The Path of Daggers twot-8 Read online

  It did not sound that difficult. She just had to be careful. It seemed to take a long time for the last woman to vanish over the hill, the slender noble bent under the bulk of her dresses. The sun barely appeared to settle any at all, but it seemed like hours. What did Aviendha mean precisely by "slick"? She could not explain beyond variations on the word; they became difficult to hold, that was all.

  Elayne found out as soon as she began again. "Slick" was what you would get if you coated a live eel with grease. She gritted her teeth just holding on to that first thread, and that was on top of trying to pull it free. All that stopped her from gasping in relief when the thread of Air began whipping about, finally loose, was that there were more to go. If they became much more "slick," she was not sure she could manage it. Aviendha watched closely, but did not say another word, though she always had an encouraging smile when Elayne needed one. Elayne could not see Birgitte — she did not dare look away from her work — yet she could feel her, a small knot of rock-solid confidence in her own head, enough confidence to fill her.

  Sweat slid down her face, down her back and belly, until she began to feel "slick" herself. A bath tonight would be most welcome. No, she could not think of that. All attention on the weaves. They were getting harder to handle, quivering in her grip as soon as she touched one, but they still came free, and every time one thread began to lash about, another seemed to leap out of the mass, to suddenly be clearly perceptible where there had only been solid saidar before. To her eye the gateway resembled some monstrous, distorted hundred-heads on the bottom of a pond, surrounded by flailing tendrils, every one thickly haired with threads of the Power that grew and writhed and vanished only to be replaced by new. The opening visible to anyone flexed along its edges, changing shape and even size continuously. Her legs began to tremble; strain stung her eyes as much as sweat did. She did not know how much longer she could go on. Gritting her teeth, she fought. One thread at a time. One thread at a time.

  A thousand miles away, less than a hundred paces away through the shuddering gateway, dozens of soldiers swept around the white farm buildings, short men carrying crossbows, in brown breastplates and painted helmets that looked like the heads of huge insects. Behind them came a woman with red panels bearing silver lightning on her skirts, a bracelet on her wrist linked by a silvery leash to the collar around the neck of a woman in gray, and then another sul’dam and her damane, then another pair. One of the sul’dam pointed at the gateway, and the glow of saidar abruptly enveloped her sul’dam.

  "Get down!" Elayne screamed, falling backward, out of sight of the farmyard, and silver-blue lightning shot through the gateway with a roar that filled her ears, forking savagely in every direction. Her hair lifted, every strand trying to stand on its own, and thunderous fountains of earth erupted wherever one of the forks struck. Dirt and pebbles rained down on her.

  Hearing returned suddenly, and a man’s voice from the other side of the opening, a slurred, drawling accent that made her skin crawl as much as the words. "… must take them alive, you fools!"

  Abruptly one of the soldiers was leaping into the meadow right in front of her. Birgitte’s arrow punched through the clenched fist embossed on his leather breastplate. A second Seanchan soldier stumbled over the first as he fell, and Aviendha’s belt knife stabbed into his throat before he could recover. Arrows flew from Birgitte’s bow like hail; with one boot on the horses’ reins, she grinned grimly as she shot. The trembling horses tossed their heads and danced as if they would jerk free and run, but Birgitte simply stood and shot as fast as she could draw. Shouts from beyond the gateway said Birgitte Silverbow still struck home with every shaft she loosed. Answer came, quick as bad thought, black streaks, crossbow bolts. So quick, all happening so fast. Aviendha fell, blood running over the fingers clutching her right arm, but she let go of her wound immediately, crawling clear, scrabbling on the ground for the angreal, her face set. Birgitte cried out; dropping her bow, she grabbed her thigh where a quarrel stuck out. Elayne felt the stab of agony as sharply as if it were her own.

  Desperately, she seized another thread from where she lay half on her back. And realized to her horror after one tug that it was all she could do to hold on. Had the thread moved? Had it slipped free any at all? If it had, she did not dare let go. The thread trembled greasily in her grasp.

  "Alive, I said!" that Seanchan voice roared. "Anyone who kills a woman gets no share of the taking gold!" The flurry of crossbow bolts ceased.

  "You wish to take me?" Aviendha shouted. "Then come and dance with me!" Saidar’s glow abruptly surrounded her, dim even with the angreal, and balls of fire sprang into being in front of the gateway and sprayed through again and again. Not very large balls, but the blasts as they burst back in Altara sounded in a steady stream. Aviendha panted with effort, though; her face glistened with sweat. Birgitte had recovered her bow; she looked every inch the hero of legend, blood streaming down her leg, barely able to stand, but an arrow half drawn, searching for a target.

  Elayne tried to control her breathing. She could not embrace one shred more of the Power, nothing to help. "The two of you must get away," she said. She could not believe how she sounded, calm as ice; she knew she should have been wailing. Her heart was trying to pound through her ribs. "I don’t know how much longer I can hold this." That held true for the entire weave as much as for that single thread. Was it sliding? Was it? "Go, as fast as you can. The other side of the hills should be safe, but every span you can cover gains something. Go!"

  Birgitte growled in the Old Tongue, but nothing that Elayne knew. It sounded like phrases she would like to learn. If there was ever a chance. Birgitte went on in words Elayne could understand. "You let that bloody thing go before I tell you, and you won’t have to worry about waiting for Nynaeve to skin you; I’ll do it myself. And then let her have a turn. Just be quiet and hang on! Aviendha, get around here — behind that thing! — can you keep that up from behind it? — get around here and on one of these bloody horses."

  "As long as I can see where to weave," Aviendha replied, staggering to her feet. She wobbled sideways and barely caught herself short of falling. Blood flowed down her sleeve from a wicked gash. "I think I can." She vanished behind the gateway, and the fireballs continued. You could see through a gateway from the other side, though it appeared to be a heat haze hanging in the air. You could not walk through from that side, though — the attempt would be extremely painful — and when Aviendha reappeared, she was stumbling well wide. Birgitte helped her mount her gelding, but backwards, of all things!

  When Birgitte motioned fiercely to her, Elayne did not bother with shaking her head. For one thing, she feared what might happen if she did. "I’m not certain I can hold on if I try to get up." In truth, she was not certain she could get up; tired was no longer in it; her muscles were water. "Ride as fast as you can. I’ll hold on as long as I’m able. Please, go!"

  Muttering curses in the Old Tongue — they had to be; nothing else ever had the sound! — Birgitte shoved the horses’ reins into Aviendha’s hands. Nearly falling twice, she hobbled to Elayne and bent to take her by the shoulders. "You can hang on," she said, her voice filled with the same conviction Elayne felt from her. "I never met a Queen of Andor before you, but I’ve known queens like you. A backbone of steel and a lion’s heart. You can do it!"

  Slowly she pulled Elayne up, not waiting for an answer, her face tight, every stab in her leg echoing in Elayne’s head. Elayne quivered with the effort of holding the weave, holding that one thread; she was surprised to find herself erect. And alive. Birgitte’s leg throbbed madly in her head. She tried not to lean on Birgitte, but her own trembling limbs would not support her completely. As they lurched toward the horses, each half leaning on the other, she kept looking back over her shoulder. She could hold a weave without looking at it — she could normally — but she needed to reassure herself that she really did still have a grip on that one thread, that it was not slipping. The gateway now appeared
like no weave she had ever seen, twisting wildly, wreathed with fuzzed tentacles.

  With a groan, Birgitte heaved her into her saddle more than helped her. Backward, just like Aviendha! "You have to see," she explained, limping to her gelding; holding the reins of all three horses, she pulled herself up painfully. Without a sound, but Elayne felt the agony. "You do what needs doing and leave where we’re going to me." The horses leaped away, perhaps as much from eagerness to be gone as from Birgitte’s heel in her own mount’s flank.

  Elayne hung on to the high cantle of her saddle as grimly as she did to the weave, to saidar itself. The galloping horse flung her about, and it was all she could do to remain in the saddle. Aviendha used her saddle’s cantle as a prop to keep herself upright; her mouth hung open, sucking air, and her eyes seemed fixed. The glow surrounded her, though, and that stream of fireballs continued. Not as fast as before, true, and some shot wide of the gateway, streaking trails of flame through the grass or exploding on the ground beyond, but they still formed and flew. Elayne took strength, made herself take strength; if Aviendha could keep on when she looked ready to fall on her face, she could, too.

  At a gallop, the gateway began to dwindle, brown grass stretching out between them and the opening, and then the ground was slanting upward. They were climbing the hill! Birgitte was again the arrow in the bow, all focus, fighting down the agony in her legs, urging her horses for more speed. All they had to do was reach the crest, reach the other side.

  With a gasp, Aviendha sagged onto her elbows, bouncing on her saddle like a loose sack; the light of saidar flickered around her and was gone. "I cannot," she panted. "I cannot." That was all she could get out. Seanchan soldiers began leaping into the meadow almost as soon as the hail of fire ceased.

  "It’s all right," Elayne managed. Her throat was sand; all the moisture that had been in her now coated her skin and soaked her clothes. "Using an angreal is tiring. You did well, and they can’t catch us now."

  As if to mock her, a sul’dam appeared in the meadow below; even at half a mile there was no mistaking the two women. The sun, low in the west, still flashed glints off the a’dam linking them. Another pair joined them, then a third, and a fourth. A fifth.

  "The crest!" Birgitte shouted joyfully. "We made it! It’s good wine and a well set-up man tonight!"

  In the meadow, a sul’dam pointed, and time seemed to slow for Elayne. The glow of the One Power sprang up around the woman’s damane. Elayne could see the weave forming. She knew what it was. And there was no way to stop it. "Faster!" she shouted. The shield struck her. She should have been too strong for it — she should have been! — but exhausted as she was, barely clinging to saidar as she was, it sliced between her and the Source. Down in the meadow, the weave that had been a gateway fell in on itself. Haggard, looking as though she could not possibly move, Aviendha hurled herself from her saddle at Elayne, carrying them both off. Elayne had just time to see the far slope of the hill below her as she fell.

  The air turned white, blanking her sight. There was sound — she knew there was sound, a great roar — but it lay beyond hearing. Something struck her, as if she had fallen from a rooftop onto hard pavement, from a tower top.

  Her eyes opened, staring at the sky. The sky looked, strange somehow, blurry. For a moment she could not move, and when she did, she gasped. She hurt everywhere. Oh, Light, she hurt! Slowly she raised a hand to her face; her fingers came away red. Blood. The others. She had to help the others. She could feel Birgitte, feel pain as bad as what gripped her, but at least Birgitte was alive. And determined, and angry apparently; she could not be injured too badly. Aviendha.

  With a sob, Elayne rolled over, then pushed up to hands and knees, her head spinning, agony stabbing her side. Vaguely she recalled that moving with even one broken rib could be dangerous, but the thought was as hazy as the hillside. Thinking seemed… difficult. Blinking appeared to help her sight, though. Some. She was almost to the bottom of the hill! High above, a haze of smoke rose from the meadow beyond. Unimportant, now. Not important at all.

  Thirty paces up the slope, Aviendha was on her hands and knees, too, almost falling over when she raised a hand to wipe away blood that poured down her face, but searching anxiously. Her gaze fell on Elayne, and she froze, staring. Elayne wondered how bad she looked. Surely no worse than Aviendha herself; half of the other woman’s skirt was gone, her bodice torn nearly off, and everywhere skin showed, there seemed to be blood.

  Elayne crawled to her. With her head, it seemed much easier than trying to stand and walk. As she came close, Aviendha gave a relieved gasp.

  "You are all right," she said, touching bloody fingers to Elayne’s cheek. "I was so afraid. So afraid."

  Elayne blinked in surprise. What she could see of herself appeared in every bit as bad shape as Aviendha. Her own skirts remained intact, but half of her bodice was ripped away entirely, and she seemed to be bleeding from two dozen gashes. Then it struck her. She had not been burned out. She shivered at the thought. "We are both all right," she said softly.

  Well off to one side, Birgitte wiped her belt knife on the mane of Aviendha’s gelding and straightened from the still horse. Her right arm dangled, her coat was gone, along with one boot, and the rest of her garments torn; as much blood stained her skin and clothes as either of theirs. The crossbow bolt standing out from her thigh seemed to be the worst of her injuries, but the rest certainly added up to as much again. "His back was broken," she said, gesturing to the horse at her feet. "Mine’s well, I think, but the last I saw of him, he was running fit to win the Wreath of Megairil. I always thought he had a turn of speed. Lioness." She shrugged, and winced. "Elayne, Lioness was dead when I found her. I’m sorry."

  "We are alive," Elayne said firmly, "and that is what counts." She would weep for Lioness later. The smoke above the hilltop was not thick, but it rose over a wide area. "I want to see exactly what it was that I did."

  It took clinging to one another for all three of them to stand, and laboring up the hillside was an effort of panting and groans, even from Aviendha. They sounded as though they had been thrashed within an inch of their lives — which Elayne supposed they had been — and looked as though they had wallowed in a butcher’s shambles. Aviendha still carried the angreal tight in her fist, but even if she or Elayne had possessed more than their small Talent with Healing, neither could have managed to embrace the Source, much less channel. At the top of the hill, they stood leaning on each other and stared at devastation.

  Fire ringed the meadow, but the heart of it was blackened, smoldering and swept clear even of boulders. Half the trees on the surrounding slopes were broken or leaning away from the meadow. Hawks began to appear, riding the hot air rising from the fire; hawks often hunted so, looking for small animals chased into the open by the flames. Of the Seanchan there was no sign. Elayne wished there were bodies, so she could be certain they were all dead. Especially all of the sul’dam. Gazing down at the burned, smoking ground, though, she was suddenly glad there was no evidence. It had been a terrible way to die. The Light have mercy on their souls, she thought. On all of their souls.

  "Well," she said aloud, "I did not do as well as you, Aviendha, but I suppose it worked out for the best, considering. I will try to do better next time."

  Aviendha glanced at her sideways. There was a gash on her cheek, and another across her forehead, as well as a long one laying open her scalp. "You did much better than I, for a first try. I was given a simple knot tied in a flow of Wind the first time. It took me fifty tries to unweave even that without having a clap of thunder in my face, or a blow that made my ears ring."

  "I suppose I should have started with something simpler," Elayne said. "I have a habit of leaping in over my head." Over her head? She had leaped before looking to see whether there was water! She stifled a chuckle, but not before it sent a stab through her side. So instead of chuckling, she moaned through her teeth. She thought some of them might be loose. "At least we’ve found
a new weapon. Perhaps I should not be happy about that, but with the Seanchan back again, I am."

  "You do not understand, Elayne." Aviendha gestured toward the center of the meadow, where the gateway had been. "That could have been no more than a flash of light, or even less. You cannot tell until it happens. Is a flash of light worth the risk of burning out yourself and every woman closer to you than a hundred paces or more?"

  Elayne stared at her. She had stayed, knowing that? To risk your life was one thing, but to risk losing the ability to channel… "I want us to adopt each other as first-sisters, Aviendha. As soon as we can find Wise Ones." What they were to do about Rand, she could not imagine. The very idea that they would both marry him — and Min, too! — was worse than ridiculous. But of this, she was sure. "I don’t need to know any more about you. I want to be your sister." Gently, she kissed Aviendha’s bloodstained cheek.

  She had only thought Aviendha blushed fiercely before. Even Aiel lovers did not kiss where anyone could see. Fiery sunsets paled beside Aviendha’s face. "I want you for my sister, too," she mumbled. Swallowing hard — and eyeing Birgitte, who was pretending to ignore them — she leaned over and quickly pressed her lips to Elayne’s cheek. Elayne loved her as much for that gesture as for the rest.

  Birgitte had been gazing behind them, over her shoulder, and perhaps she had not been pretending after all, because she suddenly said, "Someone’s coming. Lan and Nynaeve, unless I miss my guess."

  Awkwardly, they turned, hobbling and stumbling and groaning. It seemed quite ludicrous; heroes in stories never got hurt so they could barely stand. In the distance to the north, two riders appeared briefly through the trees. Briefly, but long enough to make out a tall man on a tall horse, galloping hard, and a woman on a shorter animal running just as hard at his side. Gingerly, the three of them sat down to wait. That was another thing heroes in stories never did, Elayne thought with a sigh. She hoped she could be a queen to make her mother proud, but it was clear that she would never make a hero.