Towers of Midnight (The Wheel of Time #13)

Towers of Midnight (The Wheel of Time #13) Page 14

Malenarin held his son’s eyes. The boy understood what was coming. Light help him, but he understood. And he’d sent another away in his place.

“Kralle,” Malenarin barked, glancing toward one of the soldiers passing by.

“Yes, my Lord Commander?”

“Run down to my office,” Malenarin said. “There is a sword in my oaken trunk. Fetch it for me.”

The man saluted, obeying.

“Father?” Keemlin said. “My nameday isn’t for three days.”

Malenarin waited with arms behind his back. His most important task at the moment was to be seen in command, to reassure his troops. Kralle returned with the sword; its worn scabbard bore the image of the oak set aflame. The symbol of House Rai.

“Father….” Keemlin repeated. “I—”

“This weapon is offered to a boy when he becomes a man,” Malenarin said. “It seems it is too late in coming, son. For I see a man standing before me.” He held the weapon forward in his right hand. Around the tower top, soldiers turned toward him: the archers with bows ready, the soldiers who operated the mirrors, the duty watchmen. As Borderlanders, each and every one of them would have been given his sword on his fourteenth nameday. Each one had felt the catch in the chest, the wonderful feeling of coming of age. It had happened to each of them, but that did not make this occasion any less special.

Keemlin went down on one knee.

“Why do you draw your sword?” Malenarin asked, voice loud so that every man atop the tower would hear.

“In defense of my honor, my family, or my homeland,” Keemlin replied.

“How long do you fight?”

“Until my last breath joins the northern winds.”

“When do you stop watching?”

“Never,” Keemlin whispered.

“Speak it louder!”

“Never!”

“Once this sword is drawn, you become a warrior, always with it near you in preparation to fight the Shadow. Will you draw this blade and join us, as a man?”

Keemlin looked up, then took the hilt in a firm grip and pulled the weapon free.

“Rise as a man, my son!” Malenarin declared.

Keemlin stood, holding the weapon aloft, the bright blade reflecting the diffuse sunlight. The men atop the tower cheered.

It was no shame to find tears in one’s eyes at such a moment. Malenarin blinked them free, then knelt down, buckling the sword belt at his son’s waist. The men continued to cheer and yell, and he knew it was not only for his son. They yelled in defiance of the Shadow. For a moment, their voices rang louder than the thunder.

Malenarin stood, laying a hand on his son’s shoulder as the boy slid his sword into its sheath. Together they turned to face the oncoming Shadow.

“There!” one of the archers said, pointing upward. “There’s something in the clouds!”

“Draghkar!” another one said.

The unnatural clouds were close now, and the shade they cast could no longer hide the undulating horde of Trollocs beneath. Something flew out from the sky, but a dozen of his archers let loose. The creature screamed and fell, dark wings flapping awkwardly.

Jargen pushed his way through to Malenarin. “My Lord,” Jargen said, shooting a glance at Keemlin, “the boy should be below.”

“Not a boy any longer,” Malenarin said with pride. “A man. What is your report?”

“All is prepared.” Jargen glanced over the wall, eyeing the oncoming Trollocs as evenly as if he were inspecting a stable of horses. “They will not find this tree an easy one to fell.”

Malenarin nodded. Keemlin’s shoulder was tense. That sea of Trollocs seemed endless. Against this foe, the tower would eventually fall. The Trollocs would keep coming, wave after wave.

But every man atop that tower knew his duty. They’d kill Shadowspawn as long as they could, hoping to buy enough time for the messages to do some good.

Malenarin was a man of the Borderlands, same as his father, same as his son beside him. They knew their task. You held until you were relieved.

That’s all there was to it.

Chapter 1

Apples First

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose above the misty peaks of Imfaral. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.

Crisp and light, the wind danced across fields of new mountain grass stiff with frost. That frost lingered past first light, sheltered by the omnipresent clouds that hung like a death mask high above. It had been weeks since those clouds had budged, and the wan, yellowed grass showed it.

The wind churned morning mist, moving southward, chilling a small pride of torm. They reclined on a flat, lichen-stained granite shelf, waiting to bask in morning sunlight that would not arrive. The wind poured over the shelf, racing down a hillside of scraggly mura trees, with ropelike bark and green tufts of thick, needlelike leaves atop them.

At the base of the foothills, the wind turned eastward, passing an open plain kept free of trees and scrub by the soldier’s axe. The killing field surrounded thirteen fortresses, tall and cut entirely from unpolished black marble, their blocks left rough-hewn to give them a primal feeling of unformed strength. These were towers meant for war. By tradition they were unoccupied. How long that would last—how long tradition itself would be remembered in a continent in chaos—remained to be seen.

The wind continued eastward, and soon it was playing with the masts of half-burned ships at the docks of Takisrom. Out into the Sleeping Bay, it passed the attackers: enormous greatships with sails painted blood red. They sailed southward, their grisly work done.

The wind blew onto land again, past smoldering towns and villages, open plains filled with troops and docks fat with warships. Smoke, war calls and banners flew above dying grass and beneath a dockmaster’s gloomy sky.

Men did not whisper that this might be the end of times. They yelled it. The Fields of Peace were aflame, the Tower of Ravens was broken as prophesied and a murderer openly ruled in Seandar. This was a time to lift one’s sword and choose a side, then spill blood to give a final color to the dying land.

The wind howled eastward over the famed Emerald Cliffs and coursed out over the ocean. Behind, smoke seemed to rise from the enti