A Memory of Light

33 The Prince’s Tabac

Perrin chased Slayer through the skies.

He leaped from a churning, silver-black cloud, Slayer a blur before him in the charred sky. The air pulsed with the rhythm of lightning bolts and furious winds. Scent after scent assailed Perrin, with no logic behind them. Mud in Tear. A burning pie. Rotting garbage. A death-lily flower.

Slayer landed on the cloud ahead and shifted, turning around in an eye-blink, bow drawn. The arrow loosed so quickly the air cracked, but Perrin managed to slap it down with his hammer. He landed on the same thunder-head as Slayer, imagining footing beneath him, and the vapors of the storm cloud became solid.

Perrin charged forward through a churning dark gray fog, the top layer of the cloud, and attacked. They clashed, Slayer summoning a shield and sword. Perrin’s hammer beat a rhythm against that shield, pounding alongside the booming of thunder. A crash with each blow.

Slayer spun away to flee, but Perrin managed to snatch the edge of his cloak. As Slayer attempted to shift away, Perrin imagined them staying put. He knew they would. It was not a possibility, it was.

They both fuzzed for a moment, then returned to the cloud. Slayer growled, then swept his sword backward, shearing off the tip of his cloak and freeing himself. He turned to face Perrin, stalking to the side, sword held in wary hands. The cloud trembled beneath them, and a flash of phantom lightning lit the misty vapor at their feet.

“You become increasingly annoying, wolf pup,” Slayer said.

“You’ve never fought a wolf that can fight you back,” Perrin said. “You’ve killed them from afar. The slaughter was easy. Now you’ve tried to hunt a prey who has teeth, Slayer.”

Slayer snorted. “You’re like a boy with his father’s sword. Dangerous, but completely unaware of why, or how to use your weapons.”

“We’ll see who—” Perrin began, but Slayer lunged, sword out. Perrin braced himself, imagining the sword growing dull, the air becoming thick to slow it, his skin turning hard enough to turn the weapon aside.

A second later, Perrin found himself tumbling through the air.

Fool! he thought. He’d focused so much on the attack that he hadn’t been ready when Slayer changed their footing. Perrin passed through the rumbling cloud, breaking out into the sky below, wind tugging at his clothing. He prepared himself, waiting for the hail of arrows to follow him down out of the cloud. Slayer could be so predictable . . .

No arrows came. Perrin fell for a few moments, then cursed and twisted to see a storm of arrows shooting up from the ground below. He shifted seconds before they passed through where he’d been.

Perrin appeared in the air a hundred feet to the side, still falling. He didn’t bother to slow himself; he hit the ground, increasing his body’s strength to deal with the shock of the blow. The ground cracked. A ring of dust blew out from him.

The storm was far worse than it had been. The ground here—they were in the south, somewhere, with overgrown brush and tangled vines growing up the sides of the trees—was pocked and torn. Lightning lashed repeatedly, so frequent that he could hardly count to three without seeing a bolt.

There was no rain, but the landscape crumbled. Entire hills would suddenly disintegrate. The one just to Perrin’s left dissolved like an enormous pile of dust, a trail of dirt and sand streaking out into the wind.

Perrin leaped through the debris-laden sky, hunting Slayer. Had the man shifted back up to Shayol Ghul? No. Two more arrows pierced the sky, heading for Perrin. Slayer was very good at making them ignore the wind.

Perrin slapped the arrows aside and hurled himself in Slayer’s direction. He spotted the man on a peak of rock, ground crumbling to either side of him and whipping into the air.

Perrin came down with hammer swinging. Slayer shifted away, of course, and the hammer struck stone with a sound like thunder. Perrin growled. Slayer was too quick!

Perrin was fast, too. Sooner or later, one of them would slip. One slip would be enough.

He caught sight of Slayer bounding away, and followed. When Perrin jumped off the next hilltop, the stones shattered behind him, rising up into the wind. The Pattern was weakening. Beyond that, his will was much stronger now that he was here in the flesh. He no longer had to worry about entering the dream too strongly and losing himself. He had entered it as strongly as one could.

And so, when Perrin moved, the landscape shuddered around him. The next leap showed him sea ahead. They had traveled much farther to the south than Perrin had realized. Were they in Illian? Tear?

Slayer hit the beach, where water crashed against rocks; the sand—if there had been any—had been blown away. The land seemed to be returning to a primal state, grass ripped free, soil eroded, leaving only stone and crashing waves.

Perrin landed beside Slayer. For once, there was no shifting. Both men were intent on the fight, the swings of hammer and sword. Metal clanged against metal.

Perrin nearly landed a hit, his hammer brushing Slayer’s clothing. He heard a curse, but the next moment, Slayer was rounding from his dodge with a large axe in hand. Perrin braced himself and took it on the side, hardening his skin.

The axe didn’t draw blood, not with Perrin braced as he was, but it did carry a huge amount of force behind it. The blow tossed Perrin out over the sea.

Slayer appeared above him a second later, plunging down with that axe. Perrin caught it on his hammer as he fell, but the force of the blow flung him downward, toward the ocean.

He commanded the water to recede. It rushed away, churning and bubbling, as if pursued by a powerful wind. Perrin righted himself as he fell, landing and cracking the still-wet, rocky bottom of the bay. Seawater rose high to either side of him, a circular wall some thirty feet high.

Slayer crashed down nearby. The man was panting from the exertion of their fight. Good. Perrin’s own fatigue manifested as a deep burning in his muscles.

“I’m glad you were there,” Slayer said, raising his sword to his shoulder, his shield vanishing. “I had so hoped that, when I appeared to kill the Dragon, you would interfere.”

“What are you, Luc?” Perrin asked, wary, shifting to the side, keeping opposite Slayer in the circle of stone with walls of sea. “What are you really?”

Slayer prowled to the side, talking—Perrin knew—to lull his prey. “I’ve seen him, you know,” Slayer said softly. “The Dark One, the Great Lord as some would call him. Both terms are gross, almost insulting, understatements.”

“Do you really think he’ll reward you?” Perrin spat. “How can you not realize that once you’ve done what he wishes of you, he’ll just discard you, as he has so many?”

Slayer laughed. “Did he discard the Forsaken, when they failed and were imprisoned with him in the Bore? He could have slaughtered them all and kept their souls in eternal torment. Did he?”

Perrin didn’t reply.

“The Dark One does not discard useful tools,” Slayer said. “Fail him, and he may exact punishment, but he never discards. He’s like a goodwife, with her balls of tangled yarn and broken teakettles hidden away in the bottoms of baskets, waiting for the right moment to return them to usefulness. That is where you’re wrong, Aybara. A mere human might kill a tool who succeeds, fearing that the tool will threaten him. That is not the Dark One’s way. He will reward me.”

Perrin opened his mouth to reply, and Slayer shifted right in front of him to attack, thinking him distracted. Perrin vanished and Slayer struck only air. The man spun about, sword splitting the air, but Perrin had shifted to the opposite side. Small sea creatures with many arms undulated near his feet, confused at the sudden lack of water. Something large and dark swam through the shadowy water behind Slayer.

“You never answered my question,” Perrin said. “What are you?”

“I’m bold,” Slayer said, striding forward. “And I’m tired of being afraid. In this life, there are predators and there are prey. Often, the predators themselves become food for someone else. The only way to survive is to move up the chain, become the hunter.”

“That’s why you kill wolves?”

Slayer smiled a dangerous smile, his face in shadows. With the storm clouds above and the high walls of water, it was dim here at the bottom—though the strange light of the wolf dream pierced this place, if in a muted way.

“Wolves and men are the finest hunters in this world,” Slayer said softly. “Kill them, and you elevate yourself above them. Not all of us had the privilege of growing up in a comfortable home with a warm hearth and laughing siblings.”

Perrin and Slayer rounded one another, shadows blending, lightning blasts above shimmering through the water.

“If you knew my life,” Slayer said, “you’d howl. The hopelessness, the agony . . . I soon found my way. My power. In this place, I am a king.”

He leaped across the space, his form a blur. Perrin prepared to swing, but Slayer didn’t draw his sword. He crashed into Perrin, throwing them both into the wall of water. The sea churned and bubbled around them.

Darkness. Perrin created light, somehow making the rocks at his feet glow. Slayer had hold of his cloak with one hand and was swinging at him in the dark water, his sword trailing bubbles but moving as quickly as in the air. Perrin yelled, bubbles coming from his mouth. He tried to block, but his arms moved lethargically.

In that frozen moment, Perrin tried to imagine the water not impeding him, but his mind rejected that thought. It wasn’t natural. It couldn’t be.

In desperation, Slayer’s sword nearly close enough to bite, Perrin froze the water solid around both of them. Doing so nearly crushed him, but it held Slayer still for a precarious moment while Perrin oriented himself. He made his cloak vanish so he wouldn’t take Slayer with him, then shifted away.

Perrin landed on the rocky beach beside a steep hillside that was half broken away by the power of the sea. He fell on hands and knees, gasping. Water streamed from his beard. His mind felt . . . numb. He had trouble thinking the water away from him to dry himself.

What’s happening? he thought, trembling. Around him, the storm raged, the bark ripping from tree trunks, their limbs already stripped away. He was just so . . . tired. Exhausted. How long had it been since he slept? Weeks had passed in the real world, but it couldn’t actually have been weeks here, could it? It—

The sea boiled, churning. Perrin turned. He’d kept his hammer, somehow, and he raised it to face Slayer.

The waters continued to move, but nothing came from them. Suddenly, behind him, the hill split in half. Perrin felt something heavy hit him in the shoulder, like a punch. He fell to his knees, twisting to see the hillside broken in two, Slayer standing on the other side, nocking another arrow to his bow.

Perrin shifted, desperate, pain belatedly flaring up his side and across his body.

“All I’m saying is that battles are being fought,” Mandevwin said, “and we are not there.”

“Battles are always being fought somewhere,” Vanin replied, leaning back against the wall outside a warehouse in Tar Valon. Faile listened to them with half an ear. “We’ve fought our share of them. All I’m saying is that I’m pleased to avoid this particular one.”

“People are dying,” Mandevwin said, disapproving. “This is not simply a battle, Vanin. It is Tarmon Gai’don itself!”

“Which means nobody is paying us,” Vanin said.

Mandevwin sputtered, “Paying . . . to fight the Last Battle . . . You knave! This battle means life itself.”

Faile smiled as she looked over the supply ledgers. The two Redarms idled by the doorway as servants wearing the Flame of Tar Valon loaded Faile’s caravan. Behind them, the White Tower rose over the city.

At first, she had been annoyed by the banter, but the way Vanin poked at the other man reminded her of Gilber, one of her father’s quartermasters back in Saldaea.

“Now, Mandevwin,” Vanin said, “you hardly sound like a mercenary at all! What if Lord Mat heard you?”

“Lord Mat will fight,” said Mandevwin.

“When he has to,” Vanin said. “We don’t have to. Look, these supplies are important, right? And someone has to guard them, right? Here we are.”

“I just do not see why this job requires us. I should be helping Talmanes lead the Band, and you lot, you should be guarding Lord Mat . . .”

Faile could almost hear the end of that line, the one they were all thinking. You should be guarding Lord Mat from those Seanchan.

The soldiers had taken in stride Mat’s disappearance, then his reappearance with the Seanchan. Apparently, they expected this kind of behavior from “Lord” Matrim Cauthon. Faile had a squad of fifty of the Band’s best, including Captain Mandevwin, Lieutenant Sandip and several Redarms who came highly recommended by Talmanes. None of them knew their true purpose in guarding the Horn of Valere.

She would have brought ten times this number if she could. As it was, fifty was suspicious enough. Those fifty were the Band’s very best, some pulled from command positions. They would have to do.

We’re not going far, Faile thought, checking the next page of the ledgers. She had to look as if she were concerned about the supplies. Why am I so worried?

She needed only to carry the Horn to the Field of Merrilor, now that Cauthon had finally appeared. She’d already run three caravans from other locations using the same guards, so her current job wouldn’t be suspicious in the least.

She’d chosen the Band very deliberately. In the eyes of most, they were just mercenaries, so the least important—and least trustworthy—troops in the army. However, for all of her complaints about Mat—she might not know him well, but the way Perrin spoke of him was enough—he did inspire loyalty in his men. The men who found their way to Cauthon were like him. They tried to hide from duty and preferred gambling and drinking to doing anything useful, but in a pinch they’d each fight like ten men.

At Merrilor, Cauthon would have good reason to check in on Mandevwin and his men. At that point, Faile could give him the Horn. Of course, she also had some members of Cha Faile with her as guards. She wanted some people she knew for certain she could trust.

Nearby, Laras—the stout mistress of the kitchens at Tar Valon—came out of the warehouse, wagging a finger at several of the serving girls. The woman walked to Faile, trailed by a lanky youth with a limp who was carrying a beat-up chest.

“Something for you, my Lady.” Laras gestured to the trunk. “The Amyrlin herself added it to your shipment as an afterthought. Something about a friend of hers, from back home?”

“It’s Matrim Cauthon’s tabac,” Faile said with a grimace. “When he found that the Amyrlin had a store of Two Rivers leaf left, he insisted upon purchasing it.”

“Tabac, at a time like this.” Laras shook her head, wiping her fingers on her apron. “I remember that boy. I’ve known a youth or two in my day like him, always skulking around the kitchens like a stray wanting scraps. Someone ought to find something useful for him to do.”

“We’re working on it,” Faile said as Laras’ servant placed the trunk in Faile’s own wagon. She winced as he let it thump down, then dusted off his hands.

Laras nodded, walking back into her warehouse. Faile rested her fingers on the chest. Philosophers claimed the Pattern did not have a sense of humor. The Pattern, and the Wheel, simply were, they did not care, they did not take sides. However, Faile could not help thinking that somewhere, the Creator was grinning at her. She had left home with her head full of arrogant dreams, a child thinking herself on a grand quest to find the Horn.

Life had knocked those out from under her, leaving her to haul herself back up. She had grown up, had started paying mind to what was really important. And now . . . now the Pattern, with almost casual indifference, dropped the Horn of Valere into her lap.

She removed her hand and pointedly refusing to open the chest. She had the key, delivered to her separately, and she would check to see that the Horn was really in the chest. Not now. Not until she was alone and reasonably certain she was safe.

She climbed into the wagon and rested her feet on the chest.

“I still don’t like it,” Mandevwin was saying beside the warehouse.

“You don’t like anything..” Vanin said. “Look, the work we’re doing is important. Soldiers have to eat.”

“I suppose that is true,” Mandevwin said.

“It is!” a new voice added. Harnan, another Redarm, joined them. Not one of the three, Faile noticed, jumped to help the servants load the caravan. “Eating is wonderful,” Harnan said. “And if there is an expert on the subject, Vanin, it is certainly you.”

Harnan was a sturdily built man with a wide face and a hawk tattooed on his cheek. Talmanes swore by the man, calling him a veteran survivor of both “the Six-Story Slaughter” and Hinderstap, whatever those were.

“Now, that wounds me, Harnan,” Vanin said from behind. “That wounds me badly.”

“I doubt it,” Harnan said with a laugh. “To wound you badly, an attack would first have to penetrate through fat to reach the muscle. I’m not sure Trolloc swords are long enough for that!”

Mandevwin laughed, and the three of them moved off. Faile went over the last few pages of the ledger, then began to climb down, to call for Setalle Anan. The woman had been acting as her assistant for these caravan runs. As she was climbing down, however, Faile noticed that not all three members of the Band had moved off. Only two of them had. Portly Vanin still stood back there. She saw him, and paused.

Vanin immediately lumbered off toward some of the other soldiers. Had he been watching her?

“Faile! Faile! Aravine says she has finished checking over the manifests for you. We can go, Faile.”

Olver scrambled eagerly into the wagon seat. He had insisted on joining the caravan, and the members of the Band had persuaded her to allow it. Even Setalle had suggested it would be wise to bring him. Apparently, they worried that Olver would find his way to the fighting somehow if he wasn’t constantly under their watch. Faile had reluctantly set him to running errands.

“All right, then,” Faile said, climbing back into the wagon. “I suppose we can be off.”

The wagons lumbered into motion. She spent the entire trip out of the city trying not to look at the chest.

She tried to distract herself from thinking about it, but that only brought her mind to another pressing concern. Perrin. She had seen him only briefly during a supply run to Andor. He’d warned her he might have another duty, but had been reluctant to tell her about it.

Now he’d vanished. He’d made Tam steward in his place, had taken a gateway to Shayol Ghul and had vanished. She’d asked those who’d been there, but nobody had seen him since his conversation with Rand.

All would be well with him, wouldn’t it? She was a soldier’s daughter and a soldier’s wife; she knew not to worry overly much. But a person could not help but worry a little. Perrin had been the one to suggest her as the keeper of the Horn.

She wondered, idly, if he had done it to keep her off the battlefield. She wouldn’t mind terribly if he’d done so, though she would never tell him that. In fact, once this was all said and done, she would insinuate that she was offended and see how he reacted. He needed to know that she would not sit back and be coddled, even if her true name implied otherwise.

Faile pulled her wagon, which was first in the caravan, onto the Jualdhe Bridge out of Tar Valon. About halfway across, the bridge trembled. The horses stomped and tossed their heads as Faile slowed them and glanced over her shoulder. The sight of swaying buildings in Tar Valon proved to her that the trembling wasn’t just the bridge, but an earthquake.

The other horses danced and whinnied, and the shaking rattled carts.

“We need to move off the bridge, Lady Faile!” Olver cried.

“The bridge is much too long for us to get to the other side before this ends,” Faile said calmly. She had suffered earthquakes in Saldaea before. “We’d be more in danger of hurting ourselves in the scramble than we will be here. This bridge is Ogier work. We’re probably safer here than we’d be on solid ground.”

Indeed, the earthquake passed without so much as a stone being loosed from the bridge. Faile brought her horses under control and started ahead again. The Light willing, the damage to the city wasn’t too bad. She didn’t know if earthquakes were common here. With Dragonmount nearby, there would at least be occasional rumblings, wouldn’t there?

Still, the earthquake worried her. People spoke of the land becoming unstable, the groanings of the earth coming to match the breaking of the sky by lightning and thunder. She had heard more than one account of the spiderweb cracks that appeared in rocks, pure black, as if they extended on into eternity itself.

Once the rest of the caravan left the city, Faile pulled her wagons up beside some mercenary bands waiting their turn at an Aes Sedai for Traveling. Faile could not afford to insist on preference; she had to avoid attention. So, nerve-racking though it was, she settled down to wait.

Her caravan was last in line for the day. Eventually, Aravine came up to Faile’s wagon, and Olver scooted over to make room for her. She patted him on the head. A lot of women responded that way to Olver, and he did seem so innocent much of the time. Faile wasn’t convinced; she narrowed her eyes at Olver as he snuggled up beside Aravine. Mat seemed to have had a strong influence on the child.

“I’m pleased with this shipment, my Lady,” Aravine said. “With this canvas, we should have enough material to put tents over the heads of most men in the army. We are still going to need leather. We know that Queen Elayne marched her men hard, and we will be getting requests for new boots.” Faile nodded absently. A gateway ahead opened to Merrilor, and she could see the armies, still gathering. Over the last couple of days, they’d slowly limped back to lick their wounds. Three battlefronts, three disasters of varying degrees. Light. The arrival of the Sharans was devastating, as was the betrayals of the great captains, including Faile’s own father. The armies of the Light had lost well over a third of their forces.

On the Field of Merrilor, commanders deliberated and their soldiers repaired armor and weapons, awaiting what would come. A final stand.

“. . . will also need some more meat,” Aravine said. “We should suggest some quick hunting trips using gateways over the next few days to see what we can find.”

Faile nodded. It was a comfort, having Aravine. Though Faile still reviewed reports and visited the quartermasters, Aravine’s careful attention made the job much easier, like a good sergeant who had made certain his men were in shape before an inspection.

“Aravine,” Faile said. “You haven’t ever taken one of the gateways to check on your family in Amadicia.”

“There is nothing for me there any longer, my Lady.”

Aravine stubbornly refused to admit that she’d been a noble before being taken by the Shaido. Well, at least she didn’t act as some of the former gai’shain did, docile and submissive. If Aravine was determined to leave her past behind her, then Faile would gladly give her the chance. It was the least she owed the woman.

As they talked, Olver climbed down to go chat with some of his “uncles” among the Redarms. Faile glanced to the side as Vanin rode past with two of the Band’s other scouts. He spoke jovially to them.

You’re misreading that look of his, Faile told herself. There’s nothing suspicious about the man; you’re merely jumpy because of the Horn.

Still, when Harnan came to ask if she needed anything—a member of the Band did that every half-hour—she asked him about Vanin.

“Vanin?” Harnan said from horseback. “Good fellow. He can chew your ear off griping at times, my Lady, but don’t let that sour you. He’s our best scout.”

“I can’t imagine how,” she said. “I mean, he can’t move quickly or quietly with that bulk, can he?”

“He’d surprise you, my Lady,” Harnan said with a laugh. “I like to rib him, but he really is skilled.”

“Has he ever presented any disciplinary problems?” Faile asked, trying to choose her words. “Fighting? Lifting things from other men’s tents?”

“Vanin?” Harnan laughed. “He’ll borrow your brandy if you let him, then return the flask mostly empty. And truth be told, he might have had a bit of thieving in his past, but I’ve never known him to fight. He’s a good man. You don’t need to worry about him.”

Some thieving in his past? Harnan, though, looked like he didn’t want to talk about it any further. “Thank you,” she said, but she remained worried.

Harnan raised a hand to his head in a kind of salute, then rode off. It was three more hours before an Aes Sedai came to process them. Berisha strolled over, giving the caravan a critical inspection. She was hard of features and lean of figure. The other Aes Sedai working the Traveling ground had already returned to Tar Valon by this point, and the sun was dipping toward the horizon.

“Caravan of foodstuffs and canvas,” Berisha said, examining Faile’s ledger. “Bound for the Field of Merrilor. We’ve sent them seven caravans today so far. Why another? I suspect the Caemlyn refugees could use this as much.”

“The Field of Merrilor is soon going to be a site of great battle,” Faile said, keeping her temper with difficulty. Aes Sedai did not like to be snapped at. “I doubt we can oversupply it.”

Berisha sniffed. “I say it’s too much.” The woman seemed chronically dissatisfied, as if annoyed at being left out of the fighting.

“The Amyrlin disagrees with you,” Faile replied. “A gateway, please. The hour grows late.” And if you want to talk about a waste, why not consider how you made me march all the way out of the city and wait, instead of sending me straight from the White Tower grounds?

The Hall of the Tower wanted a single Traveling ground for large troop or supply movements to keep better control over who entered and left Tar Valon. Faile could not blame them for the precaution, even if it was frustrating sometimes.

Bureaucracy was bureaucracy, and Berisha finally adopted a look of concentration in preparation for making a gateway. Before she could weave the gateway, however, the ground started to rumble.

Not again, Faile thought with a sigh. Well, there were commonly smaller quakes after an—

A series of sharp black crystal spikes split the ground nearby, jutting upward some ten or fifteen feet. One speared a Redarms horse, splashing blood into the air as the spike went straight through both beast and man.

“Bubble of evil!” Harnan called from nearby.

Other crystalline spikes—some thin as a spear, others wide as a person—ripped up through the ground. Faile frantically tried to control her horses. They danced to the side, spinning her cart, nearly toppling it as she pulled on the reins.

Around her, madness ruled. The spikes punched up through the ground in groups, each sharp as a razor. One wagon splintered as crystals destroyed its left side. Foodstuffs spilled to the dead grass. Some horses went wild and other wagons overturned. The crystal spikes continued to rise, appearing all over the empty field. Shouts rose from the nearby village at the end of the bridge from Tar Valon.

“Gateway!” Faile screamed, still fighting her horses. “Do it!”

Berisha jumped back as spikes jutted out of the ground near her feet. She threw a pale-faced glance at them, and only then did Faile realize that something was moving inside the shadowy crystals. It seemed like smoke.

A crystal spike came up through Berisha’s foot. She cried out, kneeling, just as a line of light split the air. Thank the Light, the woman held her weave, and—with what seemed glacial slowness—the line of light rotated and opened a hole large enough for a wagon.

“Through the gateway!” Faile shouted, but her voice was lost in the commotion. Crystals burst from the ground very near her left, tossing earth across her face. Her horses danced, then started to gallop. Rather than risking complete loss of control, Faile steered them toward the gateway. Right before they went through, however, she pulled them to a rearing halt.

“The gateway!” she shouted at the others. Again her voice was lost. Fortunately, the Redarms took up the call, riding down the disordered line, grabbing the reins of horses and steering wagons toward the gateway. Other men picked up those who had been tossed to the ground.

Harnan thundered past, carrying Olver. He was followed by Sandip with Setalle Anan clinging to him from behind. The frequency of the crystals increased. One jutted up near Faile, and with horror, she realized that the smoky movements inside had form. Figures of men and women, screaming, as if trapped inside.

She drew back, aghast. Nearby, the last working wagon rattled through the gateway. Soon the field would be nothing but crystals. Some straggling members of the Band helped the wounded onto horses, but two fell as the crystals started budding growths that shot out to the sides. It was time to go. Aravine passed by, grabbing Faile’s reins to pull them to safety.

“Berisha!” Faile said. The Aes Sedai knelt beside the opening, sweat trickling down her pale face. Faile leaped from her wagon seat, grabbing the woman’s shoulder as Aravine pulled the wagon through the gateway.

“Lets move!” Faile said to Berisha. “I’ll carry you.”

The woman teetered, then fell to the side, holding her stomach. Faile realized with a start that blood streamed around the woman’s fingers. Berisha stared at the sky, mouth working, but no sounds came out.

“My Lady!” Mandevwin galloped up. “I don’t care where it leads! We must get through!”

“What—”

She cut off as Mandevwin grabbed her by the waist and hauled her up, crystals exploding nearby. He galloped through the opening, holding her.

The gateway snapped shut a moment later.

Faile panted as Mandevwin let her down. She stared at where the gateway had been.

His words finally caught up with her. I don’t care where it leads . . . He had seen something she, in her panic over getting everyone to safety, had not.

The gateway hadn’t led to the Field of Merrilor.

“Where . . .” Faile whispered, joining the others, who stared at the horrid landscape. A sweltering heat, plants covered in spots of darkness, a scent of something awful in the air.

They were in the Blight.

Aviendha chewed on her rations, crunchy rolled oats that had been mixed with honey. They tasted good. Being near Rand meant that their food stores had stopped spoiling.

She reached for her water flask, then hesitated. She’d been drinking a lot of water lately. She rarely stopped to think about its value. Had she already forgotten the lessons she’d learned during her return to the Threefold Land to visit Rhuidean?

Light, she thought, raising the flask to her lips. Who cares? It’s the Last Battle!

She sat on the floor of a large Aiel tent in the valley of Thakan’dar. Melaine chewed on her own rations close by. The woman was near to term now with her twins, her belly bulging beneath her dress and shawl. Much as a Maiden was forbidden to fight while with child, Melaine was forbidden dangerous activity. She had voluntarily gone to work in Berelain’s Healing station in Mayene—but she regularly checked on the progress of the battle. Many of the gai’shain had found their way through gateways to help as they could, though all they could do was carry water or soil for the earthen mounds Ituralde had ordered cast up to give the defenders some kind of protection.

A group of Maidens ate nearby, chatting with handtalk. Aviendha could have read it, but didn’t. It would only make her wish she could join them. She’d become a Wise One and had forsaken her old life. That didn’t mean she had purged herself of every bit of envy. Instead, she wiped out her wooden bowl and stowed it in her pack, stood up and slipped out of the tent.

Outside, the night air was cool. It was about an hour before dawn, and felt almost like the Three-fold Land at night. Aviendha looked up at the mountain that dominated the valley; despite the dark of early morning, she could see the pit leading inward.

It had been many days since Rand had entered. Ituralde had wandered back into camp the night before with a tale of being held by wolves and a man who claimed Perrin Aybara had sent him to kidnap the great captain. Ituralde had been taken into custody, and had not complained.

The Trollocs had not attacked the valley all day. The defenders still had them held in the pass. The Shadow seemed to be waiting for something. The Light send it was not another attack by Myrddraal. The last one had nearly ended the resistance. Aviendha had rallied the channelers once the Eyeless had emerged to kill the humans defending the mouth of the pass; they must have realized that exposing themselves in large numbers was unwise, and they fled back to the safety of the pass once the channeling began.

Either way, she felt grateful for this rare moment of rest and relative peace between attacks. She stared into that pit in the mountain, within which Rand fought. A strong pulse came from deep within it; channeling, in waves, powerful. Several days on the outside, but how long on the inside? A day? Hours? Minutes? Maidens who guarded the path up to the entrance claimed that after four hours of duty, they’d climb down the mountainside and find that eight hours had passed.

We have to hold’ Aviendha thought. We have to fight. Give him as much time as we can.

At least she knew he still lived. She could sense that. And his pain.

She looked away.

As she did, she noticed something. A woman was channeling in the camp. It was faint, but Aviendha frowned. At this hour, with no fighting, the only channeling should have been happening on the Traveling ground, and this was in the wrong direction.

Muttering to herself, she started through the camp. It was probably one of the off-duty Windfinders again. They took turns rotating in and out of the group using the Bowl of the Winds, constantly, to keep the tempest at bay. That task was done atop the northern valley wall, well guarded by a large force of Sea Folk. They had to take gateways up there to change shifts.

When the Windfinders weren’t on duty with the Bowl, they camped with the rest of the army. Aviendha had told them time and time again that, while in the valley, they were not allowed to channel for incidental reasons. One would think, after all the years they had spent never letting Aes Sedai see them use their powers, that they could be more self-controlled! If she caught another one of them using the One Power to warm her tea, she’d send her to Sorilea for an education. This was supposed to be a secure camp.

Aviendha froze in place. That channeling was not coming from the small ring of tents where the Windfinders made camp.

Had she sensed an incursion? A Dreadlord or Forsaken would probably assume that—in a camp this large filled with Aes Sedai, Windfinders and Wise Ones—no one would notice a tiny bit of channeling here or there. Aviendha immediately crouched beside a nearby tent, avoiding the light of a lantern on a pole. The channeling came again, very faint. She crept forward.

If this turns out to be someone heating water for a bath . . .

She moved between tents, across the hard earth. As she drew closer, she took off her boots and left them behind, then pulled her dagger from its sheath. She couldn’t risk embracing the Source, lest she reveal herself to her prey.

The camp didn’t truly sleep. Those warriors who were not on duty had trouble slumbering here. Fatigue among the spears, including the Maidens, was becoming a problem. They complained of terrible dreams.

Aviendha continued forward silently, slipping between tents, avoiding those that shone with light. This place disturbed all of them, so she was not surprised to hear of bad dreams. How could they sleep in peace so close to the Dark One’s abode?

Logically, she knew that the Dark One was not nearby, not really. That wasn’t what the Bore was. He didn’t live in this place; he existed outside the Pattern, inside his prison. Still, bedding down here was like trying to sleep while a murderer stood beside your bed, holding a knife and contemplating the color of your hair.

There, she thought, slowing. The channeling stopped, but Aviendha was close. Draghkar attacks and the threat of Myrddraal slipping in at night had driven the camp leaders to spread the officers throughout the camp, in tents that bore no external sign of which belonged to a commander and which to a common foot soldier. Aviendha, however, knew this tent to belong to Darlin Sisnera.

Darlin had official command of this battlefield, now that Ituralde had fallen. He was not a general, but the Tairen army was the bulk of the defense, with the Defenders of the Stone their elite units. Their commander, Tihera, was good with tactics, and Darlin listened well to the man’s suggestions. Tihera was not a great captain, but he was very clever. He, Darlin and Rhuarc had been devising their battle plans following Ituralde’s fall . . .

In the darkness, Aviendha nearly missed the three figures crouched ahead of her, just outside Darlin’s tent. They gestured to one another, silent, and she could see little about them—not even their clothing. She raised her knife, and then a bolt of lightning split the sky, giving her a better glimpse of one. The man was wearing a veil. Aiel.

They noticed the intruder too, she thought, stalking up to them and raising a hand to keep them from attacking. She whispered, “I felt channeling nearby, and I do not think it is from one of ours. What have you seen?”

The three men stared at her, as if stunned, though she couldn’t make out much of their faces.

Then they attacked her.

Aviendha cursed, leaping backward as their spears came out and one threw a knife in her direction. Aiel Darkfriends? She felt a fool. She should have known better.

She reached out to embrace the Source. If a female Dread lord was nearby, she’d feel what Aviendha did, but there was no help for it. She needed to survive these three.

However, as Aviendha reached for the One Power, something snapped into place between her and the Source. A shield, with weaves she could not see.

One of these men could channel. Aviendha’s reaction was instinctive. She shoved down her panic, stopped scrambling to touch the Source and threw herself at the nearest of the men. She caught his spear-thrust with her off hand—ignoring the pain as the spearhead sliced against her ribs—and hauled him forward to ram her knife in his neck.

One of the other two cursed, and Aviendha suddenly found herself wrapped in weaves of Air, unable to speak or move. Blood soaked into her blouse and pooled against her wounded side. The man she’d struck gasped and thrashed on the ground as he died. The other two did not move to help him.

One of the Darkfriends stepped forward, lithe, almost invisible in the darkness. He pulled her face close to inspect her, then waved his hand to the other. A very soft light appeared beside them, giving them a better look at her—and her at them. They wore red veils, but this one had taken his down for the fight. Why? What was this? No Aiel she knew did that. Were these the Shaido? Had they joined the Shadow?

One of the men made a few gestures to the other. It was handtalk. Not Maiden handtalk, but something similar. The other man nodded.

Aviendha thrashed against her invisible bonds. She slammed her will against that shield, biting down on her gag of Air. The Aiel on the right—the taller one, the one who probably held her shield—grunted. She felt as if her fingers were clawing at the edge of a nearly shut door, with light, warmth and power beyond. That door wouldn’t budge an inch.

The tall Aiel narrowed his eyes at her. He let the light he’d summoned vanish, plunging them into darkness. Aviendha heard him take out a spear.

A foot fell on the ground nearby. The red-veils heard it and spun; Aviendha looked as best she could, but couldn’t make out the newcomer.

The men stood perfectly still.

“What is this?” a woman’s voice asked. Cadsuane. She approached, a lantern in her hand. Aviendha was jerked away as the man holding her weaves pulled her back into the shadows, and Cadsuane did not seem aware of her. Cadsuane saw only the other man, who stood closer to the pathway.

That Aiel man stepped from the shadows. He’d lowered his veil, too. “I thought I heard something near the tents here, Aes Sedai,” he said. He had a strange accent, one that was slightly off. Only by a shade. A wetlander would never know the difference.

These aren’t Aiel, Aviendha thought. They’re something different. Her mind wrestled with the concept. Aiel who were not Aiel? Men who could channel?

The men we send, she realized with horror. Men discovered among the Aiel with the ability to channel were sent to try to kill the Dark One. Alone, they came to the Blight. Nobody knew what happened to them after that.

Aviendha began to struggle again, trying to make noise—any noise—to alert Cadsuane. The attempts were in vain. She hung tightly in the air, in the darkness, and Cadsuane wasn’t looking in her direction.

“Well, did you find anything?” Cadsuane asked the man.

“No, Aes Sedai.”

“I will speak to the guards,” Cadsuane said, sounding dissatisfied. “We must be vigilant. If a Draghkar—or, worse, a Myrddraal—managed to sneak in, it could kill dozens before being discovered.”

Cadsuane turned to go. Aviendha shook her head, tears of frustration in her eyes. So close!

The red-veil who had been with Cadsuane stepped back into the shadows, going up to Aviendha. In a flash of lightning, she caught a smile on his lips, mimicked by the one who still held her in the bonds.

The red-veil in front of her slid a dagger from his belt, then reached up for her. She watched that knife, helpless, as he raised it to her throat.

She sensed channeling.

The bonds holding her were gone instantly, and she dropped to the ground. Aviendha caught the man’s knife hand as she fell, his eyes opening wide. Though she embraced the Source by raw, mad instinct, her hands were already moving. She twisted the man’s wrist, snapping the bones where hand met arm. She caught the knife with her other hand, then slammed it into his eye as he started to scream in pain.

The scream cut off. The red-veil fell at her feet, and she looked with anxiety toward the one beside her—the one who had been holding her in weaves. He lay dead on the ground.

Gasping, she scrambled toward the path nearby, and found Cadsuane.

“It is a simple thing, to stop a man’s heart,” Cadsuane said, arms folded. She seemed dissatisfied. “So close to Healing, yet opposite in effect. Perhaps it is an evil thing, yet I’ve always failed to see how it would be worse than simply burning a man to ash with fire.”

“How?” Aviendha asked. “How did you recognize what they were?”

“I am not a half-trained wilder,” Cadsuane replied. “I would have liked to strike them down when I first arrived, but I had to be certain before I could act. When that one threatened you with the knife, I knew.”

Aviendha breathed in and out, trying to still her heart.

“And, of course, there was the other one,” Cadsuane said. “The one that channeled. How many male Aiel warriors can secretly channel? Was this an anomaly, or have your people been covering them up?”

“What? No! We don’t. Or, we didn’t.” Aviendha wasn’t certain what they would do now that the Source had been cleansed. Men, certainly, should stop being sent alone to die fighting the Dark One.

“You’re certain?” Cadsuane asked, voice flat.

“Yes!”

“Pity. That could have been a large boon to us, now.” Cadsuane shook her head. “I wouldn’t have been surprised, after finding out about those Windfinders. So these were just run-of-the-mill Darkfriends, with one among them who had hidden his channeling ability? What were they about tonight?”

“These are anything but ordinary Darkfriends,” Aviendha said softly, inspecting the corpses. Red veils. The man who had been able to channel wore his teeth filed to points, but the other two did not. What did it mean?

“We need to alert the camp,” Aviendha continued. “It’s possible that these three merely walked in, unchallenged. Many of the wetlander guards avoid challenging Aiel. They assume that all of us serve the Car’a’carn.”

To many wetlanders, an Aiel was an Aiel. Fools. Though . . . to be honest, Aviendha had to admit that her own first instinct upon seeing Aiel had been to think them allies. When had that happened? Not two years back, if she’d caught unfamiliar algai’d’siswai prowling about, she’d have attacked.

Aviendha continued her inspection of the dead men—a knife on each man, spears and bows. Nothing else telling. However, her thoughts whispered to her that she was missing something.

“The female channeler,” she said suddenly, looking up. “It was a woman using the One Power that drew me, Aes Sedai. Was that you?”

“I did not channel until I killed that man,” Cadsuane said, frowning.

Aviendha dropped back into a battle stance, hugging the shadows. What would she find next? Wise Ones who served the Shadow? Cadsuane frowned, as Aviendha scouted the area further. She passed Darlin’s tent, where soldiers outside huddled around lamps and cast shadows that danced on the canvas. She passed soldiers in tight groups walking along the pathways, not speaking. They carried torches, blinding their eyes to the night.

Aviendha had heard Tairen officers remark that it was nice, for once, to have no worry about their sentries dozing on duty. With the lightning, the Trolloc drums in the near distance, the occasional raids by Shadowspawn trying to slip into camp . . . soldiers knew to be wary. The frosted air smelled of smoke, with putrid scents blowing in from the Trolloc camps.

She eventually gave up the hunt and walked back the way she had come, finding Cadsuane speaking with a group of soldiers. Aviendha was about to approach when her eyes passed over a patch of darkness nearby, and her senses came alert. That patch of darkness is channeling.

Aviendha began weaving a shield immediately. The one in the darkness wove Fire and Air toward Cadsuane. Aviendha dropped her weave and instead lashed out with Spirit, slicing the enemy weave just as it was released.

Aviendha heard a curse, and a quick weave of fire blossomed in her direction. Aviendha ducked as it lashed overhead, hissing in the cold air. The wave of heat passed. Her enemy ducked out of the shadows—whatever weave she’d been using to hide had collapsed—revealing the woman Aviendha had fought before. The one with the face almost as ugly as a Trollocs.

The woman dashed behind a group of tents just before the ground ripped up behind her—a weave that Aviendha hadn’t made. A second later, the woman folded again, as she had before. Vanishing.

Aviendha stood warily. She turned toward Cadsuane, who walked up to her. “Thank you,” the woman said, grudgingly. “For disrupting that weave.”

“I suppose we are even, then,” Aviendha said.

“Even? No, not by several hundred years, child. I will admit that I am thankful for your intervention.” She frowned. “She vanished.”

“She did that before.”

“A method of Traveling we do not know,” Cadsuane said, looking troubled. “I saw no flows for it. Perhaps a ter’angreal? It—”

A shot of red light rose from the front lines of the army. The Trollocs were attacking. At the same time, Aviendha felt channeling in different spots around the camp. One, two, three . . . She spun about, trying to locate each of the locations. She counted five.

“Channelers,” Cadsuane said sharply. “Dozens of them.”

“Dozens? I sense five.”

“Most are men, fool child,” Cadsuane said, waving a hand. “Go, gather the others!”

Aviendha dashed away, yelling the alarm. She would have words with Cadsuane later for ordering her about. Maybe. “Having words” with Cadsuane often left one feeling like a complete fool. Aviendha ran into the Aiel section of camp in time to see Amys and Sorilea pulling on their shawls, checking the sky. Flinn stumbled out of a nearby tent, blinking bleary eyes. “Men?” he said. “Channeling? Have more Asha’man arrived?”

“Unlikely,” Aviendha said. “Amys, Sorilea, I need a circle.”

They raised eyebrows at her. She might be one of them now, and she might have command by the Car’a’carn’s authority, but reminding Sorilea of that would end with Aviendha buried to her neck in sand. “If you please,” she added quickly.

“It is your say, Aviendha,” Sorilea said. “I will go and speak with the others and send them to you, so you may have your circle. We will make two, I think, as you have suggested before. That would be for the best.”

Stubborn as Cadsuane, that one is, Aviendha thought. The two of them could teach lessons on patience to trees. Still, Sorilea was not strong in the Power—in fact, she could barely channel—so it would be wise to use others as she suggested.

Sorilea began calling for the other Wise Ones and Aes Sedai. Aviendha suffered the delay with anxiety; already, she could hear screams and explosions in the valley. Streams of fire arced into the air, then dropped.

“Sorilea,” Aviendha said softly to the elder Wise One as the women began to build the circles, “I was attacked in camp just now by three Aiel men. The battle we are about to fight, it will probably involve other Aiel who fight for the Shadow.”

Sorilea turned sharply, meeting Aviendha’s eyes. “Explain.”

“I think they must be the men we sent to kill Sightblinder,” Aviendha said.

Sorilea hissed softly. “If this is true, child, then this night will mark great toh for us all. Toh toward the Car’a’carn, toh toward the land itself.”

“I know.”

“Bring me word,” Sorilea said. “I will organize a third circle; maybe make some of those off-duty Windfinders join in.”

Aviendha nodded, then accepted control of the circle as it was handed to her. She had three Aes Sedai who had sworn to Rand and two Wise Ones. By her order, Flinn did not join the circle. She wanted him to be on the watch for signs of men channeling, ready to point the direction, and being in a circle might make that impossible for him to do.

They moved off like a squad of spear-sisters. They passed clusters of Tairen Defenders pulling on burnished breastplates over uniforms with wide striped sleeves. In one group, she found King Darlin bellowing orders. “A moment,” she said to the others, hastening to the Tairen.

“ . . . them all!” Darlin said to his commanders. “Don’t let the front lines weaken! We can’t let those monsters spill into the valley!” It appeared that he’d been awakened from sleep by the attack, for he stood dressed only in trousers and a white undershirt. A disheveled serving man held out Darlin’s coat, but the King, distracted by a messenger, turned away.

When Darlin saw Aviendha, he waved her forward urgently. The serving man heaved a sigh, lowering the coat.

“I’d given up on them attacking tonight,” Darlin said, then glanced at the sky. “Or, well, this morning. The scout reports are so confused, I feel like I’ve been thrown into a coop full of crazed chickens and told to catch the one with a single black feather.”

“Those reports,” Aviendha said, “do they mention Aiel men, fighting for the Shadow? Possibly channeling?”

Darlin turned sharply. “It’s true?”

“Yes.”

“And the Trollocs are pushing with everything they have to force their way into the valley,” Darlin said. “If those Aiel Dreadlords start attacking our troops, we won t stand a chance without you lot being there to hold them off.”

“We’re moving,” Aviendha said. “Send for Amys and Cadsuane to make gateways. But I warn you. I caught a Dreadlord sneaking around near your tent . . ”

Darlin paled. “Like Ituralde . . . Light, they didn’t touch me. I swear it. I . . .” He raised a hand to his head. “Who do we trust if we cannot trust our own minds?”

“We must make the dance of spears as simple as possible,” Aviendha said. Go to Rhuarc, gather your leaders. Plan how you will face the Shadow together, do not let one man control the battle—and set your plans in place; do not allow them to be changed.”

“That could lead to disaster,” Darlin said. “If we don’t have flexibility . . .”

“What needs be changed?” Aviendha asked grimly. “We hold. With everything we have, we hold. We don’t pull back. We don’t try anything clever. We just hold.”

Darlin nodded. “I’ll send for gateways to put Maidens atop those slopes. They can take out those Trollocs shooting arrows down at our lads. Can you deal with the enemy channelers?”

“Yes.”

Aviendha returned to her group, then started to draw on their power. The more of the One Power you held, the harder it was to cut you off from the True Source. She intended to hold so much that no man could separate her from it.

Helplessness. She hated feeling helpless. She let the anger at what had been done to her rage inside of her, and led her group toward the nearest source of male channeling that Flinn could identify.