The Gathering Storm

  No, the future was not certain, and for some reason that brought her comfort. Perhaps she should have worried, but she did not. She would get her honor back, and then she would marry Rand al’Thor. Perhaps he would die soon after, but perhaps an ambush would come and she would fall to an arrow this day. Worrying solved nothing.

  Toh, however, was another matter.

  “I misspoke, Wise One,” Aviendha said. “I implied that the viewing said I would marry Rand al’Thor. That is not true. All three of us will love him, and while that implies marriage, I do not know for certain.”

  Amys nodded. There was no toh; Aviendha had corrected herself quickly enough. That was well. She would not add more shame on top of what she had already earned.

  “Very well, then,” Amys said, watching the path ahead of her. “Let us discuss today’s punishment.”

  Aviendha relaxed slightly. So she still had time to discover what she had done wrong. Wetlanders often seemed confused by Aiel ways with punishment, but wetlanders had little understanding of honor. Honor didn’t come from being punished, but accepting a punishment and bearing it restored honor. That was the soul of toh—the willing lowering of oneself in order to recover that which had been lost. It was strange to her that wetlanders couldn’t see this; indeed, it was strange that they didn’t follow ji’e’toh instinctively. What was life without honor?

  Amys, rightly, wouldn’t tell Aviendha what she had done wrong. However, she was having no success thinking through the answer on her own, and it would cause less shame if she discovered the answer through conversation. “Yes,” Aviendha said carefully. “I should be punished. My time in Caemlyn threatened to make me weak.”

  Amys sniffed. “You are no more weak than you were when you carried the spears, girl. A fair bit stronger, I should think. Your time with your first-sister was important for you.”

  So that wasn’t it. When Dorindha and Nadere had come for her, they had said she needed to continue her training as an apprentice. Yet in the time since the Aiel had departed for Arad Doman, Aviendha had been given no lessons. She had been assigned to carry water, to mend shawls, and to serve tea. She had been given all manner of punishments with little explanation of what she had done wrong. And when she did something obvious—like going scouting when she shouldn’t have—the severity of her punishment was always greater than the infraction should have merited.

  It was almost as if the punishment was the thing the Wise Ones wanted her to learn, but that could not be. She was not some wetlander who needed to be taught the ways of honor. What good would constant and unexplained punishment do, other than to warn of some grave mistake she had made?

  Amys reached to her side, untying something hanging at her waist. The woolen bag she held up was about the size of a fist. “We have decided,” she said, “that we have been too lax in our instruction. Time is precious and we have no room left for delicacy.”

  Aviendha covered her surprise. Their previous punishments were delicate?

  “Therefore,” Amys said, handing over the small sack, “you will take this. Inside are seeds. Some are black, others are brown, others are white. This evening, before we sleep, you will separate the colors, then count how many there are of each one. If you are wrong, we will mix them together and you will start again.”

  Aviendha found herself gaping, and she nearly stumbled to a stop. Hauling water was necessary work. Mending clothing was necessary work. Cooking meals was important work, particularly when no gai’shain had been brought with the small advance group.

  But this . . . this was useless work! It was not only unimportant, it was frivolous. It was the kind of punishment reserved for only the most stubborn, or most shameful, of people. It almost . . . almost felt as though the Wise Ones were calling her da’tsang!

  “By Sightblinder’s eyes,” she whispered as she forced herself to keep running. “What did I do?”

  Amys glanced at her, and Aviendha looked away. Both knew that she didn’t want an answer to that question. She took the bag silently. It was the most humiliating punishment she had ever been given.

  Amys moved off to run with the other Wise Ones. Aviendha shook off her stupor, her determination returning. Her mistake must have been more profound than she had thought. Amys’ punishment was an indication of that, a hint.

  She opened the bag and glanced inside. There were three little empty algode bags inside to help with the separation, and thousands of tiny seeds nearly engulfed them. This punishment was meant to be seen, meant to bring her shame. Whatever she’d done, it was offensive not just to the Wise Ones, but to all around her, even if they—like Aviendha herself—were ignorant of it.

  That only meant she had to be more determined.

  CHAPTER 4

  Nightfall

  Gawyn watched the sun burn the clouds to death in the west, the final light fading. That haze of perpetual gloom kept the sun itself shrouded. Just as it hid the stars from his sight at night. Today the clouds were unnaturally high in the air. Often, Dragonmount’s tip would be hidden on cloudy days, but this thick, gray haze hovered high enough that most of the time, it barely brushed the mountain’s jagged, broken tip.

  “Let’s engage them,” Jisao whispered from where he crouched beside Gawyn on the hilltop.

  Gawyn glanced away from the sunset, back toward the small village below. It should have been still, save perhaps for a goodman checking on his livestock one last time before turning in. It should have been dim, unlit save for a few tallow candles burning in windows as people finished evening meals.

  But it was not dim. It was not quiet. The village was alight with angry torches carried by a dozen sturdy figures. By that torchlight and the light of the dying sun, Gawyn could make out that each was wearing a nondescript uniform of brown and black. Gawyn couldn’t see the three-starred insignia on their uniforms, but he knew it was there.

  From his distant vantage, Gawyn watched a few latecomers stumble from their homes, looking frightened and worried as they gathered with the others in the crowded square. These villagers welcomed the armed force with reluctance. Women clutched children, men were careful to keep their eyes downcast. “We don’t want trouble,” the postures said. They’d undoubtedly heard from other villages that these invaders were orderly. The soldiers paid for goods they took, and no young men were pressed into service—though they weren’t turned away either. A very odd invading army indeed. However, Gawyn knew what the people would think. This army was led by Aes Sedai, and who could say what was odd or normal when Aes Sedai were involved?

  There were no sisters with this particular patrol, thank the Light. The soldiers, polite but stern, lined up the villagers and looked them over. Then a pair of soldiers entered each house and barn, inspecting it. Nothing was taken and nothing was broken. All very neat and cordial. Gawyn could almost hear the officer offering apologies to the village mayor.

  “Gawyn?” Jisao asked. “I count barely a dozen of them. If we send Rodic’s squad to come in from the north, we’ll cut off both sides and smash them between us. It’s getting dark enough that they won’t see us coming. We could take them without so much as running up a lather.”

  “And the villagers?” Gawyn asked. “There are children down there.”

  “That hasn’t stopped us other times.”

  “Those times were different,” Gawyn said, shaking his head. “The last three villages they’ve searched point a direct line toward Dorlan. If this group vanishes, the next one will wonder what it was they nearly uncovered. We’d draw the entire army’s eye in this direction.”

  “But—”

  “No,” Gawyn said softly. “We have to know when to fall back, Jisao.”

  “So we came all this way for nothing.”

  “We came all this way for an opportunity,” Gawyn said, backing away from the hilltop, making certain he didn’t show a profile on the horizon. “And now that I’ve inspected that opportunity, we’re not going to take it. Only a fool looses his arrow just be
cause he’s got a bird in front of him.”

  “Why wouldn’t you loose it if it’s right there in front of you?” Jisao asked as he joined Gawyn.

  “Because sometimes the prize isn’t worth the arrow,” Gawyn said. “Come on.”

  Below, waiting in the dark with lanterns hooded, were some of the very men the soldiers in the village were searching for. Gareth Bryne must have been very displeased to learn there was a harrying force hiding somewhere nearby. He’d been diligent in trying to flush it out, but the countryside near Tar Valon was liberally sprinkled with villages, forests and secluded valleys that could hide a small, mobile strike force. So far, Gawyn had managed to keep his Younglings out of sight while pulling off the occasional raid or ambush on Bryne’s forces. There was only so much you could do with three hundred men, however. Particularly when you faced one of the five Great Captains.

  Am I destined to end up fighting against each and every man who has been a mentor to me? Gawyn took the reins of his horse and gave a silent order to withdraw by raising his right hand, then gestured sharply away from the village. The men moved without comment, dismounting and leading their mounts for both stealth and safety.

  Gawyn had thought he was over Hammar and Coulin’s deaths; Bryne himself had taught Gawyn that the battlefield sometimes made allies into sudden foes. Gawyn had fought his former teachers, and Gawyn had won. That was the end of it.

  Recently, however, his mind seemed determined to dredge up those corpses and carry them about. Why now, after so long?

  He suspected his sense of guilt had to do with facing Bryne, his first and most influential instructor in the arts of war. Gawyn shook his head as he guided Challenge across the darkening landscape; he kept his men away from the road in case Bryne’s scouts had placed watchers. The fifty men around Gawyn walked as quietly as possible, the horses’ hoofbeats deadened by the springy earth.

  If Bryne had been shocked to discover a harrying force striking at his outriders, then Gawyn had been equally shocked to discover those three stars on the uniforms of the men he slew. How had the White Tower’s enemies recruited the greatest military mind in all of Andor? And what was the Captain-General of the Queen’s Guard doing fighting with a group of Aes Sedai rebels in the first place? He should have been in Caemlyn protecting Elayne.

  Light send that Elayne had arrived in Andor. She couldn’t still be with the rebels. Not with her homeland lacking a queen. Her duty to Andor outweighed her duty to the White Tower.

  And what of your duty, Gawyn Trakand? he thought to himself.

  He wasn’t certain he had duty, or honor, left to him. Perhaps his guilt about Hammar, his nightmares of war and death at Dumai’s Wells, were due to the slow realization that he might have given his allegiance to the wrong side. His loyalty belonged to Elayne and Egwene. What, then, was he still doing fighting a battle he didn’t care about, helping a side that—by all accounts—was opposed to the one Elayne and Egwene had chosen?

  They’re just Accepted, he told himself. Elayne and Egwene didn’t choose this side—they are just doing what they’ve been ordered to do! But the things that Egwene had said to him all those months ago, back in Cairhien, suggested that she had made her decision willingly.

  She had chosen a side. Hammar had chosen a side. Gareth Bryne had, apparently, chosen a side. But Gawyn continued to want to be on both sides. The division was ripping him apart.

  An hour out of the village, Gawyn gave the order to mount and take to the road. Hopefully, Bryne’s scouts wouldn’t think to search the land outside the village. If they did, the tracks of fifty horsemen would be hard to miss. There was no avoiding that. The best thing now was to reach firm ground, where the signs of their passing would be hidden by a thousand years of footfalls and traffic. Two pairs of soldiers rode off in front and two pairs hung back to watch. The rest maintained their silence, though their horses now pounded a thunderous gallop. None asked why they were withdrawing, but Gawyn knew that they were wondering, just as Jisao had.

  They were good men. Perhaps too good. As they rode, Rajar pulled his mount up beside Gawyn’s. Just a few months ago, Rajar had been a youth. But now Gawyn couldn’t think of him as anything other than a soldier. A veteran. Some men gained experience through years spent living. Other men gained experience through months spent watching their friends die.

  Glancing upward, Gawyn missed the stars. They hid their faces from him behind those clouds. Like Aiel behind black veils. “Where did we go wrong, Rajar?” Gawyn asked as they rode.

  “Wrong, Lord Gawyn?” Rajar asked. “I don’t know that we did anything wrong. We couldn’t have known which villages that patrol would choose to inspect, or that they wouldn’t turn along the old Wagonright Road, as you had hoped. Some of the men may be confused, but it was right to withdraw.”

  “I wasn’t talking about the raid,” Gawyn said, shaking his head. “I’m talking about this whole bloody situation. You shouldn’t have to go on supply raids or spend your time killing scouts; you should have become a Warder to some freshly minted Aes Sedai by now.” And I should be back in Caemlyn, with Elayne.

  “The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills,” the shorter man said.

  “Well, it wove us into a hole,” Gawyn muttered, glancing at the overcast sky once again. “And Elaida doesn’t seem too eager to pull us out of it.”

  Rajar looked at Gawyn reproachfully. “The White Tower’s methods are its own, Lord Gawyn, and so are its motives. It isn’t for us to question. What good is a Warder who questions the orders of his Aes Sedai? A good way to get both of you killed, that is.”

  You’re not a Warder, Rajar. That’s the problem! Gawyn said nothing. None of the other Younglings seemed to be plagued with these questions. To them, the world was much simpler. One did as the White Tower, and the Amyrlin Seat, commanded. Never mind if those commands seemed designed to get you killed.

  Three hundred youths against a force of over fifty thousand hardened soldiers, commanded by Gareth Bryne himself? Will of the Amyrlin or not, that was a deathtrap. The only reason the Younglings had survived as long as they had was because of Gawyn’s familiarity with his teacher’s ways. He knew where Bryne would send patrols and outriding scouts, and knew how to evade his search patterns.

  It was still a futile effort. Gawyn didn’t have nearly the troops needed for a true harrying force, particularly with Bryne entrenched in his siege. Beyond that, there was the remarkable matter of the army’s complete lack of a supply line. How were they getting food? They purchased supplies from the surrounding villages, but not nearly enough to feed themselves. How could they possibly have carried all they needed while still moving quickly enough to appear, without warning, in the middle of winter?

  Gawyn’s attacks were next to meaningless. It was enough to make a man think that the Amyrlin just wanted him, and the other Younglings, out of the way. Before Dumai’s Wells, Gawyn had suspected that was the case. Now he was growing certain. And yet you continue to follow her orders, he thought to himself.

  He shook his head. Bryne’s scouts were getting dangerously close to his base of operations, and Gawyn couldn’t risk killing any more of them without giving himself away. It was time to head back to Dorlan. Perhaps the Aes Sedai there would have a suggestion on how to proceed.

  He hunkered down on his horse and continued riding into the night. Light, I wish I could see the stars, he thought.

  CHAPTER 5

  A Tale of Blood

  Rand crossed the trampled manor green, banners flapping before him, tents surrounding him, horses whinnying in their pickets on the far west side. In the air hung the scents of an efficient war camp: smoke and savor from the stewpots were much stronger than the occasional whiff of horse dung or an unwashed body.

  Bashere’s men maintained a tidy camp, busying themselves with the hundreds of little tasks that allowed the army to function: sharpening swords, oiling leathers, mending saddles, fetching water from the stream. Some practiced charges to the left, on the
far side of the green, in the space between tent lines and the scraggly trees growing alongside the stream. The men held gleaming lances at the level as their horses trampled the muddy ground in a long swath. The maneuvers not only kept their skills sharp, but exercised the horses as well.

  As always, Rand was trailed by a flock of attendants. Maidens were his guards, and the Aiel watched the Saldaean soldiers with wariness. Beside him were several Aes Sedai. They were always about him, now. The Pattern had no place for his onetime insistence that all Aes Sedai be kept at arm’s length. It wove as it willed, and experience had shown that Rand needed these Aes Sedai. What he wanted no longer mattered. He understood that now.

  It was little comfort that many of these Aes Sedai in his camp had sworn allegiance to him. Everyone knew that Aes Sedai followed their oaths in their own ways, and they would decide what their “fealty” to him would require.

  Elza Penfell—who accompanied him this day—was one of those who had sworn to him. Of the Green Ajah, she had a face that might be considered pretty, if one didn’t recognize the ageless quality that marked her as Aes Sedai. She was pleasant, for an Aes Sedai, despite the fact that she had helped kidnap Rand and lock him in a box for days, to be pulled out only for the occasional beating.

  In the back of his mind, Lews Therin growled.

  That was past. Elza had sworn. That was enough to allow Rand to use her. The other woman attending him today was less predictable; she was a member of Cadsuane’s retinue. Corele Hovian—a slim Yellow with blue eyes, wild dark hair, and a perpetual smile—had sworn no oaths to do as he said. Despite that, he felt a temptation to trust her, since she had once tried to save his life. It was only because of her, Samitsu and Damer Flinn that Rand had survived. One of two wounds in Rand’s side that would not heal—a gift from Padan Fain’s cursed dagger—still lingered as a reminder of that day. The constant pain of that festering evil overlaid the equal pain of an older wound beneath, the one Rand had taken while fighting Ishamael so long ago.