"She was too eager", Siuan said. "She was probably longing to make us jump, you know. All that talk about Traveling and weaves of movement . . ". She trailed off, partly because she was annoyed at herself. This day had gone poorly enough without her griping at Bryne. "How many did we lose?" Not a much better topic, but she needed to know. "Do we have reports yet?"
"Nearly one in two of the soldiers", Bryne said softly.
Worse than she’d suspected. "And the Aes Sedai?"
"We have somewhere around two hundred and fifty left", Bryne said. "Though a number of those are in shock at having lost Warders".
That was more of a disaster. A hundred and twenty Aes Sedai dead in a matter of hours? The White Tower would require a very long time to recover from that.
"I’m sorry, Siuan", Bryne said.
"Bah", Siuan said, "most of them treated me like fish guts anyway. They resented me as Amyrlin, laughed when I was cast down, and then made a servant of me when I returned".
Bryne nodded, still rubbing her shoulder. He could feel that she was hurt, despite her words. There were good women among the dead. Many good sisters.
"She’s out there", Siuan said stubbornly. "Egwene will surprise us, Bryne. You watch".
"If I’m watching, it won’t be much of a surprise, will it?"
Siuan grunted. "Fool man".
"You’re right", he said solemnly. "On both counts. I think Egwene will surprise us. I’m also a fool".
"Bryne . . ".
"I am, Siuan. How could I miss that they were stalling? They wanted to occupy us until this other force could gather. The Trollocs pulled back into those hills. A defensive move. Trollocs aren’t defensive. I assumed they were trying to set up an ambush only, and that was why they were pulling back corpses and preparing to wait. If I’d attacked them earlier, this could have been avoided. I was too careful".
"A man who thinks all day about the catch he missed because of stormy weather ends up wasting time when the sky is clear".
"A clever proverb, Siuan", he said. "But there’s a saying among generals, written by Fogh the Tireless. ‘If you do not learn from your losses, you will be ruled by them.’ I can’t see how I let this happen. I’ve trained better than this, prepared better than this! It’s not just a mistake I can ignore, Siuan. The Pattern itself is at stake".
He rubbed his forehead. In the dim light of the setting sun, he looked older, his face wrinkled, his hands frail. It was as if this battle had stolen decades from him. He sighed, hunching forward.
Siuan found herself at a loss for words.
They sat in silence.
Lyrelle waited outside the gates to the so-called Black Tower. It took every ounce of her training not to let her frustration show.
This entire expedition had been a disaster from the start. First, the Black Tower had refused them entry until the Reds had done their business, and that had been followed by the trouble with gateways. That had been followed by three bubbles of evil, two attempts by Darkfriends to murder the lot of them and the warning from the Amyrlin that the Black Tower had joined the Shadow to fight.
Lyrelle had sent most of her women to fight alongside Lan Mandragoran at the Amyrlin’s insistence. She’d remained behind with a few sisters to watch the Black Tower. And now . . . now this. What to make of it?
"I can assure you", the young Asha’man said, "the danger has passed. We drove off the M’Hael and the others who turned to the Shadow. The rest of us walk in the Light".
Lyrelle turned to her companions. A representative from each Ajah, along with backup—sent for desperately this morning when the Asha’man had first approached her—in the form of thirty other sisters. They accepted Lyrelle’s leadership here, if only reluctantly.
"We will discuss it", she said, dismissing the young Asha’man with a nod.
"What do we do?" Myrelle asked. The Green had been with Lyrelle from the start, one of the few that she’d not sent away, partially because she wanted the woman’s Warders near. "If some of their members are fighting for the Shadow . . ".
"Gateways can be made again", Seaine said. "Something has changed about this place in the days since we felt that channeling inside".
"I don’t trust it", Myrelle said.
"We must know for certain", Seaine said. "We cannot leave the Black Tower unattended during the Last Battle itself. We must see these men taken care of, one way or another". The Black Tower men claimed that only a few of their number had joined the Shadow, and that the channeling had been the result of an attack by the Black Ajah.
It galled her to hear them use those words. Black Ajah. For centuries, the White Tower had denied the existence of Darkfriends among Aes Sedai. The truth had, unfortunately, been revealed. That didn’t mean Lyrelle wanted to hear men tossing around the term so casually. Particularly men like these.
"If they’d wanted to attack us", Lyrelle said speculatively, "they’d have done it when we couldn’t escape with gateways. For now, I will assume they have cleansed the . . . problems among their ranks. As was required of the White Tower itself".
"So we go in?" Myrelle asked.
"Yes. We bond the men we were promised, and from them draw out the truth, if it is obscured". It troubled Lyrelle that the Dragon Reborn had refused them the highest-ranking among the Asha’man, but Lyrelle had devised a plan when she first came here. It should still work. She would first ask for a display of channeling among the men, and would bond the one she felt was strongest. She would then have that one tell her which among the trainees were the most talented so her sisters could bond those.
From there . . . well, she hoped that would contain the majority of these men. Light, what a mess. Men who could channel, walking about unashamed! She did not accept this fable of the taint having been cleansed. Of course these . . . men . . . would claim such a thing.
"Sometimes", Lyrelle muttered, "I wish I could go back and slap myself for accepting this commission".
Myrelle laughed. She never did take events as seriously as she should. Lyrelle felt annoyed at having missed the chances to be had at the White Tower during her long absence. Reunification, fighting the Seanchan . . . These were the times when leadership could be proven, and a woman could gain a
