A Memory of Light

“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 al 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 al of the stil ness 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 Rands 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 al obeyed the order anyway.

Rand had whispered to her in a quiet moment to watch them al 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 val ey 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.