A Memory of Light

time.”
    Mishraile and several others joined Taim; they’d been standing where Androl couldn’t see them.
    Taim stalked toward the door. “I want that woman Turned by the time I get back,” he said.

    Lan galloped across the rocky ground, riding toward the Gap for what seemed like the hundredth time, though he had been fighting here less than a week.
    Prince Kaisel and King Easar fell in beside him, riding hard. “What is it, Dai Shan?” Kaisel yelled. “Another attack? I did not see the emergency signal!”
    Lan leaned down grimly in the dusk, bonfires made of carcasses and wood blazing to either side of him as he led the charge of several hundred Malkieri. Burning carcasses was difficult, but not only did they need the light; they wanted to deny the Trollocs some meals.
    Lan heard something ahead, something that horrified him. Something he had been dreading.
    Explosions.
    The distant eruptions sounded like boulders crashing against one another. Each one made the air shake.
    “Light!” Queen Ethenielle of Kandor joined them, galloping on her white gelding. She yelled to him. “Is that what I think it is?”
    Lan nodded. Enemy channelers.
    Ethenielle called back to her retinue, yelling something he did not catch. She was a plump woman, somewhat matronly for a Borderlander. Her retinue included Lord Baldhere—her Swordbearer—and the grizzled Kalyan Ramsin, her new husband.
    They approached the Gap, where warriors fought to keep the beasts contained. A group of Kandori riders near the bonfires at the front were suddenly thrown into the air.
    “Lord Mandragoran!” A figure in a black coat waved to them. Narishma hurried up, his Aes Sedai accompanying him. Lan always had one channeler at the front lines, but had given them orders not to fight. He needed them fresh for emergencies.
    Like this one.
    “Channeling?” Lan asked, slowing Mandarb.
    “Dreadlords, Dai Shan,” Narishma said, panting. “Maybe as many as two dozen.”
    “Twenty or more channelers,” Agelmar said. “They’ll cut through us like a sword through a spring lamb.”
    Lan looked across the bitter landscape, once his homeland. A homeland he’d never known.
    He would have to abandon Malkier. Admitting it felt like a knife twisting inside him, but he would do it. “You have your retreat, Lord Agelmar,” Lan said. “Narishma, can you channelers do anything?”
    “We can try to cut their weaves from the air if we ride up close enough,” Narishma said. “But that will be hard, perhaps impossible, with them using just ribbons of Fire and Earth. Besides, with so many on their side . . . well, they’ll target us. I fear we would be cut down—”
    A nearby blast rocked the earth, and Mandarb reared, nearly throwing Lan to the ground. Lan fought the horse, nearly blind from the flash of light. “Dai Shan!” Narishma’s voice.
    Lan blinked tears from his eyes.
    “Go to Queen Elayne!” Lan bellowed. “Bring back channelers to cover our retreat. We’ll be cut to ribbons without them. Go, man!”
    Agelmar was yelling the retreat, bringing forward archers to target the channelers and drive them beneath cover. Lan unsheathed his sword, galloping to bring the horsemen back.
    Light protect us, Lan thought, yelling himself ragged and salvaging what he could of his cavalry. The Gap was lost.

    Elayne waited nervously just inside Braem Wood.
    It was an old forest, the type that seemed to have a soul of its own. The ancient trees were its gnarled fingers, reaching out of the earth to feel the wind.
    It was difficult not to feel tiny in a wood like Braem. Though many of the trees were bare, Elayne could feel a thousand eyes watching her from the depths of the forest. She found herself thinking of the stories told to her as a child, stories of the Wood being full of brigands—some goodly, others with hearts as twisted as those of Darkfriends.
    In fact. . . Elayne thought, remembering one of the stories. She turned to Birgitte. “Didn’t you once lead a band of thieves out of this forest?” Birgitte grimaced. “I was hoping you hadn’t heard that one.”
    “You robbed the Queen of Aldeshar!” Elayne said.
    “I was very polite about it,” Birgitte said. “She wasn’t a good queen. Many claimed she wasn’t the rightful one.”
    “It’s the principle!”
    “That’s exactly why I did it.” Birgitte frowned. “At least ... I think it was . . .”
    Elayne didn’t push the topic any farther. Birgitte always grew anxious when