Motherland, a wheel of time fanfic

Twelfth, Choren. Year 24 NE

It was late autumn before we gained the hieghts of the Lythra, the main paved road that ran beneath the western eaves of the Dragonwall. It had been in disuse for a very long time; sedge and thistle now made homes in the cracks between pavers, and the once level roadway tipped and twisted according to the whimsy of the heaving frost. This was high country, treeless and sere, falling away on our left into bare valleys as it rose on our right to meet the foothills of the mountains. We were a company of three. I, Arven Recta, an Aes Sedai of the Gray, and my sisters Achillea Ceol of the Brown, and Solidag Minos, a Red. Though we were all considered 'middle-aged' by Aes Sedai reckoning, none of us had been born when this road had last known safety and peace for its travellers. More than one hundred years of war and destruction had passed since those days, and now that quiet had returned, so had the diplomacy of the Tower.

We were to travel north, through the empty lands, and find our way to Shienar; one of the new nations that had emerged from over a century of war. There we would establish relations with the monarchy and bind her rulers to the Tower in the ancient way. It was a fitting task for us, though daunting; we'd been cooped up in Tar Valon for most of our lives.

In the course of our journey we had established a regimen: rise early, see to the camp and our horses, ride til midafternoon, then find a site for a proper meal and rest. We had been setting a leisurely pace so far, drinking in the lands we passed through, and revisiting what knowledge of their histories we possessed between us. For a fortnight now we had been on the Lythra, travelling through that faded nation that was once known as Hamarea, and I had been harboring unpleasant memories that I was reluctant to share with my sisters.

Presently we drew up, and I saw that Solidag was gesturing towards the west. There, about a league distant from our position on the road, was a time worn structure of stone that was almost hidden in the browns and grays of the landscape. "I wonder...," said Solidag, "what that might have been?" Her question was directed at Achillea. She, being a Brown, might have some scrap of knowledge pertaining.

But Achillea was silent, frowning; she didn't have an answer. The wind drummed up a response though, a chill gust that knifed through our robes. "Well", said Solidag, "it looks sheltered. A good place for a camp. Let's get down there and out of the wind before we try and puzzle this mystery out". Achillea nodded in agreement, and we started downslope toward the stones. I held behind the others though. An odd feeling of sadness had overcome me, an aching, gray memory...

...I neared the door of his cell, and by the light of the single lantern I saw his hands come out of the darkness and grasp the bars. "Are you alone?" he said in his strange accent. "I had hoped that someone else would come", .

I was wordless at first, touched by this doomed man's last hope "I know", was my eventual reply. "She could not come Galean...". In the dim air of his cell I could see his dark shape. He was reluctant to come out of the shadows, and for some time there was quiet. There were no sounds of grief from that small cell, deep under an Andoran palace; as I might have expected from another kind of man. Rather his silence, though I knew that her absence was like to the deepest kind of wound.

For my part I was silent too. Patient and unmoving. I had no wish to disturb him.

So I sat in the darkness, and waited...

I had said nothing of course, not while we descended from the road toward our stones, nor while camp was made amongst them. I knew what this ruin had been, had it first-hand from a Hamarean no less, but I wasn't sure how to explain that particular to my sisters. They were astute, they would want to know.

An hour passed and we'd erected our small, oilskin tent. The horses were fed and hobbled, and our dinner (more of Achillea's delightful lamb and potato soup) was bubbling away in a black, round-belly pot over a modest fire. As the bone-coloured sky of day gave over to night, ranks of stars pierced the overcast and enlivened our souls. To an observer it would have been an impossible scene: three middle aged women chuckling and prattling away by a campfire somewhere on the edge of the known world. To us, it was a welcome reward for so many long years sealed up within Tar Valon's walls. We couldn't have enough space or solitude and, with the long decline of the war finally behind us all, there was a palpable lack of tension in the world. It seemed as though, sitting amongst these ruins, under the mighty shoulder of the Spine of the World, with naught but a bit of a chill to bother us, that everything was just as it should be.

At last Solidag sat up straight and looked about her. The 'stones' were actually massive, well made (if plain) blocks that were arranged in a descending circular fashion so that they formed a middling-sized bowl or amphitheatre. I could set seven strides in crossing the bottom of it, and in its time it could have sat at least one hundred.

There hadn't been time enough for the elements to wear down these big stones yet, though some seemed to be relenting to the freezing-thawing cycle of the seasons enough that they tilted and yawed at funny angles. There were thatches of browning grass sprouting between them, and years of dead plant matter and windblown dust had accumulated on the floor to a thickness of several inches. More than one hundred winters had come and gone since this place had last seen regular use and care.

"I think", postulated Solidag, "that it could have been for plays, or perhaps orations of some kind." She squinted at the aged stone risers thoughtfully, "or maybe musical performance".

"Nonsense", huffed Achillea, "its very shape suggests an intention of equality amongst attendants. I would suggest that debates were held here, and that once, long ago, this might have been the centre of a town which has since crumbled away".

My sisters continued their arguments while I struggled. I knew that I could put an end to the question immediately but that, once I did, I would open the proverbial barn door and let all the horses go free. I chewed my lip, had enough years gone by that the tale could harmlessly be told?

"...There was never any town here, there's no water for miles".

"And I suppose that in their time folk were apt to tramp about in the wild for days in the hopes of catching a decent recital...?"

Finally I spoke up, secret histories I'd long held close and silent came flooding to the surface of memory.

"It is a Caeras".

Solidag and Achillea shut their mouths instantly as their gazes pivoted my way. "A Caeras," I repeated, "this is where Hamarean youths would gather for lectures and exercises in the philosophy of combat. And because this is a Caeras it implies that this area was once a Stadis, one of a handful of military schools used to produce the famed Hamarean soldiery".

Silence, and then Solidag's eyebrow raised up, "...do tell Arven, how come you to know this with such certainty. I've never known you to be a student of history. Precious little knowledge remains of the nations that knelt to Hawkwing, and what became of them during the wars. I thought the Greys were too busy in these years of rebuilding to indulge themselves in hobbies and passtimes".

I returned her smirk. "First", I said, "Hamarea never knelt to Hawkwing, she allied with him. Second, I was privileged to speak with a Hamarean once, just before he was executed."

Solidag broke into a full grin now. "Oh ho Achi", she said to the Brown, "what a gem we've prized from dear old Arven tonight. It looks like I'll be putting on that second pot of tea after all..." Achillea nodded happily while Solidag rose to pour water and fetch her herbs. For my part I settled more comfortably into my cushion and prepared my story.

Dawn was creeping through the window of his cell when at last he concluded his tale. We said a brief goodbye and I thanked him again for his candor. Despite I disagreeurances that his truth wouldn't be forgotten I couldn't promise that the story would exist on paper, in the tower records. I was under strict orders to carry his words no further than the Amyrlin seat -though there might be one other who'd want to know.

"Give this to her please", he said as I rose to take my leave. I turned and saw him standing at the bars, he looked all of his fifty nine hard years. In his hand was a small bundle of cloth.

I left without examining his last bequest beyond noting that the cloth was dyed a very profound shade of red. On my way through the jailors room I saw that preparations for the prisoner's disposition were already underway: it made me sick to look. A long oak table was laid out with a ghastly array of implements: picks, knives, and saws.

An assassin's death awaited Galean Trago, Light help him.

We settled in with our mugs and the stars overhead. Between us the fire danced and glowed and we all felt the happy mood of sisterhood, as strong as it had been when we were all young Aes Sedai still years away from wisdom.

"Tell me", I began, "what you know of Hamarea..."

Achillea, of course, was first to jump at this. " Ah yes, not my field you know, but I recall several sources that praised the Hamarean military. They appear to have been apt soldiers".

"Mmm", I confirmed, "apt indeed. In Hawkwing's time there were none better. No single body of fighting men anyway. They were there with the High King at Jolvaine pass you know..." Achillea perked up. "Hawkwing had outmanouevered Guaire Amalasan and surrounded the false dragon's army. Though his force was far smaller, the king had positioned himself for a risky, but vulnerable chance at success. On the other side Amalasan knew that breaking through the force that surrounded him was the key to his own victory so he sent his most valued troops straight into the heart of Hawkwing's lines to the north.

"Amalasan had always had an affinity for his Moreinan cavalry; wild men of the southern coasts who had a reputation for savagery and courage in battle. The Moreinans leapt at the opportunity to drive a hole in Hawkwing's line; these were the same horsemen who had routed King Hyarpin's Grand Legion at Anguish Dell in Talmour the year before". I paused for effect. "Eager and confident they were, those ten thousand Moreinan cavalry. Amalasan gave the order and they charged Hawkwing's center, coming face to face with a formation of six thousand Hamarean heavy infantry..."

"What happened?" whispered Achillea. Browns were always eager for a good tale.

"The Hamareans cut them to pieces".

Both were silent at this so I continued. "You have to understand that Hamarean discipline, tactics, training, and professionalism were head and shoulders above anything else in the world at that time. It was a boon to Hawkwing that the Hamarean Queen, Setari, had assigned her army to his command. With that stout corps standing under his banner he rolled from victory to victory".

"When they were still boys, Hamarean citizens left their mother's hearth and went to live in the hills with their elders. From the age of ten til their fiftieth year they learned and practiced the arts of war, happily endured every hardship that could be mustered, and ever sought the simplest ways of living and of thought..."

I looked over my sisters. Achillea had settled down, buckling in for the tale, taking as many notes as her memory could, but Solidag was frowning. "What is it sister?" I asked.

She shrugged and picked at the hem of her moss green skirt. "I don't have much of a notion of Hamareans, but I'm led to believe that their culture was brutal, backward, and dreadfully mysoginistic. They left behind no art, no literature, no descendants, and affected no lasting change upon the world. What are a few battlefield victories compared to that?"

I couldn't help my smile so I buried it in the neckline of my cloak. I was only twelve years Solidag's senior, and at our ages It didn't matter much, but I still felt enough of a rivalry to relish a small triumph. She was wrong of course, in a way, on all counts.

"It is lamentable that history will remember Hamarea as such, for your impression of that lost nation, Solidag, is doubtless how most will recall it, if any care to at all." To this Achillea shrugged, admitting that her impression was similar, and both now regarded me with guarded eyes. They sensed a rebuttal. "Hamareans left no record of their art, nor indeed any of their history because that was not their nature. It is difficult to capture the sound of a song, or rhyme of spoken poetry, or the elegance of philosophy, except in the memory of those who were there to perceive it. These were the Hamareans arts, and when their nation perished song, poetry, and philosophy perished as well".

"I am told that the Chorus of Amarant seduced the heart of Hawkwing himself when he came to pay homage to Setari, though it was she who ended up pledging her armies to his banner".

Solidag leaned forward, "and what of the women of Hamarea then?"

"Ah yes, the women. There was a saying amongst Hamarean men: 'Thank the Creator for the hills, the stars, and the streams; but thank your mother for the eyes that see them..'" Inward, I smiled at the memory of the first time I heard those words. "That, I think, is at the heart of a Hamarean's reverence for the feminine. Their men may have had whatever glory they took on the battlefield, but that was nothing without the health and blessing of those they cherished at home. Make no mistake: from Queen Setari down, the women of Hamarea dictated the course of their nation and the might of her armies. A soldiers courage is but a shadow next to that of the women who permit his vocation. These are the mothers and the wives, who risk everything when they send their sons and husbands to war. Perhaps this is why Hamarea's armies were traditionally used only for defense, and never to attack another state."

I cleared my throat, "until Hawkwing's time that is. There is no clear account of why Setari 'loaned' her army to the High King. It might have been the effect of the Ta'veren himself, or, more likely, she knew a winner when she saw one, and knew that Hamarea would not survive if she stood against the tide of history. Though the Corps of Citizens were formidable they had never been a large force, seldom more than ten thousand men strong, and ultimately Hawkwing would have rolled them under."

"In any event, the only allegiance Hamarea ever held towards another authority was Tar Valon, and this compact seemed to be as old as the culture itself. It probably had something to do with the fact that Aes Sedai are female. Toward the end of Hawkwing's reign, and this much you know...", I saw confirmation in both their eyes, "the Hamarean allegiance to the Tower was stronger than the pact they'd made with the High King".

Achillea nodded, "the seige..."

"Aye", I said, "the seige".

"In the summer of 975, after a prolonged breakdown in relations, the king sent his general, Souran Maravaile, to subdue the city and tower. He might have succeeded, eventually, had Setari not reassembled the Corps of Citizens and sent them to our aid. It took almost a year. Hawkwing's policy had been to divide and disperse the armies of all of the nations he'd subordinated. Hamarean soldiers had to march from all over the empire to respond to Setari's coded orders. By spring 976 they'd arrived, broken through Maravaile's lines and joined the Tower defenders on the walls."

Solidag poured fresh tea for us at this point, an impatient gesture meaning that she wanted to get to the meat of the tale. "Yes", she said, "and the Hamarean knights stayed on those walls for nearly twenty years, shedding their blood to keep the Tower safe and whole..."

"What of Setari?" Achillea asked.

I shrugged, "She was murdered. In 978, a little more than a year after she'd reclaimed her throne in Amarant and rejected any and all treaties with the High King. She would not sit by and allow Hawkwing to plunder those things that she and Hamarea held dear. She sent everything she had to save Tar Valon and left herself nearly defenceless. One morning her servants opened the door to her chambers and found her with her throat cut. The culprit was never found, though any dullard might guess who it was that finally decided to remove a troublesome thorn from his side".

"Twenty years", I muttered. "Maravaile came close on occasion. Most notably on the 15th of Maighdal 991..."

"The Battle of Westbridge", said Solidag. "And again the Hamareans beat him back".

"With help from the Gaidin, of course", added Achillea.

There was a pause until Solidag spoke up. "And now we come to it. There are so far as I know, no more records of Hamarea. After Hawkwing died Souran Maravaile broke the seige and went back to Andor and Ishara. The Hamareans left, to a man, and disappeared from the annals of history."

"Not quite", I said.

"No no", grinned Solidag, "we have the testimony of a doomed Hamarean. Heard by our very own, dear Grey. Come on then Arven, you've led us to the brink, let's jump".

I returned her grin, though mine was wary. I hoped that I wouldn't betray the solemnity of Galean's story, or its beauty. Oh, but it ached to be told.

"Very well", I said, "in the winter of 1017 I was asked by the head of my Ajah and the Amyrlin Seat to perform a minor, though very sensitive task. I was new to the shawl which, I suppose, could have been part of why I was sent- I wasn't so 'Aes Sedai-like' that I would instantly offend some of the more anxious types in the new realm of Andor.

"As you know Hawkwing's former general, and Andor's king-incumbent, Souran Maravaile had been assassinated. Not in the tradition of dagger and poison either. Maravaile met his end at the hands of four swordsmen. The nation was reeling- the man was a hero you know- and so a story was concoted as a salve to the wounded Andoran pride.

"The public was told that all four of Maravaile's assailants had been killed in the attack -not unbelievable considering his reputation with a blade. Thus the focus of the Andoran's outrage was diverted, secrets remained secret, Ishara became Queen with the full support of the Tower, and the fact that there had been one survivor of the assassination remained known to only a few. One quiet winter morning this man, our Hamarean, was executed and history was none the wiser.

"When I arrived it was the night before the day of his execution. The guards were suspicious of me, not quite comfortable in the presence of an Aes Sedai. Some of them were of an age to have participated in Maravaile's seige, but Ishara herself had permitted my access, so who were they to argue?

"There I was, a mere stripling, not quite sure why I had been sent to treat with this assassin, but determined to do a surpassing job..."

"Wait a moment", said Achillea, "you didn't know why you were there?"

I smiled, "not then I didn't, it was years before I realized the need to hear that dead man's last words." Achillea's chin tilted, she gave me a look that said go on. I laughed and shook my head, "you Achillea, you of all people should know the value of knowledge for its own sake. The experiences that man was privvy to..."

"Oh ho", laughed Solidag, "you mean to tell us that you were sent all that way, by the Amyrlin herself, just to get the facts straight?" She was scowling.

"Mmm, no, of course not", I admitted, "There were personal elements to it that I was not fully aware of then."

"Such as?" pressed Achillea.

I sighed, truly wanting to get on with the story, all would be made clear then. "Such as repeating a message to the prisoner from the Amyrlin".

Solidag cackled, "Now we'll get the meat off the bone! Out with it Arven!"

Fine. I would begin here.

"I stood before the prisoner that day and repeated her message with exactitude:"Long have you, Hamarean, been friend to Tar Valon..

Caemlyn, Winter, Free Year 1017

"Long have you, Hamarean, been friend to Tar Valon. More years of your life have passed within her walls than on the soil of your motherland. You have sacrificed everything in her name, and for that, undying honour and our gratitude shall always be yours. May you find peace at last in the arms of the All-Mother, and may your departure be graceful and speedy. Regards, Deane Aryman."

There I'd said it. The simple message that I'd been chewing on for a month. It was so simple that I'd been afraid to not get it right, though it had been a struggle to avoid including the string of honorifics after the Amyrlin's name. She'd been very clear on that point.

"That's it?" came the prisoner's gruff voice, from somewhere in the darkness of his cell. "Well", he sighed, "I suppose that's all I could hope for or want".

There was a silent moment, then I said "if that will be all...?". Rising from my stool I turned for the door.

"No," he said softly, "stay... if you don't mind".

The last thing I could imagine wanting to do at that moment would be to sit in the dark with a convicted murderer -even a war hero such as this- and keep him company in his miserable little cell while he waited for death. The notion was chilling.

But how could I refuse? I sat back down on the stool and anchored my features in place; Aes Sedai statuary.

"This isn't the first time I've been in a cell" I could hear him chuckle quietly. "Though I must say I like this one much better."

"Oh?" I replied, and instantly felt like a dumb girl. When next I spoke there was plenty of cool distance in my voice. "I would think your situation extremely unlikeable". Again I felt shamed, it was not my place to comment upon his predicament. That quiet returned, and I was startled to see that he had approached the bars and was staring at me. In the dim light his scarred, bald head and features presented a menacing topography. "What?..." I stammered, unnerved by his nearness.

"Grey Ajah, correct?" he said, and I nodded, barely. "And yet you couldn't be older than twenty five".

I sniffed and drew myself up, "Thirty two".

That dry chuckle again as he sat back down, "You have a little time Aes Sedai. I don't think the tower will fall without you there, and I see that the Amyrlin has at least offered me a bit of company on this last night." I was about to protest but he began his story before I could mount an excuse that would see me out of there. When he spoke his voice softened and changed, grew warmer and more afflicted as the tale drew on. And as the hours of the night passed into the next day I would have wished myself nowhere else in the world...

"The old man was dead, " he began.

"Hawkwing had croaked, and left quite a mess. Leaving men like Maravaile around to pick over the bones of the empire.

"In the summer of 995 we'd had enough of it all, my mates and I. For twenty years we'd fought on the walls of your blessed city, and when the Amyrlin negotiated peace, and convinced Ishara to call off her dogs, there was nothing to keep us in Tar Valon any longer. We polished up our kit and left for home.

"We were close to four thousand. All that was left of the Corps of Citizens, but we would cut our way back to Hamarea if we had to. We'd made good on our oaths to Queen Setari and protected her beloved Tar Valon to the last, and now we wanted home, and the embraces of our wives, and mothers and children.

"If any of us were boys when we'd taken up the defence of the city back in '76, we were all men now, and the ache for home drove us on a march for a gleeman's tale. We burned up the miles, joyful and brazen, almost forsaking the discipline that had been welded to our bones in our boyhood. As we passed through the low countries east of the river and then began to mount the hills beyond, the long remembered scent of our homeland made us drunk with hope.

"I was no different than any other. Day after day I marched beside my mate Brick (so called because of the resilience of his head) and described in great detail the homecoming my sisters would prepare for me when I reached our farm in the north. 'A-ha' Brick would say, 'Do you think they'll even recognize you Galli? You might have been pretty before, but twenty years on the walls have chewed you into a dog's breakfast!'

"He might have been right, but I didn't care, I was going home. Ischa, Silen, and Capilla were all older than I, and, as their baby brother, I'd always enjoyed a certain privilege. They doted on me, ordrered me and bossed me, dressed me up as their fourth sister, but they'd always cared for and protected me like a pack of lionesses. When I'd left to go for my schooling in the Stadii they'd been pouty and reluctant, plucking me over until I wasn't sure I wanted to go.

"I often imagined myself returning. A magnificent warrior, hard from years of battle in distant lands. To be swept up in the embrace of my family, fed, washed, warmed by the fire, then put to work on the farm. No more fighting, no more risk. Just a simple, clean life surrounded by the ones I loved most.

"It was a dream I'd carried through the twenty years I'd spent behind Tar Valon's walls. You might have no idea what sacrifices were made to keep your city free, Aes Sedai. Twenty years is a large part of a man's life. Some of us were already old when the seige began. Old campaigners who'd been hoofing it since the Corps helped the king break Amalasan's back at Jolvaine Pass. These fellows had wives and children and grandchildren back home. Some had farms that sorely missed their master. For these men there was no going home. One thousand Hamareans stayed in Tar Valon, accounted with the other dead of that seige, and most of them were the old timers who didn't have another twenty years of war left in them. I was eighteen myself when it began, but I gave up no less. No wife, no family of my own, no daughters to carry on my wife's name. At the end I was an old man myself, and where would I begin to build the life I should have already had by rights?

"We'd all accepted the responsibility of protecting Tar Valon, and none of us begrudged her her safety or freedom, but, in a sense, we all gave up whatever lives we had, or would have had in the process.

"By the time we entered Hamarea proper our humble hopes were ground to dust. It was clear, in those first days of marching through our homeland, that we had come too late. All about us was desolation: ruined farmsteads, abandoned villages, croplands gone wild. Someone had come through and swept the countryside clean. We saw nor heard no one, and our scouts, returning from afar, brought us no better news. It was as though the land had been stripped and left to wither in the sun. We could find no decent store of food; all of the larders, grainpits, and cellars had been emptied. There wasn't even a respectable population of rats.

"With every mile our hearts grew heavier, and we began to dread our arrival at Amarant. Each man of us began to suspect that the worst was yet to come.

"That was the day we crested the west road, where it rose above the vinyards and overlooked all the fields before the city. When we beheld the ruins of Amarant, and what lay before her toppled walls. That day, and no other since, has so wounded my heart. We all stopped in our tracks and drank in the scene. The crime was old, months maybe, for there were no fires burning in the ruins, no taint of smoke or death on the air. Just the sweet, weedy scent of gardens gone wild on the wind.

"We stopped and were silent. Not lost on any of us was the fact that this wreckage and murder had occurred while we who could have prevented it were away defending foreign walls. How long ago? How long had Amarant been given over to ghosts?

"Maybe an hour passed with us staring down at oblivion. Each man howling within to know the fates of his family. And then we began to march again, silent and grim, toward our ruined city.

"The walls, which had once been high and proud, beautifully simple and unadorned, were now pitted and blackened. The tops had been battered so that they presented like a mouth of broken teeth. Through a large gap that cleaved the walls on the northern end of the city we could see the destruction that awaited us within. More broken stone, charred and splintered timberwork, and mounds of windblown trash. Amarant had stood for a thousand years, noble and aloof of her neighbours quarrels, protected by her daughter's wisdom and the strength of her son's arms. It had thrown back trolloc horde and invading army alike, allowing none to claim ever having a hope of breaching her walls. She had never been the home of conquest, but ever the heart of a nation gifted in its own defense. And now she looked as though she'd been crushed beneath a giant's bootheel. We marched up, tramping down the tussocks of grass that had come up through the road.

"Approaching Amarant from the west you cross a large flat plain. It is divided into fields of wheat and oats by an ordered system of des and channels. Along the edges of these watercourses are herb and vegetable gardens. Everything is publically owned, and there is equal sharing of the harvest whether noble or commoner. You have to be well out of sight of the city walls before the private estates and farms begin. My family owns one of these, three days ride from the capital.

"The dikes and channels were now low and foul; algal ponds under clouds of minute flies. The fields had gone to meadow, and herb and vegetable were now lost in the high weeds that grew around them. In silence we continued.

"Closer, we could see that the summer homes of the field workers -little more than a roof and four walls- which ringed the city like an apron, but were alive with ceremony and festival come harvest time. These had been flattened, as if by some monumental wind, and boards and pottery crunched under our marching feet.

"And then we stopped. The sun warmed, battered walls rising above us, and what lay on the ground before them. It was a mound, three men high, and one hundred paces long, composed entirely of the remains of those who'd died when the city fell. Women, children, men, horses, dogs, everything. Most were nothing more than bone and rags, but some still wore dark sheaths of sun-dried skin. By the looks of things the dead had lain out in the air for at least a year.

"One by one we broke formation and began to inspect the mound. I suppose we were all looking for a scrap of clothing we might recognize, or a piece of jewellery, but I think each man had one question on his mind: What the hell do I do now? What's left in the world for me?

"You have to remember two things. One, we had not seen home, nor had much news of it in twenty years. I think that added to a sense of disbelief. Two, the scale of the devastation was beyond anything we'd witnessed before. It was a new world; one in which an enemy, with hate inconceivable to us, had persecuted the Motherland with an unimaginable zeal.

"At Amarant we saw the scale of this enemies' will, and his disregard for that which we considered sacred and beyond the accepted convention of war.

"Examining the mound of the dead we saw that many of the corpses had been wearing red. Now tattered by wind and faded by sun, stained by the effluent of rotting flesh, the cloth signified the appalling desperation of Hamarea's last days. Women only wore red, and only in those days of mourning between the death of their beloved- child, husband, parent- and their burial on the fifth day succeeding. That so many of the corpses wore red meant that no burials had been possible.

"We wept, for there is no greater offense to the dead Hamarean than to be denied the final embrace of the All Mother, the last encounter with the earth who nurtures us all. I will say now that I have never been in finer company than those who I stood with that day, outside the walls of Amarant. We had endured more sorrow than should ever be heaped on a man in his lifetime. We should have broken then, as I have seen armies do before, to rush to those places where our loved ones might have gone to survive the calamity. But no such thing happened. The Corps had been built on the single belief that strength and hope come from faith in the man beside you. Strange though it might seem, selfish action was impossible for us then. We grew tighter and more resolute in the face of the horrors we saw.

"In silence I, and my brothers -for all we knew the last Hamareans on earth- set to the only task we could conceive of in that moment; we began to dig. Five thousand men can dig a substantial hole in the ground given a reasonable period of time, and we set to this job with a passion. Using our camp shovels, bare hands, and even our okropos, our battle shields, we prized open the earth on the east side of the mound of dead and made a pit that would suffice to hold them all. When we were done it was well into the middle of the night, the stars were high, and we fell on the ground in our exhaustion.

"At this moment our leader spoke to us. Climbing to the high point on the mound of excavated earth, he surveyed the sprawl of men before him, and though he was limb-weary himself, spoke with a fresh and prudent tongue. He was Ogaster Sorda, a weaver's son who had risen through our ranks like a blazing star. He embodied everything and all that a Hamarean soldier aspired to be. He was humble, gracious, and lived simply, a man who stitched his own torn clothes though any among us would have fought for the opportunity to do it for him. He was the paragon of discipline and soldierly virtue; a crack general and a consummate warrior who led from the front of his own lines. But more than all that, it seemed that Ogaster Sorda was all that we had left; an anchor to keep us steady and safe from the currents of this terrifying new world. Torches blazed on either side of him, and the cold East wind, born in the mountains, threw his blue cloak to the side.

" 'Brothers' , he began, and all of us listened."

" 'Brothers I have news. Scouts have returned from the east with word of an army behind us. They come fast and hard, and they will outnumber us.' " Murmurs from us, but no outcry -we were Citizens. 'We will meet them at dawn, here, before the city walls...' I think we all breathed a sigh of relief at that. It would have been easy enough to pack ourselves into the city, to stand on her walls the way we'd stood upon Tar Valon's. But none of us relished another seige -we were sick of it. Besides we had no food, and though none of our scouts had entered the city (by order of an unspoken agreement among us all that we would not set foot in Amarant until her dead had been buried) we were sure that it contained nothing that would sustain an army of our size.

"Sorda continued, '...and when we have finished with them, we will bury our dead, and decide where and how our future lies'. The man spoke well but I found cold comfort in his words this time. Fine, let them come. Let them see what welcome an army of pissed off Hamareans provides.

"We retired to our blankets, to get what rest we could before the day came. I lay beside Brick fingering a small piece of the red mourning cloth I'd found earlier. It had blown up against my boot and, strangely enough, seemed a perfect sampler from a woman's sewing kit. It was perfectly square, about the size of my hand, and seemed unstained or worn from exposure. I looked at it then with Brick lying beside me, wondering if any of our folk had survived, and where on earth they might be.

"I could not sleep, but neither could anyone else it seemed. At some point I realized that Brick was weeping -his wife and sister had lived in Amarant. 'There brother', I whispered, 'we will overcome this'. But he continued weeping, so, in the best way that I knew how, I comforted him, putting my arms around him and holding him close until a dim grey light rose over the eastern peaks.

"Morning came and we were ready. Sometime before dawn the camp stewards made their rounds and woke anyone who was still asleep. I, like Brick and most of my brethren, was already awake; our internal timepieces long since set to rouse us in time to eat, nuts, and crawl into our kit before the column captains could complain. We tore into our mush with an unexpected fervor, perhaps sensing that we might never eat again -in this life anyway. I'd eaten the stuff ten thousand times, but I'd never felt such comfort in it. Cracked wheat germ with barley and salt, and a little butter for flavour; in truth it was dreadful stuff, but it was sure to keep a man going.

"Within an hour the fires had been left for the stewards to douse and we were all taking our place on the line. When four thousand Hamarean infantry queue up for a fight we present a front one thousand yards long and eight men deep. Each man is armed to the teeth: twelve or twenty foot, steel tipped lances in the right hand, five foot okropos on the left arm. We wore plain steel cuirasses, steel on our thighs and forearms, leather skirts and the heavy ampalion, or warhelm, thingyed back on our heads. At our sides hung the wide bladed swords that were kept for murder-work after the fight had been won; the enemy would break, and we would stream into them to make good our point. Over all was the deep blue cloak that was the colour and calling of our kind. I had seen the enemies' faces pale when the blue of Hamarea marched onto the field.

"For the Corps of Citizens the order of battle was thus: we would advance to the point where the terrain was the best that could be hoped for and then we would wait for the enemy to make contact. The first line met the assault as a wall of shields, each man holding his to port to cover his left flank and the right of the man beside him; your lance held at the ready to strike over and between the brim of your shield and your mates'. Behind you six, eight, sometimes ten men stood in a column, each shield pressing into the back of the man in front. After contact was made the push began, not a mad rush (which was the folly of too many opposing units I'd seen), but a deliberate, grinding advance which quite literally crushed the enemy before and then beneath us. It wasn't as pretty as a charge of mounted knights, nor as elegant as ranks of archers lifting their shafts, but it worked. As long as your brother kept his faith in you and kept his shield up and to port it worked.

"Amarant sat at the eastern end of a wide, encircling plain that rose to meet the city. We stood, about three hundred yards out from the walls, with the mound of the dead behind us, in a line that ran north to south. Light save me, but we were ready to kill that day.

"The sun was two fingers over the peaks of the Dragonwall, shining directly behind us, when we first saw the columns of dust on the western rises half a league away. Within moments the dark masses of raised spears were visible, and then the groups of marching men and horse that carried them ascended the rise and began to pour forth onto the plain. There were thousands, and if it were true that they had been waiting for the Corps to return- to finish the work they'd begun- then it was no wonder at all that the countryside had been stripped of anything resembling food.

" 'Look at that' I said to the men of my line, there were about fifty in all. 'These are the dogs that have been keeping our beds warm while we've been away'. I heard a few sniffs from the men; if there were masters of gallows-humour, then it would be Hamareans who took that honour. 'We've work to do on that grave', muttered a man named Chew, three spears to my right. 'After I take my morning's exercise with this lot I mean to get right back at it'. Brick groaned, he stood to my left. Under his breath he said: 'I don't think I'll get out of this one Galli'. I smiled under my helm, he always went beyond the call of virtue in his fair appraisal of a situation. 'Are you trying to tell me to keep my shield up again?' was my response. His smile folded through the scars on his cheeks, 'I might still be as pretty as you Galli, if you had bothered to keep your tin up all these years'.

"The foe nearly covered the western horizon now. Mother, there must have been ten thousand of the bastards. With the light of the rising sun falling directly upon them I could pick out several nations; Ileanders, Oburunin pike, Dhowlan foot, Moreinan horse. If I hadn't known better I'd have suspected that these were the same motherless swine that we'd been throwing off Tar Valon's walls for the past twenty years. That army had been disbanded of course, when Ishara called off Souran Maravaile and made him bring his warlust home to Andor where she could keep an eye on him. But there was something familiar about this mob.

"They spread out and began to form up. Half of an hour crawled by, and though we were all losing patience we remained wary. There were many more of the enemy so when it became apparent that they meant to send the bulk of their force straight into our centre we responded by simply drawing in our wings so that we formed a simple flexed shape: a cup to receive the wine. We did this quickly and effortlessly. Although the Corps had been bound up fighting a seige for years, the rudiments of formational movement had been worked into us so deeply during each man's time in the stadis, that we could respond to an enemy's disposition almost before their commanders could finish ordering it up.

The prisoner stopped and reflected on this for a moment, wringing his hands as he battled emotions. Frustration? Anger? Anguish? For the life of me I couldn't tell.

I offered him water from the flask I'd brought with me and he gestured gratitude. After a moment he resumed his tale.

"That was our first mistake. We left ourselves completely open to..."

Again he paused, and made a dismissive motion with his left hand.

"Allow me to explain something to you."

"There are a few simple virtues that an army can aspire to. The first is discipline of course -the complete submission of fear and self interest, and the perfection of one's willingness towards self sacrifice. The second is mastery of arms -total knowledge of your weaponry and its application. The third is fitness. To strive for purity and strength in mind, body and spirit is to ensure that discipline and mastery of arms are possible. The last is faith. Faith in all of the events that have led from the soldiers birth to his place in line on the field of battle. The lessons of our mothers, the agony of training in the stadii, the wisdom of those who debated with us in the caeras, and most of all, faith in the men on either side and behind you -that they will do their work as you do yours.

"All these the Corps had in abundance; the 'four pillars' as they were called in Hamarea. To me it is not a mystery that we were unvanquished up to that day before the walls of Amarant."

"What it all adds up to of course is a unity of purpose, a single will waiting to be directed and applied. At that point, the opportunity of victory is placed before the general. Ogaster Sorda was a surpassing man in this regard; patient, intelligent, with a deep respect for his men, and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge of his enemies. That he could not have forseen the treachery that awaited us was not his fault. In the end he was compelled by the same Hamarean morality that we all were. The mistake had already been made: we had not gone into the city because of our obligation to bury her dead first...

Galean Trago frowned, and I could not see his eyes for the shade his troubled brow threw over them. I began to see that he, and any other Hamarean who had survived that day (if there were any), would carry the weight and responsibility for what had happened. They were a highly principled people.

"Soon enough they were crossing the field, closing the distance to a mile, a half mile, and then they were near enough that I could see the grizzled faces of these men who sought to bring about the complete ruin of my nation. They tramped forward, in clouds of pale dust, and then stopped. From three hundred yards I watched as their infantry separated lines to allow the Moreinan horse to pass through. 'Good' I thought 'perhaps their memory has shortened in the years since Jolvaine pass'. These Moreinans were a stout race, and able horsemen, but they were wild and sought always to win by direct, blunt force.

"Crossing the three hundred yards, first at a trot, then a canter, then a gallop, the rumble and rattle of the Moreinan horse and their harness overran all other noise. At half distance they began to howl and cry, fierce sounds that to us Hamareans meant as much as farts in the wind. We shifted, moving from our stock-still position to that of readiness. Shields went out and to port, our right legs dropped back as a brace, and with our left feet we put our weight down on the small lip of steel that runs along the bottom tip of the okropos. In a flash our twelve footers went up, and from behind the lads rearward lowered their twenty foot spears, braced into the hard earth. We were ready; a wall of death waiting to grind these dogs into meat.

"The impact was tremendous, exhilirating. Thousands of pounds of horseflesh at a dead run colliding with a wall of steel and will. Some of our own died right then of course, front liners who took a spear, or thrown axe, or were crushed under the weight of dying horses. But they were replaced by the columns behind them, a seamless progression, that ensured there would never be a gap in the wall. I took the chest-smashing impact of one black gelding and his rider full on my shield, and it would have destroyed me had not my mates, Brick and the others, held me up. The man behind me had his shield in my back, and the man behind in his. It was simple really, the force of that blow was absorbed by an entire column of men, not one alone. If it were any other way I would have been dead. Horse and rider faired not so well. My spear had taken the gelding through the neck and deep into its chest. From behind me the twenty footers lashed out, and the rider died before he toppled from his dying mount. All up and down the line this was happening. The charge had had a tremendous initial impact, but, once spent, left naught but a tide of dying or confused men with nowhere to go but back.

"This was our cue. As soon as the Moreinan's initial thrust faltered we began to move forward, side stepping the bodies of horses, trampling the men who rode them. There was some resistance -the Moreinans are not cowards- but they could not fight our lances from horseback. From behind them we heard the masses of infantry start their advance. This would take longer of course. No matter how well things were going , infantry didn't move as quickly as cavalry, and they would be able to exert pressure on us for far longer than their brethren. They were a horde as near as I could tell, a throng of sword waving fools that covered the plain.

"Long moments passed as the Moreinans were either swept under or swept away by our advance. Most simply fled when the inevitable became cold and clear. Finally the way was open, and a hundred yard stretch of ground stretched before us, gently sloping down to the gathering mob. It had been almost too easy up to this point."

"'Lion's Teeth' I roared, in time with the other line chiefs. We had all seen the flags go up, displaying the signal for the ancient and proven formation that we would use on this infantry. Almost instantly our line shortened up, and us lads in front reorganized ourselves into a series of triangles; point toward the foe, bases touching each other in series. The masses of our reserves columned up behind the triangles, ready to push and replace. Thus arrayed we advanced.

"The enemy showed little regard for our tactics. They were mostly Oburunin weilding pike and poleaxe, Ileander swordsmen, and barbarians from the dark hills of Indrahar. By fifty yards they had broken into a dead run, and very soon they were flooding into the spaces between the Lion's Teeth. It would not be fair to say that they fought foolishly, or that any of their soldiers were not the equal of ours on an individual level, only that they lacked our readiness. Within the teeth their greater numbers were negated, and our lesser numbers reached their highest advantage. This ground became a killing zone; as their front was assailed from before by our spears, unable to advance through the wall of okropos, their retreat, or any other abating motion was prevented by the surging mass of their own brethren from behind. The ground ran red, and our shields, helms, and spears were hung with gore. After ten minutes of pure butchery we were tiring, but the enemy came on because those in behind were oblivious to the plight of their comrades at the fore. Yet there were many of them, and as our front ranks became exhausted or were killed, fresh shields from the rear worked their way forward. All of our focus and strength was brought to bear on these hapless sons of distant lands. Perhaps they had not chosen to come and die on Hamarean soil, but there was little to prevent that now.

"I had lost a boot, my right thigh burned from the bite of an Indraharan axe, I had splintered my twelve footer, and my sword arm was numb from endless thrusting through the shield wall, but I took strength from my comrades and I sensed that the battle would go our way. I had even a fleeting glimpse of that which I savoured most: sharing a skin of wine with Brick, by a fire that evening as we tended our battle pains. And then everything changed...

"Like a cloud passing in front of the sun, our fortune turned dark. I was fighting beside Brick one moment, and the next he had dropped -an arrow through the back of his neck. Above the roar of the battle, the screams of the mutilated and trampled, and the surging of booted feet, I heard the rush of falling missiles and the racket of ironheads falling into the Hamareans behind me. Men were dying all over now; I knew because suddenly there was no longer any shield pressure on my back. Someone screamed, 'from the walls, they come from the walls...'

"That was it then, that was all. We had not entered the city because we believed that we had a duty to bury our dead. If we had we would have found the Caembarin archers within, lying and waiting for the moment that someone had known would come. It would not have taken a genius to reason out what such a methodical and disciplined people would do under those circumstances. We fought on of course, to the last man I imagine. I do not know because I took the edge of an Ileanders sword hard on my crown. My lights went out and I knew no more. I can surmise that the remnants of the Moreinan cavalry circled round behind us and began their second attack while their infantry worked against our eroding lines in the front and the Caembarins continued to pincushion us from above. If only I'd died with Brick, taken an arrow and been done with the whole bloody thing...

"They were my brothers. Each one of them".

Galean Trago smiled sadly. I was not sure if he would actually continue, and I could not imagine what drove him to relate matters so personal to me, a complete stranger.

"But... how did you survive?" I asked.

He chuckled. A dry sound, like wind-driven grass.

"Now that", he said, "is an interesting tale..."

Here I stopped, and Achillea and Solidag seemed to both draw a breath they'd been holding for some time. "I think that we shall continue our tale tomorrow night", I said.

Solidag grunted, rising to see to the fire which had gone low. Achillea nodded in acquiescence and seemed lost in distant thought as she prepared her blankets for sleep.

I felt good, as if it were a relief to at last relate the words of that doomed man to others who, though quite removed, might have a care for matters so lost in the clutter of history. Eventually I rose myself, on stiff legs, and looked to my own preparations for bed. As the others settled down in thoughtful silence I mused upon one of the last things Galean Trago said to me before the executioners came...

"There is no equivalent gift that a man can give to the womanhood that conceives and nurtures him throughout his life. But we in the Corps believed that the pain and blood that we gave willingly in defence of the Motherland was in some way a balancing point for all that we had been gifted with in our lives. And we took great comfort in that...

...A Beginning

Eastern Hamarea, Late Autumn, Free Year 995

"Luba!"

The woman looked up and across the yard. Her granddaughter Jacobaea ran breathlessly towards her. "Luba, come quick! He is waking up!" There was both fright and excitement in the twelve year-old's voice. With a sigh she let go of the maul's handle and the tool dropped to the ground with its head still buried in the section of spruce she'd been trying to split.

Jacobaea half ran, half walked in front of her as they approached the small, sod-roofed farmhouse that had always been their home. Grey geese scattered as they ducked through the entrance. Inside the air was warm and smelled of roots and the beefstock that had been simmering for most of the morning. They passed the wide beam table her father had made and came to stand in the doorway of one of the house's two bedrooms.

The stranger was sitting on the edge of the bed, rubbing his head where the black line of his worst wound was still visible through the thick, chestnut hair. He had plenty of other hurts; she'd been sure that he would die when they first pulled him out from under the dead on the field of Amarant. A nasty gash on his left thigh that would have killed him had it gone deeper, a frightening bloom of bruising on his stomach and ribs, multitudes of minor cuts on his arms, hands and legs, a swollen jaw and torn earlobe, and a missing toe on his left foot. Aye, he'd been barely alive, but that was more than could be said of any of his brethren.

Eventually he looked up, seeming to just notice them after a long moment had passed. She noted that his brown-eyed gaze was keen -a good sign for one who'd survived a head wound like his.

"I am Olera Salso, and this is my granddaughter Jacobaea", she said in a commanding voice. Though this man was... had been a Citizen, and far outranked her station as a peasant farmer, she was both a woman and his host, and propriety dictated that he submit to her will and graces. "Well?" she asked, "do you have a name?"

He thought for a moment, still rubbing his head, and then his eyes became sad and far away. "I am Galean Trago, good mother". That was, of course, the proper way to address her under the circumstances.

"I see that twenty years away hasn't done for your manners then". He smiled at that and continued to finger the wound.

"Now", said Olera, "stop pawing that scratch and get back into your bed. We''ll bring you some soup in a moment... something to quiet that belly of yours, and then I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have". He nodded gratefully and lay back down. As she turned to go Olera felt her nerves flutter, and perhaps you'll deign to answer a few of my own...

"A bit short for a Citizen aren't you?"

Galean looked up and over at the woman. He had been stacking firewood at a ginger pace; no more than Olera would allow. When he heard her remark he puffed up visibly, unconsciously. I see I still have my touch for putting a man back on his heels, she thought, just a matter of knowing which strings to give a tug to.

Galean looked as if he were about to respond, but reconsidered, shrugged, and bent down for another piece of wood. That same grim film, that shade of grief that had coloured his gaze since the day when he awoke returned. Truth be told Olera couldn't blame him for it. She and Jacobaea had seen the battle from a distance, had watched the destruction of Hamarea's fabled Corps, and seen the abuses done to those few Citizens who had escaped death in the fighting. Later, when she had descended to the field with a litter drawn by her horse, Pikol, leaving Jacobaea safely behind, Olera had seen the carnage up close, and the sight had wounded her heart. But she was there to find a survivor, one survivor who would perform a service for her, in payment for the healing and food she would provide. And there she had found Galean, moaning, delirious, bleeding, filthy. Lying amid the wreckage while crows tore at the bodies of his fallen brethren. She couldn't blame him for the grieving and sadness -but that didn't mean she would allow it to continue.

She continued to stare at him as he worked, letting the needlework on her lap rest. He was short, not more than a hand taller than her, but he was built like a bulldog -all shoulders, neck and legs. Eventually he frowned at her persistent gaze.

"I thought only tall men became citizens..." she said, grinning as she picked up her needlework again. She wasn't looking but she could hear him thinking.

"I think you've heard too many myths about the Corps in our absence goodmother. I am not the shortest man among them, and definitely not the tallest". Olera smiled into the work on her lap, it was good to see that the man had a little bit of fight left in him, he was going to need it. "Besides", continued Galean, "I was the Corps boxing champion for five years, and I sent many tall men to the mat".

"Hrmmph", was her reply. She began her stitching without looking at him, but when he sighed and returned to his own work she stole a look and saw that his face had turned a deep shade of red. From somewhere in the house she heard Jacobaea's stifled giggling.

Winter was leaving. The days were growing longer, and the deep frost that held the land was loosening its grip. The man, the woman and her granddaughter had passed the season peacefully, and without trouble from the bandits and rogues who had begun to make their way into the abandoned land. Their tiny farmhouse in the far, eastern reaches of the former Hamarea was sufficiently secluded, and far enough away from all of the major roadways to keep them safe from notice. But the time would come when luck would run out, and the prowling wolves would see the smoke rising from the hearth fire and come sniffing about their door.

Galean had healed well, despite a few scars, and a new sense of balance acquired to manage his injured left foot. He'd proven an able hand around the farm; recalling his youth on his family's farm in the north thrity years ago. Jacobaea had even taken to calling him Opo, uncle, and each night after dinner pressed him for tales of Aes Sedai and their gallant Gaidin. With Olera's blessing he obliged the girl, and then later, after she had gone to bed, he would sit and have tea with the old woman, discussing matters of importance.

"We will be leaving soon", Olera said one evening.

Galean looked up. He'd been whittling a new handle for a spokeshave from a bit of oak. "Leaving?"

"Yes", she sighed, "leaving Hamarea. We will not be safe here much longer".

His brow darkened, "I disagree".

She set her mouth and would not resort to any tactic to subdue him, he must come to her wisdom on his own. "Hawkwing is gone, and so is his peace. With no one to take his throne there will be fighting, perhaps war, perhaps years of war, and Hamarea will become a battleground with none here to defend her." She allowed him to digest that.

"Travelling may be worse than staying put, laying low for a few years until the situation has sorted itself out".

"I agree Galean, it may be. But I have a feeling that the troubles that are coming will last more than just a few years".

He nodded, grudgingly. He knew better than her how many jackals lusted for the throne, and how long it would take for one to rise above the rest. "But travelling", he said, "where would we travel to?"

She was silent for a moment, then, "there is only one place in the world that is safe now for Hamareans..."

Galean Trago looked up, into the plum tree that grew beside the old fence that ran down to the farm house, and admired a pair of slate wrens busily chirping in the budding branches. Spring was well on its way and so soon he would be, along with his charges.

The woman, Olera, was admirable. She had seen a need many months ago. That she and her granddaughter would need safe, trustworthy escort out of their lands when the time came. Who better than one of her land's former protectors? A man who knew well the road to Tar Valon...

The more he thought about it the more it made sense. In the troubles to come, the island city would be more than a rock and tower in the midst of the Erinin. It would be an island of peace and humanity when all about it was falling into ruin and darkness.

He turned his head to see Olera and Jacobaea emerge from the front door of the house, laden with bags for Pikol who stood at the post nearby. On a small rise beyond the house he could see three of the family's four cows eating grass contentedly. They had been chased off that morning, and the fourth had been slaughtered the week before to provide for the journey.

So, I'm to return to Tar Valon am I? he mused. Twenty years wasn't enough? In his hand he was fingering a small piece of red cloth, turning it over in his hand as if it helped him to think.

The sound of Jacobaea's running approach brought him back, and he returned the cloth to its pocket on the inside of his belt. "Opo! Opo!" Let's go, we're ready!", she sang. Galean wished he could summon the girl's enthusiasm, but to him there was no joy in returning to that city. Every stone and brick would hold a memory for him.

Ah well, it is an opportunity to ask questions that need to be asked, and I'll go to the Amyrlin herself if I need to.

Jacobaea caught his hand and pulled him out onto the pathway. The sun was rising behind them as they topped the hill together and looked out onto the wide, empty lands. Before them the Motherland stretched, already falling into the ruin which would claim all but her name in succeeding centuries. She had lost her children it was true, but her story was far from told...