The gray-haired Green had taken charge, clearly, and she kept it despite
attempted protests from Darlin, who like many Tairens seemed not to relish Aes Sedai a great deal, and Toram, who just seemed to dislike anyone giving orders but himself. For that matter, so did Caraline, but Cadsuane ignored her frowns as completely as she did the men’s voiced complaints. Unlike them, Caraline appeared to realize complaints would do no good. Wonder of wonders, Rand meekly let himself be placed to Cadsuane’s right as she quickly arranged everyone. Well, not exactly meekly — he stared down his nose at her in a way that would have made Min slap him if he did it to her; Cadsuane just shook her head and muttered something that reddened his face — but at least he kept his mouth shut. Right then, Min almost thought he would announce who he was. And maybe expect the fog to vanish in fear of the Dragon Reborn. He smiled at her as though fog in this weather was nothing, even a fog that snatched tents and people.
They moved into the thick mist in a formation like a six-pointed star, Cadsuane herself in the lead, an Aes Sedai at each of two other points, a man with a sword at three. Toram, of course, protested loudly at bringing up the rear until Cadsuane mentioned the honor of the rear guard or some such. That quieted him down. Min had no objection whatsoever to her own position with Caraline in the center of the star. She carried a knife in either hand, and wondered whether they would be any use. It was something of a relief to see the dagger in Caraline’s fist tremble. At least her own hands were steady. Then again, she thought she might be too frightened to shake.
The fog was cold as winter. Grayness closed around them in swirls, so heavy it was difficult to see the others clearly. Hearing was all too easy, though. Shrieks drifted through the murk, men and women crying out, horses screaming. The fog seemed to deaden sound, make it hollow, so that thankfully, those awful sounds seemed distant. The mist ahead began to thicken, but fireballs immediately shot from Cadsuane’s hands, sizzling through the icy gray, and the thickening erupted in one roaring flare of flame. Roars behind, light flashing against the fog like lightning against clouds, spoke of the other two sisters at work. Min had no desire to look back. What she could see was more than enough.
Past trampled tents half obscured by gray haze they moved, past bodies and sometimes parts of bodies not nearly obscured enough. A leg. An arm. A man who was not there from the waist down. Once a woman’s head that seemed to grin from where it sat on the corner of an overturned wagon. The land began to slope upward, steeper. Min saw her first living soul besides them, and wished she had not. A man wearing one of the red coats staggered toward them, waving his left arm feebly. The other was gone, and wet white bone showed where half his face had been. Something that might have been words bubbled though his teeth; and he collapsed. Samitsu knelt briefly beside him, putting her fingers against the bloody ruin of his forehead. Rising, she shook her head, and they moved on. Upslope, and up, until Min began wondering whether they were climbing a mountain instead of a hill.
Right in front of Darlin, the fog suddenly began to take on form, a man-high shape, but all tentacles and gaping mouths full of sharp teeth. The High Lord might have been no blademaster, but he was not slow either. His blade sliced through the middle of the still-coalescing shape, looped and slashed it top to bottom. Four clouds of fog, thicker than the surrounding mist, settled to the ground. “Well,” he said, “at least we know steel can cut these . . . creatures.”
The thicker chunks of fog oozed together, began to rise once more.
Cadsuane stretched out a hand, droplets of fire falling from her fingertips; one bright flash of flame seared the solidifying fog from existence. “But no more than cut, so it seems,” she murmured.
Ahead to their right, a woman suddenly appeared in the swirling gray, silk skirts held high as she half ran, half fell down the slope toward them. “Thank the Light!” she screamed. “Thank the Light! I thought I was alone!” Right behind her the fog drew together, a nightmare all teeth and claws, looming above her. Had it been a man, Min was sure Rand would have waited.
His hand rose before Cadsuane could move, and a bar of . . . something . . . liquid white fire brighter than the sun . . . shot out over the running woman’s head. The creature simply vanished. For a moment there was clear air where it had been, and along the line that the bar had burned, until the fog began closing in. A moment while the woman froze where she stood. Then, shrieking at the top of her lungs, she turned and ran from them, still downslope, fleeing what she feared more than nightmares in these mists.
“You!” Toram roared, so loudly that Min spun to face him with her knives raised. He stood pointing his sword at Rand. “You are him! I was right! This is your work! You will not trap me, al’Thor!” Suddenly he broke away at an angle, scrambling wildly up the slope. “You will not trap me!”
“Come back!” Darlin shouted after him. “We must stick together! We must . . . ” He trailed off, staring at Rand. “You are him. The Light burn me, you are!” He half-moved as if to place himself between Rand and Caraline, but at least he did not run.
Calmly, Cadsuane picked her way across the slope to Rand. And slapped his face so hard his head jerked. Min’s breath caught in shock. “You will not do that again,” Cadsuane said. There was no heat in her voice, just iron. “Do you hear me? Not balefire. Not ever.”
Surprisingly, Rand only rubbed his cheek. “You were wrong, Cadsuane. He’s real. I’m certain of it. I know he is.” Even more surprisingly, he sounded as if he very much wanted her to believe.
Min’s heart went out to him. He had mentioned hearing voices; he must mean that. She raised her right hand toward him, forgetting for the moment that it held a knife, and opened her mouth to say something comforting. Though she was not entirely sure she would ever be able to use that particular word innocuously again. She opened her mouth — and Padan Fain seemed to leap out of the mists behind Rand, steel gleaming in his fist.
“Behind you!” Min screamed, pointing with the knife in her outstretched right hand as she threw the one in her left. Everything seemed to happen at once, half-seen in wintery fog.
Rand began to turn; twisting aside, and Fain also twisted, to lunge for him. For that twist, her knife missed, but Fain’s dagger scored along Rand’s left side. It hardly seemed to more than slice his coat, yet he screamed. He screamed, a sound to make Min’s heart clench, and clutching his side, he fell against Cadsuane, catching at her to hold himself up, pulling both of them down.
“Move out of my way!” one of the other sisters shouted — Samitsu, Min thought — and suddenly, Min’s feet jerked out from under her. She landed heavily, grunting as she hit the slope together with Caraline, who snapped a breathless, “Blood and fire!”
Everything at once.
“Move!” Samitsu shouted again, as Darlin lunged for Fain with his sword. The bony man moved with shocking speed, throwing himself down and rolling beyond Darlin’s reach. Strangely, he cackled with laughter as he scampered to his feet and ran off, swallowed in the murk almost immediately.
Min pushed herself up shaking.
Caraline was much more vigorous. “I will tell you now, Aes Sedai,” she said in a cold voice, brushing at her skirts violently, “I will not be treated so. I am Caraline Damodred, High Seat of House . . . ”
Min stopped listening. Cadsuane was sitting on the slope above, holding Rand’s head in her lap. It had only been a cut. Pain’s dagger could not have more than touched . . . With a cry, Min threw herself forward. Aes Sedai or no, she pushed the woman away from Rand and cradled his head in her arms. His eyes were closed, his breathing ragged. His face felt hot.
“Help him!” she screamed at Cadsuane, like an echo of the distant screams in the mist. “Help him!” A part of her said that did not make much sense after pushing her away, but his face seemed to burn her hands, to burn sense.
“Samitsu, quickly,” Cadsuane said, standing and rearranging her shawl. “He’s beyond my Talent for Healing.” She laid a hand on the top of Min’s head. “Girl, I will hardly let the boy die when I haven’t taught him manners, yet. Stop crying, now.”
It was very strange. Min was fairly sure the woman had done nothing to her with the Power, yet she believed. Teach him manners? A fine tussle that would be. Unfolding her arms from around his head, not without reluctance, Min backed away on her knees. Very strange. She had not even realized that she was crying, yet Cadsuane’s reassurance was enough to stop the flow of tears. Sniffing, she scrubbed at her cheeks with the heel of her hand as Samitsu knelt beside him, placing fingertips on his forehead. Min wondered why she did not take his head in both hands, the way Moiraine did.
Abruptly Rand convulsed, gasping and thrashing so hard that a flailing arm knocked the Yellow over on her back. As soon as her fingers left him, he subsided. Min crawled nearer. He breathed more easily, but his eyes were still closed. She touched his cheek. Cooler than it had been, but still too warm. And pale.
“Something is amiss,” Samitsu said peevishly as she sat up. Pulling Rand’s coat aside, she gripped the slice in his bloodstained shirt and ripped a wide gap in the linen.
The cut from Fain’s dagger, no longer than her hand and not deep, ran right across the old round scar. Even in the dim light, Min could see that the edges of the gash looked swollen and angry, as if the wound had gone untended for days. It was no longer bleeding, but it should have been gone. That was what Healing did: wounds knitted themselves up right before your eyes.
“This,” Samitsu said in a lecturing tone, lightly touching the scar, “seems like a cyst, but full of evil instead of pus. And this . . . ” She drew the finger down the gash. “ . . . seems full of a different evil.” Suddenly she frowned at the Green standing over her, and her voice became sullen and defensive. “If I had the words, Cadsuane, I would use them. I have never seen the like. Never. But I will tell you this. I think if I had been one moment slower, perhaps if you had not tried first, he would be dead now. As it is . . . ” With a sigh, the Yellow sister seemed to deflate, her face sagging. “As it is, I believe he will die.”