Rest well here, my friend, he thought, looking over his shoulder. Perhaps we can find a way to free you someday from the prison they put upon your mind.
Well? Jonneth asked, running up.
"Done", Androl said.
Pevara nodded as they stepped out of the trees to overlook the Mora and the ruins outside the stedding. She stopped as they saw the area around the ruins before them, where the refugees from Caemlyn had been gathering the wounded and weapons.
It was now filled with Trollocs.
Slaughtering.
Aviendha knelt over Rhuarc's body.
Dead. She’d killed Rhuarc.
It was no longer him, she told herself. Graendal killed him. Her weave might as well have burned him away. This is just a shell.
It was just a . . .
It was just a . . .
It was just a . . .
Strength, Aviendha. Rand’s determination filled her, radiating from the bond at the back of her mind. She looked up and felt all fatigue leave her, all distractions vanish.
Graendal was dueling with Amys, Talaan, Alivia and Cadsuane—and Graendal was winning. Weaves zipped back and forth, lighting the dusty air, but those coming from Cadsuane and the others were less and less vibrant. More defensive. As Aviendha watched, a storm of lightning fell around Amys, throwing her to the ground. Beside Graendal, Sashalle Anderly shook, then fell to the side; the glow of the One Power no longer surrounded her. Graendal had worn her out, pulling too much Power.
Aviendha stood up. Graendal was powerful and wily. She was exceptionally good at slicing weaves from the air as they were formed.
Aviendha held a hand out to her side, and wove Fire, Air, Spirit. A glowing, burning spear of light and fire appeared in her hand. She prepared five other weaves of Spirit, then dashed forward.
The thrumming of the trembling ground accompanied her footsteps. Crystalline lightning fell from the heavens, then froze in place. Men and beasts howled as the Darkhounds reached the final lines of humans defending the pathway up to Rand.
Graendal saw Aviendha and began to weave balefire. Aviendha slashed the weave from the air with a flow of Spirit. Graendal cursed, weaving again. Aviendha struck, cutting the weave apart.
Cadsuane and Talaan sent bursts of fire. One of the captive Aiel threw himself in front of Graendal, dying with a long cry as the flames engulfed him.
Aviendha ran swiftly, the ground a blur beneath her, clutching a spear of light. She remembered her first race, one of the tests to join the Maidens. On that day, she had felt the wind behind her, urging her on.
This time, she felt no wind. Instead, she heard the cries of the warriors. The Aiel who fought seemed to drive her onward. The sound itself carried her toward Graendal.
The Forsaken made a weave before Aviendha could stop it, a powerful weave of Earth directed beneath Aviendha.
So she leaped.
The ground exploded, rocks flying upward as the blast threw her forward into the air. Stones flayed her legs, carrying ribbons of blood up through the air around her. Her feet were ripped apart, bones cracking, legs burning.
She gripped the spear of fire and light in two hands amid the storm of rock, skirt rippling as it shredded. Graendal looked up, eyes widening, lips parting. She was going to Travel with the True Power. Aviendha knew it. The woman had only avoided it so far because this method of Traveling seemed to require her to touch her companions to take them with her, and she didn’t want to leave any.
Aviendha met the Shadowsouled’s eyes during that brief moment when she hung in the air, and she saw true terror therein.
The air began to warp.
Aviendha’s spear, point first, sank into Graendal’s side.
In a moment, both of them vanished.
CHAPTER 43
A Field of Glass
Logain stood in the middle of a field of glass, hands clasped behind his back. The battle raged across the Heights. The Sharans appeared to be falling back from the onslaught of Cauthon’s armies, and his scouts had just reported that the Shadow was being hit hard all across the Field of Merrilor.
"I guess they probably won’t need you", Gabrelle said to him as his scouts retreated. "So you were right".
The bond sent dissatisfaction and even disappointment. "I need to look to the future of the Black Tower", Logain said.
"You aren’t looking to its future", she said, soft, almost threatening. "You’re looking to make certain you are a power in these lands, Logain. You cannot hide your emotions from me".
Logain shoved down his anger. He would not be subject to their power again. He would not. First the White Tower, then M’Hael and his men.
Days of torture. Weeks.
I will be stronger than any other, he thought. That was the only way out, wasn’t it? I will be feared.
Light. He’d resisted their attempts to corrupt him, turn him to the Shadow . . . but he couldn’t help wondering if they had broken something else inside of him. Something profound. He leveled his gaze, looking across the field of crystal.
Another rumble came beneath, and some of the crystals shattered. This entire area was going to collapse soon. And with it, the scepter . . .
Power.
"I’m warning you, mainlander", a calm voice said nearby. "I have a message to deliver. If I need see your arm broken to deliver it, I will see it done". That's a Seanchan accent, Logain thought, turning with a frown. A Seanchan woman, accompanied by a large Illianer, was arguing with one of his guards. The woman knew how to make her voice carry without shouting. There was a self-possession to her that Logain found curious.
He walked over, and the Seanchan woman looked up at him. "You have the look of authority about you", she called to him. "You are the one called Logain?"
He nodded.
"The Amyrlin sends you her last words", the Seanchan woman called. "You must deliver the seals up to the White Tower to be broken. The sign is the coming of light! She says it will be known when it arrives".
Logain raised an eyebrow. He nodded to the woman, mostly to put her off, then walked back the other way.
"You don’t intend to do it", Gabrelle said. "You fool. Those seals belong to—"
"To me", Logain said.
"Logain", Gabrelle said softly. "I know you have been hurt. But this is not a time for games".
"Why not? Has the White Tower’s treatment of me been anything other than a great long game?"
"Logain". She touched him on the arm.
Light burn that bond! He wished he’d never forced her to it. Tied to her as he was, he could sense her sincerity. How much easier his life would be if he could continue to regard all Aes Sedai with suspicion.
Sincerity. Would that be his downfall?
"Lord Logain!" Desautel called from nearby. The Asha’man Dedicated was as big as a blacksmith. "Lord Logain, I think I’ve found it!"
Logain broke eye contact with Gabrelle, looking toward Desautel. The Asha’man stood beside a large crystal. "It’s here", Desautel said, wiping the crystal as Logain approached. "See?"
Logain knelt, weaving a globe of light. Yes . . . there, within the crystal. It looked like a hand, made from a slightly different type of crystal, sparkling in his light. That hand held a golden scepter, the top vaguely cup-shaped.
Logain gathered the One Power, smiling broadly. He let saidin flow from him into the crystal, using a weave to shatter it as he would a stone.
The ground trembled. The crystal, whatever it was, resisted. The harder he pushed, the more violent the shaking became.
"Logain . . Gabrelle said.
"Stand back", Logain said. "I think I’ll need to try balefire".
Panic surged through the bond. Fortunately, Gabrelle did not try to tell him what was forbidden and what was not. Asha’man need not obey White Tower law.
"Logain!"
Another voice. Would they not leave him alone? He prepared his weave. "Logain!" Androl was breathing deeply as he arrived. He fell to his knees, face scorched and burned. He looked worse than death itself. "Logain . . . the refugees of Caemlyn . . . The Shadow has sent Trollocs to kill them at the ruins. Light! They’re being murdered".
Logain wove balefire, but held the weave in place, nearly complete as he looked at the crystal and its golden prize.
"Logain . . ". Androl said, pained. "The others with me stayed to fight, but they are too tired. I can’t find Cauthon, and the soldiers I went to are too busy fighting to help. I don’t think any of the commanders know that the Trollocs are up there. Light".
Logain held his weave, feeling the One Power pulse within him. Power. Fear.
"Please", Androl whispered, so soft. "Children, Logain. They’re slaughtering the children . . ".
Logain closed his eyes.
Mat rode with the heroes of the Horn. Apparently, having once been the Hornsounder gave him a special place among them. They joined him, called to him, spoke to him as if they knew him. They looked so, well, heroic, tall in their saddles and surrounded by a mist that glowed against the breaking dawn’s light.
Amid the fighting, he finally asked the question that had been haunting him for a long while now. "I'm not bloody . . . one of you, am I?" he asked Hend the Striker. "You know . . . since heroes are born sometimes, then die and . . . do whatever you do".
The big man laughed, riding a bay horse that could have almost gone shoulder-to-shoulder with a Seanchan boar-horse. "I knew that you would ask this thing, Gambler!"
"Well, then you should bloody well have an answer prepared". Mat felt his face flush as he anticipated the reply.
"No, you are not one of us", Hend said. "Be at ease. Though you have done more than enough to earn a place, you have not been chosen. I do not know why".
"Maybe because I don’t like the idea of having to hop whenever anyone blows on that bloody instrument".
"Maybe!" Hend grinned and galloped toward a line of Sharan spears.
Mat no longer directed troop movements on the battlefield. The Light willing, he had set things up well enough that direct control would not be needed. He rode across the plateau, fighting, yelling, joining the heroes.
Elayne was back, and she had rallied her troops. Mat saw Elayne’s banner glowing above them in the sky, crafted of the One Power, and caught a glimpse of someone who looked like her riding among the soldiers, hair glowing as if lit from behind her. She seemed a bloody hero of the Horn herself.
Mat let out a whoop of joy as he saw the Seanchan army marching north, about to merge with Elayne’s army, and he continued riding along the eastern slope of the Heights. Soon after, he slowed, Pips just having trampled a Trolloc. That rushing sound . . . Mat looked down below as the river returned in a swift crash of muddy water. It broke the Trolloc army into two parts, washing away many of them, as it surged back into its bed.
Snow-haired Rogosh watched the water flow, then nodded to Mat in respect. "Well done, Gambler", he said. The river’s return had divided the Shadow’s forces.
Mat rejoined the battle. He noticed as he galloped across the plateau that the Sharans—what remained of them—were fleeing through gateways. He let them go.
When the Trollocs atop the Heights saw the Sharans fleeing, their resistance cracked, and they panicked. Boxed in and being swept across the plateau by Mat’s combined armies, they had no choice but to flee toward the long slope to the southwest.