Egwe
ne turned, looking through it, too. The hilltop was now empty, strangely isolated amid the battle. Her soldiers had crashed up against the Trollocs in the small valley between the hills, and the fighting was brutal down there. She heard grunts, yells, clangs. Bloodied pikes were raised in the air as a group of men were forced back, and halberdiers moved in to try to slow the Trollocs.
The Shadowspawn were taking terrible casualties. It was an oddity; Bryne had expected them to retreat.
“Something’s wrong,” Egwene said, the hairs of her arms standing on end. Her worry about the seals vanished, for now. Her army was in danger. “Gather the Aes Sedai and have the army pull back.”
The other women looked at her as if she were mad. Gawyn took off at a dash toward the command tent to give her orders. He didn’t question.
“Mother,” Romanda said, letting her gateway die. “What is—”
Something split the air on the other side of Egwene’s war camp, opposite the battlefield. A line of light, longer than any gateway Egwene had seen. It was nearly as wide as her camp itself.
The line of light turned upon itself, opening a view that was not of southern Kandor. Instead, it was a place of ferns and drooping trees—though they were brown, like everything else, they were still alien and unfamiliar.
An enormous army stood silently upon this unfamiliar landscape. Thousands of banners flew above it, emblazoned with symbols Egwene didn’t recognize. The foot soldiers wore knee-length garments that appeared to be some kind of padded armor, reinforced with chain in a large-squared pattern. Others wore metal shirts that seemed sewn from coins tied together.
Many carried hand axes, though of a very strange design. They had long, thin handles that bulged like bulbs at the end and the axe heads were narrow and thin, almost like picks. The hafts of all of their weapons—from polearms to swords—had a flowing, organic design. Smooth and not of a uniform width, made of some dark red wood that had been painted with colorful dots down the sides.
Egwene took in all of this in moments, her mind searching for any kind of origin for this strange force. She found nothing to latch on to until she sensed the channeling. The glow of saidar surrounded hundreds of women, all of them riding, wearing strange dresses made entirely of stiff black silk. The dresses were not tied at the waists, but instead pulled relatively tight around the shoulders, and flared wide toward the bottoms. Long, rectangular tassels of a multitude of colors hung from ties at the front, just below the neck. The faces of the women were all tattooed.
“Release the Power,” Egwene said, letting go of saidar. “Don’t let them sense you!” She dashed to the side, Lelaine following, the glow winking out from around her.
Romanda ignored Egwene, letting out a curse. She began weaving a gateway to escape.
A dozen different weaves of fire suddenly thrashed the area where Romanda stood. The woman didn’t have a chance to scream. Egwene and the other women scrambled through the camp as weaves of the One Power destroyed tents, consumed supplies and set the entire place aflame.
Egwene reached the command tent just as Gawyn stumbled out. She grabbed him and pulled him to the ground as a ball of fire passed just overhead, then crashed into a collection of tents nearby.
“Light!” Gawyn said. “What is it?”
“Sharans.” Lelaine, breathless, huddled down beside them.
“Are you certain?” Egwene whispered.
Lelaine nodded. “Accounts from the Cairhienin before the Aiel War are plentiful, if not very informative. They weren’t allowed to see much, but what they did see looked a lot like that army.”
“Army?” Gawyn said, stretching to the side and looking between the tents toward the force marching through the unnaturally wide gateway. “Blood and bloody ashes!” he swore, ducking back. “There are thousands of them!”
“Far too many to fight,” Egwene agreed, mind working furiously. “Not pinned between them and the Trollocs as we are. We have to fall back.”
“I just passed the order to Bryne to disengage the troops,” Gawyn said. “But… Egwene. Where are we going to go? Trollocs in front, that army behind! Light. We’ll be crushed between them!”
Bryne would react quickly. He’d send a messenger through a gateway to the line captains. Oh no…
Egwene grabbed Gawyn and pulled him away from the command tent just as she felt channeling within. Lelaine cried out, ducking in the other direction.
The Sharan women reacted immediately to the channeling. The ground ripped up underneath the tent, destroying it in a burst of overwhelming power. Tattered shreds of cloth flew into the air amid stones and clods of earth.
Egwene fell backward, and Gawyn pulled her toward a toppled cart that had been hit, one wheel shattered, its burden of firewood tumbling out. Gawyn pulled Egwene to the sheltered place just under the edge of the cart, beside the tumble of wood. They huddled there, though the wood flickered with flames and the ground before them was afire. The heat was distressing, but not unbearable.
Egwene huddled against the ground, blinking through eyes that burned with smoke, searching for signs of Lelaine. Or… Light! Siuan and Bryne had been inside that tent, along with Yukiri and many of their command staff.
Egwene and Gawyn hid as flames rained on the camp, tearing up the earth. The Sharans struck at any sign of movement; several serving women who ran by were instantly immolated.
“Be ready to run,” Gawyn said, “once the fire stops falling.”
The flames did wane, but just as they did, riders in Sharan armor charged through the camp. They hooted and yelled, leveling bows at anyone they saw, dropping dozens with arrows to the back. After that, the Sharan troops moved through the camp in tight formations. Egwene waited tensely, trying to think of how to slip away.