Knife of Dreams twot-11

by Robert Jordan

  One by one the men held up long pieces of slow-match for her to light with a striker. She did it quickly, using each striker until the long wooden stick had burned down nearly to her fingertips, but she never winced, just dropped the thing and lit another while telling the sling-men to be faster, she was getting low on strikers. Light, but she was tight with the things. She had five more boxes that Mat knew of. As each man turned away from her, he put the smoking slow-match between his teeth and secured one of the cylinders to his sling-staff as he walked to the wall. There were wide intervals between sling-men. They had to cover the whole length of the wall.

  “Time to get your people in place, Musenge.” Mat said loudly.

  The Deathwatch Guards formed a single line abreast with the Gardeners on the end. Anybody who took one glance through a looking glass would know what they were. Light, all they needed was to see Ogier in armor and the sun glinting off all that red and black. And if they stopped to think how few of the Guards there were, they would still see they had Mat outnumbered, and there would be only one way to find out whether Tuon was with him.

  Vanin galloped behind the wall, flung himself out of the saddle and immediately began walking his lathered dun to cool the animal down. As soon as he passed the wrall, crossbowmen began dropping the tools and running to put on helmets and pick up crossbows. Those had been laid so that the men formed three spaced ranks with gaps where the sling-men stood. It no longer mattered if anyone was watching from the forest. What they saw would seem natural.

  Mat trotted Pips to Vanin and dismounted. The two human Deathwatch Guards and the two Ogier went to join the others. The horses’ nostrils flared with their heavy breathing, but the Ogier were panting no harder. One was Hartha, a stone-eyed fellow who apparently ranked very close to Musenge.

  Vanin scowled at the men who had not gotten down to walk their horses. A horsethief he might be, reformed or not. but he disliked mistreating horseflesh. “They went up like one of her nightflowers when they glimpsed us,” he said, nodding toward Aludra. “We made sure they got a good look at that fancy armor, then high-tailed it as soon as they started getting mounted. They’re coming hard behind us. Harder than they should.” He spat on the ground. “I didn’t get a good look at their animals, but I doubt they’re all good for that run. Some’ll founder before they get here.’’

  “The more the better,” Mat said. “The fewer who make it, the better in my book.” All he needed was to give Tuon a day or two head start on them, and if that came from their ruining horses, if they rode out of the trees and decided he had too many men to take on, he would take that over a battle any day. After today’s six-mile gallop, they would need to rest their horses a few days before they were fit to travel any distance at all. Vanin directed that scowl at him. Others might go around calling him my Lord and Highness, but not Chel Vanin.

  Mat laughed and clapped him on the shoulder before swinging back into Pips’ saddle. It was good there was someone who did not think he was a fool noble, or at least, did not care whether or not he was. He rode to join the Aes Sedai, who were mounted now.

  Blaeric and Fen. the one on a bay gelding, the other on a black, gave him stares almost as dark as those they had directed at Musenge. They still suspected he had something to do with what had happened to Joline. He thought of telling Fen that his stub of a topknot looked ridiculous. Fen shifted in his saddle and stroked his sword hilt. Then again, maybe not.

  “… what I told you,” Joline was telling Bethamin and Seta, shaking an admonitory finger. Her dark bay gelding looked a war-horse, but was not. The animal had a good turn of speed, yet its temperament was mild as milk-water. “If you even think about embracing saidar, you’ll regret it.”

  Teslyn grunted sourly. She patted her white-faced chestnut mare, a much more feisty creature than Joline’s mount, and spoke to the air. “She does train wilders and expects them to behave once out of her sight. Or perhaps she does think the Tower will accept over-age novices.” Spots of color appeared in Joline’s cheeks, but she straightened in her saddle without saying anything. As usual when those two got into a conflict, Edesina concentrated on something else, in this case brushing imaginary dust from her divided skirts. Enough tension to choke on.

  Suddenly riders poured out of the trees at the far end of the meadow in a torrent that swelled into a spreading lake of steel-tipped lances as they drew rein, no doubt in surprise at what lay before them, h seemed that not as many horses had foundered as Mat had hoped for. Pulling the looking glass from its scabbard tied to his saddle’s pommel, he raised it to his eye. The Taraboners were easy to pick out, with mail veils hiding their faces to the eyes, but the others wore every sort of helmet, rounded or conical, with face-bars and without. He even saw a few ridged Tairen helmets, though that did not mean there were Tairens among them. Most men used whatever armor they could find. Don’t think, he thought. The woman is here. That hundred thousand gold crowns is waiting. Don’t bloody-

  A shrill Seanchan bugle sounded, thin with the distance, and the horsemen began advancing at a walk, already spreading out to extend beyond the wall’s edges.

  “Uncase the banner, Macoll,” Mat ordered. So these flaming sons of goats thought they were coming to murder Tuon, did they? “This time, we’ll let them know who’s killing them. Mandevwin. you have the command.”

  Mandevwin turned his bay to face front. “Stand ready!” he shouted, and under-officers and bannermen echoed the cry.

  Macoll pulled the leather case off, carefully fastening it to his saddle, and the banner streamed on the wind, a red-fringed white square with a large, open red hand in the center, and beneath it, embroidered in red, the words Dovie’andi se tovya sagain. It’s time to toss the dice. Mat thought, translating. And so it was. He saw Musenge eyeing it. He seemed very calm for a man with ten thousand lances coming toward him.

  “Are you ready. Aludra?” Mat called.

  “Of course I am ready,” she replied. “I only wish I had my dragons!” Musenge shifted his attention to her. Burn her, she needed to watch her tongue! Mat wanted those dragons to be a shock when the Seanchan first faced them.

  Perhaps twelve hundred paces from the wall, the ranks of lancers began to trot, and at six hundred they began to gallop, but not as hard as they might have. Those horses were tired after a long run already. They lumbered. None of the lances had come down. yet. They would not until the last hundred paces. Some of those carried streamers that floated behind them in the air, a large knot of red here, a clump of green or blue there. They might have been House colors, or perhaps they marked mercenary companies. All those hooves made a noise like distant thunder rolling.

  “Aludra!” Mat shouted without looking back. A hollow thump and an acrid sulphur smell announced the lofting tube sending its nightflower aloft, and a loud pop the blooming of a ball of red streaks overhead. Some of the galloping horsemen pointed to it as if in amazement. None looked behind them to see Talmanes leading the three banners of horse out of the forest below the lake. Their lances had been left with the pack animals, but every man would have his horsebow out. Spreading out in a single line, they began following the galloping riders, increasing speed as they came. Their horses had been ridden far last night, but not pressed too hard, and they had been rested all morning. The distance between the two groups of riders began to narrow.

  “Front rank!” Mandevwin shouted when the horsemen were four hundred paces away. “Loose!” Above a thousand bolts flashed out, dark streaks in the air. Immediately the front rank bent to fasten their cranks to their crossbows and the second rank raised their weapons. “Second rank!” Mandevwin shouted. “Loose!” Another thousand quarrels streaked for the oncoming horsemen.

  At that range, they could not punch through a breastplate despite heads designed to do just that, but men with shattered legs toppled from their saddles and men with ruined arms reined in frantically to try stemming the flow of blood. And the horses… Ah. Light, the poor horses. Horses fell by the hund
reds, some kicking and screaming, struggling to stand, others not moving at all. many of them tripping more animals. Catapulted riders tumbled across the meadow grass until they were trampled by the riders behind.

  “Third rank! Loose!” Mandevwin shouted, and as soon as those bolts were away, the front rank straightened. “Front rank!” Mandevwin called. “Loose!” And another thousand bolts added to the carnage. “Second rank! Loose!”

  It was not so one-sided as an ambush, of course. Some of the galloping horsemen had flung down their lances and uncased their horsebows. Arrows began to fall among the crossbowmen. Shooting accurately from a galloping horse was no easy task, and the range was too far at the start for the arrows to kill, but more than one man struggled to work his crossbow with a shaft jutting from an arm. The wall protected their legs. yet. Too far to kill unless your target’s luck had run out. Mat saw a man fall with an arrow in his eye, another with a shaft taken in the throat. There were other gaps in the ranks, as well. Men shuffled forward quickly to fill them.

  “You could join in any time, Joline,” he said.

  “Third rank! Loose!”

  The Aes Sedai shook her head irritably. “I must be in danger. I don’t feel in danger yet.” Teslyn nodded. She was watching the charge as if it were a parade, and a not very interesting one at that.

  “If you would allow Seta and me,” Bethamin began, but Joline looked over her shoulder coldly, and the Seanchan woman subsided and dropped her eyes to her hands on the reins. Seta smiled nervously, but it slid off her face under Joline’s stare.

  “Front rank! Loose!”

  Mat rolled his eyes to the heavens and muttered a prayer that was half curse. The bloody women did not feel in danger! He felt as though his bloody head was on the chopping block!

  “Second rank! Loose!’

  Talmanes had come in range, now, and announced himself with a volley from four thousand bows at three hundred paces that cleared saddles. Closing the distance, they fired again. Again. The enemy ranks seemed to ripple with the shock. Some men whirled about and charged at Talmanes’ line with lances coming down. Others began returning his hail of arrows with their own. Most continued on, though.

  “Form square!” Mandevwin shouted a heartbeat before Mat could. He hoped the man had not left it too bloody late.

  The Band was well-trained, though. The men on the flanks fell back at the run. as calmly as if arrows were not pelting them, clanging off breastplates and helmets. And sometimes not. Men fell. The three ranks never lost cohesion, though, as they bent into a hollow box with Mat at its center. Musenge and the other human Deathwatch Guards had their swords out, and the Ogier were hefting their long axes.

  “Sling-men!” Mandevwin shouted. “Loose at will! Front rank, west! Loose!” Sling-men along the western rank shifted their sling-staffs so they could touch the fuses coming from the stubby cylinders to the slow-matches held in their teeth and, as the volley lanced out from the crossbows, whipped cheir slings back and then forward. The dark cylinders flew more than a hundred paces to land among the on-rushing horsemen. The sling-men were already fitting more of the cylinders to their slings before the first fell. Aludra had marked each fuse with pieces of thread to indicate different burning times, and each cylinder erupted with a roar in a burst of flame, some on the ground, some as high as a mounted man’s head. The explosion was not the real weapon, though a man struck in the face was suddenly headless. He stayed upright in the saddle for three strides before toppling. No, Aludra had wrapped a layer of hard pebbles around the powder inside each cylinder, and those pierced flesh deeply when they hit. Shrieking horses fell to thrash on the ground. Riders fell to lie still.

  An arrow tugged at Mat’s left sleeve, another pierced his right sleeve, only the fletchings keeping it from going through cleanly, and a third ripped open the right shoulder of his coat. He put a finger behind the scarf around his neck and tugged. The bloody thing felt awfully tight of a sudden. Maybe he should consider wearing armor at times like this. The enemy flanks were beginning to curl in, now, preparing to envelop the crossbowmen behind the wall. Talmanes’ men still peppered their rear with arrows, but several hundred men had been forced to drop their bows to defend themselves with swords, and it was unlikely that all of the horses with empty saddles out there had belonged to Taraboners or Amadicians. He had left a gap in the center of his line, a path for anyone who decided to flee, yet no one was taking the offering. They could smell that hundred thousand crowns gold.

  “I think,” Joline said slowly. “Yes. I feel in danger, now.” Teslyn simply drew back her hand and threw a sphere of fire larger than a horse’s head. The explosion hurled dirt and pieces of men and horses into the air. It was about bloody time!

  Facing in three directions, the Aes Sedai began hurling fireballs as fast as they could swing their arms, but the devastation they wrought did nothing to slow the attack. Those men should have been able to see there was no woman matching Tuon’s description inside the square by this time, but their blood was no doubt on fire, the scent of riches in their nostrils. A man could live the rest of his life like a noble with a hundred thousand crowns gold. The square was encircled, and they fought to close on it, fought and died as volleys from the crossbows lashed them and sling-men killed them. Another wall began to rise, made of dead and dying men and horses, a wall that some tried to ride over and joined in the attempt. More scrambled down from their saddles and tried to clamber over. Crossbow bolts hurled them back. This close, bolts penetrated breastplates like hot knives going into butter. On they came, and died.

  The silence seemed to come suddenly. Not quite silence. The air was full of the sound of panting men who had been working those cranks as fast as they could. And there was moaning from the wounded. A horse was still shrieking, somewhere. But Mat could see no one on his feet between the wall of dead and Talmanes, no one in the saddle except men in green helmets and breastplates. Men who had lowered their bows and swords. The Aes Sedai folded their hands on the high pommels of their saddles. They were breathing hard, too.

  “It is done, Mat!” came Talmanes’ shout. “Those who are not dead are dying. Not one of the fools tried to escape.”

  Mat shook his head. He had expected them to be half-mad with the lust for gold. They had been completely mad with it.

  It would be necessary to haul away dead men and horses for Mat and the others to get out, and Talmanes set men to work, fastening ropes to horses to drag them aside. No one wanted to climb over that. No one but the Ogier.

  “I want to see if I can find the traitor,” Hartha said, and he and the other six Gardeners shouldered their axes and walked over the mound of bodies as if it were dirt.

  “Well, at least we settled this,” Joline said, patting her face with a lace-edged handkerchief. Sweat dotted her forehead. “You owe a debt, Mat. Aes Sedai do not become involved in private wars as a rule. I shall have to think on how you can pay it.” Mat had a pretty good idea what she would come up with. She was mad herself if she thought he would agree.

  “Crossbows settled this, marath’damane” Musenge said. His helmet, breastplate and coat were orf, his left shirt-sleeve ripped away so one of the other Guards could wrap a bandage around where an arrow had gone through. The sleeve had come away very neatly, as if the stitching had been weak. He had a raven tattooed on his shoulder. “Crossbows and men with heart. You never had more than this, did you, Highness.” That was not a question. “This and whatever losses you suffered.”

  “I told you,” Mat said. “I had enough.” He was not going to reveal anything more to the man than he could not avoid, but Musenge nodded as if he had confirmed everything.

  By the time an opening could be cleared so that Mat and the others could ride through, Hartha and the Gardeners had returned. “I found the traitor,” Hartha said, holding up a severed head by its hair.

  Musenge’s eyebrows climbed at the sight of that dark, hook-nosed face. “She will be very interested to see this,” he said soft
ly. Softly as the sound of sword being drawn is soft. “We must carry it to her.”

  “You know him?” Mat asked.

  “We know him. Highness.” Musenge’s face, suddenly seeming carved from stone, said he would say no more on the subject.

  “Look, would you stop calling me that? My name is Mat. After today, I’d say you have a right to use it.” Mat surprised himself by sticking out his hand.

  That stone mask crumpled in astonishment. “I could not do that, Highness,” he said in scandalized tones. “When she married you. you became Prince of the Ravens. To speak your name would lower my eyes forever.”

  Mat took off his hat and scrubbed fingers through his hair. He had told everyone who would listen that he did not like nobles, did not want to be one. and he had meant it. He still meant it. And now he bloody was one! He did the only thing he could. He laughed until his sides ached.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Remember the Old Saying

  The red-walled room, its ceiling painted fancifully with birds and fish cavorting among clouds and waves, bustled with brown-clad clerks scurrying along the aisles between the long tables that covered the floor. None seemed to be trying to listen-most seemed stunned, with cause-but Suroth disliked their presence. They had to overhear some of what was being said, and it was potentially dire news. Galgan had insisted, though. They needed to work to keep their minds off the disastrous news from home, and they were all trusted men and women. He insisted! At least the white-haired old man was not dressed as a soldier, this morning. His voluminous blue trousers and short, high-collared red coat with rows of gold buttons embossed with his sigil were the height of Seandar fashion, which meant the height of fashion for the Empire. When he wore armor, or even just his red uniform, he sometimes looked at her as if she were a soldier under his command!