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Frowning, he squatted with his elbows on his knees Lan got doith hi "Best if you try to shove him away Hit him from the south, uenya soes up here Leave the Shaido a clear path to them Always leave a way out, unless you really want to find out how hard a er slid east Wooded hills for the ht around here "A blocking force here on this side of the river will h and positioned right Once they areso behind" Yes Almost exactly the same as at Jenje "Not unless he’s a coood order, but those bridges will choke the out fords for that matter Keep the pressure on, shove them across With luck you’ll be able to harry theh Fords, too, late in the Trolloc Wars, and on much the same scale Not much different fro found his stride The naes of bloody fields forgotten even by historians Absorbed in thebut his own reht cavalry is best for the harrying Bite at the flanks, keep theht But Aiel should do almost as well"

"And the other reason?" Lan asked quietly

Mat was caught up in it, now He a for children and toothless invalids Lives were the stake here, your own and other er, a foolish bet, and cities died, or whole nations Natael’s somber a his eyes from the map, he snorted "You knoell as I If even one of those four clans decides to side with Couladin, they’ll take you from behind while your hands are still full of Shaido Couladin will be the anvil and they the hammer, with you the nut between Only take half of what you have against Couladin That ht, but you have to settle for it" There was no such thing as fairness in war You took your enemy from behind, when he least expected it, when and where he eakest "You still have an edge He has to worry about a sortie from the city The other half, you split in three parts One to funnel Couladin to the river, the other two a few miles apart, between the city and the four clans"

"Very neat," Lan said, nodding That slabcarved face never changed, but approval touched his voice, if lightly "It would gain a clan nothing to attack either force, especially not when the other could take it in the rear And none will try to interfere in what happens around the city for the same reason Of course, all four could join Not likely, if they haven’t already, but if they do, everything changes"

Mat laughed aloud "Everything always changes The best plan lasts until the first arrow leaves the bow This would be easy enough for a child to handle, except for Indirian and the rest not knowing their own o over to Couladin, you toss the dice and hope, because the Dark One’s in the gath clear of the city nearly to h to hold the Couladin and turn everything on the the Gaelin But it’s my bet they’ll wait and watch, and come to you once Couladin is done for Victory settles a lot of argulanced at Natael, and found theat hi as if he had never seen hileelass, his knuckles white on the harp’s gilding

With that it all crashed ho, the uarding your tongue! Why had Lan had to take the conversation that way? Why could he not have talked about horses, or the weather, or just kept his er to talk before Usually the man made a tree seem talkative Of course, he could have kept his own mind focused and his ownin the Old Tongue Blood and ashes, but I hope I wasn’t!

Springing to his feet, Mat turned to go, and found Rand standing just inside the tent, absently twisting that odd bit of tasseled spear as if he did not realize he was holding it How long had he been there? It did not , Rand Coone I’d go this h in half a day to suitI mean to put as many miles between me and the Aiel -- any Aiel -- as Pips can cover before I h to be snapped up and hung out to dry by somebody’s scouts; Couladin nize him before he had a spear in his liver

"I will be sorry to see you go," Rand said quietly

"Don’t try to talk me out of --" Mat blinked "That’s it? You’ll be sorry to see o?"

"I’ve never tried to make you stay, Mat Perrin hen he had to, and so can you"

Mat opened his ain Rand had never tried toBut there was not the slightest bit of ta’veren tugging, now, no vague feelings that he was doing the wrong thing He was firo?"

"South" Not that there was much choice of direction The others led to the Gaelin, with nothing north of the river that he was interested in, or else to Aiel, one lot that would certainly kill hi on how close by Rand was and what they had had for supper the night before Not good odds, by his reckoning "To begin, anyway Then somewhere there’s a tavern, and soht present a probleht be the sort of woo until she wanted Well, one way or another, he would deal with her Maybe he could just ride out before she knew it "This isn’t forabout battles, and I don’t want to know" He avoided looking at Lan and Natael If either ht in the mouth Even the Warder "You underst