As usual all speech in italics is in the Old Tongue.
Chapter LVII - A Song of Ice and Balefire Part III
As Tel reached the edge of the wards around the Golden Bowl, he didn't hesitate or slow, already spinning a gateway to Caemlyn, the filth of the taint flowing into him. Without breaking his pace he emerged into chaos. The streets were full of people, some screaming and fleeing away from the Royal Palace, others standing and gawking.
He started to push his way through the running crowd, to get a better view. He'd been to Caemlyn before, but not into the palace itself. He'd had to be discrete and avoid Rahvin. Following rumours of Taija ironically enough.
Black clouds swirled above the royal palace, clearly unnaturally focused on it, lightning occasionally stabbing down from them. Large parts of the complex were on fire and it looked like chunks of it had simply collapsed, although the main dome still stood, for now. There was a constant rumble of explosions and spurts of fire blasting up from it. Light what had she gotten herself into? There was a huge amount of saidin being channeled in there, at least two of the Forsaken if he guessed correctly.
He spun a gateway into the palace, not caring about secrecy or discretion and winced as it fizzled out in a shower of sparks. Shit. Wards.
Tel ignored the screaming people desperately trying to get away from him and started to run towards the palace. It was too slow though. There must be another way.
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Taija was in real trouble. Constantly retreating, trying to find an opportunity to strike at one of the two Forsaken, but every time she got the chance to attack one, the other turned the full weight of their power on her.
Her arm was throbbing painfully. Actually most of her body hurt. Diving onto a stone floor to avoid balefire hadn't good for her.
The woman ran out in front of her and Taija spun spirit, fire and air, thrusting her hand out in front of her. Overpowered lightning shrieked through the air from her hand, connecting her to the Forsaken, but was thrown off course by an invisible barrier. It had been worth a try, a web she'd come up with herself to copy something she'd seen in a movie. She was already spinning other webs, shards of broken stone blasting at the woman while Taija tried to sweep her feet from under her with air. At the same time, Taija was walking backwards, trying to create distance. She needed room to maneuver.
Rahvin strode round a corner and Taija struck, spinning balefire. The beam was cut off before she could sweep it onto Rahvin by a renewed assault from the woman. Franticly she sliced and deflected webs, the building coming apart around her. Move! She spun a gateway and dived through it, leaving earth, fire and spirit in the floor behind her. The moment the gateway closed she heard the explosion from a few rooms away. Taija paused, panting for breath, bent over with her hands on her thighs. This was too much, she needed to escape. She didn't want to die here. Not like this, not to Rahvin.
She straightened up, started to spin another gateway to the edge of the wards. The wall beside her exploded, sending her tumbling painfully. The woman! Taija spun air and fire in a wave and sent her tumbling backwards. Scrambling to her feet she spun a blossom of fire.
A beam of balefire speared through air in front of her, far too close. Rahvin! Taija dived aside, drew lightning down all around herself and the world around her exploded with a crashing roar.
Drawing heavily on saidar she spun another gateway only for the woman to slice the web before it could form.
She couldn't turn her back on them to run, but she knew they were hemming her in. Mobility was the only way she could fight two of them at once and she was losing it. Desperately Taija spun air, fire and spirit, hugely over powered even as she shut her eyes and spun air over her ears.
The flash of light and crash of sound felt closer to a nuclear detonation than a flashbang. Closing her eyes hardly seemed to have helped, but she was already trying to use the distraction to spin a gateway, while setting the air on fire around Rahvin.
Only he wasn't where she'd thought, he was almost on top of her. Taija's gateway was sliced and she frantically backpedaled, slicing and deflecting a storm of webs sent at her by the woman.
With a smug grin Rahvin drove his fist into Taija's stomach. "Got you bitch!"
He was a big man, fit. Taija was physically lifted off the ground by the blow, sent sprawling in front of him, gasping for agonising breaths with her diaphragm spasming. She couldn't let it stop her though. She was already spinning balefire, focusing through the pain, but the web was sliced before she could bring it together.
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This was taking too long! Tel would never get to the palace in time if he had to fight his way through the crowd, even with those nearest to him having run screaming at the sight of a male channeler. He'd need to take a different approach.
Then the idea came to him and he smiled wryly. He'd wanted to do that for years, but Taija had always said it was fucking stupid. She was right of course, but when the sensible options were gone, well there wasn't much choice. He'd done the calculations, over 3,000 years ago, it should work. It had to!
Tel glanced up at the cloud filled sky, then down at the shattered dome of the Royal Palace. A quick bit of mental calculation and then he drew deeply on saidin, ignoring the filth of the taint as it washed through him.
A deep breath and he channeled. An inverted gateway rotated open in front of him. Yes, he'd been right! He leapt through it into the empty air directly above the palace and started to fall through the clouds, his short hair standing straight from the charge held within them.
The wind whistled past him as he accelerated down, tension growing in him as he waited for the palace to come into view below. A moment later he emerged from the clouds and saw it. From above it looked even more devastated than at ground level. Taija really had done a number on it. Rahvin would already be regretting pissing her off. He smiled fondly at the thought.
His mind was working lightning fast. There! Small figures standing in the rubble of one of the palace's halls. That must be Taija, Rahvin by her and a woman holding saidin. Odd, was there another of the Forsaken he hadn't known about? It didn't matter, he planned to kill her soon enough.
Tel spun inverted saidin into a series of webs. Air into a slide, hitting it with a thump as it slowed and guided him straight towards them. At the same time more air in front of him, a barrier to protect him with the side effect of more air resistance and a solid, wide, slug of earth and fire.
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Taija was on the edge of panic. She couldn't let Rahvin take her alive. Not him. She'd rather die. Everything she was doing was just getting sliced though. Overwhelming amounts of saidin pressing down on her from both of the Forsaken. Should she stop using the angreal, lose the buffer and deliberately draw enough to obliterate herself? It would be better than Rahvin.
She was looking up at Rahvin's grimly satisfied face from her back when there was a flash of movement. Someone coming flying down from the sky, falling at an angle. What the fuck? The ground erupted into a huge explosion around them as they landed and through the dust Taija vaguely saw a man in a perfect superhero landing position in the middle of the crater. Was that Edram?!
Tel had always wanted to do something like that. The mad idiot. She'd told him if he ever did try it and was lucky enough to survive he'd be sleeping in the spare room for a month. She suppressed the incongruously fond thought, she was clearly under too much stress.
Edram clearly went on the attack as soon as he landed. Taija couldn't see the webs, but the woman and Rahvin were immediately on the back foot, defending themselves against the invisible attacks. She spun her own gateway and crawled through it to get away from Rahvin, already taking stock of her condition. She thought he might have cracked one or two of her ribs with that punch. Breathing hurt, but nothing else was broken. With a suppressed whimper Taija spun air into a tight binding around her lower chest and tied it off.
Now she needed to get back into the fight. Edram was clearly strong and impressively skilled, but he couldn't face two of the Forsaken by himself.
Saidar was a deep river, flowing through her. Taija sat on the beach, waves of saidar gently lapping at it, serene above the pain of her body and the chaos surrounding her. She shaped saidar into a gateway and stepped back into the fray, launching a storm of fire and air at Rahvin's back.
Balefire flashed towards Edram, but he was already Traveling, coming out behind the woman. A moment later a pair of deathgates appeared behind the woman to Taija's side, flying toward the woman opening and closing as they went. An odd choice of web. Edram's own blast of balefire flashed out and was dodged. The deathgates vanished, but they were both already striking.
It was all very familiar tactics to Taija. Never mind hammer and anvil, they were both hammers. She stepped through a gateway and spun a flurry of webs at the two Forsaken, pulling their attention away from Edram. Bars of fire, razor sharp air, bladed webs of spirit flew out and before they could retaliate she was moving again, off to her right, just the way she'd practised so many times.
Edram fell into the same pattern. The moment they focused on Taija, he was attacking, moving to his right too, keeping them pinned between him and Taija as they circled.
Taija was attacking again, sending Rahvin reeling, his clothes smoking as he barely deflected a web that would have seared him to the bone. The woman did better, fending off Taija's attacks, but pushed back.
Taija Traveled again, Edram was already edging closer to the woman, he could be reading her mind. It was like being back with Tel again.
She could see Rahvin getting worried, he couldn't stand up to the storm of Power being thrown at him. Neither could the woman, but Taija could tell she was more of a fighter than Rahvin ever was. Not particularly sophisticated she suspected, although it was hard to tell in the chaos, but a brawler, no question.
Again she and Edram Traveled, smoothly changing positions around each other, webs seeming to flow together despite their invisibility to each other. It was insane. No one was that coordinated with someone they hadn't trained with for years.
Rahvin spun balefire and Taija was diving aside through a gateway. Edram was already there, exactly where he should be, suddenly focusing a full out attack on Rahvin, trying to take advantage of the distraction from the balefire.
It couldn't be. Rahvin staggered back, a cut on his face, and the two of them were smoothly herding the two Forsaken again. Taija keeping her distance, Edram gradually edging closer to the woman.
Memories were welling up. Happy times playing sports together, long sessions of training for combat with the man she loved. There was joy bubbling in Taija's heart, it was like the old days. Like she dreamt of at night. But it couldn't be. Those happy memories weren't truly happy, not anymore. She knew what happened afterwards. Why would he be here? Edram took a myddraal's sword for Rand. He was loyal! Not a monster? Was he? Was it always Tel?
Taija faltered for a second as realisation hit and a blade of air cut a bloody strip across her cheek. A little to the left and she'd have been dead.
She'd already dismissed the feel of blood trickling down her cheek. She couldn't let herself be distracted. Saidar and saidin stormed between her and Rahvin, her flows twisting around his invisible webs. One of her webs slipped past his and sent him crashing through an ornate chair with enough force to shatter it around him.
Taija pressed her advantage, knowing Edram, Tel? would be there to keep the woman off her back. Her skin crawled at leaving herself dependent on him, but if he wanted her dead all he needed to do was not turn up. She would survive this fight and then worry about him.
Taija threw everything she had at Rahvin, white hot fire, razor sharp air, shards of stone. He was already on his feet, defending himself, but he was looking by far the worse for wear.
A gateway opened to Taija's side and the woman came out flinging fire, almost close enough to touch her, but Taija was already moving, jumping out though her own gateway. She didn't need to look to know he'd be there, but she glanced anyway and there he was. Tel had Traveled himself, right next to the woman, driving his knee into her stomach with enough force to lift her off her feet. Ha! Taija was surprised people still fell for that one. As if her and Tel didn't account for enemies trying to get close and physical with the small woman!
Perhaps seeing his companion's defeat Rahvin let out a roar and charged towards Taija, flinging saidin ahead of him. His hands came together in front of him, palms out as he ran and Taija threw herself over backwards under the bar of balefire that shot out.
She was already spinning, using air to grab a beam of wood that must have fallen from the ruined ceiling and whipping it hard into Rahvin's legs with an audible crunch.
The world seemed to move in slow motion. His feet left the floor, smashed out from under him, balefire vanishing as his concentration shattered along with his shins. He was starting to tumble into an uncontrolled somersault as Taija spun her next web. In a fraction of a second all five elements come together around a core of fire and spirit and balefire blasted out, straight into him.
There was a sudden silence, broken only by the sound of fire burning around Taija and her own harsh breathing. Then she was levering herself up off the floor saidar still flooding through her.
The woman was gone. Good. The only thing she had eyes for then was Tel. Her heart was pounding so hard it might have been trying to fight its way out of her chest. Irrational joy warred with furious rage and overwhelming tiredness. On top of it all, a huge dose of adrenaline was thrumming through her system leaving her feeling like she could explode any second. Taija spun inverted balefire, holding the web just short of completion.