For a moment, it seemed Mat fought the shadows themselves—shadows made by sputtering firelight, random and uncoordinated, yet all the more deadly for his inability to anticipate them. He narrowly escaped getting his skull crushed by attacks that made no sense. During the day, those attacks would have been laughable, but from this darkened pack of men—and women—who didn’t care what they hit or who they hurt, the attacks were overwhelming. Mat found himself fighting just to stay alive, spinning his
A shadow moved just a short distance away, and Mat instantly recognized a sword-form. Rat Gnawing the Grain? A villager wouldn’t know that. Good man!
Mat spun toward that shadow, slashing two other shadows across the chest, earning grunts and howls of pain. Delarn’s figure fell beneath a pile of several others, and Mat bellowed in denial, leaping across a fallen body and landing with his spear descending in a broad sweep. Shadows bled where he struck, the blood just another patch of darkness, and Mat used the butt of his weapon to beat back another. He reached down, pulling one of the shadows to its feet, and heard a muttered curse. It was Delarn.
“Come on,” Mat said, pulling the man toward Pips, who stood firm, snorting, in the darkness. The attacking men seemed to ignore animals, which was fortunate. Mat shoved the stumbling Delarn toward the horse, then turned and engaged the pack he’d known would chase after him. Again, Mat danced with the darkness, striking again and again, trying to disengage so that he could climb into the saddle. He risked a glance over his shoulder, and found that Delarn had managed to get onto Pips’ back—but the soldier sat slumped, a huddled mound. How badly was he wounded? He barely seemed able to keep himself upright. Blood and bloody ashes!
Mat turned back to the attackers, spinning his spear, trying to force them back. But they didn’t care about being wounded, they didn’t care how dangerous Mat was. They just kept coming! Surrounding him. Coming at him from every side. Bloody ashes! He twisted just in time to see a dark shape rush him from behind.
Something flashed in the night, reflecting some very distant light.
The dark figure behind Mat slumped to the ground. Another flash, and one of the ones in front of Mat fell. Suddenly, a figure on a white horse rushed past, and another knife flashed in the air, dropping a third man.
“Thom!” Mat called, recognizing the cloak.
“Get on your horse!” Thom’s voice called back. “I’m running out of knives!”
Mat swept out with his spear, dropping two more villagers, then dashed forward and leaped into his saddle, trusting Thom to cover his retreat. Indeed, he heard a few cries of pain from behind. A moment later, a thundering sound on the road announced the imminent approach of horses. Mat pulled himself into his saddle as the creatures tore through the black morass, scattering the villagers.
“Mat, you fool!” Talmanes shouted from one of the horses, barely visible as a silhouette against the night.
Mat smiled gratefully at Talmanes, turning Pips, and caught Delarn as the man almost slid free. The Redarm was alive, for he struggled weakly, but there was a slick wet patch at his side. Mat held the man in front of him, ignoring the reins in the darkness and controlling Pips with a quick twist of the knees. He didn’t know horseback battle commands himself, but those blasted memories did, and so he’d trained Pips to obey.
Thom galloped past, and Mat turned Pips to follow, steadying Delarn with one hand and carrying his spear in the other. Talmanes and Harnan rode to either side of him, charging down the corridor of madness toward the inn at the end.
“Come on, man,” Mat whispered to Delarn. “Hang on. The Aes Sedai are just ahead. They’ll fix you up.”
Delarn whispered something back.
Mat leaned forward. “What was that?”
“. . . and toss the dice until we fly,” Delarn whispered. “To dance with Jak o’ the Shadows. . . .”
“Great,” Mat muttered. There were lights ahead, and he could see they were coming from the inn. Perhaps they’d find one place in this flaming village where the people’s brains hadn’t turned inside out.
But no. Those bursts of light were familiar. Balls of fire, flashing in the upper-story windows of the inn.
“Well,” Talmanes noted from his left, “looks like the Aes Sedai still live. That’s something, at least.”
Figures clustered around the front of the inn, fighting in the darkness, their forms periodically lit from above by the flashes in the windows.
“Round to the back,” Thom suggested.
