"You . . . are an odd one", the Sharan whispered, still held by Egwene’s eyes. So transfixed was she that the woman didn’t notice when the shadow moved up behind her. A shadow that could not have been Gawyn, for he was still distant.
Something smashed into the woman’s head from behind. She crumpled, slumping to the ground. The globe winked out instantly, and Egwene was free. She dropped to a crouch, fingers finding her knife.
A figure moved up to her. Egwene raised her knife and prepared herself to embrace the Source. She would draw attention if she had to. She would not be taken again.
But who was this?
"Hush", the figure said.
Egwene recognized the voice. "Leilwin?"
"Others noticed this woman channeling", Leilwin said. "They will come to see what she was doing. We must move!"
"You saved me", Egwene whispered. "You rescued me".
"I take my oaths seriously", Leilwin said. Then, so softly that Egwene could barely hear it, she added, "Maybe too seriously. Such horrible omens this night . . ".
They moved quickly through the camp for a few moments, until Egwene sensed Gawyn approaching. She couldn’t make him out in the darkness. Finally, she whispered softly, "Gawyn?"
Suddenly, he was there, right next to her. "Egwene? Who did you find?"
Leilwin stiffened, then hissed softly through her teeth. Something seemed to have upset her greatly. Perhaps she was angry at having someone sneak up on her. If that was the case, Egwene shared the emotion. She’d been taking pride in her abilities, and then she’d been blindsided not only by a channeler, but now by Gawyn! Why should a boy raised in the city be able to move so well without her spotting him?
"I didn’t find anyone", Egwene whispered. "Leilwin found me . . . and she pulled me out of a fire".
"Leilwin?" Gawyn said, peering through the darkness. Egwene could feel his surprise, and his suspicion.
"We must keep moving", Leilwin said.
"I will not argue with that", Gawyn replied. "We’re almost out. We’ll want to go a little to the north, though. I left some bodies just to the right".
"Bodies?" Leilwin asked.
"Half a dozen or so Sharans jumped me", Gawyn said.
Half a dozen? Egwene thought. He made it sound as if it were nothing. This was not the place for discussion. She joined the other two, heading out of the camp, Leilwin leading them in a specific direction. Each noise or shout from the camp made Egwene wince, worried that one of the bodies had been found. In fact, she nearly jumped all the way to the storm clouds above when someone spoke from the darkness.
"Do that be you?"
"It is us, Bayle", Leilwin said softly.
"My aged grandmother!" Bayle Domon exclaimed softly, joining them. "You found her? Woman, you do amaze me again". He hesitated. "I do wish you’d have let me come with you".
"My husband", Leilwin whispered, "you are as brave and stout a man as any woman could wish on her crew. But you move with all of the stillness of a bear charging through a river".
He grunted, but joined them as they left the edge of the camp, quietly and carefully. About ten minutes away, Egwene finally trusted herself to embrace the Source. Glorying in it, she made a gateway for them and Skimmed to the White Tower.
Aviendha ran with the rest of the Aiel through gateways. They surged, like floodwaters, into the valley of Thakan’dar. Two waves, rushing down from opposite sides of the valley.
Aviendha did not carry a spear; that was not her place. Instead, she was a spear.
She was joined by two men in black coats, five Wise Ones, the woman Alivia and ten of Rand's sworn Aes Sedai with Warders. None of them save Alivia had responded well to having Aviendha placed above them. The Asha’man did not like having to answer to any woman, the Wise Ones didn’t like being ordered by Rand at all, and the Aes Sedai still thought of Aiel channelers as inferior. They all obeyed the order anyway.
Rand had whispered to her in a quiet moment to watch them all for Darkfriends. Fear did not make him speak those words, but his sense of realism. Shadows could creep anywhere.
There were Trollocs here in the valley and some Myrddraal, but they had not anticipated this attack. The Aiel took advantage of their disarray and commenced a slaughter. Aviendha led her group of channelers toward the forge, that massive gray-roofed building. The Shadow-forgers turned from their inexorable movement, showing just a hint of confusion.
Aviendha wove Fire at one, removing its head from its shoulders. The body turned to stone, then started to crumble.
That seemed a signal to the other channelers, and Shadow-forgers through the valley began to explode. They were said to be terrible warriors when provoked, with skin that turned aside swords. That might just be rumor, as few Aiel had ever actually danced the spears with a Shadow-forger.
Aviendha didn’t particularly want to discover the truth. She let her team end the first group of Shadow-forgers, and tried not to think too hard about the death and destruction these things had caused during their unnatural lives.
The Shadowspawn tried to mount a defense, some of the Myrddraal screaming and whipping at their Trollocs to charge and break the Aiel attack that came at them across a broad front. It would have been easier to stop a river with a handful of twigs. The Aiel didn’t slow, and those Shadowspawn who tried to resist were slain in their tracks, often falling to multiple spears or arrows.
Most of the Trollocs broke and ran, fleeing before the thunder of Aiel yells. Aviendha and her channelers reached the forges and the nearby pens of dirty, lifeless-eyed captives who had been awaiting death.
"Quickly!" Aviendha said to the Warders who accompanied her. The men broke open pens as Aviendha and the others attacked the last of the Shadow-forgers. As they died—falling to stone and dust—they dropped half-finished Thakan’dar blades to the rocks.
Aviendha looked upward to the right. A long serpentine path led up toward the cavern maw in the side of the mountain that loomed above. The hole there was dark. It seemed a trap that tempted light to enter, then never released it.
Aviendha wove Fire and Spirit, then released the weave into the air. A moment later, a gateway opened at the head of the path up to Shayol Ghul. Four figures stepped through. A woman in blue, small of stature but not of will. An aging man, white-haired and shrouded in a multihued cloak. A woman in yellow, her dark hair cut short, adorned with an assortment of gemstones set in gold.
And a tall man, hair the color of living coals. He wore his coat of red and gold, but under it a simple Two Rivers shirt. What he had become and what he had been, wrapped together in one. He carried two swords, like a Shienaran. One looked as if it were glass; he wore it upon his back. The other was the sword of the Treekiller, King Laman, tied at his waist. He carried that because of her. Fool man.
Aviendha raised her hand to him, and he raised his in return. That would be their only farewell if he failed in his task or she died during hers. With a last look, she turned away from him and toward her duty.
Two of her Aes Sedai had linked and created a gateway so that the Warders could usher the captives to safety. Many needed to be prodded into motion. They stumbled forward, eyes nearly as dead as those of the Shadow-forgers.
"Check inside the forge, too", Aviendha said, motioning to a few of the Warders. They charged in, Aes Sedai following. Weaves of the One Power shook the building as they found more Shadow-forgers, and the two Asha’man quickly went in as well.
Aviendha scanned the valley. The battle had become uglier; there were more Shadowspawn at the corridor leading out of the valley. These had been given more time to prepare and form up. Ituralde led his forces in behind the Aiel, securing the sections of the valley already taken.
Patience, Aviendha thought to herself. Her job would not be to join that battle ahead, but to guard Rand’s back as he ascended and entered the Pit of Doom.
She worried about one thing. Couldn’t the Forsaken just Travel directly into the cavern itself? Rand didn’t seem worried about that, but he was also very distracted by what he had to do. Perhaps she should join him and . . .
She frowned, looking up. What was that shadow?
High above, the sun shone in a turbulent sky. Some storm clouds, in patches, some deep black, others brilliant white. It wasn’t a cloud that had suddenly obscured the sun, however, but something solid and black sliding into place.
Aviendha felt a chill and found herself trembling as the light slipped away. Darkness, true darkness, fell.
Soldiers across the field looked up in awe, and even fear. The light went out. The end of the world had come.
Channeling came suddenly from the other end of the wide valley. Aviendha spun, shaking off her awe. The ground nearby was littered with torn garments, dropped weapons and corpses. All of the fighting was at the mouth of the valley, distant from her, where the Aiel were trying to push the Shadowspawn back into the pass.
Though Aviendha couldn’t see much through the darkness, she could tell soldiers were staring at the sky. Even the Trollocs looked awestruck. But then the solid blackness began to move in the sky, revealing first the edge of the sun, and then the sun itself. Light! The end was not upon them.
The battle at the mouth of the valley resumed, but it was obviously difficult. Making the Trollocs retreat through such narrow confines was like trying to shove a horse through a small crack in a wall. Impossible, unless you started doing some carving.
"There!" Aviendha said, pointing toward the side of the valley, behind the Aiel lines. "I sense channeling by a woman".
"Light, but she’s powerful", Nesune breathed.
"Circle!" Aviendha yelled. "Now!"
The others linked, feeding Aviendha control of the circle. Power filled her, unimaginable power. It was as if she drew in a breath, but just kept being able to take in more air, filling, expanding, crackling with energy. She was a thunderstorm, a vast sea of the One Power.
She thrust her hands forward, letting loose a raw weave, only half-formed. This was almost too much power for her to shape. Air and Fire spurted from her hands, a column of it as wide as a man with arms outstretched. The fire flared as a thick, hot near-liquid. Not balefire—she was smarter than that but dangerous nonetheless. The air contained the fire in a concentrated mass of destruction.
The column streaked across the battlefield, melting the stone beneath and starting corpses aflame. A huge swath of fog vanished with a hiss, and the ground shook as the column plowed into the side of the valley wall where the enemy channeler—Aviendha could only assume it was one of the Forsaken, from her strength—had been attacking the back ranks of Aiel.
Aviendha released the weave, her skin slick with sweat. A smoldering black column of smoke rose from the valley wall. Molten rock trickled down the slope. She grew still, waiting, alert. The One Power inside of her actually started to strain, as if trying to escape her. Was that because some of the energy she used came from men? Never before had the One Power seemed to want to destroy her.
She had only a brief warning: a frantic moment of channeling from the other side of the valley, followed by an enormous rush of wind.