He blinked, seeing it, the entire battlefield spread before him. Fighting at the ford. Arrows from the palisade. “We can’t just beat them, Egwene,” Mat said. “We can’t just stand and hold on. We have to destroy them, drive them away, then hunt them to the last Trolloc. We can’t just survive … we have to win.”
“How are we going to do that?” Egwene asked. “Mat, you’re not talking sense. Weren’t you just saying yesterday how outnumbered we’ll be?”
He looked toward the bog, imagining shadows trying to slog through it. Shadows of dust and memory. “I have to change it all,” he said. He could not do what they would expect. He could not do what spies might have reported he was planning. “Blood and bloody ashes … one last toss of the dice. Everything we have, piled into a heap…”
A group of men in dark armor came through a gateway to the top of the Knob, panting deeply, as if they’d had to chase down a damane to get them up here. Their breastplates were lacquered a deep red, but this batch did not need a fearsome display to be frightening. They looked furious enough to scramble eggs with a stare.
“You,” said the lead Deathwatch Guard, a man named Gelen, pointing at Mat, “are needed at the—”
Mat held up a hand to cut him off.
“I will not be denied again!” Gelen said. “I have orders from—”
Mat shot the man a glare, and he stopped short. Mat turned northward again. A cool, somehow familiar wind blew across him, rippling his long coat, brushing at his hat. He narrowed his eye. Rand was tugging on him.
The dice still tumbled in his head.
“They’re here,” Mat said.
“What did you say?” Egwene asked.
“They’re here.”
“The scouts—”
“The scouts are wrong,” Mat said. He looked up, and noticed a pair of raken speeding back toward the camp. They had seen it. The Trollocs must have marched through the night.
Sharans will come first, Mat thought, to give the Trollocs a breather. They’ll have arrived through gateways.
“Send runners,” Mat said, pointing at the Deathwatch Guards, “get the men and women to their posts. And warn Elayne that I’m going to change the battle plan.”
“What?” Egwene said.
“They’re here!” Mat said, turning on the Guards. “Why aren’t you bloody running! Go, go!” Above, the raken screeched. Gelen, to his credit, saluted, then ran—pounding in that massive armor—with his companions.
“This is it, Egwene,” Mat said. “Take a deep breath, a last pull on the brandy, or burn your final pinch of tabac. Have a good look at the ground before you, as it’s soon going to be covered in blood. In an hour, we’ll be in the thick of it. The Light watch over us all.”
* * *
Perrin drifted in darkness. He felt so tired.
Slayer still lives, a piece of himself thought. Graendal is corrupting the great captains. The end is near. You can’t slip away now! Hold on.
Hold on to what? He tried to open his eyes, but was so exhausted. He should.… should have gotten out of the wolf dream sooner. His entire body felt numb, except …
Except for his side. Moving fingers that felt like bricks, he touched the warmth. His hammer. It was blazing hot. That warmth seemed to move up his fingers, and Perrin took a deep breath.
He needed to wake up. He hovered at the edges of consciousness, as when he was close to sleep, but still partially aware. In that state, he felt as if he faced a forked pathway before him. One path led deeper into darkness. And one led … He couldn’t see, but he knew that it meant … It meant waking up.
Warmth from the hammer radiated up his arm. His mind gathered sharpness. Awaken.
That was what Slayer had done. He had … awakened … somehow …
Perrin’s life was trickling away. Not much time left. Half within death’s embrace, he gritted his teeth, drew in a deep breath and forced himself to wake.
The silence of the wolf dream shattered.
Perrin hit soft earth, and entered a place of shouts. Something about a battlefront, about preparing the lines …
Nearby, someone cried out. And then someone else. And others.
“Perrin?” He knew that voice. “Perrin, lad!”
Master Luhhan? Perrin’s eyelids felt so heavy. He couldn’t open them. Arms grabbed him.
“Hang on. I have you, lad. I have you. Hang on.”
CHAPTER
37
The Last Battle
Dawn broke that morning on Polov Heights, but the sun did not shine on the Defenders of the Light. Out of the west and out of the north came the armies of Darkness, to win this one last battle and cast a Shadow across the earth; to usher in an Age where the wails of suffering would go unheard.
—from the notebook of Loial, son of Arent son of Halan, the Fourth Age
Lan held his sword aloft as he galloped Mandarb through camp.
Above, the morning clouds began to bleed red, reflecting enormous fireballs rising from the massive Sharan army that was approaching from the west. They arced in the sky gracefully, seeming slow because of the great distance.
Groups of riders broke out of the camp, joining Lan. The remaining Malkieri rode just behind him, but his force had swelled like a tide. Andere joined him at the front, the flag of Malkier—the Golden Crane—acting as a banner for all of the Borderlands.
They had been bloodied, but not beaten. Knock a man down, and you saw what he was made of. That man might run. If he didn’t—if he stood back up with blood at the corner of his mouth and determination in his eyes—then you knew. That man was about to become truly dangerous.
The fireballs seemed to move more quickly as they dropped, crashing to the camp in bursts of red fury. Explosions shook the ground. Nearby screams rose to accompany the thunder of hoofbeats. Still men joined him. Mat Cauthon had spread word through all of the camps that more cavalry were needed to join Lan’s advance and replace lost soldiers.
He had also disclosed the cost of doing so. The cavalry would be at the forefront of the fighting, breaking Trolloc and Sharan lines, and would find little rest. They’d carry the brunt of the casualties this day.
Still, men joined him. Borderlanders who should have been too old to ride. Merchants who had put aside the money pouch and taken up the sword. A surprising number of southerners, including many women, wearing breastplates and steel or leather caps, carrying spears. There weren’t enough lances to go around.
“Half of those joining look like farmers more than soldiers!” Andere called to him over the hoofbeats.
“Have you ever seen a man or woman from the Two Rivers ride, Andere?” Lan yelled back.
“I can’t say that I have.”
“Watch and be surprised.”
Lan’s cavalry reached the River Mora, where a man with long, curling hair, wearing a black coat, stood with hands clasped behind his back. Logain now had forty Aes Sedai and Asha’man with him. He eyed Lan’s force, then raised a hand toward the sky, crumpling an enormous falling fireball as if it were a piece of paper. The sky cracked like lightning, and the breaking fireball gushed sparks to every side, smoke churning in the air. Ashes drifted down, burning out, hitting the rushing river and scattering black and white on its surface.
Lan slowed Mandarb as he approached Hawal Ford, just south of the Heights. Logain thrust his other hand toward the river. The waters churned, then lurched up into the air as if flowing over an invisible ramp. They crashed down on the other side, a violent waterfall, while some of the water spilled over the banks of the river.
Lan nodded to Logain and continued on, guiding Mandarb under the waterfall and crossing the still-wet rocks of the ford. Sunlight filtered through the river waters above, sparkling down on Lan as he thundered through the tunnel, Andere and the Malkieri behind him. The waterfall roared down to his left, spraying a mist of water.
Lan shivered as he burst back out into the light, then charged through the corridor toward the Sharans. To his rig
ht rose the Heights, to his left the bogs, but there was a passage of solid, level ground here. Up on the Heights, archers, crossbowmen and dragoners prepared to release volleys at the oncoming foes.
Sharans at the front, a huge force of Trollocs gathering up behind, all directly west of the Heights. The thunder of dragonfire shook the air from the top of the Heights, and soon the Sharans had explosions of their own to contend with.
Lan set his lance, took aim at a Sharan soldier charging toward Polov Heights, then braced himself.
* * *
Elayne whipped her head up, turning to the side. That terrible song, a croon, a hum, beautiful yet terrible at the same time. She heeled Moonshadow, drawn toward that soft sound. Where was it?
It rose from somewhere deeper in the Seanchan camp at the base of Dashar Knob. Chewing out Mat for not telling her his plan of war could wait. She needed to find the source of that sound, that wonderful sound, that …
“Elayne!” Birgitte said.
Elayne kicked her horse forward.
“Elayne! Draghkar!”
Draghkar. Elayne shook herself, then looked up to find the creatures falling like drops of water into the camp around them. Guardswomen lowered their swords, eyes opening wide as the crooning continued.
Elayne wove a thunderclap. It burst from her, splitting the air, washing across the Guardswomen and making them cry out and cover their ears. Pain stabbed Elayne’s head and she cursed, closing her eyes at the shock. And then … then she heard nothing.
That was the point.
She forced her eyes open to see Draghkar all around, with their spindly bodies and inhuman eyes. They opened their lips to croon, but Elayne’s deafened ears could not hear the song. She smiled, then wove whips of fire, striking the creatures down. She could not hear their screeches of pain, which was a pity.
Elayne’s Guardswomen rallied, rising from knees, lowering hands from ears. She could tell from their dazed looks that they had been deafened. Birgitte soon had them striking at the surprised Draghkar. Three of the creatures tried to leap up and fly away, but Birgitte took each one with a white-fletched arrow, dropping the last so that it crashed into a nearby tent.
Elayne waved, getting Birgitte’s attention. The first Draghkar sounds hadn’t come from above, but from farther into camp. Elayne pointed, kicking Moonshadow into motion, leading her troops among the Seanchan. All about, men lay staring into the sky, mouths open. Many seemed to be breathing, but they stared with dead eyes. The Draghkar had consumed their souls, but left the bodies alive, like the crust cut off a rich man’s bread.
Sloppy. This group of Draghkar—Light, there were well over a hundred of them—could have taken a man each, killed him, then retreated before their presence was discovered. The distant roars of the battle—the bleating horns, the booming dragons, the hissing fireballs, all of which Elayne now felt but could only barely make out with her broken ears—had covered the Draghkar attack. The creatures could have struck and fled, but they were greedy.
Her guards scattered, hacking at the surprised Draghkar—many of whom were holding soldiers. The beasts were not strong fighters if measured by strength of arm. Elayne waited, preparing weaves. Those Draghkar who tried to flee, she burned from the sky.
Once the last of them were dead—at least, the ones they could see—Elayne waved Birgitte to approach. The air smelled sharply of burned flesh. Elayne wrinkled her nose, and reached down from horseback to take Birgitte’s head in her hands, Healing the woman’s ears. The babes kicked as she did so. Did they react to times when she Healed someone, or was that her fancy? Elayne reached down to hold her stomach with one arm as Birgitte stepped back, looking about.
The Warder nocked an arrow, and Elayne felt her alarm. Birgitte loosed, and a Draghkar stumbled back from cover inside a nearby tent. A Seanchan stumbled out, eyes glassed over. The feeding had been interrupted halfway through; the poor fellow would never be right in the mind again.
Elayne turned her horse and saw some Seanchan troops charging into the area. Birgitte spoke to them, then turned to speak to Elayne. Elayne just shook her head, and Birgitte hesitated, then said something else to the Seanchan.
Elayne’s guards grouped around her again, watching the Seanchan with distrust. Elayne understood the sentiment perfectly.
Birgitte waved her forward, and they continued on in the direction they had been going. As they did, a damane and sul’dam approached and—surprisingly—curtsied to Elayne. Perhaps this Fortuona had given them orders to respect foreign monarchs.
Elayne hesitated, but what was she going to do? She could return to her own camp for Healing, but that would take time, and it was urgent that she speak with Mat. What was the point of spending days drawing up war plans if he was going to throw them aside? She trusted him—Light, she had to—but she’d still rather know what he intended to do.
She sighed, then held out her foot to the damane. The woman frowned, then glanced to the sul’dam. Both seemed to take it as an insult. Elayne had certainly intended it as one.
The sul’dam nodded, and her damane reached to touch Elayne’s leg just above her booted foot. Elayne’s sturdy boots looked like something a soldier would wear, not a queen, but she didn’t intend to ride into battle wearing slippers.
A small icy shock of Healing ran through her, and her hearing returned slowly. The low pitches returned first. Explosions. The distant boom of dragonfire, the rush of the river nearby. Several Seanchan talking. Midranges came next, then a flood of sound. Flaps rustling, screams of soldiers, calls of horns.
“Tell them to Heal the others,” Elayne said to Birgitte.
Birgitte raised an eyebrow, probably wondering why Elayne wouldn’t just give the order herself. Well, these Seanchan paid very close attention to which people could speak to one another. Elayne would not give them the honor of speaking to them directly.
Birgitte relayed the order, and the sul’dam’s lips drew to a line. She had had the sides of her hair shaved; she was highborn. Light willing, Elayne had managed to insult her again.
“I will do it,” the woman said. “Though why any of you would want to be Healed by an animal is beyond me.”
The Seanchan didn’t believe in letting damane Heal. At least, that was what they kept claiming—that hadn’t stopped them from reluctantly teaching the weaves to their captive women, now that they’d seen firsthand what an advantage it was in battle. From what Elayne had heard, the highborn rarely accepted that Healing, however.
“Let’s go,” Elayne said, riding forward. She waved for her soldiers to stay behind and be Healed.
Birgitte eyed her, but did not object. The two of them hurried on, Birgitte mounting her horse and riding with Elayne toward the Seanchan command building. One story, perhaps the size of a small farmhouse, it sat in a large, high-walled cleft at the southern base of Dashar Knob—they’d moved it from the top, as Mat worried it would be too exposed. The top would continue to be used for overseeing the battle at short intervals.
Elayne allowed Birgitte to help her dismount—Light, but she was starting to feel unwieldy. It was as if she were a ship in dry dock. She took a moment to properly compose herself. Smooth features, emotions in control. She picked at her hair, straightened her dress, then walked into the building.
“What,” she bellowed as she stepped in, “in the name of a bloody, two-fingered Trolloc haystack-grunter do you think you are doing, Matrim Cauthon?”
Unsurprisingly, the curse made the man grin as he looked up from the map table. He wore his hat and coat over some very nice silken clothing that looked as if it had been tailored to match the hat’s color, and to include tooled leather at the cuffs and collar so as to not be so out of place. It smelled of some kind of compromise. Why was his hat banded with pink ribbon, though?
“Hello, Elayne,” Mat said. “I figured that I could look forward to seeing you soon.” He waved to a chair, bearing the red and white of Andor, at the side of the room. It was extra cushioned, with a cup
of warm tea steaming on the stand beside it.
Burn you, Matrim Cauthon, she thought. When did you grow so clever?
The Seanchan Empress sat on her own throne at the head of the room, Min at her side, draped in enough green silk to supply a shop in Caemlyn for two weeks. Elayne did not miss the fact that Fortuona’s throne was two fingers higher than Elayne’s. Bloody insufferable woman. “Mat. There are Draghkar in your camp.”
“Burn it,” he said. “Where?”
“I should say there were Draghkar in your camp,” Elayne said. “We dealt with them. You need to tell your archers to keep better watch.”
“I’ve told them,” Mat complained. “Bloody ashes. Somebody check on the archers, I—”
“Great Prince!” a Seanchan messenger said, skidding through the doorway. He went to his knees, then prostrated himself with a smooth motion, never stopping his narrative. “Archer bank is down! Hit by Sharan outriders—they masked their attack by smoke from fireballs.”
“Blood and bloody ashes!” Mat said. “Send sixteen damane and sul’dam down there now! Send to the northern archery units and bring squads forty-two and fifty down. And tell the scouts I’ll have them flogged if they let anything like this happen again.”
“Great One,” the scout said, saluting and scrambling to his feet, backing out of the room without looking up to avoid the risk of meeting Mat’s gaze.
All in all, Elayne was impressed by how easily the scout mixed his obeisance and his report. She was also sickened. No ruler should demand such of her subjects. A nation’s strength came from the strength of its people; break them, and you were breaking your own back.
“You knew I was coming,” Elayne said after Mat gave a few more orders to his aides. “And you anticipated the anger your changing of plans would cause. Burn you, Matrim Cauthon, why did you feel the need to do this? I thought our battle plan was sound.”
“It was,” Mat said.
“Then why change it!”
“Elayne,” Mat said, glancing at her. “Everyone put me in charge, against my will, because I can’t have my mind changed by the Forsaken, right?”
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