"Light, Talmanes," Mat said. "A woman in that town is looking for Perrin and me. She knows what we look like so well that she can produce a drawing more accurate than my own mother could have made. That gives me a chill, like the Dark One himself standing over my shoulder. And I can't go into the flaming place myself, since every bloody man, woman and child has a picture with my face on it and a promise of gold for information!
"Now maybe I went a little far with the preparations, but I intend to find this person before they can order a flock of Darkfriends—or worse—-to cut my throat in the night. Understood?"
Mat looked each of the five men in the eyes, nodded, and started toward the tent flap, but paused beside Talmanes's chair. Mat cleared his throat, then half mumbled, "You secretly harbor a love of painting, and you wish you could escape this life of death you've committed yourself to. You came through Trustair on your way south, rather than taking a more direct route, because you love the mountains. You're hoping to hear word of your younger brother, whom you haven't seen in years, and who disappeared on a hunting trip in southern Andor. You have a very tortured past. Read page four."
Mat hurried on, pushing his way out into the shaded noon, though he did catch a glimpse of Talmanes rolling his eyes. Burn the man! There was good drama in those pages!
Through the pine trees he could see that the sky was cloudy. Again. When was that going to end? Mat shook his head as he walked through camp, nodding to the groups of soldiers who offered him salutes or calls of greeting to "Lord Mat." The Band were staying here for the day— camped on a secluded, wooded hillside a half-day march from the town— while they made final preparations for the assault. The three-needle pines here were tall, and their limbs spread wide, the shade keeping underbrush to a minimum. Tents clustered in groups around the pines, and the air was cool and shaded, smelling of sap and loam.
He went about the camp, checking into the workings of his men and seeing that everything was being handled efficiently. Those old memories, the ones that the Eelfinn had given him, had begun to blend so evenly with his own that he could hardly tell which instincts came from them and which were his own.
It was good to be among the Band again; he hadn't realized how much he'd missed them. It would be nice to reunite with the rest of the men, the troops led by Estean and Daerid. Hopefully, they'd had an easier time of it than Mat's force had.
The cavalry banners came first in his rounds. They were separate from the rest of the camp—horsemen always considered themselves superior to foot. Today, as all too often, the men were worried about feed for their horses. To a good cavalryman, his horse always came first. Their trip from Hinderstap had been hard on the animals, particularly since there wasn't much to graze on. Little was growing this spring, and the winter's leavings were strangely sparse. Horses would refuse patches of thatch, almost as if it had gone bad, like other food stores. They didn't have much grain; they had hoped to live off the land, as they were moving too quickly for grain wagons.
Well, he'd just have to find something to do about that. Mat assured the cavalrymen he was working on the problem, and they took him at his word. Lord Mat hadn't let them down yet. Of course, the ones he had let down were rotting in their graves. He denied a request to fly the banner. Perhaps after the raid on Trustair.
He didn't have any true foot with him at the moment; they were all with Estean and Daerid. Talmanes had wisely understood that they'd need mobility, and had brought the three banners of horse and nearly four thousand mounted crossbowmen. Mat checked on the crossbowmen next, pausing to watch a couple of squads drilling in firing ranks at the back of the camp.
Mat stopped beside a tall pine, its lowest branches a good two feet above his head, leaning against the trunk. The line of crossbowmen weren't practicing their aim so much as their coordination. You didn't really aim in most battles, which was why the crossbows worked so well. They required a tenth the training of a longbow. Sure, the latter could fire faster and farther, but if you didn't have a lifetime to spare practicing, then these crossbows were a fine substitute.
Besides, the crossbow reloading process made it easier to train the ranks to fire together. The squad's captain stood on the far side, slapping a rod against the side of a tree once every two seconds to give a beat. Each crack of the wood was an order. Raise crossbows to the shoulder on the first. Fire on the second. Lower on the third. Crank on the fourth. Up to the shoulder again on the fifth. The men were getting good—firing in coordinated waves made for more consistent killing. Each fourth crack let loose a wave of bolts into the trees.
We'll need more of those, Mat thought, noticing how many of the bolts splintered during the training shots. You wasted more ammunition practicing than you did fighting, but each bolt now could be worth two or three in combat. The men were getting good indeed. If he'd had a few banners worth of these when he'd fought at Bioodwash Falls, perhaps Nashif would have learned his lesson a lot sooner.
Of course, they'd be more useful if they could fire faster. The cranking was the slow point. Not the turn of the crank itself, but the necessity of lowering the crossbow each time. It cost four seconds just to move the weapon about. These new cranks and boxes that Talmanes had learned to make from that mechanic in Murandy sped things up greatly. But the mechanic had been on his way to sell the cranks in Caemlyn, and who knew who else had bought them along the way? Before too long, everyone might have them. An advantage was negated if both you and your enemies had it.
Those boxes had given a lot to Mat's success in Altara against the Seanchan. He was loath to surrender the advantage. Could he find a way to make the bows fire even faster?
Thoughtful, he checked on a few more things in the camp—the Al-tarans they'd recruited into the Band were settling in well, and other than feed for the horses and perhaps crossbow bolts, supplies looked good. Satisfied, he went looking for Aludra.
She had established herself near the back of the camp, alongside a little cleft in the rocky hillside. Though this spot was much smaller than the glade of trees the Aes Sedai and their attendants used, it was noticeably more secluded. Mat had to weave around three separate cloth sheets hanging between trees—placed carefully to block any view into Aludra's workspace—before he reached her. And he had to stop when Bayle Domon held out a hand, holding Mat back until Aludra gave leave for him to enter.
The slender, dark-haired Illuminator sat on a stump in the center of her little camp, powders, rolls of paper, a writing board for notes and tools neatly arranged on strips of cloth on the ground around her. She no longer wore her braids, and her long hair fell loose around her shoulders. That made her look odd to Mat. Still pretty, though.
Burn it, Mat. You're married now, he told himself. Aludra was pretty, though.
Egeanin was there, holding a nightflower shell upright for Aludra to work on. Aludra's full-lipped face frowned in concentration as she tapped lightly on the shell. Egeanin's dark hair was growing out, making her look less and less like one of the Seanchan nobility. Mat still had trouble trying to decide what to call the woman. She wanted to be known as Leilwin, and sometimes he thought of her like that. It was foolish to go about changing your name just because someone said you had to, but he didn't really blame her for not wanting to rile Tuon. She was a bloody stubborn one, Tuon was. He found himself glancing to the south again, but caught himself. Blood and ashes! She'd be just fine.
Anyway, Tuon was gone now. So why did Egeanin continue the charade of calling herself Leilwin? Mat had actually called her by her old name once or twice after Tuon's departure, but had received a curt reprimand. Women! They made no sense, and Seanchan women least of all.
Mat glanced at Bayle Domon. The muscular, bearded Illianer leaned against a tree near the entrance to Aludra's camp, two flapping white sheets of cloth extending in either direction near him. He still held out a warning hand. As if this entire camp weren't Mat's in the first place!
Mat didn't push his way past, though. He couldn't afford to offend Aludra. She was flaming close to being done with those dragon designs of hers, and he meant to have those. But Light, if it didn't smart to have to pass a checkpoint in his own camp!
Aludra looked up from her work, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. She noted Mat, then looked back to her nightflower and began tapping with the hammer again. Bloody ashes! Seeing that reminded him why he visited Aludra so infrequently. The checkpoint was bad enough, but did the woman have to pound on something explosive with a hammer? Had she no sense at all? The entire lot of Illuminators were that way, though. Short a few foals of a full herd, as Mat's father might say.
"He may enter," Aludra said. "Thank you, Master Domon."
"It do be a pleasure, Mistress Aludra," Bayle said, lowering his hand and nodding amiably to Mat. Mat straightened his coat and walked forward, intent on asking about crossbows. Something immediately caught his eye, however. Spread out on the ground behind Aludra were a series of neat pages with detailed drawings, along with a list of notations with numbers beside them.
"Are these the plans for the dragons?" Mat asked eagerly. He knelt down on one knee to inspect the sheets, without touching them. Aludra could be particular about that kind of thing.
"Yes." She was still tapping with her hammer. She eyed him, looking just faintly uncomfortable. Because of Tuon, he suspected.
"And these figures?" Mat tried to ignore the awkwardness.
"Supply requirements," she said. She put down her hammer and inspected the cylindrical nightflower from all sides. She nodded to Leilwin.