“We need to get my people out of here,” Elayne said, forcing her mind to think through the cloud of fatigue. Her army needed a queen. “Mother’s milk in a cup! This is going to cost us.” She’d probably lose half her force withdrawing. Better half than all of them. “I’ll start bringing my men back in ranks. Can you make enough gateways to lead us to safety?”
“That wouldn’t be a problem,” Logain said absently, looking down the slope. His impassive face would have impressed any Warder. “But it will be a slaughter. There’s no room for a good retreat, and your lines will grow weaker and weaker as you pull back. The last ranks will be overwhelmed and consumed.”
“I don’t see that we have any other choice,” Elayne snapped, exhausted. Light! Here, help had come, and she was snapping. Stop it. She composed herself, sitting up straighter. “I mean to say that your arrival, while appreciated greatly, cannot turn a battle that is this far gone. A hundred Asha’man cannot stop a hundred thousand Trollocs on their own. If we could arrange our battle lines better, get at least a short rest for my men… but no. That is impossible. We must retreat—unless you can produce a miracle, Lord Logain.”
He smiled, perhaps at her use of “lord” for him. “Androl!” he barked.
A middle-aged Asha’man hurried over, a plump Aes Sedai joining him. Pevara? Elayne thought, too exhausted to make sense of it. A Red?
“My Lord?” the man, Androl, asked.
“I need to slow that army of Trollocs long enough for the army to regroup and refield itself, Androl,” Logain said. “How much will it cost us for a miracle?”
“Well, my Lord,” Androl said, rubbing his chin. “That depends. How many of those women sitting back there can channel?”
It was a thing of legends.
Elayne had heard of the great works performed by large circles of men and women. Every woman in the White Tower was taught of these feats from the past, stories of different days, better days. Days when one half of the One Power had not been a thing to fear, when two halves of one whole had worked together to create incredible wonders.
She wasn’t sure the days of legend had truly returned. Certainly, the Aes Sedai during those times hadn’t been so worried, so desperate. But what they did now left Elayne in awe.
She joined in the circle, making the total fourteen women and twelve men. She barely had any strength to lend, but her trickle added to the increasingly large stream. More importantly, a circle had to have at least one more woman than it had men—and now that she had joined, Logain could come in last of all and add his considerable strength to the flow.
At the head of this circle was Androl, an odd choice. Now that she was part of the circle, she could feel his relative strength. He was extremely weak, weaker than many women who were turned away from the Tower, refused the shawl because of their lack of innate talent.
Elayne and the others had relocated to the far side of the battlefield. The rest of the Asha’man held back the attacking Trolloc horde as Androl prepared. Whatever he did, it would need to be swift. Elayne still had trouble believing anything could be done. Even with this much power, even with thirteen men and fourteen women working together.
“Light,” Androl whispered, standing between her horse and Logain’s. “Is this what it feels like to be one of you people? How do you handle so much of the One Power? How do you keep it from consuming you alive, burning you away?”
Pevara rested her hand on his shoulder in a gesture that was unmistakably tender. Elayne could barely rub two thoughts together amid her fatigue, but she still found herself shocked. She had not expected affection from a Red for a man who could channel.
“Move the soldiers back,” Androl said softly.
Elayne gave the order, worried. The man beside her had never held this kind of power before. It could go to someone’s head; she had seen it happen. Light send that he knew what he was doing.
The soldiers and others retreated, passing by Elayne’s group. Several tired Ogier nodded to her in passing, their shoulders slumped, their arms scored with cuts. The Trollocs poured forward, but the Asha’man who weren’t in the circle disrupted their attack with weaves of the One Power.
It wasn’t enough. Though the Asha’man fought well, there were just so many Trollocs. The Asha’man could not stop this tide. What did Logain think could be done?
Androl smiled widely, and held his hands out in front of himself as if pressing against a wall. He closed his eyes. “Three thousand years ago the Lord Dragon created Dragonmount to hide his shame. His rage still burns hot. Today… I bring it to you, Your Majesty.”
A beam of light split the air, easily a hundred feet tall. Moonshadow shied back and Elayne frowned. Why a column of light? What good would that… The beam of light began to twist in the air, rotating upon itself. Only then did Elayne recognize it for the start of a gateway. An enormous gateway, large enough to swallow buildings. She could have moved an entire wing of the Caemlyn palace through that thing!
The air shimmered in front of them, the wa
y a gateway always looked from behind. She couldn’t see where the gateway was leading. Did they have an army waiting on the other side?
She could see the expressions on the slavering Trolloc faces as they looked into the opening. Absolute horror. They broke away, running, and Elayne felt a sudden heat, almost overpowering.
Something exploded out of the gateway, as if pushed by an incredible force. A column of lava a hundred feet in diameter, blazing hot. The column broke apart as the lava crashed down, splashing to the battlefield, gushing forward in a river. The Asha’man outside the circle used weaves of Air to keep it from splashing back on the circle and to shepherd it in the right direction.
The river of fire washed through the foremost Trolloc ranks, consuming them, destroying hundreds in an eyeblink. The lava was under pressure on the other side; that was the only way she could explain the force with which it sprayed from the enormous gateway, turning Trollocs into cinders, burning a large swath through their army.
Androl held the gateway for long minutes as the Shadow’s army pulled back. Asha’man to the sides used gusts of wind to blow the Shadowspawn back into the ever-widening river. By the time Androl finished, he had created a barrier of red-hot death between Elayne’s army and the bulk of the Trollocs, whose backs were against the northern walls of Cairhien.
Androl took a breath, closed the gateway, then pivoted and made two others in quick succession, one pointing southeast, the other southwest.
A second and third column of lava spurted forth—smaller this time, as Androl was obviously weakened. These went tumbling over the land to the east and west of Cairhien, singeing away dead weeds and casting smoke into the air. Some of the Trolloc army had pulled back, but many others had perished, boxed in, with the walled city on one side and lava on others. It would be some time before the Fades could organize the survivors to resume their attacks on Elayne’s forces.