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so I accept your challenge to Trial Beneath the Light, where I will kill you.” That barely

squeezed into the ritual, but he had denied the charge and accepted the challenge; it

would suffice.

Realizing that he still held the helmet in an outstretched hand, Valda frowned at one of

the dismounted Children, a lean Saldaean named Kashgar, until the man stepped forward

to relieve him of it. Kashgar was only an under-lieutenant, almost boyish despite a great

hooked nose and thick mustaches like inverted horns, yet he moved with open reluctance,

and Valda’s voice was darker and acrid as he went on, unbuckling his sword belt and

handing that over, too.

“Take a care with that, Kashgar. It’s a heron-mark blade.” Unpinning his silk cloak, he let

it fall to the paving stones, followed by his tabard, and his hands moved to the buckles of

his armor. It seemed that he was unwilling to see if others would be reluctant to help him.

His face was calm enough, except that angry eyes promised retribution to more than

Galad. “Your sister wants to become Aes Sedai, I understand, Damodred. Perhaps I

understand precisely where this originated. There was a time I would have regretted your

death, but not today. I may send your head to the White Tower so the witches can see the

fruit of their scheme.”

Worry creasing his face, Dain took Galad’s cloak and sword belt, and stood shifting his

feet as though uncertain he was doing the right thing. Well, he had been given his chance,

and it was too late to change his mind, now. Byar put a gauntleted hand on Galad’s

shoulder and leaned close.

“He likes to strike at the arms and legs,” he said in a low voice, casting glances over his

shoulder at Valda. From the way he glared, some matter stood between them. Of course,

that scowl differed little from his normal expression. “He likes to bleed an opponent until

the man can’t take a step or raise his sword before he moves for the kill. He’s quicker

than a viper, too, but he’ll strike at your left most often and expect it from you.”

Galad nodded. Many right-handed men found it easier to strike so, but it seemed an odd

weakness in a blademaster. Gareth Bryne and Henre Haslin had made him practice

alternating which hand was uppermost on the hilt so he would not fall into that. Strange

that Valda wanted to prolong a fight, too. He himself had been taught to end matters as

quickly and cleanly as possible.

“My thanks,” he said, and the hollow-cheeked man made a dour grimace. Byar was far

from likable, and he himself seemed to like no one save young Bornhald. Of the three, his

presence was the biggest surprise, but he was there, and that counted in his favor.

Standing in the middle of the courtyard in his gold-worked white coat with his fists on his

hips, Valda turned in a tight circle. “Everyone move back against the walls,” he

commanded loudly. Horseshoes rang on the paving stones as the Children and the grooms

obeyed. Asunawa and his Questioners snatched their animals’ reins, the High Inquisitor

wearing a face of cold fury. “Keep the middle clear. Young Damodred and I will meet

here—”

“Forgive me, my Lord Captain Commander,” Trom said with a slight bow, “but since

you are a participant in the Trial, you cannot be Arbiter. Aside from the High Inquisitor,

who by law may not take part, I hold the highest rank here after you, so with your

permission…?” Valda glared at him, then stalked over to stand beside Kashgar, arms

folded across his chest. Ostentatiously he tapped his foot, impatient for matters to

proceed.

Galad sighed. If the day went against him, as seemed all but certain, his friend would

have the most powerful man in the Children as his enemy. Likely Trom would have had

in any event, but more so now. “Keep an eye on them,” he told Bornhald, nodding toward

the Questioners clustered on their horses near the gate. Asunawa’s underlings still ringed

him like bodyguards, every man with a hand on his sword hilt.

“Why? Even Asunawa can’t interfere now. That would be against the law.”

It was very hard not to sigh again. Young Dain had been a Child far longer than he, and

his father had served his entire life, but the man seemed to know less of the Children than

he himself had learned. To Questioners, the law was what they said it was. “Just watch

them.”

Trom stood in the center of the courtyard with his bared sword raised overhead, blade

parallel to the ground, and unlike Valda, he spoke the words exactly as they were written.

“Under the Light, we are gathered to witness Trial Beneath the Light, a sacred right of

any Child of the Light. The Light shines on truth, and here the Light shall illuminate

justice. Let no man speak save he who has legal right, and let any who seek to intervene

be cut down summarily. Here, justice will be found under the Light by a man who

pledges his life beneath the Light, by the force of his arm and the will of the Light. The

combatants will meet unarmed where I now stand,” he continued, lowering the sword to

his side, “and speak privately, for their own ears alone. May the Light help them find

words to end this short of bloodshed, for if they do not, one of the Children must die this

day, his name stricken from our rolls and anathema declared on his memory. Under the

Light, it will be so.”

As Trom strode to the side of the courtyard, Valda moved toward the center in the

walking stance called Cat Crosses the Courtyard, an arrogant saunter. He knew there

were no words to stop blood being shed. To him, the fight had already begun. Galad

merely walked out to meet him. He was nearly a head taller than Valda, but the other man

held himself as though he were the larger, and confident of victory.

His smile was all contempt, this time. “Nothing to say, boy? Small wonder considering

that a blademaster is going to cut your head off in about one minute. I want one thing

straight in your mind before I kill you, though. The wench was hale the last I saw her,

and if she’s dead now, I’ll regret it.” That smile deepened, both in humor and disdain.

“She was the best ride I ever had, and I hope to ride her again one day.”

Red-hot, searing fury fountained inside Galad, but with an effort he managed to turn his

back on Valda and walk away, already feeding his rage into an imagined flame as his two

teachers had taught him. A man who fought in a rage, died in a rage. By the time he

reached young Bornhald, he had achieved what Gareth and Henre had called the oneness.

Floating in emptiness, he drew his sword from the scabbard Bornhald proffered, and the

slightly curved blade became a part of him.

“What did he say?” Dain asked. “For a moment there, your face was murderous.”

Byar gripped Dain’s arm. “Don’t distract him,” he muttered.

Galad was not distracted. Every creak of saddle leather was clear and distinct, every

ringing stamp of hoof on paving stone. He could hear flies buzzing ten feet away as

though they were at his ear. He almost thought he could see the movements of their

wings. He was one with the flies, with the courtyard, with the two men. They were all

part of him, and he could not be distracted by himself.

Valda waited until he turned before drawing his own weapon on the other side of the

courtyard, a flashy move, the sword blurring as it spun in his left hand, leaping to his

right hand to make another blurred wheel in the air before settling, upright and rock-

steady before him, in both hands. He started forward, once more in Cat Crosses the

Courtyard.

Raising his own sword, Galad moved to meet him, without thought assuming a walking

stance perhaps influenced by his state of mind. Emptiness, it was called, and only a

trained eye would know that he was not simply walking. Only a trained eye would see

that he was in perfect balance every heartbeat. Valda had not gained that heron-mark

sword by favoritism. Five blademasters had sat in judgment of his skills and voted

unanimously to grant him the title. The vote always had to be unanimous. The only other

way was to kill the bearer of a heron-mark blade in fair combat, one on one. Valda had

been younger then than Galad was now. It did not matter. He was not focused on Valda’s

death. He focused on nothing. But he intended Valda’s death if he had to Sheathe the

Sword, willingly welcoming that heron-mark blade in his flesh, to achieve it. He accepted

that it might come to that.

Valda wasted no time with maneuvering. The instant he was within range, Plucking the

Low-hanging Apple flashed toward Galad’s neck like lightning, as though the man truly

did intend to have his head in the first minute. There were several possible responses, all

made instinct by hard training, but Byar’s warnings floated in the dim recesses of his

mind, and also the fact that Valda had warned him of this very thing. Warned him twice.

Without conscious thought, he chose another way, stepping sideways and forward just as

Plucking the Low-hanging Apple became the Leopard’s Caress. Valda’s eyes widened in

surprise as his stroke missed Galad’s left thigh by inches, widened more as Parting the

Silk laid a gash down his right forearm, but he immediately launched into the Dove Takes

Flight, so fast that Galad had to dance back before his blade could bite deeply, barely

fending off the attack with Kingfisher Circles the Pond.

Back and forth they danced the forms, gliding this way then that across the stone paving.

Lizard in the Thorn-bush met Lightning of Three Prongs. Leaf on the Breeze countered

Eel Among the Lily Pads, and Two Hares Leaping met the Hummingbird Kisses the

Honeyrose. Back and forth as smoothly as a demonstration of the forms. Galad tried

attack after attack, but Valda was as fast as a viper. The Wood Grouse Dances cost him a

shallow gash on his left shoulder, and the Red Hawk Takes a Dove another on the left

arm, slightly deeper. River of Light might have taken the arm completely had he not met

the draw-cut with a desperately quick Rain in High Wind. Back and forth, blades flashing

continuously, filling the air with the clash of steel on steel.

How long they fought, he could not have said. There was no time, only the moment. It

seemed that he and Valda moved like men under water, their motions slowed by the drag

of the sea. Sweat appeared on Valda’s face, but he smiled with self-assurance, seemingly

untroubled by the slash on his forearm, still the only injury he had taken. Galad could feel

the sweat rolling down his own face, too, stinging his eyes. And the blood trickling down

his arm. Those wounds would slow him eventually, perhaps already had, but he had taken

two on his left thigh, and both were more serious. His foot was wet in his boot from

those, and he could not avoid a slight limp that would grow worse with time. If Valda

was to die, it must be soon.

Deliberately, he drew a deep breath, then another, through his mouth, another. Let Valda

think him becoming winded. His blade lanced out in Threading the Needle, aimed at

Valda’s left shoulder and not quite as fast it could have been. The other man countered

easily with the Swallow Takes Flight, sliding immediately into the Lion Springs. That

took a third bite in his thigh; he dared not be faster in defense than in attack.

Again he launched Threading the Needle at Valda’s shoulder, and again, again, all the

while gulping air through his mouth. Only luck kept him from taking more wounds in

those exchanges. Or perhaps the Light really did shine on this fight.

Valda’s smile widened; the man believed him on the edge of his strength, exhausted and

fixated. As Galad began Threading the Needle, too slowly, for the fifth time, the other

man’s sword started the Swallow Takes Flight in an almost perfunctory manner.

Summoning all the quickness that remained to him, Galad altered his stroke, and Reaping

the Barley sliced across Valda just beneath his rib cage.

For a moment it seemed that the man was unaware he had been hit. He took a step, began

what might have been Stones Falling from the Cliff. Then his eyes widened, and he

staggered, the sword falling from his grip to clatter on the paving stones as he sank to his

knees. His hands went to the huge gash across his body as though trying to hold his

insides within him, and his mouth opened, glassy eyes fixed on Galad’s face. Whatever

he intended to say, it was blood that poured out over his chin. He toppled onto his face

and lay still.

Automatically, Galad gave his blade a rapid twist to shake off the blood staining its last