The Path of Daggers (The Wheel of Time 8)

Chapter 13

Floating Like Snow

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The northern horizon was purple with the fierce rain that had hammered the east of Illian through the night. Overhead, a morning sky of dark boiling clouds threatened, and strong winds flung cloaks about, made banners snap and crack like whips on the crest of the ridge, the white Dragon Banner and the crimson Banner of Light, and the bright standards of nobility from Illian and Cairhien and Tear. The nobles kept to their own kind, three widely spaced knots awash in gilt and silver-plated steel, silks and velvets and laces, but in common they looked around uneasily. Even the best-trained of their horses tossed heads and stamped hooves on the muddy ground. The wind was cold, and colder seeming for the heat it had replaced so abruptly, just as the rain had been a shock after so long without. From whatever nation, they had prayed for the baking drought to break, but none knew what to make of unrelenting storms in answer to their prayers. Some glanced at Rand when they thought he would not notice. Perhaps wondering if he had answered them so. The thought made him laugh softly, bitterly.

He patted his black gelding’s neck with a leather-gauntleted hand, glad that Tai’daishar did not show nerves. The massive animal might have been a statue, awaiting the pressure of reins or knees to move

. It was good that the Dragon Reborn’s horse seemed as cold as he did, as though they floated in the Void together. Even with the One Power raging through him, fire and ice and death, he was barely aware of the wind, though it flailed his gold-embroidered cloak about and cut through his coat, green silk thickly worked with gold and not intended for wear in such weather. The wounds in his side ached and throbbed, the old and the new cutting across it, the wounds that would never heal, but that was distant, too, another man’s flesh. The Crown of Swords might have been pricking someone else’s temples with the sharp points of the tiny blades among its golden laurel leaves. Even the filth woven through saidin seemed less obtrusive than it once had; still vile, still loathsome, but no longer worth notice. The nobles’ eyes on his back were palpable, though.

Shifting his sword hilt, he leaned forward. He could see the tight cluster of low, wooded hills half a mile to the east as clearly as if he were using a looking glass. The land was flat, here, the only prominences those forested hills and this long ridge, thrusting up from the heath. The next thicket dense enough to truly deserve the name lay close to ten miles off. Only storm-battered half-leafless trees and tangles of undergrowth were visible on the hills, but he knew what they hid. Two, perhaps three thousand of the men Sammael had gathered to try to stop him from taking Illian.

That army had disintegrated once they learned that the man who had summoned them was dead, that Mattin Stepaneos had vanished, perhaps into the grave as well, and that there was a new king in Illian. Many had scattered back to their homes, yet just as many clung together. Usually no more than twenty here, thirty there, but a great army if they came together again, and countless armed bands otherwise. Either way, they could not be allowed to roam the countryside. Time weighed down on his shoulders like lead. There was never enough time, but maybe this once . . . Fire and ice and death.

What would you do? he thought. Are you there? And then, doubtfully, hating the doubt, Were you ever there? Silence answered, deep and dead in the emptiness that surrounded him. Or was there mad laughter somewhere in the recesses of his mind? Did he imagine it, like the feel of someone looking over his shoulder, someone just on the brink of touching his back? Or the colors that swirled just out of sight, more than colors, and were gone? A thing of madmen. His gloved thumb slid along the carvings that serpentined the Dragon Scepter. The long green-and-white tassels below the polished spearpoint fluttered in the wind. Fire and ice, and death would come.

“I will go talk to them myself,” he announced. Which produced a furor.

Lord Gregorin, the green sash of the Council of Nine slanted across his ornately gilded breastplate, hurried his fine-ankled white gelding forward from the Illianers, followed closely by Demetre Marcolin, First Captain of the Companions, on a solid bay. Marcolin was the only man among them without silk or a speck of lace, the only man in plain if brightly burnished armor, though the conical helmet resting on his saddle’s high pommel did bear three thin golden plumes. Lord Marac lifted his reins, then let them fall uncertainly when he saw no others of the Nine move. A wide man with a stolid manner, and new to the Council, he often seemed more craftsman than lord despite the rich silks beneath his lavish armor and the falls of lace spilling over. High Lords Weiramon and Tolmeran spurred together from the Tairens, as crusted with gold and silver as any of the Nine, and Rosana, newly raised to High Lady and wearing a breastplate worked with the Hawk-and-Stars of her House. There, too, others half made as if to follow then hung back, looking worried. Blade-slender Aracome and blue-eyed Maraconn and bald-headed Gueyam were dead men; they did not know that, but however much they wanted to be at the center of power, they feared Rand would kill them. Only Lord Semaradrid came from the Cairhienin, on a gray that had seen better days, his armor battered, its gilding chipped. His face was gaunt and hard, the front of his head shaved and powdered like a common soldier, and his dark eyes shone with contempt for the taller Tairens.

There was plenty of contempt to go around. Tairens and Cairhienin hated one another. Illianers and Tairens despised each other. Only Cairhienin and Illianers got along to any degree, and there was a certain amount of prickle even there. Their two nations might not have near the long history of bad blood shared by Tear and Illian, yet the Cairhienin still were foreigners, armed and armored on Illian’s soil, welcomed halfheartedly at best and only that much because they followed Rand. But despite all the frowning and bristling and trying to talk at once as they milled about Rand in a flurry of windblown cloaks, they had a common goal now. After a fashion.

“Majesty,” Gregorin said hastily, bowing in his gold-tooled saddle, “I do beg you let me go in your stead, or First Captain Marcolin.” The square-cut beard that left his upper lip bare framed a round face creased with worry. “These men must know you are King — the proclamations do be read in every village, at every crossroads, as we do speak — yet they may no show proper respect for your crown.” Lantern-jawed Marcolin, clean-shaven, studied Rand with dark, deep-set eyes, giving no hint what lay behind his impassive face. The Companions’ loyalty was to the crown of Illian, and Marcolin was old enough to remember when Tarn al’Thor had been Second Captain over him, but only he knew what he thought of Rand al’Thor as King.

“My Lord Dragon,” Weiramon intoned as he made his bow, not waiting for Gregorin to finish. The man always intoned, and even on horseback he seemed to strut. His worked velvets and striped silks and falls of lace almost overwhelmed his armor, and his pointed gray beard gave off a flowery scent of perfumed oils. “This rabble is too petty to concern the Lord Dragon personally. Set dogs to catch dogs, I say. Let the Illianers root them out. Burn my soul, they’ve done nothing so far to serve you but talk.” Trust him to turn agreement with Gregorin into an insult. Tolmeran was lean enough to make Weiramon appear bulky and somber enough to dim the luster of his garb; he was no fool, and rival to Weiramon besides, yet he nodded slowly in agreement. No love lost there for Illianers, at all.

Semaradrid curled a lip at the Tairens but addressed himself to Rand, cutting in hard on Weiramon’s heels. “This gathering is ten times as large any other we have found so far, my Lord Dragon.” He cared nothing for the King of Illian, and little enough for the Dragon Reborn, except that the throne of Cairhien was Rand’s to give, and Semaradrid hoped it would be given to one he could follow instead of fight. “Their loyalties must be to Brend, or so many would not have held together. I fear talking to them is a waste of time, but if you must talk, let me ring their position openly with steel so they know the price of putting a foot out of line.”

Rosana glared right back at Semaradrid, a lean woman, not tall yet nearly as tall as he, with eyes like blue ice. She did not wait for him to finish, either, and she, too, spoke to Rand. “I’ve come too far and invested too much in you to see you die now, for nothing,” she said bluntly. No more a fool than Tolmeran, Rosana had claimed a place in the councils of the High Lords, though Tairen High Ladies seldom did, and blunt was the word for her. Despite the armor most of the noblewomen wore, none actually led their armsmen into battle, yet Rosana carried a flanged mace on her saddle, and sometimes Rand thought she would like a chance to use it. “I doubt those Illianers lack for bows,” she said, “and it takes only one arrow to kill even the Dragon Reborn.” Pursing his lips thoughtfully, Marcolin nodded before catching himself, then exchanged startled looks with Rosana, each more surprised than the other to find themselves of like mind with an ancient enemy.

“These peasants could never have found the mettle to stay under arms without encouragement,” Weiramon continued smoothly, ignoring Rosana. He was skilled at ignoring who, and what, he did not want to see or hear. He was a fool. “May I suggest my Lord Dragon look to these so-called Nine for the source?”

“I do protest this Tairen pig’s insults, Majesty!” Gregorin growled right atop him, one hand darting to his sword. “I do protest most heartily!”

“There are too many this time,” Semaradrid said at the same instant. “Most will turn against you as soon as your back is to them in any case.” By his pointed frown, he might have been speaking of the Tairens as well as the men on the wooded hills. Perhaps he was. “Better to kill them and be done!”

“Did I ask for opinions?” Rand snapped harshly. Babble became silence, except for the crack of cloaks and banners flapping in the wind. Suddenly expressionless faces regarded him, more than one going gray. They did not know he held the Power, but they knew him. Not all of what they knew was truth, but it was just as well they believed. “You will come with me, Gregorin,” he said in a more normal voice. Still hard, though. Steel was all they understood; go soft, and they would turn on him. “And you, Marcolin. The rest stay here. Dashiva! Hopwil!”

Everyone not named reined their horses back hurriedly as the two Asha’man rode to join Rand, and the Illianers eyed the black-coated men as though they would have liked to remain behind, too. Aside from anything else, Corlan Dashiva was glowering and muttering under his breath as he so often did. Everyone was aware that saidin drove men mad sooner or later, and plain-faced Dashiva certainly looked the part, lank untrimmed hair flying in the wind, licking his lips and shaking his head. For that matter, Eben Hopwil, just sixteen and still with a few scattered blotches on his cheeks, wore a staring frown that gazed beyond anything in sight. At least Rand knew the why of that.

As the Asha’man drew near, Rand could not help cocking his head to listen, though what he listened for was inside his head. Alanna was there, of course; neither the Void nor the Power altered that a whisker. Distance wore that awareness down to just that — awareness that she existed, somewhere far to the north — yet there was something more today, something he had felt several times recently, dim and barely on the edge of notice. A whisper of shock, perhaps, or outrage, a breath of something sharp he could not quite grasp. She must feel whatever it wa

s very strongly for him to be even that conscious of it at this distance. Maybe she was missing him. A wry thought. He did not miss her. Ignoring Alanna was easier than it had been once. She was there, but not the voice that used to shout of death and killing whenever an Asha’man came into sight. Lews Therin was gone. Unless that feel of someone staring at the back of his head, brushing his shoulder blades with a finger, was him. Was there a madman’s hoarse laughter deep in his thoughts? Or was it his own? The man had been there! He had!

He became aware of Marcolin staring at him, and Gregorin trying very hard not to. “Not yet,” he told them wryly, and almost laughed when they clearly understood right away. Relief was too plain on their faces for anything else. He was not insane. Yet. “Come,” he told them, and started Tai’daishar down the slope at a trot. Despite the men following, he felt alone. Despite the Power, he felt empty.

Between the ridge and the hills lay patches of thick scrub and long stretches of dead grass, a glistening mat of brown and yellow beaten flat by the rain. Only a few days ago the ground had been so parched that he had thought it could drink a river without changing. Then the torrents came, sent by the Creator finding mercy at last, or maybe by the Dark One in a fit of black humor; he did not know which. Now the horses’ hooves splashed mud at every second step. He hoped this did not take long. He had some time, by what Hopwil had reported, but not forever. Perhaps weeks, if he was lucky. He needed months. Light, he needed years he would never have!

His hearing heightened by the Power, he could make out some of what the men behind him were saying. Gregorin and Marcolin rode knee-to-knee, trying to hold their cloaks against the wind and speaking in low tones about the men ahead, about their fears the men might fight. Neither doubted they would be crushed if they resisted, but they feared the effect on Rand, and his on Illian, if Illianers fought him now that Brend was dead. They still could not bring themselves to give Brend his true name, Sammael. The very notion that one of the Forsaken had ruled in Illian frightened them even more than the fact that the Dragon Reborn ruled there now.

Dashiva, slumped in his gray’s saddle like a man who had never seen a horse before, muttered angrily under his breath. In the Old Tongue, which he spoke and read as fluently as a scholar. Rand knew a little, though not enough to understand what the fellow was mumbling. Probably complaints about the weather; despite being a farmer, Dashiva disliked being out-of-doors unless the skies were clear.

Only Hopwil rode in silence, frowning at something beyond the horizon, his hair and cloak whipping about as wildly as Dashiva’s. Now and then he clutched the hilt of his sword unconsciously. Rand had to speak three times, the last sharply, before Hopwil gave a surprised jerk and booted his lanky dun up beside Tai’daishar.

Rand studied him. The young man — not a boy any longer, no matter his age — had filled out since Rand first saw him, though his nose and ears still seemed made for a bigger man. A Dragon, red-enameled gold, now balanced the silver Sword on his high collar, just like Dashiva’s. Once, he had said he would laugh a year for joy when the Dragon was his, but he stared unblinking at Rand as though looking through him.

“What you learned was good news,” Rand told him. Only an effort kept him from trying to crush the Dragon Scepter in his fist. “You did well.” He had expected the Seanchan to return, but not so soon. He had hoped not so soon. And not leaping out of nowhere, swallowing cities at a gulp. When he found out that merchants in Illian had known for days before any of them thought to inform the Nine — the Light forbid they should lose a chance at profit because too many knew too much! — he had been within a hair of scouring the city to its foundations. But the news was good, or as good as it could be in the circumstances. Hopwil had Traveled to Amador, to the countryside nearby, and the Seanchan appeared to be waiting. Perhaps digesting what they had consumed. The Light send they choked on it! He forced his grip to loosen on the length of Dragon-carved spearhead. “If Morr brings half as good, I have time to settle Illian before dealing with them.” Ebou Dar, as well! The Light burn the Seanchan! They were a distraction, one he did not need and could not afford to ignore.