A Memory of Light

could find the Myrddraal linked to the Trollocs nearby, she could stop them all with one well-placed weave of Fire. Unfortunately, the Fades were crafty, and had begun hiding among the Trollocs.
    “They’re closing in,” Lelaine said, panting.
    “Fall back,” Egwene said.
    They ducked through Romanda’s gateway, followed by their Warders. Romanda came last, leaping through as a group of Trollocs claimed their hilltop. One of the beasts, a shaggy-furred bearlike monstrosity, stumbled through the gateway after her.
    The thing dropped dead immediately, a faint wisp of smoke rising from its carcass. Its fellows hooted and growled on the other side. Egwene glanced at the other women, then shrugged and released flame straight through the gateway. A few fell dead, twitching, while the others scrambled away, howling, dropping their weapons.
    “That is effective,” Leane noted, folding her arms and raising an immaculate eyebrow at the gateway. It was the middle of the Last Battle, and the woman still took time each morning to do her face.
    Their gateway had taken them back to camp, which was now mostly empty. With the reserves formed up and ready to move when required, the only soldiers who remained in the camp were a force of five hundred guarding Bryne’s command tent.
    She still carried the pouch with the false seals at her side. Rand's words had shaken her hard. How would they get the seals back? If the minions of the Shadow broke them at the wrong time, it would be a catastrophe.
    Had they broken them already? Would the world know? Egwene felt a dread she could not abandon. And yet, the war continued, and she had no recourse but to keep fighting. They would think of a way to recover the seals, if they could. Rand swore to try. She wasn’t certain what he could do.
    “They’re fighting so hard,” Gawyn said.
    Egwene turned to find him standing a short distance away, inspecting the battlefield with his looking glass. She felt a longing from him. Without some men to lead as he had the Younglings, she knew, he felt useless in these battles.
    “The Trollocs are driven by Myrddraal,” Egwene said, “linked to give the Fades greater control over them.”
    “Yes, but why resist so strongly?” Gawyn said, still looking through the glass. “They don’t care about this land. It’s obvious that these hills are lost to them, and yet they fight savagely. Trollocs are base—they fight and win or they scatter and retreat. They don’t hold land. They’re trying to do so here. It’s like . . . like the Fades think that even after a rout like this one, they’re in a good position.”
    “Who knows why Fades do what they do?” Lelaine remarked, arms folded, looking through the still-open gateway.
    Egwene turned, looking through it, too. The hilltop was now empty, strangely isolated amid the battle. Her soldiers had crashed up against the Trollocs in the small valley between the hills, and the fighting was brutal down there. She heard grunts, yells, clangs. Bloodied pikes were raised in the air as a group of men were forced back, and halberdiers moved in to try to slow the Trollocs.
    The Shadowspawn were taking terrible casualties. It was an oddity; Bryne had expected them to retreat.
    “Something’s wrong,” Egwene said, the hairs of her arms standing on end. Her worry about the seals vanished, for now. Her army was in danger. “Gather the Aes Sedai and have the army pull back.”
    The other women looked at her as if she were mad. Gawyn took off at a dash toward the command tent to give her orders. He didn’t question.
    “Mother,” Romanda said, letting her gateway die. “What is—”
    Something split the air on the other side of Egwene’s war camp, opposite the battlefield. A line of light, longer than any gateway Egwene had seen. It was nearly as wide as her camp itself.
    The line of light turned upon itself, opening a view that was not of southern Kandor. Instead, it was a place of ferns and drooping trees— though they were brown, like everything else, they were still alien and unfamiliar.
    An enormous army stood silently upon this unfamiliar landscape. Thousands of banners flew above it, emblazoned with symbols Egwene didn’t recognize. The foot soldiers wore knee-length garments that appeared to be some kind of padded armor, reinforced with chain in a large-squared pattern. Others wore metal shirts that seemed sewn from coins tied together.
    Many carried hand axes, though of a very strange