The Gathering Storm - By Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson Page 0,214

men in vests and trousers. Apparently Joline’s dress had been cut to strips and used for bonds. The silk would work far better than wool towels. Near the top of the stairs, just below the Aes Sedai, Mat could barely make out a cluster of corpses that had fallen to swords, not fire.

Joline eyed Mat as he approached, a look implying that she considered all this to be his fault somehow. She folded her arms, closing up the top of the robe, though he wasn’t sure if that was because of Talmanes’ gawking or if the move was coincidental.

“We need to move,” Mat told the women. “The whole city has gone mad.”

“We can’t go,” Joline said. “Not and leave those servants to the mob. Besides, we need to find Master Tobrad and make certain he is safe.”

“Master Tobrad is the innkeeper?” Mat asked. A fireball whooshed down the stairs.

“Yes,” Joline said.

“Too late,” Mat said. “His brains are already decorating the walls downstairs. Look, like I said, the entire village is crazy. Those servants tried to kill you, didn’t they?”

Joline hesitated. “Yes.”

“Leave them,” Mat said. “We can’t do anything for them.”

“But if we wait until dawn . . .” Joline said hesitantly.

“And what?” Mat said. “Burn to ash every person who tries to climb those stairs? You’re making a ruckus here, and it’s drawing more and more people. You’re going to have to kill them all to stop them.”

Joline glanced at the other two women.

“Look,” Mat said. “I have a wounded Redarm down below, and I intend to get him out of this alive. You can’t do any good for these people here. I suspect the men had to kill that group at the top of the stairs before you all felt threatened enough to use the Power. You know how determined they are.”

“All right,” Joline said. “I’ll come. But we’re bringing the two serving girls. Blaeric and Fen can carry them.”

Mat sighed—he’d have liked the Warders’ blades free to help in case they ran into trouble—but said nothing more. He nodded to Talmanes and Thom, and waited impatiently as the Warders picked up the two bound serving girls and slung them over shoulders. After that, the whole group hustled back down the servants’ stairwell, Talmanes leading and Mat and the Redarms at the rear. He could hear screams that sounded half angry, half joyous as the villagers at the base of the stairs realized no more fire would fall. There were thumps and shouts, followed by doors opening, and Mat cringed, imagining the other servants—left tied up in the bathing chamber—falling to the crowd.

Mat and the others burst out into the backyard of the inn, only to find Delarn on the ground beside Pips. Harnan knelt beside him, and the bearded soldier looked up with anxiety. “Mat!” he said. “He fell from the saddle. I—”

Edesina cut him off, rushing over and kneeling beside Delarn. She closed her eyes, and Mat felt a chill from his medallion. It made him shiver as he imagined the One Power leaking out of her and into the man. That was almost as bad as dying, bloody ashes but it was! He gripped the medallion beneath his shirt.

Delarn stiffened, but then gasped, eyes fluttering open.

“It is done,” Edesina said, standing up. “He will be weak from the Healing, but I reached him in time.”

Harnan had gathered and saddled all of their horses, Light bless him. Good man. The women mounted, and spared several glances over their shoulders at the inn.

“It’s as if the darkness itself intoxicates them,” Thom said while Mat helped Delarn into his saddle. “As if Light itself has forsaken them, leaving them only to the Shadow. . . .”

“Nothing we can do,” Mat said, pulling himself into his saddle behind Delarn. The soldier was too weak to ride on his own, after that Healing. Mat eyed the serving girls that the Warders had slung over the fronts of their horses. They struggled against their bonds, hate in their eyes. He turned and nodded to Talmanes, who had affixed the lantern to a saddle pole. The Cairhienin opened the shield, bathing the inn’s stableyard in light. A path led northward, out of the yard into the dark. Away from the army, but also directly out of the village, toward the hills. That was good enough for Mat.

“Ride,” he said, kicking Pips into motion. The group fell in beside him.

“I told you we should leave,” Talmanes noted, looking over his shoulder, riding at Mat’s