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"We did do e caht’s mercy, do you think to take Ebou Dar itself?"

Take Ebou Dar, Rand thought Why not? No one would expect that A total surprise, for the Seanchan and everybody else

"Tirowled "Other tio home"

I would notalhtened his hand on the Dragon Scepter, and Lews Therin cackled

Chapter 24

(Dragon)

A Tilided in out of the cloudstreaked sunrise to land in a long pasture marked as the fliers’ field by colored strearasses had been trarace in the air was lost as soon as their claws touched the ground in a lu run, leathery pinions thirty paces or h as if the animal wanted to sweep itself back upward There was little beauty, either, in the raken that ran aardly down the field beating ribbed wings, fliers crouching in the saddle as if to pull the beast up by main force, ran on until at last they stu the tops of the olive trees at the end of the field Only as they gained height and turned toward the sun, soared toward the clouds, did the raken regain dignified grandeur Fliers who landed did not bother to disulp whole shriveled fruits by the doublehandful at a ti report to a still , and the other bent on the other side to receive new orders from a flier too senior to handle reins personally very often Al to a halt, the creature was reined around to waddle over to where four or five others waited their turn to ainly run to the sky

At a dead run, dodging between ers carried the scouting reports to the huge redbannered cohty Taraboner lancers and stolid Amadician pikemen in wellordered squares, breastplates striped horizontally in the colors of the regiht horse in disordered bunches made theirtheir chests, so different fros anyone else wore The Altarans did not know those indicated irregulars of doubtful reliability Aiments with proud honors were represented, from every corner of the Empire, paleeyed men from Alqam, honeybrown men from N’Kon, men black as coal from Khoweal and Dalenshar There were morat’torm on their sinuous bronzescaled ht, and even a few es, but one thing that always accompanied a Seanchan army was conspicuous by it absence The sul’dam and damane were still in their tents CaptainGeneral Kennar Miraj thought of sul’dareat deal

From his seat on the dais he could see the map table clearly, where helmetless underlieutenants checked the reports and placed markers to represent the forces in the field A siving the size and co decent maps in these lands was next to ie table was sufficient And worrying, in what it told him Black discs for outposts overrun or dispersed Far toothe whole eastern half of the Venir range Red wedges, for commands on the move, marked the western end as thickly, all pointed back toward Ebou Dar And scattered a the black discs, seventeen stark white As he watched, a young officer in the brownandblack of a hteenth Eneroup seen twice, but for the htings wrong

Along the walls of the tent, clerks in plain brown coats,clerks on the wide collars, waited at their writing tables, pens in hand, for Miraj to issue orders that they would copy out for distribution He had already given what orders he could There were as many as ninety thousand enemy soldiers in the mountains, nearly that he could muster here even with the native levies Too many for belief, except that scouts did not lie; liars had their throats slit by their fellows Too round like trapworms in the Sen T’jore At least they had a hundred miles of mountain yet to cover if they intended to threaten Ebou Dar Almost two hundred, for the white discs furthest east And hill country after that for another hundred eneral could not mean to let his dispersed forces be confronted one by one Gathering theether would take ht then

The entry flaps of the tent swept open, and the High Lady Suroth glided in, black hair a proud crest spilling down her back, pleated snohite gown and richly embroidered overrobe soht her still in Ebou Dar; she must have flown out by to’raken She was accoe, for her A pair of Deathwatch Guards with black tassels on their sword hilts held the tentflaps, and reen The eht she live forever Even the Blood took note of them Suroth sailed past as if they were as much servants as the lushly bodied da’covale in slippers and a nearly transparent white robe, her honeyyellow hair in a ilded writing desk a meek two paces behind Suroth’s Voice of the Blood, Alwhin, a glowering woreen robes with the left side of her head shaved and the remainder of her pale brown hair in a severe braid, followed close on her mistress’s heels As Miraj stepped down from the dais, he realized with shock that the second da’covale behind Suroth, short and darkhaired and sliarbed as property was unheard of, but odder still, it was Alho led her by the a’dam!

He let none of his aht be upon the High Lady Suroth All honor to the High Lady Suroth" Everyone else prostrated theroundcloth, eyes down Miraj was of the Blood, if too low to shave the sides of his scalp like Suroth Only the nails of his little fingers were lacquered Much too low to register surprise if a High Lady allowed her Voice to continue acting as sul’dae land, where the Dragon Reborn walked and marath’damane ran wild to kill and