He smiled. “You’re right, of course. I’ll contact them.”
“I can—”
“Egwene, you’re the Amyrlin Seat. The weight of the world itself is on your shoulders. Let me make arrangements.”
“Very well,” she said. She stepped outside, where Silviana waited—she had one of her glowers for Gawyn. Egwene sent some servants for a bed for him, then she and her Keeper moved off, a pair of Chubain’s soldiers following.
Gawyn would have liked to go with her. There might still be assassins about. Unfortunately, she was right to send him to sleep. He was having trouble remaining upright. He stood on unsteady legs, then noticed a line of sheet-covered bodies outside. They wouldn’t be removed until sisters had a chance to look them over. Right now, finding Mesaana—and looking for other assassins—had been more pressing.
Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to walk over and pull back the sheet, revealing Celark’s and Mazone’s lifeless faces—Celark’s, unfortunately, sitting beside his body, separated from it at the neck.
“You did well, men,” he said. “I’ll see that your families know that you saved the life of the Amyrlin.” It made him angry to lose such good men.
Burn those Seanchan, he thought. Egwene is right about them. Something needs to be done.
He glanced to the side, to where the three assassins lay beneath sheets of their own, black-slippered feet sticking out the bottom. Two women and a man.
I wonder… he thought, then crossed to where they lay. Guards glanced at him as he pulled back the sheet, but nobody forbade him.
The ter’angreal were easy to pick out, though only because he’d been told what to look for. Identical black stone rings, worn on the middle fingers of their right hands. The rings were carved in the shape of a vine with thorns. Apparently none of the Aes Sedai had recognized them for what they were, at least not yet.
Gawyn slipped all three rings off, then tucked them into his pocket.
Lan could feel something, a distinct difference to the emotions in the back of his mind. He’d grown accustomed to ignoring those, and the woman they represented.
Lately, those emotions had changed. More and more, he was certain that Nynaeve had taken his bond. He could identify her by the way she felt. How could one not know her, that sense of passion and kindness? It felt…remarkable.
He stared down the roadway. It twisted around the side of a hill before turning straight toward a distinctive fortress ahead. The border between Kandor and Arafel was marked by the Silverwall Keeps, a large fortification built on two sides of Firchon Pass. It was an extremely impressive fortress—really two of them, each one built up the straight wall of the narrow canyonlike pass. Like two sides of an enormous doorway.
Getting through the pass required traveling a considerable distance between large stone walls pocked with arrowslits, and it would be effective at stopping armies moving in either direction.
They were all allies, the Borderlanders were. But that didn’t stop the Arafellin from wanting a nice fortress blocking the way up to Shol Arbela. Camped in front of that fortress was a gathering of thousands of people, clustered in smaller groups. The flag of Malkier—the Golden Crane—flew over some of the groups. Others flew flags of Kandor or Arafel.
“Which of you broke your oath?” Lan asked, looking back at the caravan.
The men there shook their heads.
“Nobody needed to break his oath,” Andere said. “What else would you do? Cut through the Broken Lands? The Uncapped Hills? It is here or nowhere. They know this. And so they wait for you.”
Lan growled. It was probably true. “We are a caravan,” he said loudly. “Remember, if any ask, you may admit that we are Malkieri. You may say you wait for your king. That is truth. You may not mention that you have found him.”
The others seemed troubled, but they made no objection. Lan led the way down the slope, their caravan of twenty wagons, warhorses and attendants following.
This was what he’d always worried would happen. Reclaiming Malkier was impossible. They would die, no matter how large their force. An assault? On the Blight? Ridiculous.
He could not ask that of them. He could not allow that of them. As he continued down the road, he became more resolute. Those brave men, flying those flags…they should join with the Shienaran forces and fight in a battle that meant something. He would not take their lives.
Death is lighter than a feather… Rakim had thrown that at him several times during their ride. He had followed Lan decades ago, during the Aiel War. Duty is heavier than a mountain.
Lan was not running from duty. He was running toward it. Still, sight of the camps stirred his heart as he reached the bottom of the slope, then rode forward. The waiting men wore simple warrior’s garb, hadori in place, women marked with a ki’sain on their foreheads. Some of the men wore coats with the Golden Crown on the shoulders—the mark of the royal guard of Malkier. They would have donned those only if their fathers or grandfathers had served in that guard.
It was a sight that would have made Bukama cry. He had thought the Malkieri gone as a people, broken, shattered, absorbed by other nations. Yet here they were, gathering at the faintest whisper of a call to arms. Many were older—Lan had been but a babe when his kingdom fell, and those who remembered that day as men would now be in their seventh or eighth decade. They had gray hair, but they were still warriors, and they’d brought their sons and grandsons.
“Tai’shar Malkier!” a man cried as Lan’s group passed. The call went up a dozen, two dozen times as they saw his hadori. None seemed to recognize him for who he was. They assumed that he had come for the reason they had come.
The Last Battle comes, Lan thought. Must I deny them the right to fight alongside me?
Yes, he must. Best he passed unnoticed and unrecognized. He kept his eyes forward, his hand on his sword, his mouth closed. But each call of Tai’shar Malkier made him want to sit up straighter. Each seemed to strengthen him, push him forward.
The gates between the two fortress keeps were open, though soldiers checked every man who went through. Lan halted Mandarb, and his people stopped behind him. Could the Arafellin have orders to watch for him? What other choice did he have but to go forward? Going around would take weeks. His caravan waited its turn, then stepped up to the guard post.
“Purpose?” asked the uniformed A