Robert Jordan - A Memory of Light

You can’t save them all , Pevara thought sternly to Androl, sensing his spike of anguish. Stay focused on the task at hand.

The three of them moved through the soldiers, angling toward several channelers they could feel ahead. Jonneth, Canler and Theodrin were there, throwing fire at groups of Trollocs. Their position was being overrun.

“Jonneth, Canler, to me,” Androl said, charging past them and opening a gateway in front of him. Pevara and Emarin ducked through after him, finding themselves on the top of the Heights, a few hundred paces away.

Jonneth and the others followed, joining them as the group dashed past a group of startled Trollocs.

“Channeling!” Pevara yelled. Light, but it was hard to run in these skirts. Androl did know that, didn’t he?

Androl opened another gateway for them as a few bursts of flame came from the direction of some Sharans atop the Heights. Pevara ran through, beginning to pant. They appeared on the other side of the Sharans, who were firing at where Pevara had been moments before.

Pevara opened her senses, trying to spot—or feel—their quarry. The Sharans turned on them and pointed, but then cried out as Androl brought an avalanche of snow down on them from a gateway to the side. He had tried making those Deathgates that the other Asha’man used, but the weave was apparently just different enough that he had trouble. Instead, he stuck to what he was good at doing.

Groups of Tower Guards still fought atop the Heights, holding ground against orders. Pieces of the dragons, including the large bronze firing tubes, lay smoldering nearby amid burned corpses. Thousands upon thousands of Trollocs howled, most at the edges of the Heights, loosing arrows on those below. Their joyous roars set Pevara on edge, and she wove Earth and sent the flows toward the ground near a group of them. A large chunk of ground trembled, then split off, dumping two dozen Trollocs over the edge.

“We’re drawing attention again!” Emarin said, setting ablaze a Myrddraal that had been slinking toward them. It thrashed in the flames, screeching in an inhuman voice, refusing to die. Sweating, Pevara lent her Fire to Emarin’s, burning the creature until it was nothing more than bones.

“Well, that’s not all bad!” Androl said. “If we draw enough attention, sooner or later, one of the Black Ajah or one of Taim’s men will decide to confront us.”

Jonneth cursed. “That’s a little like jumping into an anthill and waiting to be bitten!”

“Actually, it’s a lot like that,” Androl said. “Keep watch. I’ll deal with the Trollocs!”

That’s quite a strong assertion, Pevara sent to him.

His answer was warm, like heat off a cooking plate. It sounded heroic.

I assume you could use some added strength?

Yes, please, he sent.

She initiated the link. He drew in her strength, taking control of their circle. As always, linking with him was an overwhelming experience. She felt her own emotions bounce back against him and to her again, and that made her blush. Did he sense how she was starting to regard him?

Foolish as a girl in knee-length skirts, she thought at herself—careful to shield her thoughts from him— barely old enough to know the difference between boys and girls. And in the middle of a war, too.

She found it hard to steel her emotions—as an Aes Sedai should—while linked with Androl. Their selves mixed, like swirling paints poured in the same bowl. She fought against it, determined to maintain her own identity. This was vital when linking, and she had been taught it time and time again.

Androl flung his hand forward at a group of Trollocs that had begun loosing arrows at him. The gateway went up, consuming the arrows. She glanced about, and found them falling on another group of Trollocs.

Gateways opened in the ground, dropping Trollocs through, making them appear hundreds of feet in the air. A tiny gateway split the head off a Myrddraal at the neck, leaving it to thrash about, pumping inky blood on the soil. Androl’s team stood near the western section of the Heights, where the dragons had once been positioned. There were Shadowspawn and Sharans on all sides.

Androl, channeling! She could feel it, rising above them on the Heights. Something powerful.

Taim! Androl’s immediate flare of anger felt as if it would burn her away. In it was the loss of friends, and fury at betrayal by one who should have protected them.

Careful, she sent. We don’t know it’s him.

The one attacking them was in a circle with men and women, otherwise Pevara would not have been able to feel him. Of course, she could only see the weaves of saidar. A thick column of air struck at them, fully a pace wide, the heat of it enough to redden the rocky ground beneath.

Androl put a gateway up in time, barely, catching the column of fire and directing it back the way it had come. Twin streams burned Trolloc corpses and caused weeds and patches of grass to burst alight.

Pevara didn’t see what happened next. Androl’s gateway vanished, as if ripped from him, and an explosion of lightning struck right next to them. Pevara hit the ground in a heap, Androl slamming into her.

In that moment, she let go of herself.

She did it by accident because of the shock of impact. In most cases, the link would have slipped away, but Androl had a powerful grip. The dam holding back Pevara’s self from his own broke, and they mixed. It was like stepping through a mirror, then looking back on herself.

She forcibly pulled herself out again, but with an awareness she couldn’t describe. We need to get out of here, she thought, still linked with Androl. The others all seemed alive, but that would not last long if their enemy brought more lightning. Pevara began the complex weave for a gateway by instinct, though it wouldn’t do anything. Androl was leading their circle, so only he—The gateway snapped open. Pevara gaped. She’d done that, not him. This was among the most complex, most difficult and most power-intensive weaves she knew, but she’d done it as easily as waving her hand. While in a circle someone else was leading.

Theodrin stumbled through first. The lithe Domani woman tugged a stumbling Jonneth after her through the gateway. Emarin followed, limping, one arm hanging uselessly at his side.

Androl regarded the gateway, stunned. “I thought you aren’t supposed to be able to channel if someone else is leading a circle you are in.”

“You aren’t,” she said. “I did it by accident.”

“Accident? But—”

“Through the gateway, you knothead,” Pevara said, shoving him toward it. She followed, then collapsed on the other side.

“Damodred, I need you to stay where you are,” Mat said. He did not look up, but he heard Galad’s horse snort through the open gateway.

“One is led to question your sanity, Cauthon,” Galad replied.

Mat finally looked up from his maps. He was not sure he would ever grow accustomed to these gateways. He stood in their command building, the one Tuon had erected in the cleft at the foot of Dashar Knob, and there was a gateway in his wall. Outside it Galad sat his horse wearing the gold and white of the Children of the Light. He was still positioned near the ruins, where a Trolloc army was trying to push its way across the Mora.

Galad Damodred was a man who could have used a few stiff drinks in him. He could have been a statue, with that pretty face and unchanging expression. No, statues had more life.

“You’ll do as you’re told,” Mat said, looking back to his maps. “You are to hold the river up there and do as Tam tells you. I don’t care if you think your place isn’t important enough.”