Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time #11)

Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time #11) Page 232

“Call it ten thousand, Elayne,” Birgitte said, thick braid swaying as she shook her head. She tucked her thumbs behind her belt, and determination filled the bond. “Arymilla has to have at least twice that at the Far Madding Gate, maybe three times if she’s really stripped her camps. If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking. … I told Dyelin to retake the gate if it had fallen, but it’s more likely she’s fighting Arymilla inside the city. If, by some miracle, the gate is holding, you’re talking better than two to one odds against us.”

“If they’re through the gate,” Elayne said stubbornly, “it’s unlikely they closed it behind them. We’ll take them in the rear.” It was not all stubbornness. Not entirely. She had not trained with weapons, but she had received all of the other lessons Gawyn had gotten from Gareth Bryne. A queen had to understand the battle plans her generals gave her rather than simply accept them blindly. “If the gate is holding, we’ll have them trapped between us and the wall. Numbers won’t count so much in Low Caemlyn. Arymilla won’t be able to line up any more men across a street than we can. We are going to do it, Birgitte. Now somebody find me a horse.”

For a moment, she thought the other woman was going to refuse, which ratcheted up her stubbornness, but Birgitte exhaled heavily. “Tzigan, catch up that tall gray mare for Lady Elayne.”

It seemed that everyone around them except the Darkfriends sighed. They must have thought they were going to see a display of Elayne Trakand’s fabled temper. Knowing that almost sparked one. Burn her bouncing moods!

Stepping closer, Birgitte lowered her voice. “But you’ll ride surrounded by your bodyguard. This isn’t some fool story with a queen carrying her banner into battle to lead her troops. I know one of your ancestors did that, but you’re not her, and you don’t have a broken army to rally.”

“Why, that was exactly my plan,” Elayne said sweetly. “How ever did you guess?”

Birgitte snorted with laughter and muttered “Bloody woman” not quite softly enough to escape detection. Affection flowed in the bond, though.

It was not so simple, of course. Men had to be told off to help the wounded. Some could walk, but many could not. Too many had tourniquets around the bloody stump of an arm or a leg. Charlz and the nobles gathered around Elayne and Birgitte to hear the plan of attack, which was simple of necessity, but then Chanelle refused to change the gateway until Elayne agreed that this time they need provide transport only and sealed the agreement; with them both kissing their fingertips and pressing them to the other’s lips. Only then did the gateway dwindle to a vertical silvery slash and widen again into a hundred-pace-wide view of Caemlyn from the south.

There were no people in the brick markets lining the wide road that ran north from the gateway to the Far Madding Gate, but a great mass of men, mounted and afoot, crowded the road out of bowshot from the walls. The first of them was only a few hundred paces from the gateway. It appeared that they spilled into the side streets, too. The mounted men were to the front with a thicket of banners, but cavalry or infantry, they were all looking toward the gates of Caemlyn itself. The closed gates. Elayne could have shouted for joy.

She rode through first, but Birgitte was taking no chances. Her bodyguard gathered around her, herding her off to one side. Birgitte was right by her side, but somehow they did not seem to be herding her. Fortunately, no one tried to object to her pushing the gray forward until only a single line of Guardswomen was between her and the road. That line might as well have been a stone wall. The gray was indeed tall, however, so she could see without standing in the stirrups. She should have lengthened those. They were just a little short for her. That made this Chesmal’s horse, since she was the only one who came close to her own height. A horse could not be tainted by its rider—just because Chesmal was Black Ajah did not make the horse evil—but she felt uncomfortable on the animal for more than short stirrups. The gray would be sold, the gray and all the other horses the Darkfriends had been riding, and the money distributed to the poor.

Cavalry and foot came out of the gateway behind Charlz, enough to fill it from side to side. Followed by the White Lion and the Golden Lily, he started up the road at a trot with five hundred Guardsmen, spread out to cover the width of the road. Other parties of similar size split off and vanished into the streets of Low Caemlyn. When the last men exited the gateway, it dwindled and vanished. Now, there was no quick escape if anything went wrong. Now, they had to win, or Arymilla would as good as have the throne whether or not she had Caemlyn. “We need Mat Cauthon’s bloody luck today,” Birgitte muttered.

“You said something like that before,” Elayne said. “What do you mean?”

Birgitte gave her a peculiar look. The bond carried . . . amusement! “Have you ever seen him dicing?”

“I hardly spend much time in places where there’s dicing, Birgitte.”

“Let’s just say he’s luckier than any other man I’ve ever met.”

Shaking her head, Elayne put Mat Cauthon out of her mind. Charlz’s men were shutting off her view as they rode forward. Not charging yet, trying to make no more noise than absolutely necessary. With a little luck, her men would have Arymilla’s surrounded before they knew what was happening. And then they would hit Arymilla from every side. Mat was the luckiest man Birgitte had ever met? In that case, he must be very lucky indeed.

Suddenly Charlz’s Guardsmen were moving faster, their steel-tipped lances swinging down. Someone must have looked back. Shouts rose, cries of alarm and one thunderous shout she heard repeated from many directions. “Elayne and Andor!”

There were other cries, as well. “The Moons!” and “The Fox!” “The Triple Keys!” and “The Hammer!” and “The Black Banner!” Others, for lesser Houses. But from her side came only the one, repeated again and again. “Elayne and Andor!”

Suddenly she was shaking, half laughing, half weeping. The Light send she was not consigning those men to their deaths for nothing.

The cries faded, largely replaced by the clash of steel on steel, by shouts and screams as men killed or died. Abruptly she realized the gates were swinging out. And she could not see! Kicking her feet free of the stirrups, she clambered up to stand on the high-cantled saddle. The gray shifted nervously, unaccustomed to being a stepstool, but not enough to disturb her balance. Birgitte muttered a particularly pungent oath, but the next moment she was standing on her saddle, too. Hundreds of crossbowmen and archers were pouring out of the Far Madding Gate, but were they her men, or