protecting,” Mat said. “She’s a strong one. Bloody ashes, but she is. She does need watching, though. She worries me, Min. Anyway, I have this bloody war to win. I can’t do that and go with her. So would you go and watch her? Please?”
Min slowed, then gave him an unexpected hug. “Luck, Matrim Cauthon.”
“Luck, Min Farshaw,” Mat said. He let her go, then shouldered his ashandarei. The Seanchan had begun leaving Dashar Knob, pulling back to the Erinin before leaving the Field of Merrilor altogether. Demandred would let them go; he would be a fool not to. Blood and bloody ashes, what was Mat getting himself into? He had just sent away a good quarter of his troops.
They’ll come back, he thought. If his gamble worked. If the dice fell as he needed them.
Only this battle was not a game of dice. There was too much subtlety to it for that. It was cards, if anything. Mat usually won at cards. Usually.
To his right, a group of men in dark Seanchan armor marched toward the battlefield. “Hey, Karede!” Mat yelled.
The large man gave Mat a dark look. Suddenly, Mat knew what an ingot of metal felt like when Perrin eyed it, hefting a hammer. Karede stalked up, and though he obviously was making an effort to keep his face calm, Mat could feel the thunder coming off him.
“Thank you,” Karede said, voice stiff, “for helping protect the Empress, may she live forever.”
“You think I should have kept her someplace secure,” Mat said. “Not at the command post.”
“It is not my place to question one of the Blood, Great One,” Karede said.
“You’re not questioning me,” Mat said, “you’re thinking of sticking something sharp in me. Entirely different.”
Karede breathed out a long, deep breath. “Excuse me, Great One,” he said, turning to leave. “I must take my men and die.”
“I don’t think so,” Mat said. “You’re coming with me.”
Karede turned back toward him. “The Empress, may she live forever, ordered—”
“You to the front lines,” Mat said, shading his eye as he scanned the riverbed, swarming with Trollocs…“Great. Where do you bloody think I’m going?”
“You ride to battle?” Karede asked.
“I was thinking more of a saunter,” Mat said. He shook his head. “I need a feel for what Demandred is doing… I’m going out there, Karede, and putting you fellows between me and the Trollocs sounds delightful. Are you coming?”
Karede did not reply, though he did not continue walking away, either.
“Look, what are your choices?” Mat asked. “Ride out there and die for really no purpose? Or come try to keep me alive for your Empress? I’m almost certain that she’s fond of me. Maybe. She’s a hard one to read, Tuon is.”
“You do not call her by that name,” Karede said.
“I’ll call her what I bloody well want.”
“Not if we’re to come with you,” Karede said. “If I am to ride with you, Prince of the Ravens, I would not have my men hearing such from your lips. It would be a bad omen.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want any of those,” Mat said. “Right, then, Karede. Let’s dive back into this mess and see what we can do. In Fortuona’s name.”
Tam raised his sword as if to begin a duel, but found no honorable foes here. Only grunting, howling, ferocious Trollocs. Drawn away from the beleaguered Whitecloaks at this battle near the ruins.
The Trollocs turned on the Two Rivers men and attacked. Tam, holding the point of the wedge, fell into Reed in Wind. He refused to take a single step backward. He bent this way and that, but held firm as he broke the Trolloc line, slashing with his sword in quick movements.
The men of the Two Rivers pushed forward, a thorn to the Dark One’s foot and a bramble to his hand. In the chaos that followed, they shouted and cursed, and fought to drive the Trollocs apart.
But soon their focus turned to holding their ground. The Trollocs surged around the men. The wedge formation, normally an offensive tactic, worked well here, too. Trollocs moved down the sides of the wedge, taking hits from the Two Rivers men with their axes, swords and spears.
Tam let the lads’ training guide them. He would have preferred to be in the center of the wedge, calling out encouragement as Dannil now did—but he was one of the few who had any real battle training, and the wedge formation depended on having a point who could hold steady.
So hold steady he did. Calm within the void, he let the Trollocs break upon him. He moved from Shake Dew from the Branch, to Apple Blossoms in the Wind, to Stones Fall in the Pond—all forms that stabilized him in one position while fighting multiple opponents.
Despite practice over the last few months, Tam wasn’t nearly as strong as he had been in his youth. Fortunately, a reed did not need strength. He was not as practiced as he once had been, but no reed practiced how to bend in the wind.
It simply did.
Years of maturing, years of age, had brought Tam an understanding of the void. He understood it now, better than he ever had. Years teaching Rand responsibility, years of living without Kari, years of listening to the wind blow and the leaves rustle…
Tam al’Thor became the void. He brought it to the Trollocs, showed it to them and sent them into its depths.
He danced around a goat-featured Trolloc, sweeping his sword to the side and slicing the
beast’s leg at the heel. It stumbled and Tam turned, letting the men behind take it. He flashed his sword up—the weapon trailing blood—and sprayed the dark droplets across the eyes of a charging Trolloc with nightmare features. It howled, blinded, and Tam flowed forward, arms out, and opened its stomach below the breastplate. It stumbled in front of a third Trolloc, who brought an axe down toward Tam, but hit its ally instead.
Each step was part of a dance, and Tam invited the Trollocs to join him. He had only fought like this once before, long ago, but memory was something that the void did not allow. He did not think of other times; he did not think of anything. If he knew that he’d done this once before, it was because of the resonance of his motions, an understanding that seemed to permeate his muscles themselves.
Tam stabbed the neck of a Trolloc with a face that was nearly human, with only a little too much hair on its cheeks. It fell backward and collapsed, and Tam suddenly found no more foes. He stopped, bringing his sword up, feeling a soft wind blow across him. The dark beasts were thundering away downriver in a rout, chased by horsemen flying Borderlander flags. Shortly they would hit a wall of troops, the Legion of the Dragon, and be crushed between them and the pursuing Borderlanders.
Tam cleaned his blade, leaving the void. The gravity of the situation hit him. Light! His men should be dead. If those Borderlanders hadn’t arrived…
He placed his sword back into its lacquered sheath. The red and gold dragon caught sunlight, sparkling, though Tam wouldn’t have thought there was anything to catch with that cloud cover above. He searched for the sun, and found it—behind the clouds—nearly at the horizon. It was almost night!
Fortunately, it looked like the Trollocs here at the battle by the ruins were finally breaking. Already weakened severely by the drawn-out river crossing, they now crumbled as Lan’s men hit them from behind.
In a short time it was done. Tam had held.
Nearby, a black horse trotted up. Its rider, Lan Mandragoran—with standard-bearer and guards behind—looked over the Two Rivers men.
“I had long wondered,” Lan said to Tam. “About the man who had given Rand that heron-marked blade. I wondered if he had truly earned it. Now I know.” Lan raised his own sword in salute.
Tam turned back toward his men, an exhausted, bloodied group clutching weapons. The path of their wedge showed easily on the trampled plain; dozens of Trollocs lay behind where the wedge had cut into them. To the north, the men of the second wedge raised their weapons. They had been pushed back nearly to the forest, but they’d held there and some had survived. Tam couldn’t help but see that dozens of good folk had died.
His exhausted men sat down right there on the battlefield, surrounded by corpses. Some weakly began tying their own bandages or seeing to the wounded they’d pulled into the interior of the wedge. To the south, Tam spotted a dismaying sight. Were those the Seanchan pulling out from their camp at Dashar Knob?
“Have we won, then?” Tam asked.
“Far from it,” Lan said. “We’ve seized this part of the river, but it is the lesser fight. Demandred pressed his Trollocs hard here to keep us from drawing resources to the larger battle at the ford downriver.” Lan turned his horse. “Gather your men, blademaster. This battle will not end with the setting sun. You will be needed again in the coming hours. Tai’shar Manetheren.”
Lan thundered toward his Borderlanders.
“Tai’shar Malkier,” Tam called after him, belatedly.
“So… we’re not done yet?” Dannil asked.
“No, lad. We’re not. But we’ll take a break, get the men Healed and find some food.” He saw gateways opening beside the field. Cauthon had been smart enough to send a means for Tam to take his wounded to Mayene. It—
People poured through the openings. Hundreds of them, thousands. Tam frowned. Nearby, the Whitecloaks were picking themselves up—they’d been hit hard by the Trolloc attacks, but Tam’s arrival had kept them from being destroyed. Arganda’s force was forming up at the ruins, and the Wolf Guard hoisted their flag high, bloodied, heaps of Trolloc corpses surrounding them.
Tam trudged across the field. Now his limbs felt like dead weights. He felt more exhausted than if he’d spent a month pulling stumps.
At the first of the gateways, he found Berelain herself, standing with a few Aes Sedai. The beautiful woman was terribly out of place here in this mud and death. Her gown of black and silver, the diadem in her hair… Light, she didn’t belong here.
“Tam al’Thor,” she said. “You command this force?”
“Near enough,” Tam said. “Pardon, my Lady First, but who are all of these people?”
“The refugees from Caemlyn,” Berelain said. “I sent some people to see if they needed Healing. They refused it, and insisted that I bring them to the battle.”
Tam scratched at his head. To the battle? Any man—and many women—who could hold a sword had already been drawn into the army. The people he saw coming through the gateways were mostly children and the elderly, and some matrons who had remained back to care for the young.
“Pardon,” Tam said, “but this is a killing field.”
“So I tried to explain,” Berelain said, a hint of exasperation in her voice. “They claim they can be of use. Better than waiting out the Last Battle huddled together on the road to Whitebridge, so they say.”
Tam watched, frowning, as children scattered onto the field. His stomach lurched at them investigating the gruesome dead, and many did shy back at first. Others began picking through the fallen, looking for signs of those people who were still alive and could be Healed. A few aged soldiers who had been set to guard the refugees went among them, watching for Trollocs that weren’t quite dead.
Women and children began to pick arrows out from among the fallen. That would be helpful. Very helpful. With surprise, Tam saw hundreds of Tinkers pour out of one gateway. They went searching for the wounded under the direction of several Yellow sisters.
Tam found himself nodding. It still worried him, allowing the children to see such sights. Well, he thought, they’ll see a worse sight if we fail here. If they wanted to be of use, they should be allowed.
“Tell me, Tam al’Thor,” Berelain asked, “is… Galad Damodred well? I see his men here, but not his banner.”
“He was called to other duties, my Lady First,” Tam said. “Downriver. I haven’t heard from him in hours, I’m afraid.”
“Ah. Well, let’s Heal and feed your men. Perhaps word of Lord Damodred will be forthcoming.”
Elayne touched Gareth Bryne’s cheek softly. She closed his eyes, one, then the other, before nodding to the soldiers who had found his body. They carried Bryne away, legs dangling over the edge of his shield, head hanging down on the other side.
“He just went riding off, screaming,” Birgitte said. “Right into the enemy lines. There was no stopping him.”
“Siuan is dead,” Elayne said, feeling an almost overpowering sense of loss. Siuan.… Siuan had always been so strong. With effort, Elayne stilled her emotions. She had to keep her attention on the battle. “Is there word from the command post?”
“The camp at Dashar Knob has been abandoned,” Birgitte said. “I don’t know where Cauthon is. The Seanchan have forsaken us.”
“Raise my banner high,” Elayne said. “Until we hear from Mat, I’m taking command of this battlefield. Bring forward my advisors.”
Birgitte moved to give the orders. Elayne’s Guardswomen watched, shuffling nervously, as the Trollocs pushed against the Andorans at the river. They’d totally filled the corridor between Heights and bogs, and threatened to spill out on to Shienaran soil. Part of Egwene’s army had hit the Trollocs from the other side of the corridor, which had taken some pressure off her own troops for a time; but more Trollocs had attacked from above, and it looked as if Egwene’s men were getting the worst of it.
Elayne had had solid lessons in battlefield tactics, though little experience on the field, and she could see how badly thin
gs were going. Yes, she had received news that the Trollocs’ position upriver had been destroyed by the arrival of Lan and the Borderlanders. But that brought scant relief with the situation here at the ford.
The sun began to slip beneath the horizon. The Trollocs made no sign of pulling back, and her soldiers reluctantly began to light bonfires and torches. Organizing her men into square formations made for better defense, but it meant giving up any hope of pushing forward. The Aiel fought here as well, as did the Cairhienin. But those pike squares were the core of their battle plan.
They’re slowly surrounding us, she thought. If the Trollocs did so, they could squeeze until the Andorans popped. Light, this is bad.
The sun made a sudden blazing fire behind the horizon clouds. With night, the Trollocs gained another advantage. The air had grown cold in the advent of darkness. Her early assumptions that this battle would last days now seemed silly. The Shadow pushed with all of its might. Humankind did not have days remaining, but hours.
“Majesty,” Captain Guybon said, riding up with her commanders. Their dented armor and bloodied tabards proved that nobody, not even the senior officers, could be spared from direct fighting.
“Advice,” Elayne said, looking at him, Theodohr—commander of the cavalry—and Birgitte, who was Captain-General.
“Retreat?” Guybon asked.
“Do you really think we could disengage?” Birgitte replied.
Guybon hesitated, then shook his head.
“Right, then,” Elayne said. “How do we win?”
“We hold,” said Theodohr. “We hope the White Tower can win their fight against the Sharan channelers and come to our aid.”
“I don’t like just sitting here,” Birgitte said. “It—”
A blazing beam of white-hot fire sliced through Elayne’s guards, vaporizing dozens of them. Guybon’s horse vanished beneath him, though he narrowly missed being hit himself. Elayne’s horse reared.
Swearing, she wrestled her mount under control. That had been balefire!
“Lews Therin!” A power-enhanced voice rang over the field. “I hunt a woman you love! Come to me, coward! Fight!”