"A little honest work wouldn’t kill you, Mat".
"Now, you know that’s not true. Soldiering is honest work, and it gets men killed all the bloody time".
Gawyn Trakand was apparently practicing to be an Aes Sedai sometime, because he kept giving Mat glares that would have made Moiraine proud. Well, let him. Gawyn was a prince. He had been raised to do things like pass judgment. He probably sent a few men to the gallows each day at his lunch break, just to keep in practice.
But Mat . . . Mat was not going to order men to be executed, and that was that. They passed a group of Aiel sparring together. Was this group what Urien had been running to reach? Once they had passed—Mat trying to make the others walk faster so the Seanchan would not catch up—he drew closer to Egwene.
"Have you found it yet?" he asked softly.
"No", Egwene said, eyes forward.
No need to mention what it was. "How could you have lost the thing? After all the work we bloody went through to find it?"
"We? From the telling I hear, Rand, Loial and the Borderlanders had far more to do with finding it than you".
"I was there", Mat said. "I rode across the entire bloody continent, didn’t I? Burn me, first Rand, then you. Is everybody going to chivvy me about those days? Gawyn, you want a turn?"
"Yes, please". He sounded eager.
"Shut up", Mat said. "It seems that nobody can remember straight but me. I hunted down that bloody Horn like a madman. And, I’ll mention, it was me blowing the thing that let you all escape Falme".
"Is that how you remember it?" Egwene asked.
"Sure", Mat said. "I mean, I have some holes in there, but I’ve pieced it mostly together".
"And the dagger?"
"That trinket? Hardly worth anyone’s time". He caught himself reaching to his side, to where he had once carried it. Egwene raised an eyebrow at him. "Anyway, thats not the point. We're going to need that bloody instrument, Egwene. We’ll need it".
"We have people searching", she said. "We’re not sure exactly what happened. There was a Traveling residue, but it’s been a while and . . . Light, Mat. We’re trying. I promise it. It’s not the only thing the Shadow has stolen from us recently . . ".
He glanced at her, but she gave him no more. Flaming Aes Sedai. "Has anyone seen Perrin yet?" he asked. "I don’t want to be the one to tell him his wife has gone missing".
"Nobody has seen him", Egwene said. "I assume he is at work helping Rand".
"Bah", Mat said. "Can you make a gateway for me up to the top of the Knob?"
"I thought you wanted to go to my camp".
Its on the way, Mat said. Well, sort of, it was. "And those Deathwatch Guards won’t expect it. Burn me, Egwene, but I think they’ve guessed where we were heading".
Egwene after pausing for a moment—opened them a gateway to the Traveling ground atop the Knob. They stepped through onto it.
More than a hill, less than a mountain, Dashar Knob rose a good hundred feet into the air near the middle of the battlefield. The rock formation was unscalable, and gateways were the only way to reach the top. From here, Mat and his commanders would be able to watch the entire battle play out.
"I have never known anyone else", Egwene said to him, "who will work so hard to avoid hard work, Matrim Cauthon".
"You haven’t spent enough time around soldiers". Mat waved at the men who saluted him as he walked out of the Traveling grounds.
He looked north toward the River Mora and across it into Arafel. Then northeast, toward the ruins of what had once been some kind of fort or watchtower. Eastward, toward the rising palisade and the forest. He continued to turn, southward to gaze at the River Erinin in the far distance, and the strange little grove of tall trees that Loial was so in awe of. They said Rand had grown those, during the meeting where the treaty had been signed. Mat looked southwest toward the only good ford on the Mora nearby, named Hawal Ford by the locals who had farmed this area; beyond the ford on the Arafel side was a large expanse of bogs.
Westward, across the Mora, lay Polov Heights—a forty-foot-tall plateau with a steep slope on the east and more gradual slopes on the other sides.
Between the base of the southwestern slope and the bogs was a corridor roughly two hundred paces across, well worn by travelers who used the ford to cross between Arafel and Shienar. Mat could use these features to his advantage. He could use them all. Would that be enough? He could feel something pulling on him, tugging him northward. Rand would need him soon.
He turned, ready to bolt, as someone approached across the top of the Knob, but it was not the Deathwatch Guards. It was just leather-faced Jur Grady.
"I fetched those soldiers for you", Grady said, pointing. Mat could see a small force coming through a gateway to the Traveling grounds near the palisade. A hundred men of the Band, led by Delarn, flying a bloody red flag. The Redarms were accompanied by some five hundred people in worn clothing.
"What was the point of this?" Grady asked. "You sent those hundred to a village in the south to recruit, I assume?"
That, and more. I saved your life, man, Mat thought, trying to pick Delarn out of the group. And then you volunteer for this. Bloody fool. Delarn acted as if it were his fate.
"Take them upriver", Mat said. "The maps show there is only one good place to block the Mora, a narrow canyon a few leagues northeast of here".
"All right", Grady said. "There will be channelers involved".
"You will have to handle them", Mat said. "Mostly, though, I want you to let those six hundred men and women defend the river. Don’t risk your self too much. Let Delarn and his people do the work".
"Pardon", Grady said. "But that doesn’t seem like a very large force. Most of them aren’t trained soldiers".
"I know what I’m doing", Mat said. I hope.
Grady nodded reluctantly and moved off.
Egwene watched Mat with curious eyes.
"We can’t fall back from this fight", Mat said softly. "We don’t retreat. There isn’t anywhere to go. We stand here, or we lose it all".
"There is always a retreat", Egwene said.
"No", Mat said. "Not anymore". He rested his ashandarei on his shoulder, his other hand out, palm forward. He scanned the landscape, memories appearing as if from light and dust before him. Rion at Hune Hill. Naath and the San d’ma Shadar. The Fall of Pipkin. Hundreds upon hundreds of battlefields, hundreds of victories. Thousands of deaths.
Mat watched figments of memories flash across the field. "Have you spoken to the supply masters? We’re out of food, Egwene. We can’t win a protracted war, fighting and falling back. The enemy will overwhelm us if we do that. Just like Eyal in the Marches of Maighande. We are at our strongest now, broken though we are. Fall back, and we resign ourselves to starvation as the Trollocs destroy us".
"Rand", Egwene said. "We just have to hold out until he is victorious".
"That’s true in a fashion", Mat said, turning toward the Heights. In his mind’s eye, he saw what could come, the possibilities. He imagined riders on the Heights, like shadows. He would lose if he tried to hold those Heights, but maybe . . . "If Rand loses, it won’t matter. The Wheel is bloody broken, and we all become nothing, if we’re lucky. Well, we can’t do anything more about it. But here’s the thing. If he does what he’s supposed to, we could still lose—we will lose, if we don’t stop the Shadow’s armies". He blinked, seeing it, the entire battlefield spread before him. Fighting at the ford. Arrows from the palisade. "We can’t just beat them, Egwene", Mat said. "We can’t just stand and hold on. We have to destroy them, drive them away, then hunt them to the last Trolloc. We can’t just survive . . . we have to win".
"How are we going to do that?" Egwene asked. "Mat, you’re not talking sense. Weren’t you just saying yesterday how outnumbered we’ll be?"
He looked toward the bog, imagining shadows trying to slog through it. Shadows of dust and memory. "I have to change it all", he said. He could not do what they would expect. He could not do what spies might have reported he was planning. "Blood and bloody ashes . . . one last toss of the dice. Everything we have, piled into a heap . . ".
A group of men in dark armor came through a gateway to the top of the Knob, panting deeply, as if they’d had to chase down a damane to get them up here. Their breastplates were lacquered a deep red, but this batch did not need a fearsome display to be frightening. They looked furious enough to scramble eggs with a stare.
"You", said the lead Deathwatch Guard, a man named Gelen, pointing at Mat, "are needed at the—"
Mat held up a hand to cut him off.
"I will not be denied again!" Gelen said. "I have orders from—"
Mat shot the man a glare, and he stopped short. Mat turned northward again. A cool, somehow familiar wind blew across him, rippling his long coat, brushing at his hat. He narrowed his eye. Rand was tugging on him.
The dice still tumbled in his head.
"They’re here", Mat said.
"What did you say?" Egwene asked.
"They’re here".
"The scouts—"
"The scouts are wrong" Mat said. He looked up, and noticed a pair of raken speeding back toward the camp. They had seen it. The Trollocs must have marched through the night.
Sharans will come first, Mat thought, to give the Trollocs a breather. They’ll have arrived through gateways.
"Send runners", Mat said, pointing at the Deathwatch Guards, "get the men and women to their posts. And warn Elayne that I’m going to change the battle plan".
"What?" Egwene said.
"They’re here!" Mat said, turning on the Guards. "Why aren’t you bloody running! Go, go!" Above, the raken screeched. Gelen, to his credit, saluted, then ran—pounding in that massive armor—with his companions.
"This is it, Egwene", Mat said. "Take a deep breath, a last pull on the brandy, or burn your final pinch of tabac. Have a good look at the ground before you, as it’s soon going to be covered in blood. In an hour, we’ll be in the thick of it. The Light watch over us all".
Perrin drifted in darkness. He felt so tired.
Slayer still lives, a piece of himself thought. Graendal is corrupting the great captains. The end is near. You can’t slip away now! Hold on.
Hold on to what? He tried to open his eyes, but was so exhausted. He should. . . . should have gotten out of the wolf dream sooner. His entire body felt numb, except . . .
Except for his side. Moving fingers that felt like bricks, he touched the warmth. His hammer. It was blazing hot. That warmth seemed to move up his fingers, and Perrin took a deep breath.
He needed to wake up. He hovered at the edges of consciousness, as when he was close to sleep, but still partially aware. In that state, he felt as if he faced a forked pathway before him. One path led deeper into darkness. And one led . . . He couldn’t see, but he knew that it meant . . . It meant waking up.