A Memory of Light

mass of Trollocs driving forward in waves. He needed higher ground.

Lan gestured at one of the hills, and heeled Mandarb toward it. Members of the rear guard watched him pass, giving a raised hand and a “Dai Shan.” Their armor was stained with blood. The reserves had been rotated to the front, then back again, during the day.

Mandarb plodded up the hill. Lan patted the horse, then dismounted and trudged beside the stallion. At the top, he stopped to survey the battle. Borderlander armies made spikelike indentations of silver and color in the Trolloc sea.

So many. The Dreadlords had come out on their large platform again, the mechanism pulled by dozens of Trollocs as it rolled across the field. They needed height to see where to direct their attacks. Lan set his jaw, watching a series of lightning bolts strike the Kandori, hurling bodies into the air and opening a gap in their lines.

Lan’s own channelers struck back, hurling lightning and fire at the advancing Trollocs to keep them from pouring through the hole in the Borderlander line. That would work for only so long. He had far fewer Aes Sedai and Asha’man than the Shadow had Dreadlords.

“Light,” said Prince Kaisel, riding up next to him. “Dai Shan, if they rip enough holes in our lines. .”

“Reserves are coming. There,” Andere said, pointing. He was still mounted, and Lan had to step forward to look around him to see what he was indicating. A group of Shienaran riders were making for the lines upon which the lightning bolts were falling.

“There too,” Kaisel said, pointing to the east. A group of Arafellin were making for the same place. The two forces became entangled as they both rushed to close the gap at the same time.

Lightning began to strike down from the sky, raining on the Dreadlords’ platform. Good. Narishma and Merise had been told to watch for the Dreadlords and try to kill them. Perhaps it would distract the enemy. Lan focused on something else.

Why had two groups of reserves been sent to plug that same hole? Either unit would have been large enough for the job; with so many, they had interfered with one another. A mistake?

Fie climbed into Mandarb's saddle, reluctant to make the horse work again so soon. He would check on this error.

Within the wolf dream, Perrin and Gaul stopped on a ridge overlooking a valley with a mountain at the end of it. Above the mountain, the black clouds spun in a terrible vortex that didn’t quite touch the mountains tip.

The winds ravaged the valley, and Perrin was forced to create a pocket of stillness around himself and Gaul, deflecting debris. Down below, they caught quick fragments of an enormous battle. Aiel, Trollocs and men in armor appeared in the wolf dream for moments as if out of twisting smoke and dust, swung weapons, disintegrated in midblow. Thousands of them.

Many wolves were here in the dream, all around. They waited for. . for something. Something they could not explain to Perrin. They had a name for Rand, Shadowkiller. Perhaps they were here to witness what he would do.

“Perrin?” Gaul asked.

“He’s here, finally,” Perrin said softly. “He has entered the Pit of Doom.”

Rand was going to need Perrin at some point during this fight. Unfortunately, Perrin couldn’t just stand here; there was work to be done. Gaul and he had, with help from the wolves, found Graendal near Cairhien. She had spoken to some people in their dreams. Darkfriends among the armies, perhaps?

She was peeking at Bashere’s dreams before that, Perrin thought. Or so Lanfear claimed. He didn’t trust her for a moment.

Anyway, he’d found Graendal earlier today, and had been planning to strike, when suddenly she had vanished. He knew how to track someone in the wolf dream when they shifted, and he had followed her here, to Thakan’dar.

Her scent vanished sharply in the middle of the valley below. She’d Traveled back into the real world. Perrin wasn’t certain how much time had passed in the wolf dream; he and Gaul still had food, but it felt as if it had been days and days. Lanfear said that the closer Perrin came to Rand, the more time would distort. He could probably test that statement, at least.

He is here, Young Bull! The sending came, sudden and urgent, from a wolf named Sunrise, here in the valley. Slayer comes among us! Hurry!

Perrin growled, grabbed Gaul by the shoulder without a word and shifted them. They appeared on the rocky path leading to a gaping hole in the rock above, the passage down to the Pit of Doom itself.

A wolf lay nearby, arrow in its side, smelling of death. Others howled in the near distance. The horrible wind whipped at him; Perrin lowered his head and charged into it, Gaul at his side. Inside, Young Bull, a wolf sent. Inside the mouth of darkness.

Not daring to think about what he was doing, Perrin burst into a long, narrow chamber filled with jagged rocks projecting from the floor and ceiling. Ahead, something bright sent pulsing waves through the space. Perrin raised a hand against the light, vaguely catching sight of shapes at the end of the chamber.

Two men, locked in battle.

Two women, as if frozen.

And just a few feet from Perrin, Slayer, drawing his bow to his cheek.

Perrin roared, hammer in his hand, and shifted himself between Slayer and Rand. He slapped the arrow from the air with his hammer a split second after it was loosed. Slayer’s eyes widened, and he vanished.

Perrin shifted to Gaul, grabbing the man by the arm, then shifted back to where Slayer had been and caught the scent of his location. “Be wary,” Perrin said, then shifted them after the man.

They dropped into the middle of a group of people. They were Aiel, but instead of wearing normal shoufa, they had strange red veils.

The shift hadn’t taken Perrin and Gaul far; this was a village of some sort, close enough for the peak of Shayol Ghul to be visible in the distance.

The red-veils attacked. Perrin wasn’t particularly surprised to find Aiel on the side of the Shadow. There were Darkfriends among all peoples. But why identify themselves with the color of their veils?

Perrin swung his hammer in a wide circle, keeping a group of them at bay, then shifted behind them, crushing the head of one from behind. Gaul became a blur of spears and brown clothing, dodging around red-veils, stabbing, then vanishing-and then appearing and stabbing again. Yes, he’d learned quickly, more quickly than these red-veils apparently had, for they failed to keep up with him. Perrin smashed another one in the kneecap, then searched for Slayer.

There. He stood on a hillock above, watching. Perrin glanced at Gaul, who, between jumps, gave him a quick nod. There were eight red-veils left, but-

The earth underneath Gaul’s feet began to heave, exploding upward as Gaul jumped. Perrin managed to protect his friend, creating a steel plate beneath him to deflect the blast, but it was a close thing. Gaul landed shakily, and Perrin was forced to shift to him and attack the red-veil coming at him from behind.

Take care, Perrin yelled at Gaul. “At least one of these fellows can channel!”

Light. As if Aiel fighting for the Shadow weren’t enough. Channeling Aiel. Channeling Aiel men. Light!

As Perrin swung at another, Slayer arrived, a sword in one hand and a long hunting knife in the other-the type a man would use to skin his prey.

Growling, Perrin threw himself into the fight, and the two began a strange dance. One attacking the other, who vanished to appear nearby before attacking also. They spun about like that, one shifting, then the other, each trying for an edge. Perrin just missed crushing Slayer with a blow, then nearly caught steel in his gut.

Gaul was proving very useful-Perrin would have had a horrible time trying to stand alone against both Slayer and the red-veils. Unfortunately, Gaul could do little but distract his foes, and was having a very difficult time