Chapter 25: The Steeplechase
The race had begun at noon, under a crisp and cloudless sky. The molten sun overhead did little to warm a cold, dry day chased by a brisk wind. Aviendha smiled knowingly as she saw the two protagonists come into sight, labouring over a small rise.
The young man on horseback was first, of course. The Wise One watched him crest the hilltop, the horse's stride lengthening appreciably as he began down the gentle gradient. He passed by a large boulder that was once a field-marker from a time before Malkier had been swallowed by the Blight, and Aviendha began counting as she watched the diminutive figure of the runner pick her way down the scree slope in pursuit. She stopped counting as the young woman passed the marker. Thirty seconds and change.
The race had been one of numerous contests organised by the Aiel clan chief and al'Lan Mandragoran, King of Malkier, a series of friendly competitions to capture the imagination of the young and hot-blooded amongst both peoples, and to offer youthful pride a more wholesome outlet than quarrels, brawling and duels. It had been many hundreds of years since the Aiel had lived cheek-by-jowl with another people, ally or no.
The young man on horseback was al'Akir Mandragoran, the eldest son of Lan and Nynaeve, named for the father Lan had never known. He was a handsome youth, inheriting his mother's chestnut hair, which he wore long, tied back by the leather braid of the ki'sain. The craggy handsomeness of his father's face was tempered by Nynaeve's softness of line, but there was nothing soft about the Borderland winter of his grey eyes, or the determined set of his jaw.
If he grew up among my people, Aviendha thought with a chuckle, he would be a Stone Dog for sure! There was a great deal of unflattering banter between the Aiel warrior societies. Stone Dogs were not noted for their fleetness of foot, but they were always the shield covering every retreat, vowing to die rather than flee.
The young Far Dareis Mai running against the Malkieri Prince was Aviendha's daughter, Shaiel. In many ways, her mother thought fondly, she was the most similar to her in face and form as well as temperament amongst her siblings. Shaiel was tall and slim, with a temper as fiery as her hair. She would be a strong woman once she learned what Aviendha had struggled to learn. Not to be goaded by her pride. Not to make a hubris out of meeting toh.
Aviendha watched her run, fierce joy filling her heart. It was a joy tempered with loss. Her battle with the Forsaken, Graendal, had left her right leg crippled beyond Healing's ability to restore, and she now walked with an almost-imperceptible limp. It had been a hard battle to accept the injury, and not see it as a loss of ji. But Aviendha missed being able to run, feeling the wind in her hair.
The race had begun nearly three hours ago, and it was entering its final stages. Shaiel had led for the first fifty yards before the big bay caught her and passed her, to the loud acclamation of the Malkieri crowd, and since then the horseman had pressed his lead, leaving the Aiel woman labouring in his dust.
The racecourse marked out had encircled the city, a steeplechase that wound over a flat and dusty plain before crossing a narrow bridge of stone across the river and into a series of low hills overlooking the City, before returning to the plain once more, re-crossing the river on the other side. Five laps of a seven-mile circuit over rugged terrain.
The young horseman had pushed his mount hard, leaning over the saddle, banking as big a lead as possible. A good horse could cover a mile in a minute and twenty seconds, flat-out, and the bay the Prince rode was reckoned to be better than good by those who knew their horseflesh. At the halfway point, he had forged ahead by nearly half a lap – fifteen minutes to the good. Yet the gamblers amongst the Malkieri still found Aiel willing to take their wagers – Andor wine and Illianer steel bet against skins of oosquai liquor and gold 'liberated' from the Stone of Tear. They knew, as Aviendha did, that an Aiel on foot was favourite over these longer distances. People were better suited for aerobic work, better-equipped to deal with heat exhaustion than horses.
The cool conditions and the undulating terrain had favoured al'Akir, but Aviendha knew that the reckless young man had thrown away that advantage as he had sought to maintain an unsustainable pace. A little over three and a half minutes a mile, a pace that no human could live with over the shorter distances. For two laps, the great steed had maintained the pace. After that, it was all about holding on.
Al'Akir dug his heels into the ribs of his steed, urging one last effort. The headwind blew dirt up from the arid ground to sting his skin and cake the sweat-lathered flanks of his horse, as he adjusted his dust-veil that covered the lower half of his face, his mouth and nostrils, so he did not choke on the grit. Aldazar responded gallantly, but the Malkieri knew by the bellows-labour of his lungs and his foam-flecked muzzle that his gelding had reached the end of his strength. "Just a little longer, my eagle" he incited his mount.
He risked a look behind. The young woman had closed the gap between them to just over two hundred yards, still running smoothly. If anything, she had picked up her pace as she closed in on her labouring quarry. Up until now, the Aiel girl had pounded out the leagues with metronomic regularity, four and two-thirds of a minute per mile.
Now, Shaiel was pressing hard as she reeled them in. There was just over two miles left to run, the course over this final lap deviating onto the high-road into his father's walled city, winding up through the three concentric rings of fortifications to finish in front of the Palace where the Seven Towers of Malkier reared.
As soon as the hooves of his mount struck sparks upon the stones of the highway, al'Akir kicked his feet from the stirrups and nimbly vaulted from Aldazar's back, hitting the ground running. It was no part of his plan to ride his blown horse to death.
Shaiel passed him within twenty strides, her face as impassive as the ko'di, showing neither tiredness nor triumph. The mark of a champion runner, not wanting to fatigue her body by fighting through the unnecessary tension of strong emotion. Al'Akir concentrated on his breathing, finding his rhythm, his long legs matching hers stride for stride as he focused his gaze upon the back of his cadin'sor clad opponent. Nothing mattered except staying with her.
The sides of the road were lined by hundreds – no, thousands – of excited spectators, both Aiel and Malkieri, caught up in what they were witnessing. Al'Akir tried to block out the noise of the baying crowd. Shaiel was winding up her pace, gradually accelerating, trying to break him. Four-and-a-quarter minute mile pace. He clung on like a limpet to a rock. She's been running for the past three hours! If it's hurting you, it must be killing her!
They passed under the City Gates, still inseparable, buffeted by the noise of the throng, which redoubled in the confined space of the narrow, winding streets. Shaiel kicked hard, a burst of acceleration that drew her two yards clear, then five, then ten as al'Akir fought to respond, shutting the door again. His lungs were burning, legs stinging with the lash of lactic acid.
She went again as the road grew steeper, and the Aiel watching yipped their acclaim, and al'Akir doggedly clung to her like her shadow as they passed under the shadow of the second circle, rattling under another claustrophobic archway brooding beneath the gatehouse keep, iron portcullis spikes frowning close overhead.
Breaking forth into light, Shaiel accelerated a third time, with the conviction of an unbeaten champion who knew nobody could live with her pace. But somehow al'Akir found the strength to match her, as the Malkieri roared him on. "Come on, Longshanks!" some shouted. "Tai'shar Malkier!" "Carai al'Cair Carahar! For the honour of the Golden Crane!" yelled others. "Al Chalidholara Malkier! For my sweet land, Malkier!"
He drew abreast with the Aiel woman as they passed under the third and final gate, in a wash of noise that drowned out even the hammering of his heart in his breast, the rush of blood in his ears, as the course finally stopped climbing and flattened out. They could both of them see the finish up ahead, less than a quarter-mile away, at the end of a long and broad street.
Al'Akir had tunnel vision. Nothing mattered except the finish line, a strip of cloth held taut between two race marshals. They were both sprinting, flat out, side by side. He knew that glancing to his left to see if the Aiel girl was ahead would break his stride, and almost certainly cost him the race. He had eyes only for the finish line. Al'Akir only knew he had won when he breasted the tape, feeling the slight tug of the fabric against his chest before the marshals released it to flutter to the ground.
He sank to his knees, lungs gulping in air. Somebody handed him a skin of water, which he upended over his fevered brow, gasping as the shock of the chilled water hit him. He weighed the skin, still half-full and gulped a grateful mouthful. He looked up and to his left, where Shaiel stood, chest heaving, hands on her narrow hips. Disappointment and pain were etched on her face.
With an effort, he pushed himself to his feet, and offered the Aiel woman the waterskin. She grimaced reluctantly, before accepting it. Unless you were blood enemies, you always accepted the gift of water. She sipped at the water, birdlike, not gulping it down as he had, taking care not to spill any, al'Akir noticed. Her thirst slaked, she handed back the skin. "Well run, wetlander," she allowed, grudgingly, "you and your horse had the beating of me between you. It was clever. Setting such a fast pace to run the finish out of me."
Al'Akir smiled apologetically. "My father has told me many tales of the prowess of the Aiel." A statement that diplomatically skirted the fact that much of al'Lan's hands-on knowledge of the Aiel had come from fighting them during the Blood Snows, Shaiel noted. "He said that no horseman or man afoot could match an Aiel for endurance. I thought maybe splitting the task between the two might give me a chance."
Shaiel coloured to the roots of her hair. "I have much toh to my people. Perhaps they should have chosen another to run in my stead."
Al'Akir shook his head. "Say you not so, Shaiel. I aver you gained great honour, both for yourself and your people. You lost by a single stride against a fresh competitor after running for over two hours previously. And I am accounted the swiftest athlete amongst my nation."
Shaiel glowered. "What would a wetlander know of ji'e'toh?" she demanded of him.
"Most would know less than nothing" al'Akir admitted. "The son of Aan'allein would hope to know a little more than most. What I know for sure is nobody in Malkier will ever forget the day a girl of the Taardad Aiel nigh ran a Malkieri prince and his horse to death!"
Aviendha watched the two competitors wrangle with the hint of amusement in her smile. Unless she missed her guess, the barbs of Shaiel's injured pride were but the thorns of the segade blooms she saw in her daughter's eyes. And there was genuine candour beneath the smooth words of Aan'allein's son. He was a canny young man. Perhaps Shaiel would teach him to play Maiden's Kiss one sultry night! A fine game for the young and the bold.
Once, a lifetime ago, Aviendha would have been scandalized at the thought of an Aiel taking up with a wetlander. Of course, back then, she had been as Shaiel was now, wedded to the spear, believing she desired nothing more than the joy of battle and the comradeship of her spear-sisters. Heh, but that was before Rand al'Thor had turned her life upside-down!
Shaiel had been born with the ability to channel manifesting in her so strongly that from birth, she was able to use saidar, holding the Power in her every moment, awake or asleep, imbibing it with her mother's milk. She had mastered its control at an age where her peers were learning to toddle and talk. But for Shaiel, saidar came as naturally as breathing. And Light, but her daughter was strong in the Power. Stronger already than Aviendha, as strong as Lanfear had been, and still growing in might. One day, she might equal her father's strength, or even surpass him.
The Wise Ones were applying constant pressure upon Shaiel and upon Aviendha that she become a Wise One's apprentice. Instead, Shaiel was as wild as Aviendha had been at the same age, hunting the wights that crawled out of the Blight.
She used the Power as a weapon, too – as naturally as her spears and her knife. That had been anathema, once. But then the Shadowspawn were an exception, and Seanchan raiders little better than da'tsang. Still, Bair, Melaine, Amys and Sorilea among others railed at what they saw as her wasted potential.
Aviendha had advocated for her daughter's right to make her own life. "Shaiel is but seventeen" she argued. "Plenty of time for her to choose her own path. With the Power in her so strongly, she may live many centuries yet. And you need not be concerned over her control of the Power, as you might for some potential Apprentices. I daresay, she exceeds even some of us."
Sorilea had replied with candour, her words ruthless. "What about the needs of the Aiel? With things as they are, we may need her strength in the days to come. And what if she takes a Trolloc spear in her gut in the meantime? What then of her potential?" the old woman had laid out the facts, dispassionately, unapologetically. "No, Aviendha, the time is coming when she too must put off childish things for her good, and the good of us all."
Aviendha had balked. Becoming a Wise One was, in its own way, every bit as dangerous a path as becoming a Maiden of the Spear. Perhaps more so. She thought of what she had seen among the glass columns of Rhuidean. A hellish potential future for the Aiel people. The Wise Ones had planned and laboured to avoid the events they had seen. Yet, inexorably, it felt to her as if what they had witnessed was the Weave of the Pattern, a web that entangled them all the more, no matter how they struggled to free themselves.
Friction between the Aiel and the Seanchan continued to increase, the Seanchan barely holding to the letter of the Dragon's Peace, seeking any pretext to inflame tensions. 'Bandits' – in truth, Seanchan irregulars and their proxies – openly raided into Aiel territory. Probing for weakness, and forge-hardening their elite troops at the risk of precipitating outright war. Wetlanders!
It seemed as though the Raven Empire wanted to be free of the Dragon's Peace, but did not want to be seen as the ones who broke the concord in the eyes of other nations. No, they wanteda fig-leaf of modesty. Something that the nations of the Westlands could use as an excuse to turn a blind eye when the Seanchan went to war with the Aiel.
Sorilea had come to Aviendha that morning with terrible news. Somebody had attacked Rhuidean, and destroyed Avendesora. Aviendha still could barely credit the reports. Avendesora had been permanent, in a way that even the Aiel people were not. It had been with the Aiel before ji'e'toh, while the Aiel still held to the Way of the Leaf. Its destruction was a blow to the heart. A dolorous stroke to the Aiel, whose fate, the Wise Ones believed, was inextricably bound up with that of the Tree of Life.
Sorilea intended to Travel there to assess the situation. She had wanted to take Shaiel to accompany her, partly because the young woman was strong enough in the One Power to open a Gateway and Sorilea wasn't.
The second reason was more pertinent. Sorilea didn't intend to force the young woman into becoming her apprentice. Instead, she wanted to confront the younger woman with the reality the Aiel lived with. To show Shaiel the price of her independence in a world where the Tree of Life itself could be burned from the ground.
Aviendha sighed. The old woman had the right of it, she decided. Tomorrow, Shaiel would leave for Rhuidean with Sorilea.