Whistling, he set off for his tent. What was the tune? Oh, yes. “Dance with Jak o' the Shadows.” He had no intention of dancing with death, but it had a merry sound, so he whistled it anyway as he tried to plan the best route away from Cairhien.
Rand stood staring after Mat long after the tent flaps had fallen to hide him. “I only heard the last bit,” he said finally. “Was it all like that?”
“Very nearly,” Lan replied. “With only a few minutes to study the maps, he laid out close to the battle plan that Rhuarc and the others made. He saw the difficulties and the dangers, and how to meet them. He knows about miners and siege engines, and using light cavalry to harry a defeated foe.”
Rand looked at him. The Warder showed no surprise, not the twitch of an eyelash. Of course, he was the one who had said Mat seemed surprisingly knowledgeable about military matters. And Lan was not going to ask the obvious question, either, which was good. Rand had no right to give the little answer he had.
He could have asked a few questions himself. Such as, What did miners have to do with battles? Or maybe it was only sieges. Whatever the answer, there was not a mine closer than the Dragon's Dagger, and no certainty anyone was still digging ore. Well, this battle would be fought without. The important thing was that he knew Mat had gained more on the other side of that doorway ter'angreal than a tendency to spout the Old Tongue when not thinking. And knowing that, Rand would surely make use of it.
You don't have to get any harder, he thought bitterly. He had seen Mat climbing toward this tent, and never hesitated in sending Lan in to discover what might come to the surface in idle conversation, alone. That had been deliberate. The rest might or might not be, but it would happen. He hoped Mat had a fine time while he was free. He hoped that Perrin was enjoying himself in the Two Rivers, showing off Faile to his mother and sisters, maybe marrying her. He hoped it because he knew he would draw them back, ta'veren pulling at ta'veren, and he the strongest. Moiraine had named it no coincidence, three such growing up in the same village, all nearly the same age; the Wheel wove happenstance and coincidence into the Pattern, but it did not lay down the likes of the three of them for no reason. Eventually he would pull his friends back to him, however far they went, and when they came, he would use them, however he could. However he had to. Because he did have to. Because whatever the Prophecy of the Dragon said, he was sure the only chance he had of winning Tarmon Gai'don lay in having all three of them, three ta'veren who had been tied together since infancy, tied together once more. No, he did not need to become hard. You're rank enough already to make a Seanchan spew his supper!
“Play 'March of Death,'” he commanded in a harsher voice than he wanted, and Natael looked at him blankly for a moment. The man had been listening to everything. He would have questions, but he would find no answers. If Rand could not tell Lan Mat's secrets, he would not spread them before one of the Forsaken, however tame he appeared. This time he deliberately made his tone rough, and pointed the length of spear at the man. “Play it, unless you know a sadder. Play something to make your soul weep. If you have one still.”
Natael gave him an ingratiating smile and a seated bow, but he went white around the eyes. It was indeed “The March of Death” that he began, yet it had a sharper edge on his harp than ever before, a dirgelike keen that surely would make any soul weep. He stared fixedly at Rand as if hoping to see some effect.
Turning away, Rand stretched out on the carpets with his head to the maps and a redandgold cushion under his elbow. “Lan, would you ask the others to come in now?”
The Warder made a formal bow before stepping outside. It was the first time that he had ever done that, but Rand noticed only absently.
The battle would begin tomorrow. It was a polite fiction that he helped Rhuarc and the others plan. He was smart enough to know what he did not know, and despite all of his talks with Lan and Rhuarc, he knew he was not ready. I've planned a hundred battles this size or more and given orders that led to ten times as many. Not his thought. Lews Therin knew war — had known war — but not Rand al'Thor, and that was him. He listened, asked questions — and nodded as if he understood when the chiefs said a thing should be done a certain way. Sometimes he did understand and wished he did not, because he knew where that understanding came from. His only real contribution had been to say that Couladin had to be defeated without destroying the city. In any, case, this meeting would only add a few touches at most to what had already been decided.
Mat would have been useful, with his newfound knowledge.
No. He would not think of his friends, of what he would do to them before it was all done. Even leaving the battle aside, there was plenty to occupy him, things he could do something about. The absence of Cairhienin flags above Cairhien marked a major problem, and the continued skirmishes with Andorans another. What Sammael was up to warranted thought, and...
The chiefs filed in in no particular order. This time Dhearic came first, Rhuarc and Erim together at the rear with Lan. Bruan and Jheran took the places next to Rand. They did not concern themselves with precedence among themselves, and Aan'allein they seemed to take as all but one of them.
Weiramon entered last, his lordlings at his heels and a tightmouthed scowl on his face. Precedence certainly mattered to him. Muttering into his oiled beard, he stalked his way around the firepit, taking up a place behind Rand. Until the chiefs' flat stares finally broke through his shell, at least. Among Aiel, a close kinsman or society brother might position himself so, if there was the possibility of a knife in the back. He still frowned at Jheran and Dhearic as though expecting one of them to make room.
Finally Bael gestured to the place beside him, across the maps from Rand, and after a pause, Weiramon strode back to sit crosslegged and rigid, staring straight ahead and looking like a man who had swallowed an unripe plum whole. The younger Tairens stood almost as stiffly at his back, one with the grace to look embarrassed.
Rand took note of him but said not a word, only thumbed his pipe full of tabac and seized saidin long enough to light it. He had to do something about Weiramon; the man exacerbated old problems and made new ones. Not a flicker crossed Rhuarc's features, but the other chiefs' expressions ranged from Lan's sour disgust to Erim's clear, coldeyed readiness to dance spears there and then. Perhaps there was a way for Rand to rid himself of Weiramon and make a beginning on another of his worries at the same time.
With Rand's example, Lan and the chiefs began filling pipes.
“I see only small changes necessary,” Bael said, puffing his pipe alight, and sparking a glower from Han, as usual.
“Do these small changes concern the Goshien, or perhaps some other clan?”Putting Weiramon from his mind, Rand bent himself to listening as they worked out what had to be altered from their new view of the terrain. Now and again one of the Aiel would glance at Natael, a brief tightness to eyes or mouth suggesting that the mournful music plucked at something in him. Even the Tairens grimaced sadly. The sounds washed over Rand, though, touching nothing. Tears were a luxury he could no longer afford, not even inside.
Chapter 43
(Full Aes Sedai Symbol)
This Place, This Day
The next morning Rand was up and dressed well before first light. In truth, he had not slept, and it had not been Aviendha who kept him awake, not even after she began undressing before he could put out the lamps and channeled one alight again as soon as he did, chiding him that she was unable to see in the dark even if he could. He made no reply, and hours later, had hardly noticed when she rose, a good hour before he did, dressed and left. He did not even think to wonder where she was going.
The thoughts that had had him staring up into the blackness still ran hrough his head. Men would die today. A great many men, even if everything went perfectly. Nothing he did now would change it; today would run out according to the Pattern. But over and over he mulled the decisions he had made since he first entered the Waste. Could he have done something different, something that would have avoided this day, this place? Next time, perhaps. The tasseled length of spear lay atop his sword belt and scabbarded blade beside his blankets. There would be a next time, and one beyond that, and beyond again.
While darkness still held, the chiefs came in a bunch for a few final words, to report that their men were in position and ready. Not that anything else was expected. Stonefaced as they were, some emotion showed. An odd mix, though, a skim of ebullience over somberness.
Erim actually wore a slight smile. “A good day, to see the end of the Shaido,” he said finally. He seemed to be walking on his toes.
“The Light willing,” Bael said, his head brushing the roof of the tent, “we will wash the spears in Couladin's blood before sunfall.”
“Bad luck to talk of what will be,” Han muttered. The skim was very thin on him, of course. “Fate will decide.”
Rand nodded. “The Light send it does not decide on too many of our number dead.” He wished his concern were only that few men should die because men should not have their lives cut short, but there were many more days to come. He would need every spear to bring order to this side of the Dragonwall. That was a bone between him and Couladin every bit as much as the rest.