Potential Spoilers Below
“I don’t see that we have any
other choice,” Elayne
snapped, exhausted. Light! Here, help had come, and she was snapping. Stop it.
She composed herself, sitting up straighter. “I mean to say that your arrival,
while appreciated greatly, cannot turn a battle that is this far gone. A hundred Asha’man cannot
stop a hundred thousand Trollocs
on their own. If we could arrange our
battle lines better, get at least a short rest for my men . . . but no. That is
impossible. We
must retreat—unless you can produce a miracle, Lord Logain.”
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| Elayne |
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| Asha'men |
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| Trollocs |
He smiled, perhaps at her use
of “lord” for him. “Androl!” he barked.
A middle-aged Asha’man hurried
over, a plump Aes Sedai
joining him. Pevara?
Elayne thought, too exhausted to make sense of it. A Red?
“My Lord?” the man, Androl,
asked.
“I need to slow that army of Trollocs long
enough for the army to regroup and re-field itself, Androl,” Logain
said. “How much
will it cost us for a miracle?”
“Well, my Lord,” Androl said,
rubbing his chin. “That depends. How many of those women sitting back there can
channel?”
“It was a thing of legends.
Elayne had heard of the great
works performed by large circles of
men and women. Every woman in the White Tower was taught of these feats
from the past, stories of different days, better days. Days when one half of
the One Power
had not been a thing to fear, when two halves of one whole had worked together
to create incredible wonders.
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| The White Tower |
She wasn’t sure the days of
legend had truly returned. Certainly, the Aes Sedai during those times hadn’t been
so worried, so desperate. But what they did now left Elayne in awe.
She joined in the circle,
making the total fourteen women and twelve men. She barely had any strength to
lend, but her trickle added to the increasingly large stream. More importantly,
a circle had to have at least one more woman than it had men—and now that she
had joined, Logain could come in last of all and add his considerable strength
to the flow.
At the head of this circle was
Androl, an odd
choice. Now that she was part of the circle, she could feel his
relative strength. He was extremely weak, weaker than many women who were
turned away from the Tower, refused the shawl because
of their lack of innate talent.”
“Elayne and the others had
relocated to the far side of the battlefield. The rest of the Asha’man held
back the attacking Trolloc horde as Androl prepared. Whatever he did, it would
need to be swift. Elayne still had trouble believing anything could be done. Even with this much power, even with thirteen men and
fourteen women working together.
“Light,” Androl whispered,
standing between her horse and Logain’s. “Is this what it feels like to be one
of you people? How do you handle so much of the One Power? How do you keep it
from consuming you alive, burning you away?”
Pevara rested her hand on his
shoulder in a gesture that was unmistakably tender. Elayne could barely rub two
thoughts together amid her fatigue, but she still found herself shocked. She
had not expected affection from a Red for a man who could channel.
“Move the soldiers back,” Androl said
softly.
Elayne gave the order, worried. The man beside
her had never held this kind of power before. It could go to someones head; she
had seen it happen. Light send that he knew what he was doing.
The soldiers and others
retreated, passing by Elayne’s group. Several tired Ogier nodded
to her in passing, their shoulders slumped, their arms scored with cuts. The
Trollocs poured forward, but the Asha’man who weren’t in the circle disrupted
their attack with weaves of the One Power.
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| Ogier |
It wasn’t enough. Though the Asha’man fought
well, there were just so many Trollocs. The
Asha’man could not stop this tide. What did Logain think could be done?
Androl smiled widely, and held
his hands out in front of himself as if pressing against a wall. He closed his
eyes. “Three
thousand years ago the Lord
Dragon created Dragonmount to hide his shame.
His rage still burns hot. Today ... I bring it to you, Your Majesty.”
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| Lews Therin - the Lord Dragon |
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| Dragonmount |
A beam of light split the air,
easily a hundred feet tall. Moonshadow shied back and Elayne frowned. Why a column of
light? What good would that . . .”
“The beam of light began to twist in the air,
rotating upon itself. Only then did Elayne recognize it for the
start of a gateway.
An enormous
gateway, large enough to swallow buildings. She could have moved an entire wing
of the Caemlyn
palace through that thing!
The air shimmered in front of
them, the way a gateway always looked from behind. She couldn’t see where the
gateway was leading. Did they have an army waiting on the other side?
She could see the expressions on the slavering
Trolloc faces as they looked into the opening. Absolute horror. They broke
away, running, and Elayne felt a sudden heat, almost overpowering.
Something exploded out of the
gateway, as if pushed by an incredible force. A column of lava a hundred feet in diameter,
blazing hot. The column broke apart as the lava crashed down, splashing to the
battlefield, gushing forward in a river. The Asha’man outside the circle used
weaves of Air to keep it from splashing back on the circle and to shepherd it
in the right direction.
The river of fire washed through the foremost
Trolloc ranks, consuming them, destroying hundreds in an eye blink. The lava
was under pressure on the other side; that was the only way she could explain
the force with which it sprayed from the enormous gateway, turning Trollocs
into cinders, burning a large swath through their army.
Androl held the gateway for
long minutes as the Shadow’s army pulled back. Asha’man to
the sides used gusts of wind to blow the Shadowspawn back
into the ever-widening river. By the time Androl finished, he had created a barrier of
red-hot death between Elayne’s army and the bulk of the Trollocs, whose backs
were against the northern walls of Cairhien.
Androl took a breath, closed
the gateway, then pivoted and made two others in quick succession, one pointing
southeast, the other southwest.
A second and third column of
lava spurted forth—smaller this time, as Androl was obviously weakened. These
went tumbling over the land to the east and west of Cairhien, singeing away
dead weeds and casting smoke into the air. Some of the Trolloc army had pulled
back, but many others had perished, boxed in, with the walled city on one side
and lava on others. It would be some time before the Fades could
organize the survivors to resume their attacks on Elayne’s forces.
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| Fade / Myrddraal |
Androl let the gateway close.
He slumped, but Pevara caught him.
“One miracle, my Lord,” Androl said,
voice soft, as if strained. “Delivered as requested. That should hold them back for a few
hours. Long enough?”
“Long enough,” Elayne said. “We will be able to
regroup, bring through supplies for the dragons, and fetch as many Aes Sedai from Mayene as we can get to Heal our men and wash away their fatigue. Then we can sort through
who is strong enough to continue and re-position our ranks for a much more
effective battle.”
“You intend to keep fighting?” Androl asked, surprised.
“Yes,” Elayne said. “I can
barely stand, but yes. We cannot afford to leave that Trolloc horde here
intact. You and your men give us an edge, Logain. We will use it, and
everything we have, and we will destroy them.”
Well I think the White
Walkers and or The Great Other/Three-Eyed Crow, maybe Bran himself, of that time did just that. Fearing that a large number of dragons would be able to sweep over them they used the
nuclear option and took out all the dragons on the Valyrian Freehold using a device
and/or magic,
similar to the Bowl
of the Winds, to do it.
I wrote of this in an article titled: Why you can’t forecast the weather in ASOIAF. What Androl did with Dragonmount is similar
with what was done with the Fourteen Flames, where the Valyrians found
their dragons, as a way of giving their side enough time to “regroup and
re-field itself”. As in TWOT
all the Trollocs weren’t taken out; the same goes for the dragons. The Doom of Valyria was man-made or Other-made
as it were, GRRM’s commentary on global warming IMO. The device and/or magic was the same IMO that
shattered the Arm of Dorne. Nothing really game changing just the “WHY”
behind the event itself. The
metaphorical similarities between the two books series keep piling up so why
should this be any different with the 180 degree turn to make it dissimilar.
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| Bran |
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| Valyrian Freehold & Dragons |
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| The Bowl of the Winds |
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| When I first saw this I immediately thought of the Bowl of the Winds - the crystal projections caught my attention |
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| The Fourteen Flames |
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| The Doom of Valyria |
Comments encouraged. Love to hear the
ideas of others. Most believe that since I present my idea’s as “fact
like” I’m not open to change my viewpoints which is far from the truth. I
simply look at the information presented and go from there. If you can
shine a light on another way of thinking that opens the door to debate.
