Gawyn tried to keep his mind on the landscape as he rode at the head of the column. This sort of rolling terrain with its scattered bunches of trees was just flat enough to make you think you could see a long way, when in truth some of those occasional long ridges and low hills were not quite so low as they seemed. The wind was gusting up waves of dust today, and dust could hide a lot, too. Dumai’s Wells lay just off the road to his right, three stone wells in a small copse; the water barrels could stand topping, and it was at least four days to the next sure water, if the Alianelle Spring had not gone dry, but Galina had ordered no stopping. He tried to hold his attention where it should be, but he could not.
From time to time he twisted in his saddle, looking back at the long snake of wagons stretching along the road, with Aes Sedai and Warders riding alongside, and servants who were not in the wagons walking. Most of the Younglings were at the rear, where Galina had ordered them. He could not see the one wagon, in the center of the column with six Aes Sedai always riding beside it, that had no canvas cover. He would have killed al’Thor if he could, but this sickened him. Even Erian had refused to take part any longer after the second day, and the Light knew she had cause. Galina was adamant, though.
Putting his eyes firmly forward, he touched Egwene’s letter in his coat pocket, where it lay carefully wrapped in layers of silk. Just a few words to say she loved him, that she must go; no more. He read it five or six times a day. She never mentioned his promise. Well, he had not raised a hand against al’Thor. He had been stunned to learn the man was a prisoner and had been for days when he heard of it. Somehow he must make her understand that. He had promised her not to raise his hand against the man, and he would not if he died for it, but he would not raise a hand to help him either. Egwene had to understand that. Light, she had to.
Sweat trickled down his face, and he wiped his eyes with his sleeve. Egwene he could do nothing about yet except pray. He could about Min. Somehow he had to. She did not deserve to be carried to the Tower a prisoner; he would not believe it. If the Warders would only slacken the guard on her, he could . . .
Suddenly Gawyn became aware of a horse galloping back down the road toward the wagons through sheets of dust, seemingly with no rider. “Jisao,” he ordered, “tell the wagon drivers to halt. Hal, tell Rajar to ready the Younglings.” Without a word they wheeled their horses and galloped. Gawyn waited.
That was Benji Dalfor’s steel-dust gelding, and as it came closer, Gawyn could see Benji doubled over and clinging to the gelding’s mane. The horse almost went past before Gawyn could seize the reins.
Benji turned his head without straightening, peered at Gawyn with glazed eyes. There was blood around his mouth, and he had one arm tight against his middle as if trying to hold himself together. “Aiel,” he mumbled. “Thousands. All sides, I think.” Suddenly he smiled. “Cold today, isn’t—” Blood gushed out of his mouth, and he toppled to the road, staring unblinking at the sun.
Gawyn spun his stallion around, galloping toward the wagons. There would be time for Benji later, if any of them were alive.
Galina rode to meet him, linen dustcloak flaring behind her, dark eyes blazing fury in that serene face. She had been furious constantly since the day after al’Thor tried to escape. “Who do you think you are, ordering the wagons stopped?” she demanded.
“There are thousands of Aiel closing on us, Aes Sedai.” He managed to keep his tone polite. The wagons were stopped at least, and the Younglings forming up, but wagon drivers fingered their reins impatiently, servants peered about fanning themselves, Aes Sedai chatted with Warders.
Galina’s lips writhed contemptuously. “You fool. No doubt those are the Shaido. Sevanna said she would give us an escort. But if you doubt, take your Younglings and see for yourself. These wagons will keep moving toward Tar Valon. It is time you learned that I give the orders here, not—”
“And if they are not your tame Aiel?” This was not the first time in the last few days that she had suggested he lead a scout himself; he suspected if he did, he would find Aiel, and not tame. “Whoever they are, they’ve killed one of my men.” At least one; there were still six scouts out. “Maybe you should consider the possibility these are al’Thor’s Aiel, come to rescue him. It will be too late when they start spitting us.”
It was only then that he realized he was shouting, but Galina’s anger actually faded. She looked up the road to where Benji lay, then nodded slowly. “Perhaps it would not be unwise to be cautious this once.”
Rand labored for breath; the air inside the chest felt thick and hot. Luckily he could not smell it any longer. They sluiced him off with a bucket of water each night, but that was hardly a bath, and for a time after they closed the lid on him each morning and latched it, the stench added by yet another day exposed to the full blast of the sun assaulted his nose. Holding the Void was an effort. He was a mass of stripes; not an inch of him from shoulders to knees but burned even before sweat touched it, and those ten thousand flames flickered on the borders of emptiness, trying to consume it. The half-healed wound in his side throbbed in the distance, but the emptiness around him quivered with every throb. Alanna. He could feel Alanna. Close. No. He could not waste time thinking about her; even if she had followed, six Aes Sedai would not be able to free him. If they did not decide to join Galina. No trust. Never again trust for any Aes Sedai. Maybe he was imagining it anyway. Sometimes he did imagine things in here, cool breezes, walking. Sometimes he lost thought of anything else and hallucinated about walking free. Just walking. Hours lost in what was important. He labored for breath, and he felt his way across the ice-slick barrier that divided him from the Source. Again and again, fumbling to those six soft points. Soft. He could not stop. The fumbling was important.
Dark, Lews Therin moaned in the depths of his head. No more dark. No more. Over and over again. Not too badly, though. Rand just ignored him this time.
Suddenly he gasped; the chest was moving, grating loudly along the wagon bed. Was it night already? Welted flesh flinched involuntarily. There would be another beating before he was fed and doused with water and trussed like a goose to sleep however he could. But he would be out of the box. The darkness around him was incomplete, a deep dark gray. The tiny crack around the lid let in the smallest amount of light, though he could not see with his head jammed between his knees, and his eyes took as long each day to see anything but blackness as his nose did to grow deadened. Even so, it must be night.
He could not help groaning as the chest tilted; there was no room for him to slide, but he shifted, putting new strains on muscles sore beyond sore. His tiny prison thumped to the ground hard. The lid would open soon. How many days in the broiling sun? How many nights? He had lost count. Which one would it be this time? Faces spun through his head. He had marked down every woman when she took her turn at him. They were a jumble now; remembering which came where or when seemed beyond him. But he knew that Galina and Erian and Katerine had beaten him most often, the only ones to do so more than once. Those faces glowed in his mind with a feral light. How often did they want to hear him scream?
Abruptly it came to him that the chest should have been opened by now. They intended to leave him in here all night, and then there would be tomorrow’s sun, and—muscles too bruised and sore to move managed a frantic heave. “Let me out!” he shouted hoarsely. Fingers scrabbled painfully behind his back, futilely. “Let me out!” he screamed. He thought he heard a woman laugh.
For a time he wept, but then tears dried up in rage like a furnace. Help me, he snarled at Lews Therin.
Help me, the man groaned. The Light help me.
Muttering darkly, Rand returned to feeling blindly across that smooth plain to the six soft points. Sooner or later, they would let him out. Sooner or later, they would slacken their guard. And when they did . . . he did not even know it when he began a rasping laugh.
Crawling up the gentle slope on his belly, Perrin peered over the crest into a scene from the Dark One’s dreams. The wolves had given him some notion of what to expect, but notions paled beside reality. Perhaps a mile from where he lay beneath the midday sun, a huge milling mass of Shaido completely surrounded what seemed to be a ring of wagons and men centered on a small clump of trees not far from the road. A number of the wagons were bonfires, flames dancing. Balls of fire, small as a fist and large as boulders, hurtled into the Aiel, gouts of fire flared, turning a dozen at a time to torches; lightning fell from a cloudless sky, hurling earth and cadin’sor-clad figures into the air. But silver flashes of lightning struck at the wagons, too, and fire leaped from the Aiel. Much of that fire suddenly died or exploded short of any target, many of the lightning bolts stopped abruptly, but if the battle seemed slightly in favor of the Aes Sedai, the sheer number of Shaido had to prove overwhelming eventually.
“There must be two or three hundred women channeling down there, if not more.” Kiruna, lying beside him, sounded impressed. Sorilea, beyond the Green sister, certainly looked impressed. The Wise One smelled concerned; not afraid, but troubled. “I have never seen so many weaves at once,” the Aes Sedai went on. “I think there are at least thirty sisters in the camp. You have brought us to a boiling cauldron, young Aybara.”
“Forty thousand Shaido,” Rhuarc muttered grimly on Perrin’s other side. He even smelled grim. “Forty thousand at the least, and small satisfaction to know why they did not send more south.”
“The Lord Dragon is down there?” Dobraine asked, looking across Rhuarc. Perrin nodded. “And you mean to go in there and bring him out?” Perrin nodded again, and Dobraine sighed. He smelled resigned, not afraid. “We will go in, Lord Aybara, but I do not believe we will come out.” This time Rhuarc nodded.
Kiruna looked at the men. “You do realize there are not enough of us. Nine. Even if your Wise Ones can actually channel to any effect, we are not enough to match that.” Sorilea snorted loudly, but Kiruna kept her eyes where they were.
“Then turn around and ride south,” Perrin told her. “I’ll not let Elaida have Rand.”
“Good,” Kiruna replied, smiling. “Because I will not either.” He wished her smile did not make his skin crawl. Of course, had she seen the malevolent look Sorilea directed at the back of her head, her skin might have crawled too.
Perrin signaled to those at the bottom of the ridge, and Sorilea and the Green slid down until they could straighten, then hurried in opposite directions.
It was not much of a plan that they had. It boiled down to reaching Rand somehow, freeing him somehow, then hoping he was not injured too badly to make a gateway for as many as could to escape with him before either the Shaido or the camp’s Aes Sedai managed to kill them. Minor problems, no doubt, for a hero in a story or a gleeman’s tale, but Perrin wished there had been time for some sort of real planning, not just what he and Dobraine and Rhuarc had hammered out with the clan chief running as fast as he could between their horses. Time was one of many things they did not have, though. No telling if the Tower Aes Sedai would be able to hold off the Shaido for even another hour.
First to move were the Two Rivers men and the Winged Guards, divided into two companies, one surrounding Wise Ones afoot and the other mounted Aes Sedai and Warders. To left and right they crossed the ridge. Dannil had let them bring out the Red Eagle again, in addition to the Red Wolfhead. Rhuarc did not even glance toward where Amys walked not far from Kiruna’s dark gelding, but Perrin heard him murmur, “May we see the sun rise together, shade of my heart.”
At the end, the Mayeners and Two Rivers men were to cover the Wise Ones and Aes Sedai in retreat, or maybe it would be the other way around. In either case, Bera and Kiruna did not seem to like the plan; they very much wanted to be where Rand was.
“Are you sure you will not ride, Lord Aybara?” Dobraine asked from his saddle; to him, the notion of fighting on foot was anathema.
Perrin patted the axe hanging at his hip. “This is not much use from horseback.” It was, in truth, but he did not want to ride Stepper or Stayer into what lay ahead. Men could choose whether they threw themselves into the midst of steel and death; he chose for his horses, and today he chose no. “Maybe you’ll lend me a stirrup when the time comes.” Dobraine blinked—Cairhienin made little use of foot soldiers—but he seemed to understand, and nodded.
“It is time for the pipers to play the dance,” Rhuarc said, lifting his black veil, though today there would be no pipers playing, which some of the Aiel did not like. Many of the Maidens did not like the required strips of red cloth tied around their arms, to distinguish them from Shaido Maidens for the wetlanders; they seemed to think anyone should know at a glance.
Black-veiled Maidens and siswai’aman began trotting up the slope in a thick column, and Perrin walked with Dobraine to where Loial already stood at the head of the Cairhienin, gripping his axe in both hands and ears laid back. Aram was there, too, afoot and his sword bare; the former Tinker wore a dark smile of anticipation. Dobraine waved his arm for the advance, behind Rand’s twin banners, and saddles creaked as a small forest of five hundred lances climbed beside the Aiel.
Nothing had changed in the battle, which surprised Perrin until he realized only moments had passed since he last saw it. The time had seemed much longer. The great mass of Shaido still pressed inward; wagons still burned, perhaps more than before; lightning still struck from the sky, and fire leaped in balls and billows.
The Two Rivers Men were almost to their position, with the Mayeners and Aes Sedai and Wise Ones, moving almost unhurriedly across the rolling plain. Perrin would have held them farther back, to give them a better chance at escape when the time came for that, but Dannil kept insisting they had to close to at least three hundred paces for their bows to be effective, and Nurelle had been just as anxious not to hang back. Even the Aes Sedai, who Perrin was sure only had to be near enough to see clearly, had insisted. None of the Shaido had looked around yet. At least, none were pointing at the threat moving slowly toward their backs; none were wheeling about to face it. All seemed fixed on rushing at the circle of wagons, falling back before fire and lightning, then rushing in again. All it would take would be one looking behind, but the inferno ahead held them.
Eight hundred paces. Seven hundred. The Two Rivers men dismounted, taking bows in hand. Six hundred. Five. Four.
Dobraine drew his sword, raised it high. “The Lord Dragon, Taborwin and victory!” he shouted, and the shout came from five hundred throats as lances snapped down.
Perrin had just time to seize hold of Dobraine’s stirrup before the Cairhienin were thundering forward. Loial’s long legs matched the horses pace for pace. Loping along, letting the horse pull him in long leaping strides, Perrin sent his mind out. Come.
Ground covered with brown grass, seemingly empty, suddenly gave birth to a thousand wolves, lean brown plains wolves, and some of their darker, heavier forest cousins, running low to hurl themselves into the backs of the Shaido with snapping jaws just as the first long Two Rivers shafts rained out of the sky beyond them. A second flight already arched high. New lightnings fell with the arrows, new fires bloomed. Veiled Shaido turning to fight wolves had only moments to realize they were not the only threat before a solid spear of Aiel stabbed into them alongside a hammer of Cairhienin lancers.
Snatching his axe free, Perrin hacked down a Shaido in his way and leaped over the man as he fell. They had to reach Rand; everything rested on that. Beside him Loial’s great axe rose and fell and swung, carving a path. Aram seemed to dance with his sword, laughing as he cut down everyone in his way. There was no time to think of anyone else. Perrin worked his axe methodically; he was hewing wood, not flesh; he tried not to see the blood that spurted, even when crimson sprayed his face. He had to reach Rand. He was slashing a path through brambles.
All he focused on was the man in front of him—he thought of them as men even when height said it might be a Maiden; he was not sure he could swing that red-dripping half-moon blade if he let himself think it was a woman he swung at—he focused, but other things drifted across his vision as he cut his way forward. A silvery lightning strike hurled cadin’sor-clad figures into the air, some wearing the scarlet headband, some not. Another bolt threw Dobraine from his horse; the Cairhienin labored to his feet, laying about him with his sword. Fire enveloped a knot of Cairhienin and Aiel, men and horses turned to screaming torches, those who could still scream.
These things passed before his eyes, but he did not let himself see them. There were only the men before him, the brambles, to be cleared by his axe and Loial’s, and Aram’s sword. Then he saw something that pierced his concentration. A rearing horse, a toppling rider being pulled from his saddle as Aiel spears stabbed him. A rider in a red breastplate. And there was another of the Winged Guards, and a clump of them, thrusting their lances, with Nurelle’s plume waving above his helmet. A moment later he saw Kiruna, face serenely unconcerned, striding like a queen of battles along a path carved for her by three Warders and the fires that leaped from her own hands. And there was Bera, and farther over, Faeldrin and Masuri and . . . what under the Light were they all doing here? What were any of them doing? They were supposed to be back with the Wise Ones!
From somewhere ahead came a hollow boom, like a thunderclap cutting through the din of screams and shouts. A moment later, a slash of light appeared not twenty paces from him, slicing through several men and a horse like a huge razor as it widened into a gateway. A black-coated man with a sword jumped out of it, and went down with a Shaido spear through his middle, but a moment later eight or nine more sprang through as the gateway vanished, forming a circle around the fallen man with their swords. With more than swords. Some of the Shaido who rushed at them fell to a blade, but more simply burst into flame. Heads exploded like melons dropped onto stone from a height. Maybe a hundred paces beyond them, Perrin thought he saw another circle of men in black coats, surrounded by fire and death, but he had no time to wonder. Shaido were closing around him, too.
Setting himself back-to-back with Loial and Aram, he slashed and hacked desperately. There was no going forward now. It was all he could do to remain standing where he was. Blood pounded in his ears, and he could hear himself gasping for breath. He could hear Loial, too, panting like a huge bellows: Perrin knocked aside a stabbing spear with his axe, slashed at another Aiel with the spike on the backswing, caught a spearhead with his hand, unmindful of the bloody gash it made, split a black-veiled face. He did not think they were going to last much longer. Every part of him centered on staying alive for one heart-beat more. Almost every part. One corner of his mind held an image of Faile, and the sad thought that he would not be able to apologize for not coming back to her.
Doubled painfully inside the chest, panting, Rand fumbled at the shield between him and the Source. Moaning floated across the Void, grim fury and burning fear slid along the edge of it; he was no longer altogether certain which was his and which Lews Therin’s. Suddenly his breath froze. Six points, but one was hard now. Not soft; hard. And then a second. A third. Rasping laughter filled his ears; that was his, he realized after a moment. A fourth knot became hard. He waited, trying to stifle what sounded uncomfortably like deranged giggling. The last two points remained soft. Those muffled cackles died.
They will feel it, Lews Therin groaned desperately. They will feel it and call the others back.
Rand licked cracked lips with a tongue nearly as dry; all the moisture in him seemed to have gone into the sweat that slicked him and bit his welts. If he tried and failed, there would never be another chance. He could not wait. There might never be another chance anyway.
Cautiously, blindly, he felt at the four hard points. There was nothing there, any more than the shield itself was anything he could feel or see, but somehow he could feel around this nothingness, feel a shape to it. Like knots. There was always space between the cords in a knot, however tightly pulled, gaps finer than a hair, where only air could go. Slowly, ever so slowly, he fumbled into one of those gaps, squeezing through infinitesimal spaces between what seemed not to be there at all. Slowly. How long before the others returned? If they took it up again before he found a way through this tortuous labyrinth . . . slowly. And suddenly he could feel the Source, like brushing it with a fingernail; the bare edge of a fingernail. Saidin was still beyond him—the shield was still there—but he could feel hope welling in Lews Therin. Hope and trepidation. Two Aes Sedai were still holding their part of the barrier, still aware of what they held.
Rand could not have explained what he did next, though Lews Therin had explained how; explained between drifting off into his own mad fancies, between towering rages and wailing over his lost Ilyena, between gibbering that he deserved to die and shouting that he would not let them sever him. It was as if he flexed what he had extended through the knot, flexed it as hard as he could. The knot resisted. It trembled. And then it burst. There were only five. The barrier thinned. He could feel it grow less. An invisible wall only five bricks thick now instead of six. The two Aes Sedai would have felt it, too, though they might not understand exactly what had happened, or how. Please, Light, not now. Not yet.
Quickly, almost frantically, he attacked the remaining knots in turn. A second went; the shield thinned. It was quicker now, quicker with each, as if he were learning the path through, though it was different each time. The third knot gone. And a third soft point appeared; maybe the Aes Sedai did not know what he was doing, but they would not simply sit while the shield grew less and less. Truly frantic, Rand hurled himself at the fourth knot. He had to unravel it before a fourth sister came into the shield; four might be able to hold it whatever he did. Almost weeping, he struggled through the complex windings, slipping between nothingness. Frenziedly, he flexed, bursting the knot. The shield remained, but held by only three now. If he could only move fast enough.
When he reached for saidin, the invisible barrier was still there, but it no longer seemed stone or brick. It gave as he pressed, bending under his pressure, bending, bending. Suddenly it tore apart before him like rotted cloth. The Power filled him, and as it did, he seized at those three soft points, crushing them ruthlessly in fists of Spirit. Aside from that, he still could only channel where he could see, and all he could see, dimly, was the inside of the chest, what he could glimpse of it with his head forced between his knees. Before he even finished with the fists of Spirit, he channeled Air. The chest exploded away from him with a loud boom.
Free, Lews Therin breathed, and it was an echo of Rand’s thought. Free. Or maybe the other way around.
They will pay, Lews Therin growled. I am the Lord of the Morning.
Rand knew he had to move even more quickly now, move quickly and violently, but at first he struggled to move at all. Muscles beaten twice a day for he did not know how long, crammed into a chest every day, those muscles screamed as he gritted his teeth and slowly pushed up to hands and knees. It was a distant screaming, someone else’s body in pain, but he could not make that body move faster however strong saidin made him feel. Emptiness buffered emotion, but something close to panic tried to wriggle creepers into the Void.
He was in a large clump of scattered trees, with broad shafts of sunlight filtering through nearly leafless branches; he was shocked to realize it was still daylight, maybe even midday. He had to move; more Aes Sedai would be coming. Two lay on the ground near him, apparently unconscious, one with a nasty gash bleeding across her forehead. The third, an angular woman, was on her knees staring at nothing, clutching her head in both hands and screaming. She seemed untouched by all the splinters and pieces of the chest. He did not recognize any of them. An instant of regret that it was not Galina or Erian he had stilled—he was not sure he had intended to do that; Lews Therin had gone on at length about how he intended to sever every one of them who had imprisoned him; Rand hoped it had been his own idea, however hasty—an instant, and he saw another shape stretched out on the ground beneath bits of the chest. In rose-colored coat and breeches.
The angular woman did not look at him or stop shrieking even when he knocked her over against the low stone coping of a well as he crawled past. Desperately he wondered why no one came to her screams. Halfway to Min he became aware of lightning bolts lancing out of the sky and fireballs exploding overhead. He could smell wood burning, hear men shouting and screaming, the clash of metal, the cacophony of battle. He did not care if it was Tarmon Gai’don. If he had killed Min . . . gently he turned her over.
Big dark eyes stared up at him, “Rand,” she breathed. “You’re alive. I was afraid to look. There was an awful roar, and pieces of wood everywhere, and I recognized part of the chest, and . . . ” Tears began spilling down her cheeks. “I thought they had . . . I was afraid you were . . . ” Scrubbing at her face with bound hands, she drew a deep breath. Her ankles were bound too. “Will you untie me, sheepherder, and make one of your gateways away from here? Or don’t bother with untying. Just toss me over your shoulder and go.”
Deftly he wielded Fire, parting the cords that held her. “It isn’t that simple, Min.” He did not know this place at all; a gateway opened from here might go anywhere, if it opened at all. If he could open one at all. Pain and weariness shaved at the borders of the Void. He was not sure how much of the Power he could draw. Suddenly he realized he could feel saidin being channeled in every direction. Through the trees, beyond burning wagons, he could see Aiel fighting Warders and Gawyn’s green-coated soldiers, being driven back by Aes Sedai fire and lightning, yet coming on again. Somehow Taim had found him and brought Asha’man soldiers and Aiel. “I cannot go just yet. I think some friends have come for me. Don’t worry; I will protect you.”
A jagged silver blaze split a tree on the edge of the copse, close enough to make Rand’s hair stir. Min gave a start. “Friends,” she muttered, rubbing her wrists.
He motioned her to stay where she was—except for that one errant bolt, the thicket appeared untouched—but when he shoved himself to his feet, she was right there, holding him up on one side. Staggering to the sparse tree line, he was grateful for her support, but he made himself straighten and stop leaning on her. How could she believe he would protect her if he needed her not to fall on his face? A hand on the shattered trunk of the lightning-struck tree helped. Tendrils of smoke rose from it, but it had not caught fire.
The wagons made a great ring around the trees. Some of the servants seemed to be trying to keep the horses together—the teams were all still harnessed—but most huddled wherever they could in hope of avoiding the fury falling from above. In truth, except for that one bolt, it all seemed aimed at the wagons and men fighting. Maybe at the Aes Sedai too. Each sat her horse a little way back from the whirl of spears and swords and flame, but not too far, sometimes standing in her stirrups for a better view.
Rand spotted Erian quickly, slender and dark-haired on a pale gray mare. Lews Therin snarled, and Rand struck almost without thinking. He felt the other man’s disappointment as he did. Spirit to shield her, with the slight resistance that told of slicing through her connection of saidar, and even as that was tied, a club of Air to knock her unconscious from the saddle. If he decided to still her, he wanted her to know who was doing it and why. One of the Aes Sedai shouted for someone to tend Erian, but no one looked toward the trees. No one out there could feel saidin; they thought she had been felled by something from outside the wagons.
His eyes searched among the other mounted women, stopped on Katerine, wheeling her long-legged bay gelding back and forth, fire blazing wherever she looked among the Aiel. Spirit and Air, and she fell limply, one foot tangled in a stirrup.
Yes, Lews Therin laughed. And now Galina. Her I want especially.
Rand squeezed his eyes shut. What was he doing? It was Lews Therin who wanted those three so badly he could think of nothing else. Rand wanted to repay them for what they had done to him, but there was battle going on, men dying while he hunted for particular Aes Sedai. Maidens dying too, no doubt.
He took the next Aes Sedai, twenty paces to Katerine’s left, with Spirit and Air, then moved to another tree and put Sarene Nemdahl on the ground, unconscious and shielded. Slowly he staggered along the edge of the thicket, striking like a cutpurse time and again. Min stopped trying to hold him up, though her hands hovered, ready to catch him.
“They’re going to see us,” she muttered. “One of them is going to look around and see us.”
Galina, Lews Therin growled. Where is she?
Rand ignored him, and Min. Coiren fell, and two more whose names he did not know. He had to do what he could.
The Aes Sedai had no way of telling what was happening. Steadily along the ringwall of wagons, sisters toppled from their horses. Those still conscious spread themselves out more, trying to cover the whole perimeter, an air of anxiety suddenly in the way they handled their horses, the redoubled fury with which fire blazed into the Aiel and lightning struck from the sky. It had to be something from outside, but Aes Sedai fell, and they did not know how or why.
Their numbers dwindled, and the effects began to tell. Fewer lightning bolts fizzled abruptly in midair, and more struck among the Warders and soldiers. Fewer balls of fire suddenly vanished or exploded before reaching the wagons. Aiel began pressing through the gaps between wagons; wagons were heaved over. In moments there were black-veiled Aiel everywhere, and chaos. Rand stared in amazement.
Warders and green-coated soldiers fought in clumps against Aiel, and Aes Sedai surrounded themselves with rains of fire. But there were Aiel fighting Aiel as well; men with the scarlet siswai’aman headband and Maidens with red strips tied to their arms fighting Aiel without. And Cairhienin lancers in their bell-shaped helmets and Mayeners in red breastplates were suddenly among the wagons too, striking at Aiel as well as Warders. Had he finally gone mad? He was conscious of Min, pressed against his back and trembling. She was real. What he was seeing must be real.
A dozen or so Aielmen, each as tall as he or taller, started trotting toward him. They wore no red. He watched them curiously until, within a pace of him, one raised a reversed spear like a cudgel. Rand channeled, and fire seemed to shoot out of the dozen everywhere. Charred and twisted bodies tumbled at his feet.
Suddenly Gawyn was reining a bay stallion up not ten steps in front of him, sword in hand and twenty or more green-coated men riding at his heels. For a moment they stared at one another, and Rand prayed he would not have to harm Elayne’s brother.
“Min,” Gawyn grated, “I can take you out of here.”
She peeked past Rand’s shoulder to shake her head; she was holding on to him so tightly, he did not think he could have pried her loose had he wanted to. “I’m staying with him, Gawyn. Gawyn, Elayne loves him.”
With the Power in him, Rand could see the man’s knuckles go white on his sword hilt. “Jisao,” he said in a flat voice. “Rally the Younglings. We are cutting a way out of here.” If his voice had been flat before, now it went dead. “Al’Thor, one day I will see you die.” Digging his heels in, he galloped away, he and all the others shouting “Younglings!” at the top of their lungs, and more men in green coats cutting a way to join them with every stride.
A man in a black coat darted in front of Rand, staring after Gawyn, and the ground erupted in a gout of fire and earth that toppled half a dozen horses as they reached the wagons. Rand saw Gawyn sway in the saddle in the instant before he beat the black-coated man to the ground with a mace of Air. He did not know the hard-faced young man who snarled at him, but the fellow wore both the sword and Dragon on his high collar, and saidin filled him.
In an instant, it seemed, Taim was there, blue-and-gold Dragons twined around the sleeves of his black coat, staring down at the fellow. His collar bore neither pin. “You would not strike at the Dragon Reborn, Gedwyn,” Taim said, at once soft and steely, and the hard-faced man scrambled to his feet, saluting with fist to heart.
Rand looked toward where Gawyn had been, but all he could see was a large group of men with a White Boar banner slashing their way deeper into the surrounding Aiel, with more green-coated men fighting to join them.
Taim turned to Rand, that almost-smile on his lips. “Under the circumstances, I trust you will not hold it against me, violating your command about confronting Aes Sedai. I had reason to visit you in Cairhien, and . . . ” He shrugged. “You look the worse for wear. You will allow me to—” The slight twist of his lips flattened as Rand stepped back from his outstretched hand, pulling Min with him. She hung on tighter than ever.
Lews Therin had begun ranting about killing as he always did when Taim appeared, rambling madly about the Forsaken and killing everybody, but Rand stopped listening, walled the man off to the buzzing of a fly. It was a trick he had learned inside the chest, when there was nothing to do but feel at the shield and listen to a voice in his head that was insane more often than not. Yet even without Lews Therin, he did not want to be Healed by the man. He thought if Taim ever touched him with the Power, however innocently, he would kill him.
“As you wish,” the hawk-nosed man said wryly. “I have the campsite secured, I believe.”
That seemed true enough. Bodies littered the ground, but in only a few places did men still fight inside the ring of wagons. A dome of Air suddenly covered the entire camp, smoke from the fires sliding up to a hole left in the top. It was not one solid weave of saidin; Rand could see where individual weaves butted one against another to make it. He thought there might have been as many as two hundred black-coated men beneath the dome. A hail of lightning and fire struck that barrier and exploded harmlessly. The sky itself seemed to crackle and burn; the constant roar of it filled the air. Maidens with strips of red dangling from their arms and siswai’aman stood along the wall they could not see, mingled with Mayeners and Cairhienin, many of them afoot as well. On the other side, a solid mass of Shaido stared at the invisible barricade keeping them from their enemies, sometimes stabbing at it with spears or hurling themselves against it bodily. Spears stopped short, and bodies bounced back.
Inside the dome, the last fighting died even as Rand looked. Under the eyes of a scant handful of red-marked men and Maidens, disarmed Shaido were removing their garments with stolid faces; taken in battle, they would wear gai’shain white for a year and a day even if the Shaido somehow succeeded in overrunning the camp. Cairhienin and Mayeners provided guards for a large knot of angry Warders and Younglings mixed with fearful servants, almost as many guards as prisoners. Nearly a dozen Aes Sedai were being shielded by an equal number of Asha’man wearing sword and Dragon. The Aes Sedai looked sick and frightened. Rand recognized three, though Nesune was the only one he could name. He did not recognize any of their Asha’man jailers. A number of the women Rand had shielded and rendered unconscious were laid out with those prisoners, some of them beginning to stir, while black-coated soldiers and Dedicated with the silver sword on their collars were using saidin to drag others across the ground and lay them in that row. Some of them brought the two unconscious Aes Sedai and the angular woman out of the copse; she was still screaming. When they were added to the cluster, some of the Aes Sedai abruptly turned away and vomited.
There were other Aes Sedai present, surrounded by Warders and watched by black-coated men though not shielded, watching the Asha’man as uneasily as did the women under guard. They stared at Rand, too, and plainly would have come to him if not for the Asha’man. Rand glared back. Alanna was there; he had not been hallucinating. He did not recognize all of her companions, but enough. They were nine altogether. Nine. Sudden rage stormed outside the Void, and Lews Therin’s fly-buzz grew louder.
At that point it seemed no surprise at all to see Perrin stagger up, face and beard bloody, followed by a limping Loial with a huge axe, and a bright-eyed fellow who looked a Tinker in a red-striped coat, except for the sword he carried, blade crimson from end to end. Rand almost looked around to see whether Mat was also there somehow. He did see Dobraine, on foot with a sword in one hand and the staff of Rand’s crimson banner in the other. Nandera joined Perrin, letting her veil drop, and another Maiden Rand almost did not recognize at first. It was good to see Sulin in cadin’sor once more.
“Rand,” Perrin gasped, “thank the Light you’re still alive. We meant for you to make a gateway for us to escape, but it’s all fallen to pieces. Rhuarc and most of the Aiel are still out among the Shaido, most of the Mayeners and Cairhienin too, and I don’t know what has happened to the Two Rivers folk, or the Wise Ones. The Aes Sedai were supposed to stay with them, but . . . ” Putting the head of his axe on the ground, he leaned on the shaft panting; he looked as if he might fall without the support.
Along the barrier, mounted men were appearing, as well as Aielmen in red headbands and Maidens with strips of red dangling from their arms. The barrier held them out as well. Wherever they appeared, Shaido swarmed over them, swallowed them up.
“Let the dome go,” Rand ordered. Perrin sighed in relief, of all things. Had he thought Rand would let his own people be slaughtered? But Loial sighed too. Light, what did they think of him? Min began rubbing his back, murmuring under her breath in a soothing tone. For some reason, Perrin gave her a very surprised look.
Taim might have been surprised, but he was certainly not relieved. “My Lord Dragon,” he said in a tight voice, “I would say there are still several hundred Shaido women out there, some not insignificant it seems. And that is not to mention some thousands of Shaido with spears. Unless you truly want to find out whether you are immortal, I suggest waiting a few hours until we know this place well enough to make gateways with some certainty where they will come out, then leaving. There are casualties in battle. I lost several soldiers today, nine men who will be harder to replace than any number of renegade Aiel. Whoever dies out there, dies for the Dragon Reborn.” If he had been paying any attention to Nandera or Sulin, he might have moderated his tone and chosen his words more carefully. Handtalk flashed between them; they looked ready to strike him down on the spot.
Perrin pushed himself upright, yellow eyes fixed on Rand, firm and anxious at the same time. “Rand, even if Dannil and the Wise Ones held back the way they were supposed to, they’ll not leave as long as they see this.” He gestured to the dome overhead, where fire and lightning made a continuous sheet of light. “If we sit here for hours, the Shaido will turn on them sooner or later, if they haven’t already. Light, Rand! Dannil and Ban and Wil and Tell . . . Amys is out there, and Sorilea, and . . . ! Burn you, Rand, more have died for you already than you know!” Perrin drew a deep breath. “At least let me out. If I can make it that far, I can let them know that you’re alive and they can retreat before they get killed.”
“Two of us can slip out,” Loial said quietly, hefting that huge axe. “Two will stand a better chance.” The Tinker only smiled, but almost eagerly.
“I will have a place opened in the barrier,” Taim began, but Rand broke in on him sharply.
“No!” Not for the Two Rivers folk. He could not appear to worry over them any more than over the Wise Ones. Truth to tell, he had to seem to worry less. Amys was out there? The Wise Ones never took part in battle; they walked untouched through battles and blood feuds. They had ripped apart custom if not law to come for him. He would as soon let Perrin go back into that maelstrom as abandon them. But it could not be for the Wise Ones or the Two Rivers folk. “Sevanna wants my head, Taim. Apparently she thought she could take it today.” The emotionless quality the Void gave to his voice was appropriate. It did seem to worry Min, though; she was stroking his back as though to calm him. “I mean to let her know her mistake. I told you to make weapons, Taim. Show me just how deadly they are. Disperse the Shaido. Break them.”
“As you command.” If Taim had been stiff before, he was stone now.
“Put my standard up where they can see it,” Rand commanded. At least that would tell everyone outside who held the camp. Maybe the Wise Ones and Two Rivers folk would pull back when they saw that.
Loial’s ears wriggled uneasily, and Perrin grabbed Rand’s arm as Taim walked away. “I saw what they do, Rand. It’s . . . ” With his bloody face and bloody axe, he still sounded disgusted.
“What would you have me do?” Rand demanded. “What else can I do?”
Perrin’s hand fell away, and he sighed. “I do not know. I do not have to like it, though.”
“Grady, raise the Banner of Light!” Taim called, and the Power made his voice boom. On flows of Air, Jur Grady lifted the crimson banner out of a surprised Dobraine’s hand and raised it all the way through the hole in the top of the dome. Fire burst around it and lightning flashed as brilliant red lifted amid the smoke billowing up from the burning wagons. Rand recognized a number of the men in black coats, but he knew only a few names aside from Jur’s. Damer and Fedwin and Eben, Jahar and Torval; of those, only Torval wore the Dragon on his collar.
“Asha’man, form line of battle!” Taim boomed.
Black-coated men rushed to place themselves between the barrier and everyone else, all of them except Jur and those watching Aes Sedai. Except for Nesune, who peered intently at everything, the Tower lot had sunk listlessly to their knees, not even looking at the men who had them shielded, and even Nesune still looked on the point of sicking up. The Salidar group stared coldly at the Asha’man guarding them for the most part, though now and then they turned those icy eyes on Rand. Alanna stared only at Rand. His skin was tingled faintly, he realized; for him to feel it at that distance, all nine must be embracing saidar. He hoped they had enough sense not to channel; the stony men facing them held saidin to bursting, and they looked as tense as the Warders fingering their swords.
“Asha’man, raise the barricade two spans!” At Taim’s command, the edges of the dome rose all around. Surprised Shaido who had been pushing at what they could not see stumbled forward. They recovered instantly, a black-veiled mass surging forward, but they had time for only a stride before Taim’s next shout. “Asha’man, kill!”
The front rank of the Shaido exploded. There was no other way to put it. Cadin’sor-clad shapes burst apart in sprays of blood and flesh. Flows of saidin reached through that thick mist, darting from figure to figure in the blink of an eye, and the next row of Shaido died, then the next, and the next, as though they were running into an enormous meat grinder. Staring at the slaughter, Rand swallowed. Perrin bent over to empty his stomach, and Rand understood fully. Another rank died. Nandera put a hand over her eyes, and Sulin turned her back. The bloody ruins of human beings began to make a wall.
No one could stand up to that. Between one blast of death and the next, the Shaido in front were suddenly struggling the other way, forcing themselves back into the mass fighting to get forward. The milling tangle itself began to explode, and then all of them were falling back. No, running. The rain of fire and lightning against the dome faltered.
“Asha’man,” Taim’s voice rang out, “rolling ring of Earth and Fire!”
Beneath the feet of the Shaido nearest the wagons the ground suddenly erupted in fountains of flame and dirt, hurling men in every direction. While bodies still hung in the air, more gouts of flame roared from the ground, and more, in an expanding ring all the way around the wagons, pursuing the Shaido for fifty paces, a hundred, two hundred. There was nothing but panic and death out there now. Spears and bucklers were cast aside. The dome above stood clear except for the smoke rising from the burning wagons.
“Stop!” The roar of explosions swallowed Rand’s shout as well as it did men’s screams. He wove the flows Taim had used. “Stop it, Taim!” His voice crashed like thunder over everything.
One more ring of eruptions, and Taim called, “Asha’man, rest!”
For a moment a deafening silence seemed to fill the air, Rand’s ears rang. Then he could hear screams and moans. Wounded heaved among the piles of dead. And beyond them the Shaido ran, leaving behind scattered clusters of siswai’aman and Maidens with red armcloths, Cairhienin and Mayeners, some still on their horses. Almost hesitantly those began to move toward the wagons, some of the Aiel lowering their veils. With Power enhancing his eyes, he could make out Rhuarc, limping, one arm dangling, but on his feet. And well beyond him, a large group of women in dark bulky skirts and pale blouses, with an escort of men in Two Rivers coats carrying longbows. They were too far for him to make out faces, but from the way the Two Rivers men at least were staring at the fleeing Shaido, they were as stunned as anyone else.
A great sense of relief welled up inside Rand, though not enough to still the distant churning in his stomach. Min had her face pressed against his shirt; she was weeping. He smoothed her hair. “Asha’man”—he had never been more glad of the Void draining emotion from his voice—“you have done well. I congratulate you, Taim.” He turned away so he would not have to see the carnage anymore, hardly hearing the cheers of “Lord Dragon!” and “Asha’man!” that thundered from the black-coated men.
When he turned, he found Aes Sedai. Merana was all the way at the back, but Alanna stood almost face-to-face with him beside two Aes Sedai he did not recognize.
“You have done well,” the square-faced one of the pair said. A farmer, with an ageless face and eyes just holding on to serenity, ignoring the Asha’man around her. Obviously ignoring them. “I am Bera Harkin, and this is Kiruna Nachiman. We came to rescue you—with Alanna’s aid”—that was an obvious addition, at Alanna’s sudden frown—“though it seems you had small need of us. Still, intentions do count, and—”
“Your place is with them,” Rand said, pointing to the Aes Sedai shielded and under guard. Twenty-three, he saw, and Galina not among them. The buzzing of Lews Therin swelled, but he refused to listen. Now was no time for insane rages.
Kiruna drew herself up proudly. Whatever she was, she was certainly no farmer. “You forget who we are. They may have mistreated you, but we—”
“I forget nothing, Aes Sedai,” Rand said coldly. “I said six could come, but I count nine. I said you would be on an equal footing with the Tower emissaries, and for bringing nine, you will be. They are on their knees, Aes Sedai. Kneel!”
Coldly serene faces stared back at him. He felt Asha’man readying shields of Spirit. Defiance grew on Kiruna’s face, on Bera’s, on others. Two dozen black-coated men made a ring around Rand and the Aes Sedai.
Taim appeared as close to a smile as Rand had ever seen him. “Kneel and swear to the Lord Dragon,” he said softly, “or you will be knelt.”
As stories do, the tale spread, across Cairhien and north and south, by merchant train and peddler and simple traveler gossiping at an inn. As stories do, the tale changed with every telling. The Aiel had turned on the Dragon Reborn and killed him, at Dumai’s Wells or elsewhere. No, the Aes Sedai had saved Rand al’Thor. It was Aes Sedai who had killed him—no, gentled him—no, carried him to Tar Valon where he languished in a dungeon beneath the White Tower. Or else where the Amyrlin Seat herself knelt to him. Unusually for stories, it was something very close to truth that was most often believed.
On a day of fire and blood, a tattered banner waved above Dumai’s Wells, bearing the ancient symbol of Aes Sedai.
On a day of fire and blood and the One Power, as prophecy had suggested, the unstained tower, broken, bent knee to the forgotten sign.
The first nine Aes Sedai swore fealty to the Dragon Reborn, and the world was changed forever.