Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time #11)

Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time #11) Page 101

This near, the bond let Elayne’s eye find her Warder easily, intricate golden braid swaying as she shouted encouragement to her soldiers, pointing her bow to where reinforcement was needed. In her short white-collared red coat and wide sky-blue trousers tucked into her boots, she alone atop the wall wore no armor of any sort. She had insisted Elayne don plain gray in the hope of avoiding notice, and any effort to capture or kill her—some of the men up there had crossbows or shortbows slung on their backs, and for those not in the forefront and engaged, fifty paces made an easy shot—but the four golden knots of rank on her own shoulder would make Birgitte the target of any of Arymilla’s men with eyes. At least she was not actually mingling in the press. At least she. . . .

Elayne’s breath caught as a wiry fellow in breastplate and conical steel cap lunged at Birgitte with a sword, but the golden-haired woman dodged the thrust calmly—the bond said she might have been out for a hard ride, no more!—and a backhand blow with her bow caught the fellow on the side of his head, knocking him from the rampart. He had time to scream before he hit the paving stones with a sickening splat. His was not the only corpse decorating the street. Birgitte said men would not follow you unless they knew you were ready to face the same dangers and hardships they did, but if she got herself killed with this man-foolishness. . . .

Elayne did not realize she had heeled Fireheart forward until Caseille seized her bridle. “I am not an idiot, Guardswoman Lieutenant,” she said frigidly. “I have no intention of going closer until it is . . . safe.”

The Arafellin woman jerked her hand back, her face becoming very still behind the face-bars of her burnished conical helmet. Instantly, Elayne felt sorry for the outburst—Caseille was just doing her job— but she still felt coldly angry, too. She would not apologize. Shame surged as she recognized the sulkiness of her own thoughts. Blood and bloody ashes, but there were times she wanted to slap Rand for planting these babes in her. These days, she could not be certain from one moment to the next which way her emotions would leap. Leap they did, however.

“If this is what happens to you when you get with child,” Aviendha said, adjusting the dark shawl looped over her arms, “I think I will never have any.” The high-cantled saddle of her dun pushed her bulky Aiel skirts high enough to bare her stockinged legs to the knee, but she showed no discomfort at the display. With the mare standing still, she looked quite at home on a horse. But then, Mageen, Daisy in the Old Tongue, was a gentle, placid animal tending to stoutness. Luckily, Aviendha was too ignorant of horses to realize that.

Muffled laughter pulled Elayne’s head around. The women of her bodyguard, all twenty-one of them assigned this morning counting Caseille, in polished helmets and breastplates, wore smooth faces— much too smooth, in fact; without doubt they were laughing inside— but the four Kinswomen standing behind them had hands over their mouths and their heads together. Alise, a pleasant-faced woman normally, with touches of gray in her hair, saw her looking—well, glaring—and rolled her eyes ostentatiously, which set the others off in another round of laughter. Caiden, a plumply pretty Domani, laughed so hard she had to hold on to Kumiko, though the stout graying woman seemed to be having her own difficulties. Irritation stabbed at Elayne. Not at the laughter—all right, a little at the laughter—and certainly not at the Kinswomen. Not very much, at least. They were invaluable.

This fight on the wall was not Arymilla’s first assault in recent weeks by far. In truth, the frequency was increasing, with three or four attacks coming some days, now. She knew very well that Elayne had insufficient soldiers to hold six leagues of wall. Burn her, Elayne was all too aware that she could not even spare trained hands to fit hoardings to all those miles of wall and towers. Untrained hands would only bungle the work. All Arymilla needed was to get enough men across to seize a gate. Then she could bring the battle into the city, where Elayne would be badly outnumbered. The population might rise in her favor, no certain thing, yet that only meant adding to the slaughter, apprentices and grooms and shopkeepers fighting trained armsmen and mercenaries. Whoever sat on the Lion Throne then—and very likely that would not be Elayne Trakand—it would be stained red with the blood of Caemlyn. So apart from holding the gates and leaving watchmen on the towers, she had pulled all of her soldiers back into the Inner City, close to the Royal Palace, and stationed men with looking glasses in the tallest spires of the palace. Whenever a watchman signaled an attack forming, linked Kinswomen made gateways to carry soldiers to the spot. They took no part in the fighting, of course. She would not have allowed them to use the Power as a weapon even had they been willing.

So far it had worked, though often by a hair. Low Caemlyn, outside the walls, was a warren of houses, shops, inns and warehouses that allowed men to close before they were seen. Three times her soldiers had been forced to fight on the ground inside the wall and to retake at least one wall tower. Bloody work, that. She would have burned Low Caemlyn to the ground to deny Arymilla’s people cover, except that the fire might easily spread inside the walls and spawn a conflagration, spring rains or no spring rains. As it was, every night saw arsons inside the city, and containing those was difficult enough. Besides, people lived in those houses despite the siege, and she did not want to be remembered as the one who had destroyed their homes and livelihoods. No, what nettled her was that she had not thought of using the Kin that way earlier. If she had, she would not be saddled with Sea Folk still, not to mention a bargain that gave up a square mile of Andor. Light, a square mile! Her mother had never given up one inch of Andor. Burn her, this siege hardly gave her time to mourn her mother. Or Lini, her old nursemaid. Rahvin had murdered her mother, and likely Lini had died trying to protect her. White-haired and thin with age, Lini would not have backed down even for one of the Forsaken. But thinking of Lini made her hear the woman’s reedy voice. You can’t put honey back in the comb, child. What was done, was done, and she had to live with it.

“That’s it, then.” Caseille said. “They’re making for the ladders.” It was true. All along the wall Elayne’s soldiers were pushing forward, Arymilla’s falling back, climbing through the crenels where their ladders were propped. Men still died on the rampart, but the fight was ending.

Elayne surprised herself by digging her heels into Fireheart’s flanks. No one was quick enough to catch her this time. Pursued by shouts, she galloped across the street and flung herself out of the saddle at the base of the nearest tower before the gelding was fully halted. Pushing open the heavy door, she gathered her divided skirts and raced up the widdershins spiraling stairs, past large niches where clusters of armored men stared in amazement as she darted by. These towers were made to be defended against attackers trying to make their way down and into the city. At last the stairs opened into a large room where stairs on the other side spiraled upward in the opposite direction. Twenty men in mismatched helmets and breastplates were taking their ease, tossing dice, sitting against the wall, talking and laughing as if there were no dead men beyond the room’s two iron-strapped doors. Whatever they were doing, they stopped