Towers of Midnight (36 page)

The wall flashed suddenly and was gone. Perrin blinked, stumbling back. He glanced at Hopper. The wolf sat on his haunches, staring at the place where the wall had been. Come, Young Bull, the wolf finally sent, standing. We will practice in another place.

He loped away. Perrin looked back down the road. Whatever the wall ad been, it had left no visible sign of its existence. Troubled, Perrin followed after Hopper.

Burn me, where are those archers!" Rodel Ituralde climbed up to the top f the hillside. "I wanted them formed up on the forward towers an hour go to relieve the crossbowmen!"

Before him, the battle clanged and screamed and grunted and thumped nd roared. A band of Trollocs had surged across the river, crossing on ford ifts or a crude floating bridge fashioned from log rafts. Trollocs hated rossing water. It took a lot to get them over.

Which was why this fortification was so useful. The hillside sloped irectly down to the only ford of reasonable size in leagues. To the north, Tollocs boiled through a pass out of the Blight and ran right into the Liver Arinelle. When they could be forced across, they faced the hillside, mich had been dug with trenches, piled with bulwarks and set with archer awers at the top. There was no way to reach the city of Maradon from the Might except by passing over this hill.

It was an ideal position for holding back a much larger force, but ven the best fortifications could be overrun, particularly when your men /ere tired from weeks of fighting. The Trollocs had crossed and fought heir way up the slope under a hail of arrows, falling into the trenches, hav-ng difficulty surmounting the high bulwarks.

The hillside had a flat area at the top, where Ituralde had his command losition, in the upper camp. He called orders as he looked down on the woven nass of trenches, bulwarks and towers. The Trollocs were dying to pikemen lehind one of the bulwarks. Ituralde watched until the last Trolloc
 
an enor-nous, ram-faced beast
 
roared and died with three pikes in its gut.

It looked as if another surge was coming, the Myrddraal driving an-ither mass of Trollocs through the pass. Enough bodies had fallen in the iver that it was clogged for the moment, running red, the carcasses pro-iding a footing for those running up behind.

"Archers!" Ituralde bellowed. "Where are those bloody
 
"

A company of archers finally ran past, some of the reserves he'd held back. Most of them had the coppery skin of Domani, though there were a ew stray Taraboners mixed in. They carried a wide variety of bows: narrow Domani longbows, serpentine Saldaean shortbows scavenged from guard posts or villages, even a few tall Two Rivers longbows.

"Lidrin," Ituralde called. The young, hard-eyed officer hurried across he hillside to him. Lidrin's brown uniform was wrinkled and dirty at the :nees, not because he was undisciplined, but because there were times when his men needed him more than his laundry did.

"Go with those archers to the towers," Ituralde said. "Those Trollocs re going to try another push. I do not want another fist breaking through o the top, hear me? If they seize our position and use it against us, I'm oing to have a rotten morning."

Lidrin didn't smile at the comment, as he once might have. He didn't mile much at all anymore; usually only when he got to kill a Trolloc. He aluted, turning to jog after the archers.

Ituralde turned looked down the backside of the hill. The lower camp ms set up there, in the shadow of the steep hillside. This hill had been a atural formation, once, but the Saldaeans had built it up over the years, nth one long slope extending toward the river and a steeper one on the pposite side. In the lower camp, his troops could sleep and eat, and their applies could be protected, all sheltered from enemy arrows by the steep illside upon which Ituralde now stood.

Both of his camps, upper and lower, were patchwork things. Some of he tents had been purchased from Saldaean villages, some were of Domani lake, and dozens had been brought in by gateway from all over the land. A large number of them were enormous Cairhienin things with striped patterns. They kept the rain off his men, and that was enough.

The Saldaeans certainly knew how to build fortifications. If only Ituilde had been able to persuade them to leave their hiding place in the city f Maradon and come help.

"Now," Ituralde said, "where in
 
"

He cut off as something darkened the sky. He barely had time to curse ad duck away as a group of large objects rained down, arcing high to fall n the upper camp, eliciting howls of pain and confusion. Those weren't oulders: they were corpses. The hulking bodies of dead Trollocs. The Shadowspawn army had finally set up their trebuchets.

A part of Ituralde was impressed that he'd driven them to it. The siege quipment had undoubtedly been brought to assault Maradon, which was little to the south. Setting up the trebuchets across the ford to assault uralde's lines instead not only would slow the Shadowspawn, but would tpose their trebuchets to his counterfire.

He hadn't expected them to hurl carcasses. He cursed as the sky darkled again, more bodies falling, knocking down tents, crushing soldiers.

"Healers!" Ituralde bellowed. "Where are those Asha'man?" He'd pushed the Asha'man hard, since this siege had begun. To the brink of exhaustion. Now he held them back, using them only when Trolloc assaults got too close to the upper camp.

"Sir!" A young messenger with dirt under his fingernails scrambled up from the front lines. His Domani face was ashen, and he was still too young to grow a proper mustache. "Captain Finsas reports the Shadow-spawn army moving trebuchets into range. There are sixteen by his count."

"Let Captain Finsas know that his bloody timing could be better," Ituralde growled.

"I'm sorry, my Lord. They rolled them down through the pass before we figured out what was going on. The initial volley hit our watchpost. Lord Finsas himself was wounded."

Ituralde nodded; Rajabi was arriving to take command of the upper camp and organize the wounded. Below, a lot of bodies had hit the lower camp, too. The trebuchets could get the height and range to launch over the hill and fall down on his men in their previously sheltered area. He'd have to pull the lower camp back, farther across the plain toward Maradon, which would delay response times. Bloody ashes.

I never used to swear this much, Ituralde thought. It was that boy, the Dragon Reborn. Rand al'Thor had given Ituralde promises, some spoken, some implied. Promises to protect Arad Doman from the Seanchan. Promises that Ituralde could live, rather than die trapped by the Seanchan. Promises to give him something to do, something important, something vital. Something impossible.

Hold back the Shadow. Fight until help arrived.

The sky darkened again, and Ituralde ducked into the command pavilion, which had a wooden roof as a precaution against siege weapons. He'd feared sprayshot of smaller rocks, not carcasses. The men scattered to help pull the wounded down to the relative safety of the lower camp, and from there across the plain toward Maradon. Rajabi led the effort. The lumbering man had a neck as thick as a ten-year-grown ash and arms nearly as wide. He now hobbled as he walked, his left leg hurt in the fighting and amputated beneath the knee. Aes Sedai had Healed him as best he could, and he walked on a peg. He'd refused to retire through gateways with the badly injured, and Ituralde hadn't forced him. You didn't throw away a good officer because of one wound.

A young officer winced as a bloated carcass thumped against the top of the pavilion. The officer
 
Zhell
 
didn't have the coppery skin of a Domani, though he wore a very Domani mustache and a beauty mark on his cheek in the shape of an arrow.

They could not hold against Trollocs here for much longer, not with

the numbers they were fielding. Ituralde would have to fall back, point by point, farther into Saldaea, farther toward Arad Doman. Odd, how he was ways retreating toward his homeland. First from the south, now from the northeast.

Arad Doman would be crushed between the Seanchan and the Trollocs. You'd better keep your word, boy.

He couldn't retreat into Maradon, unfortunately. The Saldaeans there had made it quite clear they considered Ituralde
 
and the Dragon Reborn
 
to be invaders. Bloody fools. At least he had a chance to destroy lose siege engines.

Another body hit the top of the command pavilion, but the roof held, om the stink
 
and, in some cases, splash
 
of those deceased Trollocs, ley'd not chosen the newly dead for this assault. Confident that his offi-rs were seeing to their duties
 
now was not the time to interfere
 
 
uralde clasped his hands behind him. Seeing him, soldiers both inside id out of the pavilion stood a little straighter. The best of plans lasted only until the first arrow hit, but a determined, unyielding commander could bring order to chaos by the way he held himself.

Overhead, the storm boiled, clouds of silver-and black like a blackened at hanging above a cook fire, bits of steel shining through at the edges of te crusted soot. It was unnatural. Let his men see that he did not fear it, 'en when it hailed corpses upon them.

Wounded were carried away, and men in the lower camp began to reak it down, preparing to move it farther back. He kept his archers and ossbowmen firing, pikemen ready along the bulwarks. He had a sizable ivalry, but couldn't use them here.

Those trebuchets, if left alone, would wear his men down with boulas and sprayshot
 
but Ituralde intended to see them burned first, using i Asha'man or a strike force with flaming arrows through a gateway.

If only I could retreat into Maradon. But the Saldaean lord there wouldn't t him in; if Ituralde fell back to the city, he'd get smashed against those walls by the Trollocs.

Bloody, bloody fools. What kind of idiots denied men refuge when an army of Shadowspawn was knocking on their gates?

"I want damage assessments," Ituralde said to Lieutenant Nils. "Prepare the archers for an attack on those siege engines, and bring two of the sha'man who are on duty. Tell Captain Creedin to watch that Trolloc assault across the ford. They'll redouble their efforts following this barrage, ; they'll presume us disordered."

The young man nodded and hastened off as Rajabi limped into the

pavilion, rubbing his broad chin. "You guessed right again about those trebuchets. They did set them up to attack us."

"I try to always guess right," Ituralde said. "When I don't, we lose."

Rajabi grunted. Overhead, that storm boiled. In the distance, Ituralde could hear Trollocs calling. War drums beating. Men shouting.

"Something's wrong," Ituralde said.

"This whole bloody war is wrong," Rajabi said. "We shouldn't be here; it should be the Saldaeans. Their whole army, not only the few horsemen the Lord Dragon gave us."

"More than that," Ituralde said, scanning the sky. "Why carcasses, Rajabi?"

"To demoralize us."

It was a not-unheard-of tactic. But the first volleys? Why not use stones when they'd do the most damage, and then move to bodies once surprise had been expended? The Trollocs hadn't a mind for tactics, but the Fades . . . they could be crafty. He'd learned that firsthand.

As Ituralde stared at the sky, another massive volley fell, as if spawned by the dark clouds. Light, where had they gotten that many trebuchets? Enough to throw hundreds of dead bodies.

There are sixteen by his count, the boy had said. Not nearly enough. Were some of those carcasses falling too evenly?

It hit him like a burst of frozen rain. Those clever bloody monsters!

"Archers!" Ituralde screamed. "Archers, watch the skies! Those aren't bodies!"

It was too late. As he yelled, the Draghkar unfurled their wings; well over half of the "carcasses" in this volley were living Shadowspawn, hiding among the falling bodies. After the first Draghkar attack on his army a few days back, he'd left archers on permanent rotation watching the skies day and night.

But the archers didn't have orders to fire on falling bodies. Ituralde continued to bellow as he leaped out of the pavilion and whipped his sword from its scabbard. The upper camp became chaos as Draghkar dropped amid the soldiers. A large number of them fell around the command pavilion, their too-large black eyes shining, drawing men toward them with their sweet songs.

Ituralde screamed as loud as he could, filling his ears with the sound of his own voice. One of the beasts came for him, but his yell prevented him from hearing its croon. It looked surprised
 
as surprised as something so inhuman could look
 
as he stumbled toward it, pretending to be drawn, then struck an expert thrust through its neck. Dark blood

ribbled down across milky white skin as Ituralde yanked his blade free, till screaming.

He saw Rajabi stumble and fall to the ground as one of the Shadowspawn leaped on him. Ituralde couldn't go to him
 
he was confronted by nother of the monsters himself. In a blessed moment, he noticed balls of re striking down Draghkar in the air
 
the Asha'man.

But at the same time, in the distance, he heard the war drums grow auder. As he'd predicted, the churning force of Trollocs would be striking cross the ford with as much strength as they ever had. Light, but sometimes he hated being right.