The Two Rivers men looked as worn down as Arganda felt. It had been a long, long day, and the fighting was by no means over. I wish Gallenne were here, Arganda thought, inspecting Trollocs at the river as al’Thor’s men approached. I could use someone to argue with.
Just downriver, shouts and clangs sounded from where the Andorans’ pike formations held off—barely—the Trolloc waves. By now, this battle was strung out along the Mora, almost up to Dashar Knob. His men had helped keep the Andorans from being flanked.
“What news, Arganda?” Tam asked as he came over.
“Cauthon lives,” Arganda said. “And that’s bloody amazing, considering that someone blew up his command post, set fire to his tent, killed a bunch of his damane, and chased off his wife. Cauthon crawled out of it somehow.”
“Ha!” Abell Cauthon said. “That’s my boy.”
“He told me you were coming,” Arganda said. “He said you’d have arrows. Do you?”
Tam nodded. “Our last orders sent us through the gateway to Mayene for Healing and resupply. I don’t know how Mat knew arrows would be coming, but a shipment from the women in the Two Rivers came right as we were getting ready to return here. We have longbows for you to use, if you need them.”
“I will. Cauthon wants all of our troops to move back upriver to the ruins, cut across the riverbed and march up the Heights from the northeastern side.”
“Not sure what that’s about, but I suppose he knows what he’s doing . . .” Tam said.
Together, their forces moved upriver in the night, leaving behind the fighting Andorans, Cairhienin and Aiel. Creator shelter you, friends, Arganda thought.
They crossed the dry riverbed and began moving up the northeastern slopes. It was quiet on top, at this end of the Heights, but the glow from lines of torches was evident.
“That’s going to be a tough nut to crack, if those are Sharans up there,” Tam said softly, looking up the darkened slope.
“Cauthon’s note said we’d have help,” Arganda replied.
“What kind of help?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t—”
Thunder rumbled nearby, and Arganda winced. Most of the channelers were supposed to be fighting on the other side of the Heights, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t see any here. He hated that feeling, the sensation that a channeler might be watching him, contemplating whether to kill him with fire, lightning or earth.
Channelers. The world would be just plain better without them. But that sound didn’t turn out to be thunder. A group of galloping riders bearing torches appeared from the night, crossing the riverbed to join Arganda and his men. They flew the Golden Crane at the center of an array of Borderlander banners.
“Well I’ll be a bloody Trolloc,” Arganda called. “You Borderlanders decided to join us?”
Lan Mandragoran saluted by torchlight, silvery sword glistening. He looked up the slope. “So we're to fight here.”
Arganda nodded.
“Good,” Lan said softly from horseback. “I just received reports about a large Sharan army moving northeast across the top of the Heights. Its clear to me they want to swing down around behind our people fighting the Trollocs at the river; then we’d be surrounded and at their mercy. Looks like its our job to keep that from happening.”
He turned toward Tam. “Are you ready to soften them up for us, archer?”
“I think we can manage that,” Tam replied.
Lan nodded, then raised his sword. A Malkieri man at his side raised the Golden Crane high. And then they charged right up that slope. Coming toward them was a huge enemy army spread out in wide ranks across the landscape, the sky lit up by the thousands of torches they carried.
Tam al’Thor shouted for his men to line up and fire. “Loose!” Tam yelled, sending flights of arrows at the Sharans.
Then arrows began to be returned in their direction, now that the distance between the two armies had narrowed. Arganda figured that the archers wouldn’t be nearly as accurate in the darkness as they might have been by day—but that would be true for both sides.
The Two Rivers men released a wave of death, arrows as fast as diving falcons.
“Hold!” Tam yelled to his men. They stopped firing just in time for Lan’s cavalry to hit the softened Sharan lines.
Where did Tam get his battle experience? Arganda thought, thinking of the times he’d seen Tam fight. Arganda had known seasoned generals with far less sense of a battlefield than this sheepherder.
The Borderlanders pulled back, letting Tam and his men loose more arrows. Tam signaled to Arganda.
“Let’s go!” Arganda called to his foot soldiers. “All companies, forward!”
The one-two attack of archers and heavy cavalry was powerful, but it had limited advantage, once the enemy set their defenses. Soon the Sharans would get a solid shield-and-spear wall up to deflect the horsemen, or the archers would pick them off. That’s where the infantry came in.
Arganda unhooked his mace—those Sharans wore chain mail and leather—and raised it high, leading his men across the Heights, meeting the Sharans halfway, as they’d advanced to engage. Tams troops were Whitecloaks, Ghealdanin, Perrin's Wolf Guard and the Mayener Winged Guard, but they viewed themselves as one army. Not six months ago, Arganda would have sworn on his father’s grave that men such as these would never fight together—let alone come to one another’s aid, as the Wolf Guard did when the Whitecloak forces were being overrun.
Some Trollocs could be heard howling and began moving up alongside the Sharans. Light! Trollocs, too?
Arganda swung his mace until his arm burned, then switched hands and kept going, breaking bones, smashing hands and arms until Mighty’s coat was flecked with blood.
Flashes of light suddenly launched from the opposite end of the Heights toward the Andorans defending below. Arganda barely noted it, consumed by the fighting as he was, but something inside of him whimpered. Demandred must have resumed his attack.
“I have defeated your brother, Lews Therin!” The voice boomed across the battlefield, loud as a crack of thunder. “He dies now, bleeding away his mortality!”
Arganda danced Mighty back, turning as a hulking Trolloc with an almost-human face shoved away the wounded Sharan beside it and bellowed. Blood streamed from a cut on its shoulder, but it didn’t seem to notice. It twisted, heaving a short-chained flail with a head like a log covered in spikes.
The flail crashed to the ground right beside Mighty, spooking the horse. As Arganda fought for control, the immense Trolloc stepped forward and punched with its offhand, slamming a ham fist into the side of Mighty’s head, knocking the horse to the ground.
“Have you any care for the flesh of this birth?” Demandred thundered in the distance. “Share you any love for the one who named you brother, this man in white?”
Mighty’s head had cracked like an egg. The horse’s legs spasmed and jerked. Arganda hauled himself to his feet. He didn’t remember leaping free as the horse fell, but his instincts had preserved him. Unfortunately, his roll had taken him away from his guards, who fought for their lives against a group of Sharans.
His men were advancing, and the Sharans were getting slowly pushed back. He didn’t have time to look, though. That Trolloc was on him.
Arganda hefted his mace and looked up at the towering beast before him, whipping its flail over its head as it stepped over the dying horse.
Never had Arganda felt so small.
“Coward!” Demandred roared. “You name yourself savior of this land? I claim that title! Face me! Do I need to kill this kin of yours to draw you out?”
Arganda took a deep breath, then leaped forward. He figured that was the last thing the Trolloc would anticipate. Indeed, the beast’s swing went wide. Arganda scored a solid crack at its side, his mace hitting the Trollocs pelvis, crushing bone.
Then the thing backhanded him. Arganda saw white, and the sounds of battle faded. Screaming, pounding of feet, yelling. Screams and yells. Yells and screams . . . Nothing.