A Memory of Light

Rand stepped forward, hand stretched out. In his palm sat the world, and upon that world a continent, and upon that continent a battlefield, and upon that battlefield two bodies on the ground.

Mat fought, Tam at his side with sword out. Karede and the Deathwatch Guard joined them, then Loial and the Ogier. The armies of a dozen nations and peoples fought, many joining him as he rushed across the plateau.

They were outnumbered three to one.

Mat fought, bel owing in the Old Tongue. “For the Light! For honor! For glory! For life itself!"

He slew one Trolloc, then another. Half a dozen in moments, but he felt he was fighting with the surf itself. Wherever he struck down blackness, more took its place. Trollocs moving in the shadows, lit only by the occasional lantern or burning arrow stuck in the ground.

The Trollocs didn’t fight as one. We can break them, Mat thought. We have to break them!

This was his chance. Push now, while the Sharans were dazed at Demandred s fal .

THE SON OF BATTLES. I WILL TAKE HIM. I WILL TAKE THEM ALL, ADVERSARY. AS I TOOK THE

KING OF NOTHING.

Blood and Bloody ashes! What was that nothingness in his head? Mat beheaded a Trol oc, then wiped his brow, Karede and the Deathwatch Guards covering him for a moment.

Mat could feel the battlefield in the night. There were a lot of Trollocs and Sharans, so many of them.

“There are too many!” Arganda called from nearby. “Light, they’ll overwhelm us! We need to fall back! Cauthon, can you hear me?”

I can do this, Mat thought. I can win this battle. An army could defeat superior numbers, but Mat needed momentum, an opening. A favorable toss of the dice.

Rand stood above the Pattern and looked down at the fal en men in a land where hope seemed to have died. “You have not been watching closely enough. About one thing, you are wrong. So very wrong . . .”

Cornered and alone, a boy huddled in a cleft in the rock. Horrors with knives and fangs—the Shadow itself made flesh—dug at his hiding place, reaching with nails like knives and ripping his skin.

Terrified, crying, bloodied, the boy raised a golden horn to his lips.

Mat squinted, the battle seeming to dim around him.

So very wrong, Shai’tan, Rand’s voice whispered in Mat’s mind.

Then the voice was no longer in Mat’s mind. It could be heard distinctly by everyone on the battlefield.

That one you have tried to kil many times, Rand said, that one who lost his kingdom, that one from whom you took everything . . .

Lurching, bloodied from the sword strike to his side, the last king of the Malkieri stumbled to his feet. Lan thrust his hand into the air, holding by its hair the head of Demandred, general of the Shadow s armies.

That man, Rand shouted. That man stil fights!

Mat felt the battlefield grow stil . Al were frozen in place.

At that moment, there rang out a soft but powerful sound, a clear note, golden, one long tone that encompassed everything. The sound of a horn, pure and beautiful.

Mat had heard that sound once before.

Mellar knelt beside Elayne, pressing the medallion against her head to stop her from channeling. This could have gone in a very different way, my Queen,” he said. “You should have been more accommodating.”

Light. That leer was an awful thing. He had gagged her, of course, but she did not give him the satisfaction of crying.

She would find a way to escape this. She had to shake free of the medal ion. Of course, if she did, there was stil the channeler. But if she could evade the medal ion, then strike quickly . . .

Pity that your little Captain-General isn’t alive to watch,” Mellar said. “Fool that she was, I really do think she believed that she was Birgitte from the legends.” Elayne heard a soft sound in the distance. The ground vibrated. An earthquake.

She tried to concentrate, but she could only think that Birgitte had been right all along. It was fully possible for the babes to be safe, as Min had foretold, while Elayne herself was left dead.

White mist climbed up from the ground around them, like the souls of the dead, curling.

Mel ar stiffened, suddenly.

Elayne blinked, looking up at him. Something silvery jutted from the front of Mellar’s chest.

It looked like .. an arrowhead.

Mellar turned, knife dropping from his fingers. Behind him, Birgitte Silverbow stood over her corpse, one foot to either side of the headless body. She raised a bow, bright as newly polished silver, and released another arrow, which seemed to trail light as it struck Mellar in the head and pitched him to the ground. Her next shot took Mel ar’s channeler, kil ing the Dreadlord with a silver arrow before the man could respond.

All around them, Mellar’s men stood as if paralyzed, gaping at Birgitte. The clothing she now wore seemed to glow. A short white coat, a volumi—

nous pair of pale yellow trousers and a dark cloak. Her long golden hair hung in an intricate braid, down to her waist.