A Memory of Light

Gaul looked about—carefully, slowly—as several wolves appeared near the decoy. They sniffed it.
    It started killing them.
    Gaul cursed, breaking out of his hiding place. This, apparently, was what Slayer had been wanting. Slayer launched a spear—one of Gaul’s own. It hit Gaul in the side. Gaul grunted, falling to his knees.
    Slayer laughed, then raised his hands. A jet of air blew out from him, flinging wolves away. Gaul could barely hear the whimpers over the rushing wind.
    “Here,” Slayer screamed into the tempest, “I am a king! Here, I am more than the Forsaken. This place is mine, and I will . . .”
    Perhaps the pain of Gauls wound was addling him; he thought that the winds were starting to die down.
    “Here, I will . . .”
    The winds stopped.
    The entire valley grew silent. Slayer stiffened, then turned worried eyes toward the cavern beyond. Nothing there seemed to have changed.
    “You are not a king,” a soft voice said.
    Gaul twisted about. A figure stood on a rocky protrusion behind him, wearing the greens and browns of a Two Rivers woodsman. His deep green cloak rippled faintly from the stilling winds. Perrin stood with his eyes closed, chin raised at a slight angle, as if toward the sun above—though, if there was one, it was blocked by clouds.
    “This place belongs to the wolves,” Perrin said. “Not to you, not to me, not to any man. You cannot be a king here, Slayer. You have no subjects, and you never will.”
    “Insolent pup,” Slayer snarled. “How many times must I kill you?”
    Perrin drew in a deep breath.
    “I laughed when I found that Fain had killed your family,” Slayer yelled. “I laughed. I was supposed to kill him, you know. The Shadow thinks him wild and rogue, but he’s the first one who has managed to do something meaningful to bring you pain.”
    Perrin said nothing.
    “Luc wanted to be part of something important,” Slayer shouted. “In that, we’re the same, though I sought the ability to channel. The Dark One cannot grant that, but he found something different for us, something better. Something that requires a soul to be melded with something else. Like what happened with you, Aybara. Like you.”
    “We are nothing alike, Slayer,” Perrin said softly.
    “But we are! That’s why I laughed. And you know, there’s a prophecy about Luc? That he’ll be important to the Last Battle. That’s why we’re here. We’ll kill you; then we’ll kill al’Thor. Just like we killed that wolf of yours.”
    Standing on the rocky protrusion, Perrin opened his eyes. Gaul pulled back. Those golden eyes glowed like beacons.
    The storm started again. And yet, that tempest seemed mild compared to the one Gaul saw in Perrin’s eyes. Gaul felt a pressure from his friend. Like the pressure of the sun at noon after four days without having any water to drink.
    Gaul stared up at Perrin for a few moments, then held a hand against his wound and ran.

    The wind whipped at Mat as he clung to the saddle of a winged beast hundreds of feet in the air.
    Oh, blood and bloody ashes!” Mat yelled, one hand on his hat, the other clutching the saddle. He was tied in with some straps. Two little leather straps. Far too thin. Could they not have used more? Maybe ten or twenty? He would have been fine with a hundred!
    Morat’to’raken were bloody insane. Every one of them! They did this every day! What was wrong with them?
    Tied into the saddle in front of Mat, Olver laughed with glee.
    Poor lad\ Mat thought. He’s so frightened he’s going mad. The lack of air up here is getting to him.
    “There it is, my Prince!” the morat’to’raken , Sulaan, called to him from her place at the front of the flying beast. She was a pretty thing. Completely insane, too. “We’ve reached the valley. Are you sure you want to set down in there?”
    “No!” Mat shouted.
    “Good answer!” The woman made her beast swoop.
    “Blood and bloody—”
    Olver laughed.
    The to’raken brought them down over a long valley clogged with a frenzied battle. Mat tried to let his attention settle on the fighting, rather than on the fact that he was in the air flying on a lizard with two bloody lunatics.
    Heaps of Trolloc bodies told that story as well as any map could have. The Trollocs had burst through defenses at the valley mouth behind Mat. He flew over that, toward the mountain of Shayol Ghul ahead, valley walls to his right and left.
    It was mayhem below. Roving bands of Aiel and Trollocs moved