A Memory of Light

The Horn must reach Matrim Cauthon . . .

Olver grabbed the Horn, and found that he was weeping. “Im sorry,” he said to Bela. “You were a good horse. You ran like Wind couldn’t have. I’m sorry.” She whinnied softly and drew a final breath, then died.

He left her and ran beneath the legs of the first Trolloc that arrived. Olver couldn’t fight them. He knew he couldn’t. He didn’t unsheathe the knife. He just ran up the steep slope, trying to reach the top from where he had seen Mat’s flag fal .

It might as well have been a continent away. A Trolloc grabbed at his clothing, pulling him down, but Olver ripped free, leaving cloth in its thick nails. He scrambled over broken ground, and with desperation, spotted a little cleft in a rocky outcrop at the base of the slope. The shallow crack looked up at the black sky.

He threw himself toward it, then wiggled in, clinging to the Horn. He barely fit. Trollocs milled around above him, then began to reach in for him, tearing at his clothing.

Olver whimpered and closed his eyes.

Logain hurled himself through the gateway, weaves already forming before him as he struck at Demandred.

The man stood on the smoldering slope that looked over the dried river and toward the failing Andoran pike formations. The Aiel, Cairhienin and Legion of the Dragon fought there as well, and all were in danger of being surrounded.

The pikes were al but shattered, now. It would soon be a rout.

Logain launched twin columns of fire toward Demandred, but Sharans threw themselves in the way, interfering with his attack. Flesh burned away, bones charring to dust. Their deaths gave Demandred time to spin about and lash out with a weave of Water and Air. Logain’s burst of fire hit that and turned to steam, then boiled away.

Logain had hoped that after so much channeling, Demandred would be weakened. Not so. A complex weave formed in front of the man, a weave such as Logain had never seen. It made a field that rippled in the air, and when Logain next attacked, his weave bounced free like a stick thrown against a brick wall.

Logain leaped to the side, rolling as lightning struck from the sky. Shards of rock pelted him as he wove Spirit, Fire and Earth, slicing at the strange wall. He ripped it down, then lobbed broken bits of stone from the ground to intercept fire from Demandred.

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 stil -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 saangreal 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.