“Move the soldiers back,” Androl said softly.
Elayne gave the order, worried. The man beside her had never held this kind of power before. It could go to someone’s head; she had seen it happen. Light send that he knew what he was doing.
The soldiers and others retreated, passing by Elayne’s group. Several tired Ogier nodded to her in passing, their shoulders slumped, their arms scored with cuts. The Trollocs poured forward, but the Asha’man who weren’t in the circle disrupted their attack with weaves of the One Power.
It wasn’t enough. Though the Asha’man fought well, there were just
Androl smiled widely, and held his hands out in front of himself as if pressing against a wall. He closed his eyes. “Three thousand years ago the Lord Dragon created Dragonmount to hide his shame. His rage still burns hot. Today … I bring it to you, Your Majesty.”
A beam of light split the air, easily a hundred feet tall. Moonshadow shied back and Elayne frowned. Why a column of light? What good would that. . The beam of light began to twist in the air, rotating upon itself. Only then did Elayne recognize it for the start of a gateway. An enormous gateway, large enough to swallow buildings. She could have moved an entire wing of the Caemlyn palace through that thing!
The air shimmered in front of them, the way a gateway always looked from behind. She couldn’t see where the gateway was leading. Did they have an army waiting on the other side?
She could see the expressions on the slavering Trolloc faces as they looked into the opening. Absolute horror. They broke away, running, and Elayne felt a sudden heat, almost overpowering.
Something exploded out of the gateway, as if pushed by an incredible force. A column of lava a hundred feet in diameter, blazing hot. The column broke apart as the lava crashed down, splashing to the battlefield, gushing forward in a river. The Asha’man outside the circle used weaves of Air to keep it from splashing back on the circle and to shepherd it in the right direction.
The river of fire washed through the foremost Trolloc ranks, consuming them, destroying hundreds in an eyeblink. The lava
Androl held the gateway for long minutes as the Shadow’s army pulled back. Asha’man to the sides used gusts of wind to blow the Shadowspawn back into the ever-widening river. By the time Androl finished, he had created a barrier of red-hot death between Elayne’s army and the bulk of the Trollocs, whose backs were against the northern walls of Cairhien.
Androl took a breath, closed the gateway, then pivoted and made two others in quick succession, one pointing southeast, the other southwest.
A second and third column of lava spurted forth-smaller this time, as Androl was obviously weakened. These went tumbling over the land to the east and west of Cairhien, singeing away dead weeds and casting smoke into the air. Some of the Trolloc army had pulled back, but many others had perished, boxed in, with the walled city on one side and lava on others. It would be some time before the Fades could organize the survivors to resume their attacks on Elayne’s forces.
Androl let the gateway close. He slumped, but Pevara caught him.
“One miracle, my Lord,” Androl said, voice soft, as if strained. “Delivered as requested. That should hold them back for a few hours. Long enough?”
“Long enough,” Elayne said. “We will be able to regroup, bring through supplies for the dragons, and fetch as many Aes Sedai from Mayene as we can get to Heal our men and wash away their fatigue. Then we can sort through who is strong enough to continue and reposition our ranks for a much more effective battle.”
“You intend to keep fighting?” Androl asked, surprised.
“Yes,” Elayne said. “I can barely stand, but yes. We cannot afford to leave that Trolloc horde here intact. You and your men give us an edge, Logain. We will use it, and everything we have, and we
CHAPTER 31
Egwene looked across the river at the struggle raging between her forces and the Sharan army. She had arrived back at her camp on the Arafellin side of the ford. She was itching to join the battle against the Shadow again, but she also needed to talk with Bryne about what had happened at the hills. She had arrived to find the command tent empty.
The camp continued to fill with Aes Sedai and the surviving archers and pikemen who were coming through gateways from the hilltops to the south. The Aes Sedai were milling about and speaking to each other with some urgency. They all seemed worn out, but it was clear from their frequent glances toward the battle taking place across the river that they were as eager as Egwene was to rejoin the fight against the Shadow.
Egwene summoned the messenger who was standing in front of the command tent. “Get word to the sisters that they have less than an hour to rest. Those Trollocs we were fighting will be joining the battle at the river soon, now that we have left the hills.
She’d move the Aes Sedai downriver on this side, then attack them across the water as they moved across the fields to attack her soldiers. “Tell the archers they’ll be marching with us as well,” she added. “They may as well put their remaining arrows to good use, until we can get them another supply.”
As the messenger rushed off, Egwene turned to Leilwin, who was standing with her husband, Bayle Domon, nearby. “Leilwin, those look like Seanchan cavalry troops across the river. Do you know anything about that?”
“Yes, Mother, they are Seanchan. That man standing over there-” She pointed to a man with shaved temples standing by a tree down toward the river; he wore voluminous trousers and, incongruously, a tattered brown coat which looked as if it might have come from the Two Rivers. “-he told me that a legion commanded by Lieutenant- General Khirgan had come from the Seanchan camp, and that they had been summoned by General Bryne.”
“He also said that they do be accompanied by the Prince of Ravens,” Domon interjected.
“Mat?”
“He did more than accompany them. He do be leading one of the cavalry banners, the ones giving the Sharans a hiding on our army’s left flank. He got there just in time, our pikemen were getting the worst of it before he showed up.”
“Egwene,” Gawyn said, pointing.
To the south, a few hundred paces below the ford, a small number of soldiers were hauling themselves from the river. They had stripped to their smallclothes and carried swords tied to their backs. It was too far to be sure, but one of their leaders looked familiar.
“Is that Uno?” Egwene frowned, then waved for her horse. She mounted and galloped, with Gawyn and her guards, along the river to where the men lay gasping on the bank, and the sound of one man cursing filled the air.
“Uno!”
“It’s about bloody flaming time someone came!” Uno stood as he saluted in respect. “Mother, we’re in bad shape!”
“I saw.” Egwene gritted her teeth. “I was in the hills when your force was attacked. We did what we could, but there were just too many of them. How did you get out?”
“How did we flaming get out, Mother? When the men started dropping all around us and we figured we was goners, we flaming rode out of there like a flaming lightning bolt had struck our flaming hindquarters! We got to the frog-kissing river on the run, stripped and jumped in, swimming for all we were bloody worth, Mother, with all due respect!” Unos topknot danced as he continued to blaspheme, and Egwene could have sworn the eye painted on his eyepatch became a more intense red.
Uno took a deep breath and continued, a little more subdued. “I can’t understand it, Mother. Some goat- headed messenger told us that the Aes Sedai on the hills were in trouble and we needed to go up the flaming
