Explosions.
The distant eruptions sounded like boulders crashing against one another. Each one made the air shake.
“Light!” Queen Ethenielle of Kandor joined them, galloping on her white gelding. She yelled to him. “Is that what I think it is?”
Lan nodded. Enemy channelers.
Ethenielle called back to her retinue, yelling something he did not catch. She was a plump woman, somewhat matronly for a Borderlander. Her retinue included Lord Baldhere—her Swordbearer—and the grizzled Kalyan Ramsin, her new husband.
They approached the Gap, where warriors fought to keep the beasts contained. A group of Kandori riders near the bonfires at the front were suddenly thrown into the air.
“Lord Mandragoran!” A figure in a black coat waved to them. Narishma hurried up, his Aes Sedai accompanying him. Lan always had one channeler at the front lines, but had given them orders not to fight. He needed them fresh for emergencies.
Like this one.
“Channeling?” Lan asked, slowing Mandarb.
“Dreadlords, Dai Shan,” Narishma said, panting. “Maybe as many as two dozen.”
“Twenty or more channelers,” Agelmar said. “They’ll cut through us like a sword through a spring lamb.”
Lan looked across the bitter landscape, once his homeland. A homeland he’d never known.
He would have to abandon Malkier. Admitting it felt like a knife twisting inside him, but he would do it. “You have your retreat, Lord Agelmar,” Lan said. “Narishma, can you channelers do anything?”
“We can try to cut their weaves from the air if we ride up close enough,” Narishma said. “But that will be hard, perhaps impossible, with them using just ribbons of Fire and Earth. Besides, with so many on their side . . . well, they’ll target us. I fear we would be cut down—”
A nearby blast rocked the earth, and Mandarb reared, nearly throwing Lan to the ground. Lan fought the horse, nearly blind from the flash of light. “Dai Shan!” Narishma’s voice.
Lan blinked tears from his eyes.
“Go to Queen Elayne!” Lan bellowed. “Bring back channelers to cover our retreat. We’ll be cut to ribbons without them. Go, man!”
Agelmar was yelling the retreat, bringing forward archers to target the channelers and drive them beneath cover. Lan unsheathed his sword, galloping to bring the horsemen back.
Light protect us, Lan thought, yelling himself ragged and salvaging what he could of his cavalry. The Gap was lost.
Elayne waited nervously just inside Braem Wood.
It was an old forest, the type that seemed to have a soul of its own. The ancient trees were its gnarled fingers, reaching out of the earth to feel the wind.
It was difficult not to feel tiny in a wood like Braem. Though many of the trees were bare, Elayne could feel a thousand eyes watching her from the depths of the forest. She found herself thinking of the stories told to her as a child, stories of the Wood being full of brigands—some goodly, others with hearts as twisted as those of Darkfriends.
In fact. . . Elayne thought, remembering one of the stories. She turned to Birgitte. “Didn’t you once lead a band of thieves out of this forest?” Birgitte grimaced. “I was hoping you hadn’t heard that one.”
“You robbed the Queen of Aldeshar!” Elayne said.
“I was very polite about it,” Birgitte said. “She wasn’t a good queen. Many claimed she wasn’t the rightful one.”
“It’s the principle!”
“That’s exactly why I did it.” Birgitte frowned. “At least . . . I think it was . . .”
Elayne didn’t push the topic any farther. Birgitte always grew anxious when reminded that her memories of past lives were fading. At times, she had no recollection of her past lives at all; at other times, certain incidents would come flooding back to her, only to disappear the next moment.
Elayne led the rear guard, which would—in theory—do the bulk of the damage to the enemy.
Dry leaves crunched as a winded messenger arrived from the Traveling ground. “I’ve come from Caemlyn, Your Majesty,” the woman said with a bobbing bow from her mount. “Lord Aybara has successfully engaged the Trollocs. They are on their way.”
“Light, they took the bait,” Elayne said. “Now we make our preparations. Go get some rest; you’ll be needing all your strength soon enough.” The messenger nodded, galloping away. Elayne relayed the latest news to Talmanes, the Aiel and Tam al’Thor.
As Elayne heard something in the forest she raised a hand, stopping a Guards-woman’s report. Moonshadow danced forward, anxious, past the men who crouched in the underbrush around Elayne. No one spoke. The soldiers barely seemed to be drawing breath.
Elayne embraced the Source. Power flooded her, and with it the sweetness of a world expanded. The dying wood seemed more colorful within the embrace of saidar Yes. There was something climbing over the hills in the near distance. Her soldiers, thousands of them, whipping at horses past the point of exhaustion, were fast approaching the Wood. Elayne raised her spyglass to make out the twisting mass of Trollocs chasing behind like black waves flooding onto an already shadowed land.
“Finally!” Elayne exclaimed. “Archers, to the front!”
The Two Rivers men scrambled out of the woods before her, forming up just inside the tree line. They were one of the smallest forces in her army, but if reports on their prowess weren’t exaggerations, they’d be as useful as an ordinary force of archers three times their size.
A few of the younger men began nocking arrows to bows.
“Hold!” Elayne yelled. “Those are our men coming toward you.”
Tam and his leaders repeated the order. The men lowered their bows nervously.
“Your Majesty,” Tam said, stepping up to her horse. “The lads can hit them at this range.”
“Our soldiers are still too close,” Elayne said. “We need to wait for them to break to the sides.”
“Pardon, my Lady,” Tam said. “But no Two Rivers man would miss a shot like this. Those riders are safe, and the Trollocs have bows of their own.” He was right on that last count. Some of the Trollocs were pausing in their pursuit long enough to draw their massive blackwood bows. Perrin's men were riding with their backs exposed, and more than a few had dark-fletched arrows protruding from their limbs or their horses.
“Loose,” Elayne said. “Archers, loose!” Birgitte relayed the orders as she rode down the line. Tam barked orders to those nearby.
Elayne lowered the spyglass as a breeze blew through the forest, crackling dried leaves, rattling skeletal branches. The Two Rivers men drew. Light! Could they really shoot that far and still be accurate? The Trollocs were hundreds of paces away.
Arrows flew high, like hawks breaking from their roosts. She’d heard Rand brag about his bow, and she’d seen a Two Rivers longbow used on occasion. But this . . . so many arrows climbing into the air with incredible precision . . .
The arrows arced and dropped, not a one falling too short. They rained onto the Trolloc ranks, especially on the Trolloc archers. A few straggling Trolloc arrows returned, but the Two Rivers men had handily broken up their lines.
“That’s some fine archery,” Birgitte said, riding back up. “Fine indeed . . .” The Two Rivers men loosed more volleys in quick succession as Perrin’s riders entered the forest.
“Crossbowmen!” Elayne ordered, drawing her sword and raising it high. “Forward the Legion of the Dragon!”
The Two Rivers men fell back into the trees and the crossbowmen came out. She had two full banners of them from the Legion of the Dragon, and Bashere had drilled them well. They formed three ranks, one standing at a time to loose while the others reloaded while kneeling. The death they sent at the Trollocs hit like a crashing wave, driving a tremble through the advancing army, thousands falling dead.
Elayne leveled her sword at the Trollocs. The Two Rivers men had climbed the branches of the first line of trees and were loosing arrows from them. The men weren’t nearly as acc
urate from the precarious perches, but they didn’t need to be. The Trollocs faced death from the front and from above, and the creatures began to stumble over their dead.
Come on . . . Elayne thought.
The Trollocs advanced, forcing their way toward the archers. A large contingent of Trollocs broke off from the advance and headed to the east. The roadway that bordered Braem Wood was that way, and it would make sense for the Trollocs to seize it, then push along it to surround Elayne’s forces. Or so the Fades would think.
“Fall back into the Wood!” Elayne said, waving the sword. “Hurry!”
The crossbowmen each loosed one more bolt, then melted into the forest, pushing through the underbrush. The Two Rivers men dropped to the ground, then moved carefully through the trees. Elayne turned and rode in at a cautious trot. A short distance into the forest, she reached a banner of Alliandre’s Ghealdanin standing in ranks with pikes and halberds.
“Be sure to fall back as soon as they hit,” Elayne yelled to them. “We want to draw them deeper!” Deeper into the forest, where the siswat’aman awaited their arrival.
The soldiers nodded. Elayne passed Alliandre herself, sitting her horse with a small guard surrounding her. The dark-haired queen did a horseback curtsy to Elayne. Her men had wanted their queen to join Berelain at Mayene’s hospital, but Alliandre had refused. Perhaps seeing Elayne lead her troops directly had spurred the woman’s decision.
Elayne left them behind as the first Trollocs hit the Wood, grunting and yelling. They’d have a difficult time fighting in the forest. The humans could use the forest cover far more effectively, ambushing the huge Trollocs barreling through the woods, skewering and hamstringing them from behind. Mobile forces of bowmen and crossbowmen could shoot from cover—if they did it right, the Trollocs wouldn’t even know which direction the arrows were coming from.
As Elayne led her Queen’s Guard toward the roadway, she heard distant explosions and screams from Trollocs. The slingmen were tossing Aludra’s explosive roarsticks at the Trollocs through the trees. Flashes of light reflected off dim tree trunks.
Elayne reached the roadway just in time to see the Trollocs, led by several Myrddraal in deep black cloaks, come pouring onto it. They could quickly flank Elayne’s force—but the Band of the Red Hand had already set up the dragons on the road. Talmanes stood with hands clasped behind his back atop a pile of boxes, overlooking his force. The banner of the Red Hand flapped behind him, a bloody palm stamped on a field of red-fringed white, with Aludra yelling out measurements, aiming instructions and the occasional curse at dragoners making mistakes or moving too slowly.
Arrayed in front of Talmanes were the dragons, nearly a hundred of them, strung across the broad roadway in four ranks, spilling out into the fields around the roadway here. Elayne was too far away to hear him give the order to fire. That was perhaps a good thing, for the thunder that followed shook her as if Dragonmount itself had decided to erupt. Moon-shadow bucked, neighing, and Elayne had to fight to keep the animal from tossing her on her backside. In the end, she plugged the horse’s ears with a weave of Air as the dragoners rolled their weapons to the side and let the second rank open fire.
Elayne plugged her own ears as she calmed Moonshadow. Birgitte continued fighting her own terrified mount, eventually leaping free, but Elayne paid little attention. She peered through the smoke that choked the roadway. The third line of dragons was rolling up to fire.
Despite having her ears plugged, she could feel the blast jolt the ground, shake the trees. The fourth round followed, rattling her to the bones. Elayne breathed in and out, stilling her heart, waiting for the smoke to clear.
First, she made out Talmanes, standing tall. The first line of dragons had rolled back into place, reloaded. The other three ranks were hastily doing their own reloads, slipping powder and the large metal spheres into place.
A strong breeze from the west cleared the smoke enough for her to see . . . Elayne gasped softly.
Thousands of Trollocs lay in smoldering pieces, many blown off the road completely. Arms, legs, strands of coarse hair, pieces lay scattered amid holes in the ground fully two paces wide. Where there had once been many thousands of Trollocs, only blood, broken bones and smoke remained. Many of the trees had been shattered into splintered trunks. Of the Myrddraal that had been at the front, there was no sign at all.
The dragoners lowered their flame-sticks, not firing their reloaded rounds. A few surviving Trollocs near the back scrambled away into the forest.
Elayne looked at Birgitte and grinned. The Warder looked on, solemn, while several Guardswomen ran to chase down her horse.
“Well?” Elayne asked, unstopping her ears.
“I think . . .” Birgitte said. “Those things are messy. And imprecise. And bloody effective.”
“Yes,” Elayne said proudly.
Birgitte shook her head. Her horse was returned to her, and she remounted. “I used to think that a man and his bow were the most dangerous combination this land would ever know, Elayne. Now—as if it weren’t bad enough that men channel openly and the Seanchan use channelers in combat—we have those things. I don’t like the way this is going. If any boy with a tube of metal can destroy an entire army . . ”
“Don’t you see?” Elayne said. “There won’t be war any more. We win this, and there will be peace, as Rand intends. Nobody but Trollocs would go into battle, knowing they face weapons like these!”
“Perhaps,” Birgitte said. She shook her head. “Maybe I have less faith in the wisdom of people than you do.”
Elayne sniffed, raising her sword to Talmanes, who drew his and raised it back. The first step in destroying this Trolloc army had been taken.
CHAPTER 11
Just Another Sell-sword
“I realize there have been . . . disagreements between us in the past” Adelorna Bastine said, riding beside Egwene as they passed through camp. Adelorna was a slim, regal woman; her tilted eyes and dark hair bespoke her Saldaean heritage. “I would not have you consider us enemies.”
“I have not,” Egwene said carefully, “and do not.” She did not ask what Adelorna meant by using the word “us.” She was Green, and Egwene had suspected for a time that she was the Captain-General, the name the Greens gave to the head of their Ajah.
“That is well,” Adelorna said. “Some within the Ajah have acted in foolishness. They have been . . . informed of their mistakes. You will find no further resistance from those who should have loved you best, Mother. Whatever has passed, let it be buried.”
“Let it be buried,” Egwene agreed, amused. Now, she thought. After all of this, the Greens try to claim me?
Well, she would use them. She had been worried that her relationship with them was beyond repair. Choosing Silviana as her Keeper had made many determine to treat her as an enemy. Egwene had heard whispers that many thought she would have chosen the Red as her Ajah, despite the fact that she not only had a Warder, but had married him.
“If I may ask,” Egwene said. “Is there a particular incident which has brought about this . . . bridge across our difficulties?”
“Some are willfully ignorant of what you did during the Seanchan invasion, Mother,” Adelorna said. “You proved to have the spirit of a warrior. Of a general. This is something the Green Ajah must not ignore. Indeed, we must embrace it as an example. So it has been decided, and so those who lead the Ajah have spoken.” Adelorna met Egwene’s eyes, then bowed her head.
The implication was obvious. Adelorna was the head of the Green Ajah. To speak it outright would not be appropriate, but to give Egwene this knowledge was to give a measure of trust and respect.
If you had truly been raised from us, the action said, you would have known who led us. You would have known our secrets. I give them to you. There was also gratitude to the motion. Egwene had saved Adelorna's life during the Seanchan assault of the White Tower.
The Amyrlin was of no Ajah—and Egwene actually expressed this virtue more than
any before her, for she never had belonged to an Ajah. Still, this gesture was moving. She rested her hand on Adelorna's arm in thanks, then gave her leave to depart.
Gawyn, Silviana and Leilwin rode off to the side, where Egwene had sent them after Adelorna asked for a private word. That Seanchan . . . Egwene vacillated between keeping her close to watch her, and sending her far, far away.
Leilwin’s information about the Seanchan had been useful. So far as she could determine, Leilwin had told her the exact truth. For now, Egwene kept her close—if only because she frequently thought of more questions about the Seanchan. Leilwin acted more like a bodyguard than a prisoner. As if Egwene would trust her safety to one of the Seanchan. She shook her head, riding among the gathered tents and campfires of the army. Most were empty, as Bryne had the men forming battle lines. He expected the Trolloc approach within the hour.
Egwene found Bryne calmly organizing his maps and papers in a tent near the center of the camp. Yukiri was there, arms folded. Egwene dismounted and went in.
Bryne looked up sharply. “Mother!” he exclaimed, causing her to freeze.
She looked down. There was a hole in the floor of the tent, and she had nearly stepped into it.
It was a gateway. The other side appeared to open into the air itself, looking down on the Trolloc army, which was crossing the hills. The recent week had involved many skirmishes, with Egwene’s archers and riders slaughtering Trollocs who marched, in force, toward the hills and the border into Arafel.
Egwene peered through this gateway in the floor. It was high up, well outside of bow range, but looking down through it at the Trollocs made her dizzy.
“I’m not sure if this is brilliant,” she said to Bryne, “or incredibly foolhardy.”
Bryne smiled, turning back to his maps. “Winning wars is about information, Mother. If I can see exactly what they are doing—where they are trying to envelop us and how they are bringing in reserves—I can prepare. This is better than a battle tower. I should have thought of it ages ago.”
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