As usual all speech in italics is in the Old Tongue.
Chapter XC - What's in the Box?
Tel spun the first gateway and Taija stepped through it with him. Then it was just a matter of spinning another to the horizon, moving forward and having a look to see whether they could see the aes sedai and then repeating. Taija wasn't worried about being seen by other travelers as they went. There was no need for secrecy here, she wanted people to be talking about what was about to happen. What did people who couldn't even Travel think they could possibly do to fight back against the Hall's inevitable retaliation?
It didn't take them long before they were able to see a dust cloud up ahead. Tel spun a gateway to a hill and they were soon looking down on the Tower aes sedai from a number of kilometres away, out of range of any likely attack without a sa'angreal and certainly too far away to be seen. It was easy enough to spin a web to bend the air into a lens to magnify the view.
It looked like a small army. It was definitely the aes sedai though, the just about visible sheet of saidar over them and their surroundings confirmed that. As far as Taija could tell through the dust, there were several hundred armoured troops on horses at the front and back with wagons and riders between them. She could just about make out banners, but couldn't see what was on them. Presumably the flame of Tar Valon. Another symbol of the White Tower's failings compared to the people whose name they stole.
Jaer had said over 30, while Taija couldn't count accurately from there, she was fairly sure the number was higher. It didn't matter, she'd kill them all herself if she needed to. They wouldn't have any idea what had just hit them. Dead women walking. Or riding.
Tel looked over to her. "Gateways?"
"They have a ward over them."
"Hit and run then?"
"I'll take front, you take back." Taija hesitated, but even through her desire to see every single one of them dead, she was still going to be better than these people. "Surrender?"
"Only after the ambush."
"Agreed."
"Forsaken?"
"Unlikely, they'd have Traveled and the wards would be inverted, but otherwise we regroup and reconsider."
"Two gateways back?"
"Yes, let's go."
Suddenly Tel grabbed Taija's hands and squeezed them tight looking her dead in the eyes. "Don't die."
After a moment she squeezed his back. "Not a chance, not to these fuckwits."
His eyes looked as furious as Taija's probably did. They both let go and then she was spinning saidar. Taija stepped through her gateway and emerged a few kilometres in front of the column. From there she had a better view than behind where the dust cloud obscured things. Taija drew to her angreal's full capacity and then spun a series of blossoms of fire into the troops riding ahead of the aes sedai. Before the four huge balloons of fire had finished forming she'd already Traveled away. Lightning was striking down at the back of the aes sedai's party as she did, the thunder that followed it rumbling across the landscape.
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Katerine was nearly thrown from her horse as huge balls of fire erupted from nowhere among the vanguard ahead of her. Horses and men screamed and even many spans back she felt the heat wash over her. It could only be one thing. How had they found them so quickly!? It had been less than two days, what tricks did this Taija have?
Of course Katerine knew she was no darkfriend, but she had told the others to be ready for darkfriend treachery from the wilder. However, she suspected they had not really believed the woman would be able to come after them so quickly. She certainly had not.
She could only be thankful for the anti-traveling wards that had been passed on to her before the mission. If not for those she suspected that the strike might have come in the middle of the aes sedai rather than among the troops and camp followers.
"Form a circle with the wagons! We are under attack!" She screamed orders to those around her. "Sisters, form links, we shall show them why the White Tower is not to be challenged."
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Taija returned to the hill with Tel. He'd spun a web to bend light around their location so that they could observe them without risking being seen themselves. It felt excessive at that distance, but she supposed was sensible.
After a moment she gave him a questioning look.
"Let them finish, if they're not moving the dust will go and then we can pick our targets."
Taija nodded at that. She was probably the more skilled channeler overall, but he was far better at military things than she was. She'd have just kept smashing them until they stopped moving.
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Rand was in agony, stuffed into some kind of container. Shielded, thirsty and contorted. He was raging to himself at everything that had happened. At Eben and Noruan's fate. At his situation now. At this betrayal of the Light. The voice that sometimes hovered around the edge of his thoughts seemed to be growing louder, demanding to be free, demanding revenge.
Then he heard the sound of explosions and screams and the motion of the wagon stopped. So they'd found him. He'd never doubted they would and now it would just be a matter of time. His parched lips cracked into a grim smile. He'd seen Taija angry, the Tower aes sedai wouldn't have long to regret their actions.
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Irena spat on the ground at the feet of the aes sedai who was shielding her. "Taija sedai's found you and soon you'll all be dead!"
"You will be silent child!" The aes sedai slapped her hard across the face. "If you will not be silent then I will give you far worse!"
She tasted blood in her mouth and her head was ringing, better to keep quiet. But she still smiled at the woman, she'd see soon enough.
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Taija and Tel gave the aes sedai fifteen minutes to get themselves organised. It was painfully slow and she was twitching from the tension as they waited, but Tel was right. Better to pick their targets and if the aes sedai were going to make themselves all nice and bunched up then that was great.
Once the dust cloud had subsided the two of them glanced at each other. No words were needed. They both spun gateways and stepped through them to new vantage points, closer to the Tower aes sedai. Taija bent light to get a better view and picked out a clump of three aes sedai. It was long range, a few kilometres out, but with an angreal very much within her capability. With a predatory snarl she spun inverted air, water and fire and connected them with the sky.
Lightning flashed down striking several times, sending their broken bodies tumbling. Tajia was already Traveling back to the first hill.
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Katerine looked around franticly. Five sisters were dead and she had no idea where the weaves had come from. Just lightning appearing from nowhere. Was it a man? Surely there was not another one of such strength allied with al'Thor. She had to strike back, but where? The hilltops. They must be on the hilltops. She looked to the nearest hill and drew on her link to bathe it in a towering column of fire.
At the same time a woman's voice boomed out from everywhere around them, indescribably loud. "Aes sedai, soldiers of Tar Valon. Surrender yourselves and your lives will be spared. Lie face down on the ground with your hands on your heads. Otherwise your lives are forfeit for your crimes against the Hall of Servants."
Katerine's face twisted into a grimace and she obliterated another hilltop.
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Taija watched as a second hilltop vanished into fire. Lots of power, presumably a big circle, but slow, crude.
"Soldiers then aes sedai?"
"Ok."
She spun a gateway, this time onto flat ground. Immediately she was spinning blossoms of fire. There was no need for subtlety, it was just fast, sharp blows. More soldiers died screaming in the eruptions of blinding fire.
Before Taija moved again, she reached out with strands of spirit, gauging the extent of the anti-Traveling wards. Tel was going to be annoyed at her for doing this, but if they kept hitting them from a distance they did risk hurting someone they actually cared about.
As soon as she was sure of the extent of the wards, Taija stepped through a gateway, just in case they worked out where she was, still keeping her distance, and spun lightning again, watching it flash down among them, sending soldiers and aes sedai flying. Then, when she judged they'd still be struggling to work out what was going on, she Traveled again, right to the edge of the wards. Much closer than was safe really.
However, Taija was already spinning, threads of spirit along the wards now that she was closer, tracing them back to one of the aes sedai. Taija couldn't see her through the wagons and the dust that had been thrown up by the explosions, but she knew where she was. It was a simple matter to draw lightning down right on top her.
It flashed down followed by the rumble of thunder and the wards vanished. Taija was already Traveling back to Tel.
He gave her a disapproving look. "Did you just take out the wards?"
Taija was too angry to look smug so she just nodded.
"Fair enough." Apparently he was too angry to tell her off. Tel spun a gateway right into the middle of the aes sedai group. The view through it was blocked for a moment as a body fell away, split in half and then he simply crushed a pair of aes sedai, spinning air through the gateway before allowing it to close.
Taija copied him, opening her own gateway and turning an aes sedai and her three warders into guttering torches. Then, as it closed, she grabbed another with air and yanked her through the now too narrow gateway. Some of the aes sedai ended up on their side.
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Katerine was close to panic. The troops looked like they wanted nothing more than to run for their lives, failing in their duty. Not that she wanted to be there either. She had not even seen their attackers. Not once, yet where there had been over forty aes sedai she now had fewer than twenty in any condition to fight. Sisters were just dying impotently as attacks came from nowhere.
A brief scream behind her and she looked back to see another sister set on fire by an unseen weave.
She needed to do something, she drew on her now diminished link and sent fire arcing out. Not even knowing what she was aiming at.
Her concentration broke as a hole in the air opened in front of her and suddenly, briefly she felt like she was being squeezed from all sides.
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Taija was fairly sure there were fewer than fifteen aes sedai left alive in the group below her, mostly the ones gathered around a wagon in the centre. She suspected that was where the prisoners were being kept so she'd been reluctant to hit it. Of course there were also their camp followers and perhaps a couple of hundred surviving soldiers.
It was so easy it was almost offensive. If they weren't both incandescently angry it would almost be boring. What the fuck were they thinking? Every time a 'modern' aes sedai did something stupid Taija lowered her expectations a little bit more, but still, what other possible outcome was there from this? Such a fucking waste. Was a violent demonstration of superior power the only thing these people understood?
She was about to spin another gateway when a banner with the flame of Tar Valon prominent on it suddenly dipped to the ground. Was that a surrender? There were no more attempts at melting nearby hills, but that might just be because there weren't enough of them left.
Taija give Tel a questioning look and he shrugged, so after a second she spun another web to increase the volume of her voice so that it could be heard booming across the open ground.
"If you surrender, release the Power and lie facedown on the ground. Anyone who is still standing or still holding saidar in the next ten seconds dies."
She saw a flurry of rapid movement as aes sedai and soldiers practically threw themselves to the ground. A few amidst the wagons stayed standing though, it was hard to tell whether they were warders or aes sedai. Idiots. Some of the soldiers were running too. Galloping away as fast as their horses could carry them.
"You take the soldiers?"
Tel nodded and spun a gateway. Taija spun her own and emerged much closer to the circled wagons, among soldiers who'd put themselves facedown in the mud. A quick glance from this closer distance told her that the amount of saidar being channeled couldn't be more than one or two aes sedai. As far as she could see the rest had laid themselves down and were being harangued by their still standing sisters.
Another day she'd just shield them and deal with them afterwards. It would be easy. Not today, today she was making a point. Taija spun another gateway and stepped out amidst the wagons. One aes sedai she cut in half with air, the other she slammed hard into a wagon. That one might live. A warder suddenly threw himself at her, sword raised and a scream of rage on his lips, she burnt him to ash.
No one else seemed inclined to move, although several of them were sobbing into the ground. Taija looked around for the people she wanted to rescue. There. The two girls and Bennae lying face down with tied off shields on them. At least they were alive. She sliced the shields and started walking over to them. Where was Rand though?
In the distance thunder rumbled. That would be Tel dealing with the runners. Good.
There was a box on a wagon, far too small to hold a man Rand's size comfortably, but it had a tied off shield on it. Fuck. Taija briefly considered just killing the surrendered aes sedai, but no, she wouldn't allow herself to go down that road.
As she looked the shield got weaker. Rand must have been inside, he was breaking free, but she wanted him out now. Taija sliced the shield and at the same time demolished the box with air so that it fell apart around him.
Rand was indeed contorted in there, painfully. She'd have found it uncomfortable and she was nearly half a metre shorter than him. For a moment after Taija freed him, she thought he was about to lash out with the Power. Fortunately he restrained himself.
Slowly he straightened out. He looked like absolute shit. He'd clearly been beaten. Extensively. He was also naked, presumably to humiliate him more. They were going to pay for this.
Rand seemed to be struggling to stand, to get off the wagon, but Taija was already there, grabbing his arm and putting it over her shoulders, helping him down.
"Taija, what took you so long?" His lips cracked into a pained smile. At least he could still make a joke. Being in a box like that would have fucked anyone up.
Taija took his weight over her shoulders. She was strong for her size, but Light he was heavy. She wasn't in a joking mood, not at all, but if it helped him process this she'd play along. "Sorry, I had classes to teach, you know how it is."
Someone started getting up, Taija was about to violently smash them back down when she realised it was one of the initiates, Irena. She should let the others know too. "Bennae, Doriad, you can get up, you're safe now."
Behind her she heard Tel step out of his gateway and swear at the sight of Rand. A moment later he was pushing his coat at him. Oh yes, the initiates were staring and he was from the Two Rivers like Nynaeve so it'd be all the more upsetting for him. The coat didn't fit properly, but it gave him back his modesty.
With Rand suitably covered Taija looked over the aes sedai, warders, servants and soldiers lying face down. "Right we need to…"
Rand cut her off, taking charge. His voice cold "Shield them and tie off the webs. I doubt they'll be able to break them. If one of them manages, kill them." Fair enough, he was the leader of the Light. "Then we need to get enough people from the Hall here to hold shields on them. We don't tell the Tower aes sedai there anything for now. Dedicated to guard the non-channelers."
It all made sense. "Tel would you mind? Also fetch Nynaeve. Rand needs her and now that these people are our prisoners I suppose we can't just let them die." Taija's tone made it clear that she wouldn't be particularly upset if they did.
It wasn't long before hard eyed aspirants from the Hall and Dedicated from the camp near Caemlyn were Traveling in. The aes sedai were collected with their warders as were the soldiers and servants, under Taija's watchful eye. Rand had already been hustled away by Nynaeve, despite his protests. Hopefully to Min's waiting arms.
She saw Fedwin give a kick to one of the aes sedai and stepped forward to intervene, but Tel gets there first. "Fedwin I'll see you at sunrise tomorrow. You will not abuse prisoners. They will be punished, but after a trial. We do not lower ourselves to their standards." His voice was raised so that everyone heard. Fedwin blushed and gave him a low bow.
"I'm sorry Tel sedai."
Then, with a sinking feeling ,Taija remembered that Siuan was meant to be visiting the Hall shortly. That was really not something she needed to deal with right then, on top of everything. Although maybe it was also an opportunity?