Robert Jordan - A Memory of Light

Lan heard something ahead, something that horrified him. Something he had been dreading.

Explosions.

The distant eruptions sounded like boulders crashing against one another. Each one made the air shake.

“Light!” Queen Ethenielle of Kandor joined them, galloping on her white gelding. She yelled to him. “Is that what I think it is?”

Lan nodded. Enemy channelers.

Ethenielle called back to her retinue, yelling something he did not catch. She was a plump woman, somewhat matronly for a Borderlander. Her retinue included Lord Baldhere—her Swordbearer—and the grizzled Kalyan Ramsin, her new husband.

They approached the Gap, where warriors fought to keep the beasts contained. A group of Kandori riders near the bonfires at the front were suddenly thrown into the air.

“Lord Mandragoran!” A figure in a black coat waved to them. Narishma hurried up, his Aes Sedai accompanying him. Lan always had one channeler at the front lines, but had given them orders not to fight. He needed them fresh for emergencies.

Like this one.

“Channeling?” Lan asked, slowing Mandarb.

“Dreadlords, Dai Shan,” Narishma said, panting. “Maybe as many as two dozen.”

“Twenty or more channelers,” Agelmar said. “They’ll cut through us like a sword through a spring lamb.”

Lan looked across the bitter landscape, once his homeland. A homeland he’d never known.

He would have to abandon Malkier. Admitting it felt like a knife twisting inside him, but he would do it. “You have your retreat, Lord Agelmar,” Lan said. “Narishma, can you channelers do anything?”

“We can try to cut their weaves from the air if we ride up close enough,” Narishma said. “But that will be hard, perhaps impossible, with them using just ribbons of Fire and Earth. Besides, with so many on their side . . . well, they’ll target us. I fear we would be cut down—”

A nearby blast rocked the earth, and Mandarb reared, nearly throwing Lan to the ground. Lan fought the horse, nearly blind from the flash of light. “Dai Shan!” Narishma’s voice.

Lan blinked tears from his eyes.

“Go to Queen Elayne!” Lan bellowed. “Bring back channelers to cover our retreat. We’ll be cut to ribbons without them. Go, man!”

Agelmar was yelling the retreat, bringing forward archers to target the channelers and drive them beneath cover. Lan unsheathed his sword, galloping to bring the horsemen back.

Light protect us, Lan thought, yelling himself ragged and salvaging what he could of his cavalry. The Gap was lost.

Elayne waited nervously just inside Braem Wood.

It was an old forest, the type that seemed to have a soul of its own. The ancient trees were its gnarled fingers, reaching out of the earth to feel the wind.

It was difficult not to feel tiny in a wood like Braem. Though many of the trees were bare, Elayne could feel a thousand eyes watching her from the depths of the forest. She found herself thinking of the stories told to her as a child, stories of the Wood being full of brigands—some goodly, others with hearts as twisted as those of Darkfriends.

In fact. . . Elayne thought, remembering one of the stories. She turned to Birgitte. “Didn’t you once lead a band of thieves out of this forest?” Birgitte grimaced. “I was hoping you hadn’t heard that one.”

“You robbed the Queen of Aldeshar!” Elayne said.

“I was very polite about it,” Birgitte said. “She wasn’t a good queen. Many claimed she wasn’t the rightful one.”

“It’s the principle!”

“That’s exactly why I did it.” Birgitte frowned. “At least . . . I think it was . . .”

Elayne didn’t push the topic any farther. Birgitte always grew anxious when reminded that her memories of past lives were fading. At times, she had no recollection of her past lives at all; at other times, certain incidents would come flooding back to her, only to disappear the next moment.

Elayne led the rear guard, which would—in theory—do the bulk of the damage to the enemy.

Dry leaves crunched as a winded messenger arrived from the Traveling ground. “I’ve come from Caemlyn, Your Majesty,” the woman said with a bobbing bow from her mount. “Lord Aybara has successfully engaged the Trollocs. They are on their way.”

“Light, they took the bait,” Elayne said. “Now we make our preparations. Go get some rest; you’ll be needing all your strength soon enough.” The messenger nodded, galloping away. Elayne relayed the latest news to Talmanes, the Aiel and Tam al’Thor.

As Elayne heard something in the forest she raised a hand, stopping a Guards-woman’s report. Moonshadow danced forward, anxious, past the men who crouched in the underbrush around Elayne. No one spoke. The soldiers barely seemed to be drawing breath.

Elayne embraced the Source. Power flooded her, and with it the sweetness of a world expanded. The dying wood seemed more colorful within the embrace of saidar Yes. There was something climbing over the hills in the near distance. Her soldiers, thousands of them, whipping at horses past the point of exhaustion, were fast approaching the Wood. Elayne raised her spyglass to make out the twisting mass of Trollocs chasing behind like black waves flooding onto an already shadowed land.

“Finally!” Elayne exclaimed. “Archers, to the front!”

The Two Rivers men scrambled out of the woods before her, forming up just inside the tree line. They were one of the smallest forces in her army, but if reports on their prowess weren’t exaggerations, they’d be as useful as an ordinary force of archers three times their size.

A few of the younger men began nocking arrows to bows.

“Hold!” Elayne yelled. “Those are our men coming toward you.”

Tam and his leaders repeated the order. The men lowered their bows nervously.

“Your Majesty,” Tam said, stepping up to her horse. “The lads can hit them at this range.”

“Our soldiers are still too close,” Elayne said. “We need to wait for them to break to the sides.”

“Pardon, my Lady,” Tam said. “But no Two Rivers man would miss a shot like this. Those riders are safe, and the Trollocs have bows of their own.” He was right on that last count. Some of the Trollocs were pausing in their pursuit long enough to draw their massive blackwood bows. Perrin’s men were riding with their backs exposed, and more than a few had dark-fletched arrows protruding from their limbs or their horses.

“Loose,” Elayne said. “Archers, loose!” Birgitte relayed the orders as she rode down the line. Tam barked orders to those nearby.

Elayne lowered the spyglass as a breeze blew through the forest, crackling dried leaves, rattling skeletal branches. The Two Rivers men drew. Light! Could they really shoot that far and still be accurate? The Trollocs were hundreds of paces away.

Arrows flew high, like hawks breaking from their roosts. She’d heard Rand brag about his bow, and she’d seen a Two Rivers longbow used on occasion. But this . . . so many arrows climbing into the air with incredible precision . . .

The arrows arced and dropped, not a one falling too short. They rained onto the Trolloc ranks, especially on the Trolloc archers. A few straggling Trolloc arrows returned, but the Two Rivers men had handily broken up their lines.

“That’s some fine archery,” Birgitte said, riding back up. “Fine indeed . . .” The Two Rivers men loosed more volleys in quick succession as Perrin’s riders entered the forest.

“Crossbowmen!” Elayne ordered, drawing her sword and raising it high. “Forward the Legion of the Dragon!”

The Two Rivers men fell back into the trees and the crossbowmen came out. She had two full banners of them from the Legion of the Dragon, and Bashere had drilled them well. They formed three ranks, one standing at a time to loose while the others reloaded while kneeling. The death they sent at the Trollocs hit like a crashing wave, driving a tremble through the advancing army, thousands falling dead.