“What happened to you?” Bashere asked. “I heard the command post fell.”
Mat nodded. “The Seanchan have abandoned us.”
“Blood and ashes!” Bashere cried. “As if this weren’t bad enough. Bloody Seanchan dogs.”
The Deathwatch Guards who stood around Mat made no response to that.
Elayne’s forces held along the riverbank, just barely—but Trollocs were slowly working around them upriver. Elayne’s lines held only because of tenacity and careful training. Each huge square of men held pikes outward, bristling like a hedgehog.
Those formations could be separated if Demandred drove wedges between them in th
e right way. Mat employed cavalry sweeps of his own, including Andoran cavalry and the Band—trying to keep the Trollocs from penetrating the pike squares or surrounding Elayne.
The rhythm of the battle pulsed beneath Mat’s fingertips. He felt what Demandred was doing. To anyone else, the end of the battle probably seemed a simple matter now. Attack in force, break the pike formations, crack Mat’s defenses. It was so much more subtle.
Lan’s Borderlanders had finished crushing the Trollocs upriver, and needed orders. Good. Mat needed those men for the next step in his plan.
Three of the enormous pike formations were flagging, but if he could place a channeler or two in each center, he could shore them up. Light shelter whoever had distracted Demandred. The Forsaken’s attacks had destroyed entire pike formations. Demandred didn’t need to kill each man individually; he needed only to launch attacks of the One Power to shatter the square. That let the Trollocs overwhelm them.
“Bashere,” Mat said, “please tell me that someone has heard from your daughter.”
“Nobody has,” Deira said. “I’m sorry.”
Bloody ashes, Mat thought. Poor Perrin.
Poor him. How was he going to do this without the Horn? Light. He was not certain he could do it with the bloody Horn.
“Go,” Mat called as they rode. “Ride to Lan; he’s upriver. Tell him to engage those Trollocs trying to move around the Andorans’ right flank! And tell him I’ll have other orders for him coming soon.”
“But I—”
“I don’t care if you’ve bloody been touched by the Shadow!” Mat said. “Every man has had the Dark One’s fingers on his heart, and that’s the bloody truth. You can fight through it. Now ride to Lan and tell him what needs to be done!”
Bashere stiffened at first; then—strangely—he smiled a broad smile beneath drooping mustaches. Bloody Saldaeans. They liked being yelled at. Mat’s words seemed to give him heart, and he galloped off, wife at his side. She threw Mat a fond look, which made him uncomfortable.
Now… he needed an army. And a gateway. He needed a bloody gateway. Fool, he thought. He had sent the damane away. Could he not have at least kept one? Though they did make his skin crawl as if it were covered in spiders.
Mat halted Pips, the Deathwatch Guards stopping with him. A few of them lit torches. They had certainly gotten the drubbing they had wanted, joining Mat in fighting the Sharans. They seemed to itch for more, though.
There, Mat thought, heeling Pips toward a force of troops south of Elayne’s pike formations. The Dragonsworn. Before the Seanchan left Dashar Knob, Mat had sent this army to reinforce Elayne’s troops.
He still did not know what to make of them. He had not been at the Field when they had gathered, but he had heard reports. People from all ranks and stations, all nationalities, who had joined together to fight in the Last Battle, heedless of loyalties or national borders. Rand broke all vows and all other bonds.
Mat rode at a quick trot—the Deathwatch Guards jogging to keep up—around the back of the Andoran lines. Light, the lines were buckling. This was bad. Well, he’d made his bet. Now he could only ride the bloody battle and hope it did not buck too much.
As he galloped for the Dragonsworn, he heard something incongruous. Singing? Mat pulled to a halt. The Ogier had been caught up fighting the Trollocs, and had pushed across the dry riverbed to help fight at Elayne’s left flank, across from the bogs, to keep Trollocs from coming around that way.
They stood their ground here, as immovable as oaks before a flood, hacking with axes as they sang. Trollocs lay in piles around them.
“Loial!” Mat yelled, standing up in his stirrups. “Loial!”
One of the Ogier stepped back from the fighting and turned. Mat was taken aback. His usually calm friend had ears laid low, teeth clenched in anger, and a blood-soaked axe in his fingers. Light, but that expression sent terror through Mat’s body. He would rather stare down ten men who thought he had been cheating than fight a single angry Ogier!
Loial called something to the others, and then rejoined them in the fighting. They continued to lay into the Trollocs nearby, cutting them down. Trollocs and Ogier were near the same size, but the Ogier somehow seemed to tower over the Shadowspawn. They did not fight like soldiers, but like woodsmen felling trees. Chop one way, then the next, breaking Trollocs. But Mat knew that Ogier hated felling trees, while they seemed to relish felling Trollocs.
The Ogier broke the Trolloc fist they’d been fighting, making them flee. Elayne’s soldiers moved in and blocked off the rest of the Trolloc army, and the several hundred Ogier pulled back to Mat. Among them, Mat noticed, were more than a few of the Seanchan Ogier—the Gardeners. He had not ordered that. The two groups fought together, but barely seemed to look at one another now.
Every one of the Ogier, male and female, had numerous cuts on their arms and legs. They did not wear armor, but many of the cuts seemed trivial, as if their skin had the strength of bark.