A Memory of Light

him, seeming baffled.
    Around them, dozens of Trollocs collapsed to the ground, writhing. They’d been linked to the Fade. The Band gathered around Talmanes, some bearing wounds; a few were down for good. They were exhausted and worn down; this batch of Trollocs could have ended them.
    Melten retrieved Talmanes’ sword and swabbed it clean, but Talmanes found he was having trouble standing, so he sheathed it and had a man fetch a Trolloc spear for him to lean on.
    “Ho, the back of the street!” a distant voice called. “Whoever you are, thank you!”
    Talmanes limped forward, Filger and Mar scouting on ahead without needing orders. The street here was dark and cluttered with Trollocs that had fallen moments ago, so it was a moment before Talmanes could climb over the corpses and see who had called to him.
    Someone had built a barricade at the end of the street. People stood atop it, including one who held aloft a torch. She had hair in braids, and wore a plain brown dress with a white apron. It was Aludra.
    “Cauthon’s soldiers,” Aludra said, sounding unimpressed. “Your time, you certainly did take it coming for me.” In one hand, she held a stubby leather cylinder larger than a man’s fist, with a short length of dark fuse attached. Talmanes knew they exploded after she lit and threw them. The Band had used them before, hurling them from slings. They weren’t as devastating as dragons, but still powerful.
    “Aludra,” Talmanes called, “you have the dragons? Please, tell me you saved them.”
    She sniffed, waving for some people to pull apart a side of the barricade to admit his men. She appeared to have several hundred—maybe several thousand—townspeople back there, filling the street. As they opened the way for him, he saw a beautiful sight. Surrounded by townspeople, a hundred dragons rested there.
    The bronze tubes had been fitted to wooden dragon carts to comprise a single unit, pulled by two horses. They were really quite maneuverable, all things considered. Those carts could be anchored in the ground to manage recoil, Talmanes knew, and the dragons fired once the horses were detached. There were more than enough people here to do the work horses should have been available to do.
    “You think I would leave them?” Aludra asked. “This lot, they do not have the training to fire them. But they can pull a cart as well as anyone else.”
    “We have to get them out,” Talmanes said.
    “This, it is a new revelation to you?” Aludra asked. “As if I haven’t been trying to do that very thing. Your face, what is wrong with it?”
    “I once ate a rather sharp cheese, and it has never quite sat right with me.”
    Aludra cocked her head at him. Maybe if I smiled more when I made jokes, he thought idly, leaning against the side of the barricade. Then they’d understand what I meant. That, of course, raised the question: Did he want people to understand? It was often more amusing the other way. Besides, smiling was so garish. Where was the subtlety? And . . .
    And he was really having trouble focusing. He blinked at Aludra, whose face had grown concerned in the torchlight.
    “What about my face?” Talmanes raised a hand to his cheek. Blood. The Myrddraal. Right. “Just a cut.”
    “And the veins?”
    “Veins?” he asked, then noticed his hand. Tendrils of blackness, like ivy growing beneath the skin, had wound down his wrist and across the back of his hand toward the fingers. They seemed to be growing darker as he watched. “Oh, that. I’m dying, unfortunately. Terribly tragic. You wouldn’t happen to have any brandy, would you?”
    “I—”
    “My Lord!” a voice called.
    Talmanes blinked, then forced himself to turn about, leaning on the spear. “Yes, Filger?”
    “More Trollocs, my Lord. Lots of them! They’re filling in behind us.”
    “Lovely. Set the table. I hope we have enough dinnerware. I knew we should have sent the maid for that five thousand seven hundred and thirty-first set.”
    “Are you . . . feeling all right?” Aludra asked.
    “Blood and bloody ashes, woman, do I look like I’m feeling well? Guybon! Retreat is cut off. How far from the east gates are we?”
    “East gates?” Guybon called. “Maybe a half-hour march. We need to head further down the hill.”
    “Onward we go, then,” Talmanes said. “Take the scouts and go on point. Dennel, make sure those local folk are organized to haul those dragons! Be ready to set up the