The Path of Daggers

She was on her feet in an instant, shaking her free fist and striding as far toward the Taraboner as the leash attached to her other wrist would allow. Her damane lay in a weeping heap. 'I will not hear this dog’s words against my Zakai! She is a good damane! A good damane!'

Varek made soothing gestures to the woman. He had seen sul’dam make their charges howl for misdeeds, and a few who crippled the recalcitrant, but most would bristle even at one of the Blood who cast aspersions on a favorite. This Taraboner was not of the Blood, and by the look of the quivering sul’dam, she was ready to do murder. Had the man voiced his ridiculous, unspoken charge, Varek thought she might have killed him on the spot.

'Prayers for the dead must wait,' Varek said bluntly. What he was about to do would end with him in the hands of the Seekers, if he failed, but there was not a Seanchan left standing here except the sul’dam. 'I am assuming command. We will disengage and turn south.'

'Disengage!' the heavy-shouldered Taraboner barked. 'It will take us days to disengage! The Illianers, they fight like badgers backed into a corner, the Cairhienin like ferrets in a box. The Tairens, they are not so hard as I have heard, but there are maybe a dozen of these Asha’man, yes? I do not even know where three-quarters of my men are, in this jolly-bag!' Emboldened by his example, the others began giving protest, too.

Varek ignored them. And forbore asking what a 'jolly-bag' was; looking at the tangled forest all around, listening to the clash of battle, the booms of explosions and lightnings, he could imagine. 'You will gather your men and begin pulling back,' he said loudly, cutting through their chatter. 'Not too fast; you will act in unison.' Miraj’s orders to Chianmai said 'with all possible speed' — he had memorized them, in case something happened to the copy in his saddlebags — 'all possible speed,' but too much speed in this, and half the men would be left behind, chopped to flinders at the enemy’s leisure. 'Now, move! You fight for the Empress, may she live forever!'

That last was the sort of thing you told fresh recruits, but for some reason, the listening men jerked as if he had struck them all with his quirt. Bowing quickly and deeply, hands on knees, they all but flew to their horses. Strange. Now it was up to him to find the Seanchan units. One of those would be commanded by someone above him, and he could pass his responsibility.

The sul’dam was on her knees, stroking her still weeping damane’s hair and crooning softly. 'Get her soothed down,' he told her. With all possible speed. And he thought he had seen a touch of anxiety in Miraj’s eyes. What could make Kennar Miraj anxious? 'I think we will be depending on you sul’dam to the south.' Now, why would that make the blood drain from her face?

Bashere stood just inside the edge of the trees, frowning through his helmet’s face-bars at what he saw. His bay nuzzled his shoulder. He held his cloak close against the wind. More to avoid any motion that would draw eyes than for the cold, though that chilled his flesh. It would have been a spring breeze back in Saldaea, but months in the southlands had softened him. Shining bright between gray clouds that sailed along quickly, the sun still lay a little short of midday. And ahead of him. Just because you began a battle facing west did not mean you ended it that way. Before him lay a broad pasture where flocks of black-and-white goats cropped at the brown grass in desultory fashion just as if there was no battle raging all around them. Not that there was any sign of it here. For the moment. A man could get himself cut to doll rags crossing that meadow. And in the trees, whether forest or olive groves or thickets, you did not always see the enemy before you were on top of him, scouts or no scouts.

'If we’re going to cross,' Gueyam muttered, rubbing a wide hand over his bald head, 'we should cross. Light’s truth, we’re wasting time.' Amondrid snapped his mouth shut; likely, the moon-faced Cairhienin had been about to say much the same thing. He would agree with a Tairen when horses climbed trees.

Jeordwyn Semaris snorted. The man should have grown a beard to hide that narrow jaw. It made his head look like a forester’s splitting wedge. 'I do say go around,' he muttered. 'I’ve lost enough men to those Light-cursed damane, and…' He trailed off with an uneasy glance toward Rochaid.

The young Asha’man stood by himself, mouth tight, fingering that Dragon pin on his collar. Maybe wondering whether it was worth it, by the look of him. There was no knowing air about the boy now, only frowning worry.

Leading Quick by the reins, Bashere strode to the Asha’man and drew him farther aside in the trees. Pushed him farther aside. Rochaid scowled, going reluctantly. The man was tall enough to loom over Bashere, but Bashere was having none of it.

'Can I count on your people next time?' Bashere demanded, jerking a mustache in irritation. 'No delays?' Rochaid and his fellows seemed to have grown slower and slower responding when they found themselves opposite damane.

'I know what I’m about, Bashere,' Rochaid snarled. 'Aren’t we killing enough of them for you? As far as I can see, we’re about done!'

Bashere nodded slowly. Not in agreement with the last. There were plenty of enemy soldiers left, almost anywhere you looked hard enough. But a good many were dead. He had patterned his movements on what he had studied of the Trolloc Wars, when the forces of the Light seldom came anywhere near the numbers they had to face. Slash at the flanks, and run. Slash at the rear, and run. Slash, and run, and when the enemy chased after, turn on the ground you had chosen beforehand, where the legionmen lay waiting with their crossbows, turn and cut at him until it was time to run again. Or until he broke. Already today he had broken Taraboners, Amadicians, Altarans and these Seanchan in their strange armor. He had seen more enemy dead than in any fight since the Blood Snow. But if he had Asha’man, the other side had those damane. A good third of his Saldaeans lay dead along the miles behind. Nearly half his force was dead, all told, and there were still more Seanchan out there with their cursed women, and Taraboners, and Amadicians and Altarans. They just kept coming, more appearing as soon as he finished the last. And the Asha’man were growing… hesitant.

Swinging into Quick’s saddle, he rode back to Jeordwyn and the others. 'We go around,' he ordered, ignoring Jeordwyn’s nods as much as he did Gueyam and Amondrid’s scowls. 'Triple scouts out. I mean to push hard, but I don’t want to trip over a damane.' No one laughed.

Rochaid had gathered the other five Asha’man around him, one with a silver sword pinned to his collar, the others without. There had been two more with bare collars when they started out that morning, but if Asha’man knew how to kill, so did damane. Waving his arms angrily, Rochaid appeared to be arguing with them. His face was red, theirs blank and stubborn. Bashere just hoped Rochaid could keep all of them from deserting. Today had been costly enough without adding that sort of man wandering about loose.

A light rain fell. Rand scowled at the thick black clouds gathering the sky, already beginning to obscure a pale sun halfway down to the far horizon. Light rain now, but it would thicken like those clouds! Irritably he returned to studying the land ahead of him. The Crown of Swords pricked his temples. With the Power in him, the land was clear as a map despite the weather. Clear enough, anyway. Hills sinking away, some covered with thickets or olive trees, others bare grass or just stone and weeds. He thought he saw movement at the edge of a copse, then again among the rows of an olive orchard on another hill a mile from the copse. Thinking was not enough. Dead men lay across the miles behind, dead enemies. Dead women, too, he knew, but he had stayed away from anywhere sul’dam and damane had died, refused to see their faces. Most thought it was hatred for those who killed so many of his followers.

Tai’daishar frisked a few steps on the hilltop before Rand settled him with a firm hand and the pressure of his knees. A fine thing if a sul’dam spotted his movement. The few trees around him were not enough to hide much. Vaguely, he realized he did not recognize a one of them. Tai’daishar tossed his head. Rand tucked the Dragon Scepter into his saddlebags, just the carved butt-end sticking out, to free both hands in case the gelding was not satisfied. He could have taken weariness from the horse with saidin, but he knew no way to make it obey with the Power.

He could not see how the gelding retained enough energy. Saidin filled him, bubbled in him, but his distantly felt body wanted to sag with weariness. Part of that was the sheer amount of the Power he had handled today. Part was the strain of fighting saidin to make it do what he wanted. Always, saidin had to be conquered, forced, but never before like today. The half-healed, never-healing wounds in his left side were agony, the older an auger trying to drill through the Void, the