Loial walked up to Mat and the Deathwatch Guards, raising his axe to his shoulder. Loial’s trousers were dark up to the thighs, as if he had been wading in wine. “Mat,” Loial said, drawing a deep breath. “We have done as you asked, fighting here. No Trolloc got by us.”
“You did well, Loial,” Mat said. “Thank you.”
He waited for a reply. Something long-winded and eager, no doubt. Loial stood breathing in and out with lungs that could hold enough air to fill a room. No words. The others with him, though many were senior to Loial, offered no words either. Some lifted torches. The glow of the sun had vanished beneath the horizon. Night was fully upon them.
Quiet Ogier. Now that was strange. Ogier at war, though… it was not something Mat had ever seen. He did not have any memory of it in the memories that were not his.
“I need you,” Mat said. “We have to turn this battle around or we’re finished. Come on.”
“The Hornsounder commands!” Loial bellowed. “Up axes!”
Mat winced. If he ever needed someone to yell a message from Caemlyn to Cairhien for him, he knew who to ask. Only they would probably hear it all the way up in the Blight, too.
He heeled Pips into motion, the Ogier falling in around him and the Deathwatch Guards. The Ogier had no trouble keeping up.
“Honored One,” Karede said, “I and mine are ordered to—”
“To go die on the front lines. I’m bloody working on that, Karede. Keep your sword out of your own gut for the moment, kindly.”
The man’s expression darkened, but he held his tongue.
“She doesn’t really want you dead, you realize,” Mat said. He could not say more without revealing the plot to bring her back.
“If my death serves the Empress, may she live forever, then I give it willingly.”
“You’re bloody insane, Karede,” Mat said. “Unfortunately, so am I. You’re in good company. You there! Who leads this force?”
They had reached the back ranks, where the reserves of the Dragonsworn were located, the wounded and those who were resting from their time at the front ranks.
“My Lord?” one of the scouts said. “That would be Lady Tinna.”
“Go fetch her,” Mat said. Those dice kept rattling in his head. He also felt a pull from the north, a tugging, as if some threads around his chest were yanking on him.
Not now, Rand, he thought. I’m bloody busy.
No colors formed, only blackness. Dark as a Myrddraal’s heart. The tugging grew stronger.
Mat dismissed the vision. Not. Now.
He had work to do here. He had a plan. Light, let it work.
Tinna turned out to be a pretty girl, younger than he had expected, tall and strong of limb. She wore her long brown hair in a tail, though curls of it seemed to want to break out here and there. She wore breeches, and had seen some fighting, judging by that sword on her hip and the dark Trolloc blood on her sleeves.
She rode up to him, looking him up and down with discerning eyes. “You’ve finally remembered
us, have you, Lord Cauthon?” Yes, she definitely reminded him of Nynaeve.
Mat looked up at the Heights. The firefight between Aes Sedai and Sharans up there had turned messy.
You’d better win there, Egwene. I’m counting on you.
“Your army,” Mat said, looking at Tinna. “I’m told some Aes Sedai joined you?”
“Some did,” she said cautiously.
“You’re one of them?”
“I am not. Not exactly.”