Knife of Dreams

Chapter Thirty Outside the Gates

Faile tried to estimate the time by the slant of light falling through the gaps in the ruined building overhead; it seemed still short of noon. All that had been cleared was a small space at the very top of the basement stairs. Any of them could have passed through it, if they dared to try climbing the slanting pile of blackened rubble, but that still looked as though it might fall in any moment. The tangled heap still creaked alarmingly at times. The only good thing was that it had not started raining on their heads. How long that would last was a question. She had been hearing thunder for some time, quite a lot of it, and slowly coming closer. The booms were almost continuous. A storm that fierce might be enough to make the building finish collapsing. Light, she was thirsty.

Rolan suddenly appeared in the opening and lay down on the stone landing. He was not wearing the harness that held his bow case. Carefully he wriggled his way out onto the rubble. The pile groaned softly under his weight. Kinhuin, a green-eyed man a good hand or more shorter than he, knelt to grip his ankles. There were only three of the Brotherless up there, it seemed, but that was three too many.

Head and shoulders sticking over the edge of the rubble. Rolan lowered one arm. “There is no more time, Faile Bashere. Take my hand.”

“Maighdin first.” Faile said thickly, waving away the sun-haired woman’s weary protests. Light, but her mouth was coated with grit and too dry to spit any of it out. “Arrela and Lacile next. I’ll go last.” Alliandre nodded approvingly, but Arrela and Lacile tried to object, too. “Be quiet and do as I say,” she told them firmly. Thunder crashed and crashed. The storm that produced that much thunder would bring a deluge, not simple rainfall.

Rolan laughed. How could the man laugh at a time like this? He only stopped when the charred timbers beneath him groaned again from his shaking. “You still wear white, woman. So be quiet and do as I say.” There was a touch of mocking in his tone at that, but not when he added, “No one will be taken out before you.” That sounded like cast iron.

“My Lady,” Alliandre said quietly, hoarsely, “I believe he means it. I will send the others out in the order you gave.”

“Stop pouting and give me your hand,” Rolan commanded.

She was not pouting! The man could be as infuriatingly stubborn as her Perrin. Only, in Perrin, it was intriguing, not really infuriating. Raising her right hand as high as it would go, she let Rolan’s hand envelope hers. He lifted her easily, till her face was just below his.

“Catch hold of my coat.” There was no hint of strain in his voice despite the awkward angle of his arm. “You will have to climb over me.”

She swung her left hand up and caught a fistful of the rough wool, holding on hard. The pain in her shoulder told her it was bruised as badly as she feared. When he released her other hand, she gasped at the jolt of agony and quickly grabbed his coat with that one, too. Grasping her waist in both hands, he boosted her higher, so she was lying on his broad back. Thunder boomed and boomed without ceasing. The rain must start falling soon. That would make getting the others out more difficult.

“I like feeling your weight on me. Faile Bashere, but maybe you could climb a little faster so I can bring the others out.” He pinched her bottom, and she laughed in spite of herself. The man just would not stop trying!

The climb over him was slower than she could have hoped for. She did not believe anything was broken in her shoulder, but it hurt. Once, she thought she kicked Rolan in the head. Pinch her, would he?

At last she was outside and past Kinhuin, on her feet under the sky once more. Her first sight of the building from outside made her swallow, and then cough vigorously as bits of grit entered her throat. The charred timbers were tilting to an alarming degree, ready to crash into the basement. The third Brotherless, Jhoradin, a blue-eyed man with red-gold hair and a face that fell not far short of prettiness, was watching Kinhuin and Rolan, but every so often he glanced at the building as if expecting to see it fall. He was squat for an Aiel, not quite as tall as Perrin but half again as wide. There must have been at least a hundred of her people in the street, staring at her anxiously, some of their white robes stained with soot from their efforts at digging her out. A hundred! She could not find it in her heart to upbraid them, however. Especially after Aravine thrust a plump waterskin into her hands. The first mouthful went to wash away grit and dust, though she wanted desperately to swallow it anyway, but after that, she held up the skin and all but poured water down her throat. Her bruised shoulder protested. She ignored it and drank and drank.

Suddenly she became aware of lightning striking outside the town to the west and lowered the waterskin to stare. Close outside the town. Out of a cloudless sky. And sometimes not striking. Many of those forked silvery bolts erupted with thunderous roars far above the ground. Balls of fire hurtled across the sky, sometimes bursting in air with a boom like thunder. Someone was fighting a battle with the Power! But who? Could Perrin have found enough Aes Sedai or Asha’man to attack the camp? But something was very odd. She knew how many Wise Ones in the camp could channel, and there did not seem to be enough lightning or fireballs. Perhaps it was not Perrin after all. There were factions among the Wse Ones. Not just between those supporting or opposing Sevanna, but between septs with old alliances or animosities. Maybe one of those factions was fighting another. That seemed highly unlikely, but less so than Perrin finding enough Aes Sedai to attack and the Wise Ones not fighting back with everything they could muster.

“When the lightnings started, Rolan said there was a battle,” Aravine said when Faile asked her. “That’s all. Nobody wanted to go find out more until we knew you were safe.”

Faile ground her teeth in frustration. Even if she did not have to deal with Rolan, whatever was going on outside the walls might make escaping that much more difficult. If only she knew what it was, she might be able to see how to avoid it. Or use it. “No one is to go anywhere, Aravine. It might be dangerous.” And they might inadvertently lead Shaido back when they returned. Light, what was going on?

Maighdin staggered out past Kinhuin rubbing her hip. “He pinched me!” Her voice was thick, but indignation came through. Faile felt a stab of… Not jealousy. Certainly not that. The bloody man could pinch any woman he wanted to. He was not Perrin.

Grimacing, she handed the sun-haired woman the waterskin, and Maighdin washed out her mouth hurriedly before beginning to gulp thirstily. She was not so sun-haired at the moment, her curls all sweat-matted and as coated with dust as her sweaty face. She was not even pretty at the moment.

Arrela came out of the ruin rubbing her bottom and looking grim as death, but she eagerly took the waterskin that Aldin offered. The tall young Amadician, a square-shouldered fellow who looked more a soldier than the bookkeeper he was, gazed at her avidly as she drank. Arrela did not like men that way, but Aldin refused to accept that he could not convince her to marry him. Lacile appeared—rubbing her bottom!—and Jhoradin handed her another waterskin, drawing a finger down her dirty cheek. She smiled up at him before beginning to drink. Already preparing her way back into his blankets if Rolan proved obstinate. At least. Faile thought that was what she was doing.

At last Alliandre stalked past Kinhuin, and if she was not rubbing herself, her expression of frosty ire told the tale plainly enough. Kinhuin backed out of the opening and stood while Rolan began working his way back across the dangerous pile of timbers.

“My Lady,” Aravine called anxiously, and Faile turned to find the plump-faced woman kneeling on the paving stones and lifting Maighdin’s head onto her lap. Maighdin’s eyelids fluttered but never came more than half open. Her lips moved weakly, but only mumbles emerged.

“What happened?” Faile said, hurrying to kneel beside them.

“I don’t know, my Lady. She was drinking as if she intended to empty the skin, and suddenly she staggered. The next I knew, she just collapsed.” Aravine’s hands fluttered like falling leaves.

“She must be very tired,” Faile said, smoothing her maid’s hair and trying not to think of how they were to get the woman out of the camp if she could not walk. It would be done if they had to carry her. Light, she felt a touch wobbly herself. “She saved us, Aravine.” The Amadician woman nodded gravely.

“I will hide you somewhere safe until tonight, Faile Bashere,” Rolan said, fastening the last buckles of his bow case harness. His brown shoufa was already wrapped around his head. “Then I will take you to the forest.” Taking three short spears from Jhoradin, he thrust them up through the harness behind so the long spearpoints, glinting in the sun, stuck up above his head.

Faile almost collapsed beside Maighdin with relief. There would be no need to conceal anything from Perrin. But she could not afford weakness, not now. “Our supplies.” she began, and as if the sound of her voice were the last straw, the building gave a squealing groan and fell in with a crash that drowned out the explosions for a moment.

“I will see that you have what you need,” Rolan told her, raising the black veil across his face. Jhoradin handed him another spear and his buckler, which he hung on his belt knife before seizing her right arm and drawing her to her feet. “We must move quickly. I do not know who we are dancing the spears with, but the Mera’din will dance today.”

“Aldin, will you carry Maighdin?” was all she managed to get out before Rolan strode away pulling her with him.

She looked over her shoulder to see Aldin lifting a limp Maighdin in his arms. Jhoradin had Lacile by her arm as firmly as Rolan had her. The three Brotherless were leading a parade of white-garbed men and women. And one boy. Theril wore a grim expression. Fumbling in her sleeve, no easy matter with Rolan’s big hand on her arm, she closed her fingers around the ridged hilt of her dagger. Whatever was happening outside the walls, she might have need of that blade before nightfall.

Perrin ran along the winding street through the tents. No one moved in his sight, but through the roar of exploding fireballs and lightnings, he could hear other sounds of battle. Steel clashing on steel. Men shouting, as they killed or died. Men screaming. Blood ran down the left side of his face from a gash in his scalp, and he could feel it oozing down his right side from where a spear had grazed him, oozing down his left thigh from a spear that had bitten deeper. Not all of the blood on him was his own. A face appeared at the opening to a low, dark tent and drew back hurriedly. A child’s face, and frightened, not the first he had seen. The Shaido were being pressed so hard that a good many children had been left behind. They would be a problem for later, though. Over the tents, he could see the gates little more than a hundred paces ahead. Beyond them lay the fortress and Faile.

Two veiled Shaido darted out from beside a dirty brown wall-tent, spears at the ready. But not for him. They were looking at something off to the left. Without slowing, he ran into them. Both were larger than he, but the force of his rush carried them all to the ground, and he fell already fighting. His hammer smashed into the bottom of one man’s chin while he stabbed and stabbed at the other man, blade biting deep. The hammer rose and crushed the first man’s face, splashing blood, rose and fell again while he stabbed. The man with the ruined face twitched once as Perrin rose. The other lay staring at the sky.

A hint of motion at the corner of his left eye made him throw himself to the right. A sword whisked through the air where his neck would have been. Aram’s sword. The onetime Tinker had taken wounds, too. Blood coated half his face like a strange mask, there were blood-wet rents in his red-striped coat, and his eyes looked almost glazed, like those of a corpse, but he still seemed to be dancing with that blade in his hands. His scent was the scent of death, a death he sought.

“Have you gone mad?” Perrin growled. Steel rang against steel as he blocked that sword away with the head of his hammer. “What are you doing?” He blocked another slice of the blade, tried to grapple the other man, and barely danced back in time to get away with only a gash across his ribs.

“The Prophet explained it to me.” Aram sounded in a daze, yet his sword moved with liquid ease, blows barely diverted with hammer or belt knife as Perrin backed away. All he could do was hope he did not trip over a tent rope or come up against a tent. “Your eyes. You’re really Shadowspawn. It was you who brought the Trollocs to the Two Rivers. He explained it all. Those eyes. I should have known the first time I saw you. You and Elyas with those Shadowspawn eyes. I have to rescue the Lady Faile from you.”

Perrin gathered himself. He could not keep moving ten pounds of steel as quickly as Aram moved a sword that weighed a third of that. Somehow, he had to get close, get beyond that blade blurring with the speed of its motion. He could not do so without getting cut, and likely badly, but if he waited much longer, the man was going to kill him. Something caught his heel, and he staggered backward, nearly falling.

Aram darted in, sword chopping down. Suddenly, he stiffened, eyes going wide, and the blade dropped from his hands. He toppled forward to lie on his face, two arrows jutting from his back. Thirty paces beyond him, a pair of veiled Shaido already had arrows nocked and drawn again. Perrin leaped sideways, behind a green, peaked tent, rolling to his feet quickly. At the corner of the tent, an arrow poked through the canvas, still quivering. Crouching, he made his way past the green tent and then a faded blue one, a low tent of dingy brown, hammer in one hand, knife in the other. This was not the first time he had played this game today. Cautiously, he peeked around the edge of the brown tent. The two Shaido were nowhere to be seen. They might be stalking him in turn, or off hunting someone else already. The game had turned both ways before. He could see Aram, lying where he had fallen. A scrap of breeze ruffled the dark fletchings on the arrows sticking up from his back. Elyas had been right. He should never have let Aram pick up that sword. He should have sent him away with the carts, or made him go back to the Tinkers. So many things he should have done. Too late, now.

The gates called to him. He glanced over his shoulder. So close, now. Still crouching, he began to run again along those twisting streets, wary of those two Shaido or any others that might be lurking. The sounds of battle were ahead of him, now, coming from north and south, but that did not mean there would be no stragglers.

Rounding a corner only a few paces from the wide-open gates, he found them filled with people. Most were garbed in dirty white robes, but three were veiled algai’d’siswai, one of them a hulking fellow who would have dwarfed Lamgwin. That one had Faile’s arm in his fist. She looked as if she had been rolled in the dirt.

With a roar, Perrin rushed forward raising his hammer, and the huge man flung Faile back and ran toward him, spear coming up as he plucked his buckler from his belt.

“Perrin!” Faile screamed.

The big Shaido seemed to hesitate for a heartbeat, and Perrin took advantage of it. His hammer hit the side of the man’s head so hard that his feet left the ground as he fell. Another was right behind him, though, spear ready to stab. Suddenly the man grunted, surprise in the green eyes above his black veil, and dropped to his knees peering over his shoulder at Faile, who stood close. Slowly he fell forward, revealing a ridged steel hilt rising from his back. Perrin looked hastily for the third, and found him also lying on his face, with two wooden knife hilts sticking out of his back. Lacile was leaning against Arrela, weeping. No doubt she had found actually killing someone not so easy as she had supposed.

Alliandre was at the front of the crowd, too, and Maighdin right behind her, carried by a tall young man in white, but Perrin had eyes only for Faile. Letting knife and hammer fall, he stepped over the dead men and gathered her in his arms. The smell of her filled his nose. It filled his head. She smelled strongly of charred wood, of all things, but he could still smell her.

“I’ve dreamed of this moment so long,” he breathed.

“I have, too,” she said against his chest, hugging him hard. Her scent was full of joy, but she was trembling.

“Did they hurt you?” he asked gently.

“No. They… No, Perrin, they didn’t hurt me.” There were other smells mixed in with her joy, though, laced through it inextricably. The dull, aching scent of sadness and the greasy aroma of guilt. Shame, like thousands of hair-fine needles pricking. Well, the man was dead, and a woman had the right to keep her secrets if she wanted.

“All that matters is that you’re alive, and we’re together again,” he told her. “That’s all that matters in the world.”

“All that matters,” she agreed, hugging him even harder. Hard enough that she actually groaned with the effort. But the next instant, she had pushed back and was examining his wounds, fingering open tears in his coat to look at them. “These don’t look too bad.” she said briskly, though all of those emotions still lay tangled in her joy. She reached up to part his hair and tugged until he bent his head so she could examine the slash along his scalp. “You’ll need Healing, of course. How many Aes Sedai did you bring? How did you—? No, that’s of no matter right now. There are enough of them to defeat the Shaido, and that is what’s important.”

“This lot of Shaido,” he said, straightening to look down at her. Light, dirt or no dirt, she was so beautiful. “There’ll be another six or seven thousand spears here in…” he glanced at the sun; it seemed it should be higher, “less than two hours, maybe. We need to finish up here and be moving before then, if we can. What’s wrong with Maighdin?” She was limp as a feather pillow against the young man’s chest. Her eyelids were fluttering without opening fully.

“She tired herself out saving our lives,” Faile said, abandoning his injuries and turning to the other people in white. “Aravine, all of you, start gathering up gai’shain. Not just those sworn to me. Everybody in white. We leave no one we can reach behind. Perrin, what direction is safest?”

“North.” he told her. “North is safe.”

“Start them moving north,” Faile went on. “Gather carts, wagons, pack.horses, and load them with whatever you think we’ll need. Hurry!” People started moving. Running. “No, you stay here, Aldin. Maighdin still needs to be carried. You stay, too, Alliandre. And Arrela. Lacile needs a shoulder to cry on for a while.”

Perrin grinned. Put his wife down in the middle of a house engulfed in flames, and she would calmly set about putting the fire out. She would put it out, too. Bending, he cleaned his belt knife on the green-eyed man’s coat before sheathing it. His hammer needed a good wiping, too. He tried not to think about what he was smearing on the man’s coat. The fire was fading from his blood. There was no thrill remaining, only tiredness. His wounds were beginning to throb. “Will you send someone to he fortress to let Ban and Seonid know they can come out now?” he said as he slipped the hammer’s haft back through the loop on his belt.

Faile stared at him in amazement. “They’re in the fortress. How? Why?”

“Alyse didn’t tell you?” He had always been slow to anger until Faile was taken. Now, he felt fury bubbling up in him. Bubbles like white-hot iron. “She said she was taking you with her when she left, but she promised to tell you to go to the fortress when you saw fog on the ridges and heard wolves howl by daylight. I’d swear she said it straight out. Burn me, you can’t trust Aes Sedai an inch!”

Faile glanced toward the western ridge, where the fog still clung thickly, and grimaced. “Not Alyse, Perrin. Galina. If that wasn’t a lie, too. It has to be her. And she has to be Black Ajah. Oh, how I wish I knew her real name.” She moved her left arm and winced. She had been hurt. Perrin found himself wanting to kill the big Shaido all over again. Faile did not let her injury slow her, though. “Theril, come out from there. I see you peeking around the gate.”

A skinny young man edged shyly around the corner of the gate. “My father told me to stay and keep an eye on you, my Lady,” he said in an accent so rough that Perrin could barely understand.

“That’s as may be,” Faile said firmly, “but you run to the fortress as fast as you can and tell whoever you find there that Lord Perrin says they’re to come. Run, now.” The boy knuckled his forehead and ran.

In a quarter of an hour or so he reappeared, still running, followed by Seonid and Ban and all the others. Ban made a leg to Faile and murmured smoothly how pleased he was to see her again before ordering the Two Rivers men to set up a guard ring around the gate, bows at the ready and halberds stuck in the ground. He used his normal voice for that. He was another who was trying to acquire polish. Selande and Faile’s other hangers-on rushed around her, all babbling with excitement and saying how worried they had been when she failed to appear after the wolves howled.

“I’m going to Masuri,” Kirklin announced in tones that dared challenge. He did not wait for one, though, simply drawing his sword and running off along the wall to the north.

Tallanvor gave a cry when he saw Maighdin being held by the tall young man and had to be convinced that she was only exhausted. He still took her away from the fellow and held her against his own chest, whispering to her.

“Where is Chiad?” Gaul demanded. On learning that she had never been with them, he lifted the veil across his face. “The Maidens tricked me,” he said grimly, “but I will find her before them.”

Perrin caught his arm. “There are a lot of men out there who’ll take you for a Shaido.”

“I have to find her first, Perrin Aybara.” There was something in the Aiel’s voice, something in his scent, that Perrin could only call heartache. He understood the sorrow of thinking the woman you loved might be lost to you forever. He let go of Gaul’s sleeve, and the man darted through the line of bowmen, spear and buckler in hand.

“I’ll go with him.” Elyas grinned. “Maybe I can keep him out of trouble.” Drawing the long knife that had given him his name among the wolves. Long Tooth, he went running after the tall Aielman. If the two of them could not make their way safely out there, then no one could.

“If you are done jabbering, perhaps you will stand still for Healing,” Seonid told Perrin. “You look as if you need it.” Furen and Teryl were heeling her, hands on their sword hilts and eyes trying to watch in every direction. The ring of Two Rivers men were all very well, their attitude seemed to say, but Seonid’s safety was their charge. They looked like leopards heeling a house cat. Only she was no house cat.

“See to Faile first,” he said. “Her arm is hurt.” Faile was talking with Alliandre, both of them so angry they should have had tails to bristle. No doubt angry over Alyse or Galina or whatever her name was.

“I do not see her bleeding like a stuck pig.” Seonid lifted her hands to cup his head, and that too familiar chill hit him, like suddenly being immersed in a winter pond on the brink of freezing. He gasped and jerked, arms flailing out of his control, and when she released him, his wounds were gone, if not the blood smeared on his face and staining his coat and breeches. He also felt he could eat a whole deer by himself.

“What was that?” The diminutive Green turned away from him toward Faile. “Did you mention Galina Casban?”

“I don’t know her last name,” Faile said. “A round-faced Aes Sedai with a plump mouth and black hair and big eyes. Pretty in a way, but an unpleasant woman. Do you know her? I think she must be Black Ajah.”

Seonid stiffened, hands knotting in her skirts. “That sounds like Galina. A Red, and decidedly unpleasant. But why would you make such an accusation? It is not a charge to bring against a sister lightly, even against one as disagreeable as Galina.”

As Faile explained, beginning with the first meeting with Galina, Perrin’s anger grew again. The woman had blackmailed her, threatened her, lied to her, then tried to murder her. His fists clenched so tight that his arms shook. “I’ll break her neck when I get my hands on it,” he growled when she fell silent.

“That is not your right.” Seonid said sharply. “Galina must be tried before three sisters sitting as a court, and for this charge, they must be Sitters. The entire Hall of the Tower might sit for it. If she is found guilty, she will be stilled and executed, but justice in this lies with Aes Sedai.”

“If?” he said incredulously. “You heard what Faile said. Can you have any doubt?” He must have looked threatening, because Furen and Teryl glided in to flank Seonid, their hands resting lightly on sword hilts, their eyes hard on his face.

“She’s right, Perrin.” Faile said gently. “When Jac Coplin and Len Congar were accused of stealing a cow, you knew they were thieves, but you made Master Thane prove they had stolen it before you let the Village Council have them strapped. It’s just as important with Galina.”

“The Village Council wouldn’t have strapped them without a trial whatever I’d said,” he muttered. Faile laughed. She laughed! Light, it was good to hear again. “Oh, all right. Galina belongs to the Aes Sedai. But if they don’t take care of her, I will if I ever find her again. I don’t like people hurting you.”

Seonid sniffed at him, her scent disapproving. “Your arm is injured, my Lady?”

“See to Arrela first, please,” Faile said. The Aes Sedai rolled her eyes in exasperation and took Faile’s head between her hands. Faile shivered and exhaled, hardly more than a heavy sigh. Not a bad injury, then, and gone now in any case. She thanked Seonid while leading her to Arrela.

Suddenly Perrin realized he could not hear the explosions any longer. In fact, he could not recall hearing one for some time. That had to be good. “I need to find out what’s happening. Ban, you keep a close guard on Faile.”

Faile protested his going alone, and by the time he finally agreed to take ten of the Two Rivers men, a rider in lacquered armor had appeared rounding the northern corner of the town wall. Three thin blue plumes marked her as Tylee. As she rode closer, he realized she had a nude woman draped across her tall bay in front of the saddle. A woman bound at ankles and knees, wrists and elbows. Her long golden hair almost brushed the ground, and there were jeweled necklaces and ropes of pearls caught in it. A strand of large green stones and gold slid free and fell to the dirt as Tylee reined in. Removing her peculiar helmet with gauntleted hands, she rested it on the woman’s upturned bottom.

“A remarkable weapon, those bows of yours,” she drawled, eyeing the Two Rivers men. “I wish we had the like. Kirklin told me where to find you, my Lord. They’ve begun surrendering. Masema’s men held to the point of suicide—most of them are dead or dying, I think—and the damane turned that ridge into a deathtrap only a madman would walk into. Best of all, the sul’dam have already fitted adam to over two hundred women. That cold tea’ of yours was enough that most of them could not stand without help. I’ll have to send for to’raken to fly them all out.”

Seonid made a sound in her throat. Her face was smooth, but her scent was dagger-sharp fury. She stared at Tylee as though trying to stare a hole through her. Tylee paid her no mind at all except to shake her head slightly.

“After my people and I are gone,” Perrin said. His agreement was with her. He did not want to risk testing it with anyone else. “What are our losses aside from Masema’s men?”

“Light,” Tylee replied. “Between your archers and the damane, they never really managed to close with us. I’ve never seen a battle plan come off so smoothly. If we have a hundred dead between us, I’ll be surprised.”

Perrin winced. He supposed those were light casualties under the circumstances, but some would be Two Rivers men. Whether or not he knew them, they were his responsibility. “Do you know where Masema is?”

“With what’s left of his army. He’s no coward, I’ll say that for him. He and his two hundred—well, about one hundred, now—cut a path all the way through the Shaido to the ridge.”

Perrin ground his teeth. The man was back surrounded by his rabble. It would be his word against Masema’s about why Aram had tried to kill him, and in any event, it was unlikely the man’s followers would surrender him for trial. “We need to start moving before the others get here. If the Shaido think rescue is at hand, they might decide to forget they surrendered. Who’s your prisoner?”

“Sevanna.” Faile said in a cold voice. The smell of her hatred was nearly as strong as it had been while speaking of Galina.

The golden-haired woman twisted herself upward, shaking hair out of her face and losing several more necklaces in the process. Her eyes, glaring at Faile, were green fire above a strip of cloth that had been tied for a gag. She stank of rage.

“Sevanna of the Jumai Shaido.” Satisfaction was strong in Tylee’s voice. “She told me so proudly. She’s no coward, either. Met us wearing nothing but a silk robe and her jewels, but she managed to spear two of my Altarans before I took it away from her.” Sevanna snarled through her gag and struggled as if to throw herself from the horse. Until Tylee smacked her bottom, anyway. After that, she contented herself with glaring at everyone in sight. She was nicely rounded, though he should not be noticing something like that with his wife there. Except that Elyas said she would expect him to notice, so he made himself study her openly.

“I claim the contents of her tent,” Faile announced, shooting him a sharp look. Maybe he was not supposed to be that open. “She has a huge chest of jewels in there, and I want them. Don’t look at me like a looby, Perrin. We have a hundred thousand people to feed, clothe and help get back to their homes. A hundred thousand at least.”

“I want to come with you, my Lady, if you’ll have me,” the young fellow who had been holding Maighdin piped up. “I won’t be the only one, if you’ll have us.”

“Your lady wife, I presume, my Lord.” Tylee said, eyeing Faile.

“She is. Faile, allow me to present Banner-General Tylee Khirgan, in service to the Empress of Seanchan.” Perhaps he was acquiring some of that polish himself. “Banner-General, my wife. Lady Faile ni Bashere’t’Aybara.” Tylee bowed in her saddle. Faile made a small curtsy, inclined her head slightly. Dirty face or no dirty face, she was regal. Which made him think of the Broken Crown. Discussion of that little matter would have to come later. No doubt it would be a prolonged discussion. He thought he might not find it so hard to raise his voice, the way she apparently wanted, this time. “And this is Alliandre Maritha Kigarin. Queen of Ghealdan. Blessed of the Light, Defender of Garen’s Wall. And my liege woman. Ghealdan is under my protection.” Fool thing to say, but it had to be said.

“Our agreement doesn’t speak to that, my Lord,” Tylee said carefully. “I don’t decide where the Ever Victorious Army goes.”

“Just so you know, Banner-General. And tell those above you they can’t have Ghealdan.” Alliandre smiled at him so widely, so gratefully, he almost wanted to laugh. Light. Faile was smiling, too. A proud smile. He rubbed the side of his nose. “We really do need to begin moving before those other Shaido arrive. I don’t want to find myself with them in front of me and all those prisoners behind me thinking about picking up a spear again.”

Tylee chuckled. “I have a little more experience with these people than you, my Lord. Once they surrender, they won’t fight again or try to escape for three days. Besides, I have some of my Altarans making bonfires out of their spears and bows just to make sure. We have time to make our deployments. My Lord, I hope I never have to face you in the field,” she said, pulling the steel-backed gauntlet from her right hand. “I would be honored if you’d call me Tylee.” She bent over Sevanna to offer her hand.

For a moment. Perrin could only stare. It was a strange world. He had gone to her thinking he was making a deal with the Dark One, and the Light knew, some of what the Seanchan did was beyond repugnant, but the woman was stalwart and true to her word.

“I’m Perrin. Tylee.” he said, clasping her hand. A very strange world.

Stripping off her shift, Galina tossed it down atop the silk robe and bent to pick up the riding dress she had pulled from Swift’s saddlebags. The thing had been sewn for a slightly larger woman, but it would suffice until she could sell one of those firedrops.

“Stand as you are, Lina,” came Therava’s voice, and suddenly Galina could not have straightened if the forest around her had been on fire. She could scream, though. “Be silent.” She choked as her throat swallowed the scream convulsively. She could still weep, silently, and tears began to fall on the mulch of the forest floor. A hand slapped her rudely. “Somehow, you have the rod,” Therava said. “You would not be out here, else. Give it to me, Lina.”

There was no question even of resisting. Straightening, Galina dug the rod out of her saddlebags and handed it to the hawk-eyed woman, tears sliding down her cheeks.

“Stop sniveling, Lina. And put on your necklace and collar. I will have to punish you for taking them off.”

Galina flinched. Even Therava’s command could not shut off her tears, and she knew she would be punished for that, too. Golden necklace and collar came out of the saddlebags and went onto her. She stood there wearing only her pale woolen stockings and soft laced white boots, and the weight of the firedrop-studded collar and belt seemed enough to bear her to the ground. Her eyes fastened themselves to the white rod in Therava’s hands.

“Your horse will do for a pack animal, Lina. As for you, you are forbidden to ride ever again.”

There had to be some way to get that rod again. There had to be! Therava turned the thing over and over in her hands, taunting her.

“Stop playing with your pet, Therava. What are we going to do?” Belinde, a slender Wise One with hair bleached almost white by the sun, strode up to glare at Therava with pale blue eyes. She was bony, with a face well suited to glaring.

That was the first Galina realized that Therava was not alone. Several hundred men, women and children stood among the trees behind them, some of the men carrying women slung over their shoulders of all things. She covered herself with her hands, her face heating. Those long days of enforced nakedness had not inured her to being unclothed in front of men. Then she noticed another oddity. Only a handful were algai’d’siswai, with bow cases on their backs and quivers at their hips, but every man and every woman except the Wise Ones among them was carrying at least one spear. They had their faces veiled, too, with a scarf or just a scrap of cloth. What could it mean?

“We are returning to the Three-fold Land.” Therava said. “We will send runners to find every sept that can be found and tell them to abandon their wetlander gai’shain, abandon everything they must, and make their way by stealth back to the Three-fold Land. We will rebuild our clan. The Shaido will rise from the disaster Sevanna led us to.”

“That will take generations!” Modarra protested. Slim and quite pretty, but even taller than Therava, as tall as most Aielmen, she stood up to Therava unflinchingly. Galina could not understand how she did that. The woman made her flinch with a glance.

“Then we will take generations.” Therava said firmly. “We will take whatever time is necessary. And we will never leave the Three-fold Land again.” Her gaze shifted to Galina. Who flinched. “You will never touch this again,” she said, raising the rod briefly. “And you will never try to escape me again. She has a strong back. Load her, and let us be on our way. They may try to pursue us.”

Burdened with waterskins and pots and kettles till she almost felt decently covered, Galina staggered through the forest at Therava’s heels. She did not think of the rod, or escape. Something had broken in her. She was Galina Casban, Highest of the Red Ajah, who sat on the Supreme Council of the Black Ajah, and she was going to be Therava’s plaything for the rest of her life. She was Therava’s little Lina. For the rest of her life. She knew that to her bones. Tears rolled silently down her face.