Page 169 of A Memory of Light (The Wheel of Time 14)

“You didn’t seem ready to move.”

“I was just about to jump. I was almost there.”

“I’m certain,” Bryne said.

“It’s your fault,” Siuan insisted. “I tumbled. I hadn’t intended to tumble. And Yukiri’s weave… horrible thing.”

“It worked,” Bryne said. “I doubt many people can claim to have fallen three hundred paces and survived.”

“She was too eager,” Siuan said. “She was probably longing to make us jump, you know. All that talk about Traveling and weaves of movement…” She trailed off, partly because she was annoyed at herself. This day had gone poorly enough without her griping at Bryne. “How many did we lose?” Not a much better topic, but she needed to know. “Do we have reports yet?”

“Nearly one in two of the soldiers,” Bryne said softly.

Worse than she’d suspected. “And the Aes Sedai?”

“We have somewhere around two hundred and fifty left,” Bryne said. “Though a number of those are in shock at having lost Warders.”

That was more of a disaster. A hundred and twenty Aes Sedai dead in a matter of hours? The White Tower would require a very long time to recover from that.

“I’m sorry, Siuan,” Bryne said.

“Bah,” Siuan said, “most of them treated me like fish guts anyway. They resented me as Amyrlin, laughed when I was cast down, and then made a servant of me when I returned.”

Bryne nodded, still rubbing her shoulder. He could feel that she was hurt, despite her words. There were good women among the dead. Many good sisters.

“She’s out there,” Siuan said stubbornly. “Egwene will surprise us, Bryne. You watch.”

“If I’m watching, it won’t be much of a surprise, will it?”

Siuan grunted. “Fool man.”

“You’re right,” he said solemnly. “On both counts. I think Egwene will surprise us. I’m also a fool.”

“Bryne…”

“I am, Siuan. How could I miss that they were stalling? They wanted to occupy us until this other force could gather. The Trollocs pulled back into those hills. A defensive move. Trollocs aren’t defensive. I assumed they were trying to set up an ambush only, and that was why they were pulling back corpses and preparing to wait. If I’d attacked them earlier, this could have been avoided. I was too careful.”

“A man who thinks all day about the catch he missed because of stormy weather ends up wasting time when the

sky is clear.”

“A clever proverb, Siuan,” he said. “But there’s a saying among generals, written by Fogh the Tireless. ‘If you do not learn from your losses, you will be ruled by them.’ I can’t see how I let this happen. I’ve trained better than this, prepared better than this! It’s not just a mistake I can ignore, Siuan. The Pattern itself is at stake.”

He rubbed his forehead. In the dim light of the setting sun, he looked older, his face wrinkled, his hands frail. It was as if this battle had stolen decades from him. He sighed, hunching forward.

Siuan found herself at a loss for words.

They sat in silence.

Lyrelle waited outside the gates to the so-called Black Tower. It took every ounce of her training not to let her frustration show.

This entire expedition had been a disaster from the start. First, the Black Tower had refused them entry until the Reds had done their business, and that had been followed by the trouble with gateways. That had been followed by three bubbles of evil, two attempts by Darkfriends to murder the lot of them and the warning from the Amyrlin that the Black Tower had joined the Shadow to fight.

Lyrelle had sent most of her women to fight alongside Lan Mandragoran at the Amyrlin’s insistence. She’d remained behind with a few sisters to watch the Black Tower. And now… now this. What to make of it?

“I can assure you,” the young Asha’man said, “the danger has passed. We drove off the M’Hael and the others who turned to the Shadow. The rest of us walk in the Light.”

Lyrelle turned to her companions. A representative from each Ajah, along with backup—sent for desperately this morning when the Asha’man had first approached her—in the form of thirty other sisters. They accepted Lyrelle’s leadership here, if only reluctantly.