WOT Adv 141

--- The Wheel Turns ---
Maer's sharp eyes looked for any shelter from the armored wedge of men driving towards him, the hooves of hundreds of horses shook the ground. But all he could see was the thick white mist that shrouded all land marks and gave the battlefield an eerie feel of otherworldness. The sound seemed oddly distant in this strange cool mist, and except for the sight of men men and beast crashing towards him, he could have felt that he had stepped out of reality into some sort of dream. Or nightmare. Maer wondered who had created this mist. He had seen a similar mist rise from the ground at the hands of Bryna or Maeslyn in the battle against the Seanchan in Tobin's Hollow. Perhaps these Seanchan had created it, but that didn't seem like a very good tactic to him.

But he had little time to think on it; the line of horsemen were shouting out ragged war cries, and as they closed on him, Maer could make out the familiar brilliant sun bursts on a field of snow white tabbard and shield. The vaunted Children of the Light had come to drive back these invaders. Steel and sword against Sul'Dam, Damane and exotic beast. The "Whitecloaks", as they were called by those who despised them, had considerable skill in arms, a skill that was matched only with a fanatical zeal to destroy and root out anything unknown.

Men and beast came on, sharp lances driving towards him. Maer dove to the left as a horse and helmeted rider tore past him, the heavy lance barely missing him. He knocked another lance away with his spear as he rolled to his knees. Only to see several more horses making up the line, moving over and and past him. Instead of running away from the armored line of horsemen and muscled beast, he tried to scramble through it.

On hands and knees he crawled and rolled. Deadly hooves churned up the ground about his head and face. The sound was deafening and the smell of horseflesh filled his nostrils. He rolled and slashed upwards at a horse's belly, causing it and its rider to stumble, allowing him to gain his feet. Just as he did so, the ground erupted nearby in fiery explosions that tore into the nearby horses and men. The concussion drove him to his back and he closed his eyes as dirt and stones rained down on him and more hooves danced about his face. A body of a torn whitecloak soldier fell heavily atop him, it was missing an arm and a head. He pushed the heavy torso with it's chain mail off of him and climbed to his feet. Blood covered his chest and arms. He checked himself. Miraculously, the blood was all from the other man. Maer was unharmed.

Then the thundering hooves were past him, leaving several still forms and others moaning in the mist about him. In the distance behind him, he could hear a mighty crash where the lines must have met. The sights of battle were obscured by the heavy mists, but the eerie sounds of combat, albeit seemingly distant, told the tell of men fighting for their lives.

Maer stumbled up the hill, fearing another line of horsemen, but none came. A thousand hooves had churned up the grasslands into a frothing mud heap. Maer trudged through it and managed to finally reach the crest of the hill, doubting that he would find any trace of his friends now that the landscape was so altered. The top of the hill was several hundred paces wide, off to his left to the east at the edge of the hill was a small copse of trees. He glanced about the ground and shook his head in quiet frustration.

Then Maer heared another roar and saw another group ride out of the mist. It was a force unlike any he had ever seen before. Several score--perhaps a hundred--warriors charged from the trees to the east, north toward the clashing armies. The mist parted somewhat, and Maer thought the group and unruly band might be a mob of towns people on horseback. The group was comprised of both men and women, yet each one of these combatants bore him, or herself, like a veteran of a hundred campaigns. Their skill in battle was legendary beyond compare. At the center of this line of warriors, someone carried a banner aloft--a red serpentine shape, on a long field of white.

Maer wondered at that. He had seen that serpentine shape before, he had seen it on Clan chiefs when they had returned from Rhuidean. They were so marked on one forearm with a very similar shape. But this lot didn't contain one Aiel fighter among them. Perhaps Maeslyn or the Wise One Megda would know what it meant if he ever happened to find them.

In the distance Maer could see two figures exit from the tree line and follow the force with the serpentine banner that had just smashed down into the line. Through the mist and from his distance, Maer couldn't be sure, but one seemed to be wearing a dress, the other clearly wielded a sword.