Robert Jordan - A Memory of Light

Nearby, Raen stopped, raising his lantern to examine a full quiver of arrows that a soldier had been carrying as he died. Ila hissed, lifting her skirts up to step around corpses and reach her husband. “Raen!”

“Peace, Ila,” he said. “I’m not going to pick it up. Yet, I wonder.” He looked up, toward the distant flashes of light downriver and atop the Heights where the armies continued their terrible acts of murder. So many flashes in the night, like hundreds of lightning bolts. It was well past midnight now. They’d been on this field, looking for the living, for hours.

“You wonder?” Ila asked. “Raen . . .”

“What would we have them do, Ila? Trollocs will not follow the Way of the Leaf.”

“There is plenty of room to run,” Ila said. “Look at them. They came to meet the Trollocs when the Shadowspawn were barely out of the Blight. If that energy had been spent gathering the people and leading them away to the south . . .”

“The Trollocs would have followed,” Raen said. “What then, Ila?”

“We have accepted many masters,” Ila said. “The Shadow might treat us poorly, but would it really be worse than we have been treated at the hands of others?”

“Yes,” Raen said softly. “Yes, Ila. It would be worse. Far , far worse.”

Ila looked at him.

He shook his head, sighing. “I am not going to abandon the Way, Ila. It is my path, and it is right for me. Perhaps . . . perhaps I will not think quite so poorly of those who follow another path. If we live through these times, we will do so at the bequest of those who died on this battlefield, whether we wish to accept their sacrifice or not.”

He trailed away. It’s just the darkness of the night, she thought. He will overcome it, once the sun shines again. That’s the right of it. Isn’t it?

She looked up at the night sky. That sun . . . would they be able to tell when it rose? The clouds, lit from the fires below, seemed to be growing thicker and thicker. She pulled her bright yellow shawl closer, feeling suddenly cold.

Perhaps I will not think quite so poorly of those who follow another path . . .

She blinked a few tears from her eyes. “Light,” she whispered, something twisting inside. “I shouldn’t have turned my back on him. I should have tried to help him return to us, not cast him out. Light, oh Light. Shelter him . . .”

Nearby, a group of mercenaries found the arrows and picked them up. “Hey, Hanlon!” one called. “Look at this!”

When the brutish men had originally started helping with the Tuatha’an work, she had been proud of them. Avoiding battle to help care for the wounded? The men had seen beyond their violent past.

Now, she blinked and saw something else about them. Cowards, who would rather pick through corpses and fish in their pockets than fight. Which was worse? The men who—misguided though they were—stood up to the Trollocs and tried to turn them back? Or these mercenaries who refused to fight because they found this path easier?

Ila shook her head. She had always felt as if she knew the answers in life. Today, most of those had slipped from her. Saving a person’s life, though . . . that she could cling to.

She headed back among the bodies, searching for the living among the dead.

Olver scuttled back under the wagon, clutching the Horn, as Lady Faile rode off. Dozens of riders followed her, and hundreds of Trollocs. It had grown so dark.

Alone. He’d been left alone again.

He squeezed his eyes shut, but that didn’t do much. He could still hear men screaming and shouting in the distance. He could still smell blood, the captives who had been killed by the Trollocs as they tried to escape. Beyond the blood, he smelled smoke, thick and itchy. It seemed that the whole world was burning.

The ground trembled, as if something very heavy had hit it somewhere close by. Thunder rumbled in the sky, accompanied by sharp cracks as lightning struck time and time again at the Heights. Olver whimpered.

How brave he had thought himself. Now, here he was, finally at the battle. He could barely keep his hands from trembling. He wanted to hide, dig deep into the earth.

Faile had told him to find another place to hide because they might come back, looking for the Horn.

Dared he go out there? Dared he stay here? Olver cracked his eyes open, then nearly screamed. A pair of legs ending in hooves stood beside the wagon. A moment later, a snouted face leaned down and looked at him, beady eyes narrowing, nostrils sniffing.

Olver yelled, scrambling back, clutching the Horn. The Trolloc yelled something, heaving the wagon over and nearly smashing it down on Olver. The wagon’s contents of arrows went scattering across the ground as Olver dashed away, looking for safety.

There was none. Dozens of the Trollocs turned toward him, and they called to one another in a language Olver did not recognize. He looked about, Horn in one hand, knife in the other, frantic. No safety.

A horse snorted nearby. It was Bela, chewing on some grain leaked from a supply cart. The horse raised her head, looking at Olver. She didn’t have a saddle on, only a halter and bridle.

Blood and ashes, Olver thought, running for her, I wish I had Wind. This plump mare would end him in the cookpot for certain. Olver sheathed his knife and jumped up onto Bela’s back, seizing the reins in one hand, clutching the Horn in the other.

The pig-snouted Trolloc from the wagon swung, nearly taking off Olver’s arm. He cried out, kicking Bela into motion, and the mare galloped out from among the Trollocs. The beasts ran behind with howls and yells. Other calls sounded throughout the camp, which was nearly emptying out as they converged on the boy.

Olver rode as he’d been taught, down low, guiding with his knees. And Bela ran. Light, but she ran. Mat had said that many horses were frightened of Trollocs, and would throw their rider if forced near them, but this animal did none of that. She thundered right past howling Trollocs, right through the center of the camp.

Olver looked over his shoulder. There were hundreds of them back there, chasing him. “Oh, Light!”

He’d seen Mat’s banner atop those Heights, he was sure of it. But there were so many Trollocs in the way. Olver turned Bela to ride the way Aravine had gone. Perhaps he could round the Trolloc camp and get out that way, then come up the back of the Heights.

Take the Horn to Mat, or all is lost.

Olver rode for all he was worth, urging Bela on.

There is nobody else.

Ahead, a large force of Trollocs cut him off. Olver turned back the other way, but others approached from that direction, too. Olver cried out, turning Bela again, but a thick black Trolloc arrow hit her in the flank. She screamed and stumbled, then dropped.

Olver tumbled free. Hitting the ground knocked the air from his lungs and made him see a flash of light. He forced himself to crawl to his hands and knees.

The Horn must reach Matrim Cauthon . . .

Olver grabbed the Horn, and found that he was weeping. “I’m sorry,” he said to Bela. “You were a good horse. You ran like Wind couldn’t have. I’m sorry.” She whinnied softly and drew a final breath, then died.

He left her and ran beneath the legs of the first Trolloc that arrived. Olver couldn’t fight them. He knew he couldn’t. He didn’t unsheathe the knife. He just ran up the steep slope, trying to reach the top from where he had seen Mat’s flag fall.

It might as well have been a continent away. A Trolloc grabbed at his clothing, pulling him down, but Olver ripped free, leaving cloth in its thick nails. He scrambled over broken ground, and with desperation, spotted a little cleft in a rocky outcrop at the base of the slope. The shallow crack looked up at the black sky.