The Path of Daggers

sul’dam ahead of him with her wrists tied behind her, a handsome woman except for the purple knot on the side of her head. That seemed to go along with her scowl, though, as well as it did with her rumpled, leaf-stained dress. She sneered over her shoulder at the Soldier while he pushed her along the ridgetop to Rand, and then she sneered up at Rand.

The Soldier stiffened, saluting smartly. 'Soldier Arlen Nalaam, my Lord Dragon,' he barked, staring straight at Rand’s saddle. 'My Lord Dragon’s orders were to bring any women captured to him.'

Rand nodded. It was only to give him the appearance of doing something, inspecting prisoners to be sure they were what any idiot could see they were. 'Take her back to the carts, Soldier Nalaam, then return to the fighting.' He almost ground his teeth saying that. Return to the fighting. While Rand al’Thor, Dragon Reborn and King of Illian, sat his horse and watched treetops!

Nalaam saluted again before pushing away the woman ahead of him, but he was not slow about it. She kept peering over her shoulder again, yet not at the Soldier this time. At Rand. With wide-eyed, openmouthed astonishment. For some reason, Nalaam did not pull her to a halt until he reached the spot where he had come out. All that was necessary was to go far enough to avoid injuring the horses.

'What are you doing?' Rand demanded as saidin filled the man.

Nalaam half turned back to him, hesitating briefly. 'It seems easier, here, if I use a place I’ve already made a gateway, my Lord Dragon. Saidin… Saidin feels… strange… to me here.' His prisoner turned to frown at him.

After a moment, Rand gestured him to go ahead. Flinn pretended to be interested in his horse’s saddle girth, but the balding old man smiled faintly. Smugly. Dashiva… giggled. Flinn had been the first to mention an odd feel to saidin in this valley. Of course, Narishma and Hopwil had heard him, and Morr added his tales of the 'strangeness' around Ebou Dar. Small wonder everyone was claiming to feel something now, though not a one could say what. Saidin just felt… peculiar. Light, with the taint thick on the male half of the Source, what else would it feel? Rand hoped they were not all coming down with his new sickness.

Nalaam’s gateway opened, and vanished behind him and his prisoner. Rand let himself really feel saidin. Life and corruption commingled; ice to make winter’s heart seem warm, and fire to make a forge’s flames cold; death, waiting for him to slip. Wanting him to slip. It did not feel any different. Did it? He scowled at where Nalaam had disappeared. Nalaam and the woman.

She was the fourth sul’dam taken this afternoon. That made twenty-three sul’dam prisoners with the carts. And two damane, each still in her silvery leash and collar, carried on separate carts; in those collars, they could not walk three steps before becoming more violently sick than Rand did seizing the Source. He was not sure the sisters with Mat would be pleased to receive them after all. The first damane, three days before, he had not thought of as a prisoner. A slender woman with pale yellow hair and big blue eyes, she was a Seanchan captive to be freed. He thought. But when he forced a sul’dam to remove the woman’s collar, her a’dam, she screamed for the sul’dam to help her and immediately began lashing out with the Power. She had even offered her neck for the sul’dam to replace the thing! Nine Defenders and a Soldier died before she could be shielded. Gedwyn would have killed her on the spot had Rand not stopped it. The Defenders, nearly as uncomfortable around women who could channel as others were around men who could — the Defenders still wanted her dead. They had taken casualties in the fighting these past days, but having men killed by a prisoner seemed to offend them.

There had been more casualties than Rand had expected. Thirty-one Defenders dead, and forty-six Companions. More than two hundred among the Legionmen and the noble’s armsmen. Seven Soldiers and a Dedicated, men Rand had never met before they answered his summons to Illian. Too many, considering that all except the gravest injury could be Healed, if a man could only hang on until there was time. But he was driving the Seanchan west. Driving them hard.

More shouting rose somewhere far off down in the valley. Fire blossomed a good three miles to the west, and lightning struck, toppling trees. Trees and stone erupted from a mountainside farther on, strange fountains marching along the slope. The roaring booms swallowed shouts. The Seanchan were retreating.

'Get down there,' Rand told Flinn and Dashiva. 'Both of you. Find Gedwyn and tell him I said push! Push!'

Dashiva grimaced at the forest below, then began awkwardly tugging his horse along the ridge. The man was ungainly with horses, riding or leading. He nearly tripped over his sword!

Flinn looked up at Rand worriedly. 'You mean to stay here alone, my Lord Dragon?'

'I’m hardly alone,' Rand said dryly, glancing at Ailil and Anaiyella. They had ridden back to their armsmen, almost two hundred lancers waiting just short of where the ridge began to slope down to the east. At their head, Denharad frowned through the face-bars of his helmet. He had command of both lots, now, and if his concern was for Ailil and Anaiyella, his fellows still made a show fit to keep away most attackers. Besides, Weiramon had the northern end of this ridge secured so a fly could not pass, he claimed, and Bashere held the south. Without boasting; Bashere just erected a wall of lances without talking about it. And the Seanchan were retreating. 'And I’m hardly helpless, anyway, Flinn.'

Flinn actually looked doubtful and scratched his fringe of white hair before saluting and leading his horse toward where Dashiva’s gateway was already winking out. Limping along, Flinn shook his head, muttering to himself fit for Dashiva. Rand wanted to snarl. He could not go mad, and neither could they.

Flinn’s gateway vanished, and Rand returned to his study of the treetops. It was quiet again. Time stretched in stillness. This notion of taking the outposts in the mountains had been a bad one; he was willing to admit that, now. In this terrain, you could be half a mile from an army without knowing. In those tangled woods down there, you could be ten feet from them without knowing! He needed to face the Seanchan on better ground. He needed…

Abruptly he was fighting saidin, fighting wild surges that tried to ream out his skull. The Void was vanishing, melting beneath the onslaught. Frantic, dazed, he released the Source before it could kill him. Nausea twisted his middle. Double vision showed him two Crowns of Swords. Lying on the thick mulch of dead leaves in front of his face! He was on the ground! He could not seem to breathe properly, and struggled to suck in air. There was a chip broken off one of the crown’s golden laurel leaves, and blood stained several of the tiny golden swordpoints. A knot of hot pain in his side told him those never-healing wounds had broken open. He tried to push himself up, and cried out. In stunned amazement he stared at the dark fletchings of an arrow stuck through his right arm. With a groan he collapsed. Something ran down his face. Something dripped in front of his eye. Blood.

Vaguely he became aware of ululating cries. Horsemen appeared among the trees to the north, galloping along the ridge, some with lowered lances, some working short bows as fast as they could nock and draw. Horsemen in blue-and-yellow armor of overlapping plates, and helmets like huge insects’ heads. Seanchan, several hundred of them it seemed. From the north. So much for Weiramon’s fly.

Rand struggled to reach the Source. Too late to worry about sicking up, or falling on his face. Another time, he might have laughed at that. He struggled… It was like fumbling for a pin in the dark with numbed fingers.

Time to die, Lews Therin whispered. Rand had always known Lews Therin would be there at the end.

Not fifty paces from Rand, screaming Tairens and Cairhien plowed into the Seanchan.

'Fight, you dogs!' Anaiyella shrieked, swinging down from her saddle beside him. 'Fight!' The willow lady in her silks and laces hurled a string of curses that would have made a wagon driver’s tongue go dry.

Anaiyella stood holding her mount’s reins, glaring from the mill of men and steel to Rand. It was Ailil who turned him onto his back. Kneeling there, she looked down at him with an unreadable expression in her big dark eyes. He could not seem to move. He felt drained. He was not sure he could blink. Screams and the clash of steel rang in his ears.

'If he dies on our hands, Bashere will hang both of us!' Anaiyella certainly was not simpering now. 'If those black-coated monsters get hold of us…!' She shuddered, and bent closer to Ailil, gesturing with a belt knife he had not noticed in her hand before. A ruby sparkled blood-red on the hilt. 'Your Lance-captain could break off enough men to get us away. We could be miles away before he’s found, and back to our estates by the time —'

'I think he can hear us,' Ailil broke in calmly. Her red-gloved hands moved at her waist. Sheathing a belt