A Memory of Light

Rand held so much of the One Power that he nearly burst. He would need that strength in the fight to come. For now, he resisted Moridin sword against sword. He wielded Callandor as a physical weapon, fighting as if with a sword made of light itself, parrying Moridin s attacks.

Each step Rand took dripped blood to the ground. Nynaeve and Moiraine clung to stalagmites as if something were battering them, a wind that Rand could not sense.

Nynaeve closed her eyes. Moiraine stared straight ahead as if determined not to look away, no matter the price.

Rand turned aside Moridin’s latest attack, the blades throwing sparks. He had always been the better swordsman of the two, during the Age of Legends.

He had lost his hand, but thanks to Tam, that no longer mattered as it once might have. And he was also wounded. This place . . . this place changed things. Rocks on the ground seemed to move, and he often stumbled. The air grew alternately musty and dry, then humid and moldy. Time slipped around them like a stream. Rand felt as if he could see it. Each blow here took moments, yet hours passed outside.

He scored Moridin across the arm, drawing his blood to spray against the wall.

“My blood and yours,” Rand said. “I have you to thank for this wound in my side, Elan. You thought you were the Dark One, didn’t you? Has he punished you for that?”

“Yes,” Moridin snarled. “He returned me to life.” Moridin came swinging hard in a two-handed blow. Rand stepped backward, catching the blow on Callandor; but he misjudged the slope of the ground. Either that, or the slope changed on him. Rand stumbled, the blow forcing him down on one knee.

Blade against blade. Rand’s leg slipped backward, and brushed the darkness behind, which waited like a pool of ink.

All went black.

The distant Ogier song was comforting to Elayne as she slumped in her saddle atop the hil just north of Cairhien.

The women around her weren’t in any better shape than she was. Elayne had gathered al of the Kinswomen who could hold on to saidar—no matter how weak or tired—and formed two circles with them. She had twelve with her in her own circle, but their collective strength in the Power at the moment was barely more than that of a single Aes Sedai.

Elayne had stopped channeling in an attempt to let the women recover. Most of them slumped in their saddles or sat on the ground. In front of them extended a ragged battle line. Men fought desperately before the Cairhienin hil s, trying to hold against the sea of Trol ocs.

Their victory over the northern Trolloc army had been short-lived, as they now found themselves strung-out, exhausted and in serious danger of being surrounded by the southern one.

“We almost managed,” Arganda said from beside her, shaking his head. “We almost made it.”

He wore a plume in his helmet. It had belonged to Gal enne. Elayne hadn’t been there when the Mayener commander had fallen.

That was the frustrating part. They were close. Despite Bashere’s betrayal, despite the unexpected arrival of the southern force, they had almost pulled it off. If she’d had more time to position her men, if they’d been able to catch more than a moment’s breather between defeating the northern army and then turning to meet this southern one . . .

But that was not the case. Nearby, the proud Ogier fought to protect the dragons, but the Ogier were slowly being overrun. The ancient creatures had begun to collapse, like felled trees, pulled down by Trol ocs. One by one, their songs broke off.

Arganda held a bloodied hand to his side, pale-faced, barely able to speak. She didn’t have the strength to Heal him. “That Warder of yours is a fiend on the battlefield, Your Majesty.

Her arrows fly like light itself. I’d swear .. ” Arganda shook his head. He might never hold a sword again, even if Healed.

He should have been sent with the other wounded . . . somewhere. There wasn’t real y anywhere to take them; the channelers were too exhausted to make gateways.

Her people were fracturing. The Aiel fought in clumps, the White-cloaks nearly surrounded, the Wolf Guard in no better shape. The Legion of the Dragon heavy cavalry stil rode, but Bashere’s betrayal had shaken them.

Now and then, a dragon fired. Aludra had rol ed them back up to the top of the highest hil , but they were out of ammunition, and the channelers didn’t have strength to make gateways to Baerlon to fetch the new dragons’ eggs. Aludra had fired bits of armor until her powder ran low. Now they had only enough for the occasional shot.

The Trollocs would push through her lines soon, fragmenting her army like ravenous lions.

Elayne watched from one of the hil tops, guarded by ten of her Guardswomen. The rest had gone to fight. Trol ocs broke through the Aiel to the east of her position, right near the dragoner hilltop position.

The beasts charged up the hill, killing the few Ogier defenders on that side, roaring their victory as the dragoners pulled out sabers and grimly stood to defend.