As usual all speech in italics is in the Old Tongue.

Chapter LV - A Song of Ice and Balefire Part I

Mat groaned. Light everything hurt! This was what happened when a man got involved in flaming aes sedai business. He should have stayed in Emond's Field. Or somewhere more interesting. Caemlyn. Cairhien. Or even Tear, or anywhere other than the Aiel bloody Waste. Then he might not be lying in pain in the dirt with the dice rattling so hard in his head that he felt like his skull might shatter.

Why did his arms and legs hurt so much though? He tried to move and found he couldn't. He'd bloody well better not need healing. Nynaeve had improved a bit since they left Emond's Field, but he had no desire to subject himself to her attentions.

With a wince he opened his eyes to the dimming light of the evening Sun. Why was Taija standing over him? With one of these black-veiled Aiel too. Why did she look so… focused? There was none of the normal vague, softness that he'd come to associate with her face. Actually, he realised after a moment, it was terrifying. She never looked like the other aes sedai, with their serene composure layered on top of hard eyes. Well she still didn't bloody look serene now, she looked like she was about to murder somebody and then feed their body to the pigs, possibly not in that order. Now that had been an unpleasant death. He suppressed a shudder at the other man's memory.

There were enough holes in his memory, where the flaming Eelfinn hadn't filled them in, but he'd seen that face on her once or twice before and it normally came immediately before something he wanted absolutely no part of. Funny that she looked so harmless most of the time. An unwanted giggle tore its way out of his lungs.

His train of thought was broken by Taija's gasp. "Mat, you're alive?!"

"Of course I'm bloody alive. Why wouldn't I be?" He tried to sit up and hissed at the pain that spiked when the ends of his arms came into contact the with ground. Wait, the ends of his arms? What in the filth-strewn back streets of Jara'Copan was going on!? He looked over to the side. Was that his arm? It looked like the sleeve of his shirt on it. Too much lace, far too much. Elayne had been trying to get him to dress more smartly and while a man could appreciate a little lace, she wanted him tarted up like the worst kind of noble. Oh Light, that was definitely his arm over there.

With growing horror Mat held his arm up in front of him. It wasn't there! His bare arm ended in a stump just below the elbow. Was that his blood on the ground all around him? He should be dead, that much blood. If only he'd disappeared from Falme when he had the chance. Captured by a pretty face and a cuddle with a flaming princess. He'd say he was no man's fool, except he clearly was. He paused, was his arm getting longer? Was it growing?

"It seems that you are a very very lucky young man." Taija's dry tone broke through his thoughts. She was looking at his growing stump with those cold eyes. The ter'angreal! Well she couldn't bloody have it, he'd paid for it and now it had saved his life. He wasn't having some aes sedai steal it. He tried to put his hand over where the ter'angreal was hidden under the remains of his shirt and then remembered his hands were a couple of spans away.

"Mat I know you've been through a traumatic experience," why was her voice still so cold? This wasn't like her at all, she normally tried so bloody hard to be nice to the point of making it awkward. Well, except for when she was being sarcastic. "I need you to stop staring at your arm, by the look of it it'll grow back. I need you to focus, right now, and tell me what happened."

Mat didn't want to tear his eyes away from his growing stump. It was nearly long enough to start on a hand! Still, Taija's voice brooked no argument. She wasn't normally this frightening, she almost sounded like a proper aes sedai! He winced internally, Elayne would be furious if she heard him say that. Elayne!

"I was out riding with Elayne." Blood and bloody ashes. Elayne! "Someone opened a gateway. I don't remember much." Why did he feel so out of breath? "It was a man, quite tall, wearing a tight black shirt with strange, shaded eye lenses on his face. He said something, I I I don't remember what. He had two women with him too. Aes sedai I think, they must have been channeling. Elayne fought and then she screamed. He looked at me and I was picked up with the Power. It must have been the flaming aes sedai and they they p…," he looked over at his limbs and suddenly he was vomiting, emptying his guts out onto the blood stained dirt beside him.

"Rahvin." Wait the man was one of the Forsaken? He'd just met one of the Forsaken?! Rahvin had taken Elayne! Mat tried and failed to wipe his mouth on a sleeve and then propped himself up on the palm of a fingerless half-hand opening his mouth to speak, but Taija was already muttering to herself her fists clenched. "No time, not with the anti-traveling wards. It'll be a trap, no question with fucking Rahvin. Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck! I can't leave her there, not with him. No no no no!"

She suddenly span to face the Aiel man already barking commands. "I'm going to make you a gateway back to Alcair Dal. I need you to find one of Rand, Edram, Cadsuane or Moiraine and tell them this, these exact words! Rahvin has taken Elayne to Caemlyn. Taija has gone after them, no time to wait. Bring help. Repeat it back to me. Do it!"

The Aiel bowed a look of intense concentration on his face that would have been funnier if Mat hadn't been trying desperately to hold himself together. "Yes aes sedai. I will find the Car'a'carn, Edram, Cadsuane sedai or Moiraine sedai and say to them 'Rahvin has taken Elayne to Caemlyn. Taija sedai has gone after them, no time to wait. Bring help."

"Good, run!" A gateway rotated open in front of the man and he was through it already running. Taija glanced down at Mat, he suppressed a shiver, those cold eyes were worse than any other aes sedai's for being on her face. There wasn't a hint of sympathy in them, just cold assessment. "You'll be fine Mat. You can make your own way back. I can't wait any longer, if he has his hands on her…" Cold assessment and was that a hint of something else? Other men's memories said it was familiar.

She couldn't be serious. The bloody woman was as insane as any male aes sedai. Going to fight one of the Forsaken. One of the Forsaken and two aes sedai with him too! Being suspended in the air, agonising pain as his limbs stretch… No! He was no fool, there were some things no sane man was meant to face. She could rescue Elayne, his hands weren't quite regrown yet anyway.

He met Taija's hard eyes and propped himself up on the stumps of fingers. "I'm coming too. You need someone to watch your back. Float me with you, my hands and feet will be regrown by the time we get anywhere." With a crashing silence the dice in his head came to a stop.

After a moment's pause when he half thought, half hoped she'd tell him not to be a fool, Taija shrugged, "thank you Mat. I appreciate it." He felt himself being picked up by the Power and had to stop himself cringing, arms tearing away, no!

A gateway opened ahead of them and as Mat and his ashandarei floated behind Taija the memories came to him. She looked like so many other men he'd seen over the centuries of memories. Men who didn't expect to survive, but had decided they were going to sell their lives dearly.

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Taija's mind was whirling as she stepped through the gateway into Caemlyn, a few hundred metres from the Royal Palace. She knew she was probably walking straight into a trap, but she couldn't leave Elayne with Rahvin for a second longer than she had to. At any time he might decide to wipe away her personality, replacing it with a facsimile that lived only to worship him. If she was lucky he might do that before he did anything else.

Taija was already striding towards the Royal Palace, not making any effort to hide Mat floating behind her. People backed away from her. A woman with that look on her face with a man floating in the air behind was something none of them wanted any part of. Mutters of 'aes sedai' spread through the citizens, grew louder. One started to run, then another. In a flash the whole crowd was fleeing leaving the street empty in front of her.

It was cold in Caemlyn, there was snow on the rooftops and after being in the heat of the Waste it was strange to realise that it was winter there. Taija would have been worried about it, but she'd have plenty to keep her warm while she was there.

Rahvin she could take. One on one. Maybe. He was strong, far too strong, but if he didn't have an angreal she was more powerful and she was completely sure she was better pound for pound. He was a rapist and an idiot, nott a front line fighter. Abusing helpless women was more his thing and he made up for lack of skill with sheer strength in the Power, pretending that that accident of birth proved something.

Still, while he was a horrific man he wasn't a complete fool. He'd have more of the aes sedai that Mat saw. Probably under compulsion, but there was nothing Taija could do about that. There was going to be some other unpleasant surprise too, that was the way Rahvin worked. She would just have to find out what it was.

He probably wasn't expecting to have been followed so quickly. At least Taija had to hope that was right. He'd have thought Mat was dead, so maybe she'd have the advantage of surprise. Maybe.

She couldn't take him on if she was under attack by aes sedai at the same time though. It was too much. The sensible thing to do would have been to go for help, but she couldn't have found it fast enough, not with the wards around the Golden Bowl. Every second counted for Elayne. She was going to have to go in loud and hard, deliberately attract Rahvin's attention to get him away from Elayne. So much for surprise.

"Alright, alright let me down, I'm ready!" Taija glanced back at Mat and lowered him to the ground behind her, floating his ashanderei into his hands. He looked distinctly odd, his breeches and shirt turned into shorts and a vest by whoever ripped off his limbs, Rahvin or the aes sedai. He couldn't be doing well after that, but she didn't have time to look after him. All she could do was help him survive.

"When we get in I want you to go and find Elayne. Get her out of there and run. I'm going to be making as much of a distraction as I can, but you don't want to get between me and Rahvin. He won't leave you alive a second time."

He looked like he wanted to protest for a second and then he nodded decisively. Of course he wanted to save his girlfriend and it was better for everyone if he wasn't there when she fought Rahvin. Taija planned to bring the palace down around the Forsaken if she needed to.

Taija stretched out tiny feelers of inverted spirit, probing for the edge of the anti-traveling wards. There! She drew hard on saidar and started to shape the sky. At the same time she broke into a run. "Follow me, stay close until we're inside!"

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What was he even doing?! Mat wanted to be anywhere else in the world at that second, yet he matched Taija's pace, his bare feet cold on the freezing ground, shouting a battlecry. "For the honour of the Red Eagle! For the honour of the Rose of the Sun! The Rose of the Sun!" Light only knew where that had come from. Probably the flaming Eelfinn again.

Black clouds were swirling above the palace, gathering with alarming speed. Was that a flash of lightning across one of them? The guards at the gate were unlimbering spears and bows at the sight of the two of them pelting towards them.

Bows were drawn, arrows knocked and then a gateway flashed open in front of Taija and she'd dived through it. Without hesitating Mat followed.

As Taija leapt out of it she was already moving through the guards. A man in front of her was thrown aside with bone breaking force, another just exploded in a shower of gore. Mat barely dodged a spear jabbing at him before batting it aside with the shaft of his ashandarei and slicing the blade across the man's throat on the backstroke. The other two surviving guards dropped their bows and ran. She let them go, thank the Light. A line of fire suddenly sprung up along the top of the palace walls? Did he hear faint shrieks over the roar? He hoped not.

Taija reached the gates, towering, thick wooden doors at least four spans high. Somehow, another flaming memory, he knew they would have taken long minutes to batter down even with the largest rams, all while guards rained arrows and boiling water down from above. The gates crumpled in front of her with a grinding crunch. Without breaking her stride she was through and into the courtyard inside. A group of twenty guardsmen lined up across it, swords drawn, armour shining. Mat wanted to scream at them not to be fools, to run. Before he could open his mouth the ground exploded under them scattering body parts across the courtyard.

This was horrific. He'd seen her fight in the Stone of Tear, but that had been with other aes sedai, not like this. He hadn't seen anything like it since the Battle of… Even then… no, no distractions. A pair of archers came running into the courtyard from the side. The woman didn't even turn her head to look, they just exploded. Showers of blood and guts. He wanted to scream at her to stop, but Elayne needed him.

In seconds they were reaching the palace's inner wall. A moment later stone exploded inwards with a roar, shredding whichever unfortunates had been behind it. She hadn't even slowed down.

As they stepped over the rubble Taija finally paused, muttering. "Well that should make things obvious to any aes sedai that are working for him." Then she looked back at him, raising her voice. "I'm going to the main hall. You go right, find Elayne and get her out. Don't let her come back for me and try not to get yourself killed."

Light only knew why any fool thought she wasn't a real aes sedai. She was far more terrifying than any of them. Mat gave her a hasty nod. "Light be with you Taija sedai." He turned and jogged into the palace. How to find Elayne…?