A Memory Of Light: Wheel of Time Book 14 Read Free

air was thick with smoke. Smoke and screams. Talmanes marched the Band alongside a road clogged with refugees smudged
     with soot. They moved like flotsam in a muddy river.
    The men of the Band eyed the refugees with worry. “Steady!” Talmanes shouted to them. “We can’t sprint all the way to Caemlyn.
     Steady!” He marched the men as quickly as he dared, nearly at a jog. Their armor clanked. Elayne had taken half of the Band
     with her to the Field of Merrilor, including Estean and most of the cavalry. Perhaps she had anticipated needing to withdraw
     quickly.
    Well, Talmanes wouldn’t have much use for cavalry in the streets, which were no doubt as clogged as this roadway. Selfar snorted
     and shookhis head. They were close now; the city walls just ahead—black in the night—held in an angry light. It was as if the city
     were a firepit.
    By grace and banners fallen,
Talmanes thought with a shiver. Enormous clouds of smoke billowed over the city. This was bad. Far worse than when the Aiel
     had come for Cairhien.
    Talmanes finally gave Selfar his head. The roan galloped along the side of the road for a time; then Talmanes reluctantly
     forced his way across, ignoring pleas for help. Time he’d spent with Mat made him wish there were more he could offer these
     people. It was downright strange, the effect Matrim Cauthon had on a person. Talmanes looked at common folk in a very different
     light now. Perhaps it was because he still didn’t rightly know whether to think of Mat as a lord or not.
    On the other side of the road, he surveyed the burning city, waiting for his men to catch up. He could have mounted all of
     them—though they weren’t trained cavalry, every man in the Band had a horse for long-distance travel. Tonight, he didn’t dare.
     With Trollocs and Myrddraal lurking in the streets, Talmanes needed his men in immediate fighting shape. Crossbowmen marched
     with loaded weapons at the flanks of deep columns of pikemen. He would not leave his soldiers open to a Trolloc charge, no
     matter how urgent their mission.
    But if they lost those dragons…
    Light illumine us,
Talmanes thought. The city seemed to be boiling, with all that smoke churning above. Yet some parts of the Inner City—rising
     high on the hill and visible over the walls—were not yet aflame. The Palace wasn’t on fire yet. Could the soldiers there be
     holding?
    No word had come from the Queen, and from what Talmanes could see, no help had arrived for the city. The Queen must still
     be unaware, and that was bad.
    Very,
very
bad.
    Ahead, Talmanes spotted Sandip with some of the Band’s scouts. The slender man was trying to extricate himself from a group
     of refugees.
    “Please, good master,” one young woman was crying. “My child, my daughter, in the heights of the northern march…”
    “I must reach my shop!” a stout man bellowed. “My glasswares—”
    “My good people,” Talmanes said, forcing his horse among them, “I should think that if you want us to help, you might wish
     to back away and allow us to reach the bloody city.”
    The refugees reluctantly pulled back, and Sandip nodded to Talmanes in thanks. Tan-skinned and dark-haired, Sandip was one
     of the Band’scommanders and an accomplished hedge-doctor. The affable man wore a grim expression today, however.
    “Sandip,” Talmanes said, pointing, “there.”
    In the near distance, a large group of fighting men clustered, looking at the city.
    “Mercenaries,” Sandip said with a grunt. “We’ve passed several batches of them. Not a one seemed inclined to lift a finger.”
    “We shall see about that,” Talmanes said. People still flooded out through the city gates, coughing, clutching meager possessions,
     leading crying children. That flow would not soon slacken. Caemlyn was as full as an inn on market day; the ones lucky enough
     to be escaping would be only a small fraction compared to those still inside.
    “Talmanes,” Sandip said quietly,