Chapter Four:
Rand screamed in the night, and Lan rushed in, with his sword in hand. He was scared out of his skin. Elayne was dead, he thought. They were all dead.
"Rand, are you alright?" asked Lan.
"I am fine, my old friend. Go back to you wife." Rand winked at Lan, and he smiled. He did that a lot more since he was married to Nynaeve. Lan left, and Rand sat at the end of his bed, taking his shirt off. He was sweating like an Aiel in a sweat tent.
"Lews, did you see the dream I just had?" asked Rand mentally. He did not expect a reply, but he got one.
"I did, Rand. That is what the Dark One would have you believe would happen. He did that to me, when I went to seal the Bore after Mierin created it."
"You loved Mierin once didn't you?" Rand asked. He had never pressed the matter before, but he thought that now was as good a time as any.
"I was in love with Mierin Eronaile for a time, yes. But she did not love me. She loved having the association of being the woman that I loved. After I broke off our relationship, and I married Ilyena Moerelle Dalisar, she decided to try and make my life as miserable as possible. Sometimes I wished she would go and be buried alive in the Can Breat. But, Mierin was someone I loved an Age ago. I topped being in love with her when she became Lanfear, but she was still just as beautiful, as you well know."
"Yes, I do know." Rand said. But he was married now, to Elayne and Aviendha. He hated the complexities of Aiel marriage customs. But he had six beautiful children from them, and he was happy. Although he was destined to die by this time tomorrow. "I am scared, Lews. I do not wish to die. I have a family to care for."
"Rand, everyone that you command are scared. They do not know whether or not they are going to die on the battlefield tomorrow, or if they will survive to see a World without the Dark One, or survive and live in a wretched World, which has been remade in the image of the Dark One. Talk to your friend, Matrim Cauthon. He has been through enough battles to last one hundred men. It is the look in his eyes. He has experience of war."
In the morning, Rand wandered amongst the camp, praying to the Creator that, as many people as he could save would be saved this day. Men approached him, and he talked to them, like a commander should, offering them reassurance and support. But Rand was giving them false hopes about whether or not they would stay alive or not. When Rand wandered back to the Commanders Tent, he found Mat polishing his ashenderai. Mat looked up and spoke to him in the Old Tongue. Rand replied in the Old Tongue. (For the benefit of the reader, this has been translated into the common tongue.)
"We need some form of miracle, old friend." Said Rand.
"Throughout the thousand battles I have been through, I have never been in one of this magnitude. I remember when I read about the shock-lances in a book written before the Breaking, when I was staying in the Court of Tamika."
"If I could get shock-lances, Mat, I would equip our entire army with them. They gave us an advantage during the War of Power. If one of my Aes Sedai had thought about putting a cache of them into a stasis box, we could have used them today, I am sure of it."
"We have the weapons I have devised. They will work, Rand, and they will create so much bloody confusion against the Dark One that we will have destroyed them before they even strike a blow at us."
"Mat, you are to optimistic, even with your luck. I just hope that some of us live through it to make our way back home one day."
"What is home to you now, Rand? I think I have two now. One with Tuon in the Seanchan court in Altara, but my true home is in the Two Rivers."
"I feel the same, Mat. The Two Rivers is my true home."