There was no helping it. He forced his attention toward the gateway in the table in front of him, overlooking the battlefield. “You’re certain th
ey cannot see this?” he asked Yukiri.
“I’m certain,” she replied. “It has been tested exhaustively.”
She was becoming skilled with these viewing gateways. She had created this one on top of a table brought through to their camp from Tar Valon. He was looking down at the battleground as he would a map.
“If you have truly made the other side invisible,” Egwene said speculatively, “this might be useful indeed…”
“It would be easier to spot from up close,” Yukiri admitted. “This one is so high in the sky that nobody below will be able to make it out.”
Gawyn didn’t like Egwene standing there, head and shoulders hanging out over the battlefield. He held his tongue; the gateway was as safe as they could make it. He couldn’t protect her from everything.
“Light,” Bryne said softly, “they’re cutting us to pieces.”
Gawyn glanced at him. The man rebuffed suggestions—even strong ones—that he return to his estates. He insisted that he was still capable of holding a sword; he just couldn’t be allowed to lead. Besides, he argued, any of them could be under Compulsion. In a way, knowing that he was gave them an advantage. At least him they could watch.
And Siuan did, holding to his arm protectively. The only others in the tent were Silviana and Doesine.
The battle was not going well. Cauthon had lost the Heights already—the original plan had been to hold there as long as possible—and the dragons were in pieces. Demandred’s attack with the One Power had come far more powerfully than any of them had anticipated. And the other large Trolloc army had arrived from the northeast and were pressing Cauthon’s defenders upriver.
“What is he planning?” Egwene said, tapping the side of the table. Distant yells drifted through the opening. “If this keeps up, our armies are going to be surrounded.”
“He’s trying to bait the trap,” Bryne said.
“What kind of trap?”
“It is a guess,” Bryne said, “and Light knows, my own assessment cannot be trusted as it once was. It looks like Cauthon is planning to heap everything into one battle, no delaying, no trying to wear the Trollocs down. The way this is going, it will be decided in days. Maybe hours.”
“That sounds exactly like something Mat would do,” Egwene said, resigned.
“The strength of those weaves,” Lelaine said, “that power…”
“Demandred is in a circle,” Egwene said. “Eyewitnesses say a full circle. Something that hasn’t been seen since the Age of Legends. And he has a sa’angreal. Some of the soldiers saw it—a scepter.”
Gawyn watched the fighting far below, his hand on his sword. He could hear men scream as Demandred aimed wave after wave of fire at them.
The Forsaken’s voice boomed, suddenly, reaching high into the air. “Where are you, Lews Therin! You were seen at each of the other battlefields in disguise. Are you here, too? Fight me!”
Gawyn’s hand tightened on his sword. Soldiers flooded down the southwestern side of the Heights, to cross the ford. A few small groups held on the slopes, and dragoners there—tiny as insects to Gawyn—led the remaining dragons to safety, pulled by mules.
Demandred flung destruction at the fleeing troops. He was an army unto himself, hurling bodies into the air, exploding horses, burning and destroying. Around him, his Trollocs seized the high ground. Their brutish cheers floated through the gateway.
“We’re going to have to deal with him, Mother,” Silviana said. “Soon.”
“He’s trying to draw us out,” Egwene said. “He has that sa’angreal. We could build a circle of seventy-two ourselves, but what then? Fall into his trap? Be slaughtered?”
“What choice have we, Mother?” Lelaine asked. “Light. He’s killing thousands.”
Killing thousands. And here they stood.
Gawyn stepped back.
Nobody seemed to notice his withdrawal other than Yukiri, who eagerly stepped up and took his place beside Egwene. Gawyn slipped out of the tent, and when the tent guards glanced at him, said he needed some fresh air. Egwene would approve. She sensed how tired he was lately; she’d mentioned it to him several times. His eyelids felt as if they had weights of iron pulling them down. Gawyn looked toward the blackened sky. He could hear the distant booms. How long would he just stand around and do nothing while men died?
You promised, he thought to himself. You said you were willing to stand in her shadow.
That didn’t mean he had to stop doing important work, did it? He fished in his pouch and took out a ring of the Bloodknives. He put it on, and immediately his strength returned, his exhaustion fleeing.