Towers of Midnight (The Wheel of Time 13)

Galad cursed, turning Stout and chopping his sword down into the neck of a Trolloc with the head of a bear. Dark, thick blood spurted out in a noisome gush, but the beasts were tetribly difficult to kill. Galad had heard the stories, had trained with men who had fought Shadowspawn. Still, their resilience surprised him.

He had to hack at the creature three more times before it dropped. Already, Galad's arm was aching. There was no finesse to fighting monsters like this. He used horseback sword forms, but often the most direct and brutal of them. Woodsman Strips the Btanch. Arc of the Moon. Striking the Spark.

His men weren't faring well. They were boxed in, and thete was no longer room fot lances. The sallying attacks had worked for a time, but the heavy cavalty had been forced to retreat back to the foot lines, and his whole force was being pushed east. The Amadicians were being overwhelmed, and the force of the attack was too great to allow futthet cavalry charges. All the Children on horseback could do was swing their weapons wildly in an attempt to stay alive.

Galad turned Stout, but two snarling Trollocs leaped for him. He quickly took one across the neck with Heron Snatches the Silverfish, but the creature fell forward onto Stout, causing the horse to lurch away. Another brute slashed a catchpole at the horse's neck. The horse fell.

Galad barely managed to throw himself free, hitting the ground in a heap as Stout collapsed, legs jetking, neck spurting blood across his white shoulder. Galad rolled, sword twisted to the side, but he had landed wrong. His ankle wrenched in pain.

Ignoring the pain, he brought his sword up in time to deflect the hook of a brown-furred monster, nine feet tall, that stank of death. Galad's parry sent him off balance again.

"Galad!"

Figures in white crashed into the Trollocs. Reeking blood sprayed in the air. White figures tumbled to the ground, but the Trollocs were driven back. Bornhald stood panting, sword out, shield dented and sptayed with dark blood. He had four men with him. Two othets had fallen.

"Thank you," Galad said. "Your mounts?"

"Cut down," Bornhald said. "They must have orders to go after the horses."

"Don't want us escaping," Galad said. "Or rallying a charge." He glanced down the line of beleaguered soldiers. Twenty thousand had seemed a grand army, but the battle lines were a mess. And the Trollocs continued to come, wave after wave. The northern section of the Children's line was breaking,

and the Trollocs were pushing

forward there with a pincer movement to surround Galad's force. They'd cut them off on the notth and south, then ram them against the hill. Light!

"Rally to the northern foot line!" Galad yelled. He ran in that direction as quickly as he could, his ankle protesting, but still functioning. Men joined with him. Their clothing was no longer white.

Galad knew that most generals, like Gareth Bryne, didn't fight on the front lines. They were too important for that, and their minds were needed for organizing the fight. Pethaps that was what Galad should have done. It was falling apart.

His men were good. Solid. But they were inexperienced with Trollocs. Only now charging across muddy ground on a dark night, lit by globes hanging in the air did he see how inexperienced many of them were. He had some vetetans, but the larger group had fought mostly against unruly bandits or city militias.

The Trollocs were different. The howling, grunting, snarling monstets were in a frenzy. What they lacked in military discipline they made up for in strength and ferocity. And hunger. The Myrddraal amid them were terrible enough to break a formation all on theit own. Galad's soldiers were buckling.

"Hold!" Galad bellowed, reaching the breaking section of the line. He had Bornhald and about fifty men. Not nearly enough. "We are the Children of the Light! We do not give before the Shadow!"

It didn't work. Watching the disaster play out, his entire framework of understanding started to crack. The Children of the Light were not protected by their goodness; they were falling in swaths, like grain before the scythe. Worse than that, some did not fight valiantly or hold with resolve. Too many yelled in terror, running. The Amadicians he could understand, but a lot of the Children themselves were little better.

They weren't cowards. They weren't poor fighters. They were just men. Average. That wasn't how it was supposed to be.

Thunder sounded as Gallenne brought his horsemen around in another charge. They hammered into the Trolloc line and forced many of them off the edge, tumbling them back down the incline.

Perrin slammed Mah'alleinir into a Trollocs head. The force of the blow tossed the cteature to the side, and oddly its skin sizzled and smoked where the hammer had hit. This happened with each blow, as if the touch of Mah'alleinir burned them, though Perrin felt only a comfortable warmth from the hammer.

Gallenne's charge punched through the Trolloc ranks, separating them into two cohorts, but there were so many carcasses it was getting difficult for his lancers to charge. Gallenne withdrew and a contingent of Two Rivers men moved in and shot arrows at the Trollocs, cutting them down in a wave of screaming, howling, reeking death.

Perrin pulled Stepper back, foot soldiers forming around him. Very few of his men had fallen among the Trollocs. Of course, even one was too many.

Arganda trotted up on his horse. He'd lost his helmet's plumes somewhere, but was smiling broadly. "I've rarely had such a pleasing battle, Aybara," he said. "Enemies to fell that you need not feel a sting of pity for, a perfect staging area and defensible position. Archers to dream of and Asha'man to stop the gaps! I've laid down over two dozen of the beasts myself. For this day alone, I'm glad we followed you!"

Perrin nodded. He didn't point out that one of the reasons they were having an easy time of it was that most of the Trollocs were focused on the Whitecloaks. Trollocs were nasty, monstrous things, and they had a fiercely selfish streak. Charge up the hillside at balls of fire and longbowmen, only to try and seize ground from two full contingents of cavalry? Better to seek the easier foe, and it made tactical sense, too. Focus on the easier battle first, when you had two fronts to fight on.

They were trying to crush the Whitecloaks back against the hillside as quickly as possible, and had swarmed them, not leaving them room to ride their cavalry in charges, separating groups of them. The person leading this understood tactics; this wasn't the work of Trolloc minds.

"Lord Perrin!" Jori Congar's voice rose above the din of howling Trollocs. He scrambled up to Stepper's side. "You asked me to watch and tell you how they were doing. Well, you'll want to look, maybe."

Perrin nodded, raising his fist, then making a chopping motion. Grady and Neald stood behind him, on a rock formation that could look down toward the roadway. Their main orders were to take down any Myrddraal they spotted. Perrin wanted to keep as many of those things as possible off the heights; it could cost dozens of lives to kill a single Myrddraal with the sword or axe. Best to kill with Fire, from a distance. Besides, sometimes killing one of the Fades would mean killing a complement of Trollocs linked to it.

The Asha'man, Aes Sedai and Wise Ones saw Perrin's signal. They began a full assault on the Trollocs, fire flying from hands, lightning blasting