The Dragon Reborn - By Robert Jordan Page 0,286

above her left ear. They wore long, colorful silk dresses cut to bare their shoulders, and the glow of saidar surrounded them.

Liandrin smoothed her red dress and smiled with that pouting rosebud mouth. Her doll’s face was filled with amusement. “You see, do you not, wilder,” she began, “you have no—”

Nynaeve hit her in the mouth as hard as she could. Light, I have to get away. She backhanded Rianna so hard the black-haired woman fell on her silk-covered rump with a grunt. They must have the others, but if I can make it out the door, if I can get far enough away they can’t shield me, I can do something. She pushed Liandrin hard, shoving her away from the door. Just let me escape their shielding, and I’ll. . . .

Blows hit her from every side, like fists and sticks, pummeling her. Neither Liandrin, blood trickling from a corner of her now-grim mouth, nor Rianna, her hair as disarrayed as her green dress, lifted a hand. Nynaeve could feel the flows of Air weaving about her as well as she could feel the blows themselves. She still struggled to reach the door, but she realized that she was on her knees, now, and the unseen blows would not stop, invisible sticks and fists striking at her back and her stomach, her head and her hips, her shoulders, her breasts, her legs, her head. Groaning, she fell onto her side and curled into a ball, trying to protect herself. Oh, Light, I tried. Egwene! Elayne! I tried! I will not cry out! Burn you, you can beat me to death, but I won’t cry!

The blows stopped, but Nynaeve could not stop quivering. She felt bruised and battered from crown to toe.

Liandrin crouched beside her, arms around her knees, silk rustling against silk. She had wiped the blood away from her mouth. Her dark eyes were hard, and there was no amusement on her face now. “Perhaps you are too stupid to know when you are defeated, wilder. You fought almost as wildly as that other foolish girl, that Egwene. She almost went mad. You must all learn to submit. You will learn to submit.”

Nynaeve shivered and reached for saidar again. It was not that she had any real hope, but she had to do something. Forcing through her pain, she reached out . . . and struck that invisible shield. Liandrin did have amusement back in her eyes, now, the grim mirth of a nasty child who pulls the wings off flies.

“We have no use for this one, at least,” Rianna said, standing beside Ailhuin. “I will stop her heart.” Ailhuin’s eyes nearly came out of her head.

“No!” Liandrin’s short, honey-colored braids swung as her head snapped around. “Always you kill too quickly, and only the Great Lord can make use of the dead.” She smiled at the woman held to the chair by invisible bonds. “You saw the soldiers who came with us, old woman. You know who waits for us in the Stone. The High Lord Samon, he will not be pleased if you speak of what happened inside your house today. If you hold your tongue, you will live, perhaps to serve him again one day. If you speak, you will serve only the Great Lord of the Dark, from beyond the grave. Which do you choose?”

Suddenly Ailhuin could move her head. She shook her gray curls, working her mouth. “I. . . . I will hold my tongue,” she said dejectedly, then gave Nynaeve an embarrassed, shamed look. “If I speak, what good will it do? A High Lord could have my head by raising an eyebrow. What good can I do you, girl? What good?”

“It is all right,” Nynaeve said wearily. Who could she tell? All she could do is die. “I know you would help if you could.” Rianna threw back her head and laughed. Ailhuin slumped, released completely, but she only sat there, staring at her hands in her lap.

Between them, Liandrin and Rianna pulled Nynaeve to her feet and pushed her toward the front of the house. “You give us any trouble,” the black-haired woman said in a hard voice, “and I will make you peel off your own skin and dance in your bones.”

Nynaeve almost laughed. What trouble could I give? She was shielded from the True Source. Her bruises ached so much she could barely stand. Anything she might do, they could handle like a child’s tantrum. But my