A Memory of Light

soldiers and quartermasters. The rakeris rider slapped the ground a fraction of a moment later.
    Bryne recovered his wits and leaped forward, stooping beneath a fallen section of cloth and tent poles that covered the path. Two of his guards found a soldier half-pinned by the dead beast’s wing and pulled him free, Siuan kneeling and removing her angreal from her pouch to perform Healing.
    Bryne moved to where Annah had fallen. He found her crushed where the fallen beast had rolled. “Burn it!” He shoved aside thought for the dead to consider what to do next. “I need someone to go to the Seanchan!”
    Of his entourage, only two guards and one clerk remained in camp. He needed the Seanchan to give him some more cavalry; he was beginning to feel that a great deal depended on keeping those Aes Sedai on the hills safe. After all, the Amyrlin was up there with them.
    Looks like we’re going ourselves,” Bryne said, leaving Annah’s corpse. Siuan, are you strong enough to make a gateway with that angreal ?”
    She stood, masking her exhaustion, but he could see it. “I can, though it will be so small we’ll have to crawl through. I don’t know this area well enough. We’ll have to move back to the center of camp.”
    Burn me!” Bryne said, turning as a series of explosions sounded from the river. “We don’t have time for this.”
    “I can go find us some more messengers,” a guard said. The other was helping the soldier Siuan had Healed. The man stood on wobbly feet.
    “I don’t know if there are more messengers to be had,” Bryne said. “Let’s just—”
    TU go.”
    Bryne saw Min Farshaw rising to her feet nearby and dusting herself off. He d almost forgotten that he’d set her helping as a clerk for one of the supply regiments.
    “It doesn’t look like I’ll be clerking here in the near future,” Min said, inspecting the fallen supply tent. “I can run as well as any of your messengers. What do you want me to do?”
    “Find the Seanchan Empress,” Bryne said. “Her camp is a few miles north of here on the Arafellin side. Go to the Traveling ground; they’ll know where to send you. Tell the Empress she needs to send me some cavalry. Our reserves are depleted.”
    I'll do it,” Min said.
    She wasn’t a soldier. Well, it seemed half of his army hadn’t been soldiers until a few weeks back. “Go,” he said, then smiled. “I’ll count the day’s work toward what you owe me.”
    She blushed. Did she think he’d let a woman forget her oath? It didn’t matter to him whose company she kept. An oath was an oath.

    Min ran through the army’s back lines. The camp had more tents and carts— brought in from supply dumps in Tar Valon or Tear—to replace the ones lost during the initial Sharan assault. Those proved to be obstacles to weave around as she sought out the Traveling ground.
    The ground was a series of roped-off squares, numbered with painted planks shoved in the ground. A quartet of women in gray shawls spoke together in hushed voices as one of their number held open a gateway for a supply cart laden with arrows. The placid oxen didn’t look up as a comet-like ball of fire hit the ground nearby, hurling glowing red stones into the air and across a pile of bedrolls, which began to smolder.
    “I need to go to the Seanchan army,” Min said to the Grays. “Lord Bryne’s orders.”
    One of the Gray sisters, Ashmanaille, looked at her. She took in Min’s breeches and curls, then frowned. “Elmindreda? Sweet thing, what are you doing here?”
    “Sweet thing?” one of the others asked. “She’s one of the clerks, isn’t she?
    I need to go to the Seanchan army,” Min said, breathing deeply from her run. “Lord Bryne’s orders.”
    This time, they seemed to hear her. One of the women sighed. “Square four?” she asked the others.
    “Three, dear,” Ashmanaille said. “A gateway could be opening to four from Illian any moment.”
    “Three,” the first said, waving Min over. A small gateway split the air there. “All messengers crawl,” she noted. “We have to conserve strength; gateways need to be made as small as reasonable.”
    This is reasonable? Min thought with annoyance, running to the small hole. She dropped to her hands and knees and crawled through.
    She came out in a ring of grass that had been burned black to mark its location. A pair of Seanchan guards stood with tasseled spears nearby, their faces obscured by insectile helmets. Min started to walk