Chapter 9 - The Battle of Tarwin's Gap

  As the trollocs ran, others along the line turned to flee too until the Shienarans were once again left disengaged from the fight, too disciplined to wildly pursue the running trollocs.

  Shouted commands and horn blasts rang out from the Shienaran army and the soldiers around her started to make their way back to their starting positions. They suddenly seemed to be in much better spirits, joking and boasting with each other.

  As the Shienaran lines reformed in front of her, Taija was pleased to note that there were almost no human bodies near her after the devastation she'd wrought on the shadowspawn. Even her grim-faced escorts, who were urging her back with the rest of the Shienarans suddenly seemed to be torn between stunned surprise and almost obsequious fawning.

  Back in place behind the reformed Shienarans, Taija looked over to the trollocs once more. The horde looked barely diminished, despite being quickly beaten back the first time. How many more attacks could she and the Shienarans survive?

  Perhaps something to soften them up and remind them that just because they were out of bow range it didn't mean they were safe… She spun saidar and lightning struck into the trolloc lines each bolt throwing broken corpses into the air.

  =====

  The next few hours were a bloody grind as attack after attack hit the Shienaran lines. Wherever Taija went, the Shadow's forces melted back. For them she was death incarnate. Any shadowspawn that tried to stand and fight died and when she couldn't find leaders to target she simply killed trollocs indiscriminately.

  However, the trolloc army seemed to be endless. Piles of dead shadowspawn formed walls between the armies, too many to count, but the Shienarans died too and gradually the forces of the Light were being pushed back. Step by grim step, each trolloc attack was faced by fewer human soldiers, a little bit closer to the open ground behind Tarwin's Gap.

  As the fighting raged Taija caught occasional glimpses of Lord Agelmar battling wherever the struggle was fiercest. Rallying his troops and urging them on through their exhaustion. When he saw Taija he threw her a salute before cutting down a trolloc.

  Taija was growing increasingly tired as the day went on. Even pacing herself and being careful not to channel to her full potential, fighting for hours on end was exhausting. There were occasional pauses in the battle, when she could sit on the ground, ignoring the blood and churned up mud and take grateful gulps of lukewarm water from a Shienaran's flask, but nevertheless it was grueling, almost constant combat. As the latest attack rolled towards her, a twisted wall of trollocs and myrddraal screaming for blood, she wasn't sure how much longer she could keep going.

  This time it felt like the Shadow's forces had decided to target Taija specifically. She drew harder on the Power, embracing an ever deepening river of saidar, this wasn't a time to hold back. Spinning deadly webs, faster than the eye could see, she killed shadowspawn in ever greater numbers. Despite the howling fanaticism of the monsters Taija was keeping an open space in front of her for at least fifty metres and where any shadowspawn came too close it simply died.

  However, Taija was so focused on the Shadow's forces in front her, a growing mountain of corpses was evidence of their determination to reach her, that she didn't see them pressing back the Shienaran lines on either side of her. She barely noticed Lord Agelmar riding up to support the men on her left, screaming curses and imprecations to hold the line.

  As howling monsters died under her webs, Taija didn't realise she'd ended up surrounded by a closing ring of shadowspawn. Not until Aleksi shoved her hard to one side with a curse, a myddraal's black blade swiping from behind her through the air where she had been standing before lashing back, viper-fast and narrowly missing Aleksi when he jumped back.

  Taija fell hard into the the dirt. Fuck. She only kept hold of saidar through years of practice. Her composure gone she actually made a panicked gesture to direct the web of water and spirit that left the myrddraal collapsing bonelessly to the ground.

  Looking up and finally taking stock of her wider surroundings, Taija realised that a ring of armoured men, including Lord Agelmar encircled her, desperately fighting off the seemingly endless shadowspawn that now separated them from the remainder of the Shienaran forces.

  Taija took a moment to push herself back onto her feet. Aleksi was much bigger than her and being thrown to the ground like that had hurt! Still, nothing seemed to be broken.

  If she and Lord Agelmar died here then the battle was over. She needed to punch her way out of this encirclement right now. Taija clenched her fists at her side, clutching her dress, and drew deeper on saidar, feeling the little spikes of sweet, ecstatic pain that told her when she was drawing right at her limit.

  Fire, spirit and air created potential difference between the clear sky and the trollocs and myrddraal all around them. A second later lightning stabbed down, tens of bolts exploding among the enemy, sending monstrous, broken bodies flying into the air.

  A myrddraal killed its way through the line of Shienarans, sword flickering lightning fast and evading every counter stroke before sprinting towards her. With an absent thought, fire erupted from every pore in its body.

  She had to be careful not to kill Shienarans too. Taija guided her flows into webs further back among the press of trollocs, splitting them four ways, forming every element into intricate webs that suddenly blossomed into beautiful, swirling balls of white hot fire, each one annihilating everything within 50 metres.

  The pressure on the Shienaran lines suddenly fell away as the trollocs fighting them realised that much of their support had just disappeared, but they still fought.

  Out of the corner of her eye Taija saw Aleksi loose his bow and a second later a draghkar fell out of the sky. She looked up to see more diving on her. Aleksi's bow claimed another. The other five crumpled in mid-flight as she crushed them in fists of air.

  Taija briefly staggered before regaining control of herself and turning her attention back to the shadowspawn pressing at the Shienarans. She knew she was reaching her limits, pushing past what was safe. It didn't matter.

  She lashed out, simple webs of air and fire spearing trollocs and myrddraal through the head. Small and precise wherever she saw an enemy. She channeled hard, dividing her flows first five ways, then ten, ignoring the growing, stabbing pain in her head.

  Then suddenly the cacophony of combat was gone, replaced by blissful quiet as the last trolloc died. Taija's vision wavered for a second and she couldn't stop herself from falling to one knee, painting for breath as exhaustion truly hit. Reluctantly she let go of saidar before she lost control of it and burnt herself out or worse.

  Aleksi was immediately by her side, helping her stand, but as the battered Shienaran lines reformed, Taija could easily see that despite the mounds of corpses between the armies the trolloc horde still hugely outnumbered them. She wasn't sure she or the Shienarans could take one more charge and she certainly wouldn't be able to take two. The rest of the army knew it too. She could feel a sense of defeat, a grim determination to sell their lives dearly settling over them.

  The sensible thing to do would be to Travel somewhere else, anywhere else, but Taija wasn't willing to leave the Shienarans to their fate. Anyway, she wasn't sure she had it in her to Travel by that point, even if she wanted to. Thinking she could turn the tide of the entire battle single-handed had been stupid. Ridiculous hubris.

  She could see the Shadow's forces forming up for another charge, horns blaring and trollocs roaring and shrieking when something changed. First she heard the rumble of thunder and when she looked up there were six small shapes plummeting from the sky trailing smoke. Then a wall of fire descended on the army of the Shadow a gigantic burning wave obliterating anything it passed over.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Had the mysterious other Aes Sedai finally decided to intervene? Taija quickly dismissed the thought when she realised with a start that she couldn't feel the mystery channeler's flows. Aleksi had been clear that here only women were Aes Sedai, stupid as that was.

  Someone out there was channeling saidin. In fact someone was channeling a ridiculous amount of sadin. Even someone of Lews Therin's strength would need an angreal or maybe a sa'angreal to do this. Frantically Taija tried to find them, eyes scanning the mountainsides closer to the shadowspawn, trying to ignore the blazing flames until she spotted a small figure up above the battlefield.

  She drew on the Power, ignoring the strain she felt at even relatively light channeling. As the ground started to rumble under her feet she was forming the air in front of her into a lens, zooming in on the figure.

  It was very quickly obvious that she'd been right about it being saidin. A young, red headed man knelt there, seeming to be in pain, beating the ground with first. Was he burning out? Taija was vaguely aware of a huge wall of rock, no a wave, rolling over the Shadow's army and obliterating what was left of it. Seconds later the figure vanished in a flash of light and Taija allowed her web of air to dissolve.

  Around her soldiers started to cheer as they got over their disbelief. "Victory! For the Light! For Lord Agelmar! For Shienar! Glory to the aes sedai!"

  Lord Agelmar rode up to Taija and bowed low in the saddle, his previous doubts apparently forgotten. "Honour to you Taija Sedai, you have saved us today. Such power…" He stared out towards where the trolloc army once stood.

  Taija gave him a small bow of her own. "The honour is mind Lord Agelmar, but that… I didn't do that. I'm not that powerful, no one is…"

  He frowned slightly and Taija got the impression that hadn't been the answer he wanted. "Well you have certainly allowed us to survive long enough for this miracle to happen, even if it was not you that brought it." He looked over the battlefield at the mounds of dead shadowspawn. "You must come back with me to Fal Dara so that you can rest and be honoured as you deserve aes sedai."

  Taija was too tired to argue, even if the last thing she wanted was to be back on a horse. Anyway, it wasn't like there was anywhere else for her to go.

  =====

  Lord Agelmar sat in his study reviewing reports from the battle. All things considered the butcher's bill had been incredibly light. Peace! He had not expected any of them to survive the battle.

  Much of that he attributed to the conundrum he was hosting. Taija Sedai. He did not hesitate to use the honorific now. While he still had his doubts, the rest of the Shienarans did not and she had more than proven herself.

  He was no expert on the Aes Sedai, but he was an educated man and had played host to many of them before. Taija Sedai lacked the ageless face and did not wear the Great Serpent ring. That was not definitive of course, very new Aes Sedai did lack the agelessness and a ring could be taken off. Based on what she had said, it sounded like she had been on some kind of mission that required secrecy prior to the battle and had chosen to break cover in order to help the Shienarans. He was hardly going to complain about that, a woman who truly understood duty.

  And what help it had been! He had fought beside Aes Sedai before, but he had never seen anything like that. Waves of shadowspawn had broken on her channeling, mounds of their dead piled high. Just hours and hours of relentless slaughter from one woman.

  Some Aes Sedai were more powerful than others, he knew that much, although not how one could generally tell. She must be of prodigious power though, based on the sheer number of the creatures she had killed.

  Of course they would still have lost to the seemingly endless horde if not for the mysterious man on the mountain. How he wished that had been Taija Sedai's doing instead! But she had ensured far more Shienarans survived to fight again than would otherwise have been the case. They owed her a huge debt.

  Still though, there were other oddities. Her accent and manner of speech. He had met people from around the world, even spoken with Aiel, yet he had never heard an accent like hers. Words clipped short, emphasis placed on harsh consonants it was very strange. That went with the way she spoke. Her grammar and choice of words were more akin to a barely educated peasant than someone who had studied in the White Tower or the noblewoman her clothes suggested. Then there was the way she sometimes seemed to fumble slightly for words that should have been obvious. It was very curious.

  She had also said she was Red Ajah, which made no sense at all. Of course Lord Agelmar had hosted the occasional red in Fal Dara, they did venture this far north in their hunt for male channelers, but one thing he had thought was written in stone was that members of the Red Ajah did not have warders, yet Taija Sedai clearly did. She also seemed oddly disinterested in the man who had been channeling on the mountainside. Of course no one had been close enough to tell what he looked like, but she had not even tried to investigate.

  Then again, Aes Sedai could often be inscrutable, looking like they were doing one thing while in fact working towards an entirely different goal. However, he still could not work out why she had essentially locked herself in his library after they had returned.

  Regardless, it did not matter. She was clearly a channeler, she was no darkfriend and she had done both him and Shienar a great service, putting herself at personal risk to help them. As far as he was concerned, if she said she was aes sedai then she was Aes Sedai unless and until other Aes Sedai said something different and he would honour her as such.

  The White Tower harshly punished those who falsely claimed the title in very public ways and she must be aware of that. He would make sure that when Moiraine Sedai returned Taija Sedai was informed before they encountered each other. He could at least do her that service and then if she chose to vanish, well she had more than earnt it and the gate guards knew to turn a blind eye.

  =====

  It had taken a while for the battered army to limp back to Fal Dara, but once they got there Taija was certainly pleased with the luxurious apartment that she'd been given. Aleksi had told that her that he'd never even seen anything like the rooms he'd been given. Annoyingly the Fal Daran culture seemed to require that men and women had completely separate living spaces so he couldn't be given the rooms next to her, so she felt a bit isolated.

  They'd been very apologetic of course, understanding that an Aes Sedai wanted to be close to her warder, but it seemed that rules were rules. Taija wasn't totally sure why they kept calling Aleksi her warder, but if she was understanding the word correctly perhaps it was a cultural thing coming from him guarding her during the battle. In a sense he had warded her against danger after all.

  It was a couple of days later, when Taija was finally feeling fully recovered, that one of the servants excitedly knocked on the door to her rooms and told her that 'Moiraine sedai' had returned and Taija's presence had been requested by Lord Agelmar at her convenience.

  Taija took the time to change into one of the many fine dresses that Lord Agelmar had so kindly given her. There seemed to be a lot of red among them, perhaps because of what she'd said to the man when they first met.

  The dresses were beautiful, but she was already fed up with the fiddly and elaborate clothing. It wasn't that she didn't enjoy wearing a nice dress, of course she did, but for special occasions when she wanted to to look her best. When it came to day to day wear, let alone on a battlefield she'd much rather have something practical.

  Still, as she headed off to find Aleksi, she did think she looked good in the finely embroidered, red silk. Once she had him at her side, the two of them headed towards Lord Agelmar's audience chamber together.

  While she was excited to finally meet the Moiraine Sedai, Taija was also struggling to suppress her nervousness. This would be the second Aes Sedai she'd met from this world and she really hoped it went better than the last time. Still, at least this time she knew to take precautions. She held saidar, of course, but concealed it along with her ability to channel under a pair of inverted webs. Moiraine wouldn't know she was holding saidar or be able to judge her strength. She'd be giving nothing away this time. She also had questions about what the woman had been doing instead of supporting the Shienarans. She didn't know enough about this world to condemn her outright, but it was deeply suspicious that she hadn't been there on the battlefield.

  When Taija reached the audience chamber she was immediately shown in, Aleksi cheerfully following behind her. Lord Agelmar was in there with his wife and a small group of men and women, along with an Ogier. How nice to see one of them!

  Lord Agelmar turned from his guests to face Taija with a smile. "Ah Taija Sedai, thank you for coming. You will no doubt have met Moiraine sedai before?"

  Taija saw a small woman standing with the Ogier and the other humans. Her dark hair cascaded down in ringlets and she wore a small gem on her forehead and a large ring on her left hand. Moiraine's eyes flicked to Taija's own hands, without her expression changing.

  Taija bowed to her as she would to a colleague she didn't know very well with a guarded smile. "It's an honour, I hope that your journey here went well and that we'll be able to spend plenty of time catching up soon." There, that sounded politely neutral without revealing that the two of them had never met.

  As soon as she spoke, Taija noticed Moiraine's eyes twitch. It was a small movement, but she got the impression that the other woman's face didn't show many unguarded moments. "Yes, I am sure we will have much to discuss." Moiraine smiled back politely as Lord Agelmar looked on. Her accent was as mushy as the rest of theirs.

  Taija cast her eyes over Moiraine's companions, taking in the tall hard-faced man standing beside the woman armed with a sword. He looked dangerous. Her nervousness increased a notch as she realised the two girls could channel too, so it would be three against one if it came to anything. Unconsciously she began to shape inverted flows of fire, air and spirit into a ball.

  There were also three young men, boys really. One huge and bearded, one looking somewhat sickly and… Taija did a visible double take as her eyes settled on him, one with red hair who looked worryingly like the young man she saw on the mountainside.

  Across the room, as she saw Taija's reaction, Moiraine's eyes narrowed slightly.