Suddenly Gawyn became aware of a horse galloping back down the road toward the wagons through sheets of dust, seemingly with no rider. "Jisao," he ordered, "tell the wagon drivers to halt. Hal, tell Rajar to ready the Younglings." Without a word they wheeled their horses and galloped. Gawyn waited.
That was Benji Dalfor’s steel-dust gelding, and as it came closer, Gawyn could see Benji doubled over and clinging to the gelding’s mane. The horse almost went past before Gawyn could seize the reins.
Benji turned his head without straightening, peered at Gawyn with glazed eyes. There was blood around his mouth, and he had one arm tight against his middle as if trying to hold himself together. "Aiel," he mumbled. "Thousands. All sides, I think." Suddenly he smiled. "Cold today, isn’t —" Blood gushed out of his mouth, and he toppled to the road, staring unblinking at the sun.
Gawyn spun his stallion around, galloping toward the wagons. There would be time for Benji later, if any of them were alive.
Galina rode to meet him, linen dustcloak flaring behind her, dark eyes blazing fury in that serene face. She had been furious constantly since the day after al’Thor tried to escape. "Who do you think you are, ordering the wagons stopped?" she demanded.
"There are thousands of Aiel closing on us, Aes Sedai." He managed to keep his tone polite. The wagons were stopped at least, and the Younglings forming up, but wagon drivers fingered their reins impatiently, servants peered about fanning themselves, Aes Sedai chatted with Warders.
Galina’s lips writhed contemptuously. "You fool. No doubt those are the Shaido. Sevanna said she would give us an escort. But if you doubt, take your Younglings and see for yourself. These wagons will keep moving toward Tar Valon. It is time you learned that I give the orders here, not — "
"And if they are not your tame Aiel?" This was not the first time in the last few days that she had suggested he lead a scout himself; he suspected if he did, he would find Aiel, and not tame. "Whoever they are, they’ve killed one of my men." At least one; there were still six scouts out. "Maybe you should consider the possibility these are al’Thor’s Aiel, come to rescue him. It will be too late when they start spitting us."
It was only then that he realized he was shouting, but Galina’s anger actually faded. She looked up the road to where Benji lay, then nodded slowly. "Perhaps it would not be unwise to be cautious this once."
Rand labored for breath; the air inside the chest felt thick and hot. Luckily he could not smell it any longer. They sluiced him off with a bucket of water each night, but that was hardly a bath, and for a time after they closed the lid on him each morning and latched it, the stench added by yet another day exposed to the full blast of the sun assaulted his nose. Holding the Void was an effort. He was a mass of stripes; not an inch of him from shoulders to knees but burned even before sweat touched it, and those ten thousand flames flickered on the borders of emptiness, trying to consume it. The half-healed wound in his side throbbed in the distance, but the emptiness around him quivered with every throb. Alanna. He could feel Alanna. Close. No. He could not waste time thinking about her; even if she had followed, six Aes Sedai would not be able to free him. If they did not decide to join Galina. No trust. Never again trust for any Aes Sedai. Maybe he was imagining it anyway. Sometimes he did imagine things in here, cool breezes, walking. Sometimes he lost thought of anything else and hallucinated about walking free. Just walking. Hours lost in what was important. He labored for breath, and he felt his way across the ice-slick barrier that divided him from the Source. Again and again, fumbling to those six soft points. Soft. He could not stop. The fumbling was important.
Dark, Lews Therin moaned in the depths of his head. No more dark. No more. Over and over again. Not too badly, though. Rand just ignored him this time.
Suddenly he gasped; the chest was moving, grating loudly along the wagon bed. Was it night already? Welted flesh flinched involuntarily. There would be another beating before he was fed and doused with water and trussed like a goose to sleep however he could. But he would be out of the box. The darkness around him was incomplete, a deep dark gray. The tiny crack around the lid let in the smallest amount of light, though he could not see with his head jammed between his knees, and his eyes took as long each day to see anything but blackness as his nose did to grow deadened. Even so, it must be night.
He could not help groaning as the chest tilted; there was no room for him to slide, but he shifted, putting new strains on muscles sore beyond sore. His tiny prison thumped to the ground hard. The lid would open soon. How many days in the broiling sun? How many nights? He had lost count. Which one would it be this time? Faces spun through his head. He had marked down every woman when she took her turn at him. They were a jumble now; remembering which came where or when seemed beyond him. But he knew that Galina and Erian and Katerine had beaten him most often, the only ones to do so more than once. Those faces glowed in his mind with a feral light. How often did they want to hear him scream?
Abruptly it came to him that the chest should have been opened by now. They intended to leave him in here all night, and then there would be tomorrow’s sun, and — Muscles too bruised and sore to move managed a frantic heave. "Let me out!" he shouted hoarsely. Fingers scrabbled painfully behind his back, futilely. "Let me out!" he screamed. He thought he heard a woman laugh.
For a time he wept, but then tears dried up in rage like a furnace. Help me, he snarled at Lews Therin.
Help me, the man groaned. The Light help me.
Muttering darkly, Rand returned to feeling blindly across that smooth plain to the six soft points. Sooner or later, they would let him out. Sooner or later, they would slacken their guard. And when they did… He did not even know it when he began a rasping laugh.
Crawling up the gentle slope on his belly, Perrin peered over the crest into a scene from the Dark One’s dreams. The wolves had given him some notion of what to expect, but notions paled beside reality. Perhaps a mile from where he lay beneath the midday sun, a huge milling mass of Shaido completely surrounded what seemed to be a ring of wagons and men centered on a small clump of trees not far from the road. A number of the wagons were bonfires, flames dancing. Balls of fire, small as a fist and large as boulders, hurtled into the Aiel, gouts of fire flared, turning a dozen at a time to torches; lightning fell from a cloudless sky, hurling earth and cadin’sor-clad figures into the air. But silver flashes of lightning struck at the wagons, too, and fire leaped from the Aiel. Much of that fire suddenly died or exploded short of any target, many of the lightning bolts stopped abruptly, but if the battle seemed slightly in favor of the Aes Sedai, the sheer number of Shaido had to prove overwhelming eventually.
"There must be two or three hundred women channeling down there, if not more." Kiruna, lying beside him, sounded impressed. Sorilea, beyond the Green sister, certainly looked impressed. The Wise One smelled concerned; not afraid, but troubled. "I have never seen so many weaves at once," the Aes Sedai went on. "I think there are at least thirty sisters in the camp. You have brought us to a boiling cauldron, young Aybara."
"Forty thousand Shaido," Rhuarc muttered grimly on Perrin’s other side. He even smelled grim. "Forty thousand at the least, and small satisfaction to know why they did not send more south."
"The Lord Dragon is down there?" Dobraine asked, looking across Rhuarc. Perrin nodded. "And you mean to go in there and bring him out?" Perrin nodded again, and Dobraine sighed. He smelled resigned, not afraid. "We will go in, Lord Aybara, but I do not believe we will come out." This time Rhuarc nodded.
Kiruna looked at the men. "You do realize there are not enough of us. Nine. Even if your Wise Ones can actually channel to any effect, we are not enough to match that." Sorilea snorted loudly, but Kiruna kept her eyes where they were.
"Then turn around and ride south," Perrin told her. "I’ll not let Elaida have Rand."
"Good," Kiruna replied, smiling. "Because I will not either." He wished her smile did not make his skin crawl. Of course, had she
seen the malevolent look Sorilea directed at the back of her head, her skin might have crawled too.
Perrin signaled to those at the bottom of the ridge, and Sorilea and the Green slid down until they could straighten, then hurried in opposite directions.
It was not much of a plan that they had. It boiled down to reaching Rand somehow, freeing him somehow, then hoping he was not injured too badly to make a gateway for as many as could to escape with him before either the Shaido or the camp’s Aes Sedai managed to kill them. Minor problems, no doubt, for a hero in a story or a gleeman’s tale, but Perrin wished there had been time for some sort of real planning, not just what he and Dobraine and Rhuarc had hammered out with the clan chief running as fast as he could between their horses. Time was one of many things they did not have, though. No telling if the Tower Aes Sedai would be able to hold off the Shaido for even another hour.
First to move were the Two Rivers men and the Winged Guards, divided into two companies, one surrounding Wise Ones afoot and the other mounted Aes Sedai and Warders. To left and right they crossed the ridge. Dannil had let them bring out the Red Eagle again, in addition to the Red Wolfhead. Rhuarc did not even glance toward where Amys walked not far from Kiruna’s dark gelding, but Perrin heard him murmur, "May we see the sun rise together, shade of my heart."
At the end, the Mayeners and Two Rivers men were to cover the Wise Ones and Aes Sedai in retreat, or maybe it would be the other way around. In either case, Bera and Kiruna did not seem to like the plan; they very much wanted to be where Rand was.
"Are you sure you will not ride, Lord Aybara?" Dobraine asked from his saddle; to him, the notion of fighting on foot was anathema.
Perrin patted the axe hanging at his hip. "This is not much use from horseback." It was, in truth, but he did not want to ride Stepper or Slayer into what lay ahead. Men could choose whether they threw themselves into the midst of steel and death; he chose for his horses, and today he chose no. "Maybe you’ll lend me a stirrup when the time comes." Dobraine blinked — Cairhienin made little use of foot soldiers — but he seemed to understand, and nodded.
"It is time for the pipers to play the dance," Rhuarc said, lifting his black veil, though today there would be no pipers playing, which some of the Aiel did not like. Many of the Maidens did not like the required strips of red cloth tied around their arms, to distinguish them from Shaido Maidens for the wetlanders; they seemed to think anyone should know at a glance.
Black-veiled Maidens and siswai’aman began trotting up the slope in a thick column, and Perrin walked with Dobraine to where Loial already stood at the head of the Cairhienin, gripping his axe in both hands and ears laid back. Aram was there, too, afoot and his sword bare; the former Tinker wore a dark smile of anticipation. Dobraine waved his arm for the advance, behind Rand’s twin banners, and saddles creaked as a small forest of five hundred lances climbed beside the Aiel.
Nothing had changed in the battle, which surprised Perrin until he realized only moments had passed since he last saw it. The time had seemed much longer. The great mass of Shaido still pressed inward; wagons still burned, perhaps more than before; lightning still struck from the sky, and fire leaped in balls and billows.
The Two Rivers Men were almost to their position, with the Mayeners and Aes Sedai and Wise Ones, moving almost unhurriedly across the rolling plain. Perrin would have held them farther back, to give them a better chance at escape when the time came for that, but Dannil kept insisting they had to close to at least three hundred paces for their bows to be effective, and Nurelle had been just as anxious not to hang back. Even the Aes Sedai, who Perrin was sure only had to be near enough to see clearly, had insisted. None of the Shaido had looked around yet. At least, none were pointing at the threat moving slowly toward their backs; none were wheeling about to face it. All seemed fixed on rushing at the circle of wagons, falling back before fire and lightning, then rushing in again. All it would take would be one looking behind, but the inferno ahead held them.
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 gas
ping 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.
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