The dice came to a stop. A pair of fours. An outright winning throw. Mat released a long, relieved breath, though he felt a trickle of sweat down his temple.
“Mat . . .” Talmanes said softly, making him look up. The men standing on the road didn’t look so pleased. Several of them cheered in excitement until their friends explained that a winning throw from the mayor meant that Mat would take the prize. The crowd grew tense. Mat met Barlden’s eyes.
“Go,” the burly man said, gesturing in disgust toward Mat and turning away. “Take your spoils and leave this place. Never return.”
“Well,” Mat said, relaxing. “Thank you kindly for the game, then. We—”
“GO!” the mayor bellowed. He looked at the last slivers of sunlight on the horizon, then cursed and began waving for the men to enter The Tipsy Gelding. Some lingered, glancing at Mat with shock or hostility, but the mayor’s urgings soon bullied them into the low-roofed inn. He pulled the door shut and left Mat, Talmanes and the two soldiers standing alone on the street.
It suddenly seemed eerily quiet. There wasn’t a villager on the street. Shouldn’t there be some noise from inside the tavern, at least? Some clinking of mugs, some grumbling about the lost wager?
“Well,” Mat said, voice echoing against silent housefronts, “I guess that’s that.” He walked over to Pips, calming the horse, who had begun to shuffle nervously. “Now, see, I told you, Talmanes. Nothing to be worried about at all.”
And that’s when the screaming began.
CHAPTER 28
Night in Hinderstap
“Burn you, Mat!” Talmanes said, yanking his sword free from the gut of a twitching villager. Talmanes almost never swore. “Burn you twice over and once again!”
“Me?” Mat snapped, spinning, his ashandarei flashing as he neatly hamstrung two men in bright green vests. They fell to the packed earthen street, eyes wide with rage as they sputtered and growled. “Me? I’m not the one trying to kill you, Talmanes. Blame them!”
Talmanes managed to pull himself into his saddle. “They told us to leave!”
“Yes,” Mat said, grabbing Pips’ reins and pulling the horse away from The Tipsy Gelding. “And now they’re trying to kill us. I can’t rightly be blamed for their unsociable behavior!” Howls, screams, and yells rose from all across the village. Some were angry, some were terrified, others were agonized.
More and more men piled out of the tavern, each one grunting and yelling, each one trying his best to kill every person around him. Some of them came for Mat, Talmanes or Mat’s Redarms. But many just attacked their companions, hands ripping at skin, nails tearing gouges in faces. They fought with a primal lack of skill, and only a few thought to pick up rocks, mugs or lengths of wood as weapons.
This was far more than a simple bar fight. These men were trying to kill each other. Already there were a half-dozen corpses or near-corpses on the street, and from what Mat could see of the inside of the inn, the fighting was equally brutal inside.
Mat tried to edge closer to the wagon with its load of food, Pips clopping alongside him. His chest of gold still lay on the street. The fighting men ignored both food and coin, concentrating on one another.
Talmanes, as well as Harnan and Delarn—his two soldiers—backed away with him, nervously pulling their own mounts. A group of raving men soon descended on the two villagers Mat had hamstrung, beating their heads against the ground over and over until they stopped moving. Then the pack looked up at Mat and his men, bloodlust clouding their eyes. It was an incongruous expression on the clean faces of men in neat vests and combed hair.
“Blood and bloody ashes,” Mat said, swinging into his saddle. “Mount up!”
Harnan and Delarn needed no further instruction. They cursed, sheathing swords and swinging into saddles. The pack of villagers surged forward, but Mat and Talmanes cut off the attack. Mat tried to go for wounding blows only, but the villagers were deceptively strong and fast, and he found himself fighting just to keep them from pulling him out of the saddle. He cursed, reluctantly beginning to wield killing blows, taking two of the men with sweeps to the neck. Pips kicked out and knocked another to the ground with a hoof to the head. In a few moments, Harnan and Delarn joined the fight.
The villagers didn’t back away. They kept fighting in a frenzy until the entire pack of eight had dropped. Mat’s soldiers fought with wide-eyed terror, and Mat didn’t blame them. It was flaming eerie, seeing common villagers react like this! There didn’t seem to be an ounce of humanity left in them. They spoke only in grunts, hisses, and screams, their faces painted with anger and bloodlust. Now the other villagers—those not directly attacking Mat’s men—started forming into packs, slaughtering the groups smaller than themselves by bludgeoning them, clawing them, biting them. It was unnerving.
As Mat watched, a body broke through one of the tavern window frames. The corpse rolled to the ground, neck broken. On the other side, Barlden stood with wild, nearly inhuman eyes. He screamed into the night, then saw Mat and—for just a moment—seemed to show a hint of recognition. Then it was gone, and the mayor bellowed again, running forward to leap through the broken window and attack a pair of men whose backs were turned.
“Move!” Mat said, rearing Pips as another pack of villagers saw him.
“The gold!” Talmanes said.
“Burn the gold!” Mat said. “We can win more, and that food isn’t worth our lives. Go!”
Talmanes and the soldiers turned their mounts and galloped down the street, Mat kicking Pips to join them, leaving the gold and wagon behind. It wasn’t worth their lives—if possible, he’d bring the army in on the morrow to recover it. But they had to survive first.
They galloped for a short time, and Mat slowed them at the next corner, holding up a hand. He glanced over his shoulder. The villagers were still coming, but the gallop had left them behind for now.
“I’m still blaming you,” Talmanes said.
“I thought you liked fighting,” Mat said.
“I like some fights,” Talmanes said. “On the battlefield or a nice bar fight. This . . . this is insane.” The pack of villagers behind had fallen to all fours and were moving in a strange lope. Talmanes shivered visibly.
There was barely enough light to see by. Now that the sun had set, those mountains and the gray clouds blocked what light remained. Lanterns lined many of the streets, but it didn’t look as if anyone would be lighting them.
“Mat, they’re gaining,” Talmanes said, sword held at the ready.
“This isn’t just about our wager,” Mat said, listening to the screams and shouts. They came from all around the village. Down a side road, a couple of struggling bodies burst through the upper window of a house. They were women, clawing at each other as they fell, crashing to the ground with a sickening thud. They stopped moving.
“Come on,” Mat said, turning Pips. “We’ve got to find Thom and the women.” They galloped down a side street that would intersect with the main thoroughfare, passing packs of men and women fighting in the gutters. A fat man with bloodied cheeks stumbled into the road, and Mat reluctantly rode him down. There were too many people fighting at the sides for him to risk leading his men around the poor fool. Mat even saw children fighting, biting at the legs of those larger than they, throttling those their own age.
“The entire bloody town has gone insane,” Mat muttered grimly as the four of them barreled onto the main street and turned toward the fine inn. They’d pick up the Aes Sedai, then swing out eastward for Thom, as his inn was the most distant.
Unfortunately, the main street was worse than the one Mat had left. It was almost completely dark now. Indeed, it seemed to him that the darkness had come too quickly here. Unnaturally swift. The road’s length squirmed with shadows, figures battling, screeching, struggling in the deepening gloom. In that darkness, the fights looked at times to be solid, single creatures—horrific monstrosities with a dozen waving limbs and a hundred mouths to scream from the blackness.
Mat spurred Pips forward. There was nothing to do but charge down the middle of it.
“Light,” Talmanes yelled as they galloped toward the inn. “Light!”
Mat gritted his teeth and leaned forward on Pips, spear held close to his side as he rode through the nightmare. Roars shook the darkness and bodies rolled across the street. Mat shivered at the horror of it, cursing under his breath. The night itself seemed to be trying to smother them, to strangle them, and to spawn beasts of blackness and murder.
Pips and the other horses were well trained, and the four of them charged straight down the street. Mat narrowly avoided being pulled from the saddle as dark forms leapt for his legs, trying to yank him free. They screamed and hissed, like legions of the drowned trying to pull him down into a deep, unearthly sea.
Beside Mat, Delarn’s horse suddenly pulled to a halt, then, as a mass of black figures leaped in front of it, the gelding reared in panic, throwing Delarn from his saddle.
Mat reined in Pips, turning at the man’s scream, which was somehow more distinct and more human than the howls around them.
“Mat!” Talmanes yelled, charging past. “Keep going! We can’t stop!”
No, Mat thought, shoving down his panic. No, I’m not leaving someone to this. He took a deep breath and ignored Talmanes, kicking Pips back toward the black clot of bodies where Delarn had fallen. Sweat sprayed from his forehead, chilled by the wind of the gallop. Moans, screams, and hisses all around him seemed to descend on him.
Mat roared and threw himself from Pips’ back—he couldn’t bring his mount in without risking trampling the man he wanted to save. He hated fighting in darkness, he bloody hated it. He attacked those dark figures, whose faces he couldn’t see save for an occasional flash of teeth or insane eyes reflecting the dying light. It reminded him, briefly, of another night, killing Shadowspawn in the dark. Save these figures he fought didn’t have the grace of a Myrddraal. They didn’t even have the coordination of Trollocs.
For a moment, it seemed Mat fought the shadows themselves—shadows made by sputtering firelight, random and uncoordinated, yet all the more deadly for his inability to anticipate them. He narrowly escaped getting his skull crushed by attacks that made no sense. During the day, those attacks would have been laughable, but from this darkened pack of men—and women—who didn’t care what they hit or who they hurt, the attacks were overwhelming. Mat found himself fighting just to stay alive, spinning his ashandarei in wide arcs, using it to trip as often as he used it to kill. If something moved in the darkness, he struck. How in the light was he going to find Delarn in this!
A shadow moved just a short distance away, and Mat instantly recognized a sword-form. Rat Gnawing the Grain? A villager wouldn’t know that. Good man!
Mat spun toward that shadow, slashing two other shadows across the chest, earning grunts and howls of pain. Delarn’s figure fell beneath a pile of several others, and Mat bellowed in denial, leaping across a fallen body and landing with his spear descending in a broad sweep. Shadows bled where he struck, the blood just another patch of darkness, and Mat used the butt of his weapon to beat back another. He reached down, pulling one of the shadows to its feet, and heard a muttered curse. It was Delarn.
“Come on,” Mat said, pulling the man toward Pips, who stood firm, snorting, in the darkness. The attacking men seemed to ignore animals, which was fortunate. Mat shoved the stumbling Delarn toward the horse, then turned and engaged the pack he’d known would chase after him. Again, Mat danced with the darkness, striking again and again, trying to disengage so that he could climb into the saddle. He risked a glance over his shoulder, and found that Delarn had managed to get onto Pips’ back—but the soldier sat slumped, a huddled mound. How badly was he wounded? He barely seemed able to keep himself upright. Blood and bloody ashes!
Mat turned back to the attackers, spinning his spear, trying to force them back. But they didn’t care about being wounded, they didn’t care how dangerous Mat was. They just kept coming! Surrounding him. Coming at him from every side. Bloody ashes! He twisted just in time to see a dark shape rush him from behind.
Something flashed in the night, reflecting some very distant light. The dark figure behind Mat slumped to the ground. Another flash, and one of the ones in front of Mat fell. Suddenly, a figure on a white horse rushed past, and another knife flashed in the air, dropping a third man.
“Thom!” Mat called, recognizing the cloak.
“Get on your horse!” Thom’s voice called back. “I’m running out of knives!”
Mat swept out with his spear, dropping two more villagers, then dashed forward and leaped into his saddle, trusting Thom to cover his retreat. Indeed, he heard a few cries of pain from behind. A moment later, a thundering sound on the road announced the imminent approach of horses. Mat pulled himself into his saddle as the creatures tore through the black morass, scattering the villagers.
“Mat, you fool!” Talmanes shouted from one of the horses, barely visible as a silhouette against the night.
Mat smiled gratefully at Talmanes, turning Pips, and caught Delarn as the man almost slid free. The Redarm was alive, for he struggled weakly, but there was a slick wet patch at his side. Mat held the man in front of him, ignoring the reins in the darkness and controlling Pips with a quick twist of the knees. He didn’t know horseback battle commands himself, but those blasted memories did, and so he’d trained Pips to obey.
Thom galloped past, and Mat turned Pips to follow, steadying Delarn with one hand and carrying his spear in the other. Talmanes and Harnan rode to either side of him, charging down the corridor of madness toward the inn at the end.
“Come on, man,” Mat whispered to Delarn. “Hang on. The Aes Sedai are just ahead. They’ll fix you up.”
Delarn whispered something back.
Mat leaned forward. “What was that?”
“. . . and toss the dice until we fly,” Delarn whispered. “To dance with Jak o’ the Shadows. . . .”
“Great,” Mat muttered. There were lights ahead, and he could see they were coming from the inn. Perhaps they’d find one place in this flaming village where the people’s brains hadn’t turned inside out.
But no. Those bursts of light were familiar. Balls of fire, flashing in the upper-story windows of the inn.
“Well,” Talmanes noted from his left, “looks like the Aes Sedai still live. That’s something, at least.”
Figures clustered around the front of the inn, fighting in the darkness, their forms periodically lit from above by the flashes in the windows.
“Round to the back,” Thom suggested.
“Go,” Mat said to them, charging past the fighting figures. Talmanes, Thom and Harnan followed close on Pips’ hooves. Mat blessed his luck that they didn’t hit a hole or rut in the ground as they crossed the softer earth coming around behind the inn. The horses could easily have tripped and broken a leg, throwing all of them into disaster.
The back of the inn was silent, and Mat reined in. Thom leaped from his horse, his agility defying his earlier complaints about his age. He took up position watching the side of the building to see that they weren’t followed.
“Harnan!” Mat said, thrusting his spear toward the stables. “Get the women’s horses out and ready them. Saddle them if you can, but be ready to go without those if we have to. Light willing, we won’t have to ride far, just a mile or so to get out of the village and away from this insanity.”
Harnan saluted in the darkness, then dismounted and dashed over to the stables. Mat waited long enough to determine that nobody was going to jump out at him from the darkness, then spoke to Delarn, still held in front of him. “You still conscious?”
Delarn nodded weakly. “Yes, Mat. But I’ve taken a gut wound. I. . . .”
“We’ll get the Aes Sedai,” Mat said. “All you need to do is sit right here. Stay in the saddle, all right?”
Delarn nodded again. Mat hesitated at the weakness in the man’s motions, but Delarn took
Pips’ reins, and seemed determined. So Mat slid out of the saddle, holding his ashandarei at the ready.
“Mat,” Delarn said from the saddle.
Mat turned back.
“Thank you. For coming back for me.”
“I wasn’t going to leave a man to that,” Mat said, shivering. “Dying on the battlefield is one thing, but to die out there, in that darkness. . . . Well, I wasn’t going to let it happen. Talmanes! See if you can find some light.”
“Working on it,” the Cairhienin said from beside the inn’s back door. He had found a lantern hanging there. A few strikes of flint and steel later, and a small, soft glow lit the backyard of the inn. Talmanes quickly closed the shield, keeping the light mostly hidden.
Thom trotted back to them. “No one following, Mat,” he said.
Mat nodded. By the lanternlight, he could see that Delarn was in bad shape. Not just the gut wound, but scrapes across the face, rips in his uniform, one eye swollen shut.
Mat whipped out a handkerchief and pressed it against the gut wound, standing beside Pips and reaching up to the man in the saddle. “Hold this tight. How’d the wound happen? They don’t use weapons.”
“One got my own sword away from me,” Delarn said with a grunt. “He used it well enough once he had it.”
Talmanes had opened the back door of the inn. He looked to Mat and nodded. The way inside was clear.
“We’ll be back soon,” Mat promised Delarn. Holding his ashandarei in a loose grip, he crossed the short distance to the door and nodded to Talmanes and Thom. The three of them ducked inside.
The door led to the kitchens. Mat scanned the dark room, and Talmanes nudged him, pointing at several lumps on the floor. The sliver of lantern light revealed a pair of kitchen boys, barely ten years old, dead on the ground, their necks twisted. Mat glanced away, steeling himself, and inched into the room. Light! Only lads, and now dead by this insanity.
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