It was who he was friends with that settled them down. Melanril and the others in their fine, unmarked armor frowned impatiently, not understanding why he did not want to let them begin the business of killing Aiel savages. If he had not been Rand’s friend they probably would have trampled him and Pips both.
He could let them go charging off. They would do it piecemeal, leaving the pikes and the Cairhienin horse behind, though the Cairhienin might join in once they realized what was happening. And they would all die. The smart thing would be to let them get on with it while he headed in the opposite direction. The only trouble was that once these idiots let the Aiel know they were discovered, those Aiel might decide to do something fancy, like swinging around to take the strung-out fools in the flank. If that happened, there was no certainty that he would get clear.
“What the Lord Dragon wants you to do,” he told them, “is to ride ahead slowly, just as if there wasn’t an Aiel inside a hundred miles. As soon as the pikes are through the gap, they’ll form a hollow square, and you get yourselves inside it double quick.”
“Inside!” Melanril protested. Angry mutters rose from the other young lords—except Estean, who looked thoughtful. “There is no honor in hiding behind stinking—”
“You bloody do it,” Mat roared, reining Pips close to Melanril’s horse, “or if the bloody Aiel don’t kill you, Rand will, and whatever he leaves, I’ll chop into sausage myself!” This was taking too long; the Aiel had to be wondering what they were talking about by now. “With any luck, you will be set before the Aiel can hit you. If you have horsebows, use them. Otherwise, hold tight. You’ll get your bloody charge, and you’ll know when, but if you move too early . . . !” He could almost feel time running down.
Setting the butt of his spear in his stirrup like a lance, he heeled Pips back down the column. When he glanced over his shoulder, Melanril and the others were talking and peering after him. At least they were not haring up the valley.
The commander of the pikemen proved to be a pale, slender Cairhienin, half a head shorter than Mat and mounted on a gray gelding that looked past ready for the pasture. Daerid had hard eyes, though, an oft-broken nose, and three white scars crisscrossing his face, one of them not very old. He took off his bell-shaped helmet while he talked with Mat; the front of his head was shaved. No lord, he. Maybe he had been part of the army, before the civil war started. Yes, his men knew how to form a hedgehog. He had not faced Aiel, but he had faced brigands, and Andoran cavalry. There was an implication that he had fought other Cairhienin as well, for one of the Houses contesting for the throne. Daerid sounded neither eager nor reluctant; he sounded like a man with a job of work to do.
The column stepped off as Mat turned Pips’ head the other way. They marched with a measured pace, and a quick look behind showed the Tairens’ horses moving no faster.
He let Pips go a little quicker than a walk, but not much. It seemed he could feel Aiel eyes on his back, feel them wondering what he had said, and where he was going now and why. Just a messenger who’s delivered his message and is going away. Nothing to worry about. He certainly hoped that was what the Aiel thought, but his shoulders did not untense until he was sure they could no longer see him.
The Cairhienin were still waiting where he had left them. They still had their flankers out, too. Banners and con made a thicket where the lords had gathered, one in ten or better of the Cairhienin’s number. Most of them wore plain breastplates, and where there was gilt or silverwork, it was battered as though a drunken blacksmith had been at it. Some of their mounts made Daerid’s look like Lan’s warhorse. Could they even do what was needed? But the faces that turned to him were hard, the gazes harder.
He was in the clear, now, hidden from the Aiel. He could ride on. After telling this lot what was expected of them, anyway. He had sent the others on into the Aiel trap; he could not simply abandon them.
Talmanes of House Delovinde, his con three yellow stars on blue and his banner a black fox, was even shorter than Daerid and had three years on Mat at most, but he led these Cairhienin although there were older men and even gray hair present. His eyes held as little expression as Daerid’s, and he looked like a coiled whip. His armor and sword were utterly plain. Once he had told Mat his name the man listened quietly while Mat laid out his plan, leaning a little out of the saddle to cut lines in the ground with the sword-bladed spear.
The other Cairhienin lords gathered round on their horses, watching, but none so sharply as Talmanes. Talmanes studied the map he drew, and studied him from boots to hat, even his spear. When he was done, the fellow still did not speak, until Mat barked, “Well? I don’t care whether you take it or leave it, but your friends will be hip-deep in Aiel in not much longer.”
“The Tairens are no friends of mine. And Daerid is . . . useful. Certainly not a friend.” Dry chuckles ran through the onlooking lords at the suggestion. “But I will lead one half, if you lead the other.”
Talmanes pulled off one steel-backed gauntlet and put out his hand, but for a moment Mat only stared at it. Lead? Him? I’m a gambler, not a soldier. A lover. Memories of battles long gone spun through his head, but he forced them down. All he had to do was ride on. But then maybe Talmanes would leave Estean and Daerid and the rest to roast. On the spit Mat had hung them from. Even so, it was a surprise to him when he grasped the other’s hand and said, “You just be there when you’re supposed to be.”
For reply Talmanes began calling off names in a quick voice. Lords and lordlings reined toward Mat, each followed by a bannerman and perhaps a dozen retainers, until he had four hundred odd of the Cairhienin. Talmanes did not have much to say after, either; he just led the remainder west at a trot, trailing a faint cloud of dust.
“Keep together,” Mat told his half. “Charge when I say charge, run when I say run, and don’t make any noise you don’t have to.” There was the creak of saddles and the thud of hooves as they followed him, of course, but at least they did not talk, or ask questions.
A last glimpse of the other bristle of bright banners and con, and then a twist in the shallow valley hid them. How had he gotten into this? It had all started so simply. Just give warning and go. Each step after had seemed so small, so necessary. And now he had waded waist deep into the mud, and no choice but to keep on. He hoped Talmanes meant to show up. The man had not even asked who he was.
The hill valley twisted and forked as he angled north, but he had a good sense of direction. For instance, he knew exactly which way lay south and safety, and it was not the way he was heading. Dark clouds were forming up there toward the city, the first he had seen so thick in a long time. Rain would break the drought—good for the farmers, if any remained—and settle the dust—good for horsemen, so they did not announce themselves too early. Maybe if it rained, the Aiel would give up and go home. The wind was beginning to pick up, too, bringing a little cool, for a wonder.
The sound of fighting drifted over the crests, men shouting, men screaming. It had begun.
Mat turned Pips, raised his spear and swung it right and left. He was almost surprised when the Cairhienin formed into one long line to either side of him, facing upslope. The gesture had been instinctive, from another time and place, but then, these men had seen fighting. He started Pips up through the scattered trees at a slow walk, and they kept pace to the quiet jangle of bridles.
His first thought on reaching the height was relief at seeing Talmanes and his men coming into sight on the crest across from him. His second was to curse.
Daerid had formed the hedgehog, spiny thickets of pikes four deep interspersed with bowmen to make a large hollow square. Long pikes made it difficult for the Shaido to get close, however they rushed in, and the archers and crossbowmen were exchanging shots hot and fast with the Aiel. Men were falling on both sides, but the pikes simply closed in when one of their number went down, making the square tighter. Of course, the Shaido did not appear to slacken their assault either.
The Defender
s were dismounted in the center, and maybe half the Tairen lords with their retainers. Half. That was what made him want to curse. The rest dashed about among the Aiel, slashing and stabbing with sword and lance in knots of five or ten, or alone. Dozens of riderless horses told how well they were doing. Melanril was off with only his bannerman, laying about with his blade. Two Aiel darted in to neatly hamstring the lordling’s horse; it fell, head flailing—Mat was sure it screamed, but the din swallowed it—and then Melanril vanished behind cadin’sor-clad figures, spears stabbing. The bannerman lasted a moment longer.
Good riddance, Mat thought grimly. Standing in his stirrups, he raised the sword-bladed spear high, then swept it forward, shouting, “Los! Los caba’drin!”
He would have had the words back if he could, and not because they were Old Tongue; it was a boiling cauldron down in the valley. But whether or not any of the Cairhienin understood a command of “horsemen forward” in the Old Tongue, they understood the gesture, especially when he dropped back into his saddle and dug in his heels. Not that he really wanted to, but he could not see any choice now. He had put those men down there—some might have gotten away if he had told them to turn and run—and he just did not have a choice.
Banners and con waving, the Cairhienin charged downhill with him, shouting battle cries. In imitation of him, no doubt, though what he was shouting was “Blood and bloody ashes!” Across the valley, Talmanes raced down just as hard.
Sure that they had all the wetlanders penned, the Shaido never saw the others until crashed into from behind on both sides. It was then that the lightning began to fall. And after that things really got hairy.
CHAPTER
44
The Lesser Sadness
Rand’s shirt clung to him with the sweat of effort, but he kept his coat on for protection from the wind gusting toward Cairhien. The sun had at least another hour to reach its noonday peak, yet already he felt as if he had run all morning and been beaten with a club at the finish. Wrapped in the Void, he was only distantly aware of the weariness, dimly perceiving the ache in arms and shoulders, in the small of his back, a throb around the tender scar in his side. That he was aware of them at all told the story. With the Power in him, he could make out individual leaves on the trees at a hundred paces, but whatever happened to him physically should have been as if it were happening to someone else.
He had long since taken to drawing on saidin through the angreal in his pocket, the stone carving of the fat little man. Even so, working the Power was a strain now, weaving it at this distance of miles, but only the rancid threads streaking what he drew kept him from pulling more, from trying to pull it all to him. The Power was that sweet, taint or no. After hours of channeling without rest, he was that tired. At the same time, he had to fight saidin itself harder, to put more of his strength into keeping it from burning him to ash where he stood, from burning his mind to ash. It was ever more difficult to hold off saidin’s destruction, more difficult to resist the desire to draw more, more difficult to handle what he did draw. A nasty downward spiral, and hours to go before the battle was decided.
Wiping sweat from his eyes, he gripped the platform’s rough railing. He was near the brink, yet he was stronger than Egwene or Aviendha. The Aiel woman was standing, peering off toward Cairhien and the storm clouds, occasionally bending to stare through the long looking glass; Egwene sat cross-legged, leaning back against an upright still covered in gray bark, her eyes closed. They both looked as worked out as he felt.
Before he could do anything—not that he knew what; he had no skill at Healing—Egwene’s eyes opened, and she stood, exchanging a few quiet words with Aviendha that the wind snatched away from even his saidin-enhanced hearing. Then Aviendha sat down in Egwene’s place and let her head fall back against the upright. The black clouds around the city continued to stab lightning, but they were wild forks far more often than single lances now.
So they were taking turns, giving each other a rest. It would have been nice to have someone do that with him, but he did not regret telling Asmodean to stay in his tent. He would not have trusted him to channel. Especially not now. Who could say what he would have done when he saw Rand weakened as he was?
Staggering slightly, Rand pulled his looking glass around to study the hills outside the city. Life was certainly visible there now. And death. Wherever he looked there was fighting, Aiel against Aiel, a thousand here, five thousand there, swarming over the treeless hills and too closely meshed for him to do anything. He could not find the column of horse and pike.
Three times he had seen them, once fighting twice their number of Aiel. He was certain they were still out there. Small hope that Melanril had decided to obey his orders at this late juncture. Choosing the man just because he had had the grace to be embarrassed by Weiramon’s behavior had been a mistake, but there had been little time to make a choice, and he had had to get rid of Weiramon. Nothing to be done about it now. Maybe one of the Cairhienin could be put in command. If even his direct order would make the Tairens follow a Cairhienin.
A milling mass right at the city’s high gray wall caught his eye. Tall iron-bound gates stood open, Aiel battling horsemen and spearmen almost in the open while folk tried to close the gates, tried and failed because of the press of bodies. Horses with empty saddles and armored men unmoving on the ground half a mile from the gate marked where the sortie had been driven back. Arrows rained down from the walls, and head-sized chunks of rubble—even occasional spears slashing down with enough force to spit two men, or three, though he still could not see from where exactly—but the Aiel were going over their dead, ever closer to forcing their way in. A quick scan showed him two more columns of Aiel trotting toward the gates, perhaps three thousand all told. He did not doubt that they were Couladin’s as well.
He was aware of grinding his teeth. If the Shaido got inside Cairhien, he would never drive them north. He would have to dig them out street by street; the cost in lives would dwarf the number of those already dead, and the city itself would end a ruin like Eianrod, if not Taien. Cairhienin and Shaido were mingled like ants in a bowl, but he had to do something.
Taking a deep breath, he channeled. The two women had set the conditions, bringing the storm clouds; he did not need to be able to see their weavings to take advantage of them. Stark silver-blue lightning struck into the Aiel, once, twice, again, as fast as a man could clap.
Rand jerked his head up, blinking away the burning lines that still seemed to cross his sight, and when he looked through the long tube again, Shaido lay like cut barley all around where the bolts had fallen. Men and horses thrashed on the ground closer to the gates, too, and some did not move at all, but the uninjured were dragging the injured and the gates were beginning to close.
How many won’t make it back inside? How many of my own did I kill? The cold truth was that it did not matter. It had had to be done, and it was done.
And well it was. Distantly he felt his knees wobbling. He would have to pace himself if he was to last the rest of the day. No more laying about him everywhere; he had to spot where he was particularly needed, where he could make a—
The storm clouds were massed only over the city and the hills to the south, but that did not stop lightning from slashing out of the clear, cloudless sky above the tower, flashing down into the gathered Maidens below with a deafening crack.
Hair lifting with the tingle in the air, Rand stared. He could feel that bolt in another way, feel the weaving of saidin that had made it. So Asmodean was tempted even back in the tents.
There was no time for thought, though. Like rapid beats on a giant drum, bolt followed bolt, marching through the Maidens until the last struck the base of the tower in an explosion of splinters the size of arms and legs.
As the tower slowly began to slant over, Rand threw himself at Egwene and Aviendha. Somehow he managed to scoop them both into one arm, then wrap the other around an upright on what was now the upslope side of the platform. They
stared at him wide-eyed, mouths coming open, but there was no more time for speaking than for thinking. The shattered log tower toppled, crashing through the branches of the trees. For an instant he believed they might cushion the fall.
With a snap, the upright he clung to broke off. The ground came up and knocked all the breath out of him a heartbeat before the women came down on top of him. Darkness rolled in.
He regained consciousness slowly. Hearing returned first.
“. . . have dug us up like a boulder and sent us rolling downhill in the night.” It was Aviendha’s voice, low, as if she spoke for her own ears. There was something moving on his face. “You have taken away what we are, what we were. You must give us something in return, something to be. We need you.” The moving thing slowed, touched more softly. “I need you. Not for myself, you will understand. For Elayne. What is between her and me now is between her and me, but I will hand you to her. I will. If you die, I will carry your corpse to her! If you die—!”
His eyes popped open, and for a moment they stared at each other almost nose to nose. Her hair was all in disarray, her head scarf gone, and a purple lump marred her cheek. She straightened jerkily, folding a damp cloth stained with blood, and began dabbing at his forehead with considerably more force than before.
“I’ve no intention of dying,” he told her, though in truth he was not sure of that at all. The Void and saidin were gone, of course. Just thinking of losing them as he had made him shiver; it was pure luck that saidin had not scoured his mind blank in that last instant. Just thinking of seizing the Source again made him groan. Without the Void for buffer, he felt every ache, every bruise and scrape, to the fullest. He was so tired he could have dropped off to sleep at once if he had not hurt so much. As well he did hurt, then, because he surely could not sleep. Not for a long time yet.
Sliding a hand beneath his coat, he touched his side, then surreptitiously wiped the blood off his fingers onto his shirt before bringing the hand out again. No wonder that a fall like that had broken open the half-healed, never-healed wound. He did not seem to be bleeding too badly, but if the Maidens saw it, or Egwene, or even Aviendha, he might have a fight to keep from being hauled off to Moiraine for Healing. He had too much to do yet for that—being Healed on top of everything else would act on him like a cudgel to the temple—and besides, there must be far worse hurt than what he suffered for her to deal with.
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