Текст книги "A Memory of Light"

Автор книги: Robert Jordan

Соавторы: Brandon Sanderson
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Текущая страница: 34 (всего у книги 71 страниц)

All across her army, men looked up, raising fingers as they were swallowed by darkness. Light! It was hard to keep from trembling.

She heard cries through the army. Lamentations, worries, cries of despair. Elayne gathered her confidence and kicked her horse forward.

“This is the place,” she announced, enhancing her voice with the One Power to project across the field, “where I promise you we will win. This is where I tell you that days will continue, that the land will recover. This is the time when I promise you that the light will return, that hope will survive, that we will continue to live.”

She paused. Behind the army, people lined the top of Cairhien’s city walls: children, women, and the elderly who were armed with kitchen knives and pots to throw down, should the Trollocs destroy the army and come for the city. There had barely been time to contact them; a skeleton force of soldiers guarded the city. Now, their distant figures huddled down as darkness ate the sky.

Those walls offered a false safety; they meant little when the enemy had Dreadlords. She needed to defeat the Trolloc army quickly, not hide and allow them to be reinforced by the larger force to the south.

“I am supposed to reassure you,” Elayne shouted to the men. “But I cannot! I will not tell you that the land will survive, that the Light will prevail. Doing so would remove responsibility.

“This is our duty! Our blood that will be spilled this day. We have come here to fight. If we do not, then the land will die! The Light will fall to the Shadow. This is not a day for empty promises. Our blood! Our blood is the fire within us. Today, our blood must drive us to defeat the Shadow.”

She turned her horse. The men had looked away from the darkness above, toward her. She wove a light, high in the sky above her, drawing their attention.

“Our blood is our passion,” she shouted. “Too much of what I hear from my armies is about resistance. We cannot merely resist! We must show them our anger, our fury, at what they have done. We must not resist. Today, we must destroy.

“Our blood is our land. This place is ours, and we claim it! For our fathers and mothers, for our children.

“Our blood is our life. We have come to give it. Across the world, other armies are pushed back. We will not retreat. Our task is to spend our blood, to die advancing. We will not remain still, no!

“If we are to have the Light again, we must make it ours! We must reclaim it and cast out the Shadow! He seeks to make you despair, to win this battle before it begins. We will not give him that satisfaction! We will destroy this army before us, then destroy the one behind. And from there, we bring our blood—our life, our fire, our passion—to the others who fight. From there it spreads to victory and the Light!”

She honestly didn’t know what kind of response to expect from a battlefield speech. She’d read all of the great ones, particularly those given by queens of Andor. When younger, she’d imagined the soldiers clapping and shouting—the response given to a gleeman at a rowdy tavern.

Instead, the men raised weapons to her. Drawn swords, pikes lifted, then thumped back against the ground. The Aiel did give some whoops, but the Andorans looked at her with solemn eyes. She had not inspired them to excitement, but to determination. That seemed the more honest emotion. They ignored the darkness in the sky and turned eyes on the goal.

Birgitte walked up beside her horse. “That was quite good, Elayne. When did you change it?”

Elayne blushed, thinking of the carefully prepared speech she’d memorized last night while repeating it half a dozen times to Birgitte. It had been a work of beauty, with allusions to the sayings of queens through the ages.

She’d forgotten every word of it once that darkness had come. This one had spurted out instead.

“Come on,” Elayne said, looking over her shoulder. The Trolloc army was arriving opposite hers. “I need to move into position.”

“Into position?” Birgitte asked. “You mean that you need to go back to the command tent.”

“I’m not going there,” Elayne said, turning Moonshadow.

“Blood and bloody ashes, you aren’t! I—”

“Birgitte,” Elayne snapped. “I am in command, and you are my soldier. You will obey.”

Birgitte recoiled as if slapped.

“Bashere has the command tent,” Elayne said. “I’m one of the few channelers of any strength this army has, and I’ll be drawn and quartered before I let myself sit out the fight. I’m easily worth a thousand soldiers on this battlefield.”

“The babes—”

“Even if Min hadn’t had that viewing, I’d still insist on fighting. You think the babes of these soldiers aren’t at risk? Many of them line the walls of that city! If we fail here, they will be slaughtered. No, I will not keep myself out of danger, and no, I will not sit back and wait. If you think it’s your duty as my Warder to stop me, then I will bloody sever this bond right here and now and send you to someone else! I’m not going to spend the Last Battle lounging on a chaise and drinking goat’s milk!”

Birgitte fell silent, and Elayne could feel her shock through the bond. “Light,” the woman finally said. “I won’t stop you. But will you at least agree to back away for the initial arrow volleys? You can do more good helping the lines where they’re weakened.”

She allowed Birgitte and her guards to lead the way back to a hillside near Aludra’s dragons. Talmanes, Aludra and their crews waited with more anxiety and eagerness than the regular troops. They were tired, too, but they’d also seen little use during the forest battles and the retreat. Today was their chance to shine.

Bashere’s battle plan was as complex as any that Elayne had been a part of. The bulk of the army positioned itself almost a mile north of the city, beyond the Foregate ruins outside the city walls. The army’s lines ran east from the Alguenya, across a hillside that sloped down across an approach road to the Jangai Gates on the flats, all the way to the ruins of the Illuminators’ chapter house.

Ranks of foot soldiers—mostly Andorans and Cairhienin, but some Ghealdanin and Whitecloaks as well—bowed out like a half-moon across the front of Elayne’s forces. Six squadrons of dragons rolled up atop the hill behind the foot.

The Trollocs would not reach the city without defeating this army. Estean had the Band’s cavalry on one flank while the Mayener Winged Guards covered the other. The rest of the cavalry was held in reserve.

Elayne waited with patience, watching the Trolloc army prepare. Her biggest worry was that they’d just sit there, waiting for their fellow Trollocs to arrive from the south and attack Elayne simultaneously. Fortunately, that didn’t happen—they had apparently been commanded to take the city, and they were planning to do it.

Bashere’s scout reports indicated that the second army was a little over a day’s march away, and could arrive late on the morrow if they marched hard. Elayne had until then to defeat this northern force.

Come on, Elayne thought. Move.

The Trollocs finally began to surge forward. Bashere and Elayne were counting on them to employ their usual tactic: Overwhelming numbers and sheer force. Indeed, today, the Trollocs crashed forward in a large mass. Their goal would be to overwhelm the defenders, shattering their lines.

Her troops stood firm, knowing what was coming next. The dragons began to bellow, each like innumerable hammers falling at exactly the same moment. Elayne was now a good hundred paces from them, and still she had the urge to cover her ears. Rolling clouds of white smoke began to fill the sky above the dragons as they fired.

The first few shots fell short, but Aludra and her men used the shots to adjust range. After that, the eggs fell among Trollocs, ripping through their ranks, tossing them into the air. Thousands of body parts fell to the crimson-splattered ground. For the first time, Elayne was frightened of the weapons.

Light, Birgitte has been right all along, Elayne thought, imagining what it would be like to charge a fortified position equipped with dragons. Normally, in war, at least a man could depend on one thing: that his skill would be placed against that of his foe. Sword against sword. Trollocs were bad enough. What would it be like for men to have to face this kind of power?

We’ll make sure it doesn’t happen, she told herself. Rand had been right to force that peace upon them.

The dragoners had trained well, and their reloading speeds were impressive. Each set off three volleys before the Trollocs hit the front lines. Elayne hadn’t watched the exchange of arrows—she’d been too focused on the dragons—but she did see that some of her lines were struck with black-fletched arrows, and men were down and bleeding.

The Trollocs crashed into her front ranks of crossbowmen and pikemen, who were already fading back to make way for halberdiers. Nobody used swords and maces against Trollocs, at least not while on foot, if they could help it.

“Let’s go,” Elayne said, moving Moonshadow forward.

Birgitte followed; Elayne could sense the woman’s reluctant resignation. They moved down off the hill through some reserve units and entered the battle.

Rodel Ituralde had almost forgotten what it was like to have adequate resources at his command.

It had been some time since he had commanded legions of men and full banners of archers. For once, his men weren’t half-starved, and Healers, fletchers and good smiths stood ready to repair his troops and equipment nightly. What a wonder it was to be able to ask for something—no matter how unusual—and have it located and brought to him, often within the hour!

He was still going to lose. He faced a numberless host of foes, Dreadlords by the dozen and even some of the Forsaken. He’d brought his force into this dead-end valley, seizing the jewel of the Dark One’s lands—his very footstool, the black mountain. And now the sun itself had gone out, though the Aes Sedai said that would pass.

Ituralde puffed on his pipe as he rode his horse along the ridge that edged the valley to the north. Yes, he was going to lose. But with these resources, he’d do it with style.

He followed along the ridge, reaching a point above the pass into Thakan’dar. The valley, deep in the heart of the Blasted Lands, ran east to west, with Shayol Ghul at the western side and the pass on the east. One could reach this vantage only after hours of very hard climbing—or one quick step through a gateway. Handy, that. It was perfect for surveying his defenses.

The pass into Shayol Ghul was like a large slot canyon, the top completely inaccessible from the eastern side except by gateway. With a gateway, he could reach the top and look down into the canyon, which was perhaps wide enough to march fifty men down shoulder-to-shoulder. A perfect bottleneck. And he could position archers up top here, to fire down on those coming through the pass.

The sun finally burned out from behind the blackness above, like a drop of molten steel. So the Aes Sedai had been right. Still, those swirling black thunderheads spun back, as if to consume all the sky.

Since Shayol Ghul lay in the Blasted Lands, the air was chill enough that Ituralde wore a woolen winter cloak and his breath was white in front of him. Fog hung over the valley, thinner than it had been when the forges worked.

He left the canyon mouth and moved back to a group of people that had come with him. Windfinders and other high-ranking Sea Folk stood in long coats that they had—hawkishly, of course—traded for before coming north. Colorful clothing peeked out beneath. It, and the many ornaments on their faces, seemed a strange contrast to the dull brown coats.

Ituralde was Domani. He’d had more than a share of dealings with the Sea Folk; if they proved half as tenacious in battle as they were in negotiations, he was happy indeed to have them with him. They had insisted on coming up here to the ridge so they could survey the valley below and the pass into it.

The woman at their front was the Mistress of the Ships herself, Zaida din Parede Blackwing. A short woman, she had dark skin, and gray strands wove through her short black hair. “The Windfinders send word to you, Rodel Ituralde,” she said. “The attack has begun.”

“The attack?”

“The Bringer of Gales,” Zaida said, looking toward the sky, where the dark clouds rumbled and churned. “The Father of Storms. He would destroy you with the force of his ire.”

“Your people can handle it, right?”

“The Windfinders already confront him with the power of the Bowl of the Winds,” Zaida said. “If it were not so, he would have destroyed us all with tempests already.”

She still watched the sky, as did many of her companions. There were only about a hundred Sea Folk with him, not counting the Windfinders. Most of the rest worked with the supply teams, relaying arrows, food and other equipment to the four battlefronts. They seemed particularly interested in the steamwagons, though Ituralde couldn’t fathom why. The devices couldn’t match a good team of horses. “Confronting the Dark One himself, gust for gust,” Zaida said. “We will sing of this day.” She looked back to Ituralde. “You must protect the Coramoor,” she said sternly, as if scolding him.

“I’ll do my part,” Ituralde said, continuing on his way. “Just do yours.”

“This bargain was sealed long ago, Rodel Ituralde,” she called after him.

He nodded, continuing back along the ridge. Men stationed at watch-posts saluted as he passed. Well, the ones that weren’t Aiel. He had a lot of the Aiel up here, where they could use their bows. He’d put the bulk of his Tairens down below, where those pikes and polearms would be of maximum use. They would hold the path into Shayol Ghul.

A distant Aiel horn blew; a signal from one of the scouts. The Trollocs had entered the pass. It was time.

He galloped back along the ridge toward the valley, trailed by other commanders and King Alsalam. When they reached the point where he had set up his primary watchpost, a vantage from which he could see miles back into the pass, Ituralde took out his looking glass.

Shadows moved there. In moments, he could make out the Trolloc hordes charging forward, whipped to a frenzy. For a moment, he was back in Maradon, watching his men—good men—fall one by one. Overrun at the hill fortifications, pulled down in the streets of the city. The explosion on the wall.

Desperate act after desperate act. Killing as many as he could, like a screaming man clubbing wolves as they tore him to pieces, hoping to take at least one with him into the final darkness.

His hand, holding the looking glass, quivered. He forced himself back to the present and his current defenses. It felt as if he’d been fighting losing battles his entire life. That took a toll. At night, he would hear Trollocs coming. Snorting, sniffing the air, hooves on the cobbles. Flashbacks from Maradon.

“Steady, old friend,” King Alsalam said, riding up beside him. The King had a soothing voice. He’d always been able to calm others. Ituralde was certain the merchants of Arad Doman had chosen him for that reason. Tensions could run high when trade and war were concerned—the Domani looked at the two as much the same beast. But Alsalam . . . he could calm a frantic merchant who had just lost her entire fleet at sea.

Ituralde nodded. The defense of this valley. He had to keep his mind on the defense of this valley. He’d hold, not let the Trollocs boil out of the pass into Thakan’dar. Burn him, he’d hold for months if the Dragon Reborn needed it. Every other fight—every battle man had fought, and was fighting—would be meaningless if Ituralde lost here. It was time to pull out every trick he knew, every last-ditch strategy. Here, one moment of delay could earn Rand al’Thor the time he needed.

“Remind the men to remain steady below,” Ituralde said, surveying through his glass. “Prepare the logs.”

Attendants relayed the orders, which went through gateway to the squads involved. That terrible force of Trollocs continued onward, clutching enormous swords, twisted polearms, or catchpoles to pull down riders. They clamored through the pass, lightning streaking between clouds above.

First the logs, Ituralde thought.

As the Trollocs reached the middle of the pass, the Aiel on both sides untied piles of oiled tree trunks—there were so many dead trees in forests now that Ituralde had had no trouble fetching them through gateways—and lit them aflame.

Hundreds of burning logs rolled down the sides of the pass, crashing into the Trollocs. The oiled logs set flesh alight. The beasts yelled, howled and screeched depending on the orifice they’d been given. Ituralde raised his looking glass and watched them, feeling an intense satisfaction.

That was new. In the past, he’d never been satisfied to see his foes die. Oh, he’d been pleased when a plan worked. And, in truth, the point of fighting was to see the other fellow dead and your men alive—but there had been no joy in that. The longer you fought, the more you saw the enemy as being like yourself. The banners changed, but the rank and file were much the same. They wanted to win, but usually they were more interested in a good meal, a blanket to sleep on and boots without holes in them.

This was different. Ituralde wanted to see those beasts dead. He lusted after it. Without them, he’d never have been forced to suffer the nightmare at Maradon. Without them, his hand wouldn’t shake when the horns of war sounded. They’d ruined him.

He’d ruin them in return.

The Trollocs pushed through the jumble of logs with great difficulty. Many of them had been set alight, and the Myrddraal had to whip them to keep them moving. Many seemed to want to eat the flesh of the fallen. The rank scent of it made them hungry. Cooked bodies. To them, it was like the aroma of fresh bread.

The Fades succeeded in driving them on, but the Trollocs soon reached the next of Ituralde’s defenses. Figuring out what to do had been a trick. You couldn’t plant spikes or dig ditches in that solid rock, not without running your channelers to exhaustion. He could have made piles of rock or earth, but Trollocs were big, and mounds that would slow men were less effective against them. Beyond that, moving so much earth and stone would have meant diverting workers from building real fortifications in the valley. He’d learned early that in a defensive war, you wanted the fortifications to grow progressively better. You lasted longer that way, as you kept the enemy from gaining momentum.

In the end, the solution had been simple. Brambles.

He’d remembered huge thickets of them, dry and dead, back in Arad Doman. Ituralde’s father had been a farmer, and had always complained about the thorn thickets. Well, if there was one thing mankind was not lacking, it was dead plants. Another was manpower. Thousands had flocked to the Dragon’s call, and many of these Dragonsworn had little battle experience.

He’d still set them fighting when that time came. For now, however, he’d sent them to cut down enormous thornbushes. They’d placed these across the pass, lashed together, in masses twenty feet thick and eight feet tall. The thorn bales had been relatively easy to place—far lighter than stones or dirt—yet amassed as they were, the Trollocs couldn’t move them simply by pushing. The first ranks ran up against them and tried, but were rewarded with five-inch thorns biting into them. The creatures in the rear pressed forward, causing the front ranks to turn in anger and rise up against those behind.

This left the bulk of the Trolloc forces frozen in the pass, at his mercy.

He didn’t have much mercy for Shadowspawn.

Ituralde gave the signal, and the Asha’man with him—Awlsten, one of those who had served under him at Maradon—shot a bright burst of red light into the sky. Along the sides above the pass, more Aiel came out and began to roll boulders and more burning logs down upon the trapped Shadowspawn. Arrows and stones followed—anything they could shoot, throw or drop onto those below.

Most of these attacks from Ituralde’s men happened farther down the pass, in the middle of the bulk of Trollocs. That caused half to pull back and shy away, while the others pushed forward to get away—shoving their allies in front into the brambles.

Some Trollocs carried shields, and tried to protect themselves against the deadly hail. Wherever they formed together defensively and began to make a shield wall above themselves, Ituralde’s channelers struck, tearing them apart.

He couldn’t spare many channelers for the work—most were back in the valley, making gateways to move supplies and watching for enemy channelers. They’d already had a second run-in with Dreadlords. Aviendha and Cadsuane Sedai had those operations in hand.

Some of the Trollocs shot arrows at the defenders above, but casualties mounted as the Shadowspawn at the front tried to hack their way through the abatis of thorns. It was slow going.

Ituralde watched, cold inside and out, as the Myrddraal whipped the Trollocs into a stampede. That shoved the ones working on the thorns forward, impaling them, trampling them.

Blood became a stream running back down toward the eastern end of the pass, making the Trollocs slip. They pushed the front five or six lines, breaking the thorns on the bodies of the beasts there.

It still took them the better part of an hour to break through. They left thousands dead as they surged forward, then found a second abatis, thicker and higher than the first. Ituralde had placed seven at intervals in the pass. The second was the largest, and it had the desired effect. Seeing it made the Trollocs at the front pull up short. Then they turned and broke backward.

Mass confusion resulted. Trollocs behind cried and shouted, pressing forward. Those in front snarled and howled as they tried to cut through the brambles. Some stood dazed. All the while arrows and rocks and burning logs continued to fall.

“Beautiful,” Alsalam whispered.

Ituralde found that his arm was no longer quivering. He lowered his looking glass. “Let’s go.”

“The battle is not through!” the King protested.

“It is,” Ituralde said, turning away. “For now.”

True to his word, the entire Trolloc army broke behind him—he could hear it happening—and fled eastward down the pass, away from the valley.

One day held, Ituralde thought. They would be back on the morrow, and then they would be ready. More shields, better weapons at the front for cutting thorns.

They’d still bleed. Bleed dearly.

He’d make certain of it.