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Shifting his gaze to the west, he did not bother with the looking glass.

“Now,” he whispered, and as though at his command, two hundred men with mail veils

across their faces galloped out of the trees. And immediately halted, cavorting and

jockeying for place, brandishing steel-tipped lances while their leader raced up and down

before them gesturing wildly in an obvious effort to establish some semblance of order.

At this distance, Ituralde could not have made out faces even with the glass, but he could

imagine the fury on Tornay Lanasiet’s features at playing out this charade. The stocky

Dragonsworn burned to close with Seanchan. Any Seanchan. It had been difficult to

dissuade him from striking the day they crossed the border. Yesterday he had been

visibly overjoyed finally to scrape the hated stripes indicating loyalty to the Seanchan

from his breastplate. No matter; so far he was obeying his orders to the letter.

As the sentries nearest Lanasiet turned their mounts to speed toward the village and the

Seanchan camp, Ituralde swung his attention there and raised his looking glass once

more. The sentries would find their warning superfluous. Motion had ceased. Some men

were pointing toward the horsemen on the other side of the village, while the rest seemed

to be staring, soldiers and workmen alike. The last thing they expected was raiders. Aiel

raids or no Aiel raids, the Seanchan considered Tarabon theirs, and safely so. A quick

glance at the village showed people standing in the streets staring toward the strange

riders. They had not expected raiders, either. He thought the Seanchan were right, an

opinion he would not share with any Taraboner in the foreseeable future.

With well-trained men shock could last only so long, however. In the camp, soldiers

began racing toward their horses, many still unsaddled, though grooms had started

working as fast as they could. Eighty-odd Seanchan footmen, archers, formed into ranks

and set off running through Serana. At that evidence that there truly was a threat, people

began snatching up the smaller children and herding the older toward the hoped-for

safety of the houses. In moments, the streets were empty save for the hurrying archers in

their lacquered armor and peculiar helmets.

Ituralde turned the glass toward Lanasiet and found the man galloping his line of

horsemen forward. “Wait for it,” he growled. “Wait for it.”

Again it seemed the Taraboner heard his command, finally raising a hand to halt his men.

At least they were still a half-mile or more from the village. The hotheaded fool was

supposed to be near a mile away, on the edge of the trees and still in seeming disorder

and easily swept away, but half would have to suffice. He suppressed the urge to finger

the ruby in his left ear. The battle had begun, now, and in battle you had to make those

following you believe that you were utterly cool, completely unaffected. Not wanting to

knock down a putative ally. Emotion seemed to leak from a commander into his men, and

angry men behaved stupidly, getting themselves killed and losing battles.

Touching the half-moon-shaped beauty patch on his cheek—a man should look his best

on a day like today—he took slow measured breaths until certain that he was as cool

inside as his outward display, then returned his attention to the camp. Most of the

Taraboners there were mounted, now, but they waited for twenty or so Seanchan led by a

tall fellow with a single thin plume on his curious helmet to gallop into the village before

falling in behind, yesterday’s late-comers trailing at the rear.

Ituralde studied the figure leading the column, viewing him through the gaps between

houses. A single plume would mark a lieutenant or maybe an under-lieutenant. Which

might mean a beardless boy on his first command or a grizzled veteran who could take

your head if you made one mistake. Strangely, the damane, marked by the shining silvery

leash that connected her to a woman on a another horse, galloped her animal as hard as

anyone. Everything he had heard said damane were prisoners, yet she appeared as eager

as the other woman, the sul’dam. Perhaps—

Abruptly his breath caught in his throat and all thought of damane fled. There were

people still in the street, seven or eight men and women, walking in a cluster and right

ahead of the racing column that they seemed not to hear thundering up behind them.

There was no time for the Seanchan to stop if they wanted to, and good reason not to try

with an enemy ahead, but it looked as though the tall fellow’s hand never twitched on his

reins as he and the rest rode the people down. A veteran, then. Murmuring a prayer for

the dead, Ituralde lowered the glass. What came next was best seen without it.

Two hundred paces beyond the village, the officer started forming his command where

the archers had already stopped and were waiting with nocked arrows. Waving directions

to the Taraboners behind, he turned to peer at Lanasiet through a looking glass. Sunlight

glinted off the tube’s banding. The sun was rising, now. The Taraboners began dividing

smoothly, lance heads glittering and all slanted at the same angle, disciplined men falling

into ordered ranks to either side of the archers.

The officer leaned over to converse with the sul’dam. If he turned her and the damane

loose now, this could still turn into a disaster. Of course, it could if he did not, too. The

last of the Taraboners, those who had arrived late, began stretching out in a line fifty

paces behind the others, driving their lances point-down into the ground and pulling their

horse-bows from the cases fastened behind their saddles. Lanasiet, curse the man, was

galloping his men forward.

Turning his head for a moment, Ituralde spoke loudly enough for the men behind him to

hear. “Be ready.” Saddle leather creaked as men gathered their reins. Then he murmured

another prayer for the dead and whispered, “Now.”

As one man the three hundred Taraboners in the long line, his Taraboners, raised their

bows and loosed. He did not need the looking glass to see the sul’dam and damane and

the officer suddenly sprout arrows. They were all but swept from their saddles by near a

dozen striking each of them at once. Ordering that had given him a pang, but the women

were the most dangerous people on that field. The rest of that volley cut down most of the

archers and cleared saddles, and even as men struck the ground, a second volley lanced

out, knocking down the last archers and emptying more saddles.

Caught by surprise, the Seanchan-loyal Taraboners tried to fight. Among those still

mounted, some wheeled about and lowered lances to charge their attackers. Others,

perhaps seized by the irrationality that could take men in battle, dropped their lances and

tried to uncase their own horse-bows. But a third volley lashed them, pile-headed arrows

driving through breastplates at that range, and suddenly the survivors seemed to realize

that they were survivors. Most of their fellows lay still on the ground or struggled to

stand though pierced by two or three shafts. Those still mounted were now outnumbered

by their opponents. A few men reined their horses around, and in a flash the lot of them

were running south pursued by one final rain of bowshot that toppled more.

“Hold,” Ituralde murmured. “Hold where you are.”

A handful of the mounted archers fired again, but the rest wisely refrained. They could

kill a few more before the enemy was beyond range, but this group was beaten, and

before long they would be counting every arrow. Best of all, none of them went racing in

pursuit.

The same could not be said of Lanasiet. Cloaks streaming, he and his two hundred raced

after the fleeing men. Ituralde imagined he could hear them yelping, hunters on the trail

of running prey.

“I think we’ve seen the last of Lanasiet, my Lord,” Jaalam said, reining his gray up

beside Ituralde, who shrugged slightly.

“Perhaps, my young friend. He may come to his senses. In any case, I never thought the

Taraboners would return to Arad Doman with us. Did you?”

“No, my Lord,” the taller man replied, “but I thought his honor would hold through the

first fight.”

Ituralde lifted his glass to look at Lanasiet, still galloping hard. The man was gone, and

unlikely to come to senses he did not possess. A third of his force gone as surely as if that

damane had killed them. He had counted on a few more days. He would need to change

plans again, perhaps change his next target.

Dismissing Lanasiet from his thoughts, he swung the glass to glance at where those

people had been ridden down, and grunted in surprise. There were no trampled bodies.

Friends and neighbors must have come out to carry them away, though with a battle on

the edge of the village that seemed about as likely as them getting up and walking away

after the horses passed.

“It’s time to go burn all those lovely Seanchan stores,” he said. Shoving the looking glass

into the leather case tied to his saddle, he donned his helmet and heeled Steady down the

hill, followed by Jaalam and the others in a column of twos. Ruts from farm wagons and

broken-down banks indicated a ford in the eastern stream. “And, Jaalam, tell a few men

to warn the villagers to start moving what they want to save. Tell them to begin with the

houses nearest the camp.” Where fire could spread one way, it could the other, too, and

likely would.

In truth, he had already set the important blaze. Breathed on the first embers, at least. If

the Light shone on him, if no one had been overcome by eagerness or given in to despair

at the hold the Seanchan had on Tarabon, if no one had fallen afoul of the mishaps that

could ruin the best-laid plan, then all across Tarabon, above twenty thousand men had

struck blows like this, or would before the day was out. And tomorrow they would do it

again. Now all he had to do was raid his way back across better than four hundred miles

of Tarabon, shedding Taraboner Dragonsworn and gathering in his own men, then re-

cross Almoth Plain. If the Light shone on him, that blaze would singe the Seanchan

enough to bring them chasing after him full of fury. A great deal of fury, he hoped. That

way, they would run headlong into the trap he had laid before they ever knew it was

there. If they failed to follow, then at least he had rid his homeland of the Taraboners and

bound the Domani Dragonsworn to fight for the King instead of against him. And if they

saw the trap….

Riding down the hillside, Ituralde smiled. If they saw the trap, then he had another plan

already laid, and another behind that. He always looked ahead, and always planned for

every eventuality he could imagine, short of the Dragon Reborn himself suddenly

appearing in front of him. He thought the plans he had would suffice for the moment.

The High Lady Suroth Sabelle Meldarath lay awake on her bed, staring up at the ceiling.

The moon was down, and the triple-arched windows that overlooked a palace garden

were dark, but her eyes had adjusted so that she could make out at least the outlines of the

ornate, painted plasterwork. Dawn was no more than an hour or two off, yet she had not

slept. She had lain awake most nights since Tuon vanished, sleeping only when

exhaustion closed her eyes however hard she tried to keep them open. Sleep brought

nightmares she wished she could forget. Ebou Dar was never truly cold, but the night

held a little coolness, enough to help keep her awake, lying beneath only a thin silk sheet.

The question that tainted her dreams was simple and stark. Was Tuon alive, or dead?

The escape of the Atha’an Miere damane and Queen Tylin’s murder spoke in favor of her

death. Three events of that magnitude happening on one night by chance was pressing

coincidence too far, and the first two were horrifying enough in themselves to indicate

the worst for Tuon. Someone was trying to sow fear among the Rhyagelle, Those Who

Come Home, perhaps to disrupt the entire Return. How better to achieve that than to

assassinate Tuon? Worse, it had to be one of their own. Because she had landed under the

veil, no local knew who Tuon was. Tylin had surely been killed with the One Power, by a

sul’dam and her damane. Suroth had leaped at the suggestion that Aes Sedai were to

blame, yet eventually someone who mattered would question how one of those women

could enter a palace full of damane in a city full of damane and escape detection. At least

one sul’dam had been necessary to uncollar the Sea Folk damane. And two of her own

sul’dam had disappeared at almost the same time.

In any case, they had been noticed as missing two days later, and no one had seen them