Lan pushed himself to hands and knees, shaking his head groggily, and one of the bulky fellows raised an iron-strapped club to smash his skull. Mat stabbed the fellow in the belly with his spear as Beslan and Nalesean and the five Redarms rushed to meet the Darkfriends’ shouting charge. Lan staggered to his feet, sword sweeping out to open a Darkfriend from crotch to neck. There was not much room to work sword or ashandarei in the corridor, but the tight quarters were what allowed them to face odds of two to one or worse without being overcome in the first moment. Grunting men struggled with them face-to-face, elbowing each other for room to stab or swing a club at them.
Small spaces remained clear around the Black sisters, and around Nynaeve; they saw to that themselves. A wiry Andoran Redarm almost bumped into Falion, but at the last instant he jerked into the air and flew across the hallway, knocking down two of the heavy-shouldered Darkfriends in his flight before smacking into the wall and sliding down, the back of his head leaving a bloody smear on the cracked, dusty plaster. A bald headed Darkfriend squeezed through the line of defenders and rushed at Nynaeve with out-stretched knife; he yelled as his feet were suddenly jerked back from him, a yell that cut off when his face hit the floor so hard that his head bounced.
Obviously Nynaeve was no longer shielded, and if the chilly silver foxhead sliding around Mat’s chest as he fought was not enough indication that she and the Black sisters were in some sort of struggle, the way they glared at her and she at them, ignoring the battle around them, shouted the fact. The two Wise Women looked on in horror; they had their curved knives in their fists, but they huddled against the wall, staring from Nynaeve to the other two with eyes wide and mouths hanging open.
“Fight,” Nynaeve snapped at them. She turned her head just a fraction, so she could see them as well as Falion and Ispan. “I cannot do it alone; they’re linked. If you don’t fight them, they will kill you. You know about them, now!” The Wise Women gaped at her as though she had suggested spitting in the Queen’s face. In the midst of shouts and grants, Ispan laughed melodiously. In the midst of shouts and grants, a shrill scream echoed down the stairs.
Nynaeve’s head swung that way. Suddenly she staggered, and her head swung back like a wounded badger’s, with a scowl that should have made Falion and Ispan leave right then if they had any sense. Nynaeve spared an agonized glance for Mat, though. “There was channeling upstairs,” she said through her teeth. “There’s trouble.”
Mat hesitated. More likely, Elayne had seen a rat. More likely . . . He managed to knock aside a dagger thrust at his ribs, but there was no room to stab back with the ashandarei or use the haft like a quarterstaff. Beslan stabbed past him and took his attacker through the heart.
“Please, Mat,” Nynaeve said tightly. She never begged. She would cut her own throat first. “Please.”
With a curse, Mat pulled himself out of the fight and dashed up the steep, narrow stairs, taking all six flights in the dark stairwell at a dead ran. There was not a single window to give light. If it was just a rat, he was going to shake Elayne till her teeth . . . He burst out onto the top floor, not much brighter than the stairwell with only one window at the street end, burst into a scene from nightmare.
Women lay sprawled everywhere. Elayne was one, half on her back against the wall, eyes closed. Vanin crouched on his knees, blood streaming from nose and ears, feebly trying to pull himself up against the wall. The last woman on her feet, Janira, fled toward Mat as soon as she saw him. He had thought of her as a hawk, with her hooked beak of a nose and sharp cheekbones, but her face was pure terror now, those dark eyes wide and stark.
“Help me!” she screamed at him, and a man caught her from behind. He was an ordinary-looking fellow, maybe a little older than Mat, of the same height and slender in a plain gray coat. Smiling, he took Janira’s head between his hands and twisted sharply. The sound of her neck breaking was like a dry branch snapping. He let her drop in a boneless heap and gazed down at her. For a moment, his smile looked . . . rapturous.
By the light of a pair of lanterns, a small knot of men just beyond Vanin were prying open a door to the squeal of rusted hinges, but Mat hardly noticed. His eyes went from Janira’s crumpled corpse to Elayne. He had promised to keep her safe for Rand. He had promised. With a cry, he launched himself at the killer, ashandarei extended.
Mat had seen Myrddraal move, but this fellow was quicker, hard as that was to believe. He just seemed to flow from in front of the spear, and seizing the haft, he pivoted, flinging Mat past him five paces down the hall.
Breath left when he hit the floor in a small cloud of dust. So did the ashandarei. Straggling for air, he pushed himself up, foxhead dangling from his open shirt. Dragging a knife from under his coat, he flung himself at the man again just as Nalesean appeared at the head of the stairs, sword in hand. Now they had him, however quick he . . .
The man made a Myrddraal seem stiff. He slid around Nalesean’s thrust as though there was not a bone in his body, right hand shooting out to seize Nalesean’s throat. His hand came away with a liquid, ripping sound. Blood fountained past Nalesean’s beard. His sword dropped, ringing on the dusty stone floor, and he clutched both hands to his ruined neck, red running through his fingers as he fell.
Mat crashed into the killer’s back, and they all three hit the floor together. He had no compunctions against stabbing a man in the back when it was necessary, especially a man who could tear somebody’s throat out. He should have let Nalesean stay in bed. The thought came sadly as he drove the blade home hard, then a second time, a third.
The man twisted in his grip. It should not have been possible, but somehow the fellow rolled over beneath him, pulling the knife hilt out of his hand. Nalesean’s staring eyes and bloody throat were a reminder right before his eyes. Desperately he grabbed the man’s wrists, one hand slipping a little in the blood that ran down the fellow’s hand.
The man smiled at him. With a knife sticking out of his side, he smiled! “He wants you dead as much as he wants her,” he said softly. And as if Mat was not holding him at all, his hands moved toward Mat’s head, driving Mat’s arms back.
Mat pushed frantically, threw all of his weight against the fellow’s arms to no avail. Light, he might as well have been a child fighting a grown man. The fellow was making a game of it, taking his bloody time. Hands touched his head. Where was his flaming luck? He gave a heave with what seemed his last strength — and the medallion fell against the man’s cheek. The man screamed. Smoke rose around the edges of the foxhead, and a sizzle like bacon frying. Convulsively, he hurled Mat away with hands and feet both. This time, Mat flew ten paces and slid.
When he scrambled to his feet, half-dazed, the man was already up, hands trembling at his face. A raw red brand marked where the foxhead had fallen. Gingerly, Mat fingered the medallion. It was cool. Not the cool of someone channeling nearby — maybe they were still at it below, but that was too far off — just the cool of silver. He had no notion what this fellow was, except that he certainly was not human, but between that burn and three stab wounds, with the knife hilt still jutting out beneath his arm, he had to be slowed enough for Mat to get past him to the stairs. Avenging Elayne was all very well, and Nalesean too, but it was not going to happen today, apparently, and there was no call to supply a reason for avenging Mat Cauthon.
Jerking the knife out of his side, the man hurled it at him. Mat snagged it out of the air without thinking. Thom had taught him to juggle, and Thom said he had the quickest hands he had ever seen. Ripping the knife around so he held it properly, pointed slanted up, he noticed the gleaming blade, and his heart sank. No bloo
d. There should have been at least a smear of red, but the steel shone, bright and clean. Maybe even three stab wounds were not going to slow this — whatever he was.
He risked a glance over his shoulder. The other men were streaming out of that door they had pried open, the door those footprints had led him to yesterday, but their arms seemed full of rubbish, small half-rotted chests, a cask with cloth-wrapped objects bulging through missing staves, even a broken chair and a cracked mirror. They must have had orders to take everything. Paying no attention whatever to Mat, they hurried toward the far end of the hall and vanished around a corner. There had to be another set of stairs back there. Maybe he could follow them down at a distance. Maybe . . . Just before the doorway they had come out of, Vanin made another effort to stand, and fell back. Mat bit back a curse. Lugging Vanin was going to slow him, but if his luck was in . . . It had not saved Elayne, but maybe . . . From the corner of his eye, he saw her move, lifting a hand to her head.
The man in the gray coat saw it, too. With a smile, he turned toward her.
Sighing, Mat tucked the useless knife into its scabbard. “You can’t have her,” he said loudly. Promises. One jerk broke the leather cord around his neck; the silver foxhead dangled a foot below his fist. It made a low hum as he whirled it in a double loop. “You can’t bloody have her.” He started forward, keeping the medallion spinning. The first step was the hardest, but he had a promise to keep.
The fellow’s smile faded. Watching the flashing foxhead warily, he backed away on his toes. The same light that glittered on the whirling silver, from the single window, made a halo around him. If Mat could drive him that far, maybe he could see whether a six-story drop would do what a knife could not.
Brand livid on his face, the fellow backed away, sometimes half-reaching as if to try grabbing past the medallion. And suddenly, he darted to one side, into one of the rooms. This one had a door that he pulled shut behind him. Mat heard the bar drop.
Maybe he should have left it there, but without thinking, he raised a foot and slammed the heel of his boot against the center of the door. Dust leaped off the rough wood. A second kick, and rotten bar-catches gave way, along with a rusted hinge. The door fell in, hanging at a slanted angle.
The room was not entirely dark. A little light reached it from the window at the end of the hall, just one door away, and a broken triangle of mirror leaning against the far wall spread a faint illumination. That mirror let him see everything without going in. Aside from that and a piece of a chair, there was nothing else to see. The only openings were the doorway and a rathole beside the mirror, but the man in the gray coat was gone.
“Mat,” Elayne called faintly. He hurried away from the room as much as toward her. There was shouting somewhere below, but Nynaeve and the rest would have to take care of themselves for the moment.
Elayne was sitting up, working her jaw and wincing, when he knelt beside her. Dust covered her dress, her hat hung askew, some of the plumes broken, and her red-gold hair looked as if she had been dragged by it. “He hit me so hard,” she said painfully. “I don’t think anything is broken, but . . . ”Her eyes latched on to his, and if he had ever thought she looked at him as if he were a stranger, he saw it for true now. “I saw what you did, Mat. With him. We might as well have been chickens in a box with a weasel. Channeling wouldn’t touch him; the flows melted the way they do with your . . . ” Glancing at the medallion still hanging from his fist, she drew a breath that did interesting things to that oval cut-out. “Thank you, Mat. I apologize for everything I ever did or thought.” She sounded as though she really meant it. “I keep building up toh toward you,” she smiled ruefully, “but I am not going to let you beat me. You are going to have to let me save you at least once to balance matters.”