The men of the Two Rivers pushed forward, a thorn to the Dark One’s foot and a bramble to his hand. In the chaos that followed, they shouted and cursed, and fought to drive the Trollocs apart.
But soon their focus turned to holding their ground. The Trollocs surged around the men. The wedge formation, normally an offensive tactic, worked well here, too. Trollocs moved down the sides of the wedge, taking hits from the Two Rivers men with their axes, swords and spears.
Tam let the lads’ training guide them. He would have preferred to be in the center of the wedge, calling out encouragement as Dannil now did—but he was one of the few who had any real battle training, and the wedge formation depended on having a point who could hold steady.
So hold steady he did. Calm within the void, he let the Trollocs break upon him. He moved from Shake Dew from the Branch, to Apple Blossoms in the Wind, to Stones Fall in the Pond—all forms that stabilized him in one position while fighting multiple opponents.
Despite practice over the last few months, Tam wasn’t nearly as strong as he had been in his youth. Fortunately, a reed did not need strength. He was not as practiced as he once had been, but no reed practiced how to bend in the wind.
It simply did.
Years of maturing, years of age, had brought Tam an understanding of the void. He understood it now, better than he ever had. Years teaching Rand responsibility, years of living without Kari, years of listening to the wind blow and the leaves rustle . . .
Tam al’Thor became the void. He brought it to the Trollocs, showed it to them and sent them into its depths.
He danced around a goat-featured Trolloc, sweeping his sword to the side and slicing the beasts leg at the heel. It stumbled and Tam turned, letting the men behind take it. He flashed his sword up—the weapon trailing blood—and sprayed the dark droplets across the eyes of a charging Trolloc with nightmare features. It howled, blinded, and Tam flowed forward, arms out, and opened its stomach below the breastplate. It stumbled in front of a third Trolloc, who brought an axe down toward Tam, but hit its ally instead.
Each step was part of a dance, and Tam invited the Trollocs to join him. He had only fought like this once before, long ago, but memory was something that the void did not allow. He did not think of other times; he did not think of anything. If he knew that he’d done this once before, it was because of the resonance of his motions, an understanding that seemed to permeate his muscles themselves.
Tam stabbed the neck of a Trolloc with a face that was nearly human, with only a little too much hair on its cheeks. It fell backward and collapsed, and Tam suddenly found no more foes. He stopped, bringing his sword up, feeling a soft wind blow across him. The dark beasts were thundering away downriver in a rout, chased by horsemen flying Borderlander flags. Shortly they would hit a wall of troops, the Legion of the Dragon, and be crushed between them and the pursuing Borderlanders.
Tam cleaned his blade, leaving the void. The gravity of the situation hit him. Light! His men should be dead. If those Borderlanders hadn’t arrived . . .
He placed his sword back into its lacquered sheath. The red and gold dragon caught sunlight, sparkling, though Tam wouldn’t have thought there was anything to catch with that cloud cover above. He searched for the sun, and found it—behind the clouds—nearly at the horizon. It was almost night!
Fortunately, it looked like the Trollocs here at the battle by the ruins were finally breaking. Already weakened severely by the drawn-out river crossing, they now crumbled as Lan’s men hit them from behind.
In a short time it was done. Tam had held.
Nearby, a black horse trotted up. Its rider, Lan Mandragoran—with standard-bearer and guards behind—looked over the Two Rivers men.
"I had long wondered", Lan said to Tam. "About the man who had given Rand that heron-marked blade. I wondered if he had truly earned it. Now I know". Lan raised his own sword in salute.
Tam turned back toward his men, an exhausted, bloodied group clutching weapons. The path of their wedge showed easily on the trampled plain; dozens of Trollocs lay behind where the wedge had cut into them. To the north, the men of the second wedge raised their weapons. They had been pushed back nearly to the forest, but they’d held there and some had survived. Tam couldn’t help but see that dozens of good folk had died.
His exhausted men sat down right there on the battlefield, surrounded by corpses. Some weakly began tying their own bandages or seeing to the wounded they’d pulled into the interior of the wedge. To the south, Tam spotted a dismaying sight. Were those the Seanchan pulling out from their camp at Dashar Knob?
"Have we won, then?" Tam asked.
"Far from it", Lan said. "We’ve seized this part of the river, but it is the lesser fight. Demandred pressed his Trollocs hard here to keep us from drawing resources to the larger battle at the ford downriver". Lan turned his horse. "Gather your men, blademaster. This battle will not end with the setting sun. You will be needed again in the coming hours. Tai’shar Manetheren"
Lan thundered toward his Borderlanders.
"Tai’shar Malkier", Tam called after him, belatedly.
"So . . . we’re not done yet?" Dannil asked.
"No, lad. We're not. But we’ll take a break, get the men Healed and find some food". He saw gateways opening beside the field. Cauthon had been smart enough to send a means for Tam to take his wounded to Mayene. It—
People poured through the openings. Hundreds of them, thousands. Tam frowned. Nearby, the Whitecloaks were picking themselves up—they’d been hit hard by the Trolloc attacks, but Tam’s arrival had kept them from being destroyed. Arganda’s force was forming up at the ruins, and the Wolf Guard hoisted their flag high, bloodied, heaps of Trolloc corpses surrounding them.
Tam trudged across the field. Now his limbs felt like dead weights. He felt more exhausted than if he’d spent a month pulling stumps.
At the first of the gateways, he found Berelain herself, standing with a few Aes Sedai. The beautiful woman was terribly out of place here in this mud and death. Her gown of black and silver, the diadem in her hair . . . Light, she didn’t belong here.
"Tam al’Thor", she said. "You command this force?"
"Near enough", Tam said. "Pardon, my Lady First, but who are all of these people?"
"The refugees from Caemlyn", Berelain said. "I sent some people to see if they needed Healing. They refused it, and insisted that I bring
