Robert Jordan - A Memory of Light

“But I—”

“I don’t care if you’ve bloody been touched by the Shadow!” Mat said. “Every man has had the Dark One’s fingers on his heart, and that’s the bloody truth. You can fight through it. Now ride to Lan and tell him what needs to be done!”

Bashere stiffened at first; then—strangely—he smiled a broad smile beneath drooping mustaches. Bloody Saldaeans. They liked being yelled at. Mat’s words seemed to give him heart, and he galloped off, wife at his side. She threw Mat a fond look, which made him uncomfortable.

Now . . . he needed an army. And a gateway. He needed a bloody gateway. Fool, he thought. He had sent the damane away. Could he not have at least kept one? Though they did make his skin crawl as if it were covered in spiders.

Mat halted Pips, the Deathwatch Guards stopping with him. A few of them lit torches. They had certainly gotten the drubbing they had wanted, joining Mat in fighting the Sharans. They seemed to itch for more, though.

There, Mat thought, heeling Pips toward a force of troops south of Elayne’s pike formations. The Dragonsworn. Before the Seanchan left Dashar Knob, Mat had sent this army to reinforce Elayne’s troops.

He still did not know what to make of them. He had not been at the Field when they had gathered, but he had heard reports. People from all ranks and stations, all nationalities, who had joined together to fight in the Last Battle, heedless of loyalties or national borders. Rand broke all vows and all other bonds.

Mat rode at a quick trot—the Deathwatch Guards jogging to keep up—around the back of the Andoran lines. Light, the lines were buckling. This was bad. Well, he’d made his bet. Now he could only ride the bloody battle and hope it did not buck too much.

As he galloped for the Dragonsworn, he heard something incongruous. Singing? Mat pulled to a halt. The Ogier had been caught up fighting the Trollocs, and had pushed across the dry riverbed to help fight at Elayne’s left flank, across from the bogs, to keep Trollocs from coming around that way.

They stood their ground here, as immovable as oaks before a flood, hacking with axes as they sang. Trollocs lay in piles around them.

“Loial!” Mat yelled, standing up in his stirrups. “Loial!”

One of the Ogier stepped back from the fighting and turned. Mat was taken aback. His usually calm friend had ears laid low, teeth clenched in anger, and a blood-soaked axe in his fingers. Light, but that expression sent terror through Mat’s body. He would rather stare down ten men who thought he had been cheating than fight a single angry Ogier!

Loial called something to the others, and then rejoined them in the fighting. They continued to lay into the Trollocs nearby, cutting them down. Trollocs and Ogier were near the same size, but the Ogier somehow seemed to tower over the Shadowspawn. They did not fight like soldiers, but like woodsmen felling trees. Chop one way, then the next, breaking Trollocs. But Mat knew that Ogier hated felling trees, while they seemed to relish felling Trollocs.

The Ogier broke the Trolloc fist they’d been fighting, making them flee. Elayne’s soldiers moved in and blocked off the rest of the Trolloc army, and the several hundred Ogier pulled back to Mat. Among them, Mat noticed, were more than a few of the Seanchan Ogier—the Gardeners. He had not ordered that. The two groups fought together, but barely seemed to look at one another now.

Every one of the Ogier, male and female, had numerous cuts on their arms and legs. They did not wear armor, but many of the cuts seemed trivial, as if their skin had the strength of bark.

Loial walked up to Mat and the Deathwatch Guards, raising his axe to his shoulder. Loial’s trousers were dark up to the thighs, as if he had been wading in wine. “Mat,” Loial said, drawing a deep breath. “We have done as you asked, fighting here. No Trolloc got by us.”

“You did well, Loial,” Mat said. “Thank you.”

He waited for a reply. Something long-winded and eager, no doubt. Loial stood breathing in and out with lungs that could hold enough air to fill a room. No words. The others with him, though many were senior to Loial, offered no words either. Some lifted torches. The glow of the sun had vanished beneath the horizon. Night was fully upon them.

Quiet Ogier. Now that was strange. Ogier at war, though . . . it was not something Mat had ever seen. He did not have any memory of it in the memories that were not his.

“I need you,” Mat said. “We have to turn this battle around or we’re finished. Come on.”

“The Hornsounder commands!” Loial bellowed. “Up axes!”

Mat winced. If he ever needed someone to yell a message from Caemlyn to Cairhien for him, he knew who to ask. Only they would probably hear it all the way up in the Blight, too.

He heeled Pips into motion, the Ogier falling in around him and the Deathwatch Guards. The Ogier had no trouble keeping up.

“Honored One,” Karede said, “I and mine are ordered to—”

“To go die on the front lines. I’m bloody working on that, Karede. Keep your sword out of your own gut for the moment, kindly.”

The man’s expression darkened, but he held his tongue.

“She doesn’t really want you dead, you realize,” Mat said. He could not say more without revealing the plot to bring her back.

“If my death serves the Empress, may she live forever, then I give it willingly.”

“You’re bloody insane, Karede,” Mat said. “Unfortunately, so am I. You’re in good company. You there! Who leads this force?”

They had reached the back ranks, where the reserves of the Dragonsworn were located, the wounded and those who were resting from their time at the front ranks.

“My Lord?” one of the scouts said. “That would be Lady Tinna.”

“Go fetch her,” Mat said. Those dice kept rattling in his head. He also felt a pull from the north, a tugging, as if some threads around his chest were yanking on him.

Not now, Rand, he thought. I’m bloody busy.

No colors formed, only blackness. Dark as a Myrddraal’s heart. The tugging grew stronger.

Mat dismissed the vision. Not. Now.

He had work to do here. He had a plan. Light, let it work.

Tinna turned out to be a pretty girl, younger than he had expected, tall and strong of limb. She wore her long brown hair in a tail, though curls of it seemed to want to break out here and there. She wore breeches, and had seen some fighting, judging by that sword on her hip and the dark Trolloc blood on her sleeves.

She rode up to him, looking him up and down with discerning eyes. “You’ve finally remembered us, have you, Lord Cauthon?” Yes, she definitely reminded him of Nynaeve.

Mat looked up at the Heights. The firefight between Aes Sedai and Sharans up there had turned messy.

You’d better win there , Egwene. I’m counting on you.

“Your army,” Mat said, looking at Tinna. “I’m told some Aes Sedai joined you?”

“Some did,” she said cautiously.

“You’re one of them?”

“I am not. Not exactly.”

“Not exactly? What do you mean by that? Look, woman, I need a gateway. If we don’t have one, this battle could be lost. Please tell me we have some channelers here who can send me where I need to go.”

Tinna drew her lips to a line. “I’m not trying to irritate you, Lord Cauthon. Old habits make for strong ropes, and I have learned not to speak of certain things. I was turned out of the White Tower myself, for . . . complicated reasons. I’m sorry, but I do not know the weave for Traveling. I do know for a fact that most who joined us are too weak for that weave. It requires a great deal of the One Power, beyond the capacity of many who—”