“Foot,” Weiramon muttered, slapping his reins on a gauntleted hand. “Burn my soul, they’re no good, foot. They’ll scatter at the first charge. Before.” The first of the column strode off the causeway. They had helped take Illian, and they had not scattered.
Semaradrid shook his head. “No pikes,” he muttered. “I have seen well-led foot hold, with pikes, but without . . . ” He made a sound of disgust in his throat.
Gregorin Panar, the third man sitting his saddle near Rand to watch the new arrivals, said nothing. Perhaps he had no prejudice against infantry — though if he did not, he would be one of only a handful of noblemen Rand had met without it — but he tried hard not to frown and almost succeeded. Everyone knew by now that the men with the Dragon on their chests bore arms because they had chosen to follow Rand, chosen to follow the Dragon Reborn, for no other reason than that they wanted to. The Illianer had to be wondering where they were going that Rand wanted the Legion and the Council of Nine was not trusted to know. For that matter, Semaradrid eyed Rand sideways. Only Weiramon was too stupid to think.
Rand turned Tai’daishar away. Narishma’s package had been rewrapped, into a thinner bundle, and tied beneath his left stirrup leather. “Strike the camp; we’re moving,” he told the three nobles.
This time, he let Dashiva weave the gateway to take them all away. The plain-faced fellow frowned at him and mumbled to himself — Dashiva actually seemed affronted, for some reason! — and Gedwyn and Rochaid, their horses shoulder-by-shoulder, watched with sardonic smiles as the silvery slash of light rotated into a hole in nothing. Watched Rand more than Dashiva. Well, let them watch. How often could he seize saidin and risk falling dizzily on his face before he really did fall? It could not be where they could see.
This time, the gateway took them to a wide road carved through the low, brushy foothills of mountains to the west. The Nemarellin Mountains. Not the equals of the Mountain of Mist, and not a patch on the Spine of the World, but they rose dark and severe against the sky, sharp peaks that walled the west coast of Illian. Beyond them lay Kabal Deep, and beyond that . . .
Men began to recognize the peaks soon enough. Gregorin Panar took one look around and nodded in sudden satisfaction. The other three Councilors and Marcolin reined close to him to talk while horsemen were still pouring through the gateway. Semaradrid required only a bit longer to puzzle it out, and Tihera, and they also looked as if they understood now.
The Silver Road ran from the City to Lugard, and carried all of the inland trade for the west. There was a Gold Road, too, that led to Far Madding. Roads and names alike dated from before there had been an Illian. Centuries of wagon wheels, hooves and boots had beaten them hard, and the cemaros could only skim them with mud. They were among the few reliable highways in Illian for moving large groups of men in winter. Everyone knew about the Seanchan in Ebou Dar by this time, though a good many of the tales Rand had heard among the armsmen made the invaders seem Trollocs’ meaner cousins. If the Seanchan intended to strike into Illian, the Silver Road was a good place to gather for defense.
Semaradrid and the others thought they knew what he planned: he must have learned that the Seanchan were coming, and the Asha’man were there to destroy them when they did. Given the stories about the Seanchan, no one seemed too upset that that left little for them to do. Of course, Weiramon had to have it explained to him finally, by Tihera, and he was upset, though he tried to mask it behind a grand speech about the wisdom of the Lord Dragon and the military genius of the Lord of the Morning, along with how he, personally, would lead the first charge against these Seanchan. A pure bull-goose fool. With luck, anyone else who learned of a gathering on the Silver Road would at least not be too much brighter than Semaradrid or Gregorin. With luck, no one who mattered would learn before it was too late.
Settling in to wait, Rand thought it would only be another day or so, but as the days stretched out, he began to wonder whether he might be nearly as big a fool as Weiramon.
Most of the Asha’man were out searching across Illian and Tear and the Plains of Maredo for the rest of those Rand wanted. Searching through the cemaros. Gateways and Traveling were all very well, but even Asha’man took time to find who they sought when downpours hid anything fifty paces away and quagmires dragged rumor to a near halt. Searching Asha’man passed within a mile of their quarry in ignorance, and turned only to learn the men had moved on again. Some had farther to go, seeking people not necessarily eager to be found. Days passed before the first brought news.
The High Lord Sunamon joined Weiramon, a fat man with an unctuous manner — toward Rand, at least. Smooth in his fine silk coat, always smiling, he was voluble in his declarations of loyalty, but he had plotted against Rand so long that he probably did so in his sleep. The High Lord Torean came, with his lumpy farmer’s face and his vast wealth, stammering about the honor of riding once more at the Lord Dragon’s side. Gold concerned Torean more than anything else, except possibly the privileges Rand had taken away from the nobles in Tear. He seemed particularly dismayed to learn there were no serving girls in the camp, and not so much as a village nearby where compliant farmgirls might be found. Torean had schemed against Rand every bit as often as Sunamon. Maybe even more than Gueyam, or Maraconn, or Aracome.
There were others. There was Bertome Saighan, a short, ruggedly handsome man with the front of his head shaved. He supposedly did not mourn the death of his cousin Colavaere too greatly, both because that made him the new High Seat of House Saighan and because rumor said Rand had executed her. Or murdered her. Bertome bowed and smiled, and his smile never reached his dark eyes. Some said he had been very fond of his cousin. Ailil Riatin came, a slim dignified woman with big dark eyes, not young but quite pretty, protesting that she had a Lance-captain to lead her armsmen and no desire to take the field in person. Protesting her loyalty for the Lord Dragon, too. But her brother Toram claimed the throne Rand meant for Elayne, and it was whispered that she would do anything for Toram, anything at all. Even join with his enemies; to hamper or to spy or both, of course. Dalthanes Annallin came, and Amondrid Osiellin, and Doressin Chuliandred, lords who had supported Colavaere’s seizure of the Sun Throne when they thought Rand would never return to Cairhien.
Cairhienin and Tairen, they were brought in one by one, with fifty retainers, or at most a hundred. Men and women he trusted even less than he did Gregorin or Semaradrid. Most were men, not because he thought the women any less dangerous — he was not that big a fool; a woman would kill you twice as fast as a man, and usually for half the reason! — but because he could not bring himself to take any woman except the most dangerous, where he was going. Ailil could smile warmly while she calculated where to plant the knife in your ribs. Anaiyella, a willowy simpering High Lady who gave a fair imitation of a beautiful goosebrain, had returned to Tear from Cairhien and openly begun talking of herself for the as-yet-nonexistent throne of Tear. Perhaps she was a fool, but she had managed to gain a great deal of support, both among nobles and in the streets.
So he gathered them in, all the folk who had been too long out from under his eye. He could not watch all of them all the time, but he could not afford to let them forget that he did watch sometimes. He gathered them, and he waited. For two days. Gnashing his teeth, he waited. Five days. Eight.
Rain was beating a diminishing drum on his tent when the last man he was waiting for finally arrived.
Shaking a small torrent from his oiled-cloth cape, Davram Bashere blew out his thick, gray-streaked mustaches in disgust and tossed the cape over a barrel chair. A short man with a great hooked beak of a nose, he seemed larger than he was. Not because he strutted, but because he assumed that he was as tall as any man present, and other men took him so. Wise men did. The wolf-headed ivory baton of the Marshal-General of Saldaea, tucked carelessly behind his sword belt, had been earned on scores of battlefields and at as many council tables. He was one of the very few men Rand would trust with his life.
“I kn
ow you don’t like explaining,” Bashere muttered, “but I could use a little illumination.” Adjusting his serpentine sword, he sprawled in another chair and flung a leg over the arm of it. He always seemed at his ease, but he could uncoil faster than a whip. “That Asha’man fellow wouldn’t say more than you needed me yesterday, yet he said not to bring more than a thousand men. I only had half that with me, but I brought them. It can’t be a battle. Half the sigils I saw out there belong to men who’d bite their tongues if they saw a fellow behind you with a knife, and most of the rest to men who’d try to hold your attention. If they hadn’t paid the knife man in the first place.”
Seated behind his writing table in his shirtsleeves, Rand wearily pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. With Boreane Carivin left behind, the lamp wicks needed proper trimming, and a faint haze of smoke hung in the air. Besides, he had been awake most of the night poring over the maps scattered across the table. Maps of southern Altara. No two agreed on very much.
“If you’re going to fight a battle,” he told Bashere, “who better to pay the butcher’s bill than men who want you dead? Anyway, it isn’t soldiers who’ll win this battle. All they have to do is keep anybody from sneaking up on the Asha’man. What do you think of that?”
Bashere snorted so hard that his heavy mustaches stirred. “I think it’s a deadly stew, is what I think. Somebody’s going to choke to death on it. The Light send it isn’t us.” And then he laughed as if that were a fine joke.
Lews Therin laughed, too.
Chapter 22
Gathering Clouds
* * *
Under a steady drizzle Rand’s small army formed columns across the low folded hills facing the Nemarellin peaks, dark and sharp against the western sky. There was no real need to face the direction you intended to Travel, but it always felt askew to Rand otherwise. Despite the rain, rapidly thinning gray clouds let through startlingly bright sunshine. Or maybe the day only seemed bright, after all the recent gloom.
Four of the columns were headed by Bashere’s Saldaeans, bandy-legged unarmored men in short coats standing patiently beside their mounts beneath a small forest of shining lance heads, the other five by blue-coated men with the Dragon on their chests, commanded by a short stocky fellow named Jak Masond. When Masond moved, it was always with surprising quickness, but he was utterly still now, feet planted astride and hands folded behind his back. His men were in place, and so were the Defenders and Companions, grumpy about being behind infantry. It was the nobles and their folk, mainly, who milled about as if unsure where to go. Thick mud sucked at hooves and boots, and mired cart wheels; shouted curses rose. It took time to line up nearly six thousand soaked men, getting wetter by the minute. And that was not counting the supply carts, and the remounts.
Rand had donned his finest, so he would stand out at a glance. A lick with the Power had polished the Dragon Scepter’s spearhead to mirror brightness, and another had burnished the Crown of Swords so the gold gleamed. The gilded Dragon buckle of his sword belt caught the light, and so did the thread-of-gold embroidery that covered his blue silk coat. For a moment, he regretted giving away the gems that once had decked his sword’s hilt and scabbard. The dark boarhide was serviceable, but any armsman could have worn that. Let men know who he was. Let the Seanchan know who had come to destroy them.
Sitting Tai’daishar on a broad flat, he impatiently watched the nobles roil about on the hills. A little way off on the flat, Gedwyn and Rochaid sat their saddles in front of their men, all formed into a precise box, Dedicated in the front rank, Soldiers lined up behind. They looked ready to parade. As many had gray hair or nearly none as were young — several were as young as Hopwil or Morr — but every one was strong enough to make a gateway. That had been a requirement. Flinn and Dashiva waited behind Rand in a casual cluster with Adley and Morr, Hopwil and Narishma. And a rigid pair of mounted bannermen, one Tairen and one Cairhienin, their breastplates and helmets and even their steel-backed gauntlets buffed and polished till they shone. The crimson Banner of Light and the long white Dragon Banner hung limp and dripping. Rand had assumed the Power in his tent, where his momentary stagger would not be seen, and the sparse rain failed by an inch to touch him or his horse.
The taint on saidin felt especially heavy today, a thick foul oil that oozed into his pores and stained his bones deep. Stained his soul. He had thought himself accustomed to the vileness, after a fashion, yet today it was nauseating, stronger than the frozen fire and molten cold of saidin itself. He held on to the Source as often as possible now, accepting the vileness to avoid the new sickness of seizing it. It could be deadly, if he let sickness distract him from that struggle. Maybe it was connected to the dizzy spells, somehow. Light, he could not go mad yet, and he could not die. Not yet. There was too much still to be done.
He pressed his left leg against Tai’daishar’s flank just to feel the long bundle strapped between stirrup leather and scarlet saddle cloth. Every time he did that, something wriggled across the outside of the Void. Anticipation, and maybe a touch of fear. Well trained, the gelding started to turn left, and Rand had to rein him back. When would the nobles sort themselves out? He ground his teeth in impatience.
He could remember as a boy hearing men laugh that when rain fell in sunshine the Dark One was beating Semirhage. Some of that laughter had been uneasy, though, and scrawny old Cenn Buie would always snarl that Semirhage would be smarting and angry after that, and come for small boys who did not keep out of their elders’ way. That had been enough to send Rand running, when he was little. He wished Semirhage would come for him now, right that instant. He would make her weep.
Nothing makes Semirhage weep, Lews Therin muttered. She gives tears to others, but she has none herself.
Rand laughed softly. If she came today, he would make her weep. Her and the rest of the Forsaken together, if they came today. Most assuredly he would make the Seanchan weep.
Not everyone was pleased with the orders he had given. Sunamon’s oily smile vanished when he thought Rand did not see. Torean had a flask in his saddlebags, no doubt brandy, or maybe several flasks, because he drank steadily and never appeared to run dry. Semaradrid and Marcolin and Tihera each appeared in front of Rand to protest the numbers with somber faces. A few years before, close on six thousand men would have been army enough for any war, but they had seen armies in the tens of thousands, now, hundreds of thousands, as in Artur Hawkwing’s day, and to go against the Seanchan, they wanted far more. He sent them away disgruntled. They did not understand that fifty-odd Asha’man were as big a hammer as anyone could wish for. Rand wondered what they would have said had he told them he was hammer enough by himself. He had considered doing this by himself. It might come to that yet.
Weiramon came; he did not like having to take orders from Bashere, or the fact that they were going into mountains — very hard to mount a decent charge in mountains — or several other things — Rand was certain there were at least several more — that Rand did not let him utter.
“The Saldaean seems to believe I should ride on the right flank,” Weiramon muttered disparagingly. He twisted his shoulders as though the right flank were a great insult, for some reason. “And the foot, my Lord Dragon. Really, I think — ”
“I think you should get your men ready,” Rand said coldly. Part of the chill was the effect of floating in emotionless emptiness. “Or you won’t be on any flank.” He meant that he would leave the man behind if he was not ready in time. Surely such a fool could not make much trouble left in this remote spot with only a few armsmen. Rand would be back before he could ride to anything larger than a village.
Blood drained from Weiramon’s face, though. “As my Lord Dragon commands,” he said, briskly for him, and was whirling his horse away before the words were well out of his mouth. His mount was a tall deep-chested bay, today.
The pale Lady Ailil reined to a stop in front of Rand, accompanied by the High Lady Anaiyella, a strange pair to be in company,
and not just because their nations hated one another. Ailil was tall for a Cairhienin woman, if only for a Cairhienin, and everything about her was dignity and precision, from the arch of her eyebrow to the turn of her red-gloved wrist to the way her pearl-collared rain cape lay spread across the rump of her smoke-gray mare. Unlike Semaradrid or Marcolin, Weiramon or Tihera, she did not so much as blink at the sight of raindrops sliding down nothing around him. Anaiyella did blink. And gasp. And titter behind her hand. Anaiyella was willowy and darkly beautiful, her rain cape collared with rubies and embroidered with gold besides, but there any resemblance to Ailil ended. Anaiyella was all mincing elegance and simpers. When she bowed, her white gelding did, too, bending its forelegs. The prancing animal was showy, but Rand suspected it had no bottom. Like its mistress.
“My Lord Dragon,” Ailil said, “I must make one more protest against my inclusion in this . . . expedition.” Her voice was coolly neutral, if not exactly unfriendly. “I will send my retainers where you command and when, but I have no desire at all to be in the thick of a battle.”
“Oh, no,” Anaiyella added, with a delicate shudder. Even her tone simpered! “Nasty things, battles. So my Master of the Horse says. Surely you won’t really make us go, my Lord Dragon? We’ve heard you have a particular care for women. Haven’t we, Ailil?”