A Memory of Light

Karede did not reply, though he did not continue walking away, either. “Look, what are your choices?” Mat asked. “Ride out there and die for really no purpose? Or come try to keep me alive for your Empress? I’m almost certain that she’s fond of me. Maybe. She’s a hard one to read, Tuon is.”


“You do not call her by that name,” Karede said.

“I’ll call her what I bloody well want.”

“Not if we’re to come with you,” Karede said. “If I am to ride with you, Prince of the Ravens, I would not have my men hearing such from your lips. It would be a bad omen.”

“Wel , we wouldn’t want any of those,” Mat said. “Right, then, Karede. Let’s dive back into this mess and see what we can do. In Fortuona’s name.”

Tam raised his sword as if to begin a duel, but found no honorable foes here. Only grunting, howling, ferocious Trollocs. Drawn away from the beleaguered Whitecloaks at this battle near the ruins.

The Trol ocs turned on the Two Rivers men and attacked. Tam, holding the point of the wedge, fell into Reed in Wind. He refused to take a single step backward. He bent this way and that, but held firm as he broke the Trolloc line, slashing with his sword in quick movements.

The men of the Two Rivers pushed forward, a thorn to the Dark One’s foot and a bramble to his hand. In the chaos that fol owed, they shouted and cursed, and fought to drive the Trollocs apart.

But soon their focus turned to holding their ground. The Trol ocs surged around the men.

The wedge formation, normally an offensive tactic, worked well here, too. Trollocs moved down the sides of the wedge, taking hits from the Two Rivers men with their axes, swords and spears.

Tam let the lads’ training guide them. He would have preferred to be in the center of the wedge, calling out encouragement as Dannil now did— but he was one of the few who had any real battle training, and the wedge formation depended on having a point who could hold steady.

So hold steady he did. Calm within the void, he let the Trol ocs break upon him. He moved from Shake Dew from the Branch, to Apple Blossoms in the Wind, to Stones Fall in the Pond—all forms that stabilized him in one position while fighting multiple opponents.

Despite practice over the last few months, Tam wasn’t nearly as strong as he had been in his youth. Fortunately, a reed did not need strength. He was not as practiced as he once had been, but no reed practiced how to bend in the wind.

It simply did.

Years of maturing, years of age, had brought Tam an understanding of the void. He understood it now, better than he ever had. Years teaching Rand responsibility, years of living without Kari, years of listening to the wind blow and the leaves rustle . . .

Tam al’Thor became the void. He brought it to the Trollocs, showed it to them and sent them into its depths.

He danced around a goat-featured Trol oc, sweeping his sword to the side and slicing the beasts leg at the heel. It stumbled and Tam turned, letting the men behind take it. He flashed his sword up—the weapon trailing blood—and sprayed the dark droplets across the eyes of a charging Trolloc with nightmare features. It howled, blinded, and Tam flowed forward, arms out, and opened its stomach below the breastplate. It stumbled in front of a third Trol oc, who brought an axe down toward Tam, but hit its al y instead.

Each step was part of a dance, and Tam invited the Trollocs to join him. He had only fought like this once before, long ago, but memory was something that the void did not allow. He did not think of other times; he did not think of anything. If he knew that he’d done this once before, it was because of the resonance of his motions, an understanding that seemed to permeate his muscles themselves.

Tam stabbed the neck of a Trolloc with a face that was nearly human, with only a little too much hair on its cheeks. It fel backward and col apsed, and Tam suddenly found no more foes. He stopped, bringing his sword up, feeling a soft wind blow across him. The dark beasts were thundering away downriver in a rout, chased by horsemen flying Borderlander flags. Shortly they would hit a wall of troops, the Legion of the Dragon, and be crushed between them and the pursuing Borderlanders.

Tam cleaned his blade, leaving the void. The gravity of the situation hit him. Light! His men should be dead. If those Borderlanders hadn’t arrived . . .

He placed his sword back into its lacquered sheath. The red and gold dragon caught sunlight, sparkling, though Tam wouldn’t have thought there was anything to catch with that cloud cover above. He searched for the sun, and found it—behind the clouds—nearly at the horizon. It was almost night!

Fortunately, it looked like the Trollocs here at the battle by the ruins were finally breaking.

Already weakened severely by the drawn-out river crossing, they now crumbled as Lan’s men hit them from behind.

In a short time it was done. Tam had held.

Nearby, a black horse trotted up. Its rider, Lan Mandragoran—with standard-bearer and guards behind—looked over the Two Rivers men.