The Gathering Storm - Robert Jordan

"Prepare yourselves and your armies," al'Thor said to those who remained, voice echoing in the room behind. "I intend to be gone by week's end."

Cadsuane raised a hand to her head and leaned against the hallway wall outside, heart thumping, hand sweating. Before, she had been working against a stubborn but good-hearted boy. Someone had taken that child and replaced him with this man, a man more dangerous than any she had ever met. Day by day, he was slipping away from them.

And at the moment, she hadn't a blasted clue what to do about it.

CHAPTER 24

A New Commitment

Exhausted from two days of riding, Gawyn sat atop Challenge on a low hill southwest of Tar Valon. This countryside should have been green with spring's arrival, but the hillside before him bore only scraggly dead weeds, slain by the winter snows. Tufts of yew and blackwood poked up here and there, breaking the brown landscape. He counted more than a few stands that were now populated only by stumps. A war camp devoured trees like hungry woodgnarls, using them for arrows, fires, buildings and siege equipment.

Gawyn yawned—he'd pushed hard through the night. Bryne's war camp was well dug in here, and was a bustle of motion and activity. An army this large spawned organized chaos at best. A small band of mounted cavalry could travel light, as Gawyn's Younglings had; a force like that could grow to several thousand and remain lean. Expert horsemen, like the Saldaeans, were said to manage larger bands of seven or eight thousand while keeping their mobility.

But a force like the one below was a different beast entirely. It was an enormous, sprawling thing, in the shape of an enormous bubble with a smaller camp at its center; that probably held the Aes Sedai. Bryne also had forces occupying all of the bridge towns on both sides of the River Erinin, effectively cutting off the island from ground supply.

The army squatted near Tar Valon like a spider eyeing a butterfly hovering just outside of its web. Lines of troops rode in and out patrolling, purchasing food, running messages. Do2ens upon dozens of squads, some mounted, others walking. Like bees leaving the hive while others swarmed back in. The eastern side of the main camp was crowded with a mishmash of shanties and tents, the normal riffraff of camp followers that collected around an army. Near by, just inside the main war-camp boundary, a wooden palisade—perhaps fifty yards across—rose in a tall ring. Probably a command post.

Gawyn knew he had been seen by Bryne's scouts as he approached, yet none had stopped him. They probably wouldn't unless he tried to ride away. A single man—wearing a decent gray cloak and trousers, with a lacing shirt of white—wasn't of much interest. He could be a sell-sword, coming to ask for a place in the ranks. He could be a messenger from a local lord, sent to complain about a group of scouts. He could even be a member of the army. While many of those in Bryne's force wore uniforms, many others just wore a simple yellow band on their coatsleeves, not yet able to pay for proper insignia to be sewn on.

No, a single man approaching the army was not a danger. A single man riding away from it, however, was cause for alarm. A man coming to the camp could be friend, foe or neither. A man who inspected the camp then rode away was almost certainly a spy. So long as Gawyn didn't leave before making his intentions known, Bryne's outriders would be unlikely to bother him.

Light, but he could use a bed. He'd spent a restless two nights, sleeping only a couple of hours during each one, wrapped in his cloak. He felt irritable and cranky, partially just at himself for refusing to go to an inn, lest he be chased by the Younglings. He blinked bleary eyes, and spurred Challenge down the incline. He was committed now.

No. He'd been committed the moment he'd left Sleete behind in Dorian. By now, the Younglings knew of their leader's betrayal. Sleete wouldn't allow them to waste time searching. He'd tell them what he knew. Gawyn wished he could convince himself that they'd be surprised, but he'd received more than one frown or look of confusion regarding the way he spoke of Elaida and the Aes Sedai.

The White Tower didn't deserve his allegiance, but the Younglings— he could never go back to them, now. It itched at him; this was the first time his wavering had been revealed to a large group. Nobody knew that he'd helped Siuan escape, nor was it widespread knowledge that he'd dallied with Egwene.

Yet leaving had been the right thing to do. For the first time in months, his actions matched his heart. Saving Egwene. That was something he could believe in.

He approached the outskirts of camp, keeping his face impassive. He hated the idea of working with the rebel Aes Sedai almost as much as he had hated abandoning his men. These rebels were no better than Elaida. They were the ones who had propped Egwene up as an Amyrlin, as a target. Egwene! A mere Accepted. A pawn. If they failed in their bid for the Tower, they themselves might be able to escape punishment. Egwene would be executed.

77/ get in, Gawyn thought. /'// save her somehow. Then I'll talk some sense into her and bring her away from all of the Aes Sedai. Perhaps even talk sense into Bryne. We can all get back to Andor, to help Elayne.

He rode forward with renewed determination, banishing some of his exhaustion. To reach the command post, he had to ride through the camp followers, who outnumbered the actual troops. Cooks to fix the food. Women to serve the food and wash the soiled dishes. Wagon drivers to carry the food. Wheelwrights to fix the wagons that carried the food. Blacksmiths to make horseshoes for the horses that pulled the wagons that carried the food. Merchants to buy the food, and quartermasters to organize it. Less reputable merchants who sought to profit off of the soldiers and their battle pay, and women who sought to do the same. Boys to run messages, hoping to someday carry a sword themselves.

It was a complete mess. A half-shanty conglomeration of tents and shacks, each of a different hue, design and state of disrepair. Even a capable general like Bryne could impose only so much order on camp followers. His men would keep the peace, more or less, but they couldn't force followers to keep military discipline.

Gawyn passed through the middle of it all, ignoring those who called to him offering to shine his sword or sell him a sweetbun. The prices would be low—this was a place that fed off of soldiers—but with his war-horse and finer clothing, he'd be marked as an officer. If he bought from one, the others would smell coin, and he could end up surrounded by all who hoped to sell to him.

He ignored the calls, eyes forward, toward the army itself ahead. Its tents were generally organized in neat rows, grouped by squad and banner, though sometimes in smaller clusters. Gawyn could have guessed the layout without seeing it. Bryne liked organization, but also believed

strongly in delegation. Bryne would allow officers to run their camps as they wished, and that led to a setup that was less uniform, yet was far better at running itself.

He headed directly for the palisade. The camp followers around him weren't easy to ignore, however. Their calls to him lingered in the air, together with the scents of cooking, privies, horses and cheap perfume. The camp wasn't as crowded as a city, but it also wasn't as well maintained. Sweat mixed with burning cook fires mixed with stagnant water mixed with unwashed bodies. It made him want to hold a handkerchief to his face, though he refrained. It would make him look like a spoiled noble, turning his nose up at the common people.

The stink, the confusion and the yells didn't help his mood any. He had to grit his teeth to keep himself from cursing at each hawker. A figure stumbled onto the pathway in front of him—he reined in. The woman wore a brown skirt and a white blouse, her hands grimy. "Out of the way," Gawyn snapped. His mother would have been outraged to hear him speaking with such anger. Well, his mother was dead now, by al'Thor's hand.

The woman in front of him looked up and ran back out of the pathway. She had light hair tied in a yellow kerchief and a faintly plump body. Gawyn caught just a glimpse of her face as she turned.

Gawyn froze. That was an Aes Sedai face! It was unmistakable. He sat, shocked, as the woman pulled her kerchief down and hurried away.

"Wait!" he called, turning his horse. But the woman did not stop. He hesitated, lowering his arm as he saw the woman join a line of washwomen working between several wooden troughs a short distance away. If she was pretending to be a common woman, then she likely had her own blasted Aes Sedai reasons, and she wouldn't appreciate him exposing her. Very well. Gawyn forced down his annoyance. Egwene. He had to focus on Egwene.

When he reached the command palisade, the air improved measurably. A quartet of soldiers stood on guard, halberds held at their sides, steel caps gleaming and matched by breastplates emblazoned with Bryne's three stars. A banner bearing the flame of Tar Valon flapped beside the gateway.

"Recruit?" asked one of the soldiers as Gawyn rode up. The heavyset man bore a red stripe on his left shoulder, marking him as a watch sergeant. He carried a sword instead of a halberd. His breastplate barely fithis girth, and his chin bristled with red hairs. "You'll have to meet with Captain Aldan," the man said with a grunt. "Big blue tent about a quarter of the way around the outside of the camp. You've got your own horse and sword; that'll get you good pay." The man pointed toward a distant point in the main body of the army, outside the palisade. That wouldn't do. He could see Bryne's banner flying inside.

"I'm not a recruit," Gawyn said, turning Challenge to get a better look at the men. "My name is Gawyn Trakand. I need to speak with Gareth Bryne immediately about a matter of some urgency."

The soldier raised an eyebrow. Then he chuckled to himself.

"You don't believe me," Gawyn said flatly.

"You should go speak to Captain Aldan," the man said lazily, pointing toward the distant tent again.

Gawyn took a calming breath, trying to force down his irritation. "If you'd just send for Bryne, you'd find that—"

"Are you going to be trouble?" the soldier asked, puffing himself up. The other men readied their halberds.

"No trouble," Gawyn said evenly. "I just need—"

"If you're going to be in our camp," the soldier interrupted, stepping forward, "you're going to have to learn how to do what you're told."

Gawyn met the man's eyes. "Very well. We can do it this way. It will probably be faster anyway."

The sergeant laid a hand on his sword.

Gawyn kicked his feet free of the stirrups and pushed himself out of the saddle. It would be too hard to keep from killing the man from horseback. He slid his blade free as his feet hit the muddy ground, the sheath rasping like an inhaled breath. Gawyn fell into Oak Shakes Its Branches, a form that wielded nonlethal blows, often used by masters for training their students. It was also very effective against a large group all using different weapons.

Before the sergeant had his sword free, Gawyn slammed into him, ramming an elbow into his gut just beneath the poorly fitting breastplate. The man grunted and bent, then Gawyn knocked him on the side of the head with the hilt of his sword—the man should have known better than to wear his cap askew like that. Then Gawyn fell into Parting the Silk to deal with the first halberdier. As another of the men screamed for help, Gawyn's blade slashed across the first halberdier's breastplate with a ringing sound, forcing the man back. Gawyn finished by sweeping the man's feet from under him, then fell into Twisting the Wind to block a pair of blows from the other two men.