Robert Jordan - A Memory of Light

The battle opened to him, and he saw tactics, ten steps ahead of what was occurring. It was like reading the future, like what Min saw, only with flesh, blood, swords and battle drums.

Mat grunted. “Huh. Gareth Bryne is a Darkfriend.”

“He what?” Min sputtered.

“This battle is one step away from being doomed,” Mat said, turning to Tuon. “I need absolute control of our armies right now. No more arguing with Galgan. Min, I need you to send to Egwene and warn her that Bryne is trying to lose this battle. Tuon, she’ll need to go in person. I doubt Egwene will listen to anyone else.”

Everyone looked at Mat with stunned expressions—everyone but Tuon, who gave him one of those soul-shaking stares of hers. The ones that had him feeling as if he were a mouse who had just been caught in an otherwise immaculately clean room. That made him sweat more than the battle had.

Come on, he thought. There isn’t time. He could see it now, like a grand game of stones. Bryne’s movements were complex and subtle, but the end result would be the destruction of Egwene’s army.

Mat could stop it. But he had to act now.

“It is done,” Tuon said.

The comment provoked almost as much surprise as Mat’s announcement. Captain-General Galgan looked as if he would rather swallow his own boots than have Mat in command. Min found herself being led away by a group of servants and soldiers, and she gave a squawk of annoyance.

Tuon moved her horse nearer to Mat’s. “I am told,” she said softly, “that in the battle moments ago, you not only claimed a marath’damane for yourself, but also raised one of our officers to the low Blood.”

“I did ?” Mat asked, baffled. “I don’t remember that.”

“You dropped your nail at his feet.”

“Oh. That . . . All right, maybe I did that. Accidentally. And the channeler . . . bloody ashes, Tuon. I didn’t mean for her to . . . I guess. Well, you can have her.”

“No,” Tuon said. “It is well for you to have taken one of your own. You cannot train her, of course, but there are many sul’dam who will be eager for the chance. It is very rare that a man captures a damane personally on the battlefield, very rare indeed. Though I know of your particular advantage, others do not. This will greatly increase your reputation.”

Mat shrugged. What else could he do? Maybe, if the damane belonged to him, he could let her free or something.

“I will have the officer you raised transferred to be your personal retainer,” Tuon said. “He has a good record, perhaps too good. He had been assigned that duty at the ford because he was considered . . . potentially part of a faction who would have moved against us. He is now spouting your praises. I do not know what you did to change his opinion. You seem to have a particular skill at that.”

“Let’s just hope I have as much skill for retrieving a victory,” Mat grumbled. “This is bad, Tuon.”

“Nobody else thinks so.” She said the words carefully, not arguing with him, really. Stating a fact.

“I’m right, anyway. I wish I wasn’t, but I am. I bloody am.”

“If you are not, I will lose influence.”

“You’ll be fine,” Mat said, leading the way back toward the Seanchan camp a few miles north at a brisk pace. “I may lead you wrong now and then, but in the end, you can be sure that I’m always a safe bet.”

Perrin and Gaul did another dismayed round of Egwene’s camp—at least, the little of it that reflected in the wolf dream. Her army had been pushed far to the east, and the tents had not been placed long enough at the river to reflect strongly in the wolf dream.

The wolves had spotted Graendal here, but Perrin had not been able to catch her at whatever she was doing.

Three times now, Slayer had tried attacking the Bore, and the wolves had warned Perrin. Each time, Slayer had withdrawn before Perrin arrived. The man was testing them. It was the way of the predator, surveying the herd, searching for the weak.

At least Perrin’s plan with the wolves had worked. Time progressed slowly in the Bore, and so Slayer—by necessity—was slowed down as he tried to reach Rand. That gave Perrin a chance to reach him in time.

“We need to warn the others about Graendal,” Perrin said, stopping in the center of camp. “She must be communicating with Darkfriends in our camps.”

“Perhaps we could go to those at the Bore? You managed to speak to Nynaeve Sedai.”

“Maybe,” Perrin said. “I don’t know if it would be good to distract Nynaeve again, considering what she is up to.” Perrin turned about, looking at the bedrolls that flickered, then vanished in the wolf dream. He and Gaul had checked at Merrilor for a gateway, but none was there currently. If he wanted to go back to the waking world, he’d need to camp there and wait for hours. It seemed like such a waste.

If only he could figure out how to shift back to the real world himself. Lanfear implied that he might be able to learn the trick, but his only clue in how to do so lay in Slayer. Perrin tried remembering the moment when the man had shifted out. Had Perrin sensed anything? A hint to how Slayer did what he did?

He shook his head. He’d gone over and over that, and had come to no conclusions. With a sigh, he quested out for the wolves. Any sign of Heartseeker? he asked hopefully.

The wolves sent amusement. He had been asking them too frequently.

Have you seen any camps of two-legs, then? Perrin sent.

This earned a vague response. Wolves paid attention to men only to avoid them; in the wolf dream, that didn’t matter much. Still, where men congregated, nightmares sometimes ran wild, so the wolves had learned to keep their distance.

He would have liked to know how the other battles were progressing. What of Elayne’s army, Perrin’s men, Lord and Lady Bashere? Perrin led Gaul away; they ran with quick strides, rather than jumping to a place immediately. Perrin wanted to think.

The longer he remained in the wolf dream in the flesh, the more he felt that he should know how to shift back. His body seemed to understand that this place was not natural for it. He hadn’t slept here, despite . . . how long had it been? He could not say. They were almost at the end of their rations, though he felt as though he and Gaul had been here only a handful of hours. Part of that sensation was caused by frequent approaches to the Bore to check on the dreamspike, but it was generally so easy to lose track of time here.

There was also an ache of fatigue inside him, growing stronger. He didn’t know if he could sleep in this place. His body wanted rest, but had forgotten how to find it. It reminded him a little of when Moiraine had dispelled their fatigue while fleeing the Two Rivers all that time ago. Two years now.

A very long two years.

Perrin and Gaul inspected Lan’s camp next. It was even more ephemeral than Egwene’s; using the wolf dream for surveillance here was pointless. Lan moved with lots of cavalry, retreating at speed. He and his men did not remain in one place long enough to reflect in the wolf dream except in the most fleeting of ways.

There were no signs of Graendal. “ Aan’allein is retreating too” Gaul guessed, surveying the rocky ground that they thought was Lan’s camp. There were no tents here, just the occasional fleeting appearance of sleeping rings marked by a pole at the center where horsemen would hobble their animals.

Gaul looked up, scanning the landscape to the west. “If they keep falling back from here, they will eventually reach the Field of Merrilor again. Perhaps that is the goal.”