As usual all speech in italics is in the Old Tongue.
Chapter XXIII - Unleashed
Message delivered, it was time to move. Saidar surged into Taija and she spun her first gateway, straight into the leashed kennels. With a hiss it fizzled, sending sparks of saidar into the air. Fuck. Wards. One of the Forsaken was in Falme. No time to think. Plan B.
The air split in front of Taija. A moment later she stepped through to the street outside the leashed kennels.
No time for hesitation. She was already running for them at a full sprint. Squad of soldiers to the right. Fire, earth came together. They died.
In front of her four leashed and their handlers stood, troops mounted on grolm surrounding them. Four was too many. Eyes shut, webs over ears, Taija channeled. She still saw the flash through her eyelids, the thunderous boom in her bones.
She stumbled slightly then recovered her footing, vision and hearing free again. Chunks of paving stone had carved a hole through the formation. Two of the leashed were dead. No time for regret. The rest were screaming, bleeding from their ears. She spun. Flows streaked out and soldiers simply exploded. She split the threads. Spinning shields and slamming them into place. The surviving leashed had already lost their connection to saidar, no resistance.
Spirit and air, their collars sprang open. Shields tied off, blades of air thrown straight through the three surviving leash holders, bisecting them. Taija was already past them running through the large doors at the front of the kennels.
Soldiers, more leashed in the entrance hall straight ahead. Air to deflect a fireball. More air above her to protect from stone raining down from the ceiling. Taija winced and ignored the pain as something hit her, leaving a gash in her arm.
Fire, earth, spirit, split the flows. The soldiers exploded and Taija stepped sideways through a gateway to emerge behind the leashed and their handlers.
Polina threw another weave of saidar at the small, dark woman who'd just charged through the doors. Something deflected it and suddenly she was cringing back into herself as the soldiers surrounding her exploded showering her and the other damane in chunks of flesh and bone. Why wasn't the woman glowing? Why could she only see some of her weaves?!
At a command from Guila she wove fire and air together to burn the woman where she stood. Only suddenly the woman dived through a hole in the air, where was she? Fire came at them from behind ripping down the corridor they'd been guarding. Oh Light she was behind them! She tried not to whimper as she to face her death, two of the damane raised shields of air and Guila yelled at her to attack pushing her will down the a'dam. Even as she wove she saw out of the corner of her eye a bar of fire slam through Luki from behind leaving a smoking hole in her chest. Where did it even come from?! Were there two attackers? Beside her Nela crumpled, half her chest missing.
She didn't want to die! In a panic she remembered that voice booming across the town and threw herself to the ground, trying to burrow into it, her hands covering her head as she released the Power.
A second later the noise and chaos stopped and the collar round her neck clicked open just before she heard a squelching thump to her side. It was a moment before she dared to open her eyes and look up. The terrifying woman was gone and the only thing moving in the corridor was Guila's body slowly sliding down the wall, leaving a trail of blood behind it.
Taija was running, ignoring the burning in her lungs. If she stopped for too long it was over. If the Seanchan got the time to organise themselves while she was trapped inside the wards she'd die, or worse be caught. Min had told Elayne where the girls were, but Taija had never been in this building before, so all she could do was hope she was going to the right place. She hoped Aleksi was able to warn Min.
The leashed holding cells were obvious and Taija ran down the corridor, webs of air slamming doors open ahead of her. At least none of of the leashed were standing behind them.
She quickly had to slow down to a walk. It was bad. Many of the doors she smashed open revealed terrified leashed in their gray dresses, many of them whimpering for mercy. None was Egwene. Or Nynaeve. But she couldn't just leave them to their torture. A small web of spirit and air and each was released as she passed. She didn't have time to see how they reacted.
A gaggle of leash holders came running down the corridor towards Taija and she didn't even blink as she slammed them back the way they came in a tumble of broken bones.
Where were they?! Next floor? Elayne had said there were two. Had she gone to the wrong one? Fuck.
Taija came to the end of the corridor and saw the stairs up. Checking behind her, several leashed had emerged from their cells and were tentatively following her, fear clearly written on their faces. She couldn't just leave them, but she couldn't let them slow her down either.
Taija shouted, "you want freedom? Come with me, but move!"
Breaking into a jog, she heard the sound of them pattering after her. At least they seemed to be able to keep up.
Ester leaned her head around the corner. There was someone coming up the stairs. Her and Ciora had completed themselves with a damane as soon as they heard the explosion. Ready to report to wherever they were needed. It was an emergency so she'd taken the first damane she reached. One of this continent's aes sedai before she became Pura.
It wasn't ideal, she was only partly trained, but Ester prided herself on her abilities as a der'sul'dam and the Empress would not find her lacking today. She gave a mental command and felt rather than saw saidar spring into Pura, along with Ciora's damane.
She already knew Pura's weakness, but there were other ways. Pura was an adequately strong damane. She'd be ready.
It was clear from the sounds that the battle was moving towards them and that the enemy had damane or worse was marath'damane. Suppressing a shudder, she took a hold of herself. She'd been in the service of the Ever Victorious Army for over two decades and she'd faced enemy damane enough times. She knew how to fight them and soon these intruders, be they traitors or simply enemies, would discover how foolish it was to attack the Empire here in the kennels.
She caught Ciora's eye and with a nod they prepared themselves. Ciora's would attack and distract, Pura would use her strength to shield and deflect.
Then they arrived. A dark skinned woman running noisily up the stairs, spatters of blood staining her immodestly masculine clothing. There was no reaction from Pura and Ester felt nothing, so not a marath'damane. She was unarmed too. Oddly dressed, but surely some kind of servant or civilian then, running from murderous invaders. A subject of the Empire.
Ester moved to franticly wave at the woman to get past them before she got herself killed when everything happened at once. Heat bathed her face as Ciora and her damane turned into guttering torches and she was almost yanked off her feet as Pura dived to the floor putting her hands on her head.
The woman forgotten Ester flexed her will through the a'dam to make Pura get up, make her channel, but all she got through the a'dam was a choking scream as the recalcitrant damane writhed on the ground in pain. Then the collar clicked open and the feeling of her damane disappeared from her head. Ester looked up just in time to see the servant's eyes meet hers.
Taija ran past the collapsing corpse of the leash holder, again slamming doors to leashed rooms open and releasing their collars. She was vaguely aware of the freed leashed behind her helping their fellow slaves up. This had already taken too long.
Ahead of her a door swung open and she feel saidar flowing into someone. A lot of it. A moment later Egwene staggered out, a collar around her neck, its leash leading to a short, pale woman. Taija's met her eyes for a moment and then Egwene shrieked with pain, falling to her knees. "I can't stop her! Please Taija!"
Flows of saidar shot out from her, directed towards Taija. Powerful, but crude. A thought and the flows were sliced. Before they'd even snapped back into Egwene a shield was thrown against Taija's connection to the Power. As it bounced ineffectually away her own narrow flow of inverted air and spirit had slipped past what little defences Egwene had and her collar sprang open.
The pale leash holder stood still for a second, open mouthed. Then Egwene screamed something incomprehensible and channeled. Flows of air lashed out from her, beating the leash holder, striking her from every angle. Egwene just stood there gripping her gray dress with white knuckled fists panting with rage and horror as she beat her.
The leash holder collapsed to the ground shrieking under the blows until Taija reached Egwene and grabbed her. She was so tense it was like holding a board as Taija gently turned her away from the screaming leash holder to face her instead. The light of saidar vanished from around Egwene and suddenly she was collapsing against Taija sobbing uncontrollably.
"She hurt me, Taija. She just kept hurting me. All of them. They just hurt me until I gave in, until I obeyed them. I couldn't stop them from hurting me. I couldn't stop them until I did what they wanted. I hate them. I hate them so much. I want to kill them. I want to kill them all." Her voice broke against Taija's shoulder.
"It's alright Egwene, it's alright, you're alright. You don't have to kill anyone. They won't hurt you anymore. I won't let them." The leash holder was tentatively picking herself up off the floor behind Egwene, shooting terrified glances at Taija. From the way she winced it looked like Egwene had at the very least broken some of her ribs.
Taija met the leash holder's fear filled eyes as she spun a small inverted ward against sound around her and then a web of air. The woman's neck twisted violently. Taija gently rubbed Egwene's back as the leash holder collapsed to the floor, eyes staring lifelessly up at her. "It'll be ok Egwene, I'm here."
After a few more seconds she spoke again. "Egwene, I need you to listen to me," she gently pushed the traumatised girl off her shoulder. "We need to keep moving. If you want to live, you need to follow me now. We're going to find Nynaeve and then we're leaving with anyone else who can come. Do you understand?"
She didn't really know how to deal with a traumatised teenager, but Egwene seemed to pull herself together with a shudder. "Nynaeve's this way." She was a strong girl.
Taija was already moving, urging Egwene along. She followed, but Taija could feel her eyes lingering on the leash holder's corpse as they passed it.
A couple of doors down they found Nynaeve's cell. Egwene burst in with a shout of, "Nynaeve!" and Taija followed to see Nynaeve sitting on her bed, rocking slightly and staring determinedly ahead, her face expressionless.
After a moment she looked up at them her eyes widening. Taija channeled and her collar clicked open. Hesitantly Nynaeve reached a hand up to her neck and Taija absently noticed she didn't have a braid anymore.
Nynaeve glanced at Taija and then looked at Egwene, "w what took you so long?" Her voice rasped harshly. She didn't seem to realise she was scrubbing viciously at her eyes with the gray sleeve of her dress.
Slowly she got to her feet, her movements jerky and embraced Egwene, "there there, it's ok, you're safe now" she murmured, her hand twitching as she rubbed it up and down Egwene's back.
Taija knew she needed time, but there was none. "I'm sorry, but we need to move."
Nynaeve's eyes flashed up to meet hers and she shifted herself between Taija and Egwene, "who are you mistress…?"
"It's Taija," Egwene said, "you know her Nynaeve."
"Well she doesn't look like Taija…"
"I get that a lot," Taija replied dryly, "now unless you want to be back in this room tonight we. Have. To. Move. I've killed a lot of people to rescue you and even if I have to tie you up and carry you we're leaving now."
Nynaeve straightened awkwardly, her voice taking on some of its former stridency, but Taija could see her eye twitching. "well of course we do. What are you waiting for?" The light of saidar sprang up around her, impressively bright. "Let's go." She was already heading for the door. Taija suspected she was in no condition to fight, but at least it was getting her moving.
Nynaeve stepped out into the corridor, keeping herself from stumbling with nothing more than willpower. Light it felt good to have that collar off her neck and saidar under her control rather than those filthy Seanchan! She'd die before she'd let them collar her again.
Suddenly the woman calling herself Taija was ahead of her, already running. "Follow me, don't stop for anything!" The same accent, words strangely clipped short as from the Voice. Nynaeve wasn't sure how she did it, but she somehow jerked into a run behind her.
A hole in the air seemed to rotate open in front of them, the entrance hall of the kennels, how she hated that word, visible through it. There were people there, waiting to take her back! Then there was scalding heat washing back for a second as everything through the hole vanished in fire. She hadn't felt anything, no weaves, no saidar nothing!
Taija was already leaping through the hole into the scorched room, the air dry and metallic tasting. Nynaeve followed behind into the blackened hall, doing her best not to look at the charred corpses dotted around it. They hadn't even had time to scream.
Suddenly Taija stopped, holding her hand up to the group. "Not the front door!" Without any further warning she span and ran to the wall. Putting her hand on it she bit her bottom lip in concentration and stone seemed to crumble away from her. There were still no weaves!
A second later she was dashing through a new hole in the wall, waving them after her.
Nynaeve expected to emerge into bright daylight, but instead everything was shrouded in a strange mist. In the distance she could hear the sounds of combat and screams, but everyone around her seemed to have stopped moving. In the square to their side, rows of Seanchan troops and damane stared into the sky. Even Taija had stopped, chest heaving and sweat dripping from her face as she looked into the sky open mouthed.
In the midst of the roiling clouds two figures fought, lit by a backdrop of ethereal light. One dressed in pitch black, flames swirled around him, swinging an ashen staff. The other… The other was Rand! Fighting with a sword against what looked like the Dark One himself.
Distraction could be fatal, but Taija couldn't drag her eyes away from what she was seeing above her. What the fuck was Rand doing? How did that even work? She couldn't think of any web that would do it. That wasn't even getting into the question of why Ishamael seemed to be having a swordfight with him. The man was somewhere on the wrong side of the divide between genius and insanity, but this was beyond that…
Taija didn't know how long she stood there staring, only vaguely aware of the others around her, but then she heard a shout from the direction of the Seanchan. As she tore her attention from Rand's duel in the sky, she saw one of the Seanchan pointing towards her and her group.
She was about to drag them back into a run, but then the light of saidar sprung up around Egwene, a snarl tearing across her face as she screamed, "I won't go back! I'd rather die!" She lashed out with a web of earth and fire, cobblestones blasting from the ground and ripping through the soldiers. Well that had gotten their attention.
There was no discrete escape to be had after that. Taija spun a large, inverted gateway to her side, leading back to the farmhouse. She could feel the strain now, she was nearing her limits.
"Get out of here," she barked. When Egwene and Nynaeve hesitated she added, "you need to get the other women to safety. I'll be right behind you."
After another moment they nodded and started hustling scared women through the gateway as Taija turned to face the Seanchan who were rapidly organising themselves. Absent-mindedly she sliced a couple of webs heading in her direction. None of the leashed among them seemed to want to defy their handlers and she was sailing too close to her limits to give them time to change their minds.
As the last woman hurried through the gateway and Egwene called for Taija to follow she let out a small breath and released the web allowing it to rotate closed. These people couldn't be allowed to follow them. No more women broken under those disgusting collars.
The cloudy turmoil in the sky provided her with useful material. Efficiency was key now. Fire, spirit and air, she didn't bother to invert her webs, she didn't have the energy to spare to do it fast enough to be useful. Opening a gateway beside her, Taija stepped sideways as lightning flashed from the sky exploding amidst the Seanchan formation.
She emerged on top of a building on the other side of the Seanchan force, looking down on them just in time to see her previous location explode in fire. Splitting her flows Taija channeled, spinning webs of fire and air. Small balls of fire went blasting into the Seanchan formation with blinding flashes of light and heat, sending soldiers flying.
She was succeeding in devastating their formation, keeping them off-balance, reacting not acting. But there were still ten leashed among them, it was too many. Shields were thrown at her and she sliced them with fire and spirit. If they could link she'd already have lost.
Taija drew hard on saidar, all five elements rapidly spun together and a huge blossom of white hot fire bloomed among the Seanchan. Eight. Move.
Another gateway and she was among them, a soldier falling bisected by her gateway. A web of razor-sharp air sliced through everyone in front of her. Another leashed was turning to face her spinning air, water and fire. Taija turned her into a briefly shrieking torch. Seven. A leash holder came at her, collar open in her outstretched hands. Air threw her sideways so hard she bowled over several soldiers. She didn't get up.
Taija stumbled as a web of fire clipped her, resisting the urge to cry out. Quickly she raised a howling circle of fire around herself, churning and shielding her from the sight of the soldiers and the leashed. Soldiers shied back and she spun cutting webs of water and air, sending them flying out of the ring of fire.
Again Taija Traveled, her gateway taking her out of the circle onto another building. Another two leashed lay bleeding out on the cobbles. Five.
She stepped forward and stumbled as a shield nearly cut her off from the Power. Barely deflected air made her wince as she felt its blast. Franticly she sliced the webs and sent fire back after them, only to see her own webs deflected into the sky. They were hammering at her now, webs of every element rising to meet her. Taija sliced, deflected and blocked them, barely keeping up. Then with a supreme effort of will she reached out with an inverted web of air, wrapped it around one of the leashed and crushed her where she stood. Four. She thanked the Light for her angreal.
She needed to evade.
Taija opened a gateway, a step to the side and she was back at ground level pulling lightning from the sky, filament thin webs of fire, water, air and spirit linking the clouds to her targets potential difference between cloud and ground instantly multiplied. A torrent of bolts rained down, hard to count, hard to even watch. The first few vanished, but then the attacks on her started slackening off. More bolts struck a barrier of air above the leashed, but she kept up the onslaught. Thunder a constant rumble.
It was sudden when their shield failed. One second she was still slicing and blocking webs of fire, the next the only sound was explosions as the storm of lightning devastated the Seanchan position. Zero.
The remaining soldiers broke, dropping weapons and sprinting for the docks. Taija didn't have the energy left to do anything about them, even if she wanted to. In fact she was struggling to stay standing.
Gasping for breath she staggered over to a wall and sunk down against it, pulling her thighs to her chest, the cobbled ground cold under her. Flashes of light illuminated the duel still continuing on in the sky and she could hear battle going on somewhere else in the mist. Whoever else was out there would have to do without her. Taija wasn't sure she could safely channel enough to defend herself against a man with a knife, let alone an army or other channelers.
Nevertheless her eyes were drawn back up to the sky where Ishamael was still fighting his insane duel with Rand, neither seemingly able to overcome the other.
She gave herself a shake, she couldn't sit there and let the boy die tangled up in one of Ishamael's schemes. She didn't know what was going on, but she'd done what she needed to. The girls were free and as many of the other slaves as she could help too. Siuan could manage the Black Ajah now that she had the tools to do it.
Ishamael was clearly toying with the boy, or else he'd already be dead, but Taija wasn't sure why. She'd never been in Ishamael's league and an untrained boy like Rand certainly wasn't.
In the end though she couldn't just sit and watch him get killed to sate Ishamael's desire for power. She hadn't found much she liked in this Light-Forsaken age. The girls, Rand, Aleksi, Bennae, that was about it. The world was a lonely place and Taija was very very tired. She doubted it would work, but maybe it would give Rand a chance to escape.
Taija levered herself up to her feet, lining her mind's eye up with the two duelists. They separated for a second and Rand grinned, a disturbing rictus, raising his sword above his head. The trickle of saidar running through Taija deepened as she drew through her angreal and she achingly slowly spun balefire, trying to ignore the violent spikes of pleasure-pain in her head that told her she was pushing herself far too far.
Then it all happened at once, Ishamael struck like a snake, plunging his staff into Rand's side and at the same time Rand's sword flashed down. With a deafening screech Ishamael vanished and Rand slowly collapsed, fading from the sky, the mysterious fog already dissipating.
Taija mirrored him, saidar slipping out of her like water between her fingers. She fell slowly to her knees and then onto her hands. Everything seemed to hurt. She could taste bile in her mouth and a second later she emptied the contents of her stomach onto the ground. Then, finally, gasping for breath she fell over, rolling onto her back and lying there on the cold cobbles staring into the darkening sky.
After Egwene left, Min sat looking down at Rand's sleeping form, her hand on his. She wanted to cry, whether with frustration, despair or relief she wasn't sure. At least he was alive.
"What would Egwene have said if I'd told her there was another woman yet to come?" She sighed. "Or will you try to dandle all three of us on your knee? It may not be your fault, Rand al'Thor, but it isn't fair."
Min jumped as she heard movement from the other bed, looking over to see the aes sedai, Taija, lying there wrapped in blankets looking over at the two of them with her dark eyes. Min hadn't seen what the woman had done, she'd never even met the woman before, but her warder Aleksi had carried her here, utterly insistent that she needed a proper bed far from the damane kennels. Had she been imprisoned there?
Since then Falme had descended into chaos. Min had seen the burnt and broken charnel house that was the square outside the kennels. She'd seen death before, but seeing that she'd struggled not to vomit. Perrin had gently told her not to go inside the kennels, that everyone who could be saved had gotten out and she'd quickly agreed once she realised what he was really trying to tell her.
Was that Taija? Did Rand do it? A man who could channel… The Dragon Reborn… She had no doubt that he could, it made more sense than the small, barely conscious aes sedai, she'd seen what aes sedai could do, what they would do and it wasn't that.
"I hadn't realised you were awake. How are you feeling Taija sedai?" Min got up and walked over to her, "can I get you anything?"
Another strange thing about her, whenever Min looked at Taija, unlike every other aes sedai, she never saw anything. No images, no hints at the future, just a woman.
Taija winced and tried to lever herself up in the bed. "Some water, please." Her voice rasped, she looked a mess even after Moiraine had healed her, and it had been such a relief to see that particular aes sedai. Even she'd been shocked at the state of Falme, her normal serenity briefly breaking as she looked around tight lipped while the surviving Shienarans helped move Rand and Taija to safety.
"Of course, Taija sedai." Min headed off to find some water, but by the time she returned with a jug of water Taija had fallen back asleep, so Min turned back to the man she'd been contemplating.
"What am I going to do with you Rand Al'Thor?"
"Not Rand Al'Thor," Min leapt up grabbing her knife at the musical voice, "Lews Therin Telamon, the Dragon Reborn."
A stunningly beautiful woman glided into the room, clad in white and silver. Min had never seen anyone more beautiful. "W w who are you?"
The woman simply ignored her, glancing down at Taija with a brief look of distaste before stopping by Rand and leaning down to look at him more closely.
The woman spoke quietly, but Min could still hear her, "Lews Therin… you know now, but you still do not believe it. No matter, I will continue to guide you to become who you are meant to be. Ishamael may think he is in control, but he will learn."
Min found her voice, "who are you? What are you doing here?"
In a decisive movement the woman straightened up and met Min's eyes with a beautiful smile, "I am Lanfear girl."
Terror spiked through Min and she shook her head in denial, but the woman just smiled calmly, "remember, Lews Therin is mine, but I will leave him in your care until I come for him. Now…" Lanfear turned towards the unconscious Taija and suddenly there was a much uglier look on her face.
Lanfear took a step towards Taija, then another until she loomed over her. Min stood rooted to the spot too scared to do anything other than watch.
The air seemed to shift around Taija, her blankets tightening around her in silent compression, "how fortuitous for fate to have delivered you to me like this." Lanfear reached down to gently trail her fingers down Taija's cheek onto her neck, it was not a comforting gesture.
"Too bad that you will not be awake to experience this, but I have business to attend to." Her eyes flashed and then she hesitated, just for a fraction of a second, before her musical laughter chimed out across the room. "You know Taija… Maybe not this time." She pulled away from the unconscious aes sedai with a harsh smile, it was still beautiful. "I think perhaps the cruelest thing I can do is to let you live just a little longer. Yes, I expect next time I will rid the world of your presence, but for now… I will just watch and enjoy. Oh yes I will enjoy it."
Still laughing to herself Lanfear stepped through a hole in the air and vanished.