Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time #11)

Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time #11) Page 136

That certainly caught everyone’s attention. Min tucked her knives away and leapt down from the table, the bond suddenly so full of fear it seemed to throb with it. Harilin and Enaila exchanged worried glances, then went back to staring out the windows. They did not trust Trollocs to be dead until the corpses were three days buried. Alivia took a step toward him, frowning, but he shook his head slightly, and she turned back to her window, though her frown remained.

Cadsuane glided down the room, her smooth face sternly composed. “What does he feel?” she demanded of Min. “Don’t toy with me, girl. You know the cost of that. I know that he bonded you, and you know I know. Is he afraid?”

“He’s never afraid,” Min said. “Except for me or. . . .” She set her jaw stubbornly and folded her arms beneath her breasts, fixing Cadsuane with a glare that dared the Green sister to do her worst. By the tangled mix of emotions ranging from fear to shame that she tried to keep out of the bond and failed, she had some idea of what Cadsuane’s worst could be.

“I’m standing under your nose,” Rand said. “If you want to know how I feel, ask me.” Lews Therin? he thought. There was no answer, and the saidin filling him did not slacken. His temples began to throb.

“Well?” Cadsuane said impatiently.

“I feel right as well water.” Lews Therin? “But I have a rule for you, Cadsuane. Don’t threaten Min again. In fact, leave her alone altogether.”

“Well, well. The boy shows some teeth.” Golden birds and fish, stars and moons, swayed as she shook her head. “Just don’t show too many. And you might ask the young woman whether she wants your protection.” Strangely, Min had shifted her frown to him, and the bond was threaded with irritation. Light, it was bad enough that she did not like him worrying about her. Now she seemed to want to take on Cadsuane single-handed, something he would not be eager to do himself.

We can die at Tarmon Gai’don, Lews Therin said, and suddenly, the Power drained out of him.

“He released,” Logain said, as if he were suddenly on Cadsuane’s side.

“I know.” she told him. He whipped his head around in surprise.

“Min can deal with you in your own way if she wishes,” Rand said starting for the door. “But don’t threaten her.” Yes, he thought. We can die at Tarmon Gai’don.

CHAPTER 20 The Golden Crane

The wind had died away as the rain diminished, but gray clouds still hid the sun. The fine drizzle was enough to dampen Rand’s hair, however, and begin soaking into his gold-embroidered black coat as he walked through the dead Trollocs. Logain had spun a shield of Air so that raindrops bounced from it or apparently slid down nothing to cascade around him, but Rand refused to risk Lews Therin seizing saidin again. The man had said he could wait until the Last Battle to die, but how far could you trust a madman on anything?

Madman? Lews Therin whispered. Am I any madder than you? He cackled with wild laughter.

Now and then Nandera looked over her shoulder at Rand. A tall, sinewy woman, her graying hair hidden beneath her brown shoufa, she led the Maidens, those on this side of the Dragonwall, at least, but she had chosen to lead his bodyguard of Maidens personally. Her green eyes, all he could see of her sun-dark face above her black veil, carried little expression, yet he was sure she was worried over him not protecting himself from the rain. Maidens noticed what seemed out of the ordinary. He hoped she would keep quiet.

You have to trust me, Lews Therin said. Trust me. Oh, Light, I’m pleading with a voice in my head! I must be mad. Nandera and the rest of the fifty veiled Maidens made a large ring around Rand, almost shoulder-to-shoulder, prodding their spears into every Trolloc and Myrddraal they passed, casually stepping over huge severed arms and legs, severed heads bearing horns or tusks or sharp teeth. Occasionally a Trolloc groaned or feebly tried to crawl away—or to lunge at them, snarling—but not for long. War with Trollocs was like war with rabid dogs. You killed them, or they killed you. There was no parley, no surrender, no middle ground.

Rain had kept the vultures away so far, yet crows and ravens flapped everywhere, black feathers glistening wetly, and if any were the Dark One’s eyes, it did not stop them alighting to pluck out Trollocs’ eyes or see whether they could wrench loose some other gobbet. Enough of the Trollocs had been torn apart that the birds had rich feasting. None went near any dead Myrddraal, though, and they shunned Trollocs too near a Myrddraal. That indicated nothing beyond caution. Very likely the Myrddraal smelled wrong to the birds. A Myrddraal’s blood would etch steel if left on it very long. To ravens and crows, it must have smelled like poison.

The surviving Saldaeans shot the birds with arrows or skewered them on their sinuously curved swords or simply bludgeoned them with shovels or hoes or rakes, anything that could make a handy club—in the Borderlands, leaving a crow or raven alive was unthinkable; there, they were all too often the Dark One’s eyes—yet there were too many. Hundreds of black-feathered shapes lay crumpled among the Trollocs, and for every corpse there seemed to be hundreds more squabbling loudly over the softer bits, including pieces of their dead fellows. The Asha’man and Aes Sedai had long since given up trying to kill them all.

“I don’t like my men tiring themselves this way,” Logain said. His men. “Or the sisters, for that matter. Gabrelle and Toveine will be near exhaustion by nightfall.” He had bonded the two Aes Sedai, so he should know. “What if there’s another attack?”

All around the manor house and outbuildings brief fires flared, so hot that people shielded their eyes against them, as Aes Sedai and Asha’man incinerated Trolloc and Myrddraal dead where they lay. There were too many to afford the labor of gathering them into heaps. With fewer than twenty Aes Sedai, fewer than a dozen Asha’man, and maybe a hundred thousand Trollocs, it was going to be a long job. Very likely, before it was done the stench of decay would be added to the already foul odors in the air: the fetid, coppery smell of Shadowspawn blood, the stink of whatever had been in the Trollocs’ intestines when they were ripped open. Best not to think too closely on that. There might not be a farmer or villager left alive between the manor house and the Spine of the World. That had to be where the Trollocs had come from, the Waygate outside Stedding Shangtai. At least Loial’s home itself was safe. Neither Trollocs nor Myrddraal would enter a stedding unless driven, and it requ