Knife of Dreams (117 page)

“Very well,” Dyelin said as if those were the easiest orders in the world to carry out. “Conail, Catalyn, Branlet, Perival, you come with me. Your foot will fight better with you there.” Conail looked disappointed, no doubt seeing himself riding in a gallant charge, but he gathered his reins and whispered something that made the two younger boys chuckle.

“So will my horse fight better,” Catalyn protested. “I want to help rescue Elayne.”

“You came to help her secure the throne,” Dyelin said sharply, “and
you’ll go where you’re needed to see to that, or you and I will have another talk later.” Whatever that meant, Catalyn’s plump face reddened, but she sullenly followed Dyelin and the others when they rode away.

Guybon looked at Birgitte, yet he said nothing, though likely he was wondering why she was not sending more. He would not challenge her publicly. The problem was, she did not know how many Black sisters would be with Elayne. She needed every Windfinder, needed them to believe they were all necessary. Had there been time, she would have stripped the sentries from the outer towers, stripped even the gates.

“Make the gateway,” she told Chanelle. “To just this side of the ridge east of the city, right on top of the Erinin Road and facing away from the city.”

The Windfinders gathered in a circle, doing whatever they had to do to link and taking their bloody time about it. Suddenly the vertical silver-blue slash of a gateway appeared, widening into an opening, five paces tall and covering the whole width of the cleared ground, that showed a wide road of hard-packed clay climbing the gentle slope of the ten-span-high ridge on its way to the River Erinin. Arymilla had camps beyond that ridge. Given the news, they might be empty—with luck, they were—but she could not concern herself with them now in any event.

“Forward and deploy as ordered!” Guybon shouted, and spurred his tall bay through followed by the gathered nobles and the Guardsmen ten abreast. The Guardsmen began curling off to the left and out of sight while the nobles took a position a little up the ridge. Some began peering toward the city through looking glasses. Guybon dismounted and ran, crouching, to peer over the crest through his. Birgitte could almost feel the impatience of the Guardswomen waiting behind her.

“You did not need a gateway this large,” Chanelle said, frowning at the column of horsemen flowing into the gateway. “Why—?”

“Come with me,” Birgitte said, taking the Windfinder by her arm. “I want to show you something.” Pulling the dun along by his reins, she began drawing the woman toward the gateway. “You can come back once you’ve seen it.” If she knew the least thing about Chanelle, she was the one guiding the circle. For the rest, she was counting on human nature. She did not look back, yet she nearly sighed with relief when she heard the other Windfinders murmuring among themselves behind her. Following.

Whatever Guybon had seen, it was good news, because he straightened up before running back down to his horse. Arymilla must have stripped her camps to the bone. Make it twenty thousand at the Far Madding
Gate, then, if not more. The Light send it was holding. The Light send everywhere was holding. But Elayne first. First and above all else.

When she reached Guybon, who was back on his bay, the Guardswomen arrayed themselves in three lines behind Caseille off to one side. The whole hundred-pace width of the gateway was filled with men and horses now, trotting as they hurried left and right to join the others already forming in three ranks that grew to either side of the road. Good. There would be no easy way for the Windfinders to duck back through for a little while. A wagon with an arched canvas cover and a four-horse team, surrounded by a small mounted party, was halted in the road just beyond the last buildings of Low Caemlyn, perhaps a mile distant. Beyond it, people bustled in the open brick markets that lined the road, going about their lives as best they could, but they might as well not have existed. Elayne was in that wagon. Birgitte raised her hand without taking her eyes from the vehicle, and Guybon put his brass-mounted looking glass in her palm. Wagon and riders leaped closer when she raised the tube to her eye.

“What did you want me to see?” Chanelle demanded.

“In a moment,” Birgitte replied. There were four men, three of them mounted, but more important were the seven women on horseback. It was a good looking glass, but not good enough for her to make out an ageless face at that distance. Still, she had to assume all seven were Aes Sedai. Eight against seven might have seemed almost even odds, but not when the eight were linked. Not if she could make the eight take part. What were the Darkfriends thinking, seeing thousands of soldiers and armsmen appear from behind what would seem to them a heat haze hanging in the air? She lowered the glass. Noblemen were beginning to ride down as their armsmen came out and went to join the lines.

However surprised the Darkfriends were, they did not dither long. Lightning began flashing down out of a clear sky, silver-blue bolts that struck the ground with thunderous crashes and threw men and horses like splashed mud. Horses reared and plunged and screamed, but men fought to control their mounts, to hold their places. No one ran. The booming thunder that accompanied those blasts struck Birgitte like blows, staggering her. She could feel her hair stirring, trying to rise out of her braid. The air smelled . . . sharp. It seemed to tingle. Again lightning lashed the ranks. In Low Caemlyn, people were running. Most were running away, but some fools actually ran to where they could have a better view. The ends of narrow streets opening onto the countryside began filling with spectators.

“If we’re going to face that, we might as well be moving and make it harder for them,” Guybon said, gathering his reins. “With your permission, my Lady?”

“We’ll lose fewer if you’re moving,” Birgitte agreed, and he spurred down the ridge.

Caseille halted her horse in front of Birgitte and saluted, an arm across her chest. Her narrow face was grim behind the face-bars of her lacquered helmet. “Permission for the Bodyguard to join the line, my Lady?” You could hear the capital. They were not just any bodyguard, they were the Daughter-Heir’s Bodyguard and would be the Queen’s Bodyguard.

“Granted,” Birgitte said. If anyone had a right, these women did.

The Arafellin whirled her horse and galloped down the slope followed by the rest of the Bodyguard to take their place in those lightning-torn ranks. A company of mercenaries, perhaps two hundred men in black-painted helmets and breastplates, riding behind a red banner bearing a running black wolf, halted when they saw what they were riding into, but men behind the banners of half a dozen Houses pushed past them, and they had no choice but to go on. More noblemen rode down to lead their men, Brannin and Kelwin, Laerid and Barel, others. None hesitated once he saw his own banner appear. Sergase was not the only woman to move her horse a few paces as if she, too, meant to join with her armsmen when her banner came out of the gateway.

“At a walk!” Guybon shouted, to be heard over the explosions. All along the line, other voices echoed him. “Advance!” Wheeling his bay, he rode slowly toward the Darkfriend Aes Sedai while lightning boomed and crashed and men and horses flew in fountains of earth.

“What did you want me to see?” Chanelle demanded again. “I want to be away from this place.” Small danger of that for the moment. Men were still coming out of the gateway, galloping or running to catch up. Fireballs fell among the ranks, too, now, adding their own eruptions of dirt, arms, legs. A horse’s head spun lazily into the air.

“This,” Birgitte said, gesturing to the scene in front of them. Guybon had begun to trot, pulling the others with him, the three ranks holding steady in their advance, others coming as hard as they could to join them. Abruptly a leg-thick bar of what appeared to be liquid white fire shot out from one of the women beside the wagon. It quite literally carved a gap fifteen paces wide in the lines. For a heartbeat, shimmering flecks floated in the air, the shapes of men and horses struck, and then were consumed. The bar suddenly jerked up into the air, higher and higher, then winked
out leaving dim purple lines across Birgitte’s vision. Balefire, burning men out of the Pattern so that they were dead before it struck them. She swung the looking glass up to her eye long enough to spot the woman holding a slim black rod that appeared to be perhaps a pace long.

Guybon began to charge. It was too soon, but his only hope was to close while he still had men alive. His only hope but one. Over the thunderous explosions of fireballs and lightning rose a ragged cry of, “Elayne and Andor!” Ragged, but full-throated. The banners were all streaming. A brave sight, if you could ignore how many were falling. A horse and rider struck squarely by a fireball simply disintegrated, men and horses all around them going down as well. Some managed to rise again. A riderless horse stood on three legs, tried to run and fell over thrashing.

“This?” Chanelle said incredulously. “I have no desire to watch men die.” Another bar of balefire sliced a breach of nearly twenty paces in the charging ranks before knifing down into the ground, cutting a trench halfway back to the wagon before it vanished. There were a good many dead, though not so many as it seemed there should be. Birgitte had seen the same in battles during the Trolloc Wars where the Power had been used. For every man who lay still, two or three were staggering to their feet or trying to stem a flow of blood. For every horse stiff-legged in death, two more stood on wobbly legs. The hail of fire and lightning continued unabated.

“Then stop it,” Birgitte said. “If they kill all the soldiers, or just enough to make the rest break, then Elayne is lost.” Not forever. Burn her, she would track her for the rest of her life to see her free, but the Light only knew what they might do to her in that time. “Zaida’s bargain is lost.
You
will have lost it.”

The morning was not warm, yet sweat beaded on Chanelle’s forehead. Fireballs and lightning erupted among the riders following Guybon. The woman holding the rod raised her arm again. Even without using the looking glass, Birgitte was sure it was pointed straight at Guybon. He had to see it, but he never swerved a hair.

Suddenly another bolt of lightning slashed down. And struck the woman holding the rod. She flew in one direction, her mount in another. One of the wagon team sagged to the ground while the others danced and reared. They would have run except for their dead trace-mate. The other horses around the wagon were rearing and plunging, too. The rain of fire and lightning ceased as the Aes Sedai fought to control their horses, to maintain their saddles. Rather than trying to calm his team, the man on the driver’s seat
leaped down and drew his sword as he began to run toward the charging horsemen. The onlookers in Low Caemlyn were running again, too, this time away.

“Take the others alive!” Birgitte snapped. She did not much care whether they lived—they would die soon enough for being Darkfriends and murderers—but Elayne was in that bloody wagon!

Chanelle nodded stiffly, and around the wagon, riders began toppling from their fractious mounts to lie struggling on the ground as if bound hand and foot. Which they were, of course. The running man fell on his face and lay writhing. “I shielded the women, too,” Chanelle said. Even holding the Power, they would have been no match for a circle of eight.

Guybon raised his hand, slowing the charge to a walk. It was remarkable how short a time it all had taken. He was less than halfway to the wagon. Men mounted and afoot were still pouring out of the gateway. Swinging into the dun’s saddle, Birgitte galloped toward Elayne.
Bloody woman
, she thought. The bond had never once carried any hint of fear.