The Path of Daggers

## Chapter 21

#### Answering the Summons

The great winter tempests called the cemaros continued to roll up out of the Sea of Storms, harsher than any in memory. Some said this year the cemaros was trying to make up for the months of delay. Lightning crackled across the skies, enough to make the darkness patchy at night. Wind lashed the land and rain flailed it, turning all but the hardest roads to rivers of mud. Sometimes the mud froze after nightfall, but sunrise always brought a thaw, even under a gray sky, and the ground became bogs once more. Rand was surprised at how much all that hampered his plans.

The Asha’man he had sent for came quickly, at midmorning the next day, riding out of a gateway into a driving downpour that obscured the sun so, it might as well have been twilight. Through the hole in the air, snow fell back in Andor, fat white flakes swirling about thickly and hiding what lay behind them. Most of the men in the short column were bundled in heavy black cloaks, but the rain seemed to slip around them and their horses. It was not obvious, yet anyone who noticed would look twice, if not three times. Keeping dry required only a simple weave, so long as you did not mind flaunting what you were. But then, the black-and-white disc worked on a crimson circle on the breast of their cloaks did that. Even half-hidden by the rain, there was a pride about them, an arrogance in the way they sat their saddles. A defiance. They gloried in what they were.

Their commander, Charl Gedwyn, was a few years older than Rand, of middling height and wearing the Sword and Dragon, like Torval, on a very well cut, high-collared coat of the best black silk. His sword was mounted lushly with silver, his silver-worked sword belt fastened with a silver buckle shaped in a clenched fist. Gedwyn termed himself Tsorovan’m’hael; in the Old Tongue, Storm Leader, whatever that was supposed to mean. It seemed appropriate to the weather, at least.

Even so, he stood just inside the entrance to Rand’s ornate green tent and scowled out at the cascading rain. A guard of mounted Companions encircled the tent, no more than thirty paces away, yet they were barely visible. They might have been statues, ignoring the torrent.

“How do you expect me to find anyone in this?” Gedwyn muttered, glancing back over his shoulder at Rand. A tick late, he added, “My Lord Dragon.” His eyes were hard and challenging, but they always were, whether looking at a man or a fence-post. “Rochaid and I brought eight Dedicated and forty Soldiers, enough to destroy an army or cow ten kings. We might even make an Aes Sedai blink,” he said wryly. “Burn me, the pair of us could do a fair job alone. Or you could. Why do you need anyone else?”

“I expect you to obey, Gedwyn,” Rand said coldly. Storm Leader? And Manel Rochaid, Gedwyn’s second, called himself Baijan’m’hael, Attack Leader. What was Taim up to, creating new ranks? The important thing was that the man made weapons. The important thing was that the weapons stayed sane long enough to be used. “And I don’t expect you to waste time questioning my orders.”

“As you command, my Lord Dragon,” Gedwyn muttered. “I’ll send men out immediately.” With a curt salute, fist to chest, he strode out into the storm. The deluge bent away from him, sheeting down the small shield he wove around himself. Rand wondered whether the man suspected how close he had come to dying when he seized saidin without warning.

You must kill him before he kills you, Lews Therin giggled. They will, you know. Dead men can’t betray anyone. The voice in Rand’s head turned wondering. But sometimes they don’t die. Am I dead? Are you?

Rand pushed the words down to a fly’s buzzing, just on the edge of notice. Since his reappearance inside Rand’s head, Lews Therin seldom went silent unless forced. The man seemed madder than ever most of the time, and usually angrier as well. Stronger sometimes, too. That voice invaded Rand’s dreams, and when he saw himself in a dream, it was not always himself at all that he saw. It was not always Lews Therin, either, the face he had come to recognize as Lews Therin’s. Sometimes it was blurred, yet vaguely familiar, and Lews Therin seemed startled by it, too. That was an indication how far the man’s madness went. Or maybe his own.

Not yet, Rand thought. I can’t afford to go mad yet.

When, then? Lews Therin whispered before Rand could mute him again.

With the arrival of Gedwyn and the Asha’man, his plan to sweep the Seanchan westward got under way. Got under way, and crept forward as slowly as a man laboring along one of those mired roads. He shifted his own camp at once, making no effort to hide his movements. There was little point to straining for secrecy. Word traveled slowly by pigeon, and far slower by courier, once the cemaros came, yet he had no doubts he was watched, by the White Tower, by the Forsaken, by anyone who saw gain or loss in where the Dragon Reborn went and could afford to slip coin to a soldier. Maybe even by the Seanchan. If he could scout them, why not they him? But not even the Asha’man knew why he was moving.

While Rand was idly watching men fold his tent onto a high-wheeled cart, Weiramon appeared on one of his many horses, a prancing white gelding of the finest Tairen bloodstock. The rain had cleared, though gray clouds still veiled the noonday sun and the air felt as if you could squeeze water out of it with your hands. The Dragon Banner and the Banner of Light hung limp and sodden on their tall staffs.

Tairen Defenders had replaced the Companions, and as Weiramon rode through their mounted ring, he frowned at Rodrivar Tihera, a lean fellow, dark even for a Tairen, with a short beard trimmed to a very sharp point. A very minor noble who had had to rise through his abilities, Tihera was punctilious in the extreme. The fat white plumes bobbing on his rimmed helmet added embellishment to the elaborate bow he gave Weiramon. The High Lord’s frown deepened.

There was no need for the Captain of the Stone to be personally in charge of Rand’s bodyguard, but he frequently was, just as Marcolin often commanded the Companions himself. An often bitter rivalry had grown up between Defenders and Companions, centering on who should guard Rand. The Tairens claimed the right because he had ruled longer in Tear, the Illianers because he was, after all, King of Illian. Perhaps Weiramon had heard some of the mutters among the Defenders that it was time Tear had a king of its own, and who better than the man who had taken the Stone? Weiramon more than agreed with the need, but not with the choice of who should wear the crown. He was not the only one.

The man smoothed his features as soon as he saw Rand looking, and swung down from his gold-tooled saddle to offer a bow that made Tihera’s seem simple. Iron-spined as he was, he could puff up and strut in his sleep. Though he did grimace slightly at putting his polished boot into the mud. He wore a rain cape, to keep the mist off his fine clothes, but even that was encrusted with gold embroidery and had a collar of sapphires. For all of Rand’s coat of deep green silk, with golden bees climbing the sleeves and lapels, anyone might have been forgiven for thinking the Crown of Swords belonged on the other’s head, not his.

“My Lord Dragon,” Weiramon intoned. “I cannot express how happy I am to see you guarded by Tairens, my Lord Dragon. Surely the world would weep if anything untoward happened.” He was too intelligent to come out and call the Companions untrustworthy. By a hair, he was.

“Sooner or later it would,” Rand said dryly. After a good part of it finished celebrating. “I know how hard you’d cry, Weiramon.”

The fellow actually preened, stroking the point of his gray-streaked beard. He heard what he wanted to hear. “Yes, my Lord Dragon, you can be assured of my constancy. Which is why I’m concerned by the orders your man brought me this morning.” That was Adley; many of the nobles thought pretending the Asha’man were merely Rand’s servants would somehow make them less dangerous. “Wise of you to send away most of the Cairhienin. And the Illianers, of course; that goes without saying. I can even understand why you limit Gueyam and the others.” Weiramon’s boots squelched in the mud as he stepped nearer, and his voice took on a confiding tone. “I do believe some of them—I wouldn’t say plotted against you, but I think perhaps their loyalty has not always been without question. As mine is. Without question.” His voice shifted again, to strong and confident, a man concerned only with the needs of the one he served. The one who surely would make him the first King of Tear. “Allow me to bring all of my armsmen, my Lord Dragon. With them, and the Defenders, I can assure the honor of the Lord of the Morning, and his safety.”

In all of the individual camps across the heath, wagons and carts were being loaded, horses saddled. Most tents were already down. The High Lady Rosana was riding north, her banner heading a column large enough to raise havoc among the bandits and at least give the Shaido pause. But not enough to plant notions in her head, especially not when half were Gueyam’s and Maraconn’s retainers mixed with Defenders of the Stone. Much the same applied to Spiron Narettin, riding eastward over the tall ridge with as many Companions and men sworn to others of the Council of Nine as his own liegemen, not to mention a hundred more tailing behind on foot, some of the fellows who had surrendered in the woods beyond that ridge the day before. A surprising number had chosen to follow the Dragon Reborn, but Rand did not trust them enough to leave them together. Tolmeran was just starting south with the same kind of blend, and others would be marching off as soon as they had their carts and wagons loaded. Each in a different direction, and none able to trust the men at their backs far enough for them to do more than follow the orders Rand had given. Bringing peace to Illian was an important task, yet every last lord and lady regretted being sent away from the Dragon Reborn, plainly wondering whether it meant they had slipped in his trust. Though a few might have considered why he chose to keep those he did under his eye. Rosana had certainly looked thoughtful.

“Your concern touches me,” Rand told Weiramon, “but how many bodyguards does one man need? I’m not off to start a war.” A fine point, perhaps, yet this war was well under way. It had begun at Falme, if not before. “Get your people ready.”

How many have died for my pride? Lews Therin moaned. How many have died for my mistakes?

“May I at least ask where we are going?” Weiramon’s question, not quite exasperated, came right atop the voice in Rand’s head.

“The City,” Rand snapped. He did not know how many had died for his mistakes, but none for his pride. He was sure of that.

Weiramon opened his mouth, plainly confused as to whether he meant Tear or Illian, or maybe even Cairhien, but Rand gestured him away with the Dragon Scepter, a sharp stabbing motion that made the green-and-white tassel swing. He half wished he could stab Lews Therin with it. “I don’t intend to sit here all day, Weiramon! Go to your men!”

Less than an hour later he took hold of the True Source and prepared to make a gateway for Traveling. He had to fight the dizziness that gripped him lately whenever he seized or loosed the Power; he did not quite sway in Tai’daishar’s saddle. What with the molten filth floating on saidin, the frozen slime, touching the Source came close to emptying his stomach. Seeing double, even for only a few moments, made weaving flows difficult if not impossible, and he could have told Dashiva or Flinn or one of the others to do it, but Gedwyn and Rochaid were holding their horses’ reins in front of a dozen or so black-coated Soldiers, all who had not been out to search. Just standing there patiently. And watching Rand. Rochaid, no more than a hand shorter than Rand and maybe two years younger, was also full Asha’man, and his coat, too, was silk. A small smile played on his face, as if he knew things others did not and was amused. What did he know? About the Seanchan, surely, if not Rand’s plans for them. What else? Maybe nothing, but Rand was not about to show any weakness in front of that pair. The dizziness faded quickly, the twinned sight a little more slowly, as it always did, these last few weeks, and he completed the weave, then, without waiting, dug in his heels and rode through the opening that unfolded before him.

The City he had meant was Illian, though the gateway opened to the north of that city. Despite Weiramon’s supposed concerns, he hardly went unprotected and alone. Nearly three thousand men rode through that tall square hole in the air, into rolling meadowland not far from the broad muddy road that led down to the Causeway of the Northern Star. Even when every lord had only been allowed a handful of armsmen—to men accustomed to leading a thousand if not thousands, a hundred or so were a handful—they added up. Tairens and Cairhienin and Illianers, Defenders of the Stone under Tihera and Companions under Marcolin, Asha’man heeling Gedwyn. The Asha’man who had come with him, anyway. Dashiva and Flinn and the rest kept their horses close behind Rand. All but Narishma. Narishma had not come back yet. The man knew where to find him, but Rand did not like it.

Each kind kept to themselves as much as possible. Gueyam and Maraconn and Aracome rode with Weiramon, all eyeing Rand more than where they were going, and Gregorin Panar with three others of the Council of Nine, leaning in their saddles to speak softly and uneasily among themselves. Semaradrid, with a knot of tight-faced Cairhienin lords behind him, watched Rand almost as closely as the Tairens did. Rand had chosen those who came with him as carefully as those he sent away, not always for the reasons others might have used.

Had there been any onlookers, it would have been a brave display, with all their bright banners and pennants, and small con rising from some of the Cairhienin’s backs. Bright and brave and very dangerous. Some had plotted against him, and he had learned that Semaradrid’s House Maravin had old alliances with House Riatin, which stood in open rebellion against him in Cairhien. Semaradrid did not deny the connection, but he had not mentioned it before Rand heard, either. The Council of Nine were just too new to him to risk leaving them all behind. And Weiramon was a fool. Left to his own devices, he might well try to gain the Lord Dragon’s favor by marching an army against the Seanchan, or Murandy, or the Light alone knew who or where. Too stupid to leave behind, too powerful to shove aside, so he rode with Rand and thought himself honored. It was almost a pity he was not stupid enough to do something that would get him executed.

Behind came the servants and carts—no one understood why Rand had sent all of the wagons with the others, and he was not about to explain; who owned the next pair of ears that would hear?—and then the long strings of spare mounts led by horse handlers, and straggling files of men in battered breastplates that did not quite fit or leather jerkins sewn with rusty steel discs, carrying bows or crossbows or spears, and even a few pikes; more of the fellows who had obeyed “Lord Brend’s” summons and decided against going home unarmed. Their leader was the runny-nosed man Rand had spoken to on the edge of the woods, Eagan Padros by name and much brighter than he looked. It was difficult for a commoner to rise very far, most places, but Rand had marked Padros out. The fellow gathered his men off to one side, but the whole lot of them milled about, elbowing one another aside for a better view southward.

The Causeway of the Northern Star stretched arrow-straight through the miles of brown marsh that surrounded Illian, a wide road of hard-packed dirt broken by flat stone bridges. A wind from the south carried sea salt and a hint of tanneries. Illian was a sprawling city, easily as large as Caemlyn or Cairhien. Brightly colored roof tiles and hundreds of thrusting towers, gleaming in the sun, were just visible across that sea of grass where long-legged cranes waded and flocks of white birds flew low uttering shrill cries. Illian had never needed walls. Not that walls would have done the City any good against him.

There was considerable disappointment that he did not mean to enter Illian, though no one spoke a complaint, at least not where he could hear. Still, there were plenty of glum faces and sour mutters as hasty camps began going up. Like most of the great cities, Illian had a name for exotic mystery, free-handed tapsters, and willing women. At least among men who had never been there, even when it was their own capital. Ignorance always inflated a city’s reputation for such things. As it was, only Morr galloped off across the causeway. Men straightened from hammering tent pegs or setting picket lines for the horses, and followed him with jealous eyes. Nobles watched curiously, while trying to pretend they were not.

The Asha’man with Gedwyn paid Morr no mind as they made their own camp, which consisted of a pitch-black tent for Gedwyn and Rochaid and a space where damp brown grass and mud were squeezed flat and dry, for the rest to sleep wrapped in their cloaks. That was done with the Power, of course; they did everything with the Power, not even bothering to build cook fires. A few in the other camps stared at them, wide-eyed, as the tent seemed to spring up of its own accord and hampers floated away from packsaddles, but most looked anywhere else at all once they realized what was going on. Two or three of the black-coated Soldiers appeared to be talking to themselves.

Flinn and the others did not join Gedwyn’s lot—they had a pair of tents that went up not far from Rand’s—but Dashiva wandered over to where the “Storm Leader” and the “Attack Leader” were standing at their ease, and occasionally issuing a sharp order. A few words, and he wandered back shaking his head and muttering angrily under his breath. Gedwyn and Rochaid were not a friendly pair. As well they were not.

Rand took to his tent as soon as it was pitched, and sprawled fully clothed on his cot, staring at the sloped ceiling. There were bees embroidered on the inside as well, on a false roof made of silk. Hopwil brought a steaming pewter mug of mulled wine—Rand had left his servants behind—but the wine grew cold on his writing table. His mind worked feverishly. Two or three more days, and the Seanchan would have been dealt a blow that knocked them on their heels. Then it was back to Cairhien to see how negotiations with the Sea Folk had gone, to learn what Cadsuane was after—he owed her a debt, but she was after something!—maybe to put a final end to what remained of the rebellion there. Had Caraline Damodred and Darlin Sisnera slipped away in the confusion? The High Lord Darlin in his hands might finish the rebellion in Tear, as well. Andor. If Mat and Elayne were in Murandy, the way it appeared, it would be weeks more at best before Elayne could claim the Lion Throne. Once that happened, he would have to stay clear of Caemlyn. But he had to talk to Nynaeve. Could he cleanse saidin? It might work. It might destroy the world, too. Lews Therin gibbered at him in stark terror. Light, where was Narishma?

A cemaros storm swept in, all the fiercer this near the sea. Rain beat his tent like a drum. Lightning flashes filled the entrance with blue-white light, and thunder rumbled, the sound like mountains tumbling across the land.

Out of that, Narishma stepped into the tent, dripping wet, dark hair plastered to his head. His orders had been to avoid notice at all cost. No flaunting for him. His sodden coat was plain brown, and his dark hair was tied back, not braided. Even without bells, near waist-length hair on a man attracted eyes. He wore a scowl, too, and under his arm he carried a cylindrical bundle tied with cord, fatter than a man’s leg, like a small carpet.

Springing from the cot, Rand snatched the bundle before Narishma could proffer it. “Did anyone see you?” he demanded. “What took you so long? I expected you last night!”

“It took a while to figure out what I had to do,” Narishma replied in a flat voice. “You didn’t tell me everything. You nearly killed me.”

That was ridiculous. Rand had told him everything he needed to know. He was sure of it. There was no point to trusting the man as far as he had, only to have him die and ruin everything. Carefully he tucked the bundle beneath his cot. His hands trembled with the urge to strip the wrappings away, to make sure they held what Narishma had been sent for. The man would not have dared return if they did not. “Get yourself into a proper coat before you join the others,” he said. “And Narishma . . . ” Rand straightened, fixing the other man with a steady gaze. “You tell anyone about this, and I will kill you.”

Kill the whole world, Lews Therin laughed, a moan of derision. Of despair. I killed the world, and you can, too, if you try hard.

Narishma struck himself hard on the chest with his fist. “As you command, my Lord Dragon,” he said sourly.

Bright and early the next morning, a thousand men of the Legion of the Dragon marched out of Illian, across the Causeway of the Northern Star, stepping to the steady beat of drums. Well, it was early, anyway. Thick gray clouds roiled across the sky, and a stiff sea breeze sharp with salt whipped cloaks and banners, muttering of another storm on the way. The Legion attracted a good bit of attention from the armsmen already in the camp, with their blue-painted Andoran helmets and their long blue coats worked on the chest with a red-and-gold Dragon. A blue pennant bearing the Dragon and a number marked each of the five companies. The Legionmen were different in many ways. For instance, they wore breastplates, but beneath their coats, so as not to hide the Dragons—the same reason the coats buttoned up one side—and every man carried a short-sword at his hip and a steel-armed crossbow, every one shouldered exactly the same as every other. The officers walked, each with a tall red plume on his helmet, just ahead of drum and pennant. The only horses were Morr’s mouse-colored gelding, at their head, and pack animals at the rear.

“Foot,” Weiramon muttered, slapping his reins on a gauntleted hand. “Burn my soul, they’re no good, foot. They’ll scatter at the first charge. Before.” The first of the column strode off the causeway. They had helped take Illian, and they had not scattered.

Semaradrid shook his head. “No pikes,” he muttered. “I have seen well-led foot hold, with pikes, but without . . . ” He made a sound of disgust in his throat.

Gregorin Panar, the third man sitting his saddle near Rand to watch the new arrivals, said nothing. Perhaps he had no prejudice against infantry—though if he did not, he would be one of only a handful of noblemen Rand had met without it—but he tried hard not to frown and almost succeeded. Everyone knew by now that the men with the Dragon on their chests bore arms because they had chosen to follow Rand, chosen to follow the Dragon Reborn, for no other reason than that they wanted to. The Illianer had to be wondering where they were going that Rand wanted the Legion and the Council of Nine was not trusted to know. For that matter, Semaradrid eyed Rand sideways. Only Weiramon was too stupid to think.

Rand turned Tai’daishar away. Narishma’s package had been rewrapped, into a thinner bundle, and tied beneath his left stirrup leather. “Strike the camp; we’re moving,” he told the three nobles.

This time, he let Dashiva weave the gateway to take them all away. The plain-faced fellow frowned at him and mumbled to himself—Dashiva actually seemed affronted, for some reason!—and Gedwyn and Rochaid, their horses shoulder-by-shoulder, watched with sardonic smiles as the silvery slash of light rotated into a hole in nothing. Watched Rand more than Dashiva. Well, let them watch. How often could he seize saidin and risk falling dizzily on his face before he really did fall? It could not be where they could see.

This time, the gateway took them to a wide road carved through the low, brushy foothills of mountains to the west. The Nemarellin Mountains. Not the equals of the Mountain of Mist, and not a patch on the Spine of the World, but they rose dark and severe against the sky, sharp peaks that walled the west coast of Illian. Beyond them lay Kabal Deep, and beyond that . . .

Men began to recognize the peaks soon enough. Gregorin Panar took one look around and nodded in sudden satisfaction. The other three Councilors and Marcolin reined close to him to talk while horsemen were still pouring through the gateway. Semaradrid required only a bit longer to puzzle it out, and Tihera, and they also looked as if they understood now.

The Silver Road ran from the City to Lugard, and carried all of the inland trade for the west. There was a Gold Road, too, that led to Far Madding. Roads and names alike dated from before there had been an Illian. Centuries of wagon wheels, hooves and boots had beaten them hard, and the cemaros could only skim them with mud. They were among the few reliable highways in Illian for moving large groups of men in winter. Everyone knew about the Seanchan in Ebou Dar by this time, though a good many of the tales Rand had heard among the armsmen made the invaders seem Trollocs’ meaner cousins. If the Seanchan intended to strike into Illian, the Silver Road was a good place to gather for defense.

Semaradrid and the others thought they knew what he planned: he must have learned that the Seanchan were coming, and the Asha’man were there to destroy them when they did. Given the stories about the Seanchan, no one seemed too upset that that left little for them to do. Of course, Weiramon had to have it explained to him finally, by Tihera, and he was upset, though he tried to mask it behind a grand speech about the wisdom of the Lord Dragon and the military genius of the Lord of the Morning, along with how he, personally, would lead the first charge against these Seanchan. A pure bull-goose fool. With luck, anyone else who learned of a gathering on the Silver Road would at least not be too much brighter than Semaradrid or Gregorin. With luck, no one who mattered would learn before it was too late.

Settling in to wait, Rand thought it would only be another day or so, but as the days stretched out, he began to wonder whether he might be nearly as big a fool as Weiramon.

Most of the Asha’man were out searching across Illian and Tear and the Plains of Maredo for the rest of those Rand wanted. Searching through the cemaros. Gateways and Traveling were all very well, but even Asha’man took time to find who they sought when downpours hid anything fifty paces away and quagmires dragged rumor to a near halt. Searching Asha’man passed within a mile of their quarry in ignorance, and turned only to learn the men had moved on again. Some had farther to go, seeking people not necessarily eager to be found. Days passed before the first brought news.

The High Lord Sunamon joined Weiramon, a fat man with an unctuous manner—toward Rand, at least. Smooth in his fine silk coat, always smiling, he was voluble in his declarations of loyalty, but he had plotted against Rand so long that he probably did so in his sleep. The High Lord Torean came, with his lumpy farmer’s face and his vast wealth, stammering about the honor of riding once more at the Lord Dragon’s side. Gold concerned Torean more than anything else, except possibly the privileges Rand had taken away from the nobles in Tear. He seemed particularly dismayed to learn there were no serving girls in the camp, and not so much as a village nearby where compliant farmgirls might be found. Torean had schemed against Rand every bit as often as Sunamon. Maybe even more than Gueyam, or Maraconn, or Aracome.

There were others. There was Bertome Saighan, a short, ruggedly handsome man with the front of his head shaved. He supposedly did not mourn the death of his cousin Colavaere too greatly, both because that made him the new High Seat of House Saighan and because rumor said Rand had executed her. Or murdered her. Bertome bowed and smiled, and his smile never reached his dark eyes. Some said he had been very fond of his cousin. Ailil Riatin came, a slim dignified woman with big dark eyes, not young but quite pretty, protesting that she had a Lance-captain to lead her armsmen and no desire to take the field in person. Protesting her loyalty for the Lord Dragon, too. But her brother Toram claimed the throne Rand meant for Elayne, and it was whispered that she would do anything for Toram, anything at all. Even join with his enemies; to hamper or to spy or both, of course. Dalthanes Annallin came, and Amondrid Osiellin, and Doressin Chuliandred, lords who had supported Colavaere’s seizure of the Sun Throne when they thought Rand would never return to Cairhien.

Cairhienin and Tairen, they were brought in one by one, with fifty retainers, or at most a hundred. Men and women he trusted even less than he did Gregorin or Semaradrid. Most were men, not because he thought the women any less dangerous—he was not that big a fool; a woman would kill you twice as fast as a man, and usually for half the reason!—but because he could not bring himself to take any woman except the most dangerous, where he was going. Ailil could smile warmly while she calculated where to plant the knife in your ribs. Anaiyella, a willowy simpering High Lady who gave a fair imitation of a beautiful goosebrain, had returned to Tear from Cairhien and openly begun talking of herself for the as-yet-nonexistent throne of Tear. Perhaps she was a fool, but she had managed to gain a great deal of support, both among nobles and in the streets.

So he gathered them in, all the folk who had been too long out from under his eye. He could not watch all of them all the time, but he could not afford to let them forget that he did watch sometimes. He gathered them, and he waited. For two days. Gnashing his teeth, he waited. Five days. Eight.

Rain was beating a diminishing drum on his tent when the last man he was waiting for finally arrived.

Shaking a small torrent from his oiled-cloth cape, Davram Bashere blew out his thick, gray-streaked mustaches in disgust and tossed the cape over a barrel chair. A short man with a great hooked beak of a nose, he seemed larger than he was. Not because he strutted, but because he assumed that he was as tall as any man present, and other men took him so. Wise men did. The wolf-headed ivory baton of the Marshal-General of Saldaea, tucked carelessly behind his sword belt, had been earned on scores of battlefields and at as many council tables. He was one of the very few men Rand would trust with his life.

“I know you don’t like explaining,” Bashere muttered, “but I could use a little illumination.” Adjusting his serpentine sword, he sprawled in another chair and flung a leg over the arm of it. He always seemed at his ease, but he could uncoil faster than a whip. “That Asha’man fellow wouldn’t say more than you needed me yesterday, yet he said not to bring more than a thousand men. I only had half that with me, but I brought them. It can’t be a battle. Half the sigils I saw out there belong to men who’d bite their tongues if they saw a fellow behind you with a knife, and most of the rest to men who’d try to hold your attention. If they hadn’t paid the knife man in the first place.”

Seated behind his writing table in his shirtsleeves, Rand wearily pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. With Boreane Carivin left behind, the lamp wicks needed proper trimming, and a faint haze of smoke hung in the air. Besides, he had been awake most of the night poring over the maps scattered across the table. Maps of southern Altara. No two agreed on very much.

“If you’re going to fight a battle,” he told Bashere, “who better to pay the butcher’s bill than men who want you dead? Anyway, it isn’t soldiers who’ll win this battle. All they have to do is keep anybody from sneaking up on the Asha’man. What do you think of that?”

Bashere snorted so hard that his heavy mustaches stirred. “I think it’s a deadly stew, is what I think. Somebody’s going to choke to death on it. The Light send it isn’t us.” And then he laughed as if that were a fine joke.

Lews Therin laughed, too.