For once, looking at the injured men lying on the pavement here and there, the one crawling away, she felt no desire to Heal, no pity at all. Not far off was a pitchfork, where someone had flung it; a man’s severed head was impaled on one tine, a woman’s on another. All she felt was queasy, and grateful that it was not her head. That, and cold.

“Thank you,” she said aloud, to no one in particular and to everyone. “Thank you very much.” The words grated a little—she did not like confessing something she had not been able to do for herself—but they were fervent. Then Birgitte nodded in acknowledgment, and Nynaeve had to struggle with herself. But the woman had done as much as anyone. Considerably more than she herself. She thrust her belt knife back into its sheath. “You . . . shot very well.”

With a wry grin, as if she knew exactly how difficult those words had been, Birgitte set about recovering her arrows. Nynaeve shuddered and tried not to watch.

Most of the Shienarans had wounds, and Thom and Juilin both wore their own blood in places—miraculously, Galad was untouched; or perhaps not so miraculously, remembering how he had handled his sword—but, manlike to the bitter end, every one of them insisted that his hurts were not serious. Even Uno said they had to keep moving, him with one arm hanging and a gash down the side of his face whose scar would nearly mirror the first if it was not Healed soon.

In truth, she was not reluctant to go, despite telling herself that she should be seeing to injuries. Elayne put a supporting arm around Thom; he responded by refusing to lean on her and beginning to recite a tale in High Chant, so flowery it was difficult to recognize the story of Kirukan, the beautiful soldier queen of the Trolloc Wars.

“She had a temper like a boar caught in briars at the best,” Birgitte said softly to no one in particular. “Not at all like anyone close by.”

Nynaeve ground her teeth. Catch her complimenting the woman again, no matter what she did. Come to think of it, any man in the Two Rivers could have shot as well at that range. Any boy.

Rumbles followed them, distant roars from other streets, and often she had the feeling of eyes watching from one of the vacant, glassless windows. But word must have spread, or else the watchers had seen what happened, because they saw no one else living until suddenly two dozen Whitecloaks stepped into the street in front of them, half with drawn bows, the rest with bared blades. The Shienarans’ blades were up in a heartbeat.