The Wheel of Time - Book 14: Page 101

It was about a woman with a secret, a hope for the future. A woman who had hunted the truth before others could. A woman who had given her life, then had it returned. That woman still fought.

It was about a man whose family was taken from him, but who stood tall in his sorrow and protected those he could.

It was about a woman who refused to believe that she could not help, could not Heal those who had been harmed.

It was about a hero who insisted with every breath that he was anything but a hero.

It was about a woman who would not bend her back while she was beaten, and who shone with the Light for all who watched. Including Rand.

It was about them all.

He saw this, over and over, in the Pattern arrayed about him. Rand walked through eons and ages, his hand passing through ribbons of the Pattern’s light.

HERE IS THE TRUTH, SHAI’TAN, Rand said, taking another step forward, arms out, woven Pattern spreading around them. YOU CANNOT WIN UNLESS WE GIVE UP. THAT’S IT, ISN’T IT? THIS FIGHT ISN’T ABOUT A VICTORY IN BATTLE. TAKING ME… IT WAS NEVER ABOUT BEATING ME. IT WAS ABOUT BREAKING ME.

THAT’S WHAT YOU’VE TRIED TO DO WITH ALL OF US. IT’S WHY AT TIMES YOU TRIED TO HAVE US KILLED, WHILE OTHER TIMES YOU DIDN’T SEEM TO CARE. YOU WIN WHEN YOU BREAK US. BUT YOU HAVEN’T. YOU CAN’T.

The darkness trembled. The nothingness shook, as if the arches of the heavens themselves were cracking. The Dark One’s shout was defiant.

Within the void, Rand continued forward, and the darkness trembled.

I CAN STILL KILL, the Dark One bellowed. I CAN STILL TAKE THEM ALL! I AM LORD OF THE GRAVE. THE BATTLE LORD, HE IS MINE. ALL ARE MINE EVENTUALLY!

Rand stepped forward, hand stretched out. In his palm sat the world, and upon that world a continent, and upon that continent a battlefield, and upon that battlefield two bodies on the ground.

Mat fought, Tam at his side with sword out. Karede and the Deathwatch Guard joined them, then Loial and the Ogier. The armies of a dozen nations and peoples fought, many joining him as he rushed across the plateau.

They were outnumbered three to one.

Mat fought, bellowing in the Old Tongue. “For the Light! For honor! For glory! For life itself!”

He slew one Trolloc, then another. Half a dozen in moments, but he felt he was fighting with the surf itself. Wherever he struck down blackness, more took its place. Trollocs moving in the shadows, lit only by the occasional lantern or burning arrow stuck in the ground.

The Trollocs didn’t fight as one. We can break them, Mat thought. We have to break them! This was his chance. Push now, while the Sharans were dazed at Demandred’s fall.

THE SON OF BATTLES. I WILL TAKE HIM. I WILL TAKE THEM ALL, ADVERSARY. AS I TOOK THE KING OF NOTHING.

Blood and bloody ashes! What was that nothingness in his head? Mat beheaded a Trolloc, then wiped his brow, Karede and the Deathwatch Guards covering him for a moment.

Mat could feel the battlefield in the night. There were a lot of Trollocs and Sharans, so many of them.

“There are too many!” Arganda called from nearby. “Light, they’ll overwhelm us! We need to fall back! Cauthon, can you hear me?”

I can do this, Mat thought. I can win this battle. An army could defeat superior numbers, but Mat needed momentum, an opening. A favorable toss of the dice.

Rand stood above the Pattern and looked down at the fallen men in a land where hope seemed to have died. “You have not been watching closely enough. About one thing, you are wrong. So very wrong…”

Cornered and alone, a boy huddled in a cleft in the rock. Horrors with knives and fangs— the Shadow itself made flesh—dug at his hiding place, reaching with nails like knives and ripping his skin.

Terrified, crying, bloodied, the boy raised a golden horn to his lips.

Mat squinted, the battle seeming to dim around him.

So very wrong, Shai’tan, Rand’s voice whispered in Mat’s mind.

Then the voice was no longer in Mat’s mind. It could be heard distinctly by everyone on the battlefield.

That one you have tried to kill many times, Rand said, that one who lost his kingdom, that one from whom you took everything…

Lurching, bloodied from the sword strike to his side, the last king of the Malkieri stumbled to his feet. Lan thrust his hand into the air, holding by its hair the head of Demandred, general of the Shadow’s armies.

That man, Rand shouted. That man still fights!

Mat felt the battlefield grow still. All were frozen in place.

At that moment, there rang out a soft but powerful sound, a clear note, golden; one long tone that encompassed everything. The sound of a horn, pure and beautiful.

Mat had heard that sound once before.

Mellar knelt beside Elayne, pressing the medallion against her head to stop her from channeling. “This could have gone in a very different way, my Queen,” he said. “You should have been more accommodating.”

Light. That leer was an awful thing. He had gagged her, of course, but she did not give him the satisfaction of crying.

She would find a way to escape this. She had to shake free of the medallion. Of course, if she did, there was still the channeler. But if she could evade the medallion, then strike quickly…

“Pity that your little Captain-General isn’t alive to watch,” Mellar said. “Fool that she was, I really do think she believed that she was Birgitte from the legends.” Elayne heard a soft sound in the distance. The ground vibrated. An earthquake.

She tried to concentrate, but she could only think that Birgitte had been right all along. It was fully possible for the babes to be safe, as Min had foretold, while Elayne herself was left dead.

White mist climbed up from the ground around them, like the souls of the dead, curling.

Mellar stiffened, suddenly.

Elayne blinked, looking up at him. Something silvery jutted from the front of Mellar’s chest. It looked like… an arrowhead.

Mellar turned, knife dropping from his fingers. Behind him, Birgitte Silverbow stood over her corpse, one foot to either side of the headless body. She raised a bow, bright as newly polished silver, and released another arrow, which seemed to trail light as it struck Mellar in the head and pitched him to the ground. Her next shot took Mellar’s channeler, killing the Dreadlord with a silver arrow before the man could respond.

All around them, Mellar’s men stood as if paralyzed, gaping at Birgitte. The clothing she now wore seemed to glow. A short white coat, a voluminous pair of pale yellow trousers and a dark cloak. Her long golden hair hung in an intricate braid, down to her waist.

“I am Birgitte Silverbow,” Birgitte announced, as if to dispel doubt. “The Horn of Valere has sounded, calling all to the Last Battle. The heroes have returned!”

Lan Mandragoran held aloft the head of one of the Forsaken—their battle commander, supposedly invincible.

The Shadow’s army could not ignore what had happened, none of them, wherever they were on the battlefield. The voice that had come out of nowhere had proclaimed it. That the attacker should stand while the Chosen lay dead… it stunned them. Frightened them.

And then the Horn sounded in the distance. “Press forward!” Mat yelled. “Press forward!” His army threw themselves ferociously on to the Trollocs and Sharans.

“Cauthon, what was that sound?” Arganda demanded, stumbling up beside Pips. The man still had one arm in a sling and carried a bloodied mace in the other hand. Around Mat, the Deathwatch Guard fought and grunted, cutting down Trollocs.

Mat yelled, throwing himself into the fight. “That was the bloody Horn of Valere! We can still win this night!”

The Horn. How had the bloody Horn been sounded? Well, it looked like Mat wasn’t tied to the thing any longer. His death at Rhuidean must have broken him from it.

Some other unlucky fool could bear that burden now. Mat howled a battlecry, shearing the arm off a Trolloc, then stabbing it through the chest. The Shadow’s

entire army became disoriented at the sound of the Horn. Those Trollocs nearest Lan scrambled back, clawing over one another in desperate urgency to escape him. That left the Trollocs fighting along the slope spread thin, without reserves. And nobody seemed to be in charge.

Myrddraal nearby raised swords against their own Trollocs, trying to get those that were fleeing to turn back and fight, but flaming arrows shot by the Two Rivers archers fell from the sky and riddled the Fades’ bodies.

Tam al’Thor, Mat thought, I’m going to bloody send you my best pair of boots. Light burn me, but I will. “To me!” Mat shouted. “All riders that can hold a flaming weapon, to me!”

Mat kicked Pips into a gallop, shoving his way through Trollocs that were still fighting. Mat’s attack opened the way for Furyk Karede and his few remaining men to punch the hole in the horde of Trollocs wider. Following that, the full force of the remaining Borderlanders poured through after Mat, toward Lan.

The Sharan army showed signs of weakening, but they continued their offensive, their discipline forcing them to do what their hearts were calling them to end. Lan’s victory wouldn’t win the battle outright—there were far too many enemies—but without Demandred, the Shadow had lost direction. Even the Fades were showing the lack of a leader. The Trollocs began to fall back and regroup.

Mat and the Borderlanders galloped southwest across the Heights and came to where Lan was standing. Mat jumped from his horse and grabbed

Lan by the shoulder as the Malkieri king faltered. Lan looked at Mat with grim thanks, and then his eyes rolled back in his head and he started to fall, dropping Demandred’s head to the ground.

A man in a black coat rode over. Mat hadn’t realized that Narishma was still there, fighting alongside the Borderlanders. Mat quickly removed the foxhead as the Arafellin Asha’man threw himself off his horse and took Lan by the arm, then concentrated.

The brief Healing was enough to bring Lan back to consciousness.

“Get him on a horse, Narishma,” Mat said. “You can work on him more when we get back to our army. I don’t want to be stuck behind enemy lines if those Trollocs below decide to come back up the Heights.”

They rode back northeast, laying into the back of the Trollocs’ right flank with swords and lances as they swept past, which unsettled the beasts even more. Once past, the Borderlanders swung their mounts around and charged directly into the Trolloc hordes again, who were looking around in all directions, not sure where the next attack would be coming from. Mat and Narishma continued to ride toward their own back lines, with Lan in tow. Narishma eased the Malkieri off his horse and had him lie on the ground to continue the Healing, while Mat paused to consider their situation.

Behind them, mist gathered. Mat was struck with a terrible thought. He had ignored a terrible possibility. The Horn of Valere still called, a distant—yet unmistakable sound. Oh, Light, Mat thought. Oh, bloody stumps on a battlefield. Who blew it? Which side?

The fog formed, like worms crawling out of the ground after a rainstorm. It gathered into a billowing cloud, a thunderhead on the ground, and shapes on horses charged down it. Figures of legend. Buad of Albhain, as regal as any queen. Amaresu, holding aloft her glowing sword. Hend the Striker, dark-skinned, a hammer in one hand and a spike in the other.

A figure rode through the mists at the front of the heroes. Tall and imperious, with a nose like a beak, Artur Hawkwing carried Justice, his sword, on his shoulder as he rode. Though the rest of the hundred-odd heroes followed Hawkwing, one broke off in a streak of mist, galloping away. Mat didn’t get a good look at the rider. Who had it been, and where was he going so quickly?

Mat pulled his hat on tighter, nudging Pips forward to meet the ancient king. I suppose I’ll know which side summoned him, Mat thought, if he tries to kill me. Mat lifted the ashandarei across his saddle. Could he fight Artur Hawkwing? Light, could anyone beat one of the heroes of the Horn?

“Hello, Hawkwing,” Mat called. “Gambler,” Hawkwing replied. “Do take better care of what has been allotted you. Almost, I worried we would not be summoned for this fight.”

Mat let out a relaxing breath. “Bloody ashes, Hawkwing! You needn’t have drawn it out like that, you bloody goat-kisser. So you fight for us?”

“Of course we fight for the Light,” Hawkwing said. “We would never fight for the Shadow.”

“But I was told—” Mat began.

“You were told wrong,” Hawkwing said.

“Besides,” Hend said, laughing. “If the other side had been able to summon us, you’d be dead by now!”

“I did die,” Mat said, rubbing at the scar on his neck. “Apparently that tree claimed me.”

“Not the tree, Gambler,” Hawkwing said. “Another moment, one that you cannot remember. It is fitting, as Lews Therin did save your life both times.”

“Remember him,” Amaresu snapped. “I have seen you murmur that you fear his madness, but all the while you forget that every breath you breathe—every step you take—comes at his forbearance. Your life is a gift from the Dragon Reborn, Gambler. Twice over.”

Blood and bloody ashes. Even dead women treated him the way Nynaeve did. Where did they learn it? Were there secret lessons?

Hawkwing nodded toward something nearby. Rand’s banner; Dannil still held it aloft. “We arrive here to gather at the banner. We can fight for you because of it, Gambler, and because the Dragon leads you—though he does it from afar. It is enough.”

“Well,” Mat said, looking at the banner, “I guess since you’re here, you can fight the battle now. I’ll pull my men back.”

Hawkwing laughed. “You think we hundred can fight this entire battle?”

“You’re the bloody heroes of the Horn,” Mat said. “That’s what you do, isn’t it?”

“We can be defeated,” said pretty Blaes of Matuchin, dancing her horse to the side of Hawkwing’s. Tuon couldn’t be mad if he looked a little at a hero, right? People were supposed to stare at them. “If we are wounded in dire ways, we will have to withdraw and recover in the World of Dreams.”

“The Shadow knows how to incapacitate us,” Hend added. “Bind us hand and foot, and we can do nothing to aid the battle. It doesn’t matter if one is immortal when one cannot move.”

“We can fight well,” Hawkwing said to Mat. “And we will lend you our strength. This is not our war alone. We are just one part of it.”

“Bloody wonderful,” Mat said. That Horn was still sounding. “Then tell me this. If I didn’t blow that thing, and the Shadow didn’t do it… who did?”

Thick Trolloc nails scored Olver’s arm. He kept blowing the Horn through his tears, eyes squeezed shut, in the small cleft in the rocky outcrop.

I’m sorry, Mat, he thought as a dark-haired hand scrabbled for a hold on the Horn. Another grabbed him by the shoulder, nails digging deeply, making blood pulse down his arm.

The Horn was ripped from his hands.

I’m sorry!

The Trolloc yanked Olver upward.

Then dropped him.

Olver tumbled to the ground, dazed, and then jumped as the Horn fell into his lap. He grabbed it, shaking and blinking away his tears.

Shadows churned above. Grunting. What was happening? Cautiously, Olver raised his head, and found someone standing above, one foot planted on either side of him. The figure fought in a blur, facing down a dozen Trollocs at once, his staff whirling this way and that as he defended the boy.

Olver caught sight of the man’s face, and his breath caught. “Noal?”

Noal clubbed a Trolloc arm, forcing the creature back, then glanced at Olver and smiled. Though Noal still appeared aged, the weariness was gone from his eyes, as if a great burden had been lifted from him. A white horse stood nearby, with a golden saddle and reins, the most magnificent animal that Olver had ever seen.

“Noal, they said you died!” Olver cried.

“I did,” Noal said, then laughed. “The Pattern was not finished with me, son. Sound that Horn!

Sound it proudly, Hornsounder!”

Olver did so, blowing the Horn as Noal fought the Trollocs back in a small circle around Olver. Noal. Noal was one of the heroes of the Horn! The hooves of galloping horses announced others, come to rescue Olver from the Shadowspawn.

Suddenly, Olver felt a deep warmth. He had lost so many people, but one of them… one… had come back for him.

CHAPTER

40

Wolfbrother

Elayne’s captors looked at Birgitte, stunned, and Elayne took the moment to jerk her body sideways. She rolled to her knees; her pregnancy made her awkward, but she was hardly incapable. The medallion that Mellar had been holding against her slipped to the ground, and she found the glow of saidar awaiting her grasp. She filled herself with the Power, and held her belly.

Her children stirred within. Elayne wove flows of Air, knocking her captors backward. Nearby, Elayne’s Guards, having rallied, burst through Mellar’s soldiers. A few stopped when they saw Birgitte.

“Keep fighting, you daughters and sons of goats!” Birgitte yelled, loosing arrows at the mercenaries. “I might be dead, but I’m still your bloody commander, and you will obey orders!”

That spurred them into motion. The rising mist curled upward, fogging the battlefield. It seemed to glow faintly in the darkness. In moments, Elayne’s channeling, Birgitte’s bow, and her Guards’ work sent the remnants of Mellar’s Darkfriend mercenaries running.

Birgitte dropped six of them with arrows as they fled. “Birgitte,” Elayne said through tears. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Birgitte turned to her. “Sorry? Why do you mourn, Elayne? I have it all back! My memory has returned.” She laughed. “It is wonderful! I don’t know how you stood me these last few weeks. I moped worse than a child who’d just broken her favorite bow.”