A Memory of Light

Besides, their Warders can still fight.” Arganda nodded. Nearby, a gateway opened, and two beleaguered-looking Asha’man stumbled out. Naeff and Neald bore scorch marks on their skins, and Naeff’s Aes Sedai was not with them.

“Well?” Mat asked the three.

“It is done,” Neald said with a growl.

“What of Tuon?”

“They found the spy, apparently,” Naeff said. “The Empress is waiting to return on your mark.”

Mat breathed in, tasting the battlefield air, feeling the rhythm of the fighting he had set up.

He didn’t know if he could win, even with Tuon. Not with Elayne’s army in disarray, not with the Aes Sedai weakened to the point of being unable to channel. Not without Egwene, her Two Rivers stubbornness, her iron backbone. Not without a miracle.

“Send for her, Naeff,” Mat said. He called for paper and a pen, and scribbled a note, which he handed off to the Asha’man. He shoved aside the selfish desire to let Tuon fly to safety.

Bloody ashes, there was no safety, not anywhere. “Give this to the Empress, Naeff; tel her these instructions must be fol owed exactly.”

Then Mat turned to Neald. “I want you to go to Talmanes,” he said. “Have him move forward with the plan.”

The two channelers left, off to deliver their messages.

“Will it be enough?” Arganda asked.

“No,” Mat said.

“Then why?”

“Because I’ll be a Darkfriend before I’ll let this battle go without trying everything, Arganda.”

“Lews Therin!” Demandred boomed. “Come face me! I know you watch this battle! Join it!

Fight!”

“I sure am growing tired of that man,” Mat said.

“Cauthon, look, those Trollocs have regrouped,” Arganda said. “I think they are about to attack.”

“Then this is it; lets form up,” Mat said. “Where is Lan; has he come back yet? I’d hate to do this without him.”

Mat turned, scanning the lines for him, as Arganda shouted orders. His attention was drawn back suddenly as Arganda grabbed his arm, pointing toward the Trollocs. Mat felt a chill as he saw in the light of bonfires a lone horseman on a black stallion charge into the right flank of the Trol oc horde, making for the eastern slope of the Heights. Toward Demandred. Lan had gone to fight a war on his own.

The Trollocs ripped at Olver’s arm in the night, reaching into the crack, trying to pry him free.

Others dug at the sides, and soil streamed in onto him, sticking to the tears on his cheeks and the blood flowing from his scratches.

He couldn’t stop shaking. He also couldn’t make himself move. He trembled, terrified, as the beasts pried at him with filthy fingers, digging closer and closer.

Loial sat on a stump, resting before the battle picked up again.

A charge. Yes, that would be a good way for this to end. Loial felt sore all over. He had read a great deal about battle, and had been in fights before, so he had known what to expect.

But knowing a thing and experiencing it were completely different; that was why he’d left the stedding in the first place.

After more than a day of nonstop fighting, his limbs burned with a deep, inner fatigue.

When he raised his axe, the head felt so heavy he wondered why it didn’t break the shaft.

War. He could have lived his life without experiencing this. It was so much more than the frantic battle at the Two Rivers had been. There, at least, they’d had time to remove the dead and care for their wounded. There, it had been a matter of standing firm and holding against waves of attacks.

Here, there was no time to wait, no time to think. Erith sat down on the ground beside his stump, and he put a hand on her shoulder. She closed her eyes and leaned against him. She was beautiful, with perfect ears and wonderful eyebrows. Loial did not look at the bloodstains on her clothing; he feared some of it was hers. He rubbed her shoulder with fingers so tired he could barely feel them.

Loial had taken some notes on the battlefield, for himself and for others, to keep track of how the battle had gone so far. Yes, a final attack. That would make for a good ending to the story, once he wrote it.

He pretended that he would still write the story. There was no harm to such a little lie.

One rider burst from the ranks of their soldiers, galloping toward the Trolloc right flank. Mat would not be happy about that. One man, alone, would die. Loial was surprised that he could feel sorrow for that man’s life lost, after al of the death he had seen.

That man looks familiar, Loial thought. Yes, it was the horse. He’d seen that horse before, many times. Lan, he thought, numb. Lan is the one riding out alone.

Loial stood.

Erith looked up at him as he shouldered his axe.

“Wait,” Loial said to her. “Fight alongside the others. I must go.”

“Go?”

“I need to witness this,” Loial said. The fall of the last king of the Malkieri. He would need to include it in his book.

“Prepare to charge!” Arganda yelled. “Men, form up! Archers at the front, cavalry next, foot soldiers prepare to come up behind!”