Gawyn watched the sun burn the clouds to death in the west, the final light fading. That haze of perpetual gloom kept the sun itself shrouded. Just as it hid the stars from his sight at night. Today the clouds were unnaturally high in the air. Often, Dragonmount's tip would be hidden on cloudy days, but this thick, gray haze hovered high enough that most of the time, it barely brushed the mountain's jagged, broken tip.
"Let's engage them," Jisao whispered from where he crouched beside Gawyn on the hilltop.
Gawyn glanced away from the sunset, back toward the small village below. It should have been still, save perhaps for a goodman checking on his livestock one last time before turning in. It should have been dim, unlit save for a few tallow candles burning in windows as people finished evening meals.
But it was not dim. It was not quiet. The village was alight with angry torches carried by a dozen sturdy figures. By that torchlight and the light of the dying sun, Gawyn could make out that each was wearing a nondescript uniform of brown and black. Gawyn couldn't see the three-starred insignia on their uniforms, but he knew it was there.
From his distant vantage, Gawyn watched a few latecomers stumble from their homes, looking frightened and worried as they gathered with the others in the crowded square. These villagers welcomed the armed force with reluctance. Women clutched children, men were careful to keep their eyes downcast. "We don't want trouble," the postures said. They'd undoubtedly heard from other villages that these invaders were orderly. The soldiers paid for goods they took, and no young men were pressed into service—though they weren't turned away either. A very odd invading army indeed. However, Gawyn knew what the people would think. This army was led by Aes Sedai, and who could say what was odd or normal when Aes Sedai were involved?
There were no sisters with this particular patrol, thank the Light. The soldiers polite, but stern, lined up the villagers and looked them over. Then a pair of soldiers entered each house and barn, inspecting it. Nothing was taken and nothing was broken. All very neat and cordial. Gawyn could almost hear the officer offering apologies to the village mayor.
"Gawyn?" Jisao asked. "I count barely a dozen of them. If we send Rodic's squad to come in from the north, we'll cut off both sides and smash them between us. It's getting dark enough that they won't see us coming. We could take them without so much as running up a lather."
"And the villagers?" Gawyn asked. "There are children down there."
"That hasn't stopped us other times."
"Those times were different," Gawyn said, shaking his head. "The last three villages they've searched point a direct line toward Dorian. If this group vanishes, the next one will wonder what it was they nearly uncovered. We'd draw the entire army's eye in this direction."
"But—"
"No," Gawyn said softly. "We have to know when to fall back, Jisao."
"So we came all this way for nothing."
"We came all this way for an opportunity," Gawyn said, backing away from the hilltop, making certain he didn't show a profile on the horizon. "And now that I've inspected that opportunity, we're not going to take it. Only a fool looses his arrow just because he's got a bird in front of him."
"Why wouldn't you loose it if it's right there in front of you?" Jisao asked as he joined Gawyn.
"Because sometimes the prize isn't worth the arrow," Gawyn said. "Come on."
Below, waiting in the dark with lanterns hooded, were some of the very men the soldiers in the village were searching for. Gareth Bryne must have been very displeased to learn there was a harrying force hiding somewhere nearby. He'd been diligent in trying to flush it out, but the countryside near Tar Valon was liberally sprinkled with villages, forests and secluded valleys that could hide a small, mobile strike force. So far, Gawyn had managed to keep his Younglings out of sight while pulling off the occasional raid or ambush on Bryne's forces. There was only so much you could do with three hundred men, however. Particularly when you faced one of the five Great Captains.
Am I destined to end up fighting against each and every man who has been a mentor to me? Gawyn took the reins of his horse and gave a silent order to withdraw by raising his right hand, then gestured sharply away from the village. The men moved without comment, dismounting and leading their mounts for both stealth and safety.
Gawyn had thought he was over Hammar and Coulin's deaths; Bryne himself had taught Gawyn that the battlefield sometimes made allies into sudden foes. Gawyn had fought his former teachers, and Gawyn had won. That was the end of it.
Recently, however, his mind seemed determined to dredge up those corpses and carry them about. Why now, after so long?
He suspected his sense of guilt had to do with facing Bryne, his first and most influential instructor in the arts of war. Gawyn shook his head as he guided Challenge across the darkening landscape; he kept his men away from the road in case Bryne's scouts had placed watchers. The fifty men around Gawyn walked as quietly as possible, the horses' hoofbeats deadened by the springy earth.
If Bryne had been shocked to discover a harrying force striking at his outriders, then Gawyn had been equally shocked to discover those three stars on the uniforms of the men he slew. How had the White Tower's enemies recruited the greatest military mind in all of Andor? And what was the Captain-General of the Queen's Guard doing fighting with a group of Aes Sedai rebels in the first place? He should have been in Caemlyn protecting Elayne.
Light send that Elayne had arrived in Andor. She couldn't still be with the rebels. Not with her homeland lacking a queen. Her duty to Andor outweighed her duty to the White Tower.
And what of your duty, Gawyn Trakand? he thought to himself.
He wasn't certain he had duty, or honor, left to him. Perhaps his guilt about Hammar, his nightmares of war and death at Dumai's Wells, were due to the slow realization that he might have given his allegiance to the wrong side. His loyalty belonged to Elayne and Egwene. What, then, was he still doing fighting a battle he didn't care about, helping a side that—by all accounts—was opposed to the one Elayne and Egwene had chosen?
They're just Accepted, he told himself. Elayne and Egwene didn't choose this side—they are just doing what they've been ordered to do! But the things that Egwene had said to him all those months ago, back in Cairhien, suggested that she had made her decision willingly.
She had chosen a side. Hammar had chosen a side. Gareth Bryne had, apparently, chosen a side. But Gawyn continued to want to be on both sides. The division was ripping him apart.
An hour out of the village, Gawyn gave the order to mount and take to the road. Hopefully, Bryne's scouts wouldn't think to search the land outside the village. If they did, the tracks of fifty horsemen would be hard to miss. There was no avoiding that. The best thing now was to reach firm ground, where the signs of their passing would be hidden by a thousand years of footfalls and traffic. Two pairs of soldiers rode off in front and two pairs hung back to watch. The rest maintained their silence, though their horses now pounded a thunderous gallop. None asked why they were withdrawing, but Gawyn knew that they were wondering, just as Jisao had.
They were good men. Perhaps too good. As they rode, Rajar pulled his mount up beside Gawyn's. Just a few months ago, Rajar had been a youth. But now Gawyn couldn't think of him as anything other than a soldier. A veteran. Some men gained experience through years spent living. Other men gained experience through months spent watching their friends die.
Glancing upward, Gawyn missed the stars. They hid their faces from him behind those clouds. Like Aiel behind black veils. "Where did we go wrong, Rajar?" Gawyn asked as they rode.