Either way, she felt grateful for this rare moment of rest and relative peace between attacks. She stared into that pit in the mountain, within which Rand fought. A strong pulse came from deep within it; channeling, in waves, powerful. Several days on the outside, but how long on the inside? A day? Hours? Minutes? Maidens who guarded the path up to the entrance claimed that after four hours of duty, they’d climb down the mountainside and find that eight hours had passed.
We have to hold’ Aviendha thought. We have to fight. Give him as much time as we can.
At least she knew he still lived. She could sense that. And his pain.
She looked away.
As she did, she noticed something. A woman was channeling in the camp. It was faint, but Aviendha frowned. At this hour, with no fighting, the only channeling should have been happening on the Traveling ground, and this was in the wrong direction.
Muttering to herself, she started through the camp. It was probably one of the off-duty Windfinders again. They took turns rotating in and out of the group using the Bowl of the Winds, constantly, to keep the tempest at bay. That task was done atop the northern valley wall, well guarded by a large force of Sea Folk. They had to take gateways up there to change shifts.
When the Windfinders weren’t on duty with the Bowl, they camped with the rest of the army. Aviendha had told them time and time again that, while in the valley, they were not allowed to channel for incidental reasons. One would think, after all the years they had spent never letting Aes Sedai see them use their powers, that they could be more self-controlled! If she caught another one of them using the One Power to warm her tea, she’d send her to Sorilea for an education. This was supposed to be a secure camp.
Aviendha froze in place. That channeling was not coming from the small ring of tents where the Windfinders made camp.
Had she sensed an incursion? A Dreadlord or Forsaken would probably assume that—in a camp this large filled with Aes Sedai, Windfinders and Wise Ones—no one would notice a tiny bit of channeling here or there. Aviendha immediately crouched beside a nearby tent, avoiding the light of a lantern on a pole. The channeling came again, very faint. She crept forward.
If this turns out to be someone heating water for a bath . . .
She moved between tents, across the hard earth. As she drew closer, she took off her boots and left them behind, then pulled her dagger from its sheath. She couldn’t risk embracing the Source, lest she reveal herself to her prey.
The camp didn’t truly sleep. Those warriors who were not on duty had trouble slumbering here. Fatigue among the spears, including the Maidens, was becoming a problem. They complained of terrible dreams.
Aviendha continued forward silently, slipping between tents, avoiding those that shone with light. This place disturbed all of them, so she was not surprised to hear of bad dreams. How could they sleep in peace so close to the Dark One’s abode?
Logically, she knew that the Dark One was not nearby, not really. That wasn’t what the Bore was. He didn’t live in this place; he existed outside the Pattern, inside his prison. Still, bedding down here was like trying to sleep while a murderer stood beside your bed, holding a knife and contemplating the color of your hair.
There, she thought, slowing. The channeling stopped, but Aviendha was close. Draghkar attacks and the threat of Myrddraal slipping in at night had driven the camp leaders to spread the officers throughout the camp, in tents that bore no external sign of which belonged to a commander and which to a common foot soldier. Aviendha, however, knew this tent to belong to Darlin Sisnera.
Darlin had official command of this battlefield, now that Ituralde had fallen. He was not a general, but the Tairen army was the bulk of the defense, with the Defenders of the Stone their elite units. Their commander, Tihera, was good with tactics, and Darlin listened well to the man’s suggestions. Tihera was not a great captain, but he was very clever. He, Darlin and Rhuarc had been devising their battle plans following Ituralde’s fall . . .
In the darkness, Aviendha nearly missed the three figures crouched ahead of her, just outside Darlin’s tent. They gestured to one another, silent, and she could see little about them—not even their clothing. She raised her knife, and then a bolt of lightning split the sky, giving her a better glimpse of one. The man was wearing a veil. Aiel.
They noticed the intruder too, she thought, stalking up to them and raising a hand to keep them from attacking. She whispered, "I felt channeling nearby, and I do not think it is from one of ours. What have you seen?"
The three men stared at her, as if stunned, though she couldn’t make out much of their faces.
Then they attacked her.
Aviendha cursed, leaping backward as their spears came out and one threw a knife in her direction. Aiel Darkfriends? She felt a fool. She should have known better.
She reached out to embrace the Source. If a female Dread lord was nearby, she’d feel what Aviendha did, but there was no help for it. She needed to survive these three.
However, as Aviendha reached for the One Power, something snapped into place between her and the Source. A shield, with weaves she could not see.
One of these men could channel. Aviendha’s reaction was instinctive. She shoved down her panic, stopped scrambling to touch the Source and threw herself at the nearest of the men. She caught his spear-thrust with her off hand—ignoring the pain as the spearhead sliced against her ribs—and hauled him forward to ram her knife in his neck.
One of the other two cursed, and Aviendha suddenly found herself wrapped in weaves of Air, unable to speak or move. Blood soaked into her blouse and pooled against her wounded side. The man she’d struck gasped and thrashed on the ground as he died. The other two did not move to help him.
One of the Darkfriends stepped forward, lithe, almost invisible in the darkness. He pulled her face close to inspect her, then waved his hand to the other. A very soft light appeared beside them, giving them a better look at her—and her at them. They wore red veils, but this one had taken his down for the fight. Why? What was this? No Aiel she knew did that. Were these the Shaido? Had they joined the Shadow?
One of the men made a few gestures to the other. It was handtalk. Not Maiden handtalk, but something similar. The other man nodded.
Aviendha thrashed against her invisible bonds. She slammed her will against that shield, biting down on her gag of Air. The Aiel on the right—the taller one, the one who probably held her shield—grunted. She felt as if her fingers were clawing at the edge of a nearly shut door, with light, warmth and power beyond. That door wouldn’t budge an inch.
The tall Aiel narrowed his eyes at her. He let the light he’d summoned vanish, plunging them into darkness. Aviendha heard him take out a spear.
A foot fell on the ground nearby. The red-veils heard it and spun; Aviendha looked as best she could, but couldn’t make out the newcomer.
The men stood perfectly still.
"What is this?" a woman’s voice asked. Cadsuane. She approached, a lantern in her hand. Aviendha was jerked away as the man holding her weaves pulled her back into the shadows, and Cadsuane did not seem aware of her. Cadsuane saw only the other man, who stood closer to the pathway.
That Aiel man stepped from the shadows. He’d lowered his veil, too. "I thought I heard something near the tents here, Aes Sedai", he said. He had a strange accent, one that was slightly off. Only by a shade. A wetlander would never know the difference.
These aren’t Aiel, Aviendha thought. They’re something different. Her mind wrestled with the concept. Aiel who were not Aiel? Men who could channel?
The men we send, she realized with horror. Men discovered among the Aiel with the ability to channel were sent to try to kill the Dark One. Alone, they came to the Blight. Nobody knew what happened to them after that.
Aviendha began to struggle again, trying to make noise—any noise—to alert Cadsuane. The attempts were in vain. She hung tightly in the air, in the darkness, and Cadsuane wasn’t looking in her direction.
"Well, did you find anything?" Cadsuane asked the man.
"No, Aes Sedai".
"I will speak to the guards", Cadsuane said, sounding dissatisfied. "We must be vigilant. If a Draghkar—or, worse, a Myrddraal—managed to sneak in, it could kill dozens before being discovered".
Cadsuane turned to go. Aviendha shook her head, tears of frustration in her eyes. So close!
The red-veil who had been with Cadsuane stepped back into the shadows, going up to Aviendha. In a flash of lightning, she caught a smile on his lips, mimicked by the one who still held her in the bonds.
The red-veil in front of her slid a dagger from his belt, then reached up for her. She watched that knife, helpless, as he raised it to her throat.
She sensed channeling.
The bonds holding her were gone instantly, and she dropped to the ground. Aviendha caught the man’s knife hand as she fell, his eyes opening wide. Though she embraced the Source by raw, mad instinct, her hands were already moving. She twisted the man’s wrist, snapping the bones where hand met arm. She caught the knife with her other hand, then slammed it into his eye as he started to scream in pain.
The scream cut off. The red-veil fell at her feet, and she looked with anxiety toward the one beside her—the one who had been holding her in weaves. He lay dead on the ground.
Gasping, she scrambled toward the path nearby, and found Cadsuane.
"It is a simple thing, to stop a man’s heart", Cadsuane said, arms folded. She seemed dissatisfied. "So close to Healing, yet opposite in effect. Perhaps it is an evil thing, yet I’ve always failed to see how it would be worse than simply burning a man to ash with fire".
"How?" Aviendha asked. "How did you recognize what they were?"
"I am not a half-trained wilder", Cadsuane replied. "I would have liked to strike them down when I first arrived, but I had to be certain before I could act. When that one threatened you with the knife, I knew".
Aviendha breathed in and out, trying to still her heart.
"And, of course, there was the other one", Cadsuane said. "The one that channeled. How many male Aiel warriors can secretly channel? Was this an anomaly, or have your people been covering them up?"
"What? No! We don’t. Or, we didn’t". Aviendha wasn’t certain what they would do now that the Source had been cleansed. Men, certainly, should stop being sent alone to die fighting the Dark One.
"You’re certain?" Cadsuane asked, voice flat.
"Yes!"
"Pity. That could have been a large boon to us, now". Cadsuane shook her head. "I wouldn’t have been surprised, after finding out about those Windfinders. So these were just run-of-the-mill Darkfriends, with one among them who had hidden his channeling ability? What were they about tonight?"
"These are anything but ordinary Darkfriends", Aviendha said softly, inspecting the corpses. Red veils. The man who had been able to channel wore his teeth filed to points, but the other two did not. What did it mean?
"We need to alert the camp", Aviendha continued. "It’s possible that these three merely walked in, unchallenged. Many of the wetlander guards avoid challenging Aiel. They assume that all of us serve the Car’a’carn".