Elayne froze, looking upward with shock. The clouds had parted above them— they often did when she was near, one way the bond with Rand manifested—and so she’d been expecting an open sky and light for this battle.
The sun still shone up there, but occluded. Something solid and dark rolled in front of it.
All across her army, men looked up, raising fingers as they were swallowed by darkness. Light! It was hard to keep from trembling.
She heard cries through the army. Lamentations, worries, cries of despair. Elayne gathered her confidence and kicked her horse forward.
“This is the place,” she announced, enhancing her voice with the One Power to project across the field, “where I promise you we will win. This is where I tell you that days will continue, that the land will recover. This is the time when I promise you that the light will return, that hope will survive, that we will continue to live.”
She paused. Behind the army, people lined the top of Cairhien’s city walls: children, women, and the elderly who were armed with kitchen knives and pots to throw down, should the Trollocs destroy the army and come for the city. There had barely been time to contact them; a skeleton force of soldiers guarded the city. Now, their distant figures huddled down as darkness ate the sky.
Those walls offered a false safety; they meant little when the enemy had Dreadlords. She needed to defeat the Trolloc army quickly, not hide and allow them to be reinforced by the larger force to the south.
“I am supposed to reassure you,” Elayne shouted to the men. “But I cannot! I will not tell you that the land will survive, that the Light will prevail. Doing so would remove responsibility.
“This is our duty! Our blood that will be spilled this day. We have come here to fight. If we do not, then the land will die! The Light will fall to the Shadow. This is not a day for empty promises. Our blood! Our blood is the fire within us. Today, our blood must drive us to defeat the Shadow.”
She turned her horse. The men had looked away from the darkness above, toward her. She wove a light, high in the sky above her, drawing their attention.
“Our blood is our passion,” she shouted. “Too much of what I hear from my armies is about resistance. We cannot merely resist! We must show them our anger, our fury, at what they have done. We must not resist. Today, we must destroy.
“Our blood is our land. This place is ours, and we claim it! For our fathers and mothers, for our children.
“Our blood is our life. We have come to give it. Across the world, other armies are pushed back. We will not retreat. Our task is to spend our blood, to die advancing. We will not remain still, no!
“If we are to have the Light again, we must make it ours! We must reclaim it and cast out the Shadow! He seeks to make you despair, to win this battle before it begins. We will not give him that satisfaction! We will destroy this army before us, then destroy the one behind. And from there, we bring our blood—our life, our fire, our passion—to the others who fight. From there it spreads to victory and the Light!”
She honestly didn’t know
what kind of response to expect from a battlefield speech. She’d read all of the great ones, particularly those given by queens of Andor. When younger, she’d imagined the soldiers clapping and shouting—the response given to a gleeman at a rowdy tavern.
Instead, the men raised weapons to her. Drawn swords, pikes lifted, then thumped back against the ground. The Aiel did give some whoops, but the Andorans looked at her with solemn eyes. She had not inspired them to excitement, but to determination. That seemed the more honest emotion. They ignored the darkness in the sky and turned eyes on the goal.
Birgitte walked up beside her horse. “That was quite good, Elayne. When did you change it?”
Elayne blushed, thinking of the carefully prepared speech she’d memorized last night while repeating it half a dozen times to Birgitte. It had been a work of beauty, with allusions to the sayings of queens through the ages.
She’d forgotten every word of it once that darkness had come. This one had spurted out instead.
“Come on,” Elayne said, looking over her shoulder. The Trolloc army was arriving opposite hers. “I need to move into position.”
“Into position?” Birgitte asked. “You mean that you need to go back to the command tent.”
“I’m not going there,” Elayne said, turning Moonshadow. “Blood and bloody ashes, you aren’t! I—”
“Birgitte,” Elayne snapped. “I am in command, and you are my soldier. You will obey.”
Birgitte recoiled as if slapped.
“Bashere has the command tent,” Elayne said. “I’m one of the few channelers of any strength this army has, and I’ll be drawn and quartered before I let myself sit out the fight. I’m easily worth a thousand soldiers on this battlefield.”
“The babes—”
“Even if Min hadn’t had that viewing, I’d still insist on fighting. You think the babes of these soldiers aren’t at risk? Many of them line the walls of that city! If we fail here, they will be slaughtered. No, I will not keep myself out of danger, and no, I will not sit back and wait. If you think it’s your duty as my Warder to stop me, then I will bloody sever this bond right here and now and send you to someone else! I’m not going to spend the Last Battle lounging on a chaise and drinking goat’s milk!”
Birgitte fell silent, and Elayne could feel her shock through the bond. “Light,” the woman finally said. “I won’t stop you. But will you at least agree to back away for the initial arrow volleys? You can do more good helping the lines where they’re weakened.”
She allowed Birgitte and her guards to lead the way back to a hillside near Aludra’s dragons. Talmanes, Aludra and their crews waited with more anxiety and eagerness than the regular troops. They were tired, too, but they’d also seen little use during the forest battles and the retreat. Today was their chance to shine.