A Memory Of Light: Wheel of Time Book 14 by Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson Page B

on them, and most
     of them fell to the ground in fright, clearing a path. A path that exposed the Trolloc-infested city wall. Ryden’s line of
     dragons bowed inward like a cup, the reverse formation of those firing into the Trollocs behind, so that the tubes were pointed
     at the same section of city wall.
    “Give me one of those bloody punks!” Talmanes shouted, holding out a hand. One of the dragoners obeyed, passing him a flaming
     brand with a glowing red tip. He pushed away from Melten, determined to stand on his own for the moment.
    Guybon stepped up. The man’s voice sounded soft to Talmanes’ strained ears. “Those walls have stood for hundreds of years.
     My poor city. My poor, poor city.”
    “It’s not your city any longer,” Talmanes said, raising his flaming brandhigh in the air, defiant before a wall thick with Trollocs, a burning city to his back. “It’s theirs.”
    Talmanes swiped the brand down in the air, leaving a trail of red. His signal ignited a roar of dragonfire that echoed throughout
     the square.
    Trollocs—pieces of them, at least—blew into the air. The wall under them exploded like a stack of children’s blocks kicked
     at a full run. As Talmanes wavered, his vision blackening, he saw the wall crumble outward. When he toppled, slipping into
     unconsciousness, the ground seemed to tremble from the force of his fall.

CHAPTER
1

    Eastward the Wind Blew
    T he Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth
     is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come,
     an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings
     to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was
a
beginning.
    Eastward the wind blew, descending from lofty mountains and coursing over desolate hills. It passed into the place known as
     the Westwood, an area that had once flourished with pine and leatherleaf. Here, the wind found little more than tangled underbrush,
     thick save around an occasional towering oak. Those looked stricken by disease, bark peeling free, branches drooping. Elsewhere
     needles had fallen from pines, draping the ground in a brown blanket. None of the skeletal branches of the Westwood put forth
     buds.
    North and eastward the wind blew, across underbrush that crunched and cracked as it shook. It was night, and scrawny foxes
     picked over the rotting ground, searching in vain for prey or carrion. No spring birds had come to call, and—most telling—the
     howls of wolves had gone silent across the land.
    The wind blew out of the forest and across Taren Ferry. What was left of it. The town had been a fine one, by local standards.
     Dark buildings, tallabove their redstone foundations, a cobbled street, built at the mouth of the land known as the Two Rivers.
    The smoke had long since stopped rising from burned buildings, but there was little left of the town to rebuild. Feral dogs
     hunted through the rubble for meat. They looked up as the wind passed, their eyes hungry.
    The wind crossed the river eastward. Here, clusters of refugees carrying torches walked the long road from Baerlon to Whitebridge
     despite the late hour. They were sorry groups, with heads bowed, shoulders huddled. Some bore the coppery skin of Domani,
     their worn clothing displaying the hardships of crossing the mountains with little in the way of supplies. Others came from
     farther off. Taraboners with haunted eyes above dirty veils. Farmers and their wives from northern Ghealdan. All had heard
     rumors that in Andor, there was food. In Andor, there was hope.
    So far, they had yet to find either.
    Eastward the wind blew, along the river that wove between farms without crops. Grasslands without grass. Orchards without
     fruit.
    Abandoned villages. Trees like bones with the flesh picked free. Ravens often