“Galad,” Elayne said, “you really should allow one of the Asha’man to wash away your fatigue. Your insistence upon treating them like outcasts is foolish.”
Galad straightened up. “It has nothing to do with the Asha’man,” he snapped. Too argumentative. He was tired. “This fatigue reminds me of what we lost today. It is an exhaustion my men must endure, and so I will, lest I forget just how tired they are and push them too far.”
Elayne frowned at him. He had stopped worrying that his words offended her long ago. It seemed he couldn’t claim that a day was pleasant or his tea warm without her taking offense somehow.
It would have been nice if Aybara hadn’t run off. That man was a leader—one of the few that Galad had ever met—that one could actually talk to without worrying that he’d take offense. Perhaps the Two Rivers would be a good place for the Whitecloaks to settle.
Of course, there was something of a history of bad blood between them. He could work on that…
I called them Whitecloaks, he thought to himself a moment later. Inside my head, that’s how I thought of the Children just now. It had been a long time since he’d done that by accident.
“Your Majesty,” Arganda said. He stood beside Logain, the leader of the Asha’man, and Havien Nurelle, the new commander of the Winged Guard. Talmanes of the Band of the Red Hand trudged up with a few commanders from the Saldaeans and the Legion of the Dragon. Elder Haman of the Ogier sat on the ground a short distance away; he stared off, toward the sunset, seeming dazed.
“Your Majesty,” Arganda continued, “I realize you consider this a great victory—”
“It is a great victory,” Elayne said. “We must persuade the men to see it that way. Not eight hours ago, I assumed that our entire army would be slaughtered. We won.”
“At a cost of half of our troops,” Arganda said softly. “I will count that a victory,” Elayne insisted. “We were expecting complete destruction.”
“The only victor today is the butcher,” Nurelle said softly. He looked haunted.
“No,” Tam al’Thor said, “she’s right. The troops have to understand what their losses earned. We must treat this as a victory. It must be recorded that way in the histories, and the soldiers must be convinced to see it so.”
“That is a lie,” Galad found himself saying.
“It is not,” al’Thor said. “We lost many friends today. Light, but we all did. Focusing on death, however, is what the Dark One wants us to do. I dare you to tell me I’m wrong. We must look and see Light, not Shadow, or we’ll all be pulled under.”
“By winning here,” Elayne said, deliberately emphasizing the word, “we earn a reprieve. We can gather at Merrilor, entrench there, and make our last stand in our strength against the Shadow.”
“Light,” Talmanes whispered. “We’re going to go through this again, aren’t we?”
“Yes,” Elayne said reluctantly.
Galad looked out over the fields of the dead, then shivered. “Merrilor will be worse. Light help us… it’s going to get worse.”
CHAPTER
33
The Prince’s Tabac
Perrin chased Slayer through the skies.
He leaped from a churning, silver-black cloud, Slayer a blur before him in the charred sky. The air pulsed with the rhythm of lightning bolts and furious winds. Scent after scent assailed Perrin, with no logic behind them. Mud in Tear. A burning pie. Rotting garbage. A death-lily flower.
Slayer landed on the cloud ahead and shifted, turning around in an eye-blink, bow drawn. The arrow loosed so quickly the air cracked, but Perrin managed to slap it down with his hammer. He landed on the same thunderhead as Slayer, imagining footing beneath him, and the vapors of the storm cloud became solid.
Perrin charged forward through a churning dark gray fog, the top layer of the cloud, and attacked. They clashed, Slayer summoning a shield and sword. Perrin’s hammer beat a rhythm against that shield, pounding alongside the booming of thunder. A crash with each blow.
Slayer spun away to flee, but Perrin managed to snatch the edge of his cloak. As Slayer attempted to shift away, Perrin imagined them staying put. He knew they would. It was not a possibility, it was.
They both fuzzed for a moment, then returned to the cloud. Slayer growled, then swept his sword backward, shearing off the tip of his cloak and freeing himself. He turned to face Perrin, stalking to the side, sword held in wary hands. The cloud trembled beneath them, and a flash of phantom lightning lit the misty vapor at their feet.
“You become increasingly annoying, wolf pup,” Slayer said.
“You’ve never fought a wolf that can fight you back,” Perrin said. “You’ve killed them from afar. The slaughter was easy. Now you’ve tried to hunt a prey who has teeth, Slayer.”
Slayer snorted. “You’re like a boy with his father’s sword. Dangerous, but completely unaware of why, or how to use your weapons.”