“Well?” Mat asked the three.
“It is done,” Neald said with a growl.
“What of Tuon?”
“They found the spy, apparently,” Naeff said. “The Empress is waiting to return on your mark.”
Mat breathed in, tasting the battlefield air, feeling the rhythm of the fighting he had set up. He didn’t know if he could win, even with Tuon. Not with Elayne’s army in disarray, not with the Aes Sedai weakened to the point of being unable to channel. Not without Egwene, her Two Rivers stubbornness, her iron backbone. Not without a miracle.
“Send for her, Naeff,” Mat said. He called for paper and a pen, and scribbled a note, which he handed off to the Asha’man. He shoved aside the selfish desire to let Tuon fly to safety. Bloody ashes, there was no safety, not anywhere. “Give this to the Empress, Naeff; tell her these instructions must be followed exactly.”
Then Mat turned to Neald. “I want you to go to Talmanes,” he said. “Have him move forward with the plan.”
The two channelers left, off to deliver their messages.
“Will it be enough?” Arganda asked.
“No,” Mat said.
“Then why?”
“Because I’ll be a Darkfriend before I’ll let this battle go without trying everything, Arganda.”
“Lews Therin!” Demandred boomed. “Come face me! I know you watch this battle! Join it! Fight!”
“I sure am growing tired of that man,” Mat said.
“Cauthon, look, those Trollocs have regrouped,” Arganda said. “I think they are about to attack.”
“Then this is it; let’s form up,” Mat said. “Where is Lan; has he come back yet? I’d hate to do this without him.”
Mat turned, scanning the lines for him, as Arganda shouted orders. His attention was drawn back suddenly as Arganda grabbed his arm, pointing toward the Trollocs. Mat felt a chill as he saw in the light of bonfires a lone horseman on a black stallion charge into the right flank of the Trolloc horde, making for the eastern slope of the Heights. Toward Demandred.
Lan had gone to fight a war on his own.
* * *
The Trollocs ripped at Olver’s arm in the night, reaching into the crack, trying to pry him free. Others dug at the sides, and soil streamed in onto him, sticking to the tears on his cheeks and the blood flowing from his scratches.
He couldn’t stop shaking. He also couldn’t make himself move. He trembled, terrified, as the beasts pried at him with filthy fingers, digging closer and closer.
* * *
Loial sat on a stump, resting before the battle picked up again.
A charge. Yes, that would be a good way for this to end. Loial felt sore all over. He had read a great deal about battle, and had been in fights before, so he had known what to expect. But knowing a thing and experiencing it were completely different; that was why he’d left the stedding in the first place.
After more than a day of nonstop fighting, his limbs burned with a deep, inner fatigue. When he raised his axe, the head felt so heavy he wondered why it didn’t break the shaft.
War. He could have lived his life without experiencing this. It was so much more than the frantic battle at the Two Rivers had been. There, at least, they’d had time to remove the dead and care for their wounded. There, it had been a matter of standing firm and holding against waves of attacks.
Here, there was no time to wait, no time to think. Erith sat down on the ground beside his stump, and he put a hand on her shoulder. She closed her eyes and leaned against him. She was beautiful, with perfect ears and wonderful eyebrows. Loial did not look at the bloodstains on her clothing; he feared some of it was hers. He rubbed her shoulder with fingers so tired he could barely feel them.
Loial had taken some notes on the battlefield, for himself and for others, to keep track of how the battle had gone so far. Yes, a final attack. That would make for a good ending to the story, once he wrote it.
He pretended that he would still write the story. There was no harm to such a little lie.
One rider burst from the ranks of their soldiers, galloping toward the Trolloc right flank. Mat would not be happy about that. One man, alone, would die. Loial was surprised that he could feel sorrow for that man’s life lost, after all of the death he had seen.
That man looks familiar, Loial thought. Yes, it was the horse. He’d seen that horse before, many times. Lan, he thought, numb. Lan is the one riding out alone.
Loial stood.
Erith looked up at him as he shouldered his axe.
“Wait,” Loial said to her. “Fight alongside the others. I must go.”
“Go?”
“I need to witness this,” Loial said. The fall of the last king of the Malkieri. He would need to include it in his book.
* * *
“Prepare to charge!” Arganda yelled. “Men, form up! Archers at the front, cavalry next, foot soldiers prepare to come up behind!”
A charge, Tam thought. Yes, that is our only hope. They had to continue their push, but their line was so thin. He could see what Mat had been trying, but it wasn’t going to work.
They needed to fight it through anyway.
“Well, he is dead,” a mercenary said from near Tam, nodding toward Lan Mandragoran as he rode toward the Trolloc flank. “Bloody Borderlanders.”
“Tam…” Abell said from beside him.
Above them, the sky grew darker. Was that possible, at night? Those terrible, boiling clouds seemed to come lower and lower. Tam almost lost Lan’s figure atop the midnight stallion, despite the bonfires burning on the Heights. Their light seemed feeble.
He’s riding for Demandred, Tam thought. But there’s a wall of Trollocs in the way. Tam took out an arrow with a resin-soaked rag tied behind the head and nocked it into his bow. “Two Rivers men, prepare to fire!”
The mercenary nearby laughed. “That’s a hundred paces at least! You’ll fill him with arrows if anything.”
Tam eyed the man, then took his arrow and thrust the end into a torch. The bundled rag behind the head came alight with fire. “First rank, on my signal!” Tam yelled, ignoring the other orders that came down the line. “Let’s give Lord Mandragoran a little something to guide his way!”
Tam drew in a fluid motion, the burning rag warming his fingers, and loosed.
* * *
Lan charged toward the Trollocs. His lance, and its three replacements, had all shattered hours ago. At his neck, he wore the cold medallion that Berelain had sent through the gateway with a simple note.
I do not know how Galad ended up with this, but I believe he wished me to send it to Cauthon.
Lan did not consider what he was doing. The void did not allow such things. Some men would call it brash, foolhardy, suicidal. The world was rarely changed by men who were unwilling to try being at least one of the three. He sent what comfort he could to distant Nynaeve through the bond, then prepared to fight.
As Lan neared the Trollocs, the beasts set up a spear line to stop him. A horse would impale itself trying to push through that. Lan drew in breath, calm within the void, planning to slice the head off the first spear, then ram his way through the line.
It was an impossible maneuver. All the Trollocs would need to do was squeeze together and slow him. After that, they could overwhelm Mandarb and pull Lan from the saddle.
But someone had to destroy Demandred. With the medallion at his neck, Lan raised his sword.
A flaming arrow streaked down from the sky and hit the throat of the Trolloc right in front of Lan. Without hesitation, Lan used the fallen Trolloc as an opening in the line of spears. He crashed between the Shadowspawn, trampling the fallen one. He would need to—
Another arrow fell, dropping a Trolloc. Then another fell, and another, in quick succession. Mandarb crashed through the confused, burning and dying Trollocs as an entire rain of burning arrows dropped in front of him.
“Malkier!” Lan yelled, heeling Mandarb forward, trampling corpses but maintaining spe
ed as the way opened. A hail of light dropped before him, each arrow precise, killing a Trolloc that tried to stand before him.
He thundered through the ranks, shoving aside dying Trollocs, flaming arrows guiding his way in the darkness like a roadway. The Trollocs stood thick on either side, but those in front of him dropped and dropped until there were no more.
Thank you, Tam.
Lan cantered his steed along the eastern slope of the Heights, alone now, past the soldiers, past the Shadowspawn. He was one with the breeze that streamed through his hair, one with the sinewy animal beneath him that carried him forward, one with the target that was his destination, his fate.
Demandred stood at the sound of the hoofbeats, his Sharan companions rising in front of him.
With a roar, Lan heeled Mandarb into the Sharans that blocked his path. The stallion leaped, front legs driving the guards before him into the ground. Mandarb wheeled around, his haunches knocking down more Sharans, his forelegs coming down on yet others.
Lan threw himself from the saddle—Mandarb had no protection against channeling, and so to fight from horseback would be to invite Demandred to kill his mount—and hit the ground at a run, sword out.
“Another one?” Demandred roared. “Lews Therin, you are beginning to—”
He cut off as Lan reached him and flung himself into Thistledown Floats on the Whirlwind, a tempestuous, offensive sword form. Demandred whipped his sword up, catching the blow on his weapon and skidding backward a step at the force of it. They exchanged three blows, quick as cracks of lightning, Lan still in motion until the last blow caught Demandred on the cheek. Lan felt a slight tug, and blood sprayed into the air.
Demandred felt at the wound in his cheek, and his eyes opened wider. “Who are you?” Demandred asked.
“I am the man who will kill you.”
* * *
Min looked up from the back of her torm as it loped toward the gateway back to the battlefield at Merrilor. She hoped it would withstand the battle frenzy when they got there. Bonfires and torches shone in the distance, fireflies illuminating scenes of valor and determination. She watched the lights flicker, the last embers of a fire that would soon be extinguished.
Rand trembled, distant, far to the north.
* * *
The Pattern spun around Rand, forcing him to watch. He looked through eyes streaming with tears. He saw the people struggle. He saw them fall. He saw Elayne, captive and alone, a Dreadlord preparing to rip their children from her womb. He saw Rhuarc, his mind forfeit, now a pawn of one of the Forsaken.
He saw Mat, desperate, facing down horrible odds.
He saw Lan riding to his death.
Demandred’s words dug at him. The Dark One’s pressure continued to tear at him.
Rand had failed.
But in the back of his mind, a voice. Frail, almost forgotten.
Let go.
* * *
Lan held nothing back.
He did not fight as he had trained Rand to fight. No careful testing, no judging the terrain, no careful evaluation. Demandred could channel, and despite the medallion, Lan couldn’t give his enemy time to think, time to weave and hurl rocks at him or open the ground beneath him.
Lan burrowed deeply into the void, allowing instincts to guide him. He went beyond lack of emotions, burning away everything. He did not need to judge the terrain, for he felt the land as if it were part of him. He did not need to test Demandred’s strength. One of the Forsaken, with many decades of experience, would be the most skilled swordsman Lan had ever faced.
Lan was vaguely aware of the Sharans spreading out to make a broad circle around the two combatants as they fought. Apparently Demandred was confident enough of his skills that he did not allow interference from others.
Lan spun into a sequence of attacks. Water Flows Downhill became Whirlwind on the Mountain which became Hawk Dives into the Brush. His forms were like streams blending into a larger and larger river. Demandred fought as well as Lan had feared. Though the man’s forms were slightly different from those Lan knew, the years had not changed the nature of a swordfight.
“You are … good…” Demandred said with a grunt, falling back before Wind and Rain, a line of blood dripping from his chin. Lan’s sword flashed in the air, reflecting the red light of a bonfire nearby.
Demandred came back with Striking the Spark, which Lan anticipated, countering. He took a scratch along the side, but ignored it. The exchange set Lan back a step, and gave Demandred the chance to pick up a rock with the One Power and hurl it at Lan.
Deep within the void, Lan felt the stone coming. It was an understanding of the fight—one that ran deeply into him, to the very core of his soul. The way Demandred stepped, the direction his eyes flickered, told Lan exactly what was coming.
As he flowed into his next sword form, Lan brought his weapon up across his chest and stepped backward. A stone the size of a man’s head passed directly in front of him. Lan flowed forward, arm moving into his next form as another stone flew under his arm, tugging wind with it. Lan raised his sword and flowed around the path of a third stone, which missed him by a thumb’s width, rippling his clothing.
Demandred blocked Lan’s attack, but he breathed hoarsely. “Who are you?” Demandred whispered again. “No one of this Age has such skill. Asmodean? No, no. He couldn’t have fought me like this. Lews Therin? It is you behind that face, isn’t it?”
“I am just a man,” Lan whispered. “That is all I have ever been.”
Demandred growled, then launched an attack. Lan responded with Stones Falling Down the Mountain, but Demandred’s fury forced him back a few steps.
Despite Lan’s initial offensive, Demandred was the better swordsman. Lan knew this by the same sense that told him when to strike, when to parry, when to step and when to withdraw. Perhaps if they had come to the fight evenly, it would be different. They had not. Lan had been fighting for an entire day, and though he’d been Healed from his worst wounds, the smaller ones still ached. Beyond that, a Healing in and of itself was draining.
Demandred was still fresh. The Forsaken stopped talking and engrossed himself in the duel. He also stopped using the One Power, focused only on his swordplay. He did not grin as he took the advantage. He did not seem like a man who grinned very often.
Lan slipped away from Demandred, but the Forsaken pressed forward with Boar Rushes Down the Mountain, again pushing Lan back to the perimeter of the circle, battering at his defenses, cutting him on the arm, then the shoulder, then finally the thigh.
I’ve only time for one last lesson …
“I have you,” Demandred finally growled, breathing heavily. “Whoever you are, I have you. You cannot win.”
“You didn’t listen to me,” Lan whispered.
One last lesson. The hardest …
Demandred struck, and Lan saw his opening. Lan lunged forward, placing Demandred’s sword point against his own side and ramming himself forward onto it.
“I did not come here to win,” Lan whispered, smiling. “I came here to kill you. Death is lighter than a feather.”
Demandred’s eyes opened wide, and he tried to pull back. Too late. Lan’s sword took him straight through the throat.
The world grew dark as Lan slipped backward off the sword. He felt Nynaeve’s fear and pain as he did, and he sent his love to her.
CHAPTER
38
The Place That Was Not
Rand saw Lan fall, and it sent a spasm of anguish through him. The Dark One pressed in around Rand. Swallowing him, shredding him. Fighting that attack was too hard. Rand was spent.
Let go. His father’s voice.
“I have to save them…” Rand whispered.
Let them sacrifice. You can’t do this yourself.
“I have to … That’s what it means…” The Dark One’s destruction crawled on him like a thousand crows, picking at his flesh, pulling it from his bones. He could barely think through the pressure and the sense
of loss. The death of Egwene and so many others.
Let go.
It is their choice to make.
He wanted so badly to protect them, the people who believed in him. Their deaths, and the danger they faced, were an enormous weight upon him. How could a man just … let go? Wasn’t that letting go of responsibility?
Or was it giving the responsibility to them?
Rand squeezed his eyes shut, thinking of all those who had died for him. Of Egwene, whom he had sworn to himself to protect.
You fool. Her voice in his head. Fond, but sharp.
“Egwene?”
Am I not allowed to be a hero, too?
“It’s not that…”
You march to your death. Yet you forbid anyone else from doing so?
“I…”
Let go, Rand. Let us die for what we believe, and do not try to steal that from us.
You have embraced your death. Embrace mine.
Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Why?
“I’ve failed.”
No. Not yet you haven’t.
The Dark One flayed him. He huddled before that vast nothingness, unable to move. He screamed in agony.
And then, he let go.
He let go of the guilt. He let go of the shame for having not saved Egwene and all the others. He let go of the need to protect her, to protect all of them.
He let them be heroes.
Names streamed from his head. Egwene, Hurin, Bashere, Isan of the Chareen Aiel, Somara and thousands more. One by one—first slowly, but with increasing speed—he counted backward through the list he had once maintained in his head. The list had once been only women, but had grown to include everyone he knew had died for him. He hadn’t realized how large it had become, how much he had let himself carry.
The names ripped from him like physical things, like doves aflight, and each one carried away a burden. Weight vanished from his shoulders. His breathing grew steadier. It was as if Perrin had come with his hammer and shattered a thousand chains that had been dragging behind Rand.
Ilyena was last. We are reborn, Rand thought, so we can do better the next time.
The Wheel of Time Page 1310