Robert Jordan - A Memory of Light

At least he’s making it easy to find him, Galad thought as he rode, watching the lines of fire streak from the enemy position toward Elayne’s army.

Galad’s heels dug into the flanks of his stolen horse, tearing across the Heights toward its eastern edge. Over and over, he saw Gawyn’s dying body in his arms.

“Face me, Lews Therin!” The thunder of Demandred’s shout shook the ground from up ahead. He had taken Galad’s brother. Now the monster hunted Galad’s sister.

The right thing had always seemed clear to Galad before, but never had it felt as right as this. Those streaks of light were like indicators on a map, arrows pointing his way. The Light itself guided him. It had prepared him, placed him here at this moment.

He ripped through the back lines of the Sharan force to where Demandred stood, just above the riverbed looking down on Elayne’s troops. Arrows sank into the earth around him, archers firing, heedless of the risk of hitting their own men. Sword out, Galad pulled his leg from the stirrup, preparing to leap free.

An arrow struck the horse. Galad threw himself from the animal. He hit hard, skidding to a stop, and sliced the hand from a crossbowman nearby. A growling male channeler came for him, and the foxhead medallion grew cold against Galad’s chest.

Galad rammed his blade through the man’s neck. The man raved, blood spurting from his neck with each beat of his heart. He didn’t seem surprised as he died, just angry. His howls drew more attention.

“Demandred!” Galad yelled. “Demandred, you call for the Dragon Reborn! You demand to fight him! He is not here, but his brother is! Will you stand against me?”

Dozens of crossbows were raised. Behind Galad, his horse collapsed, expelling a bloody froth from its nostrils.

Rand al’Thor. His brother. The shock of Gawyn’s death had numbed Galad to this revelation. He would have to deal with it eventually, if he survived. He still did not know if he would be proud or ashamed.

A figure in strange, coin-link armor stepped through the Sharan ranks here. Demandred was a proud man; one needed see only his face to know that. He looked like al’Thor, actually. They had a similar sense about them.

Demandred inspected Galad, who stood with bloody sword out. The dying channeler scraped the ground with clawed fingers before him.

“His brother?” Demandred said.

“Son of Tigraine,” Galad said, “who became a Maiden of the Spear. Who gave birth to my brother on Dragonmount, the tomb of Lews Therin. I had two brothers. You killed the other on this battlefield.”

“You have an interesting artifact, I see,” Demandred said as the medallion grew cold again. “Surely you don’t think that is going to keep you from meeting the same fate as your pathetic brother? The dead one, I mean.”

“Do we fight, son of Shadows? Or do we talk?”

Demandred unsheathed his sword, herons on the blade and hilt. “May you give me a better match than your brother, little man. I grow displeased. Lews Therin can hate me or rail against me, but he should not ignore me.”

Galad stepped forward into the ring of crossbowmen and channelers. If he won, he would still die. But Light, let him take one of the Forsaken with him. It would be a fitting end.

Demandred came at him, and the contest began.

Her back pressed against a stalagmite, seeing only by the light of Callandor reflected against the walls of the cavern, Nynaeve worked to save Alanna’s life.

There were those who, in the White Tower, had mocked her reliance on ordinary healing techniques. What could two hands and thread do that the One Power could not?

If any of those women had been here instead of Nynaeve, the world would have ended.

The conditions were horrible. Little light, no tools besides the implements she kept in her pouch. Still, Nynaeve sewed, using the needle and thread she always carried. She had mixed a draught of herbs for Alanna and forced it through her lips. It wouldn’t do much, but every little bit might help. It would keep Alanna’s strength up, help her with the pain, keep her heart from giving out as Nynaeve worked.

The wound was messy, but she had sewn messy wounds before. Though she trembled inside, Nynaeve’s hands were steady as she sewed up the wound and coaxed the woman back from the very precipice of death.

Rand and Moridin did not move. But she felt something thrumming from them. Rand was fighting. Fighting a fight she could not see.

“Matrim Cauthon, you bloody fool. You’re still alive?”

Mat glanced over as Davram Bashere rode up beside him in the early evening darkness. Mat had moved with the Deathwatch Guard to the back of the Andoran lines fighting at the river.

Bashere was accompanied by his wife and a guard of Saldaeans. Judging by the blood on her clothing, she had seen her share of fighting.

“Yes, I’m alive,” Mat said. “I’m usually pretty good at staying alive. I’ve only failed one time that I remember, and it hardly counts. What are you doing here? Aren’t you . . .”

“They dug into my bloody mind,” Bashere said, scowling. “That they did, man. Deira and I talked it over. I’m not going to lead, but why should that stop me from killing a few Trollocs?”

Mat nodded. At Tenobia’s fall, this man had become king of Saldaea—but he had refused the crown, so far. The corruption in his mind had shaken him. All he had said was that Saldaea fights alongside Malkier, and told the troops to look toward Lan. The throne would be sorted out if they all survived the Last Battle.

“What happened to you?” Bashere asked. “I heard the command post fell.”

Mat nodded. “The Seanchan have abandoned us.”

“Blood and ashes!” Bashere cried. “As if this weren’t bad enough. Bloody Seanchan dogs.”

The Deathwatch Guards who stood around Mat made no response to that. Elayne’s forces held along the riverbank, just barely—but Trollocs were slowly working around them upriver. Elayne’s lines held only because of tenacity and careful training. Each huge square of men held pikes outward, bristling like a hedgehog.

Those formations could be separated if Demandred drove wedges between them in the right way. Mat employed cavalry sweeps of his own, including Andoran cavalry and the Band—trying to keep the Trollocs from penetrating the pike squares or surrounding Elayne.

The rhythm of the battle pulsed beneath Mat’s fingertips. He felt what Demandred was doing. To anyone else, the end of the battle probably seemed a simple matter now. Attack in force, break the pike formations, crack Mat’s defenses. It was so much more subtle.

Lan’s Borderlanders had finished crushing the Trollocs upriver, and needed orders. Good. Mat needed those men for the next step in his plan.

Three of the enormous pike formations were flagging, but if he could place a channeler or two in each center, he could shore them up. Light shelter whoever had distracted Demandred. The Forsaken’s attacks had destroyed entire pike formations. Demandred didn’t need to kill each man individually; he needed only to launch attacks of the One Power to shatter the square. That let the Trollocs overwhelm them.

“Bashere,” Mat said, “please tell me that someone has heard from your daughter.”

“Nobody has,” Deira said. “I’m sorry.”

Bloody ashes, Mat thought. Poor Perrin.

Poor him. How was he going to do this without the Horn? Light. He was not certain he could do it with the bloody Horn.

“Go,” Mat called as they rode. “Ride to Lan; he’s upriver. Tell him to engage those Trollocs trying to move around the Andorans’ right flank! And tell him I’ll have other orders for him coming soon.”