Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time #11)

Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time #11) Page 196

“Aghan, Hamad, search the house!” Bashere shouted. “Matoun, form the lancers! They’ll be on us as soon as they can!” Two soldiers thrust their lances into the ground and leapt down to run inside, drawing their swords, while the others began arraying themselves in two ranks.

Ayako flung herself from her saddle and rushed to Sandomere, not even bothering to hold her skirts out of the mud. Merise rode to Narishma before swinging down right in front of him and taking his head in her hands without a word. He jerked, his back arching and nearly pulling his head free, as she Healed him. She had little facility with Nynaeve’s method of Healing.

Ignoring the turmoil, Nynaeve gathered her skirts in bloodied hands and hurried to Rand. “Oh, Rand,” she said when she saw his arm, “I’m so sorry. I . . . I’ll do what I can, but I can’t fix it the way it was.” Her eyes were filled with anguish.

Wordlessly, he held out his left arm. It throbbed with agony. Strangely, he could still feel his hand. It seemed he should be able to make a fist with the fingers that were no longer there. His goose bumps intensified as she drew more deeply on saidar, the tendrils of smoke vanished from his cuff, and she gripped his arm above the wrist. His entire arm began tingling, and the pain drained away. Slowly, blackened skin was replaced by smooth skin that seemed to ooze down until it covered the small lump that had been the base of his hand. It was a miraculous thing to see. The scarlet-and-gold scaled dragon grew back, too, as much as it could, ending in a bit of the golden mane. He could still feel the whole hand.

“I’m so sorry,” Nynaeve said again. “Let me delve you for any other injuries.” She asked, but did not wait, of course. She reached up to cup his head between her hands, and a chill ran through him. “There’s something wrong with your eyes,” she said with a frown. “I’m afraid to try fixing that without studying on it. The smallest mistake could blind you. How well can you see? How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Two. I can see fine,” he lied. The black flecks were gone, but everything still seemed seen through water, and he wanted to squint against a sun that appeared to glare ten times brighter than it had. The old wounds in his side were knotted with pain.

Bashere climbed down from his compact bay in front of him and frowned at the stump of his left arm. Unbuckling his helmet, he took it off and held it under his arm. “At least you’re alive,” he said gruffly. “I’ve seen men hurt worse.”

“Me, too,” Rand said. “I’ll have to learn the sword all over again, though.” Bashere nodded. Most forms required two hands. Rand bent to pick up the crown of Illian, but Min released his arm and hurriedly handed the crown to him. He settled it on his head. “I’ll have to work out new ways to do everything.”

“You must be in shock,” Nynaeve said slowly. “You’ve just suffered a grievous injury, Rand. Maybe you’d better lie down. Lord Davram, have one your men bring a saddle to put his feet up.”

“He’s not in shock,’ Min said sadly. The bond was full of sadness. She had taken hold of his arm as if to hold him up again. “He lost a hand, but there’s nothing to do about it, so he’s left it behind already.”

“Wool-headed fool,” Nynaeve muttered. Her hand, still smeared with Sandomere’s blood, drifted toward the thick braid hanging over her shoulder, but she yanked it back down. “You’ve been hurt badly. It’s all right to grieve. It’s all right to feel stunned. It’s normal!”

“I don’t have time,” he told her. Min’s sadness threatened to overflow the bond. Light, he was all right! Why did she feel so sad?

Nynaeve muttered half under her breath about “woolhead” and “fool” and “man-stubborn,” but she was not finished. “Those old wounds in your side have broken open,” she almost growled. “You aren’t bleeding badly, but you are bleeding. Maybe I can finally do something about them.”

But as hard as she tried—and she tried three times—nothing changed. He still felt the slow trickle of blood sliding down his ribs. The wounds were still a throbbing knot of pain. Finally, he pushed her hand gently away from his side. “You’ve done what you can, Nynaeve. It’s enough.”

“Fool.” She did growl, this time. “How can it be enough when you’re still bleeding?”

“Who is the tall woman?” Bashere asked. He understood, at least. You did not waste time on what could not be mended. “They didn’t try passing her off as the Daughter of the Nine Moons, did they? Not after telling me she was a little thing.”

“They did,” Rand replied, and explained briefly.

“Semirhage?” Bashere muttered incredulously. “How can you be sure?”

“She’s Anath Dorje, not . . . not what you called her,” a honey-skinned sul’dam said loudly in a twangy drawl. Her dark eyes were tilted, and her hair was streaked with gray. She looked the eldest of the sul’dam, and the least frightened. It was not that she did not look afraid, but she controlled it well. “She’s the High Lady’s Truthspeaker.”

“Be silent, Falendre,” Semirhage said coldly, looking over her shoulder. Her gaze promised pain. The Lady of Pain was good at delivering on her promises. Prisoners had killed themselves on learning it was she who held them, men and women who managed to open a vein with teeth or fingernails.

Falendre did not seem to see it, though. “You don’t command me,” she said scornfully. “You’re not even so’jhin.”

“How can you be sure?” Cadsuane demanded. Those golden moons and stars, birds and fishes, swung as she moved her piercing gaze from Rand to Semirhage and back.

Semirhage saved him the effort of thinking up a lie. “He’s insane,” she said coolly. Standing there stiff as a statue, Min’s knife hilt still sticking out beside her collarbone and the front of her black dress glistening with blood, she might have been a queen on her throne. “Graendal could explain it better than I. Madness was her specialty. I will try, however. You know of people who hear voices in their heads? Sometimes, very rarely, the voices they hear are the voices of past lives. Lanfear claimed he knew things from our own Age, things only Lews Therin Telamon could know. Clearly, he is hearing Lews Therin’s voice. It makes no difference that his voice is real, however. In fact, that makes his situation worse. Even Graendal usually failed to achieve reintegration with someone who heard a real voice. I understand the descent into terminal madness can be . . . abrupt.” Her lips curved in a smile that ne