"Setalle", Faile said as the woman passed, "a word".
Setalle sat down beside Faile, wearing a composed expression. "I know what you’re going to ask".
"How long has it been", Faile asked, "since you were in the White Tower?"
"It has been decades now".
"Are you capable of making a gateway?"
Setalle laughed. "Child, I couldn’t light a candle. I was burned out in an accident. I haven’t held the One Power in over twenty-five years".
"I see", Faile said. "Thank you".
Setalle moved off, and Faile found herself wondering. How truthful was her story? Setalle had been very helpful in their days together, and Faile couldn’t blame the woman for keeping secret her ties to the White Tower. In any other situation, Faile wouldn’t have given the woman’s story a moment of doubt.
However, there was no way out here to confirm what she said. If Setalle was Black Ajah in hiding, her story about being burned out could simply be that—a story. Perhaps she could still channel. Or perhaps she couldn’t, but had been stilled as a punishment. Could this woman be an escaped prisoner of the most dangerous type, an agent who had waited decades for the right moment to strike?
Setalle had been the one to suggest they go to Shayol Ghul. Was she seeking to bring the Horn to her master?
Feeling cold, Faile entered her tent as several members of Cha Faile set up watch around it. Faile wrapped herself in her bedroll. She knew that she was being overly suspicious. But how else was she to be, considering the circumstances?
Light, she thought. The Horn of Valere, lost in the Blight. A nightmare.
Aviendha knelt on one knee beside the smoldering corpse, holding her angreal—the turtle brooch that Elayne had given her. She breathed through her mouth as she gazed down on the man’s face.
There were a surprising number of these red-veils. Whatever their origins, they were not Aiel. They did not follow ji’e’toh. During the night’s fighting, she had seen two Maidens take a man captive. He had acted like gai’shain, but had then killed one from behind with a hidden knife.
"Well?" Sarene asked, breathless. While those at the Field of Merrilor rested and prepared for their challenge ahead, this battle at Shayol Ghul continued. The red-veil attack had lasted all through the night, the following day and now into the night again.
"I think I knew him", Aviendha said, disturbed. "He channeled for the first time when I was a child, making algode grow when it should not". She let the veil fall down on his face. "His name was Soro. He was kind to me. I watched him run across the dry ground at sunset after vowing to spit in Sightblinder’s eye".
"I'm sorry", Sarene said, though her voice was uncolored by any sympathy. Aviendha was growing accustomed to that in the woman. It wasn’t that Sarene didn’t care; she just didn’t let caring distract her. At least, not when her Warder was elsewhere. The Aes Sedai would have made a fine Maiden.
"Let’s keep moving", Aviendha said, taking off with her pack of channelers. During the days and nights of fighting, Aviendha’s team had shifted, melded and split as women needed rest. Aviendha herself had slept sometime during the day.
By common agreement, the one leading the circle avoided drawing on her own power—thus Aviendha was still at reasonable strength, despite so many hours of fighting. This allowed her to remain alert, on the hunt. The other women became wells of power to be drawn upon.
She had to be careful not to drain them too far. Tire a woman, and she could sleep for a few hours and be back up to fight again. Drain her completely, and she could be useless for days. At the moment, Aviendha had Flinn and three Aes Sedai with her. She had learned the weave to tell her when a man was channeling nearby—it was moving through the Aes Sedai and Wise Ones—but having a male channeler with her was far more useful.
Flinn pointed toward some flashes of fire on the side of the valley. They loped in that direction, passing corpses and places where the ground smoldered. With the growing light of dawn, Aviendha could see through the cold mist that Darlin’s forces still held the mouth of the valley.
The Trollocs had pushed forward to the low earthen mounds that Ituralde had built. Killing had been done there on both sides. The Trollocs had taken far more losses—but then, they were also far more numerous. It seemed from her quick glance that they had overrun one of the earthen bulwarks, but Domani riders had come in from the reserves and were pushing them back.
Bands of Aiel roved and fought in the mouth of the valley itself. Some with red veils, some with black. Too many, Aviendha thought, as she slowed her team with a raised hand. She then continued forward on her own, quietly. She could draw a few hundred paces away from the women and still have access to their power.
She picked her way through the barren rocky fields of the valley. There were three dead bodies to her right, two with black veils. She tested them with a quick Delving; she would not be caught by the old trick of hiding among the corpses. She had used that one herself.
These three were truly dead, so she continued on in a crouch. In addition to the place where the Tairens and Domani held the Trollocs back, they had a second force guarding their camp and the pathway up to where Rand fought. In the space between, Aiel and red-veils roved in bands, each trying to best the other. Only, some of the red-veils could channel.
The ground thumped and shook nearby. A spray of soil fell through the air. Aviendha crouched down lower, but quickened her pace.
Ahead, over a dozen siswai’aman were rushing the position of two red-veils, both channelers. The red-veils cast up the earth beneath the attackers, sending bodies flying.
Aviendha understood why the Aiel kept going. These red-veils were an affront, a crime. The Seanchan, who would dare take Wise Ones captive, were not as disgusting as these. Somehow, the Shadow had taken the bravest of the Aiel and made them into these . . . these things.
Aviendha struck quickly, pulling strength through her angreal and her circle, weaving two lines of fire and hurling them at the red-veils. She began new weaves immediately, casting up the ground beneath the two channelers, and started a third set of weaves. She threw fire at the red-veils as they stumbled; one jumped away as the other was caught in her earthen blasts.
She struck the one who had fled with spears of flame. Then she hit both corpses with an extra burst of power, just to make certain. These men no longer held to ji’e’toh. They were no longer alive. They were weeds to be pulled.
She moved forward to check on the siswai’aman. Eight still lived, three of them wounded. Aviendha was not particularly good with Healing, but she was able to save the life of one man, keeping a wound in his throat from bleeding out. The other survivors gathered the wounded and moved back toward the camp.
Aviendha stood above the two corpses. She decided not to look at them closely. Seeing one man she had known was bad enough. These—
A shock went through her, and one of her wells of power vanished. Aviendha gasped. Another one winked out.
She immediately released the circle, then dashed back to where she had left the women. Flashes and explosions shook her. Aviendha clung to the One Power, her own strength now seeming pitifully small compared to what she’d been using.
She stumbled to a halt before the smoldering corpses of Kiruna and Faeldrin. The hideous woman she had seen before—the woman that Aviendha was increasingly certain was one of the Forsaken—stood there smiling at her. The horrid woman had her hand on Sarene’s shoulder; the slender White stood with her head turned toward the Forsaken, staring at her with vapid, adoring eyes. Sarene’s Warder lay dead at her feet.
Both vanished, twisting upon themselves, Traveling without use of a gateway. Aviendha fell to her knees beside the dead. Nearby, Damer Flinn groaned and tried to pull himself free of the cast-up earth. His left arm was completely gone, burned away at the shoulder.
Aviendha cursed and did what she could to Heal him, though he slipped into unconsciousness. She suddenly felt very tired and very, very alone.
CHAPTER 35
A Practiced Grin
Olver missed Wind. Bela—the stout, shaggy mare he now rode—wasn’t bad, really. She was just slow. Olver knew this because he kept trying to nudge her forward, but she continued plodding along behind the other horses. Nothing he did could make her go any faster. Olver wanted to ride like a storm. Instead, he rode like a sturdy log in a placid river.
He wiped his brow. The Blight was pretty scary, and the others—most of them didn’t have horses—walked as if each step was going to bring a thousand Trollocs down on them. The rest of the caravan spoke in hushed voices, and they looked at the hillsides with suspicion.
They passed a group of withered trees, with sap leaking from open sores in the bark. That sap looked too red. Almost like blood. Nearby, one of the caravan drivers stepped up to inspect it.
Vines snapped down from the limbs above—vines that looked brown and dead, yet moved like snakes. Before Olver could scream, the caravan driver was hanging, dead, from the upper branches of the tree.
The entire line of people froze in place, horrified. Above, the tree actually pulled the dead man into itself through a split in the bark. Ingesting him. Maybe that sap was blood.
Olver looked on, horrified.
"Steady", Lady Faile said, a slight tremor in her voice. "I’ve told you, don’t draw close to plants! Don’t touch anything".
They moved on, a solemn bunch. Sandip, riding nearby, muttered to himself. "That’s the fifteenth one. Fifteen men, dead in a few days. Light! We’re never going to survive this!"
If only it were Trollocs! Olver couldn’t fight trees and insects. Who could? But Trollocs, those he’d be able to fight. Olver had his knife, and he’d learned a few things about using it from Harnan and Silvic. Olver wasn’t that tall, but he figured that would make Trollocs underestimate him. He could lunge low and go for their vitals before they knew what was happening.
He told himself this to keep his hands from shaking as he kicked Bela, hoping to move up by Lady Faile. In the distance, he heard a screeching sound, like something dying in a horrible way. Olver shivered. He’d heard that same sound earlier in the day. Did it sound closer now?
Setalle gave him a worried glance as he neared the front. The others tried everything they could to keep him from danger. He steeled himself, ignoring that horrid screeching off in the distance. Everyone thought Olver was fragile, but he wasn’t. They hadn’t seen what he had, growing up. In truth, he didn’t like thinking about those times. It seemed as if he’d lived three lives. One before his parents died, one when he’d been alone and now this one.
Anyway, he was used to fighting people bigger than he was. It was the Last Battle. They kept saying everyone would be needed. Well, why not him? When the Trollocs came, the first thing he’d do was climb down off this slow mount. He could stroll faster than this animal could gallop! Well, the Aiel didn’t need horses. Olver hadn’t gone to train with them yet, but he would. He had it planned out. He hated all Aiel, but mostly the Shaido, and he would need to learn their secrets if he was going to kill them.