The Path of Daggers (73 page)

Abruptly the pair became aware of Bertome, and Weiramon’s mouth snapped shut. He glared as if he wanted to kill Bertome. The Asha’man’s ever-present smile melted away. The wind gusted, cold and sharp as clouds drifted across the sun, but no colder than Gedwyn’s sudden stare. With a small shock Bertome realized the man also wanted to strike him dead on the spot.

Gedwyn’s icily murderous gaze did not change, but Weiramon’s face underwent a remarkable transformation. The red faded slowly as he produced a smile in an instant, an oily smile with only a trace of mocking condescension. “I’ve been thinking about you, Bertome,” he said heartily. “A pity al’Thor strangled your cousin. With his own hands, I hear. Frankly, I was surprised you came when he called. I’ve seen him watching you. I fear he plans something more . . . interesting . . . for you than thrashing your heels on the floor while his fingers tighten on your throat.”

Bertome suppressed a sigh, and not only at the fool’s clumsiness. A good many thought to manipulate him with Colavaere’s death. She had been his favorite cousin, but ambitious beyond reason. Saighan had good claims to the Sun Throne, yet she could not have held it against the strength of Riatin or Damodred either one, let alone both together, not without the open blessings of the White Tower or the Dragon Reborn. Still, she
had
been his favorite. What did Weiramon want? Certainly not what it seemed on the surface. Even this Tairen oaf was not
that
simple.

Before he could frame any response, a horseman came galloping toward them through the trees ahead. A Cairhienin, and as he reined to a sudden halt in front of them, that made his horse sit back on its haunches, Bertome recognized one of his own armsmen, a gap-toothed fellow with seamed scars on both cheeks. Doile, he thought. From the Colchaine estates.

“My Lord Bertome,” the fellow panted, bowing hastily. “There are two thousand Taraboners hard on my heels. And women with them! With lightning on their dresses!”

“Hard on his heels,” Weiramon murmured disparagingly. “We’ll see what my man has to say when he gets back. I certainly don’t see any—!”

Sudden whoops in the near distance ahead cut him off, and the thunder of hooves, and then quickly galloping lancers appeared, a flowing tide spreading through the trees. Straight toward Bertome and the others.

Weiramon laughed. “Kill whoever you wish, wherever you wish, Gedwyn,” he said, drawing sword with a flourish. “I use the methods I use, and that’s that!” Racing back toward his armsmen, he waved the blade over his head shouting, “Saniago! Saniago and glory!” It was no surprise he did not add a shout for his country to those for his House and his greatest love.

Spurring in the same direction, Bertome raised his own voice. “Saighan and Cairhien!” No need for sword waving yet. “Saighan and Cairhien!” What
had
the man been after?

Thunder rumbled, and Bertome looked to the sky, perplexed. There were few more clouds than earlier. No; Doile—Dalyn?—had mentioned those women. And then he forgot all about whatever the fool Tairen wanted as steel-veiled Taraboners poured over the wooded hills toward him, the earth blooming fire and the sky raining lightning ahead of them.

“Saighan and Cairhien!” he shouted.

The wind rose.

Horsemen clashed amid thick trees and heavy underbrush, where shadows hung heavily. The light seemed to be failing, the clouds thickening overhead, but it was hard to say with the dense forest canopy for a roof. Booming roars half-drowned the ring of steel on steel, the shouts of men, the screams of horses. Sometimes the ground shook. Sometimes the enemy raised shouts.

“Den Lushenos! Den Lushenos and the Bees!”

“Annallin! Rally to Annallin!”

“Haellin! Haellin! For the High Lord Sunamon!”

The last was the only cry Varek understood in the least, though he suspected any of the locals who named themselves High Lords or Ladies might not be offered the chance to swear the Oath.

He jerked his sword free from where he had jammed it into his opponent’s armpit, just above the breastplate, and let the pale little man topple. A dangerous fighter, until he made the mistake of raising his blade too high. The man’s bay crashed off through the undergrowth, and Varek spared a moment for regret. The animal looked better than the white-footed dun he was forced to ride. A moment only, and then he was peering through the close-set trees, where it seemed vines dangled from half the branches and bunches of some gray, feathery plant from nearly all.

Sounds of battle rose from every direction, but at first he could see nothing that moved. Then a dozen Altaran lancers appeared at fifty paces, walking their horses and peering about carefully, though the way they talked loudly among themselves more than justified the red slashes crisscrossing their breastplates. Varek gathered his reins, meaning to take them in. An escort, even this undisciplined rabble, might be the difference between the urgent message he carried reaching Banner-General Chianmai and not.

Black streaks flashed from among the trees, emptying Altaran saddles. Their horses dashed in every direction as the riders fell, and then there were only a dozen corpses sprawled on the damp carpet of dead leaves, at least one crossbow bolt jutting from every man. Nothing moved. Varek shivered in spite of himself. Those foot in blue coats had seemed easy at first, with no pikes to stand behind, but they never came into the open, hiding behind trees, in dips in the ground. They were not the worst. He had been sure after the frantic retreat to the ships at Falme that he had seen the worse he ever could see, the Ever Victorious Army in a rout. Not half an hour gone, though, he had seen a hundred Taraboners face one lone man in a black coat. A hundred lancers against one, and the Taraboners had been ripped to shreds. Literally ripped to shreds, men and horses simply exploding as fast he could count; the slaughter had continued after the Taraboners turned to flee, went on so long as one of them remained in sight. Perhaps it was really no worse than having the ground erupt beneath your feet, but at least
damane
usually left enough of you to be buried.

He had been told by the last man he managed to speak to in these woods, a grizzled veteran from home leading a hundred Amadician pikes, that Chianmai was in this direction. Ahead, he spotted riderless horses tied to trees, and men afoot. Maybe they could give him further direction. And he would give them the lash of his tongue for standing about while a battle raged.

When he rode in among them, he forgot tongue-lashings. He had found what he was looking for, but not at all what he wanted to find. A dozen badly burned corpses lay in a row. One, his honey-brown face untouched, was recognizably Chianmai. The men on their feet were all Taraboners, Amadicians, Altarans. Some of them were injured, too. The only Seanchan was a tight-faced
sul’dam
soothing a weeping
damane
.

“What happened here?” Varek demanded. He did not think it was like these Asha’man to leave survivors. Maybe the
sul’dam
had fought him off.

“Madness, my lord.” A hulking Taraboner shrugged away the man who was spreading ointment down his seared left arm. The sleeve appeared to have been burned away clear to the fellow’s breastplate, yet despite his burns, he did not grimace. His veil of steel mail hung by a corner from his red-plumed conical helmet, baring a hard face with thick gray mustaches that nearly hid his mouth, and his eyes were insultingly direct. “A group of Illianers, they fell on us without warning. At first, all went well. They had none of the blackcoats with them. Lord Chianmai, he led us bravely, and the . . . the woman . . . channeled lightnings. Then, just as the Illianers broke, the lightnings, they fell among us, too.” He cut off with a significant look at the
sul’dam
.

She was on her feet in an instant, shaking her free fist and striding as far toward the Taraboner as the leash attached to her other wrist would allow. Her
damane
lay in a weeping heap. “I will not hear this dog’s words against my Zakai! She is a good
damane
! A good
damane
!”

Varek made soothing gestures to the woman. He had seen
sul’dam
make their charges howl for misdeeds, and a few who crippled the recalcitrant, but most would bristle even at one of the Blood who cast aspersions on a favorite. This Taraboner was
not
of the Blood, and by the look of the quivering
sul’dam
, she was ready to do murder. Had the man voiced his ridiculous, unspoken charge, Varek thought she might have killed him on the spot.

“Prayers for the dead must wait,” Varek said bluntly. What he was about to do would end with him in the hands of the Seekers, if he failed, but there was not a Seanchan left standing here except the
sul’dam
. “I am assuming command. We will disengage and turn south.”

“Disengage!” the heavy-shouldered Taraboner barked. “It will take us
days
to
disengage
! The Illianers, they fight like badgers backed into a corner, the Cairhienin like ferrets in a box. The Tairens, they are not so hard as I have heard, but there are maybe a dozen of these Asha’man, yes? I do not even know where three-quarters of my men are, in this jolly-bag!” Emboldened by his example, the others began giving protest, too.

Varek ignored them. And forbore asking what a “jolly-bag” was; looking at the tangled forest all around, listening to the clash of battle, the booms of explosions and lightnings, he could imagine. “You will gather your men and begin pulling back,” he said loudly, cutting through their chatter. “Not too fast; you will act in unison.” Miraj’s orders to Chianmai said “with all possible speed”—he had memorized them, in case something happened to the copy in his saddlebags—“all possible speed,” but too much speed in this, and half the men would be left behind, chopped to flinders at the enemy’s leisure. “Now, move! You fight for the Empress, may she live forever!”

That last was the sort of thing you told fresh recruits, but for some reason, the listening men jerked as if he had struck them all with his quirt. Bowing quickly and deeply, hands on knees, they all but flew to their horses. Strange. Now it was up to him to find the Seanchan units. One of those would be commanded by someone above him, and he could pass his responsibility.

The
sul’dam
was on her knees, stroking her still weeping
damane’s
hair and crooning softly. “Get her soothed down,” he told her. With all possible speed. And he thought he had seen a touch of anxiety in Miraj’s eyes. What could make Kennar Miraj anxious? “I think we will be depending on you
sul’dam
to the south.” Now, why would that make the blood drain from her face?

Bashere stood just inside the edge of the trees, frowning through his helmet’s face-bars at what he saw. His bay nuzzled his shoulder. He held his cloak close against the wind. More to avoid any motion that would draw eyes than for the cold, though that chilled his flesh. It would have been a spring breeze back in Saldaea, but months in the southlands had softened him. Shining bright between gray clouds that sailed along quickly, the sun still lay a little short of midday. And ahead of him. Just because you began a battle facing west did not mean you ended it that way. Before him lay a broad pasture where flocks of black-and-white goats cropped at the brown grass in desultory fashion just as if there was no battle raging all around them. Not that there was any sign of it here. For the moment. A man could get himself cut to doll rags crossing that meadow. And in the trees, whether forest or olive groves or thickets, you did not always see the enemy before you were on top of him, scouts or no scouts.

“If we’re going to cross,” Gueyam muttered, rubbing a wide hand over his bald head, “we should cross. Light’s truth, we’re wasting time.” Amondrid snapped his mouth shut; likely, the moon-faced Cairhienin had been about to say much the same thing. He would agree with a Tairen when horses climbed trees.

Jeordwyn Semaris snorted. The man should have grown a beard to hide that narrow jaw. It made his head look like a forester’s splitting wedge. “I do say go around,” he muttered. “I’ve lost enough men to those Light-cursed
damane
, and . . .” He trailed off with an uneasy glance toward Rochaid.

The young Asha’man stood by himself, mouth tight, fingering that Dragon pin on his collar. Maybe wondering whether it was worth it, by the look of him. There was no knowing air about the boy now, only frowning worry.

Leading Quick by the reins, Bashere strode to the Asha’man and drew him farther aside in the trees. Pushed him farther aside. Rochaid scowled, going reluctantly. The man was tall enough to loom over Bashere, but Bashere was having none of it.

“Can I count on your people next time?” Bashere demanded, jerking a mustache in irritation. “No delays?” Rochaid and his fellows seemed to have grown slower and slower responding when they found themselves opposite
damane
.

“I know what I’m about, Bashere,” Rochaid snarled. “Aren’t we killing enough of them for you? As far as I can see, we’re about done!”

Bashere nodded slowly. Not in agreement with the last. There were plenty of enemy soldiers left, almost anywhere you looked hard enough. But a good many
were
dead. He had patterned his movements on what he had studied of the Trolloc Wars, when the forces of the Light seldom came anywhere near the numbers they had to face. Slash at the flanks, and run. Slash at the rear, and run. Slash, and run, and when the enemy chased after, turn on the ground you had chosen beforehand, where the legionmen lay waiting with their crossbows, turn and cut at him until it was time to run again. Or until he broke. Already today he had broken Taraboners, Amadicians, Altarans
and
these Seanchan in their strange armor. He had seen more enemy dead than in any fight since the Blood Snow. But if he had Asha’man, the other side had those
damane
. A good third of his Saldaeans lay dead along the miles behind. Nearly half his force was dead, all told, and there were still more Seanchan out there with their cursed women, and Taraboners, and Amadicians and Altarans. They just kept coming, more appearing as soon as he finished the last. And the Asha’man were growing . . . hesitant.