The approaching Trollocs seemed to extend forever in either direction. Though Egwene’s army was enormous, it suddenly felt tiny. Fortunately, Egwene had a single advantage: The Trolloc army was driven by a need to continue moving forward. Trolloc armies fell apart if they were not constantly advancing. They’d start bickering. They’d run out of food.
Egwene’s army was a barrier in their way. And bait. The Shadowspawn couldn’t afford to leave such a force as theirs at large, and so Egwene would draw them along a course she determined.
Her Aes Sedai reached the battlefront. Bryne had split his army into large, highly mobile strike units to hit the Trollocs wherever and whenever they showed vulnerability.
The offensive structure of Bryne’s forces seemed to confuse the Trollocs. At least, that was how Egwene read the shuffling in their ranks, the churning movement, the increase of noise. Trollocs rarely had to worry about being on the defensive. Trollocs attacked, humans defended. Humans worried. Humans were food.
Egwene reached the top of a low hill, looking out at the plain in Kandor where the Trollocs amassed, her Aes Sedai arraying in a long line to either side of her. Behind them, the men of the army seemed uncertain. They knew Egwene and the others were Aes Sedai, and no man was comfortable around Aes Sedai.
Egwene reached to her side, and slipped something long, white and slender from the leather case tied to her belt. A fluted rod, Vora’s sa’angreal. It felt comfortable in her hand, familiar. Though she had only used this sa’angreal once, she felt as if it had claimed her and she it. During the fight against the Seanchan, this had been her weapon. For the first time,
she understood why a soldier might feel a bond with his sword.
The glow of the Power winked on around the women in the line, like a row of lanterns being lit. Egwene embraced the Source and felt the One Power flow into her like a waterfall, filling her and opening her eyes. The world became sweeter, the scents of oil from armor and of beaten grass growing stronger.
Within the embrace of saidar she could see the signs of color that the Shadow wanted them to ignore. The grass wasn’t all dead; there were tiny hints of green, slivers where the grass clung to life. There were voles beneath it; she could now easily make out the ripples in the earth. They ate at the dying roots and clung to life.
Smiling widely, she pulled the One Power through the fluted rod. Within that torrent she was atop a sea of strength and energy, riding a lone vessel and embracing the wind. The Trollocs finally surged into motion. They roared, a huge rush of weapons, teeth, stink and eyes that were too human. Perhaps the Myrddraal had seen Aes Sedai up front, and thought to attack and destroy the human channelers.
The other women waited for Egwene’s sign. They were not in a circle—a circle was best for one focused, precise stream of the One Power. That wasn’t the goal today. The goal today was simply to destroy.
Once the Trollocs were halfway to the hills, Egwene began her offensive. She had always been unusually strong in Earth, so she led with the most simple and destructive of weaves. She sent threads of Earth into the ground beneath the Trollocs in a long line, then heaved it up. With the aid of Vora’s sa’angreal, it felt as easy as tossing a handful of pebbles into the air.
At this sign, the entire line of women formed weaves. The air rippled with glowing threads. Pure streams of fire, of earth to heave, of gusts of wind to blow the Trollocs into one another and make them trip and tumble.
The Trollocs that Egwene had thrown into the air toppled back to the ground, many of them missing legs or feet. Bones broke and Trollocs screamed in agony as their fellows fell upon them. Egwene let the second rank stumble across the fallen, then struck again. This time, she didn’t focus on the earth, but on metal.
Metal in armor, in weapons and on wrists. She shattered axes and swords, mail and the occasional breastplate. This released fragments of metal with deadly speed. The air grew red with spraying blood. The next ranks tried to stop to avoid the shrapnel, but the Trollocs behind them had too much momentum. They shoved their fellows forward into the zone of death and trampled them.
Egwene also killed the next wave with exploding metal. It was harder than casting up the earth, but it also didn’t give as much sign to the back ranks, so she was able to continue killing without them realizing what they were doing by shoving their fellows forward.
Then Egwene returned to rupturing the earth. There was something energizing about using raw power, sending weaves in their most basic forms. In that moment—maiming, destroying, bringing death upon the enemy—she felt as if she were one with the land itself. That she was doing the work it had longed for someone to do for so long. The Blight, and the Shadowspawn it grew, were a disease. An infection. Egwene—afire with the One Power, a blazing beacon of death and judgment—was the cauterizing flame that would bring healing to the land.
The Trollocs tried hard to push through the Aes Sedai weaves, but that only put more and more of them into the White Tower’s reach. The Greens lived up to their Ajah’s reputation—releasing wave after wave of destruction at the Trollocs—but the other Ajahs did well, also.
The ground trembled, and the air clogged with the howls of the dying. Bodies ripped. Flesh burned. Not a few of the soldiers in the front lines emptied their stomachs at the sight. And still, the Aes Sedai pounded the Trolloc lines. Specific sisters sought out Myrddraal, as they had been ordered. Egwene struck one herself, ripping its eyeless head from its neck with a weave of Fire and Air. Each Fade they killed dropped fists of Trollocs linked to them.
Egwene doubled her attack. She hit a rank with a wave of exploding earth, then slammed a wave of air into the bodies as they fell, pushing them back so they dropped onto the ranks behind. She ripped holes in the earth and made the stones in the ground explode. She butchered Trollocs for what seemed like hours. Finally, the Shadowspawn broke, the Trollocs pulling back despite the whips of the Myrddraal. Egwene took a deep breath—she was starting to feel limp—and struck down more Fades. Finally, they too broke and fled back away from the hills.
Egwene sagged in her saddle, lowering her sa’angreal. She wasn’t sure exactly how much time had passed. The soldiers nearby stared, wide eyed. Their blood had not been required this day.
“That was impressive,” Gawyn said, pulling his horse up beside hers. “It was as if they were assaulting city walls, trying to run ladders to a siege… only without the walls or the ladders.”
“They’ll return,” Egwene said tiredly. “We killed just a small percentage of them.”
On the morrow, or the day after at the latest, they would try again. New tactics, perhaps— they might spread out waves of attackers to make it more difficult for the Aes Sedai to kill large batches of them at once.
“We surprised them,” Egwene said. “They will come stronger next time. For now, for this night, we’ve held.”
“You didn’t just hold, Egwene,” Gawyn said with a smile. “You sent them running. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen an army so thoroughly trounced.”
The rest of the army seemed to agree with Gawyn’s assessment, for they began to cheer, raising weapons. Egwene forced back her fatigue and tucked away the fluted rod. Nearby, other Aes Sedai lowered small statues, bracelets, brooches, rings and rods. They had emptied the White Tower’s storehouse of every angreal and sa’angreal—the few of those they had—and distributed them among the sisters on the battlefront. At the end of each day, they would be collected and delivered to the women providing Healing.
The Aes Sedai turned and rode back through the cheering army. The time for sorrows would, unfortunately, come. The Aes Sedai could not fight each battle. For now, however, Egwene was content to let the soldiers enjoy their victory, for it was the very best kind. The kind that left no holes in their ranks.
* * *
“The Lord Dragon and his scouts have begun to reconnoiter Shayol Ghul.” Bashere pointed to one of the shaded maps. “Our resistance in Kandor and Shienar is forcing the Shadow to commit more and more troops to those fights. Soon, the Blasted Lands will be mostly empty, save for a skeleton force of defenders. He will be able to strike more easily then.”