Fanfic:A Second Chance/Part IV
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The Proud Custodian - Miahala & Caden's Room
Climbing up slowly from behind the horizon, the red and orange and gold forerunners of dawn sprinted wildly forward and caused the night sky to break apart and bleed. Another night had died for the coming of dawn and would not be reborn again until evening, but it came as comfort that it would be reborn and the fading away of the darkness was only a temporary measure to afford some time for the sun to hold sway.
This light poured in to the room of Mia and Caden where they were staying at the Proud Custodian Inn, having gotten the best night's sleep in several - at least if you asked Mia - and she was terrible loathe to depart it as the light slid over her face and roused her gently back in to the world of the waking. Blue-green eyes fluttered open and looked at the window that was so blithely pouring forth this light.
Not just yet, though, did she lift her head from its comfortable place against the Caden's body, resting where shoulder meets chest in that curve that seemed made just for her. (It was an idle and romanticized thought, but it indulged her in a moment of pleasure to think it so.) She took in a slow breath, lifting her head so that her lips might come closer to his face. She kissed his jaw line.
"The sun is telling us that it's time to awaken and start about the day's deeds," she whispered, knowing that he would hear her with those keen-edged senses.
The Warder opened his left eye - the emerald green iris scanning the roof while he listened to the surroundings. The lidless right eye had already been open, yet the dry surface of burned white scar-tissue remained oblivious to all that happened around him. His green eye sparkled in the stark sunlight as he looked down upon the form resting against him. "I loath to leave this bed when there rests an angel against my shoulder," he rasped through his damaged vocal cords, "I'll rather forget the fact that I woke and dream of you some more."
She replied with a breathy laugh. "I am not particularly thrilled by the concept of moving, either, but I fear that we have little choice, lest my daughter and-or her Warder come looking for us in concern." Still, even having said it, her sigh was languid as she rolled her shoulders slightly, preparing to get up... but not quite yet doing so.
Turning the frame of his body towards her, Caden wrapped an arm around her waist and pressed her close. His eye was closed again, but he kissed her forehead to acknowledge the presence of his mind. "You have a point, even though I do not wish to grant it, I have to see the truth for what it is." He paused there and placed his open hand upon her hip. His fingers brushed across the surface of her skin, slowly, until he almost fell back into sleep too. Before he did, he pried his eye open and shook her lightly. "Before I can get up, the angel must spread her wings and give me back freedom of movement."
"I'm moving, I'm moving," she said, pushing herself up and sitting for a moment, and then she sighed again and slipped bare feet on to the cold floor, setting about the process of getting ready for the day.
Sliding into a clean shift, she fastened the necklace about her neck and dropped it inside the high neckline of the linen before stepping in to yet one of many high-necked, Saldaean-sleeved green dresses that she owned. (She was a simple customer to the dress maker.) She buttoned it across the chest and then started on the hair, which quick work was made of and shortly, it was braided and falling in a heavy cord down her back as she set about placing her weapons and boots on.
Meanwhile, Caden dressed quickly, in the end adding the protection of boiled leather and donning the black scaled armour over it. The twin pauldrons were strapped to his shoulders and he pulled the baldric of his bastard sabre over his head before clasping on his charcoal cloak. He did not bother to braid his long weathen hair, instead tying it back with a leather cord behind his head.
When they were ready, the Warder picked up their saddlebags and led the way to the common room.
The Inn was calm in the morning - the other guests not awake yet or already departed on business in town or beyond. The few who were sitting by the tables ate their morning meals in silence, probably not truly awake yet. Only two people seemed alert despite the hour - the two who was waiting for Miahala and Caden by the corridor that lead to the stables.
Sadira Sedai and Scerai Gaidin.
The Proud Custodian - Sadie & Scerai's Room... A short while ago...
Unlike her mother, Sadie had already been awake to see the sun cresting over the horizon. It wasn't that anything was wrong or that she had slept poorly, or that the company she kept was any less welcome... it was just a strange affliction to the Blue. She did not sleep much, and it had been this way for some while. It was not bad enough for her to see a Yellow, so she just fore-beared it.
What had also become habit, along side the Blue's affliction to not much sleep, was that her warder (and lover, although only two people outside of the Aes Sedai and Gaidin knew as much... she was her mother's daughter) didn't sleep, either, although he would remain in bed sometimes, watch over her while she was awake, or would join her.
In this particular instance, he had remained in bed but had been aware of her waking since it had happened. It was both the bond and his unique attunement to her after nearly forty years of being her warder. "We should get ready for the day," he said simply.
Glancing back over her shoulder, she gave him what she gave no one else: a perfectly unguarded look. Although more jovial outwardly than some of her Sisters, Sadie was always perfectly calculated. She chose what expressions and emotions shone through when she was around other people, and she regulated them... but not here. Not now.
The light danced lightly over her blue eyes of steel and ice. "Yes, we should," she agreed in a quiet voice, walking over to the bed and sitting on the edge of it. She kissed his forehead. "Mother should be up soon, if I know her, and I do." A knowing smile curved her lips, "Although perhaps not so early this morning as others," she added.
Scerai returned her expression with a smile of his own. Not an extinct expression, but not a common one either. "She seems happy," he said, observant to the last. He knew Mia, but knew her more through her daughter, because the pair shared much. Scerai had never had the chance to meet Sadie's father, though, and he imagined that she shared just as much with he.
"Yes, she does," Sadie agreed. "It is both surprising and not, I must say," she added, sliding off the bed and going to her bags where she pulled out a clean shift and dress. It was, of course, blue and made of a light wool fabric - sturdy, but comfortable. The sleeves were Saldaean, allowing for wrist sheathes, but the neck was not as high as those her mother wore, since Sadie did not have Mia's reasons for them.
The pair did not say much more, because no more was needed. They were soon dressed and Scerai had on his armor and both had their armor well in place as they took up their saddlebags and left their rooms, going to the Common Room. Their public faces, as it were, were well in place as they waited for Mia and Caden.
They did not have long to wait.
"Good morning, mother, Caden," Sadie greeted with a small but warm smile and bow of her head. "The day feels right for a hunt," she said, "I am Green enough to know that." She turned an amused expression towards her mother, the Captain General.
Mia laughed softly. "That you are," she agreed and then bid them both good morning as well.
Inclining his head slightly in greeting - with the saddlebags on his wide shoulders - Caden said nothing.
With greetings completed, the small group made their way to the stables, although the Inn's Mistress caught them on the way out and would not let them depart without a small package of bread and other minor things for breakfast. Sadie laughed softly as they walked, glancing at Mia and Caden with an amused half smile. "The woman must think I'm starving with the way I can't escape without food," she commented lightly. She did not mind the treatment, for it was well intentioned and Sadie was here on business often enough to be a regularly.
Reaching the stables, Mia walked to N'dore's stall and whispered to the horse, stroking the soft velvet end of his nose. "What news we found last night would lead us a day's ride from here, slightly north of the way we came in," she told Sadie, speaking in generalities due to the open area they stood in.
Saddling Winterbourne, Caden spoke up from the stall he stood in. "We can eat in the saddle," he rasped and turned his green eye to Scerai Gaidin, "Like we said, I'll be scouting ahead and back trail first, Miahala can show the way from the middle."
The Way to the Forest - Borderland Countryside
The land was quiet.
Only the crunch of Winterbourne's hooves against the ground frost echoed in the stillness. Caden drank a little from his waterskin as his mismatched gaze scanned the terrain ahead. This time that he had ridden ahead of the others, he had encountered the same quiet. Not a soul in sight, he thought and turned his eyes to the noonday sun, frowning against the light. With this pace, we should reach the forest well before sundown, just as the informant said the night before.
Miahala and he had met with him outside the closed bakery. He had told them about how his son had lived in those woods, but upon returning to the village injured and frightened, the son had told his father about how he had noticed the animal life to grow thinner and thinner in the western woods. The son was a hunter and it was just before nightfall when he came to realise why his game had grown so thin. The trollocs had come across him as he was returning home, and knowing that he had little chance against such a large number of beasts - even though he had been armed - he had run for his life.
The important tidbit of information in the story was how the animal life had vanished, because that gave evidence of longtime dwelling for the Shadowspawn in the same location - and thus also the general location to explore for the two Aes Sedai and Warders.
Caden turned Winterbourne around and rode back the way whence he had come, judging the distance he had crossed safe enough for the small party to ride along. Reaching Miahala, Sadira and Scerai a few minutes later, he rained in to a slow trot and spoke as he passed them by. "Nothing, the road is quiet. Eerily so."
"So often we seek the quiet, but when there is too much of it, we worry," Sadie commented quietly.
Although they had left the scouting and watching and all of that primarily to the Warders, since it was one of their many areas of expertise, the two Aes Sedai were not idle. They kept their senses alert and eyes on the path before them as well as the space all around them. When they spoke, it was only with the barest of glances to the person they spoke with to begin and then back to the roads.
"Hopefully, this one just signals a peaceful moment," Mia said lightly, although they were all thinking that it was, perhaps, not likely.
Nodding, Caden rode on - back trailing to intercept followers. This was a precaution quite common, yet during the circumstances of the brigands that had followed Miahala and Caden before, it was more than needed.
The day passed slowly with a lot of time for idle thinking about what laid ahead of them in that forest.
First Camp on Trolloc Territory
The sun had set long after they entered the woods, stealing the little warmth that was left in the world. The only respite they could find was that the wind that had begun to blow in the afternoon could not reach them among the trees. It did, however, not fail to wail through the pine trees above them.
They had chosen a shallow cavity in the middle of a high slope in the terrain. You could barely hear the flowing brook below the slope because of the wind, but it was there and gave them opportunity to fill their waterskins. The trees that climbed the height of the slope were scrawny things with roots that clawed their way out of the leaning ground, while the ones beyond the top were strong and thick. The cavity in itself was no more than a hollow below one of the smaller pine trees - with the roots stretching out like dry and brittle fingers above their heads.
Caden and Scerai had chosen the camp because of the small chance of discovery, but they were hardly pleased with it. It was the best they could find though, and since the lookout could be posted at the top of the slope and still see the small valley below as well as beyond the top, it would do for one night.
There was not much conversation as the four took to their home for the evening. Plans had been discussed and sorted, so there wasn't much to say on that and the strange abundance of silence prevailed still, so that no one really felt much like disturbing it.
It was a far sight different than the previous camp sites that Mia had been upon over the past few weeks and for a variety of reasons. She could have done without the faint edge of anxiety, or the preparing for battle unknown... but it was good to be at Caden's side once again and it was also good to have the comfort of a fellow Sister, her own daughter, there with her.
The Green did not get to see Sadira very often, because they both travelled a great deal and their schedules tended to not work together so that they were rarely in the same place, at the same time. It did seem, though, that the Wheel had weaved it so... and Mia felt that it must have been for a reason, like this, although she was trying not to predict.
Crouching at the edge of the hollow, Caden searched the shadows below the slope. They had not started a fire, not even a small one, but it was strange how he still wasn't hungry. They had all eaten small portions of dried food during the day in the saddle, but that was all. After he had left the Tower, he had rediscovered how much food he had to eat in order to sustain his large, muscular body. The Bond did peculiar things to the body, and in experiencing the daily cycles of an ordinary man for a long time, it still gave him pause.
He turned, facing Miahala in the evening darkness. "You should rest, Miahala," he rasped quietly, "We might need all your strength for the morrow, when we discover if there really is a nest or not."
He turned his green eye to the daughter. "The same goes for you Sadira Sedai. Scerai Gaidin and I will keep watch during the night."
The two women exchanged a knowing look and then both smiled faintly. Mia inclined her head in silent promise that she was not going to disagree while Sadie just cast a glance about for Scerai, and then favored Caden with another faint smile. They said nothing as they made their ways to their bed rolls, although neither dressed for sleep.
They wished to be prepared for anything.
Leaving the hollow, Caden climbed the root-infested slope and made his way to guard during the first half of the night. With the cloud filled sky above and the pine trees around him as company, he knew he would soon be thinking that he would rather have shared a sleeping sack with Miahala instead.
The invisible enemy in the shadows wasn't very talkative either, but Caden was more than used to his company. All guardsmen were - seeing him everywhere even though he could be miles away.
First Encounter - Death in the Undergrowth
Sleep had been slow in coming for both Miahala and Sadira, although it was more so for the latter. They were both on edge, just a little, by the business here but eventually they both drifted off in the shallow slumbers. Sadie did not dream, neither did she Dream, for that was not something that had passed from mother to daughter.
For her part, Mia was neither dreaming nor Dreaming that night either. She was balanced too much on that place between sleeping and waking, where dreams did not come. Vaguely, she was aware of the presences around her, and more so of Caden, but all flittered on the edges of her consciousness.
When he slept, Caden had not even bothered to roll out his sleeping sack. He sat, propped up against the side of the cavity. He had looked at Miahala's sleeping form a long while before letting himself enter a sleep more akin to a perceptive rest. He did dream sometimes though, but since his sleep was always light, they were more like fever-dreams.
He had returned to the Tower to find all the comrades-in-arms he had there as enemies - somehow turned shadowsworn by the Black Ajah.
He dreamed that he tried to fight them without killing them - an art he remembered Firredal to be skilled in. Caden lacked that skill, so it boiled down to a situation where it was either him or them. He was cornered, facing a never-ending crowd of his closest friends or Brothers from the past. Firredal, Durent, Sigmund and Saphire, Janis and Kanamai, Toseth, Urikanu and Llewellyn, Kira, Aynaiss, Croi and Leisha, Kile, Shyne... even Neilan and Leanna, Miledha, Nykolai and Negrath were there. The faces came at him dressed in masks of fury - attacking him with all their skill. He was bleeding badly, shredded by the steel in their hands or the cuts of Air, because he could not bring himself to kill them. Even though they were turned to the Shadow by the Black Ajah, he could not bring himself to kill them - not even for the sake of Miahala, who were shouting that he could not die.
When the end was near, and he saw how Miahala fell to her knees in tears - unable to help him or to stop the madness. Then, something snapped inside. Because for Miahala, and in knowing she might die if she lost yet another love and Warder, he finally bared his teeth and lifted his bastard sabre with trembling and bleeding arms.
Just when he was about to kill them all, something interjected itself between him and them - a shadow that passed before his vision.
It was Scerai Gaidin - who dropped down from the roof of their hollow. He landed soundlessly - like a cat - with his sword drawn by his side.
"Ten of them," he said silently in his crouching position, almost like a whisper. "From above. We are yet unseen."
Shaking his head a little to get rid of the residues of the nightmare, Caden was already on his feet with his sabre unsheathed, not even remembering exactly when he had bared his weapon. His brow ridge was lowered over his mismatched eyes as he nodded in reply to Scerai's brief report. They had agreed, back at the Proud Custodian, that Caden was to act as their long-range sword in the event of an assault, and he turned to Miahala.
"I will be in the shadows," he said to her, and also to Sadira Sedai, as soon as they got to their feet. His right eye shone eerily in the darkness - round and staring. "Scerai Gaidin will stay close. If you somehow get over-powered, fall back across the brook below. They will be loath to cross the water."
The two Aes Sedai had both woken quickly with the sensing of alarm through the bonds before it was quickly shut down as the Void took hold of them both. At least it had been enough to wake them, prepare them. The news was quickly delivered and everyone moved with a fearful familiarity in to the positions.
No more words were said. None were needed. They all knew this dance.
Without time for further delay, Caden left the hollow and vanished into the darkness - his blade sheathed again to not draw the faint moonlight which escaped through the clouds. Courage is fear when it has said its prayers. He forgot all about the dream - or anything else for that matter - because in the Void, he was as dead inside as he aimed for these shadowspawn to be before dawn.
The waiting was always the hardest. The enemy was approaching, but there was yet time before they were due to arrive to the hidden camp. The Shadowspawn probably didn't have any idea what lay ahead, but it helped only a little for the ones who lay in ambush. Despite experience, the tangible taste of fear was still in their mouths - suppressed, aye, but still there. Only a madman was not scared in facing potential death.
Soon, the sound of their progress could be heard in the night.
Twigs snapped. The laboured sound of hoarse breathing echoed in the silent forest - not really giving away their positions. They were making they way slowly down the slope, that was certain, because their eyes were gleaming in the scant moonlight - like stars that moved on the sky seen between the tree trunks when looking in their direction.
Caden was closer than the others now, hidden to the side of their progress down the slope. He saw them as individuals - ten large beasts with different animal origins dominating their features. They seemed curious somehow, and the Warder realised that it was the phenomenon that Miahala had described that he was seeing.
They were monstrous, well above seven or eight feet tall and with limbs thicker than any man's. They were walking in manners more alike the animals they resembled than the cautious gait of a man - studying the surroundings as if they searched for something.
Flesh, thought Caden, they are famished because the wildlife has escaped these woods. They will eat anything they can come by. And the shadowspwan were armed to kill their prey. They carried heavy black blades with saw-toothed edges, iron maces or massive axes. But their intent was not single-minded - like the trollocs directed by a Myrddraal. Rather, they acted on instinct, individually, but moving in a pack because they did not know how else to hunt. They did not move forth with mind to tactic or rank, but as a loose gathering of predators intending to feed on whatever came in their path.
Seeing that Scerai Gaidin had been correct in his estimate of their numbers, Caden considered the best line of action to take.
The ten trollocs were slowly descending the slope towards where the Aes Sedai and Warders' hidden camp was, stepping over white roots and using the tree trunks to support themselves when the ground sloped too much. They were loosely spread, with no leader to follow but the ache in their bellies; drool glistening in the night as it dribbled across the black earth.
When they were twenty feet from the camp, Caden took initiative and exploded into motion from his hiding place in the undergrowth. His running path cut straight through the middle of the trollocs, across from side to side, and his bastard sabre cut its own path through their ranks.
In an instant, the night had turned red with blood and murder. The animal howling of three trollocs shattered the night air. They doubled over or fell back - lacking limbs or bowels. Their blood, almost human but still far from it, was turned into black rain in the poor light.
The front ranks turned to see what had happened to their pack - leaving their backs exposed to the two Aes Sedai and the Gaidin hiding in the hollow.
An uneasy, but otherwise calm, feeling had descended over Miahala. She had the idea, on good authority, that it had descended over Sadie as well, because it was the sort of thing that happened to Mia in these sorts of moments. All too often, battles she was part of were unexpected, but this one was anticipated - there'd been warning. So the feeling was different.
They waited, and it was always the worst. The uneasiness would not give way to tension or any extreme levels of anxiety. All involved were far to experienced for that to occur, so they waited and hovered around the edges of strong emotion, not diving in, yet not all that far from it. Blood pushed hard, but they pushed back.
Scerai was unseen, but Mia knew that he was close. It did not take a bond to know that. Mia and Sadie were positioned close to each other and able to see one another. It would help to coordinate any attacks with the One Power. A pair of daggers glinted in the moonlight as Mia held them, at rest but at the ready as she leaned back against a tree which provided a covered place for observing, and waiting.
For her part, Sadira was crouched to one knee and absolutely still - as if she was a Gaidar, but really it was just far too much experience in such things. Her own sword gave a dull gleam that could've blended in with the undergrowth all around them.
Finally, noise cut through the night ahead of them. It came in direct correlation with the feeling of the bonded almost swelling in her mind and it told her precisely what happened... Well, it gave her raw information that her rather keen mind and acute knowledge of Caden Ives refined down to a sequence of events.
"Looks like the party's started without us," Miahala whispered to her daughter.
Sadie smirked. "Indeed," she said, her tone so quiet it was almost wind.
She was one step behind her mother as the pair adjusted their positions very slightly, moving forward and in short order, they viewed the scene ahead. The Blue's mental calculations were quick. Three had been taken down.
Their backs were exposed. Caden was drawing the focus of the seven remaining, allowing for the others to take their shots. The tactical parts of Mia's minds whirled.
Just as these thoughts passed the two women's minds, in the time that it took to blink, Scerai was by the side of his fellow Gaidin. Both moved with that fearful grace, almost imperceptible movements were of great value to the lives of their opponents.
The One Power, which had already been embraced in preparation, by the Green and the Blue, was now a roaring, raging stream through Mia's body and blood. It pounded within her ears. Every sense was heightened and every perception keener. Darkness was but a trifling thing now. Blue-green eyes turned to sharp focus on of the Trollocs closest to Caden.
As many others had learned in the past, this small band of unfortunate Shadowspawn was about to learn that it wasn't good to enrage as Aes Sedai... and even less so, two of them.
Mia set weaves of air howling through the night and wrapped them around one beast. Like ropes, she pulled them back although as she did so, she made the wire. The beast collapsed in to a single pile of semi-shredded flesh. Of the four on her Warder, it was now down to three... two remained on their original focus, while the third - with bizarre awareness - turned back and started barreling through the night... towards Miahala.
She was not afraid.
Meanwhile, Sadie was focusing on the three that had encircled her own warder. She knew that her mother could hold her own, as it was obvious so could Caden and Scerai... but a little help never hurt. Fire was dangerous in the middle of a forest, so Sadie carefully chose her weave. Air, fire and water dug in to one of the three. (Unknowingly... like mother, like daughter.) He began to electrocute.
The one problem was that Trollocs were thick and strong. Sadie was good with the Power, but she was not as strong as her mother or some of her other sisters. The beast did not die so quickly and flailed madly. At first, this caused another challenge for her warder, but eventually the beast came for her.
Blue eyes flashed cold as steel. She did not release nor relent, but she dove forward, bringing her sword about as another sort of power. What she lacked in the one, she had made up for in the other. Her figure, lithe and smaller than the beast's, danced around him just as he grew close, and sliced through his neck. He dropped to the ground, bleeding and steaming.
A wall of air, interlaced with fire. Mia had just enough time to put it together, as it took a little bit of concentrating. She was able to slam it, sparking, in to the monster just once before she had to release it. Blades held out, ready, to either side of her, she watched as he got close and dodged the sickening looking mace.
He was swinging wide and wild. She danced in and out of his guard, trying to get a shot. The beast came treacherously close to hitting her clean to her side, but she evaded him. After several moments, which seemed like much longer than it was, she had afforded herself a moment. She slid her grip from hilt to blade and threw.
The steel lodged deeply in the creature's neck. He was not dead, but disoriented. She used rows of air to finish him.
In Mia's mind, that left the count four to four, although she was sure that if they had not already, the blades of Scerai and Caden would be narrowing that number shortly. Turning back to the others, Mia fell to one knee and pressed a palm to the ground. She sent pulses of earth all around her, having faith in the others, but not the Trollocs, to keep balance...
When the Power-wrought tremors began to climb Caden's legs, he also found the way to out maneuver the two remaining shadowspawn that he was facing. The two trollocs were striking brutally at the air in which he had been a moment before their blows landed - each in turn and pressing him downhill.
So when the earthquake shook the slope, Caden dug in his heels and changed his direction.
The Blademaster parried the axe that the left one held to the side and kicked one calf hard enough to send the already off-balance creature to the ground. The shadowspawn went down in a great heap of flailing limbs and clattering steel. The great axe tumbled down the slope ahead of him and bounced against a tree before it landed in a dry gathering of bushes. Trolloc stopped rolling and began to claw at the dead leaves and moist earth underneath him to get back on his feet.
Meanwhile, Scerai had just out-witted a trolloc by making him lodge his saw-toothed sword deep into the trunk of a dead tree. The Gaidin came around the trunk from the other side while the trolloc still tried to yank its blade free. It took the Warder a quick but brutal overhand strike to server the shadowspawn's left arm by the elbow. He could not finish it off though, since he had to roll downhill in order to avoid the mace that was coming for the back of his head. The second trolloc was at him, and it stumbled after him with murder in the slits of his boar eyes.
Caden was both trying to keep his balance in the earthquake that made the trees creak all around them as well as keep the trolloc he faced in check. It was flailing its heavy blade to the left and right and tried to come in range despite that the ground was working against him.
With his green eye narrowed, Caden saw how it hurled its blade in both hands over his head to bring it down diagonally, and made finally his move.
He stepped in towards the attack, but brought his blade up horizontally from his hip. His sabre came up as he crouched down, and the trolloc's blade was led off behind him. When the shadowspawn had completed its downhill step and attack, it found itself with its side and back towards the Gaidin. It never got the chance to realise this before Caden's sabre had come about and buried itself into the back of its knee. It wailed in agony for a second or two after it fell over, then Caden decapitated it with a clean strike to the neck. The head rolled down the slope and gained speed as it descended towards the brook.
Scerai Gaidin had made a stand between the trunks of two trees, with the slope to his back. The trolloc had to strike vertically in order to hit him, and that made the Warder able to step back and pause while the attack descended into the ground. Then he stepped forward, and drove the point of his blade into the nape of the creature's neck with a forceful thrust that extended from his wide shoulders, through his arms and hands and into the cold length of steel that skewered the shadowspawn like the pig it resembled.
The trolloc that Caden had sent rolling down the slope was finally gaining its foothold and was about to rise - only a few feet away from Miahala and Sadira. It was unarmed, but the malevolence in its eyes glimmered dangerously in the darkness just as the axe it had lost.
Its hands were too big to be human, hairy and with splintered nails, but they were quick enough as he lunged for Sadira - who was closest - aiming to crush her skull in their grip or to twist the head off her neck.
However strong or malicious the intent of the beast, he would not even get the chance.
Miahala was not a Warder, or have training quite like one, so she did not have the Void, but what she had was close. It was quiet. It helped her to do precisely what had to be done without fear or hesitation. Sometimes anger would slip past, but only if it fed the power to do what needed to be done, and it tended to only do so when someone she cared about was in danger.
This was different. No matter how old her daughter was, or how little they saw one another... Sadira was still Miahala's child.
The quiet inside her mind was shattered with a sort of blood rage that cried out, pulsed, and sent a wave of emotion outward from around her, for those who could feel it, as soon as she saw the beast close in near Sadie. It would have been only moments before it was on her and she did not have the angle or time to see what to do. Mia did. The shattering emotion caused the One Power to explode in her as well.
Hands held out, she set streams of the power in to the beast... and caused it to explode.
Blood was splattered all over her hands and arms, some of her face, but not much. She didn't move for a few moments, frozen with her hands out, while Sadie was looking at her with surprise. The Trolloc by the tree had bled out. There were no beasts left alive, except the one inside Mia that was like any mother animal, quietly slipping away once the threat was past.
Both Warders, light and dark haired, paused when the blast resounded through the forest. They both crouched down instinctively and raised their blood-coated blades in guard. They realised that the sound had meant no threat to them when the rain of blood fell across the undergrowth. On the spot where once the last shadowspawn had been, nothing was left. The shreds would make easy digestion for the wildlife, if the animals returned to the woods anytime soon.
Walking downhill to Miahala, Scerai wiped his face from the droplets of red that had fallen on his face. "Did you have to wake the dead in order to have them receive that one, Aes Sedai?" he asked, a faint smile taking the edge out of his words. "Or did you not like the hue of your daughter's cloak?"
Caden saw and had felt the anger that this act had been done with when he came to stand by her side. He was not as humorous. "He is no more. Are you alright?"
Mia blinked once, realizing that her hands had lowered somewhere along the way. "I'm fine," she said simply, and then she lifted the corner of her cloak and began to wipe off her hands. She glanced over at Sadira, but Scerai was already checking on her and she seemed fine. "And you?" she asked, turning back to Caden.
With the Void gone, Caden felt the fatigue and numbness in his limbs, the ache of his lungs and the sweat on his brow, but not any pain from injuries.
"I am uninjured but for the ringing in my ears," he answered and wiped the blood from his blade on his cloak before sheathing it - it was already soiled anyway. "Death did not favour me this time either. He seems to dislike my company. I wonder if it was something I said - when visiting him at his gates sometime past? Can't remember."
A breathy laugh passed her lips that time and she glanced at him and then in to the dark woods. "I suppose we have both offended him then, but I am not going to complain." She paused, taking in a deep breath and willing calm back in to her mind. "So, what say you of our next step?"
He turned his eyes uphill, looking in the direction from whence the shadowspawn had come. His right eye shone in reflection to the moon as his mind worked. "I say we continue," he rasped, "while their trail is still fresh. Someone told me once that the dead cannot speak. Yet now, the dead will tell us plain and clear where the nest is located."
"Then let us be about it," Mia said and glanced over at the other two, who nodded. They were all agreed.
The Trail of the Dead - Deeper Into the Silent Woods
As they tracked the trail of the trollocs, they proceeded in silence and caution. They had no idea to judge how far or close the nest was, only the fact that the prints in the undergrowth was probably going to lead them there. Scerai and Caden took turns in scouting ahead, thus minimizing the risk of being ambushed or realising too late that they had reached the shadowspawn stronghold.
The forest remained as silent as the grave, not even the birds made themselves heard in the breaking of dawn.
Dawn crested over the horizon, and then disappeared as day matured and the sun grew higher in the sky. Time passed and the trail was followed, Mia's attention dividing between the work at hand and thoughts of earlier. That... was something new. As she had aged, she had grown more powerful, yes, but that was another limit all together.
But now was not the time to think on such things. She focused once again on what had to be done.
They had found nothing by the time of noon, so they decided to take a short break after Caden made sure that there was nothing to find along the trail ahead. When he returned, he just shook his head faintly and began to produce a meal for him and Miahala from the saddlebags. They would have to be quiet, since the sounds from all their movements travelled far in the quiet landscape.
They sat huddled underneath a tall pine tree with heavy and concealing branches. Sadira and Scerai were on one side, and Caden was washing Miahala's face gently with a cloth and water from one of their waterskins. They had found a deep hollow beneath the pine tree where they had hobbled the horses.
Normally, Mia would resist and claim that she was not a child and could wash her own face, but... she was still off set and was almost placid now, although focus was keen. She was simply quiet. "It was a strange thing earlier," she finally commented, speaking softly. "I hope it does not make you think differently of me..."
"You are a protective mother," he rasped to Miahala as he finished washing her face, "That is a good quality, and one which you can carry out more severely than most mothers out there. It is not that I take pleasure in the sight of blood and guts, but I admire what you did; it was noble. I might have done the same thing in your place."
Mia smiled softly. "Thank you, Caden," she said.
At this, Caden just gave her his special smile - the one he could only give her. Yet it faded as he began to think about the dream he had had prior to the ambush they had set for the trollocs.
"I should be used to nightmares at this age and because of what I have lived through," he scraped slowly, "After I was burned, I could sometimes not distinguish between dream and reality when the fire came for my face - again and again. I relived those agonizing moments for years. At first, I woke several times at night, believing that the sweat in my eyes was my melting hair. When the fear and taste of defeat left me, my anger took their place tenfold. The Yellows diagnosed me as having post traumatic stress disorder but I refused to listen, my anger and my shame did not allow me to listen to anyone. I think you were the only one who got my attention back then.
"Nowadays, that dream doesn't scare me as it used to do. However, yesterday night, I had a nightmare that truly had my heart in its talons. And you were there too, together with everyone I used to know in the Tower."
He began to tell her about the dream. He told her everything as he remembered it, and tried to not leave anything out.
"I hardly think that it means something," he rasped afterwards as he stared into his hands, "nothing more than the portrayals of latent fears - trepidation in the prospect of how powerful the Shadow might have grown. I do not know what I might return to."
"You would know best," she told him. "I know something of dreaming, and I can tell you that each person knows, even if they are not aware of it consciously, of what their dreams mean - whether they are forebearers or simple representing one's thoughts. Thus, you would know best what it was that your dream meant, but if it helps, I think you're right. It's been a long while since you were at the Tower, so it's understandable to worry about what may have happened while you were gone."
His gaze fixed into the distance, Caden paused as he thought about what Miahala said. "And if I am as worried as the dream might reveal me to be, do you think I have reason for my fears?"
Mia smiled gently, and nodded. "Worry not, I may have travelled much, but I can assure you that such things will not be found when we returned, for I have spent as much time there in the past years."
After a second of thought, Caden had to admit his worries probably were unfounded. The idea that the Black Ajah had became powerful enough to move so freely in the Grey Tower was preposterous.
Meanwhile, on the other side of their small hiding area, Scerai and Sadie were also speaking and cleaning up following their earlier battle. Sadie had been originally a little shaken by what her mother had done, but it more surprise than anything... and how close it had almost come. She would not have had time to escape the blow...
"I'm sorry, Sadira," Scerai said, whispering, as he allowed her to clean and treat a minor wound on his fore arm. After her channeling earlier and the traveling, she did not feel it best to use the One Power to heal a lesser wound.
"You apologize needlessly," Sadie replied firmly, but tenderly as she wrapped the bandage. "Sometimes... it happens, but the Wheel was not done with me yet, for it was not you and I alone." She sensed that Scerai was unconvinced, but she couldn't say much else to make him believe it as she did, that it was not his fault. Even the best of warders cannot be every where at every moment.
Scerai sighed quietly, and then nodded. In time, maybe, but all he could think of then was how he had not had the time or ability to get to her before that Trolloc could have.
Mia brushed stray strands of hair behind her ear. "Hopefully our task here will soon be completed, then we might visit my family and be on our way back to the Tower, and you'll see," she said to Caden with a light smile.
"Aye," he answered, "I'll see the Tower again as I remember it and have my worries settled." He reached up and brushed the backside of his fingers against her cheek. His green eye had changed to an expression of calm affection towards her - the worries gone from his features. He leaned forward and whispered in her ear. "To tell the truth, I grow more and more accustomed to the idea of returning to service behind and beyond those battlements. Now, there is someone there whom I will share my days and years with that I truly care for - a light of love and affection amidst the battle. You, Miahala."
A few moments later, Scerai walked over to the pair. His presence was obvious and unobtrusive in the way that only Gaidin were able to achieve. He saw the smile that Miahala favored Caden with and he knew it for what it was, but made no mention or notice, and no judgments, for with his own relationship with Sadie, he never would.
"Aes Sedai, Brother," he said, inclining his head to them both. "We should be on our way again," he continued.
Turning her head upwards toward her daughter's warder, she smiled faintly and nodded. "Of course, Scerai," she replied.
With her word, the older Gaidin gave another inclination of his head and then he returned to Sadie where the pair was preparing to start moving again. Her eyes followed him for a few moments and then she turned her gaze back to Caden. She was feeling more herself again, after the strange feeling of disassociation that had come after the slaying of that final trolloc during the fight before. The corners of full lips curved upwards in a slight smile as the anticipation of the hunt came back to her.
"Well, Caden," she began. "They're playing our song."
"Yes," he said, "and this time, it's a hard tune to keep up with, because we have not heard this one before."
At first, they started on the path again by horseback. While they did not find what they were looking for, they continued to come across clues that would tell them that they were on the right track. It would take something of a tracker to get from clue to clue, but once you saw the evidence, you didn't have to be experienced in it to know what you were looking at. These creatures were none too bright and had no concern for if they were being followed, and without a Fade to lead them...
"I did not realize they would have traveled so far," Sadie commented after they had been following the creatures for a while longer. "We continue to follow the signs they left behind and have yet to come on their nest, or whatever you would call this."
"They're desperate," Scerai commented. He spoke to the group, but his eyes remained hard, keen, on the surrounding countryside as he scouted for threats and for the next sign that would lead them further on the path.
Mia took in a quiet, thoughtful breath. "The wildlife, and travelers, are being chased from the forest by their presence, so they are needing to travel further to find sustenance," she theorized, and she was generally right on such things. She hadn't made it to this age and this position without good knowledge of shadowspawn. "We are getting close, though."
Scerai glanced at her briefly. "You feel it as well?" he asked.
"Aye," she replied with a single nod. Blue-green eyes looked around as she tried to narrow down where the feeling was coming from. Over several years, she had been able to develop a sense of creatures of shadow. After so many years of hunting them and being hunted by them, it was bound to occur.
As a Warder, Scerai had the inclination for it, but he and Sadie tended to track the more human variety. Although the Blue had her experience in hunting shadowspawn, she had not quite developed her mother's senses for it. She didn't mind, though, because she had Scerai for that and in this instance, her mother.
Meanwhile, Caden was riding along the way they had come. He reached a hill in the forest that would reveal the landscape they had passed through. He dismounted from Winterbourne and made his way up on foot - crouched and attentive to his own concealment. He ventured only as far that he could see without letting his body become silhouetted against the sky. There he paused as his eye scanned the woods in search of movements.
He lingered a few minutes before he deemed the forest as dead as it had been before, then he mounted up and returned to his companions. It took him a longer than he had wished becuase he could not have Winterbourne make too much noise as he crossed the distance.
"Are we still clear?" Sadie asked, turning her head slightly to glance at Caden as he returned from checking the trail behind them.
"The forest remains dead in our wake," he replied, "we seem to be travelling through a parallel world where the living has seized to be. These shadowspawn must have settled here a good while ago in order to clear away the wildlife to this degree. No wonder they have to attack human settlements or travellers by now."
Meanwhile, Mia was looking around. N'dore picked his path to follow the other horses, accustomed to this. The Green was trying to narrow down where this feeling was coming from, in the hopes that it would provide assistance in continuing to find their path and hopefully, soon, the nest that was their intended goal. She was aware of the presence of her Warder from the swell of the bond in her mind and some small part of her subconscious was glad for it, and that feeling. She had missed it.
The rest of her mind, though, was focused on this task. Her concentration acute until she stopped her searching, looking in a North West direction. "This way," she said.
Caden Ives turned his gaze in the direction she indicated. The forest seemed as dead there as everywhere else. "You certain?" he asked, and his own Shadow Sense seemed to point in that general direction as well.
"Just a sense," she replied thoughtfully. "But it's been growing the further along this path we've gotten, so we've been on the right track I believe." It was almost like the feeling that came with the bond - a spot in the mind that would grow as you got closer.
As they had been doing for the entirety of the time, Scerai went ahead of the others and then they followed. They went along until the brush grew denser. A path through it could be seen, however, and the underbrush pushed in to the ground like it had been walked over many times by large and heavy feet, and hooves, as the case might be. They were getting close, and they were also getting to a place where the horses wouldn't - and shouldn't - go.
"Don't hobble them," Mia said as they dismounted. "These branches are thick enough that you can shepherd tie their reins," she went on, looking over the trees as she said this, speaking to the sort of tie that was firm enough to keep a well trained beast - like their steeds were - in place, but if they were frightened by something like a herd of Trollocs, they could jerk themselves free and run away.
If they could not bring the horses with them, Mia would not see them left in such a way as to not be able to fight or run. N'dore could do both, she knew, for she had trained him.
Dismounting as well, Caden took the reins from Scerai Gaidin and followed Miahala's good judgement and tied both Warders' horses to thick branches and separated them so that they would not get the idea to bicker. Winterbourne seemed resigned as if he would rather have wanted to follow his master into the Shadow's belly.
While Mia and Sadie were securing their horses, Scerai slid silently in to the shadows between the trees to scout ahead. N'dore gave the gentlest of whickers as Mia tied his reins. His big head nudged against her as she gently stroked the fur of his nose and spoke to him in the Old Tongue. His liquid eyes showed an understanding. Few people would realize the intelligence and caring a horse could possess, but she knew and would never treat any horse of hers any differently.
The Green was just beginning to check over her weapons when Scerai returned, suddenly appearing next to them.
"They seem to have taken shelter in a cave system," he reported. "I was not able to ascertain the extent of it or their living within it, but the hill is broad. Some of their camp extends to the fore area as well.
A cave system, thought Caden, and the list of tactics they could use shortened by more than half. "I suppose this was expected if we would have been proven right about our theory about a Gate into the Ways. The Breaking of the World could very well have buried the Gate deep into the ground. We are, however, hampered in this because of our minimal possibility of escape once we cut our way into the cavern. Even if we manage to make ourselves enter it unnoticed, the whole settlement outside the cavern will turn on us once we stir thing up inside. Our only chance of moderate safety is if there is a second exit elsewhere in this part of the woods where the shadowspawn does not dwell outside."
"We could slay them all before we even head in," Sadie commented thoughtfully. "With the One Power, we could manage to take many at once and with greater surprise."
Nodding, Caden saw the reason in her words, despite the gruesome task. "Yet if you and Sadira Sedai burn the fore area to the ground or just manage to kill them all, you will be too exhausted to close the Gateway - if we would even reach it without your... assistance."
Miahala was quiet for a long moment. She was thinking back to the earlier battle, and that last Trolloc... and to how she'd been feeling lately when she took in the One Power. She wasn't sure Caden was correct about the exhaustion, but she did not feel like staking her life on the feeling, no matter how strong it was...
"Illusion," she said, looking between them. "It does not always take as much energy and for a group like this, it would not even have to be a large scale illusion - it would just need to be realistic. Something to lure them away."
A slight smile crossing his lips, Caden liked this idea better. "Boars... Boars have plenty of meat on them. If you were able to make such an Illusion, it is pretty certain that they will all be chasing the pack of boars until their legs give away or they loose their way in the forest. As hungry as they are, they will not see the flaws in the illusion, merely the meat. That will leave us with better odds of surviving this day and see another dawn."
A faint smile curved the corner of Mia's mouth, but it was brief lived as her mind turned to the task at hand. She gave a look towards Caden and then she and Sadira moved closer together - better to keep the Channelers together for the moment. They exchanged a glance, nodding as they were of the same mind.
Time to move in...
Closing in on the area, they took up hiding places close enough to see, but far enough to remain undetected. Judging the direction of the wind, they made sure to approach in a fashion that would not send their scents into the nostrils of the beasts.
There they were, in crude wooden dwellings before the mouth of the cave - an opening where ten people could enter abreast. Unorganized, famished and very deadly. Caden did not relish the thought if being overpowered by these shadowspawn and have his limbs torn from his torso one by one in order to give them immediate sustenance. Courage is fear when it has said it's prayers.
Yet one more moment in her life, Miahala stood on the verge of a battle, staring upon shadowspawn. How many times in her life now had she been in instants like this? How many times had she clashed with these sorts of creatures? How many more times would she, before the Creator took her back in to the pattern?
She did not afford these questions much time for thought, however, and only took a moment to be glad that she was not here alone.
The One Power was taken in to both of the Aes Sedai. Each one could feel it crash upon them, and feel it being embraced by the other as well. For Mia, it was always like water crashing on to a shore, but for Sadie, she always compared it to the wind. It blew in to her and lifted her. Their senses grew sharper.
Although Illusion had never been one of her strongest suits, she was no beginner at it either. She brought the weaves together quickly to have the boars appear in the brush just on the other side of the camp. Sadie layered weaves on top and around of it, giving it a little more life. Within moments, the entire group of trollocs were alerted to the presence of the animals. They rose as a single group and started running after the illusions that Sadie and Mia pressed forward, running through the brush.
They kept it on for as long as they were able, which was until the sounds of beasts crashing through the woods became quieter. They would wander now, looking for the animals that they chased - even though they were no longer there.
Crouched down and looking at the deceptive strategy as it was deployed, Caden felt relieved that it worked. Using his Shadow Sense, he could feel the pack of shadowspawn move further and further away from the area. He did, however, feel that there were more of them ahead, as well as below, but beyond the open black mouth of the cavern. For now, they were alone again, but not for long.
He turned his head towards the others and told them what he sensed - or rather what he and Scerai Gaidin perceived.
Mia nodded. The weaves had been loosed, but she kept the One Power in hand. "Wait," she said suddenly. "There is still one there..."
Looking ahead, Scerai frowned. "Yes, but it's not moving. I think it's dead."
"Aye," Mia agreed, peering closer - though it was not easy to judge at this distance in such detail, it did become obvious in the passing of moments that the beast was not moving in the least. Carefully, they moved in then. As they got closer, they could see that the creature was not all there, either.
Sadie sighed. The One Power made her see and smell it all the more. It was apparent that these beasts were quite desperate, although it did not always take that she supposed, and eating their own...
Mia glanced at it, then nodded. They should keep moving before the others return.
"This is not good," said Caden, "if there is still meat here, some of them might tire of looking for the boars and return to this feast. If we are unlucky, they will smell that we have been here and entered the Cave. I believe we are in a hurry."
With those words, Caden unsheathed his heron-marked sabre and proceeded towards the opening of the Cave. The battle-formation they entered was simple. I will be fore-guard and Scerai Gaidin will watch our backs as we proceed. The two Aes Sedai keeps an eye on either of our flanks if anything would come upon us in mid-step from an intersection. We keep mobile, and try to cover as much ground as possible instead of hiding. In these close-quarters they will smell us easily even if we managed to hide ourselves completely.
On guard, they entered the nest.
The Darkness Beneath - The Shadowspawn Lair
In a mordant gait, they descended through the tunnels.
At first, they proceeded undetected as far as the consciousness of the entire nest was concerned. Because they did chance upon shadowspawn after only a short while, but they were just as quickly dealt with and also as quietly as possible. Caden dispatched three before they got the chance to scream, because he had seen them before they had turned around to look who it was that came up behind them. Scerai dropped behind a second or two to deal with trollocs that had begun to follow their scent a few times as well, while the Aes Sedai so far could save their energy.
The nest in itself stank of manure, like a thick oily fog in the stagnant air. It was like a grave where the maggots had begun to excrete the dead flesh they've eaten and the bugs were smearing it across all surfaces as they stepped in it and devoured it all over again. Everything was moist and glimmered treacherously. All shadows moved like they were alive. All sounds were multiplied in echoes that shot ahead of them, and also traced their way back from whence they had come. They could not breathe, they could not talk, and they could not stop. They only way to return from the nightmare was to proceed ahead and complete their task.
And they only had Death as company; present like a face behind your shoulder.
Her hold over the One Power nearly crumbled under the over-whelming of her senses that took place more and more, the deeper that they went in to this system of caves that the shadowspawn had made their home of. Nearly, but it did not happen. Mia's iron resolve held precedence, although it was a struggle.
Once again, she thanked the Creator that she was not facing this alone. The presence of the Gaidin, of her Gaidin, to see to this quest was the factor that would make or break it - she knew that much well. Her energy was only being expended, for the moment, with the holding sway over the power... but not yet in having to utilize it in battle. It would save her strength - and Sadie's as well - for when the real trouble came... and it would, because it always did. It was just a matter of when.
When the alarm of their presence finally spread ahead of them in the nest, it was because they chanced upon two trollocs at the same time. A mother and a child.
In Caden's mind, this fact delayed his strike enough for the child to scream after he decapitated the mother. That scream sounded like a pig being skewered; wailing in agony - and the walls made a chorus of his misery that alerted everyone of their coming.
Even though he had stalled his strike for a bare second, the human mind and sentimentality that Caden possessed was smothered by the acute need of reaction. He cut the screaming shadowspawn child in two and was more deafened by the sudden silence than he had been by the wail he had ended.
The nest stirred in unease. The Shadow was rising to the call. Death began to smile.
Despite the fact that it had only been a question of time before it happened, Caden was irritated that he had not been fast enough. He spoke with gritted teeth. "We need to move faster, ahead of the rising storm, and keep on moving - ahead of our own scent. Let's go!"
"Hard to argue with that," Mia said, her voice nearly hissing and a smile playing at the corners of her lips that held no mirth, no humor. Sudden bursts of adrenaline - panic reined and tamed in to energy and drive - slid through her veins.
The group pushed ahead - and they changed formation.
In the semblance of a one-winged angel, Caden sprinted close together with Miahala. Scerai and Sadira was on their heels - the second Gaidin's sword also flapping in beat with the evil rising. Despite the clamour of steel and dying, the two angels never stopped or hesitated as they closed in on the heart of the caverns.
The hands of shadow was closing its grasp around them, and all they could do was to continue ahead as they chopped of the fingers in passing. Caden's mismatched eyes were mad in the way they snapped back and fourth and reacted to the threats that assailed his Aes Sedai. He only blinked when shadowspawn blood sprayed across his visage - and then only to stare more wildly what he could have missed in the moment of blindness. The Void kept his mind clear, but his heart-rate was climbing steadily with each corpse he left behind.
Unbidden, the dream he had dreamt in the hollow rose to his mind like the smoke from a stove that was being over-heated. Instead of shadowspawn, his comrades of the past assailed him in the reeking darkness. Where the grotesque features of trollocs actually were, he saw ghosts and horrendous murdered done by his own hand.
The battle-fury which had entered him was not akin to the state of mind which could encompass warriors from time to time in war. He had felt such fury before, many times, but this was the grip of a daylight nightmare - summoned by ancient guilt and shame. The Void and the Flame quickly began to crumble, more and more for each face he believed he saw. Caden Ives! Caden Ives! Caden Ives! they screamed instead of the furious roars of the shadow-brood they actually were. They were started to see him, and surprised to find his sabre cutting though them. Mercy! Please! Don't kill me! Noo! They wailed his name in accusation, hatred and grief.
Yet while the Oneness held, Caden did not stop - did not feel the horror which had drained his limbs from blood. With a face at the same time ashen and hard, his soul screamed for release and clawed away at his resolve - until he wore his calm as a shredded cloak.
If anyone should ever ask, it would be hard to explain precisely... the effect of the bond in moments like these. The emotions, so intense and wild as they were, were unmistakable to Caden's Aes Sedai. They crashed in to her mind, but broke like waves on the shore, as she was holding on to the place of her own resolve where she went in these moments of frenzy and fight.
Miahala was not a woman, then. She was hardly a person.
The best it can be compared to is that she, like all of them in a manner (the only difference being in how each interpreted it for themselves), were not people... they were forces. One could not hack and slice their way through decay and death, to be grappled with by darkness itself and know that you were covered in blood that once belonged inside a living body (however twisted and darkened, still a creature that was once alive and now dead by your hand), and to think yourself a person. You were a force. A goal. You did what needed to be done.
So... that's what they all did in those minutes: what needed to be done.
When the numbers of shadowspawn finally dwindled, Caden could not afford himself to turn his head and see if there were any behind them still. He continued, his staring expression not faltering from their path. The roars of the stirring nest fell more and more silent. Soon, they only heard the echo of their own running footsteps.
He unlocked his jaw to speak, and found his facial muscles aching in rhythm of his numb arms and legs. "They will follow," he rasped hoarsely; dispassionately. "We cannot afford to rest and let our scents betray us."
So they continued, but with a more measured pace. Winded and clammy with sweat from their exertion, moving as if in a dream because they had not truly grasped the fact that they were alive after passing through living hell, they ventured deeper into the earth. How could they be? The darkness felt like the premonition of death, and they walked his realm now - at his mercy.
Then they reached the heart, and what they had feared was true.
There, set in the left side of a winding corridor - probably a broken-off part of the ruins of an ancient dwelling - was the opening to the Ways. Gaping wide like the mouth of a beast - a mouth that had spewed evil into the region. The avendesora patterns were not faded along the frame or the doors - merely obscured by moss and insects.
Caden slapped his hand against the frame and smeared the filth away for the two Aes Sedai to ascertain the obvious. "We are proven true," he scraped in a low tone - the words hissing down the ends of the corridor, "and the shadowspawn must fear what lies beyond this gate. They have no living-quarters in its proximity. The memory of the Black Wind that stole their Myrddraal master lingers in their foul hearts."
In an otherwise impassive face of ivory stone, Miahala's blue-green eyes were wild and sharp. They missed little and she sheathed her knives and moved with a determined pace to the object at hand. She heard the words of her Gaidin, but did not respond. Her mind was bent upon something else now, or at least the same thing but her own part of it.
Her hands reached out towards it, but did not touch or get overly close. Pale skin was covered in blood and grime, but she did not notice. She pulled the power deeper in to herself and started forming in her mind what thoughts she'd already gone over.
To say that Miahala's experience with The Ways was limited would be... accurate, if not an understatement, but she knew what she had studied and she knew what experience she had and now was getting, so she put together all the formulas previous with what she saw and her rather keen intelligence wove them together like a tapestry in to a workable plan.
Sadie left her mother to it, because she knew Mia to be enough to do it... and she was available to aid, if needed, but she wanted to be on hand in case... others came.
As soon as Miahala began to explore the possibilities to close the gate, Caden turned around to face the direction whence they had come. He held his bastard sabre loosely by his side, with his breath slow and head held high. Scerai turned to the opposite direction of the corridor, almost mimicking Caden's stance. Without turning his head, the older Gaidin spoke. He asked in a way which would not insult the Aes Sedai's ability. "Can it be closed?"
"Let us bear in mind I have never done this before," Mia commented idly and tightly in the same breath, eyes flickering in thought. Then, she brought together the Power and weaves and began to work. It was not a simple process, or an easy one... It pulled at her and caused the feeling of wavering fatigue, but she withstood it.
Standing completely still, Caden did not turn his head to see Miahala's progress. He could not affect anything in regard to the means to close the door, so he focused on what he actually could do - and that was to guard against interference. His Shadow Sense was saying that the Trollocs were on their scent again, and they were closing fast. "Miahala?" he asked, and the Bond told her the rest.
Her hands were held out still, now as a method of concentration. "Almost..." she whispered. Her hands began to tremble.
Despite the threat that was gaining on them, Caden did not change his stance or let the stress affect his breathing. "Brother," said Caden, and Scerai understood, because he felt the same thing. With a few steps, Scerai came to stand next to Caden, facing the same direction. There was naught else they could do but await the onslaught, but at least they could tell where it would come from.
"I think we might be due for some company," Sadira said in a low, rigid voice. Her eyes were riveted, unblinking, on the way that they had come in and on the noises and senses coming from that direction.
"Aye," said Caden and refrained from gripping the hilt of his blade more firmly. The stone corridor amplified all sound, and now they were able to hear the hoard. The echoes of metal and guttural breathing. The slapping of bare feet and hooves against the slick cavern floor. The thirst for blood was a pungent cloud that preceded the sight of the enemy like a black sky rolling in before they rain. "Miahla?" he asked again, calculating the odds of their survival and finding the results declining for each second.
Eyes closed. The trembling grew a little more intense. She no longer could give thought to those things around her and had to simply trust in her companions... family. It was not that the weave was complex, it was, but it was more that it took a lot of it and a lot of time for it to properly give the sense that it was closing this gate. It was a stubborn target and the process slow, yet she could not slacken or she'd lose ground.
Urgency slipped through the bond and tugged at her, but she did not yet relinquish. "Almost..." she whispered again and then she felt the sudden shock of it echo through her body. Her eyes snapped open and she looked around wildly, trying to reacquaint herself with the situation, after having been so immersed...
She saw the same thing that Scerai, Caden and Sadira was seeing. From around the end of the winding corridor, the hoard rushed towards them as if a dam had been breached and the black water was flooding the caverns.
"Sadira Sedai," said Caden over the ruckus, his hand finally growing more firm around the hilt, "an advantage if you will? Stall them somehow, but after that we must run. They are too many."
The situation was limited to two options, both without much hope for their survival, but nevertheless they were all they got. Either they stopped the Trollocs in their tracks and ran further into the caverns, or they did so without stalling them - an alternative which was equal to death. The third option, to meet the onslaught, was just plain stupid. Even if Scerai and he would try to take down thirty trollocs before they fell, they would never have the time. The pressure of the hoard would overrun them all before they could swing their blades.
It was time for the Aes Sedai to use the power she had stored until that point.
Glancing only briefly at the Warders, Sadie gave the barest of nods and turned back to look at the entrance that was about to over-whelm them. She did not dare look at her mother, for fear of distraction, and she couldn't help but think that she would feel better were her mother assisting her in this process.
She drew the Power in to her as the Trollocs crested the entrance of this cave and began to pour in. The one benefit was that the opening forced them to bottleneck. The fire and lightning she threw, in broad sweeps, caught the first waves, but in her heart, she knew it wouldn't last long, but hopefully long enough to distract them...
Mia, behind the others, came to the rest of her senses in time to see her daughter weilding the One Power and the shadowspawns come towards them. Her mind began to analyze the situation and she knew it as well as the rest... and they thought that she couldn't help, because she would be exhausted after closing the gate...
And she should be...
But, strangely, she found she wasn't. At least not as much as would matter. Fatigue was washing away in the face of adrenaline and the sense of surviving that had kept her alive all these years and in times she probably shouldn't have made it otherwise. Where it had previously waned under its burden, the One Power practically exploded inside of her.
She stood upright again and she began weaving...
As one, Caden and Scerai raised their blades in Lion on the Hill. One Warder light-haired and one dark, they were still mirror-images of one another in regard of stance and the set of their dispassionate scowl. They were the last wall of defense that would have to be breached before they would let anything come near their Wards. This was their last resort to fulfill their duty. Either they would fail or they would prevail. Be that as it may, their duty and the love they held for their Aes Sedai compelled them to make their stand.
Sadie knew that her strength in the Power was not great and would not hold. She managed to stop several waves so that they could start moving off their position, and preparing to run, but it would not hold for long...
That's when she sensed the Power behind her and she almost couldn't believe it. Sharp blue eyes widened slightly as she watched weaves forming ahead of her. The Floor that is not a Floor... she thought to herself and watched as the Trollocs suddenly began falling through the ground. Here, she chanced a look back to see the fire light (as it flickered upon dead trolloc flesh) flickering in her mother's eyes, making them a fearful reddish hue.
One after another, the Trollocs fell through the 'hole' in the ground and none could pass this blockade until what space had been created was so filled that they might walk over the bodies. It didn't take a whole army to fill it, as their bodies were massive, but now they crossed. Mia released her weave and the dead bodies were part of the floor.
Caden's mouth a thin line, his green eye was staring in a disbelief that threatened to quench the Flame in his mind. His Aes Sedai was still channeling despite the fact that she had taxed herself on account of closing the gate to the Ways, and she did not channel sparingly either, but as if she had saved all her power for this moment! The shadowspawn that had fallen had become part of stone and cavern, their screams never to be heard by anything than stone.
Yet the nest was awakened, and more spewed from the darkness.
More! Miahala's mind hissed. Where had they all come from? She would not have imagined there to be so many, but there were and they were now flooding towards the opening again. In her mind, again, she screamed and weaves akin to the Rod of Storms slipped in to one, causing it to explode - although there was no noise. It was even enough to startle its comrades, causing pause.
Sadie and Mia then started again together to kill the ones that came, who added to the ones already dead, to the ones in the floor and eventually, although it really took less time than it felt, caused a mound of bodies that they had to crawl over... it slowed them considerably, only a few getting free and coming towards them now, as the Aes Sedai both began to weaken...
Transfixed by the slaughter of foul flesh, the Warders did not - however - fail to see the development of the fight, besides the growing heap of corpses that continued to build. When the survivors of the Aes Sedai weaves rushed towards them. The two statues of steel and muscle came alive in the firelight.
Caden slid sideways and forward - parting a stumbling trolloc from hip to shoulder. Another lost its leg as Caden made a diving cut in the opposite direction. Remotely, he felt this one's sword grind against the worn steel of his pauldron but it never found flesh. Not stopping, he two steps forward and rolled to the left - opening the belly of a third with a diagonal cut. The bowels splashed against the stone floor. The fourth struck its massive axe into the air which Caden had just occupied before he leaped towards the roof. When he came down, his bastard sabre cleaved the trolloc's head in two.
With a violent yank, the Warder tore his blade free from the cranium and deflected a mace of the fifth into the cavern wall. His kicked in the kneecap of the dissemblanced creature and decapitated it with his riposte. The sixth landed a heavy over-head strike into the cavern floor, as Caden had whirled away and thrust his blade into the sevenths ribs. The sixth lifted his blade to strike a second time, but Scerai Gaidin intervened from nowhere and cut of its arm by the elbow. Caden finished the sixth by slamming a heavy gauntlet straight into its windpipe, yet Scerai also thrust his sword straight through its chest.
It had barely taken any time at all. When no more rushed towards them, Caden and Scerai had more than a dozen bodies writhing, bleeding or screaming at their feet.
"We should not linger," rasped Caden and spun away from the carnage, "more will eventually slip through."
"Yes, lets make haste," answered Scerai and followed. "We have a long way back to the daylight again."
Mia could not agree more. "Then let us move," she said with some urgency.
Both Warders quickly ascertained the health of their Aes Sedai and before all four of them made their way deeper into the cave system, hoping to outrun the Shadow as well as to find a way back up - a task which seemed disheartening in the foul darkness which met them at every turn.
The Escape - Darkest of Shadows
Finding themselves running in a downward spiral, the companions knew that the way up was going to be difficult to find. Where all paths upward were to be found, they were too far up from the ground to be accessible. Where all alternative paths leading right and left were, they turned out as dead ends. There was no sense of direction anymore since they had been running too long and too far into the darkest depths of the earth, and the question to turn back was finally raised by Scerai.
"We might have overlooked a pathway further up," he suggested. "We should be able to slay our way to it if more shadowspawn managed to pass our barricade."
"I disagree," said Caden immediately, but without dismissing the other Gaidin's idea fully. "We cannot suffer to make another stand like we just did. We must find another way else we will surely fail and pay for it with our lives. We need our strength for more important battles on our way back to safety."
Words broke over Mia like water, and she could not hear them. Something else... Something else had captured her attention as they came to the most brief of stops to find out where to go from here. With the One Power still embraced, held on to almost as fervently as she had held on to Caden that first night, her senses were alive, and wild.
"Do you hear that?" she hissed. Her eyes flickered as she looked at them.
His eye focused straight ahead, Caden stilled his heartbeat to listen for the sound which Miahala indicated. All he could hear was the blood pumping in his head. "What do you hear?"
"I hear..." she began, and then trailed off, looking around and breathing heavily, but steadily. "This way," she said, pointing in the direction that she heard the noise coming from. Meeting their curious gazes, she realized she had not been clear. "I hear water, flowing water, as best I can guess... where there is water, there is a place for it to go. It might take us out."
"Aye," replied Caden, "you are correct. There should be a way out in the direction where the water flows. Hopefully, the opening is passable for us. In any case, its the best and only alternative we have."
With a nod, the group was once again moving forward. The actual grime and filth of the place, as in the air, was continually compounded by the sense of the Shadow that the Green had. Were she not as focused on the task as she was, it would have made her sick... It was a threat she had labored under since they came in here.
They moved as quickly as they could, following the small sensation and sound that floated at the edges of Mia's consciousness, and it grew and grew louder. She knew they were getting closer.
Abruptly, the small tunnels and pathways, dark and dank, that they had been running through burst open in to a huge open cavern. It was enough to bring the whole group up short, if only for a moment. There were buildings that even like this, you could once see were large, half buried in the ground and dying, decaying, at every corner but they were still there.
"This explains the gate," Sadie said softly.
"It does," Caden commented under his breath, "Yore civilization - forgotten and ruined in the wake of the Breaking. It was probably not even in this particular location before the apocalypse that ended the War of Power, so one can only guess at its origin. We cannot linger to explore. Let us keep moving while luck still grants us life."
Mia looked and listened, but did not say anything until she pointed. "That water," she whispered, and it was true. Although obscured by buildings and by rocks, if you looked closely you would be able to see the water as it must have run through the underground or the center of the city, so long ago when this had been a real city.
Taking lead, Caden resumed their flight and entered the cobblestone paths that ran between the buildings. A few moments later, they reached the river and could easily determine the direction in which the water was flowing. They set out along something that once had been the main road through a town that indisputably had dwarfed Baerlon or Whitebridge in its day. The fungus-weeping windows on both sides of the canal witnessed their progress in deafening silence. Every now and then, they passed bridges in moss-covered stone that crossed the water - some of them looking durable enough to still hold a man's weight. Debris littered the ground, yet the ground in itself was treacherous since wide sections had caved-in and filled with stagnant water.
"I hear sounds," said Caden suddenly and froze in mid-step, his blade raised tentatively. The others came to a halt around him. "We are not alone," he added, and his browridge lowered over his unblinking gaze.
As if cued by his words, five shapes appeared upon the road ahead. Like a pack of wild dogs, the trollocs came running right for them; howling for the taste of human flesh. They must have been spotted as they entered the cavern, for the shadowspawn knew exactly where they were. One of the trollocs ran ahead of the others, its gigantic frame growing larger as it closed in on them. It had a cloak draped over its wide shoulders and carried a saw-toothed longsword which no human could hope to wield. The man-beast's head was of a wildcat, and while its fur-coated arms were thick with muscles and ended with over-grown human hands, its legs had paws that darted easily across the ruined boulevard. The four other trollocs carried varying weaponry but followed the larger one without competing with him for the food they had spotted.
A leader, thought Caden, or rather the one the other adhere to because he is the strongest, possibly even the most cunning. Like the leader of a wolf-pack.
Miahala and Sadira both stepped back instinctively with one foot, bracing themselves as they saw this pack come towards them. Their thoughts registered similiarly to Caden's, but also moved through attacks.
The Green dropped to one knee and pressed her hands to the ground. The One Power shot through her and weaves of earth moved beneath her, and out from her, headed towards the encroaching Shadowspawn. She was pulling on strength and energy in the power that she did not even know she had, but she wasn't going to question it. If she could still move, fight and channel... she would.
Ahead of her, the ground shook beneath the Trollocs.
Sadie was also pulling on the Power, though she had not channeled nearly as much that day as her mother. Fireballs exploded from her and at the advancing enemies.
Like rotten bread, the ground parted and shifted. Walls of eroded stone rose towards the cavern's ceiling and the ancient buildings broke apart as if they were built by a deck of cards. The power-wrought attacks met the disoriented and stumbling trollocs head on. One beast was thrown into the canal's railing and shattered its spine as well as the stone it collided with. He fell disjointedly into the water in a rain of debris. A second was thrown high into the air by the moving ground, already caught on fire. The last two took shelter; disappeared out of sight amidst the chaos.
When the ground heaved and broke apart, the shadowspawn leader proved its cat-like agility and leaped between and on top of the moving ridges as they moved. There was no hesitation in the creature's movements, and it totally disregarded the air-borne attacks that almost hit it. A great cloud of dust rose as the ground broke apart, obscuring the companions' view, but its enormous cloak could be discerned flailing wildly back and fourth. Unscathed, the beast crossed the last distance to the human companions.
Caden threw his hand out in warning, to scatter the companions. His shout built in his throat, not reaching his lips. Look out! It was too late. With lightning speed it had come upon them. It took one, two steps and then it leaped high into the air before it landed in their midst, with its black longsword coming down in a brutal over-hand strike.
He lifted his bastard sabre with both hands, to glance off the violent attack. His shoulders devoured the impact, but his tired arms failed, and he had to roll with the staggering blow in order to keep it away from his body. Scerai Gaidin had leaped the other way, his arm protectively pushing Sadira out of the range of the beast's huge sword. Miahala was right in the trolloc's path, but Caden was in the way.
The second blow came straight down upon Caden's crouching form, and the Blademaster spun on his heel to leap out of harms way. The sword made a loud metallic bang when it landed into bare stone, and Caden came to his feet again a short distance away.
"Spread out!" he shouted as he dove in to reclaim the initiative of the fight. The companions were vulnerable when massed together against such a large foe - in fact the largest trolloc Caden Ives had ever seen. Its gaping cat-jaws cast about drool as it whirled to face him. It had wily eyes - pupils maliciously sliced across yellow irises. Its neck was long, pushed forward in aggression. Its lips curled as it swept its sword across - forcing Caden into defensiveness before he was cleaved in two. Instead of attacking, Caden braced himself and blocked the massive blow from the side. The sabre and his grip held, but his feet slid backwards across the dusty stone.
When the blow was stalled, Caden pushed the sword back and continued his advance. He aimed to deliver two rapid slashed in Moon Rises Over the Water, but the beast met him halfway and kicked him in the chest. He was sent sprawling across the still trembling ground, and Scerai quickly stepped into the fight in his place.
For an instant, mother and daughter were as one. Although nearly every nerve in her body told Mia to go to Caden, she knew that she couldn't - this had to taken precendence. Together, Mia and Sadie channeled a wall of air. It was a simple weave, requiring little strength, but for a moment, it pushed him back from Scerai and allowed the gaidin a better moment of preperation.
Because a moment was as long as it would last.
From there, it was the flashing of blades and the clanging of metal. For something of its size, this trolloc was unimaginably strong and fast. It was spinning and dancing in and out of range of the beast and of each other.
When the wind of destiny finally began to blow their way, the two surviving trollocs came upon them to join their injured leader in the fight. One was armed with an axe in each hand and had the head of a black eagle, while the other was a bristling boar with a six-foot mace. Compared with the leader, they seemed smaller and weaker, but they were still over seven feet tall and muscles corded all their limbs to the point that their arteries showed like wide spiderwebs across their semi-armoured bodies.
As busy as they were with the leader, the companions were not ready for them.
Caden, coughing and in a lesser state of rage, saw the threat in time to interject between the eagle and Miahala's exposed back. His sabre blocked blows from the two axes in rapid succession. The eagle's almost humanly disposed features were distorted when it opened its yellow beak to shriek in frustration. His mismatched eyes narrowed into furious slits, Caden used the blunt side of his sabre to slap one of the axes to the side, and the sharp edge to cut the hand when the opening was provided. The axe fell to the ground together with three thick fingers.
The eagle whirled away - bent over its injured hand - and Caden turned to face the shadowspawn leader. He was able to see that Scerai held it at bay together with Miahala while Sadira had been forced to deal with the boar.
With his teeth bared to match the wild-cat's ferocious grin, Caden drew the long dagger he carried in a sheath underneath his cloak and entered the wide range of the trolloc leader's sword. He crossed his blades - sabre and dagger - and blocked another sweep that had been sent against Scerai Gaidin, who thus was granted an opening. The beast's ribcage was laid bare before the older Gaidin's blade while Caden had locked the enormous longsword.
But Scerai did not strike.
Instead, he had to turn away and protect his Aes Sedai, because Sadira had been driven back towards the railing of the canal and was about to receive the boar's mace through her skull. Scerai rolled and came up with a rising strike that slashed the back of the trolloc's arm open. It screamed and backed away - recovered by sweeping the mace one-handed from the right to the left and back again. Aes Sedai and Gaidin moved in to finish it.
Scerai moved in and combatted the wild swings of the beast, who must have known somewhere in its mind that it was dancing on the edge of its death, but it fought all the same. It would have been admirable, even in an enemy, if it wasn't just the blind madness of flailing animal rather than the combat of an enemy of equal understanding.
As the gaidin kept it occupied, the creature was blind to the silent hand of death that was kept deceptive in the serene visage of Sadira Sedai, who came up behind it and drove her sword through the back of it's neck. The angle was awkward, between heights, but it did the job. The creatue collapsed and Sadie ripped her sword back to her possession with out a hint of emotion in those ice blue eyes.
The two moved off. They turned to return to the fight, but Sadie swayed with exhaustion and loss of blood from a wound to her upper leg - a near escape as it has almost crushed her leg or opened a serious vein. Scerai caught her, and they stood for a moment for her to regain her equilibrium...
Miahala and Caden left with the task to deal with the leader, they worked together to provide openings in the shadowspawn's defences. Caden blocked the massive strikes with the use of his two blades, while Miahala used her swiftness and lightness to dart in and back again - leaving bleeding holes in the creature's armour.
But they could not deploy this strategy for long, because the next time Caden managed to block the Shadow-wrought sword, the eagle that he had previously injured was coming up behind him. It still had one axe and hand left, and it meant to pay the Blademaster retribution.
Seeing the threat within moments of it being too late, Mia spun and with a precision aim borne of many long years of weilding the weapon, she switched her grip to the blade as she sighted the beast and threw the dagger. With its attention to head towards Caden, it did not notice her and thus gave her an opening she had not had before.
It cut the air as surely as it was about to cut through Shadowspawn flesh as it lodged in the trolloc's eye, hitting the brain and causing it to collapse just feet away from her Gaidin.
She hurried forward and reclaimed her blade, and then moved back to the fight with the last beast left standing.
His jaws clenched and his brow damp with sweat, Caden glanced off another swing of the great sword and spun into range with the leader. The quick giant of a trolloc snarled and threw his fist out to knock Caden off his feet before he could land his spinning strike.
River Undercuts the Bank.
The trolloc's fist passed over Caden's head as he crouched down in the middle of his movement. His larger blade struck into the chain mail covering the trolloc's calf. The armour tore and sent small links flying across the ground. Blood gushed fourth and fanned across the dusty stone.
The shadowspawn screamed inhumanly in its acute agony and tried to leap back, but it was too late. Caden followed through with his movement, also screaming at the top of his lungs, and let his dagger embed itself into the chain mail covering its ribs. The iron rings grated and parted before the steel, and it punctured skin, flesh and kidney.
Even though it was a mortal wound, the leader did not know that it was already dead. When Caden yanked his dagger free, it dropped its heavy longsword and grasped for the Warder's neck with both its furry hands. Screaming in defiance to the outcome, it managed to take a hold of Caden and lift him from the ground.
On the instincts that had saved his life so many times before, the Gaidin had to let go of his weapons and try to ease the pressure against his vertebrae and windpipe. The beast could very well break his neck in any moment, so his lifted his legs and drove the heels of his boots into he beast's face. Caden could swear he heard the bone-structure of the wild-cat's face snapping. He kicked again. Once, twice, three times, before his strength sapped and he had to focus on the grip around his neck again.
Bleeding from all over its body, limbs shaking in nerve-impulses and effort to strangle the life out of the human in its hands, with its face caved-in and slowly dying, the trolloc would not relent its grip. There was but a single purpose left in its almost human mind, and that was death - death to all before it would be claimed itself.
It was the last bit of strength in the Power that she had.
Miahala had been cutting and stabbing at this thing for the entirety of the fight. Nearly as many of its wounds were from her daggers as from Caden's blade, and still the thing lived and moved and fought! For one instant, she was frozen and helpless as she watched the creature take hold of her Gaidin, her lover. Images of the Inn before they found Sadie and Scerai flashed through her mind. She could almost feel that creature's hands on her own throat...
No.
The Captain General of the Green Ajah, Miahala Sha'hal Sedai, was never helpless, and she never would be. It was a whirlwind of rage that screamed through her next. She wasn't entirely sure if she screamed, but it didn't matter. Daggers clattered on the ground as she held her hands out. Shreds of Air hissed from her hands and encircled the massive trolloc.
She trembled with the exertion of it, but the cords ripped the dying beast back several steps and forced him to drop Caden from sheer surprise, if nothing else. Grinding her teeth together, she made them razors and pulled.
The beast collapsed to a pile of muscle and flesh, splattering its blood on her where it mingled with her own blood and bruises from the fight as she stood staring, unable to move and shaking all over.
Falling to the stone floor, Caden's green eye was glossed over and blinking in confusion. His sight was deranged by shadows and light, grew areas interposing itself like clouds when the world moved around him. He coughed violently, his throat and chest cramping. He managed to get up on one knee, his fist resting upon the ground. His stomach acted up in reaction to his body's trauma, and convulsed. He slapped both hands upon the ground and retched.
At last, whatever had been holding over the Green released and she was able to move. She took a few steps forward, feeling unsteady but able to hold herself to the appearance of together and dropped to her knees near Caden. In patience silence, she waited through his body's reaction to what had happened, well understanding it.
When it was done, she reached out and touched his face with her fingertips. It was as much to comfort him as herself... assure her that he was still living, still there.
The two had been cautious to keep the extra levels of their relationship to themselves, although she didn't care if Sadira saw, really. The two had something of an understanding on that count, but she kept what was private in private and only the 'working' side of their relationship in public, but in that moment, she didn't care.
Tears from pain and fatigue, pushing herself past her limits, dried on her cheeks as she pulled him towards her and held him, feeling as though she would melt from sheer relief in this one instant to allow themselves respite before they had to move again.
Returning the embrace instinctively, Caden Ives regained a measure of composure in Miahala's arms. He pressed her head to his chest and despite the sorry state he was in, he found imminence relief that she was alive, more so than he cared for his own life. "My thanks," he rasped softly though, silently thanking the Light that it had been himself and not her on the brink of death.
Meanwhile, Scerai was holding Sadie up as she experienced a moment much like her mother in having no shame or guilt for the expression of the moment and of the emotions. When the ground stopped trembling, all the companions gathered their wits about them and got to their feet. There was no need for words, they all knew they had to move before the rest of the hoard caught up with them.
Together, they began to move again, following the direction of the flowing water; towards open air again.
Parting - The Quiet Forest
It was night and the crickets had taken up their nocturnal chorus. Running his whetstone along the edge of his sabre, Caden looked up at Miahala. She was sitting up against a tree, resting. He could see thoughts rolling behind her eyes, and he had an idea of what they were.
They had found a way out at the end of the underground river. Emerging from behind a small waterfall, they had found themselves in the woods again - in a secluded valley below the evening sky. After establishing their approximate location, they had not spared any time to reclaim their horses. The detour on foot had been tasking but without incident, and they had put as long a distance that their remaining strength allowed between them and the shadowspawn nest once they found their mounts where they had left them.
He got to his feet and sheathed his re-sharpened blade by his side. He was wearing his breeches and a bandage which crisscrossed his torso and limbs to keep his cleansed bruises and cuts clean. He walked over to Miahala and crouched down in front of her. Once her eyes found his, he pressed her knee reassuringly. "We accomplished what we aimed to do, and much in thanks to your efforts," he rasped silently, "As far as I can remember from the years where we fought together before, you were not as strong with the Power as you showed yourself to be this day."
Sudden humour found him in the wake of all the blood and fear they both had suffered recently. "If you are hiding an angreal somewhere on you, you have hidden it quite well, for I have not seen it underneath that dress of yours."
Mia's laugh was tired, but heartfelt and deep in tone. She appreciated the humor, particularly at a moment like this. "As for the... power, I think I need to time to reflect on this and think on it. It is strange to me, and will take some time to go over in my own mind before I know what to think of it," she replied softly.
After a pause, her smile - tired as it was - drifted to something a little more like a smirk. "As for hiding an angreal... I am assured that with your attentions, it would not be possible to do," she said, her voice dropping to just barely audible - a comment for his ears only.
With a noise akin to a chuckle, Caden pressed her knee again and stood up.
He turned towards Sadira and Scerai, who were seated a bit further away - underneath the canopy of a low tree. He walked over slowly, so that the two would notice his approach. How he had came to know about the nature of the other Gaidin and Aes Sedai's relationship he could not really put his finger on, but he supposed it was a fact that he had established somewhere along the perilous way that they had taken together.
Sitting against the base of a tree, Sadie was tending to Scerai's wounds. From the outside, it looked perfectly 'business like' but it was tender and loving. Anyone who knew them would see that, but they still did not care... not around Miahala and Caden. Not after all of this. Hearing the approach, Sadie looked up just as she finished tying the bandage.
"I suppose our visit is coming to an end," Sadira said with a small smile, her use of the term visit being a wry one.
"I suppose it is," replied Caden to Sadira, "but I reckon we have done much during our brief time together." He paused and turned briefly to see Miahala getting up and walking over to them. "Will you be returning to where we left from? Because if so, we need to inform the authorities about the location of this nest so that they can clear out the remaining shadowspawn."
Scerai and Sadira exchanged a look and then the Gaidin nodded. He turned to look at Caden. "We will be returning," he said. "We have some things to take care of now, and we will speak with the authorities there."
"And where shall you head?" Sadie asked softly. She hid that she was feeling sad for their coming parting. She didn't get to see enough of her mother these days. Scerai felt it, though, she knew and she felt his boot nudge against hers in the most imperceptible of ways of reminding her that he was there for her.
"We are heading westwards," scraped Caden and rubbed his sore throat. The trolloc leader had left large bruises around his neck - each thick finger a dark print barely concealed by his bandages. "We hope to cross the Saldaean border during the next fortnight." He turned his green eye toward Scerai Gaidin. "It has been an honour to fight alongside you, Brother. We should find time for sword training together back in the Tower, should our paths cross there again. From what I've seen during this ordeal, we can learn a great deal from one another's skills. No swordsman is the same, and one never stops learning."
The older Gaidin gave a faint smile and gave a deep inclination of his head. "It would be an honor, Caden Gaidin," he said. "But for now?" A flicker of a wry smile. "Even speaking of training makes me tired."
Sadie's laugh was soft, barely above a breath. "I think it would behoove us all to get some rest."
"Aye," Mia spoke for the first time since joining the group. "I think that it would be a very good idea."
"Let us rest then," concluded Caden in reply to Miahala, "and part ways on the morrow. The night falls and we all need some deserved relief." He looked towards Scerai again. "First watch is mine," he said unneedingly - their established routines a proof of their compatibility as Brothers of Battle - but more as bidding a good half-night's sleep. He turned away and walked back together with Miahala.
The Green was quiet for several moments - it was a testament to how she felt over-all: quiet. A lot had happened, and it would take some time for her to think through it all.
"I shall miss them," she said softly to her Warder. "But, I cannot lie. I will not be unhappy to be alone again, with just you." She gave him a brief, tender side long smile.
"Yes, we will be alone again," he rasped and sat down on the spot he had previously occupied in front of their saddlebags and sleeping skins. He grimaced slightly at the pain of pulling his coat over his shoulders - preparing for the declining temperature of a Borderland night. "Yet it has been a pleasure to learn to know your daughter, even though the circumstances could have been more civililised." He shrugged and added, "On the other hand, there might not be a better way to learn to know another than during an ordeal such as this one."
Mia's laugh was quiet, as well. "It is the Green way," she said. "While my daughter may have followed her father's steps in to the Blue, she has a mother who is Green to her blood and it shows in her ways, as well." She smiled fondly and then it faded. "I am so tired," she whispered. "I must sleep now..."
"Good night, my love. I will wake you at dawn." He produced his long dagger from the sheath behind his back and began to sharpen out the dents in the steel, his eyes still resting on her. "And... I'm glad that you chanced upon me that night in Arafel. Despite all the suffering the Pattern has pulled me through, for that, I will be forever thankful."
"As shall I," she replied easily and in earnest, before sleep claimed her without giving her any memory of even laying down.
The Morning
Come dawn's light, descending upon them as it had, yet much differently than, back that morning in The Proud Custodian, the group awoke. Though it could not be said that all were well recovered, they were at least fairly on their way to it and able to go on to their seperate paths. The men parted as men do, and for mother and daughter, it was sad but hidden expertly behind Aes Sedai masks... except for the eyes. It could be read there, but no one mentioned it.
With their work done here, they felt at ease to head on their way. Sadie and Scerai would return to the town, alert the authorities to the nest and the business done there, finish their own, and then go on to their next task. For Mia and Caden, it would be a quieter turn than the last, going on to Saldaea, for a few steps in to the past and the discoveries of things within themselves, as opposed to those with in the dark caverns of Shadow.
It was all a part of their lives now, but for both, they were grateful that now there was as much light as dark.
