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Chapter Thirty-Two: Fifth Day"Five days." Arcanum breathed out in a sigh. His keen eyes scanned the horizon for a sign. Any sign that any reinforcing army would appear. But they did not. They were two days late, if they were coming at all. Manetheren could not hold on without them. The men were wearing out and the cats were running out of feed. The Horde was noticeably smaller than it was at its arrival, but it would last them plenty to the Band's grave.
"Sir, trouble approaching." Captain Blake shouted.
Arcanum had already seen it, an ugly spot of black that was slicing through men like scythe on ripe wheat. He instantly knew what it was before he focused on it with his newest watchglass.
"Arclites." Arcanum replied, "And it appears they're driving for us."
Arcanum had fought his share of Arclites before. Trollocs armored to the point of impossibility with thick plates of iron and black steel. Their shape was instantly recognizable in their skull-like helmets ridged with spikes. Their entire armor was a continuous piece of weapon, with spikes and blades gouging at every angle. With the mass and speed of a giant Trolloc marauder driving them, nothing but an Aes Sedai or a full sixteen-row Saferi Phalanx could stop their charge. Just a dozen was enough to tear a company into bloody pieces without a halt in their steps. What was charging numbered in the dozens of fists. Charging through the entire body of the Band like it didn't exist towards Arcanum's Legion, to put his engines and its crews to death.
There were curses of raw fear among the crews as they noticed the roiling spikes of death thundering towards them.
"Sir, shall we dig our graves now or after?"
"No, wait! Arbies, NOW!" Arcanum shouted hoarsely, "Staggered rows."
There was a rush towards the arbalest stocks that bordered almost on panic. Arcanum seized one of the machines, and spun towards the oncoming Arclites. Catapults fell silent as their crews kneeled and loaded their arbalests as fast as humanly possible, steadying them with their shoulders.
"Hold your fire until you have a clear shot!" Arcanum shouted, his own arbalest resting on his tense shoulders. He listened to the screams of men caught in the path of the spike-armored death, and swallowed hard. Then these mobile fortresses burst within range, their black armor dripping with visceral fluids of their victims, immediately homing on to the catapults and their crews. Each bore a wicked spiked mace in one hand and a torch in the other—for the catapults.
"FIRE ONE!" The first wave sliced through the air, cracking through inch-thick armor. Armored Trollocs dropped in a line, but were quickly replaced by more behind them.
"FIRE TWO!" Arcanum fired himself, feeling the arbalest kicking hard into his shoulder. His bolt smashed straight into its target, cracking its fire-hardened iron breastplate in half, and drilling the Arclite through the heart.
The first wave had finished reloaded, and a third stream of thick bolts dropped the closest arclites. Never before had arclites gone down so fast, but they were still too many and they were too fast.
"UP SWORDS!" Arcanum drew his sword and found himself facing the massive incarnation of men's worst nightmare. He raised his ineffective sword up at the down-swing of the Arclite, and prepared for the heavy blow that would end his life.
An axe smashed through the Arclite's iron-skull helmet, sending the beast sprawling with half his head gone. All around Thunder Legion, Arclites fell to rains of massive blows that cracked through their armor, and shattered their momentum. The armored Trollocs were now being pushed back by the Legion's unlikely rescuer.
"Ogiers!" Arcanum gasped. All around, the massive creatures were storming the Arclites in a vicious rage that the general had never even suspected they possessed. He immediately recognized them as the refugee group he saw by Manetheren palace. He now understood the hate and fury they were now commanding. The Ogier's greatest love was their Groves, and it had been snatched away into ashes. The survivors of the Manetheren grove were now fighting heedless of their own harm, consumed by boiling anger. Wearing ill-fitted and scavenged armor, the giants shrugged off blows that would have crippled a man, and grappled with shadowspawn that would have made any human army run in terror. But Ogiers were mortal like men, and even their righteous rage did not make them invincible. They begin dropping to the arclites withering strikes.
Then there was a sudden rush of men all around Arcanum, and the air was lit up by a heavy shower of arrows, drumming against the Arclite's armor. Although most broke harmlessly against the heavy steel, eventually some found weak spots, and the bomined withering fire and pressure from the Ogiers began to take its toll on the Arclites. All around, soldiers flowed past, cloaked in blue and gold cloaks. With both reinforcements of men and Ogier and the main body of the Band trapping the Arclites, the Trollocs were soon fighting for their lives, and then fighting nothing but dirt.
"Who?" Arcanum stared around in bewilderment. "The Covenant?"
"Commodore Disol at your pleasure, general!" A horseman trotted forth, baring forth a short slender man, wearing leather armor slightly too big on him, "We are the proud men of the combined van of the Civilian Arms of Coratheren and the Reservists of Northern Manetheren."
Arcanum's mood was quenched as he glanced at the reinforcement. Reservists. Farm tots and old men. Perhaps a thousand men. Maybe two. A drop in the ocean.
"What were you before they made Commodore?"
"I was...a bookkeeper, sir." Disol licked his lips nervously. "We rallied when we heard Jara'Copan had fallen and Manetheren was under siege. We thought we were too late, until we saw the fireworks some nights ago. We crossed through the Marena line, which was empty, and forded across from there."
"You came from the north?" Arcanum perked up to this news. "Did you see any sign of an army? Maybe they needed to detour through the north. A Covenant army in the hundreds of thousands? You must have!"
"No, sir. We rallied through most of the villages in northeast Manetheren. An army that size we could not have missed. General, we are the last fighting men of Manetheren. There are no more to be wrung. I'm a bookkeeper and they made me commodore. Because I read some books on fighting." Disol frowned, "But we are here to fight. All of these men are good men. You won't find them lacking in mettle. We aren't afraid to die."
"So they aren't, Commodore the Bookkeeper." Arcanum sighed. "We welcome you, and you will be sorely needed." He shook hands with the scholarly man, and provided him directions to Aemon's tent.
Commodore Disol paused as he turned to leave, "General, but as we speak of the possibility of reinforcements, I did receive a cryptic report right before we set off a week prior… I don't know how to credit it. A short letter from Jaramide. 'Ignoring T.V. Coming fast as we can, but 1 month march. N.B.' Perhaps you can make better sense of it." He bowed and departed with his men.
Arcanum frowned. N.B. would have to be General Nonoc Bashere of the Jaramide Partisans. One month of hard march away might as well be forever away, but it may be a sign of other closer responses to their distress call. Arcanum brightened briefly with hope but furrowed his brow once more. But why would Nonoc ignore Tar Valon if the Aes Sedai were in charge of their reinforcements? He felt a deep sinking pit in his stomach.
Shaking away worrisome thoughts, he turned to his line captain. "We will need to move the cats again, Blake. We are too close to the front. Or I should say the front's getting too close to us. We got lucky that time."
"Aye, sir, it'll be one hour until we are fully operational again."
"So be it. If you need me before then, I will be in the Pit." There was nothing to do here until the catapults could be set up again, and there were answers that needed to be answered.
The Pit was on the far fringe within the largest tent in the Band surrounded by a chain picket. Two guards stood at attention at the entrance. Glancing at Arcanum's sigil, they nodded to him and allowed him passage, "Careful, General, with the prisoners."
The general nodded, and ducked within the confines of the tent. Two lanterns guttered their light upon a narrow table, filled with sharp instruments. There were only two prisoners, each bound to heavy solid bars embedded deep into the earth. The first was a man, and he was simply shackled arms and feet. The second was something less than a man, almost completely covered by thick chains.
Arcanum passed the imprisoned Fade, and stood in front of the man, one of the traitors - a soldier of the Lost Company. The man looked up at Arcanum's approach with black eyes hidden in thick shadows.
"You here to torture me, general?" The man croaked from cracked lips. His shirt was tattered and his red cloak hung ragged like a noose. His face, though darkened by sweat and blood, would not be amiss from the face of a native of Jara'Copan, with his angular nose and cheeks.
"Were you there at Shanaine?" Arcanum peered into those dark orbs. "Were you there when the walls collapsed upon the women and children, crushing their soft flesh and bones, buried alive in a slow death of starvation and pain? Did you kill your friends and family that held arm in Jara'Copan?"
"It is war, general. At least I am man enough to take life with my hands, and not cower behind instruments that deal in far death. It is simple for you to give the command to kill. I have to face the choice every day. As I have spoken to those who came before you, I gave my oath to my potentate, and I will continue in that oath."
"To that whoreson Vanigan?" Arcanum growled.
"You do not know anything, do you?" The prisoner spat on the ground, "You and your pretentious ideals, you damned hypocrite. Nothing more I despise than a hypocrite, and I'll take pleasure in your destruction."
"I am a hypocrite when you betrayed your own kind?"
"My own kind?" The man laughed and coughed at the same time, "I am with my own kind. And it's not yours. You would put my kind to death and send us into eternal shame. Have you not realized yet? Each and every one of T'Caar Company has the Spark. Vanigan detected the seed in each and every one of us, and secretly handpicked us for his own company. When he faked our death, he rescued us from the hanging blade of your prejudice."
Arcanum reeled back and found his sword in hand. Male Channelers? Every one?
"Yes, learn to fear, coward. Learn to fear our return."
Arcanum reached forth, and snatched away the man's cloak, tearing it from his shoulders. The prisoner hissed, "You have no right! No authority over me."
"With the command of a Second Lord of Manetheren and the authority of the Hierarchy, I strip you of your cloak and your word. Your honor is worth ashes, and your cloak too. You are discharged forever from the bonds of the Legions of Manetheren. And may Caldazar forgive your soul." Arcanum raised the cloak over a lantern, letting the tongues of flame lick up through its tattered surface, until it was a piece of glowing flame. He cast the cloak to the ground, where it crumbled to ashes and smoke, to the sneer of the prisoner.
The prisoner shook his head, lowering his eyes, "My allegiance is greater than a cloak. My Master is far greater than your paltry king."
"Vanigan? He is but a stain in the world."
NO. The prisoner's eyes rose, burning with ethereal flames and his voice a roar that shuddered through Arcanum's mind like a thunderboom. ME.
The General drew his sword, its tip instantly perched before the man's throat. "Who are you?" He whispered.
WHO ARE YOU TO QUESTION ME, WORM? The flames quivered sharply. HEAR ME AND TREMBLE. I AM BA'ALZAMON. LET MY VOICE BE THE HERALD OF YOUR END.
"Allies rally to our banner every day, and we shall hold your troops till they rot into dust. Until the end of time. When the White Tower arrive-" Arcanum screamed back against the force of the voice in his mind.
The possessed man roared, MY VASSALS. THE WHITE TOWER BELONGS TO ME. THEY WILL RAISE NO HAND AGAINST ME. SEE AND KNOW YOUR BETRAYERS.
Brilliant visions coursed through Arcanum's minds, burning hot against his brain. Flickering pictures of Aes Sedai one after another kneeling before him scoured through his eyes, until one last image stays focused for the longest moment. A woman with the Amyrlin's seven-colored stole bent her knee, and swore her soul's allegiance. Then, the visions shattered and pierced his mind like shards of glass.
Arcanum locked his eyes closed, but the images still flashed burned red on the insides of his lids. Pain echoed through his skull, and he quailed before the voice of Ba'alzamon.
YOUR CAUSE IS LOST. YOU SHOULD HAVE FINISHED THE JOB AT SHAYOL GHUL. DESPAIR. AND DIE.
The chain around the man shivered, then began to split and crack under the strength of superhuman strength. Without hesitation, Arcanum buried his sword in the man's throat, and the fire of Ba'alzamon vanished from the possessed prisoner's eyes, leaving but startlement, gasping silently, then dying softly.
Arcanum felt like a hammer had knocked the air from his lungs, and he stumbled backwards. He crashed into the table, tumbling all its items onto the floor and upsetting the lanterns on the ground. Chains rattled beneath his feet, and he turned to gape at the empty prison that had once housed the halfman, the chains now lying loose upon the floor.
He stumbled out of the tent, almost running into Nathen Austern.
"What happened here?" The adjutant exclaimed, and Arcanum saw the two guards lying prone on the ground, their eyes burned out.
"The Fade. It's out. We're betrayed." Arcanum breathed, staring down at the horrors sketched on the guard's faces. "What are you doing here?"
"The Marshall-General sent me to check on the prisoners. There is chaos in the ranks. Donahin was murdered in his sleep, and men are disappearing in the night. Did you just say-Who betrayed us?"
"Tar Valon." He felt the heat at the back and heard the tent crackle up into flames. "Tar Valon has doomed us."
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