The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time 4)

“Interesting,” Verin murmured.

Perrin would not have thought that was the word. This was the first time the Trollocs had shouted anything understandable. Not that he had any idea what it meant.

Smoothing his marriage ribbon, he forced himself to ride calmly to the center of the Two Rivers line. The Companions formed behind him, the breeze lifting the banner with its red wolfhead. Aram had his sword out in both hands. “Be ready!” Perrin called. His voice was steady; he could not believe it.

“ISAM!” And the black tide rolled forward, howling wordlessly.

Faile was safe. Nothing else mattered. He would not let himself see the faces of the men stretched out to either side of him. He heard the same howls drifting from the south. Both sides at once. They had never tried that before. Faile was safe. “At four hundred paces … !” All along the ranks, bows rose together. Closer the howling mass came, long thick legs eating ground. Closer. “Loose!”

The snap of bowstrings was lost in the Trolloc roar, but a goose-fletched hail streaked the sky as it arced out, plunged down into the blackmailed horde. Stones from the catapults erupted in fiery balls and sharp splinters in those seething ranks. Trollocs fell. Perrin saw them go down, trampled beneath boots and hooves. Even some Myrddraal fell. Yet the tidal wave rushed on, closing holes and gaps, apparently undiminished.

There was no need to order another volley. A second followed the first as quickly as men could nock arrows, a second rain of broadhead points rising before the first dropped, the third following behind, the fourth, the fifth. Fire exploded among the Trollocs as fast as the catapult arms could be winched down, Verin galloping from catapult to catapult to lean down from her saddle. And the huge bellowing forms came on, crying in no language Perrin understood, but crying for blood, human blood and flesh. Men crouching behind the stakes readied themselves, hefting their weapons.

Perrin felt cold inside. He could see the ground behind the Trolloc charge already littered with their dead and dying, yet it hardly seemed they were fewer. Stepper pranced nervously, but he could not hear the dun’s whicker for the rolling howls of Trollocs. The axe came into his hand smoothly, long half-moon blade and thick spike catching the sunlight. Not midday yet. My heart is yours forever, Faile. This time, he did not think the stakes would …

Not even slowing, the front rank of Trollocs ran onto the sharp stakes, faces contorted by snouts or beaks twisting with pained shrieks, howling as they were impaled, driven down by more huge shapes scrambling up over their backs, some of those falling among the stakes, replaced by more, always more. One last volley of arrows drove home at point-blank range, and then it was the spears and halberds and home-made polearms, thrusting and stabbing at towering forms in black mail, sometimes falling while the bowmen shot as best they could at the inhuman faces above their friends’ heads, boys shooting down from the rooftops as well, madness and death and earsplitting roars and screams and howls. Slowly, inexorably, the Two Rivers line bulged inward at a dozen places. If it broke, anywhere … .

“Fall back!” Perrin bellowed. A boar-snouted Trolloc, already bleeding, forced its way through the ranks of men, shrieking and striking with its thick, curved sword. Perrin’s axe split its head to the snout. Stepper was trying to rear, screaming silently in the din. “Fall back!” Darl Coplin went down, clutching a thigh transfixed by a wrist-thick spear; old Bili Congar tried to drag him backward while awkwardly wielding a boar spear; Hari Coplin swung his halberd in defense of his brother, mouth wide in a seemingly soundless shout. “Fall back between the houses!”

He was not sure whether others heard and passed the order, or the mountainous weight of Trollocs simply pressed in, but slowly, one grudging step at a time, the humans moved back. Loial swung his bloodied axes like mallets, wide mouth snarling. Beside the Ogier, Bran thrust his spear grimly; he had lost his steel cap, and blood ran in his fringe of gray hair. From his stallion Tomas carved a space around Verin; hair in wild disarray, she had lost her horse; balls of fire streaked from her hands, and every Trolloc struck exploded in flames as if soaked in oil. Not enough to hold. The Two Rivers men edged back, jostling around Stepper. Gaul and Chiad fought back-to-back; she had only one spear left, and he slashed and stabbed with his heavy knife. Back. To west and east men had curved out from the defenses there to keep the Trollocs from flanking them, pouring arrows in. Not enough. Back.

Suddenly a huge ram-horned shape was trying to pull Perrin out of the saddle, trying to climb up after him. Thrashing, Stepper went down under the combined weight. Leg pinned and pained near to breaking, Perrin struggled to bring his axe around, to fight hands bigger than an Ogier’s away from his throat. The Trolloc screamed as Aram’s sword sliced into its neck. Even as it collapsed atop Perrin, spraying blood, the Tinker spun smoothly to run another Trolloc through the middle.

Grunting with pain, Perrin kicked his way clear, aided by Stepper scrambling to his feet, but there was no time to think of remounting. He barely rolled aside as a black horse’s hooves stamped where his head had been. Pale, eyeless face snarling, the Fade leaned from its saddle as he tried to rise, dead-black sword slashing, brushing his hair as he dropped. Ruthlessly he swung his axe, chopping one of the horse’s legs out from under it. Horse and rider toppled together; as they fell, he buried his axe where the Halfman’s eyes should have been.

He wrenched the blade free in time to see Daise Congar’s pitchfork tines take a goat-snouted Trolloc in the throat. It seized the long shaft with one hand, stabbing a barbed spear at her with the other, but Marin al’Vere calmly hamstrung it with one blow of her cleaver; the leg gave way, and she just as coolly severed the Trolloc’s spine at the base of its neck. Another Trolloc lifted Bode Cauthon into the air by her braid; mouth wide in a terrified scream, she sank her wood-axe into its mailed shoulder just as her sister, Eldrin, thrust her boar spear through its chest and gray-braided Neysa Ayellin drove a thick butchering knife in as well.

All up and down the line, as far as Perrin could see, the women were there. Their numbers were the only reason the line still held, almost driven back against the houses. Women among the men, shoulder to shoulder; some no more than girls, but then, some of those “men” had never shaved yet. Some never would. Where were the Whitecloaks? The children! If the women were here, there was no one to get the children out. Where are the bloody Whitecloaks? If they came now, at least they might buy another few minutes. A few minutes to get the children away.

A boy, the same dark-haired runner who had come for him the night before, seized his arm as he turned to search for the Companions. The Companions had to try to cut a way out for the children. He would send them, and do what he could here. “Lord Perrin!” the boy shouted at him through the deafening din. “Lord Perrin!”

Perrin tried to shake him off, then snatched him up kicking under one arm; he belonged with the other children. Split up, in tight ranks stretching from house to house, Ban and Tell and the other Companions were shooting from their saddles, over the heads of the men and women. Wil had driven the banner’s staff into the ground so he could work his bow, too. Somehow, Tell had managed to catch up Stepper; the dun’s reins were tied to Tell’s saddle. The boy could go on Stepper’s back.

“Lord Perrin! Please listen! Master al’Thor says somebody’s attacking the Trollocs! Lord Perrin!”

Perrin was halfway to Tell, hobbling on his bruised leg, when it penetrated. He stuffed the axe haft through his belt to hoist the boy up in front of his face by the shoulders. “Attacking them? Who?”

“I don’t know, Lord Perrin. Master al’Thor said to tell you he thought he heard somebody shouting ‘Deven Ride.’”

Aram grabbed Perrin’s arm, wordlessly pointing with his bloody sword. Perrin turned in time to see a hail of arrows plunge into the Trollocs. From the north. Another flight was already rising toward the top of its arc.

“Go back to the other children,” he said, setting the boy down. He had to be up where he could see. “Go! You did well, boy!” he added as he ran awkwardly for Stepper. The little fellow scampered back into the village grinning. Every step sent a jolt of pain up Perrin’s leg; maybe the thing was broken. He had no time to worry about that.

Seizing the reins Tell tossed him, he hauled himself up into his saddle. And wondered if he was seeing what he wanted to see instead of what was really there.

Beneath a red-eagle banner at the edge of where the fields had been stood long rows of men in farmer’s clothes, shooting their bows methodically. And beside the banner, Faile sat Swallow’s saddle, Bain at her stirrup. It had to be Bain behind that black veil, and he could see Faile’s face clearly. She looked excited, fearful, terrified and exuberant. She looked beautiful.

Myrddraal were trying to turn some of the Trollocs around, trying to lead a charge against the Watch Hill men, but it was useless. Even Trollocs who did turn went down before they covered fifty strides. A Fade and its horse fell, not to arrows, but to panicked Trolloc hands and spears. It was the Trollocs moving back now, then running in a frenzy, fleeing shots from both sides once the Emond’s Field men had room to lift bows, too, Trollocs falling, Myrddraal going down. It was a slaughter, but Perrin hardly saw. Faile.

The same boy appeared at his stirrup. “Lord Perrin!” he shouted. To be heard above cheering now, men and women shouting for joy and relief

as the last Trollocs who had not made it out of bow range fell. Not many had, Perrin believed, but he was barely able to think. Faile. The boy tugged at his breeches’ leg. “Lord Perrin! Master al’Thor said to tell you the Trollocs are breaking! And they are shouting ‘Deven Ride’! The men, I mean. I heard them!”

Perrin bent to ruffle the boy’s curly hair. “What’s your name, lad?”

“Jaim Aybara, Lord Perrin. I’m your cousin, I think. Sort of, anyway.”

Perrin squeezed his eyes shut for a moment to keep the tears in. Even when he opened them his hand still trembled on the lad’s head. “Well, Cousin Jaim, you tell your children about today. You tell your grandchildren, your grandchildren’s children.”