There had been plenty of those, when they heard some of Alsalam’s orders. “I have orders from King Alsalam to gather as many men as I can, from wherever I can find them, and strike as hard as I can at the Seanchan.” He took a deep breath. Here, he took another chance, and Alsalam might have his head on the block unless the dice fell the right way. “I offer a truce. I pledge in the King’s name not to move against you in any way so long as the Seanchan remain a threat to Arad Doman, if you will all pledge the same and fight beside me against them until they are beaten back.”

A stunned silence answered him. Bull-necked Rajabi appeared poleaxed. Wakeda chewed his lip like a startled girl.

Then Shimron muttered, “Can they be beaten back, Lord Ituralde? I faced their… their chained Aes Sedai on Almoth Plain, as did you.” Boots scraped the floor as men shifted their feet, and faces darkened in bleak anger. No man liked to think he was helpless before an enemy, but enough had been there in the early days, with Ituralde and Shimron, for all to know what this enemy was like.

“They can be defeated, Lord Shimron,” Ituralde replied, “even with their… little surprises.” A strange thing to call the earth erupting under your feet, and scouts that rode what looked like Shadowspawn, but he had to sound assured as well as look it. Besides, when you knew what the enemy could do, you adapted. That had been one core of warfare long before the Seanchan appeared. Darkness cut the Seanchan advantages, and so did storms, and a weather-wise could always tell you when a storm was coming. “A wise man stops chewing when he reaches bone,” he continued, “but so far, the Seanchan have had their meat sliced thin before they reached for it. I intend to give them a tough shank to gnaw. More, I have a plan to make them snap so fast they’ll break their teeth on bone before they have a mouthful of meat. Now. I have pledged. Will you?”