Eight hundred paces. Seven hundred. The Two Rivers men dismounted, taking bows in hand. Six hundred. Five. Four.
Dobraine drew his sword, raised it high. “The Lord Dragon, Taborwin and victory!” he shouted, and the shout came from five hundred throats as lances snapped down.
Perrin had just time to seize hold of Dobraine’s stirrup before the Cairhienin were thundering forward. Loial’s long legs matched the horses pace for pace. Loping along, letting the horse pull him in long leaping strides, Perrin sent his mind out. Come.
Ground covered with brown grass, seemingly empty, suddenly gave birth to a thousand wolves, lean brown plains wolves, and some of their darker, heavier forest cousins, running low to hurl themselves into the backs of the Shaido with snapping jaws just as the first long Two Rivers shafts rained out of the sky beyond them. A second flight already arched high. New lightnings fell with the arrows, new fires bloomed. Veiled Shaido turning to fight wolves had only moments to realize they were not the only threat before a solid spear of Aiel stabbed into them alongside a hammer of Cairhienin lancers.
Snatching his axe free, Perrin hacked down a Shaido in his way and leaped over the man as he fell. They had to reach Rand; everything rested on that. Beside him Loial’s great axe rose and fell and swung, carving a path. Aram seemed to dance with his sword, laughing as he cut down everyone in his way. There was no time to think of anyone else. Perrin worked his axe methodically; he was hewing wood, not flesh; he tried not to see the blood that spurted, even when crimson sprayed his face. He had to reach Rand. He was slashing a path through brambles.
All he focused on was the man in front of him — he thought of them as men even when height said it might be a Maiden; he was not sure he could swing that red-dripping half-moon blade if he let himself think it was a woman he swung at — he focused, but other things drifted across his vision as he cut his way forward. A silvery lightning strike hurled cadin’sor-clad figures into the air, some wearing the scarlet headband, some not. Another bolt threw Dobraine from his horse; the Cairhienin labored to his feet, laying about him with his sword. Fire enveloped a knot of Cairhienin and Aiel, men and horses turned to screaming torches, those who could still scream.
These things passed before his eyes, but he did not let himself see them. There were only the men before him, the brambles, to be cleared by his axe and Loial’s, and Aram’s sword. Then he saw something that pierced his concentration. A rearing horse, a toppling rider being pulled from his saddle as Aiel spears stabbed him. A rider in a red breastplate. And there was another of the Winged Guards, and a clump of them, thrusting their lances, with Nurelle’s plume waving above his helmet. A moment later he saw Kiruna, face serenely unconcerned, striding like a queen of battles along a path carved for her by three Warders and the fires that leaped from her own hands. And there was Bera, and farther over, Faeldrin and Masuri and . . . What under the Light were they all doing here? What were any of them doing? They were supposed to be back with the Wise Ones!
From somewhere ahead came a hollow boom, like a thunderclap cutting through the din of screams and shouts. A moment later, a slash of light appeared not twenty paces from him, slicing through several men and a horse like a huge razor as it widened into a gateway. A black-coated man with a sword jumped out of it, and went down with a Shaido spear through his middle, but a moment later eight or nine more sprang through as the gateway vanished, forming a circle around the fallen man with their swords. With more than swords. Some of the Shaido who rushed at them fell to a blade, but more simply burst into flame. Heads exploded like melons dropped onto stone from a height. Maybe a hundred paces beyond them, Perrin thought he saw another circle of men in black coats, surrounded by fire and death, but he had no time to wonder. Shaido were closing around him, too.
Setting himself back-to-back with Loial and Aram, he slashed and hacked desperately. There was no going forward now. It was all he could do to remain standing where he was. Blood pounded in his ears, and he could hear himself gasping for breath. He could hear Loial, too, panting like a huge bellows: Perrin knocked aside a stabbing spear with his axe, slashed at another Aiel with the spike on the backswing, caught a spearhead with his hand, unmindful of the bloody gash it made, split a black-veiled face. He did not think they were going to last much longer. Every part of him centered on staying alive for one heart-beat more. Almost every part. One corner of his mind held an image of Faile, and the sad thought that he would not be able to apologize for not coming back to her.
Doubled painfully inside the chest, panting, Rand fumbled at the shield between him and the Source. Moaning floated across the Void, grim fury and burning fear slid along the edge of it; he was no longer altogether certain which was his and which Lews Therin’s. Suddenly his breath froze. Six points, but one was hard now. Not soft; hard. And then a second. A third. Rasping laughter filled his ears; that was his, he realized after a moment. A fourth knot became hard. He waited, trying to stifle what sounded uncomfortably like deranged giggling. The last two points remained soft. Those muffled cackles died.
They will feel it, Lews Therin groaned desperately. They will feel it and call the others back.
Rand licked cracked lips with a tongue nearly as dry; all the moisture in him seemed to have gone into the sweat that slicked him and bit his welts. If he tried and failed, there would never be another chance. He could not wait. There might never be another chance anyway.
Cautiously, blindly, he felt at the four hard points. There was nothing there, any more than the shield itself was anything he could feel or see, but somehow he could feel around this nothingness, feel a shape to it. Like knots. There was always space between the cords in a knot, however tightly pulled, gaps finer than a hair, where only air could go. Slowly, ever so slowly, he fumbled into one of those gaps, squeezing through infinitesimal spaces between what seemed not to be there at all. Slowly. How long before the others returned? If they took it up again before he found a way through this tortuous labyrinth . . . Slowly. And suddenly he could feel the Source, like brushing it with a fingernail; the bare edge of a fingernail. Saidin was still beyond him — the shield was still there — but he could feel hope welling in Lews Therin. Hope and trepidation. Two Aes Sedai were still holding their part of the barrier, still aware of what they held.
Rand could not have explained what he did next, though Lews Therin had explained how; explained between drifting off into his own mad fancies, between towering rages and wailing over his lost Ilyena, between gibbering that he deserved to die and shouting that he would not let them sever him. It was as if he flexed what he had extended through the knot, flexed it as hard as he could. The knot resisted. It trembled. And then it burst. There were only five. The barrier thinned. He could feel it grow less. An invisible wall only five bricks thick now instead of six. The two Aes Sedai would have felt it, too, though they might not understand exactly what had happened, or how. Please, Light, not now. Not yet.
Quickly, almost frantically, he attacked the remaining knots in turn. A second went; the shield thinned. It was quicker now, quicker with each, as if he were learning the path through, though it was different each time. The third knot gone. And a third soft point appeared; maybe the Aes Sedai did not know what he was doing, but they would not simply sit while the shield grew less and less. Truly frantic, Rand hurled himself at the fourth knot. He had to unravel it before a fourth sister came into the shield; four might be able to hold it whatever he did. Almost weeping, he struggled through the complex windings, slipping between nothingness. Frenziedly, he flexed, bursting the knot. The shield remained, but held by only three now. If he could only move fast enough.
When he reached for saidin, the invisible barrier was still there, but it no longer seemed stone or brick. It gave as he pressed, bending under his pressure, bending, bending. Suddenly it tore apart before him like rotted cloth. The Power filled him, and as it did, he seized at those three soft points, crushing them ruthlessly in fists of Spirit. Aside from that,
he still could only channel where he could see, and all he could see, dimly, was the inside of the chest, what he could glimpse of it with his head forced between his knees. Before he even finished with the fists of Spirit, he channeled Air. The chest exploded away from him with a loud boom.
Free, Lews Therin breathed, and it was an echo of Rand’s thought. Free. Or maybe the other way around.
They will pay, Lews Therin growled. I am the Lord of the Morning.
Rand knew he had to move even more quickly now, move quickly and violently, but at first he struggled to move at all. Muscles beaten twice a day for he did not know how long, crammed into a chest every day, those muscles screamed as he gritted his teeth and slowly pushed up to hands and knees. It was a distant screaming, someone else’s body in pain, but he could not make that body move faster however strong saidin made him feel. Emptiness buffered emotion, but something close to panic tried to wriggle creepers into the Void.
He was in a large clump of scattered trees, with broad shafts of sunlight filtering through nearly leafless branches; he was shocked to realize it was still daylight, maybe even midday. He had to move; more Aes Sedai would be coming. Two lay on the ground near him, apparently unconscious, one with a nasty gash bleeding across her forehead. The third, an angular woman, was on her knees staring at nothing, clutching her head in both hands and screaming. She seemed untouched by all the splinters and pieces of the chest. He did not recognize any of them. An instant of regret that it was not Galina or Erian he had stilled — he was not sure he had intended to do that; Lews Therin had gone on at length about how he intended to sever every one of them who had imprisoned him; Rand hoped it had been his own idea, however hasty — an instant, and he saw another shape stretched out on the ground beneath bits of the chest. In rose-colored coat and breeches.
The angular woman did not look at him or stop shrieking even when he knocked her over against the low stone coping of a well as he crawled past. Desperately he wondered why no one came to her screams. Halfway to Min he became aware of lightning bolts lancing out of the sky and fireballs exploding overhead. He could smell wood burning, hear men shouting and screaming, the clash of metal, the cacophony of battle. He did not care if it was Tarmon Gai’don. If he had killed Min . . . Gently he turned her over.
Big dark eyes stared up at him, “Rand,” she breathed. “You’re alive. I was afraid to look. There was an awful roar, and pieces of wood everywhere, and I recognized part of the chest, and . . . ” Tears began spilling down her cheeks. “I thought they had . . . I was afraid you were . . .” Scrubbing at her face with bound hands, she drew a deep breath. Her ankles were bound too. “Will you untie me, sheepherder, and make one of your gateways away from here? Or don’t bother with untying. Just toss me over your shoulder and go.”
Deftly he wielded Fire, parting the cords that held her. “It isn’t that simple, Min.” He did not know this place at all; a gateway opened from here might go anywhere, if it opened at all. If he could open one at all. Pain and weariness shaved at the borders of the Void. He was not sure how much of the Power he could draw. Suddenly he realized he could feel saidin being channeled in every direction. Through the trees, beyond burning wagons, he could see Aiel fighting Warders and Gawyn’s green-coated soldiers, being driven back by Aes Sedai fire and lightning, yet coming on again. Somehow Taim had found him and brought Asha’man soldiers and Aiel. “I cannot go just yet. I think some friends have come for me. Don’t worry; I will protect you.”
A jagged silver blaze split a tree on the edge of the copse, close enough to make Rand’s hair stir. Min gave a start. “Friends,” she muttered, rubbing her wrists.
He motioned her to stay where she was — except for that one errant bolt, the thicket appeared untouched — but when he shoved himself to his feet, she was right there, holding him up on one side. Staggering to the sparse tree line, he was grateful for her support, but he made himself straighten and stop leaning on her. How could she believe he would protect her if he needed her not to fall on his face? A hand on the shattered trunk of the lightning-struck tree helped. Tendrils of smoke rose from it, but it had not caught fire.
The wagons made a great ring around the trees. Some of the servants seemed to be trying to keep the horses together — the teams were all still harnessed — but most huddled wherever they could in hope of avoiding the fury falling from above. In truth, except for that one bolt, it all seemed aimed at the wagons and men fighting. Maybe at the Aes Sedai too. Each sat her horse a little way back from the whirl of spears and swords and flame, but not too far, sometimes standing in her stirrups for a better view.
Rand spotted Erian quickly, slender and dark-haired on a pale gray mare. Lews Therin snarled, and Rand struck almost without thinking. He felt the other man’s disappointment as he did. Spirit to shield her, with the slight resistance that told of slicing through her connection of saidar, and even as that was tied, a club of Air to knock her unconscious from the saddle. If he decided to still her, he wanted her to know who was doing it and why. One of the Aes Sedai shouted for someone to tend Erian, but no one looked toward the trees. No one out there could feel saidin; they thought she had been felled by something from outside the wagons.
His eyes searched among the other mounted women, stopped on Katerine, wheeling her long-legged bay gelding back and forth, fire blazing wherever she looked among the Aiel. Spirit and Air, and she fell limply, one foot tangled in a stirrup.
Yes, Lews Therin laughed. And now Galina. Her I want especially.
Rand squeezed his eyes shut. What was he doing? It was Lews Therin who wanted those three so badly he could think of nothing else. Rand wanted to repay them for what they had done to him, but there was battle going on, men dying while he hunted for particular Aes Sedai. Maidens dying too, no doubt.
He took the next Aes Sedai, twenty paces to Katerine’s left, with Spirit and Air, then moved to another tree and put Sarene Nemdahl on the ground, unconscious and shielded. Slowly he staggered along the edge of the thicket, striking like a cutpurse time and again. Min stopped trying to hold him up, though her hands hovered, ready to catch him.
“They’re going to see us,” she muttered. “One of them is going to look around and see us.”
Galina, Lews Therin growled. Where is she?
Rand ignored him, and Min. Coiren fell, and two more whose names he did not know. He had to do what he could.
The Aes Sedai had no way of telling what was happening. Steadily along the ringwall of wagons, sisters toppled from their horses. Those still conscious spread themselves out more, trying to cover the whole perimeter, an air of anxiety suddenly in the way they handled their horses, the redoubled fury with which fire blazed into the Aiel and lightning struck from the sky. It had to be something from outside, but Aes Sedai fell, and they did not know how or why.
Their numbers dwindled, and the effects began to tell. Fewer lightning bolts fizzled abruptly in midair, and more struck among the Warders and soldiers. Fewer balls of fire suddenly vanished or exploded before reaching the wagons. Aiel began pressing through the gaps between wagons; wagons were heaved over. In moments there were black-veiled Aiel everywhere, and chaos. Rand stared in amazement.
Warders and green-coated soldiers fought in clumps against Aiel, and Aes Sedai surrounded themselves with rains of fire. But there were Aiel fighting Aiel as well; men with the scarlet siswai’aman headband and Maidens with red strips tied to their arms fighting Aiel without. And Cairhienin lancers in their bell-shaped helmets and Mayeners in red breastplates were suddenly among the wagons too, striking at Aiel as well as Warders. Had he finally gone mad? He was conscious of Min, pressed against his back and trembling. She was real. What he was seeing must be real.
A dozen or so Aielmen, each as tall as he or taller, started trotting toward him. They wore no red. He watched them curiously until, within a pace of him, one raised a reversed spear like a cudgel. Rand channeled, and fire seemed to shoot out of the dozen everywhere. Charred and twis
ted bodies tumbled at his feet.
Suddenly Gawyn was reining a bay stallion up not ten steps in front of him, sword in hand and twenty or more green-coated men riding at his heels. For a moment they stared at one another, and Rand prayed he would not have to harm Elayne’s brother.
“Min,” Gawyn grated, “I can take you out of here.”
She peeked past Rand’s shoulder to shake her head; she was holding on to him so tightly, he did not think he could have pried her loose had he wanted to. “I’m staying with him, Gawyn. Gawyn, Elayne loves him.”
With the Power in him, Rand could see the man’s knuckles go white on his sword hilt. “Jisao,” he said in a flat voice. “Rally the Younglings. We are cutting a way out of here.” If his voice had been flat before, now it went dead. “Al’Thor, one day I will see you die.” Digging his heels in, he galloped away, he and all the others shouting “Younglings!” at the top of their lungs, and more men in green coats cutting a way to join them with every stride.
A man in a black coat darted in front of Rand, staring after Gawyn, and the ground erupted in a gout of fire and earth that toppled half a dozen horses as they reached the wagons. Rand saw Gawyn sway in the saddle in the instant before he beat the black-coated man to the ground with a mace of Air. He did not know the hard-faced young man who snarled at him, but the fellow wore both the sword and Dragon on his high collar, and saidin filled him.