A Memory of Light

Merrilor altogether. Demandred would let them go; he would be a fool not to. Blood and bloody ashes, what was Mat getting himself into? He had just sent away a good quarter of his troops.
    They’ll come back, he thought. If his gamble worked. If the dice fell as he needed them.
    Only this battle was not a game of dice. There was too much subtlety to it for that. It was cards, if anything. Mat usually won at cards. Usually.
    To his right, a group of men in dark Seanchan armor marched toward the battlefield. “Hey, Karede!” Mat yelled.
    The large man gave Mat a dark look. Suddenly, Mat knew what an ingot of metal felt like when Perrin eyed it, hefting a hammer. Karede stalked up, and though he obviously was making an effort to keep his face calm, Mat could feel the thunder coming off him.
    “Thank you,” Karede said, voice stiff, “for helping protect the Empress, may she live forever.”
    “You think I should have kept her someplace secure,” Mat said. “Not at the command post.”
    “It is not my place to question one of the Blood, Great One,” Karede said.
    “You’re not questioning me,” Mat said, “you’re thinking of sticking something sharp in me. Entirely different.”
    Karede breathed out a long, deep breath. “Excuse me, Great One,” he said, turning to leave. “I must take my men and die.”
    “I don’t think so,” Mat said. “You’re coming with me.”
    Karede turned back toward him. “The Empress, may she live forever, ordered—”
    “You to the front lines,” Mat said, shading his eye as he scanned the riverbed, swarming with Trollocs . . . “Great. Where do you bloody think I’m going?”
    “You ride to battle?” Karede asked.
    “I was thinking more of a saunter,” Mat said. He shook his head. “I need a feel for what Demandred is doing . . . I’m going out there, Karede, and putting you fellows between me and the Trollocs sounds delightful. Are you coming?”
    Karede did not reply, though he did not continue walking away, either. “Look, what are your choices?” Mat asked. “Ride out there and die for really no purpose? Or come try to keep me alive for your Empress? I’m almost certain that she’s fond of me. Maybe. She’s a hard one to read, Tuon is.”
    “You do not call her by that name,” Karede said.
    “I’ll call her what I bloody well want.”
    “Not if we’re to come with you,” Karede said. “If I am to ride with you, Prince of the Ravens, I would not have my men hearing such from your lips. It would be a bad omen.”
    “Well, we wouldn’t want any of those,” Mat said. “Right, then, Karede. Let’s dive back into this mess and see what we can do. In Fortuona’s name.”

    Tam raised his sword as if to begin a duel, but found no honorable foes here. Only grunting, howling, ferocious Trollocs. Drawn away from the beleaguered Whitecloaks at this battle near the ruins.
    The Trollocs turned on the Two Rivers men and attacked. Tam, holding the point of the wedge, fell into Reed in Wind. He refused to take a single step backward. He bent this way and that, but held firm as he broke the Trolloc line, slashing with his sword in quick movements.
    The men of the Two Rivers pushed forward, a thorn to the Dark One’s foot and a bramble to his hand. In the chaos that followed, they shouted and cursed, and fought to drive the Trollocs apart.
    But soon their focus turned to holding their ground. The Trollocs surged around the men. The wedge formation, normally an offensive tactic, worked well here, too. Trollocs moved down the sides of the wedge, taking hits from the Two Rivers men with their axes, swords and spears.
    Tam let the lads’ training guide them. He would have preferred to be in the center of the wedge, calling out encouragement as Dannil now did— but he was one of the few who had any real battle training, and the wedge formation depended on having a point who could hold steady.
    So hold steady he did. Calm within the void, he let the Trollocs break upon him. He moved from Shake Dew from the Branch, to Apple Blossoms in the Wind, to Stones Fall in the Pond—all forms that stabilized him in one position while fighting multiple opponents.
    Despite practice over the last few months, Tam wasn’t nearly as strong as he had been in his youth. Fortunately, a reed did not need strength. He was not as practiced as he once had been, but no reed practiced how to bend in the wind.
    It simply did.
    Years of maturing, years of age, had brought Tam an