Текст книги "A Memory of Light"

Автор книги: Robert Jordan

Соавторы: Brandon Sanderson
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Текущая страница: 60 (всего у книги 71 страниц)

A diversion, Logain thought, realizing that Demandred had woven something else, more complex, behind the fire. A gateway opened and shot across the ground, opening to a maw of redness. Logain threw himself to the side as the Deathgate passed, but it left a trail of burning lava.

Demandred's next attack was a jet of air that hurled Logain backward, toward that lava. Logain desperately wove Water to cool the lava. He hit shoulder-first, passing a burst of steam that scalded his skin, but he had cooled the lava enough that it formed a crust atop the still-molten flow beneath. Holding his breath against the steam, he hurled himself to the side as another series of lightning bolts pulverized the ground where he had been.

Those bolts shattered the crust he’d made, reaching into the molten rock. Drops of lava splashed across Logain, searing his skin, burning pocks in his arm and face. He screamed and wove through his rage to send lightning down on his foe.

A slice of Spirit, Earth and Fire cut his weaves from the air. Demandred was just so strong. That sa’angreal was incredible.

The next flash of lightning blinded Logain, throwing him backward. He hit a patch of broken shale, the points of the rock biting into his skin.

“You are powerful,” Demandred said. Logain could barely hear the words. His ears . . . the thunder . . . “But you are not Lews Therin.”

Logain growled, weaving through his tears, hurling lightning at Demandred. He wove twice, and though Demandred cut one bolt from the air, the other struck true.

But . . . what was that weave? It was another that Logain did not recognize. The lightning hit Demandred, but vanished, somehow sent down into the ground and dissipated. Such a simple weave of Air and Earth, but it rendered the lightning useless.

A shield rammed between Logain and the Source. Through his wounded eyes, he watched the weave for balefire begin in Demandred's hands. Snarling, Logain grabbed a piece of shale from the ground beside him, the size of his fist, and hurled it at Demandred.

Surprisingly, the stone hit, ripping skin, causing Demandred to stumble back. The Forsaken was powerful, but he could still make the mistakes of common men. Never focus all of your attention on the One Power, despite what Taim had always said. In that moment of distraction, the shield between Logain and the Source vanished.

Logain rolled to the side, beginning two weaves. One, a shield of his own that he did not intend to use. The other, a desperate, final gateway. The coward’s choice.

Demandred growled, raising a hand to his face and lashing out with the Power. He chose to destroy the shield, immediately recognizing it as the greater risk. The gateway opened, and Logain rolled through, letting it snap closed. He collapsed on the other side, his flesh scalded, his arms flayed, his ears ringing, his sight almost gone.

He forced himself to sit up, back in the Asha’man camp below the bogs where Gabrelle and the others awaited his return. He howled in anger. Gabrelle’s concern radiated through the bond. Real concern. He hadn't imagined it. Light.

“Quiet,” she said, kneeling beside him. “You fool. What have you done to yourself?”

“I have failed,” he said. Distantly, he felt the strikes of Demandred’s power begin again as he continued bellowing for Lews Therin. “Heal me.”

“You’re not going to try that again, are you?” she said. “I don’t want to Heal you only to let you—”

“I won’t try again,” Logain said, voice ragged. The pain was horrible, but it paled compared to the humiliation of defeat. “I won’t, Gabrelle. Stop doubting my word. He’s too strong.”

“Some of these burns are bad, Logain. These holes in your skin, I don’t know if I can Heal them completely. You will be scarred.”

“That is fine,” he growled. That would be where the lava had splashed on his arm and the side of his face.

Light, he thought. How are we going to deal with that monster?

Gabrelle put her hands on him and Healing weaves poured into his body.

The thunder of Egwene’s battle with M’Hael rivaled that of the crashing clouds above. M’Hael. A new Forsaken, his name proclaimed by his Dreadlords across the battlefield.

Egwene wove without thought, hurling weave after weave toward the renegade Asha’man. She had not called upon the wind, but still it rushed and roared about her, whipping her hair and her dress, catching her stole and flipping it about. Narishma and Merise huddled with Leilwin on the ground beside her, Narishma’s voice—barely audible above the battle—calling out weaves as M’Hael crafted them.

Following her advance, Egwene stood upon the top of the Heights, on even ground with M’Hael. She knew, somewhere deep, that her body would need rest soon.

For now, that was an unaffordable luxury. For now, only the fight mattered.

Fire flared toward her, and she slapped it aside with Air. The sparks caught in the wind, swirling about her in a spray of light as she wove Earth. She sent a ripple through the already-broken ground, trying to knock M’Hael down, but he split the wave with a weave of his own.

He’s slowing, she thought.

Egwene stepped forward, swollen with power. She began two weaves, one above each hand, and spouted fire at him.

He responded with a bar of pure whiteness, wire-thin, which missed her by less than a handspan. The balefire left an afterimage in Egwene’s eyes, and the ground groaned beneath them as the air warped. Those spiderwebs sprang out across the ground, fractures into nothingness.

“Fool!” she yelled at him. “You will destroy the Pattern itself!” Already, their clash threatened that. This wind was not natural, this sizzling air. Those cracks in the ground spread from M’Hael, widening.

“He’s weaving it again!” Narishma cried, voice caught in the tempest.

M’Hael released this second weave of balefire, fracturing the ground, but Egwene was ready. She sidestepped, her anger building. Balefire. She needed to counter it!

They don’t care what they ruin. They are here to destroy. That is their master’s call. Break. Burn down. Kill.

Gawyn . . .

She screamed in fury, weaving column after column of fire, one after another. Narishma shouted what M’Hael was doing, but Egwene couldn’t hear for the rush of sound in her ears. She saw soon, anyway, that he had constructed a barrier of Air and Fire to deflect her attacks.

Egwene strode forward, sending repeated strikes at him. That gave him no time to recover, no time to attack. She stopped the rhythm only to form a shield that she held at the ready. A spray of fire off his barrier made him stumble back, his weave cracking, and he raised his hand, perhaps to attempt balefire again.

Egwene slammed the shield between him and the Source. It didn’t quite cut him off, for he held it back by force of will. They were near enough now that she could see his incredulity, his anger. He fought back, but was weaker than she. Egwene pushed, bringing that shield closer and closer to the invisible thread that connected him to the One Power. She forced it with all her strength . . .

M’Hael, straining, released a small stream of balefire upward, through the gap where the shield had not yet fallen into place. The balefire destroyed the weave—as it did the air, and indeed, the Pattern itself.

Egwene stumbled back as M’Hael directed the weave toward her, but the white-hot bar was too small, too weak, to reach her. It faded away before hitting. M’Hael snarled, then vanished, warping the air in a form of Traveling Egwene did not know.

Egwene breathed deeply, holding her hand to her chest. Light! She had almost been obliterated from the Pattern.

He disappeared without forming a gateway! The True Power, she thought. The only explanation. She knew next to nothing about it—it was the Dark One’s very essence, the lure that had coaxed channelers in the Age of Legends to drill the Bore in the first place.

Balefire. Light. I was almost dead. Worse than dead.

She had no way to counter balefire.

It’s only a weave . . . Only a weave. Perrin’s words.

The moment was past now, and M’Hael had fled. She would have to keep Narishma close to warn her if someone started channeling nearby.

Unless M’Hael uses the True Power again. Would another man be able to sense that being channeled?

“Mother!”

Egwene turned as Merise gestured toward where most of the Aes Sedai and Asha’man were still engaged in a resounding battle with the Sharan forces. Many sisters in colorful dresses lay dead across the hillside.

Gawyn’s death haunted her thoughts like an assassin in black. Egwene set her jaw and stoked her anger, drawing in the One Power as she launched herself at the Sharans.

Hurin, his nostrils stuffed with cloth, fought on Polov Heights with the other Borderlanders.

Even through the cloth, he smelled the war. So much violence, the scents of blood, of rotting flesh all around him. They coated the ground, his sword, his own clothing. He had already been ill, violently, several times during the battle.

Still he fought. He threw himself aside as a bear-snouted Trolloc crawled over the bodies and swung down at him. The beasts sword made the ground shake, and Hurin cried out.

The beast laughed an inhuman laugh, taking Hurin’s cry to indicate fear. It lunged, so Hurin scuttled forward and under its reach, then opened up its stomach as he ran past. The creature stumbled to a stop, watching at its own reeking innards pour out.

Have to buy time for Lord Rand, Hurin thought, backing away and waiting for the next Trolloc to come over the bodies. They were coming up the eastern side of the Heights, the river side. This steep slope was hard for them to climb, but Light, there were so many of them.

Keep fighting, keep fighting.

Lord Rand had come to him, making apologies. To him! Well, Hurin would do him proud. The Dragon Reborn did not need the forgiveness of a little thief-taker, but Hurin still felt as if the world had righted itself Lord Rand was Lord Rand again. Lord Rand would preserve them, if they could give him enough time.

There was a lull in the action. He frowned. The beasts had seemed endless. Surely they hadn’t all fallen. He stepped cautiously forward, looking over the corpses and down the slope.

No, no they weren’t defeated. The sea of beasts seemed near-endless still. He could see them by the light of fires below. The Trollocs had paused their climb because they needed to move corpses out of their way on the slope, many of whom had been cut down by Tam’s archers. Below them, at the riverbed, the greater army of Trollocs fought Elayne’s army.

“We should have a few minutes,” Lan Mandragoran said to the soldiers from where he sat on horseback. Queen Alliandre rode nearby as well, talking calmly with her men. Two monarchs within sight. Surely they knew how to exercise command. That made Hurin feel better.

“They’re preparing for a final charge,” Lan said, “a push to force us away from the slope so they can fight us up here on even ground. Rest while they clear bodies. Peace favor your swords, friends. The next assault will be the worst one.” The next assault would be the worst one? Light!

Behind them on the middle of the plateau, the rest of Mat’s army continued pressing the Sharan army, trying to push them back to the southwest. If he could do that, and force them down the slope into the Trollocs fighting Elayne’s forces, it could create a right mess that Mat could take advantage of. But for the moment, the Sharans were not giving an inch of ground; in fact, they were pushing back Mat’s army, which was beginning to founder.

Hurin lay back, listening to the moans all around, the distant shouts and ringing of weapons hitting metal, sniffing the stink of violence hanging around him in an ocean of stenches.

The worst still to come.

Light help them . . .

Berelain used a rag to wipe the blood from her hands as she strode into the feast hall of her palace. The tables had been chopped apart for firewood to stoke the enormous hearths at either end of the long room; in place of the furniture lay rows upon rows of wounded.

The doors from the kitchens burst open and a group of Tinkers entered, some carrying litters and others helping wounded men limp into the room. Light! Berelain thought. More? The palace was stuffed to bursting with the wounded.

“No, no!” she said, stalking forward. “Not in here. The back hallway. We're going to have to start putting them there. Rosil! We have new wounded.”

The Tinkers turned toward the hallway, speaking in comforting tones to the wounded men. Only those who could be saved were brought back. She had been forced to instruct the leaders among the Tuatha’an women as to which types of wounds took too much effort to Heal. Better to save ten men with bad wounds than to expend the same energy trying to rescue one man who clung to life by a single blade of hope.

That moment of explanation had been one of the grimmest things she’d ever done.

The Tinkers continued moving in a line, and Berelain watched the wounded for glimpses of white clothing. There were Whitecloaks among them, but not the one she sought.

So many . . . she thought again. The Tinkers had no help moving the wounded. Every able-bodied man in the palace, and most women, had gone to the battlefield to fight or help the Caemlyn refugees gather arrows.

Rosil bustled up, her clothing stained with blood that she ignored. She immediately took charge of the wounded, eyeing them for any who needed immediate attention. Unfortunately, the doors to the kitchen burst open at that moment, and a group of bloodied Andorans and Aiel stumbled through, sent by the Kinswomen from another area of the battlefield.

What followed was near madness as Berelain chivvied out everyone she had—grooms, the elderly, some children as young as five—to help settle the newcomers. Only the worst of the Aiel came through; they had a tendency to remain on the battlefield as long as they could hold a weapon. That meant many who came to her were beyond help. She had to settle them in space she couldn’t afford and watch them heave bloody gasps as they died.

“This is foolish!” she said, standing up. Her hands were wet with blood again, and she hadn’t a clean rag left. Light! “We need to send more help. You.” She pointed to an Aiel who had been blinded. He sat with his back to the wall, a bandage around his eyes. “You, the blind Aiel.”

“I am called Ronja.”

“Well, Ronja. I have some gai’shain here helping me. By my count, there should be a lot more of them. Where are they?”

“They wait until the battle is through so that they may minister to the victors.”

“We're going to fetch them,” she said. “We need every person we can get to help fight.”

“They may come to you here, Berelain Paendrag, and help with tending the sick,” the man said. “But they will not fight. It is not their place.”

“They will see reason,” she said firmly. “It’s the Last Battle!”

“You may be clan chief here,” the Aiel said, smiling, “but you are not Car’a’carn. Even he could not command the gai’shain to disobey ji’e’toh.”

“Then who could?”

That seemed to surprise the man. “No one. It is not possible.”

“And the Wise Ones?”

“They would not,” he said. “Never.”

“We shall see,” Berelain said.

The man smiled deeper. “I should think that no man or woman would wish to suffer your wrath, Berelain Paendrag. But if I had my eyes restored, I would put them out again before I watched gai’shain fight.”

“They don’t need to fight, then,” Berelain said. “Perhaps they can help carry the wounded. Rosil, you have this group?”

The tired woman nodded. There wasn’t an Aes Sedai in the palace who didn’t look like she’d sooner fall over than take another step. Berelain kept her feet by using some herbs she did not think Rosil would approve.

Well, she could do no more here. She might as well check on the wounded in the storage rooms. They had—

“My Lady First?” a voice asked. It was Kitan, one of the palace maids who had remained behind to help with the wounded. The slight woman took her arm. “There is something you need to see.”

Berelain sighed, but nodded. What disaster awaited her now? Another bubble of evil, locking away groups of wounded behind walls that hadn’t been there before? Had they run out of bandages again? She doubted there was a sheet, drapery or piece of smallclothes in the city that hadn’t already been made into a bandage.

The girl led her up the steps to Berelain’s own quarters where a few of the casualties were being nursed. She stepped into one of the rooms, and was surprised to find a familiar face waiting for her. Annoura sat at a bedside, wearing red slashed with gray, her customary braids pulled back and tied in an unflattering way. Berelain almost didn’t recognize her.

Annoura rose at Berelain’s entrance, bowing, though she looked about ready to fall over with fatigue.

In the bed lay Galad Damodred.

Berelain gasped, rushing to his side. It was him, though he bore a vicious wound to his face. He still breathed, but he was unconscious. Berelain lifted his arm to take his hand in hers, but found that the arm ended in a stump. One of the surgeons had already cauterized it to keep him from bleeding to death.

“How?” Berelain asked, clutching his other hand, closing her eyes. His hand felt warm. When she had heard what Demandred bellowed, defeating the man in white . . .

“I felt that I owed it to you,” Annoura said. “I located him on the battlefield after Demandred announced what he had done. I pulled him away while Demandred fought against one of the Black Tower’s men.” She sat back down on the stool beside the bed, then leaned forward, drooping. “I could not Heal him, Berelain. It was all I could do to make the gateway to bring him here. I’m sorry.”

“It is all right,” Berelain said. “Kitan, fetch one of the other sisters. Annoura, you will feel better once you have rested. Thank you.”

Annoura nodded. She closed her eyes, and Berelain was shocked to see tears at the edges of her eyes.

“What is it?” Berelain asked. “Annoura, what is wrong?”

“It should not concern you, Berelain,” she said, rising. “All are taught it, you see. Do not channel if you are too tired. There can be complications. I needed a gateway back to the palace, though. To bring him to safety, to restore . . .”

Annoura collapsed from her stool. Berelain dropped to her side, propping up her head. Only then did she realize that it wasn’t the braids that had made Annoura look so different. The face was wrong, too. Changed. No longer ageless, but instead youthful.

“Oh, Light, Annoura,” Berelain said. “You’ve burned yourself out, haven’t you?”

The woman had lapsed into unconsciousness. Berelain’s heart lurched. The woman and she had had differences recently, but Annoura had been her confidante—and friend—for years before that. The poor woman. The way Aes Sedai spoke, this was considered to be worse than death.

Berelain lifted the woman onto the room’s couch and then covered her with a blanket. Berelain felt so powerless. Maybe . . . maybe she can be Healed somehow . . .

She went back to Galad’s side to hold his hand for a time longer, righting the stool and sitting upon it. Just a little rest. She closed her eyes. He lived. It came at a terrible cost, but he lived.

She was shocked when he spoke. “How?”

She opened her eyes to find him looking at her.

“How am I here?” he asked softly.

“Annoura,” she said. “She found you on the battlefield.”

“My wounds?”

“Other Healers will come when they can be spared,” she said. “Your hand . . .” She steeled herself. “Your hand is lost, but we can wash away that cut to your face.”

“No,” he whispered. “It is only . . . a little cut. Save the Healing for those who would die without it.” He seemed so tired. Barely awake.

She bit her lip, but nodded. “Of course.” She hesitated. “The battle fares poorly, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“So now . . . we simply hope?”

He slipped his hand from hers and reached under his shirt. When an Aes Sedai arrived, they would have to undress him and care for his wounds. Only the stump had been tended to so far, as it was the worst.

Galad sighed, then trembled, his hand slipping away from his shirt. Had he been intending to remove it?

“Hope . . .” he whispered, then fell unconscious.

Rand wept.

He huddled in the darkness, the Pattern spinning before him, woven from the threads of the lives of men. So many of those threads ended.

So many.

He should have been able to protect them. Why couldn’t he? Against his will, the names began to replay in his mind. The names of those who had died for him, starting with only women, but now expanded to each and every person he should have been able to save—but hadn’t.

As humankind fought at Merrilor and Shayol Ghul, Rand was forced to watch the deaths. He could not turn away.

The Dark One chose then to attack him in force. The pressure came again, striving to crush Rand into nothing. He couldn’t move. Every bit of his essence, his determination and his strength focused on keeping the Dark One from ripping him apart.

He could only watch as they died.

Rand watched Davram Bashere die in a charge, followed quickly by his wife. Rand cried out at the fall of his friend. He wept for Davram Bashere.

Dear, faithful Hurin fell to a Trolloc attack as it struck for the top of the Heights where Mat made his stand. Rand wept for Hurin. The man with so much faith in him, the man who would have followed him anywhere.

Jori Congar lay buried beneath a Trolloc body, whimpering for help until he bled to death. Rand wept for Jori as his thread finally vanished.

Enaila, who had decided to forsake Far Dareis Mai and had laid a bridal wreath at the foot of the siswai’aman Leiran, speared through the gut by four Trollocs. Rand wept for her.

Karldin Manfor, who had followed him for so long and had been at Dumai’s Wells, died when his strength for channeling gave out and he dropped to the ground in exhaustion. Sharans fell upon him and stabbed him with their black daggers. His Aes Sedai, Beldeine, stumbled and fell moments later. Rand wept for them both.

He wept for Gareth Bryne and Siuan. He wept for Gawyn.

So many. So very many.

YOU ARE LOSING.

Rand huddled down further. What could he do? His dream of stopping the Dark One . . . he would create a nightmare if he did that. His own intentions betrayed him.

GIVE IN, ADVERSARY. WHY KEEP FIGHTING? STOP FIGHTING AND REST.

He was tempted. Oh, how he was tempted. Light. What would Nynaeve think? He could see her, fighting to save Alanna. How ashamed would she and Moiraine be if they knew that in that moment, Rand wanted to just let go?

Pain washed across him, and he screamed again.

“Please, let it end!”

IT CAN.

Rand huddled down, writhing, trembling. But still, their screams assaulted him. Death upon death. He held on, barely. “No,” he whispered.

VERY WELL, the Dark One said. I HAVE ONE MORE THING TO SHOW YOU. ONE MORE PROMISE OF WHAT CAN BE . . .

The Dark One spun threads of possibility one last time.

All became darkness.

Taim lashed out with the One Power, thrashing Mishraile with weaves of Air. “Go back, then, you fool! Fight! We will not lose that position!”

The Dreadlord ducked back, gathering his two companions and slinking away to do as ordered. Taim smoldered, then shattered a nearby stone with a surge of power. That Aes Sedai ridgecat! How dare she best him?

“M’Hael,” a calm voice said.

Taim . . . M’Hael. He had to think of himself as M’Hael. He crossed the hillside toward the voice that had called to him. He had taken a gateway to safety, panicked, across the Heights, and he was now at the edge of the southeastern slope of the Heights. Demandred used this location to monitor the battle below and to send destruction down into the formations of Andorans, Cairhienin and Aiel.

Demandred’s Trollocs controlled the entire corridor between the Heights and bogs, and were wearing down the defenders at the dry river. It was only a matter of time. Meanwhile, the Sharan army fought northeast of here on the Heights. It concerned him that Cauthon had arrived so quickly to stop the advance of the Sharans. No matter. That was a move of desperation for the man. He wouldn’t be able to stand up against the Sharan army. But the most important thing right now was destroying those Aes Sedai on the other side of the Heights. That was key to winning this battle.

M’Hael passed between suspicious Sharans with their strange dress and tattoos. Demandred sat, cross-legged, at their center. His eyes closed, he breathed in and out slowly. That sa’angreal he used . . . it took something out of him, something more than just the normal strength required for channeling.

Would that provide M’Hael with an opening? How it galled to continue to put himself beneath another. Yes, he had learned much from this man, but now Demandred was obviously unfit to lead. He coddled these Sharans, and he wasted energy on his vendetta with al’Thor. The weakness of another was M’Hael’s potential opening.

“I hear that you are failing, M’Hael,” Demandred said.

Before them, across the dry riverbed, the Andoran defenses were finally starting to buckle. Trollocs were always testing to find weak points in their lines, and they were breaking through pike formations in various areas all up and down the river. The Legions heavy cavalry and the Cairhienin light were in constant motion now, making sweeps of desperation against Trollocs as they broke through the Andoran defenses. The Aiel were still holding them back down near the bogs, and the Legion’s crossbowmen combined with Andoran pike were still keeping the Trollocs from sweeping around their right flank. But the pressure of the Trolloc onslaught was relentless, and Elayne’s lines were gradually bowing out, moving deeper into Shienaran territory.

“M’Hael?” Demandred said, opening his eyes. Ancient eyes. M’Hael refused to feel intimidated, looking into them. He would not be intimidated! “Tell me how you failed.”

“The Aes Sedai witch,” M’Hael spat. “She has a sa’angreal of great power. I almost had her, but the True Power failed me.”

“You are given only a trickle for a reason,” Demandred said, closing his eyes again. “It is unpredictable for one unaccustomed to its ways.”

M’Hael said nothing. He would practice with the True Power; he would learn its secrets. The other Forsaken were old and slow. New blood would soon rule.

With a relaxed sense of inevitability, Demandred stood. He gave off the impression of a massive boulder shifting its position. “You will return and kill her, M’Hael. I have slain her Warder. She should be easy meat.”

“The sa’angreal . . .”

Demandred held out his scepter, with the golden goblet affixed atop it. Was this a test? Such power. M’Hael had felt the strength radiating from Demandred as he used it.

“You say she has a sa’angreal,” Demandred said. “With this, you will have one as well. I grant you Sakarnen to take from you any excuse for failure. Succeed or die in this, M’Hael. Prove yourself worthy to stand among the Chosen.”

M’Hael licked his lips. “And if the Dragon Reborn finally comes to you?”

Demandred laughed. “You think I would use this to fight him? What would that prove? Our strengths must be matched if I am to show myself the better. By all accounts, he cannot use Callandor safely, and he foolishly destroyed the Choedan Kal. He will come, and when he does, I will face him unaided and prove myself the true master of this realm.”

Darkness within . . . Taim thought. He’s gone completely mad, hasn’t he? Strange to look into those eyes, which seemed so lucid, and hear complete insanity from his lips. When Demandred had first come to M’Hael, offering him the chance to serve the Great Lord, the man had not been like this. Arrogant, yes. All of the Chosen were arrogant. Demandred's determination to kill al’Thor personally had burned like a fire within him.

But this . . . this was something different. Living in Shara had changed him. Weakened him, certainly. Now this. What man would willingly give such a powerful artifact to a rival?

Only a fool, M’Hael thought, reaching for the sa’angreal. Killing you will be like putting down a horse with three broken legs, Demandred. Pity. I had hoped to vanquish you as a rival.

Demandred turned away, and M’Hael pulled the One Power through Sakarnen, drinking gluttonously of its bounty. The sweetness of saidin saturated him, a raging torrent of succulent Power. He was immense while holding this! He could do anything. Level mountains, destroy armies, all on his own!

M’Hael itched to pull out flows, to weave them together and destroy this man.

“Take care,” Demandred said. His voice sounded pathetic, weak. The squeaking of a mouse. “Do not channel through that toward me. I have bonded Sakarnen to me. If you try to use it against me, it will burn you from the Pattern.”

Did Demandred lie? Could a sa’angreal be attuned to a specific person? He did not know. He considered, then lowered Sakarnen, bitter despite the power surging through him.

“I am not a fool, M’Hael,” Demandred said dryly. “I will not hand you the noose in which to hang me. Go and do as you are told. You are my servant in this thing, the hand that holds my axe to chop down the tree. Destroy the Amyrlin; use balefire. We have been commanded, and in this, we will obey. The world must be unraveled before we reweave it to our vision.”

M’Hael snarled at the man, but did as he was told, weaving a gateway. He would destroy that Aes Sedai witch. Then . . . then he would decide how to deal with Demandred.

Elayne watched in frustration as her pike formations were pushed back. That Birgitte had managed to convince her to remove herself from the immediate area of combat—a Trolloc breakthrough could come at any moment—did not sit well with her.

Elayne had retreated almost to the ruins, out of direct danger for the moment. A double ring of Guards surrounded her, most of them sitting and eating—gaining what little strength they could during the moments between fights.

Elayne did not fly her banner, but she sent messengers to let her commanders know that she still lived. Though she had tried to guide her troops against the Trollocs, her efforts had not been enough. Her forces were clearly weakening.