A Memory of Light (The Wheel of Time 14)

“No,” Rand replied, “but I’ve never known one who would refuse a sword when one was offered in a time of need.”

Lan met his eyes, then nodded. “Do what you can.”

Rand nodded to the two Maidens, who nodded back.

“Sheepherder,” Lan said.

Rand raised an eyebrow.

Lan saluted him, arm across his chest, bowing his head.

Rand nodded back. “There is something for you on the floor over there, Dai Shan.”

Lan frowned, then walked to a pile of blankets. There were no tables in this tent. Lan knelt, then raised a bright, silvery crown—thin, yet strong. “The crown of Malkier,” he whispered. “This was lost!”

“My smiths did what they could with old drawings,” Rand said. “The other is for Nynaeve; I think it will suit her. You have ever been a king, my friend. Elayne taught me to rule, but you… you taught me how to stand. Thank you.” He turned to Moiraine. “Keep a space clear for my return.”

Rand seized the One Power and opened a gateway. He left Lan kneeling, holding the crown, and followed his Maidens out onto a black field. Burned stalks crunched beneath his boots and smoke wreathed the air.

The Maidens immediately sought shelter in a small depression in the field, huddling against the blackened earth, prepared to weather the storm.

Because one was certainly brewing. Trollocs milled in a large mass before Rand, prodding at the soil and at the remains of farmhouses. The River Mora rushed nearby; this was the first cultivated land south of Tarwin’s Gap. Lan’s forces had burned it before preparing to retreat downriver ahead of the Trolloc advance.

There were tens of thousands of the beasts here. Perhaps more. Rand raised his arms, forming a fist, drawing in a deep breath. In the pouch at his belt, he carried a familiar object. The small fat man with the sword, the angreal he had recently found at Dumai’s Wells. He had returned there for one last look and found it buried in the mud. It had been useful at Maradon. Nobody knew he had it. That was important.

But there was more to what he would do here than tricks. Trollocs shouted as the winds whipped up around Rand. This was not the result of channeling, not yet.

It was Rand. Being here. Confronting him.

Seas grew choppy when different streams of water crashed into one another. Winds grew powerful when hot air and cool mixed. And where Light confronted Shadow… storms grew. Rand shouted, letting his nature stir the tempest. The Dark One pressed upon the land, seeking to smother it. The Pattern needed equalization. It needed balance.

It needed the Dragon.

The winds grew more powerful, lightning breaking the air, black dust and burned stalks flipping up, twisting about in the maelstrom. Rand finally channeled as Myrddraal forced the Trollocs to attack him; the beasts charged against the wind, and Rand directed the lightning.

It was so much easier to direct than control. With a storm already in place, he didn’t need to force the lightning—he needed only to cajole it.

Strikes destroyed the front groups of Trollocs, a hundred bolts of lightning in succession. The pungent scent of burned flesh soon swirled in the storm, joining the charred stalks of grain. Rand roared as the Trollocs kept coming. Deathgates sprang up around him, gateways that zipped across the ground like water striders, sweeping Trollocs into death. Shadowspawn could not survive Traveling.

The stormwinds rose around Rand as he struck down those Trollocs who tried to reach him. The Dark One thought to rule here? He would see that this land already had a king! He would see that the fight would not—

A shield tried to sever Rand from the Source. He laughed, spinning, trying to pinpoint the shield’s origin. “Taim!” he yelled, though the storm captured his voice and overwhelmed it. “I had hoped you would come!”

This was the fight that Lews Therin had constantly demanded of him, a fight Rand hadn’t dared begin. Not until now, not until he had control. He summoned his strength, but then another shield struck at him, and another.

Rand drew in more of the One Power, tapping nearly all that he could through the fat man angreal. Shields continued to snap at him like biting flies. None were strong enough to sever him from the Source, but there were dozens of them.

Rand calmed himself. He sought peace, the peace of destruction. He was life, but he was also death. He was the manifestation of the land itself.

He struck, destroying an unseen Dreadlord hiding in the rubble of a burned building nearby. He summoned fire and directed it at a second, burning him to nothingness.

He could not see the weaves of the women out there—he could only feel their shields.

Too weak. Each shield was too weak, and yet their attacks had him worried. They had come quickly, at least three dozen Dreadlords, each trying to cut him off from the Source. This was dangerous—that they had anticipated him. That was why they had hit Lan so hard with channelers. To draw Rand out.

Rand fought off the attacks, but none of them were in danger of truly shielding him. A single person could not cut off someone holding as much saidin as he was. They should have…

He saw it right before it happened. The other attacks were cover, feints. One that was coming would be created by a circle of men and women. A man would be leading.