Okk…I messed up the last time..wrong document. Well here's the actual chap 13. enjoy!
Chapter 13: Shattered Dreams
The forces of the Shadow came within sight of Paaran Disen not three days later. Kiara was roused from her slumber in the wee hours of the morning by a frightened Aiel woman.
Five minutes later she arrived at the walls. Her jaw fell open at the sight of the army outside Paaran Disen. Someone announced the arrival of the First Among Servants. Kiara turned to face the approaching Lews Therin.
"Kiara Lisette Eronaile sees and acknowledges the First Among Servants," she said, dipping a curtsy.
Lews Therin nodded tightly. "This is bad."
"How many are there?" Kiara asked.
"About a million or so Trollocs, ten thousand Myrddraal, countless Friends of the Dark, some eight hundred Dreadlords and all thirteen of the Forsaken," Lews Therin replied. "Oh yes, and other assorted Shadowspawn."
"Blood and bloody ashes," Kiara swore.
"The forces are split equally into four groups, led by three or four of the Forsaken each. Ishamael, Asmodean and Semirhage are attacking from the north. Be'lal, Sammael and Demandred from the south, Mesaana, Moghedien and Graendal from the east, and Aginor, Balthamel, Lanfear and Rahvin from the west," Lews Therin went on gravely.
"I'll take the north," Kiara declared.
Lews Therin nodded after a visible hesitation. "I will take the east and west, and Ilyena will have the south." He turned away. She thought she heard, "Damn Latra Posae Decume."
A man came up with Callandor and gave the crystal sword to Lews Therin. Kiara received Cyrelaide from a woman. She had not held the clear crystal staff since she retired from the fighting. It felt cold and hard under her hands. Like her.
Asmodean smouldered silently in the jo-car. He was sitting in front with the overawed Friend of the Dark who served as their driver. Ishamael and Semirhage were in the backseat.
He had no idea why the Great Lord had wanted him to attack the north with Ishamael and Semirhage. He was angry, but determined to keep it on a tight leash. Openly showing anger towards Ba'alzamon, Ishamael, would be possibly fatal, since the Great Lord had given him overall command over the attack on Paaran Disen.
A metal ball about the size of a man's head landed beside the jo-car and blew up, rocking the heavily armoured vehicle. Asmodean swore viciously, and heard Ishamael and even Semirhage echo him behind.
"Drive properly, burn you!" he snarled at the driver. The terrified Friend of the Dark jumped and hastened to obey.
Kiara stood atop the wall and watched the Shadowsworn army approach. She was channelling, a bare minimum of what she could actually hold with the help of Cyrelaide. The Choedan Kal could have helped them defeat the army without fail, but the areas were the access ter'angreal were stored were currently held by the enemy.
"Fire one of those exploding things at the lead jo-car," she told a gunner. The man lifted a heavy metal ball the size of a human head onto the automatic catapult. It flew through the air, landed next to the jo-car and promptly exploded. Kiara could practically hear her teeth gnashing when the vehicle emerged from the smoke fumes apparently unharmed.
"Keep them on volley. The entire army," she ordered before drawing as much of saidar as she could through her sa'angreal. The other Aes Sedai took their cue from her and began wreaking havoc among the Shadowspawn with the Power. Some worked alone, some linked. It did not matter so much here.
Kiara directed rings of flame at the lead jo-car. The driver swerved the thing sharply, avoiding the worst of the flames. The top of a tower above a group of linked Aes Sedai exploded without warning. The Dreadlords were fighting back.
Kiara's temper was frayed still, so who could blame her when she balefired the first knot of Dreadlords she spotted? She wove a Maelstrom and sent it pulsing through the army, knocking Shadowspawn and Shadowsworn down, reversing the weave so that the Dreadlords would not be able to learn it. A second Maelstrom blasted about ten Draghkar out of the sky.
The driver swerved in a sickeningly sharp curve when the rings of fire assaulted the jo-car. Asmodean grabbed on to whatever handhold he could find. Something invisible but powerful hit the side of the spinning jo-car, and it flipped over. The Friend of the Dark screamed.
"A Maelstrom!" Semirhage hissed. The lights in the jo-car shorted out, and the three Chosen were thrown into darkness. Asmodean put a hand out to push himself up from his crouched position. It came into contact with something soft, warm and jellyfish. It was surrounded by shards of something hard, smooth and damp. Abruptly he realised what he was touching.
"Blood and bloody ashes!" he yelped as he pulled his hand away quickly. "The flaming driver has a hole in his head. He's dead."
Something hit the roof of the jo-car with a loud crash. "What was that?" Semirhage asked. The woman, capable of remarkable calm during the worst moments, actually sounded panicky.
A second crash rocked the already damaged jo-car from side to side and dented the roof. "Draghkar," Ishamael muttered. "They're being blasted out of the sky by the same thing that damaged the jo-car. A Maelstrom, you say?"
Asmodean tried the door. It was wedged in place by the dented frame. He channelled and forced it open. Flames singed the ends of his hair. He channelled the door back into place.
"It isn't safe to go out there," Semirhage snapped, "and every fool should know that."
"Then we channel from in here," Ishamael ordered firmly. He touched a button and the blacked-out windscreen of the jo-car cleared. Flames raged around the jo-car outside, but gaps in the fire showed them parts of the city. "We aim through here."
Kiara saw the jo-car roll over with the impact of her Maelstrom and was glad. Two Draghkar fell successively onto the roof of the damaged vehicle, the second hit denting it. She engulfed the thing in flames.
One of the front doors of the jo-car started to open and was hastily slammed shut again. Kiara's saidar-enhanced vision let her see such small things. Hastily she pulled her attention away from the disabled jo-car to help with the rest of the battle. At the moment, they were winning. At the moment.
"It's getting … hot in here," Semirhage complained breathlessly. Another surprise, the sadistic woman never whined.
Ishamael fanned himself, an action that made Asmodean's eyes widen. Sweat was running down his face, but he had not gone so far as the two of them yet. He was about to suffocate as well, though.
"I have an … idea," Asmodean said hesitantly.
"Spit it out," Ishamael snapped.
"We could make a gateway outside and use Air to push the jo-car through."
Ishamael and Semirhage stared at him as if he were crazy. Then both smiled in a way he did not like.
Asmodean felt Ishamael channel, and goosebumps rose on his arms, which meant that Semirhage had done so as well. A gateway appeared outside, and a weave of Air he could not see pushed the jo-car forward.
He paled when he saw where the gateway led to. They were in Paaran Disen, in the empty courtyard of the fortress.
"Semirhage, go and take out Kiara," Ishamael commanded after they all had extricated themselves from the mangled jo-car. "Asmodean, go after Ilyena. I will take care of Lews Therin myself."
Kiara fumed as the jo-car was pushed through the gateway by weaves of Air. A woman had done it. Semirhage. She had not made the gateway, though, so at least one of the male Forsaken with her had survived, too.
The forces of the Shadow were attempting to scale the walls with portable lifts, or bring them down with explosives and the One Power. Kiara had her hands full, too full to check where the Forsaken had fled to.
A Myrddraal and five Trollocs had managed to fight their way dangerously close to the main gate controls. Suddenly lunging forward, Kiara's concealed knives whirled from her sleeves as she slit the throat of the Dreadlord she had been having a Power battle with. He had never seen it coming.
The Trollocs were starting on the controls. If they got the gates open, the north side, and possibly the whole city, would be lost. They were outnumbered and outmatched. Trollocs were stronger than men physically.
Channelling, Kiara blew the Trollocs to bits with a Razor Wind and slammed the gates shut in the faces of the Shadowspawn that had started to charge forward at the gap with a weave of Air.
Kiara ducked as the Myrddraal swung its black sword at her. A deft slash with Air severed the sword hand of the creature. The sword flew through the air to embed itself in the chest of a Draghkar that was hovering over a few Aes Sedai. The flying Shadowspawn shrieked and fell from the sky, plummeting to the ground a hundred feet below.
The Myrddraal came at Kiara again, this time with a bleeding stump and a dagger as black as its sword had been. Kiara used Air to push it away before throwing the blade still in her hand. Its point skewered the spot on the Halfman's face where the left eye should have been.
The cry that ripped from the Myrddraal's throat was a horrible, keening wail that had many of the fighters nearby cringe even as they fought. Kiara ignored the sound as best she could, using a flow of Air to pull her knife out. It came out with a disgusting sucking sound. It drove into the back of the Myrddraal's remaining, flailing hand, cutting through all the tendons and rendering its grip useless. The black dagger clattered to the floor where it was promptly balefired.
Kiara wiped her stained knife on the coat of the Dreadlord she had killed with it earlier. The blade melted back into the black hilt and she slipped the weapon back up her sleeve.
She swayed a little on her feet. Even with the buffer of Cyrelaide, a sa'angreal, wielding that much of the Power was exhausting. Nevertheless, Kiara kept using it once she had recovered from the dizzy spell. It could not be helped.
Semirhage knew exactly how to find Kiara. By going straight towards the feeling of tremendous amounts of saidar being wielded. The woman might be Aes Sedai, but she was terrifyingly strong. Semirhage would have to strike carefully.
Ishamael found the direction that would take him to Lews Therin. The amount of saidin being used by the man was huge, and the resonance it gave off was like a beacon to any male channeler. He smiled as he took off in that direction, cutting down Aes Sedai right and left.
Asmodean saw a glow up ahead. Was it Lews Therin or Kiara? That was a stupid question. He could still feel the Power Lews Therin Telamon was wielding, and it was definitely not fifty feet away from him. It was Kiara and her staff sa'angreal then.
Kiara was getting desperate. Her men were dying, but more Shadowspawn and Shadowsworn were scaling the walls every minute. If she did not do something drastic soon, she would lose the northern part of the city.
An idea struck her. She wondered if Cyrelaide could stand up to the stress. It would have to. Gathering the last of her failing strength, she drew on saidar through the crystal staff until it hurt, and drew more after that until she felt as if she was going to explode from the Power pulsing inside her.
First a wave of Scourge. It was a weave similar to that of Restoring, but does exactly the opposite, and was fine-tuned to affect only Shadowspawn. The Shadowsworn would have to be dealt with the conventional way.
Cyrelaide felt hot in Kiara's hands and got even hotter as she prepared the weaves. She could not hold that much of the Power any longer. She let it go. Her sa'angreal shattered in her hands, one shard clipping her on the temple, hard. Instead of invisible weaves worming their ways into the Shadowspawn, pure white light exploded from the spot where she stood.
Semirhage was shocked when the amount of saidar being wielded almost doubled. Wielding that amount without the legendary Choedan Kal was near impossible. She would have said impossible if not for the proof in front of her. Kiara Lisette Eronaile was even stronger than her Chosen cousin Lanfear. Much stronger.
Then the explosion came, and bright white light engulfed Semirhage before she could react. Her screams tore from her throat of their own accord.
Asmodean was knocked over by a dying Friend of the Dark who was running around frantically, trying to find someone who would Restore his fatal abdominal wound. He sat up and tried to get to his feet.
That was when the bright white light rushed over him. There was no pain except in his eyes from the glare. Even clamping his eyelids shut did not help very much. As suddenly as it came, the light was gone after hovering in the air for about ten seconds.
Asmodean opened his eyes. He was sitting on a patch of white stone, and so were the other humans. The rest was blackened, and the horribly burnt forms of Shadowspawn littered the sooty floor.
His wonder ended abruptly when he saw the column of crystal standing where he had last seen Kiara. The stone was silver and sparkling in a three-foot radius around the column. Crystal shards of a different quality from the pillar littered the silvered floor area.
Semirhage picked herself up when she realised she was still alive and unhurt. All of the humans were, but the Shadowspawn on top of the northern city walls were dead, crisped to a cinder. She was absolutely terrified. She Travelled, making for the west. She had to find Ishamael.
Kiara was in tel'aran'rhoid. For some reason, she could not step out. She could not remember anything that had happened beyond Cyrelaide shattering on her.
Then she realised. Her tie to her flesh and blood body was terribly weak. Her body was dying. If that happened, she would become part of the World of Dreams forever. She would be just another dream.
The fighting resumed between the humans on top of the wall, and efforts were made to stop more Shadowspawn from scaling the wall. Asmodean was blind to all that. He simply stared at that clear column. He could see Kiara frozen at the bottom. Channelling desperately, he drilled into the column with Air.
The clear crystal gave way and shattered, throwing huge shards of crystal and icy water everywhere. Kiara's form stood suspended for a moment more before it collapsed limply.
Asmodean rushed forward to catch her. The fighting continued in spite of the cold now hanging in the air. A red line suddenly appeared on Kiara's temple and began to bleed. Her body was as cold as ice, and she breathed so shallowly she might as well have not been breathing at all. Everything took on new meaning when blood trickled from a corner of her mouth, as well.
Kiara had overloaded herself with the Power, and it had torn her up inside. She would not live very much longer without Restoring.
In tel'aran'rhoid, Kiara fell to her knees, suddenly weakened. Her body had just deteriorated drastically. Her life in the flesh was hanging by a thin thread. Many had entered the World of Dreams on their deathbeds to live on in spite of their actual deaths, but Kiara had never so much as considered this. To live as a shadow of who she once had been had no meaning. She would have moved on. But she had no choice. She was trapped in the World of Dreams.
Asmodean carried Kiara's near-lifeless body to the warded area where pacifist Aes Sedai and Aiel channelers served as Restorers. An experienced Restorer took Kiara from him without looking at his face once.
He stayed, weaving a reversed Illusion to make himself look like an ordinary army officer. He had to see for himself that she would live.
Kiara found her way to tel'aran'rhoid's Shorelle, in the Nessosin family's garden. She lay on the bench she had sat on with Joar Addam Nessosin more than a hundred years ago.
Her strength was waning. She would suffer like her body did until she died. Then she would be a ghost, a shadow. She would never feel anything again. The feeling of being ripped apart inside intensified. Her back arched as she fought the pain without uttering a single noise.
Something soothed the agony away then. Kiara sank back down with relief and puzzlement. A single tear fell from her eye. Was she dead then? Was that how it felt like? But she knew it could not be. She could feel her body still, and—was it possible?—stronger than before. Getting stronger.
Kiara sat up. It was back. Her body, her health, her life, everything. She tried stepping out of the World of Dreams. And she went, the mirror world fading away as she returned to her rescued flesh and blood body.
She opened her eyes back in the world she belonged to. Kiara saw concerned blue eyes. Ilyena's eyes. "Ilyena," she murmured. "How did everything go?"
Her friend hesitated. "We lost Paaran Disen," she said sadly. "Lews Therin beat Ishamael once before, two years ago, but this time … it seems that the Shadow had unleashed its full force against us. We are in M'Jinn, the last few cities we have left. What you did, though … it was a noble thing, and it saved many."
"But it didn't save the city," Kiara responded bitterly.
"Not the stone and the steel, but you saved the people," Ilyena argued.
The door to the bedchamber opened. Lews Therin Telamon stood in the doorway, eyes flashing. "We've decided to go on with the cuendillar seals," he announced. "But without women, thanks to Latra Posae Decume."
Kiara fought back tears. She had nothing left, really. Her cousin and "brothers" were Forsaken, her lover was Forsaken and hated her. The city she had tried to defend was in the hands of the enemy.
"I'll go. I have not pledged to the Fateful Concord," Kiara said. Her voice was cool and brittle. Like her heart. Like her shattered dreams.