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slippers. Too terrified to turn back for it, or perhaps even to notice—and well for her that

she was—she clawed the door open and ran. Sending property for discipline should not

bring a sense of satisfaction, but it did. Oh, yes, it did.

Suroth took a moment to control her breathing. To appear to be grieving was one thing, to

appear to be agitated quite another. She was filled with annoyance at Liandrin, jolting

memories of her nightmares, fears for Tuon’s fate and even more so her own, but not

until the face in the mirror displayed utter calm did she follow the da’covale.

The anteroom to her bedchamber was decorated in the garish Ebou Dari fashion, a cloud-

painted blue ceiling, yellow walls and green and yellow floor tiles. Even replacing the

furnishings with her own tall screens, all save two painted by the finest artists with birds

or flowers, did little to relieve the gaudiness. She growled faintly in her throat at sight of

the outer door, apparently left open by Liandrin in her flight, but she dismissed the

da’covale from her mind for the moment and concentrated on the man who stood there

examining the screen that held the image of a kori, a huge spotted cat from the Sen

T’jore. Lanky and graying, in armor striped blue-and-yellow, he pivoted smoothly at the

soft sound of her footsteps and went to one knee, though he was a commoner. The helmet

beneath his arm bore three slender blue plumes, so the message must be important. Of

course, it must be important to disturb her at this hour. She would give him dispensation.

This once.

“Banner-General Mikhel Najirah, High Lady. Captain-General Galgan’s compliments,

and he has received communications from Tarabon.”

Suroth’s eyebrows climbed in spite of herself. Tarabon? Tarabon was as secure as

Seandar. Automatically her fingers twitched, but she had not yet found a replacement for

Alwhin. She must speak to the man herself. Irritation over that hardened her voice, and

she made no effort to soften it. Kneeling instead of prostrate! “What communications? If

I have been wakened for news of Aiel, I will not be pleased, Banner-General.”

Her tone failed to intimidate the man. He even raised his eyes almost to meet hers. “Not

Aiel, High Lady,” he said calmly. “Captain-General Galgan wishes to tell you himself, so

you can hear every detail correctly.”

Suroth’s breath caught for an instant. Whether Najirah was just reluctant to tell her the

contents of these communications or had been ordered not to, this sounded ill. “Lead on,”

she commanded, then swept out of the room without waiting for him, ignoring as best she

could the pair of Deathwatch Guards standing like statues in the hallway to either side of

the door. The “honor” of being guarded by those men in red-and-green armor made her

skin crawl. Since Tuon’s disappearance, she tried not to see them at all.

The corridor, lined with gilded stand-lamps whose flames flickered in errant drafts that

stirred tapestries of ships and the sea, was empty except for a few liveried palace

servants, scurrying on early tasks, who thought deep bows and curtsies sufficient. And

they always looked right at her! Perhaps a word with Beslan? No; the new King of

Tarabon was her equal, now, in law at any rate, and she doubted that he would make his

servants behave properly. She stared straight ahead as she walked. That way, she did not

have to see the servants’ insults.

Najirah caught up to her quickly, his boots ringing on the too-bright blue floor tiles, and

fell in at her side. In truth, she needed no guide. She knew where Galgan must be.

The room had begun as a chamber for dancing, a square thirty paces on a side, its ceiling

painted with fanciful fish and birds frolicking in often confusing fashion among clouds

and waves. Only the ceiling remained to recall the room’s beginnings. Now mirrored

stand-lamps and shelves full of filed reports in leather folders lined the pale red walls.

Brown-coated clerks scurried along the aisles between the long, map-strewn tables that

covered the green-tiled dancing-floor. A young officer, an under-lieutenant with no

plume on her red-and-yellow helmet, raced past Suroth without so much as a move to

prostrate herself. Clerks merely squeezed themselves out of her path. Galgan gave his

people too much leeway. He claimed that what he called excessive ceremony at “the

wrong time” hindered efficiency; she called it effrontery.

Lunal Galgan, a tall man in a red robe richly worked with bright-feathered birds, the hair

of his crest snow white and its tail plaited in a tight but untidy queue that hung to his

shoulders, stood at a table near the center of the room with a knot of other high-ranking

officers, some in breastplates, others in robes and nearly as disheveled as she. It seemed

she was not the first to whom he had sent a messenger. She struggled to keep anger from

her face. Galgan had come with Tuon and the Return, and thus she knew little of him

beyond that his ancestors had been among the first to throw their support to Luthair

Paendrag and that he owned a high reputation as a soldier and a general. Well, reputation

and truth were sometimes the same. She disliked him entirely for himself.

He turned at her approach and formally laid his hands on her shoulders, kissing her on

either cheek, so she was forced to return the greeting while trying not to wrinkle her nose

at the strong, musky scent he favored. Galgan’s face was as smooth as his creases would

allow, but she thought she detected a hint of worry in his blue eyes. A number of the men

and women behind him, mainly low Blood and commoners, wore open frowns.

The large map of Tarabon spread out on the table in front of her and held flat by four

lamps gave reason enough for worry. Markers covered it, red wedges for Seanchan forces

on the move and red stars for forces holding in place, each supporting a small paper

banner inked with their numbers and composition. Scattered across the map, across the

entire map, lay black discs marking engagements, and even more white discs for enemy

forces, many of those without the banners. How could there be any enemies in Tarabon?

It was as secure as….

“What happened?” she demanded.

“Raken began arriving with reports from Lieutenant-General Turan about three hours

ago,” Galgan began in conversational tones. Pointedly not making a report himself. He

studied the map as he talked, never glancing in her direction. “They aren’t complete—

each new one adds to the lists, and I expect that won’t change for a while—but what I’ve

seen runs this way. Since dawn yesterday, seven major supply camps overrun and burned,

along with more than two dozen smaller camps. Twenty supply trains attacked, the

wagons and their contents put to the torch. Seventeen small outposts have been wiped

out, eleven patrols have failed to report in, and there have been an additional fifteen

skirmishes. Also a few attacks against our settlers. Only a handful of fatalities, mostly

men who tried to defend their belongings, but a good many wagons and stores burned

along with some half-built houses, and the same message delivered everywhere. Leave

Tarabon. All this was done by bands of between two and perhaps five hundred men.

Estimates are a minimum of ten thousand and perhaps twice that, nearly all Taraboners.

Oh, yes,” he finished casually, “and most of them are wearing armor painted with

stripes.”

She wanted to grind her teeth. Galgan commanded the soldiers of the Return, yet she

commanded the Corenne, the Forerunners, and as such, she possessed the higher rank in

spite of his crest and red-lacquered fingernails. She suspected the only reason he did not

claim that the Forerunners had been absorbed into the Return by its very arrival was that

supplanting her meant assuming responsibility for Tuon’s safety. And for that apology,

should it become necessary. “Dislike” was too mild a word. She loathed Galgan.

“A mutiny?” she said, proud of the coolness of her voice. Inside, she had begun to burn.

Galgan’s white queue swung slowly as he shook his head. “No. All reports say our

Taraboners have fought well, and we’ve had a few successes, taken a few prisoners. Not

one of them can be found on the rosters of loyal Taraboners. Several have been identified

as Dragonsworn believed to be up in Arad Doman. And the name Rodel Ituralde has been

mentioned a number of times as the brain behind it all, and the leader. A Domani. He’s

supposed to be one of the best generals this side of the ocean, and if he planned and

carried out all this,” he swept a hand over the map, “then I believe it.” The fool sounded

admiring! “Not a mutiny. A raid on a grand scale. But he won’t get out with nearly as

many men as he brought in.”

Dragonsworn. The word was like a fist clutching Suroth’s throat. “Are there Asha’man?”

“Those fellows who can channel?” Galgan grimaced and made a sign against evil,

apparently unconscious of doing so. “There was no mention of them,” he said dryly, “and

I rather think there would have been.”

Red-hot anger needed to erupt at Galgan, but screaming at another of the High Blood

would lower her eyes. And, as bad, gain nothing. Still, it had to be directed somewhere. It

had to come out. She was proud of what she had done in Tarabon, and now the country

appeared to be halfway back to the chaos she found when she first landed there. And one

man was to blame. “This Ituralde.” Her tone was ice. “I want his head!”

“Never fear,” Galgan murmured, folding his hands behind his back and bending to

examine some of the small banners. “It won’t be long before Turan chases him back to

Arad Doman with his tail between his legs, and with luck, he’ll be with one of the bands

we snap up.”

“Luck?” she snapped. “I don’t trust to luck!” Her anger was open, now, and she did not

consider trying to suppress it again. Her eyes scanned the map as though she could find

Ituralde that way. “If Turan is hunting a hundred bands, as you suggest, he’ll need more

scouts to run them down, and I want them run down. Every last one of them. Especially

Ituralde. General Yulan, I want four in every five—no, nine in every ten—raken in Altara

and Amadicia moved to Tarabon. If Turan can’t find them all with that, then he can see if

his own head will appease me.”

Yulan, a dark little man in a blue robe embroidered with black-crested eagles, must have

dressed in too great a hurry to apply the gum that normally held his wig in place, because

he was constantly touching the thing to make sure it was straight. He was Captain of the

Air for the Forerunners, but the Return’s Captain of the Air was only a Banner-General, a

more senior man having died on the voyage. Yulan would have no trouble with him.

“A wise move, High Lady,” he said, frowning at the map, “but may I suggest leaving the

raken in Amadicia and those assigned to Banner-General Khirgan. Raken are the best

way we have to locate Aiel, and in two days we still haven’t found those Whitecloaks.

That will still give General Turan—”

“The Aiel are less of a problem every day,” she told him firmly, “and a few deserters are

nothing.” He inclined his head in assent, one hand keeping his wig in place. He was only

low Blood, after all.

“I hardly call seven thousand men a few deserters,” Galgan murmured dryly.

“It shall be as I command!” she snapped. Curse those so-called Children of the Light! She

still had not decided whether to make Asunawa and the few thousand who had remained

da’covale. They had remained, yet how long before they offered betrayal, too? And

Asunawa seemed to hate damane, of all things. The man was unbalanced!

Galgan shrugged, utterly unperturbed. A red-lacquered fingernail traced lines on the map

as though he were planning movements of soldiers. “So long as you don’t want the

to’raken, too, I raise no objections. That plan must go forward. Altara is falling into our

hands with barely a struggle, I’m not ready to move on Illian yet, and we need to pacify

Tarabon again quickly. The people will turn against us if we can’t give them safety.”

Suroth began to regret letting her anger show. He would raise no objections? He was not

ready for Illian yet? He was all but saying that he did not have to follow her orders, only

not openly, not so he had to take her responsibility along with her authority.

“I expect this message to be sent to Turan, General Galgan.” Her voice was steady, kept

so by will alone. “He is to send me Rodel Ituralde’s head if he has to hound the man

across Arad Doman and into the Blight. And if he fails to send me that head, I will take

his.”

Galgan’s mouth tightened briefly, and he frowned down at the map. “Turan sometimes