Every root will die,
Every branch must bend . . ".
He downed a snarling Trolloc, but another one sank its teeth into his leg. He bellowed, breaking off his song as he grabbed the Trolloc by the neck. He had never considered himself strong, not by Ogier standards, but he lifted the Trolloc and flung it into its fellows behind.
Men—fragile men—were dead all around his feet. Their loss of life pained him. Each one had been given such a short time to live. Some, still alive, still fought. He knew they thought of themselves as bigger than they were, but here on the battlefield—with Ogier and Trollocs—they seemed like children running around underfoot.
No. He would not see them that way. The men and women fought with bravery and passion. Not children, but heroes. Still, seeing them broken made his ears lie back. He started singing again, louder, and this time it was not the song of mourning. It was a song he had not sung before, a song of growing, but not one of the tree songs that were so familiar to him.
He bellowed it loud and angry, laying about him with his axe. On all sides, grass turned green, cords and ribbons of life sprouted. The hafts of the Trolloc polearms began to grow leaves; many of the beasts snarled and dropped the weapons in shock.
Loial fought on. This song was not a song of victory. It was a song of life. Loial did not intend to die here on this hillside.
By the Light, he had a book to finish before he went!
Mat stood in the Seanchan command building, surrounded by skeptical generals. Min had only just returned, after being taken away and dressed in Seanchan finery. Tuon had gone as well, to see to some empressly duty.
Looking back at the maps, Mat felt like cursing again. Maps, maps and more maps. Pieces of paper. Most of them had been sketched by Tuon’s clerks in the fading light of the previous evening. How could he know they were accurate? Mat had once seen a street artist drawing a pretty woman at night in Caemlyn, and the resulting picture could have been sold for gold as a dead-on representation of Cenn Buie in a dress.
More and more, he was thinking that battle maps were about as useful as a heavy coat in Tear. He needed to be able to see the battle, not how someone else thought the battle looked. The map was too simple.
"I’m going out to look at the battlefield", Mat declared.
"You’re what?" Courtani asked. The Seanchan Banner-General was about as pretty as a bundle of sticks with armor bolted to it. Mat figured she must have eaten something very sour once and—upon finding the resulting grimace useful for frightening away birds—had decided to adopt it permanently.
"I'm going to go look at the battlefield", Mat said again. He set aside his hat, then reached up over his head and grabbed the back of his rich, bulky Seanchan robes. He pulled the clothing, awkward shoulder pieces and all, over his head with a rustle of silk and lace, then tossed it aside.
That left him clad in only his neck scarf, his medallion and the strange breeches the Seanchan had given him, black and somewhat stiff. Min raised an eyebrow at his bare chest, which made him blush. But what did it matter? She was with Rand, so that made her practically his sister. There was Courtani, too, but Mat was not convinced that she was female. He was not convinced she was human, either.
Mat dug under the table for a moment, and pulled out a bundle he had stashed there earlier, then straightened up. Min folded her arms. Her new clothing looked very nice on her, a dress nearly as rich as the ones worn by Tuon. Min’s was a dark green shiny silk with black embroidery and wide, open sleeves that were at least long enough to stick your head into. They had done up her hair, too, sticking bits of metal into it, silver with inset firedrops. There were hundreds of them. If this whole Doomseer title did not work out for her, perhaps she could find work as a chandelier.
She was quite fetching in the outfit, actually. Odd. Mat had always considered Min on the boyish side, but now he found her appealing. Not that he looked.
The Seanchan in the room seemed stunned that Mat had suddenly stripped to the waist. He did not see why. They had servants that wore much less. Light, but they did.
"I’m tempted to do the same as you", Min muttered, grabbing the front of her dress.
Mat froze, then sputtered. He must have swallowed a fly or something. "Burn me", he said, throwing on the shirt he dug out of the bundle. "I'll give you a hundred Tar Valon marks if you do it, just so I can tell the story".
That earned him a glare, though he did not know why. She was the one talking about striding about like a bloody Aiel Maiden on her way to the sweat tent.
Min did not do it, and he was almost sad. Almost. He had to be careful around Min. He was certain that a smile in the wrong place would earn him a knifing not only from her, but from Tuon, and Mat was much happier with only one knife stuck in him at a time.
The foxhead medallion rested comfortably against his skin—thank the Light, Tuon had understood that he did need it—as he tossed on his coat, also retrieved from the bundle.
"How did you retain those?" Captain-General Galgan asked. "I was under the impression that your clothing had been burned, Raven Prince".
Galgan looked very silly with that one strip of white hair on his head, but Mat did not mention this. It was the Seanchan way. Folk could be funny, but he didn’t doubt Galgan could handle himself in a battle, however he looked.
"These?" Mat said, gesturing to his coat and shirt. "I really have no idea. They were just down there. I’m completely baffled". He had been very pleased to learn that Seanchan guards—for all their stoic expressions and too-straight backs—responded to bribes like other people.
All but those Deathwatch Guards. Mat had learned not to try it with them; the glare they’d given him made him think that if he tried it again, he’d end up with his face in the mud. Perhaps it would be better not to even talk to a Deathwatch Guard again, as it was quite obvious that each and every one one of them had traded his sense of humor for an oversized chin.
In a pinch, though, he knew exactly who he would trust with Tuon’s safety.
Mat strode out, grabbing his ashandarei from against the wall as he passed. Courtani and Min followed him out. It was too bad Tylee was so good at what she did. Mat would rather have kept her behind for company and sent the scarecrow instead. Maybe he should have. Some of the Trollocs might have mistaken her for one of them.
He had to wait as a groom ran for Pips, unfortunately, and that gave someone time to alert Tuon. He saw her approaching. Well, she had said she would return shortly anyway, so he had not really expected
