“I’ll see to getting the shepherds in,” Abell told Perrin, and dove into the throng.
Cenn Buie pushed past in the moil, using a halberd to herd sour-faced Hari Coplin and Hari’s brother Darl and old Bili Congar, who staggered as if already full of ale this morning, which he probably was. Of the three, Bili carried his spear most as if he meant to use it. Cenn touched his forehead to Perrin in a sort of salute. A number of the men did. It made him uncomfortable. Dannil and the other lads were one thing, but these men were half again his age and more.
“You are doing fine,” Faile said.
“I wish I knew what Verin and Alanna were up to,” he muttered. “And I don’t mean right now.” Two of the catapults the Warders had had built stood at this end of the village, squarish things taller than a man, all heavy timbers and thick, twisted ropes. From their horses, Ihvon and Tomas were overseeing the stout wooden beams being winched down. The two Aes Sedai were more interested in the big fieldstones, fifteen or twenty pounds each, being loaded in cups on the end of those arms.
“They mean you to be a leader,” Faile replied quietly. “It is what you were born for, I think.”
Perrin snorted. He had been born to be a blacksmith. “I’d be a lot more comfortable if I knew why they wanted it.” The Aes Sedai were looking at him, Verin with head tilted, birdlike, Alanna with a franker stare and a small smile. Did they both want the same thing, and for the same reason? That was one of the troubles with Aes Sedai. There were always more questions than answers.
Order asserted itself with surprising quickness. Along this west end of the village a hundred men knelt on one knee right behind the bristle of stakes, uneasily fingering spears or halberds or some polearm made from a bush hook or scythe. Here and there one wore a helmet or some bit of armor. To their rear, twice as many formed two lines holding good Two Rivers longbows, each with a pair of quivers at his belt. Young boys came running from the houses with bundles of more arrows that the men drove point-down in the ground in front of their feet. Tam seemed to be in charge, dressing the ranks and speaking a few words to each man, but Bran marched along with him, offering his own encouragement. Perrin could not see that they needed him at all.
To his surprise, Dannil and Ban and all the other lads who had ridden with him came trotting out of the village to surround him and Faile, all with their bows. They looked odd, in a way. The Aes Sedai had apparently Healed the more seriously injured, leaving those less hurt for Daise’s poultices and ointments, so fellows who had been barely clinging to a saddle yesterday walked along spritely now, while Dannil and Tell and others still limped or wore bandages. If he was surprised to see them, he was disgusted by what they brought. Leof Torfinn, the dressing wrapped around his head making a pale cap above his deep-set eyes, had his bow slung on his back and carried a tall staff with a smaller version of the red-bordered banner with its wolfhead.
“I think one of the Aes Sedai had it made,” Leof said when Perrin asked where it came from. “Milli Ayellin brought it to Will’s da, but Wil didn’t want to carry it.” Wil al
’Seen hunched his shoulders a bit.
“I wouldn’t want to carry it, either,” Perrin said dryly. They all laughed as if he had made a joke, even Wil, after a minute.
The hedge of stakes looked fierce enough, but on the other hand, it seemed a pitiful thing to keep Trollocs out. Maybe it would, but he did not want Faile there if they made it through. When he looked at her, though, she had that look in her eyes again as if she knew what he was thinking. And did not like it. If he tried to send her back, she would argue and balk, refusing to see sense. Weak as he felt right then, she probably had a better chance of leading him back to the inn than he her. The way she was sitting her saddle so ferociously, she likely intended to defend him, if the Trollocs broke through. He would just have to keep a close eye on her; that was all there was to it.
Suddenly she smiled, and he scratched his beard. Maybe she could read his mind.
Time passed, the sun inching up, the day’s warmth building. Now and then a woman called from the houses to ask what was happening. Here and there men sat down, but Tam or Bran was on them before they had their legs folded, chivying them back into line. No more than a mile or two, Bain had said. She and Chiad were sitting near the stakes, playing some game that apparently involved flipping a knife into the foot of ground between them. Surely if the Trollocs were coming, they would have come by now. He was beginning to find it hard to sit up straight. Conscious of Faile’s watchful eyes, he kept his back stiff.
A horn blared, brazen and shrill.
“Trollocs!” half a dozen voices shouted, and bestial, blackmailed shapes flooded out of the Westwood, howling as they ran across the stumpy ground, waving scythe-curved swords and spiked axes, spears and tridents. Three Myrddraal rode behind them on black horses, darting back and forth as though driving the Trolloc charge before them. Their dead black cloaks hung motionless no matter how their mounts dashed or whirled. The horn sounded continuously in sharp, urging cries.
Twenty arrows leaped out as soon as the first Trolloc appeared, the strongest shot falling nearly a hundred paces short.
“Hold, you lack-witted sheep-brains!” Tam shouted. Bran jumped and gave him a startled look, no less incredulous than those coming from Tam’s friends and neighbors; some muttered about not standing still for that kind of talk, Trollocs or no Trollocs. Tam rode right over their protests, though. “You hold till I give the word, the way I showed you!” Then, as if hundreds of shrieking Trollocs were not galloping toward him, Tam turned calmly to Perrin. “At three hundred paces?”
Perrin nodded quickly. The man was asking him? Three hundred paces. How quickly could a Trolloc cover three hundred paces? He eased his axe in its loop. That horn wailed and wailed. The spearmen crouched behind the stakes as if forcing themselves not to edge back. The Aiel had veiled their faces.
Onward the screaming tide came, all horned heads and faces with snouts or beaks, each half again as tall as a man, each shrieking for blood. Five hundred paces. Four hundred. Some were stretching out in front. They ran as fast as horses. Had the Aiel been right? Could there be only five hundred? It looked like thousands.
“Ready!” Tam called, and two hundred bows were raised. The young men with Perrin hurriedly formed up in front of him in imitation of their elders, ranking themselves with that fool banner.
Three hundred paces. Perrin could see those misshapen faces, contorted with rage and frenzy, as clearly as if they were right on top of him.
“Loose!” Tam shouted. Bowstrings slapped like one huge whip-crack. With twin crashes of beam against leather-padded beam, the catapults fired.
Broadhead arrows rained down into the Trollocs. Monstrous shapes fell, but some rose and staggered on, harried by the Fades. That horn wove into their guttural bellowing, sounding forward for the kill. The catapults’ stones fell among them—and exploded in fire and shards, ripping open holes in the mass. Perrin was not the only one to jump; so that was what the Aes Sedai had been doing with the catapults. He wondered wildly what would happen if they dropped one of those stones loading it into the cup.
Another flight of arrows leaped out, and another, another, and again and again, and more stones from the catapults, if at a slower pace. Fiery explosions tore at the Trollocs. Broadhead points hailed down on them. And they came on, shrieking, howling, falling and dying, but always running forward. They were close now, close enough that the bowmen spread out, no longer firing in flights but choosing their targets. Men screamed their own rage, screamed in the face of death as they shot.
And then there were no more Trollocs standing. Only one Fade, bristling with arrows yet still staggering blindly. The shrill shrieks of a Myrddraal’s thrashing horse competed with the moaning bellows of downed and dying Trollocs. The horn had fallen silent at last. Here and there across the stump-filled field, a Trolloc heaved and fell back. Under it all, Perrin could hear men panting as if they had run ten miles. His own heart seemed to be pounding out of his chest.
Suddenly someone raised a loud huzzah, and with that men began capering and shouting euphorically, waving bows or whatever they had over their heads, tossing caps in the air. Women rushed out from the houses, laughing and cheering, and children, all celebrating and dancing with the men. Some came running to grab Perrin’s hand and shake it.
“You’ve led us to a great victory, my boy.” Bran laughed up at him. He had his steel cap perched on the back of his head. “I suppose I shouldn’t call you that, now. A great victory, Perrin.”
“I didn’t do anything,” he protested. “I just sat on my horse. You did it.” Bran listened no more than any of the others. Embarrassed, Perrin sat up straight, pretending to survey the field, and after a while they left him alone.
Tam had not joined in the celebrating; he stood close behind the stakes, studying the Trollocs. The Warders were not laughing, either. Black-mailed shapes littered the field among the low stumps. There could be five hundred of them. Maybe less. Some, a few, might have made it back to the trees. None lay closer than fifty paces from the pointed hedge. Perrin found the other two Fades, writhing on the ground. That accounted for all three. They would admit they were dead eventually.