The Path of Daggers

knife? Or drawing one? 'If he dies here—' She cut off as sharply as the other woman had, and her head jerked around.

Hooves thundered past Rand on either side in thick streams. Galloping north, toward the Seanchan. Sword in hand, Bashere barely reined in before leaping from his saddle. Gregorin Panar dismounted more slowly, but he waved his sword at the men flooding by. 'Strike home for King and Illian!' he shouted. 'Strike home! The Lord of the Morning! The Lord of the Morning!' The crash of steel rose higher. And the screaming.

'It would be like this at the last of it,' Bashere growled, favoring the two women with suspicious glares. He wasted only an instant, though, before raising his voice above the din of battle. 'Morr! Burn your Asha’man hide! Here, now!' He did not shout that the Lord Dragon was down, thank the Light.

With an effort, Rand turned his head perhaps a hand. Enough to see Illianers and Saldaeans driving on north. The Seanchan must have given way.

'Morr!' The name roared through Bashere’s mustaches, and Morr himself dropped from a galloping horse nearly on top of Anaiyella. She looked disgruntled at the lack of an apology as the man knelt beside Rand, scrubbing dark hair out of his face. She moved back quickly enough when she realized he intended to channel, though, practically bounding away. Ailil was much smoother about rising, but not noticeably slower in stepping clear. And she slipped a silver-handled belt knife back into its sheath at her waist.

Healing was a simple matter, if not exactly comfortable. The fletchings were broken off and the arrow drawn the rest of the way through with a sharp jerk that brought a gasp to Rand’s lips, but that was just to clear the way. Dirt and lightly embedded fragments would fall way as flesh knit itself up, but only Flinn and a few others could use the Power to remove what was driven deep. Resting two fingers on Rand’s chest, Morr caught his tongue between his teeth with a fixed expression and wove Healing. That was how he always did it; it did not work for him, otherwise. It was not the complex weaves that Flinn used. Few could manage that, and none as well as Flinn, so far. This was simpler. Rougher. Waves of heat rushed through Rand, strong enough to make him grunt and send sweat gushing from every pore. He quivered violently from head to foot. A roast in the oven must have felt that way.

The sudden flood of heat ebbed slowly, and Rand lay panting. In his head, Lews Therin panted, too. Kill him! Kill him! Over and over.

Muting the voice to a faint buzz, Rand thanked Morr — the young man blinked as if surprised! — then grabbed the Dragon Scepter from the ground and forced himself to his feet. Erect, he swayed slightly. Bashere started to offer an arm, then backed away at a gesture. Rand could stand unaided. Barely. He could as soon have flown by waving his arms as channeled, though. When he touched his side, his shirt slipped on blood, yet the old round scar and the newer slash across it merely felt tender. Half-healed only, but they had never been better than that since he got them.

For a moment, he studied the two women. Anaiyella murmured something vaguely congratulatory and offered him a smile that made him wonder whether she intended to lick his wrist. Ailil stood very straight, very cool, as if nothing had happened. Had they meant to leave him to die? Or to kill him? But if so, why send their armsmen charging in and rush to check on him? On the other hand, Ailil had drawn her knife once the talk of him dying began.

Most of the Saldaeans and Illianers were galloping north or riding down the slope of the ridge, pursuing the last of the Seanchan. And then Weiramon appeared from the north, riding a tall, glossy black at a slow canter that picked up when he saw Rand. His armsmen rode in double file at his back.

'My Lord Dragon,' the High Lord intoned as he dismounted. He still seemed as clean as he had in Illian. Bashere simply looked rumpled and a bit grimy here and there, but Gregorin’s finery was decidedly dirt-stained, and slashed down one sleeve besides. Weiramon flourished a bow to shame a king’s court. 'Forgive me, my Lord Dragon. I thought I saw Seanchan advancing in front of the ridge and went to meet them. I never suspected this other company. You can’t know how it would pain me if you were injured.'

'I think I know,' Rand said dryly, and Weiramon blinked. Seanchan advancing? Perhaps. Weiramon would always snatch at a chance for glory in the charge. 'What did you mean, ‘at the last,’ Bashere?'

'They’re pulling back,' Bashere replied. In the valley, fire and lightning erupted for a moment as if to give him the lie, but nearly to the far end.

'Your… scouts do say they all do be retreating,' Gregorin said, rubbing his beard, and gave Morr a sidelong, uncomfortable glance. Morr grinned at him toothily. Rand had seen the Illianer in the thick of fighting heading his men, shouting encouragement and laying his sword about with wild abandon, but he flinched at Morr’s grin.

Gedwyn strode up then, leading his horse carelessly, insolently. He almost sneered at Bashere and Gregorin, frowned at Weiramon as if already knowing the man’s blunder, and eyed Ailil and Anaiyella as though he might pinch them. The two women drew back from him hastily, but then, so did the men except for Bashere. Even Morr. Gedwyn’s salute to Rand was a casual tap of fist to chest. 'I sent scouts out as soon as I saw this lot was done. There are three more columns inside ten miles.'

'All headed west,' Bashere put in quietly, but he looked at Gedwyn sharp enough to slice stone. 'You’ve done it,' he told Rand. 'They’re all falling back. I doubt they’ll stop short of Ebou Dar. Campaigns don’t always end with a grand march into the city, and this one is finished.'

Surprisingly — or perhaps not — Weiramon began arguing for an advance, to 'take Ebou Dar for the glory of the Lord of the Morning,' as he put it, but it was certainly a shock to hear Gedwyn say he would not mind taking a few more swipes at these Seanchan and he certainly would not mind seeing Ebou Dar. Even Ailil and Anaiyella added their voices in favor of 'putting an end to the Seanchan once and for all,' though Ailil did add that she would as soon like to avoid having to return to finish. She was quite sure the Lord Dragon would insist on her company for it. That in a tone as cool and dry as night in the Aiel Waste.

Only Bashere and Gregorin spoke for turning back, and raise their voices they did increasingly as Rand stood silent. Silent and staring west. Toward Ebou Dar.

'We did do what we came for,' Gregorin insisted. 'Light’s mercy, do you think to take Ebou Dar itself?'

Take Ebou Dar, Rand thought. Why not? No one would expect that. A total surprise, for the Seanchan and everybody else.

'Times are, you seize the advantage and ride on,' Bashere growled. 'Other times, you take your winnings and go home. I say it’s time to go home.'

I would not mind you in my head, Lews Therin said, sounding almost sane, if you were not so dearly mad.

Ebou Dar. Rand tightened his hand on the Dragon Scepter, and Lews Therin cackled.

Chapter 24 (Dragon) A Time for Iron

A dozen leagues east of Ebou Dar, raken glided in out of the cloud-streaked sunrise to land in a long pasture marked as the fliers’ field by colored streamers on tall poles. The brown grasses had been trampled and scored days since. All of the creatures’ grace in the air was lost as soon as their claws touched the ground in a lumbering run, leathery pinions thirty paces or more wide held high as if the animal wanted to sweep itself back upward. There was little beauty, either, in the raken that ran awkwardly down the field beating ribbed wings, fliers crouching in the saddle as if to pull the beast up by main force, ran on until at last they stumbled into the air, wingtips barely clearing the tops of the olive trees at the end of the field. Only as they gained height and turned toward the sun, soared toward the clouds, did the raken regain dignified grandeur. Fliers who landed did not bother to dismount. While a groundling held a basket up for the raken to gulp whole shriveled fruits by the double- handful at a time, one of the fliers would hand down their scouting report to a still more senior groundling, and the other bent on the other side to receive new orders from a flier too senior to handle reins personally very often. Almost that quickly after coming to a halt, the creature was reined around to waddle over to where four or five others waited their turn to make that long, ungainly run to the sky.

At a dead run, dodging between moving formations of cavalry and infantry, messengers carried the scouting