"A hundred Trollocs?" Varaz gaped at Ivaltern's report. "Please tell me you're joking."

“Joking?” the Warder snapped. “We have leagues to go to reach safety, ta'veren fool, and not a hope of covering halfway in an hour. The only thing that could save us now is…” he hesitated, eyes going to Breeze.

“We are all going to die!” came a voice from behind them, and Alim looked back to see Jafri, face almost gray, kicking his horse to a gallop. Alim stood in his stirrups to watch Jafri gallop off into the distance until horse and rider alike were only a fast-vanishing speck.

“Can Parendi Sedai use the One Power to kill them?” he asked Ivaltern. The Warder shook his head, brown eyes unreadable.

“She could take out perhaps one-quarter of them in as many minutes,” the Warder said, “if she had the Tower itself behind her. Maybe half. The One Power is no simple weapon. A circle could do it, but not only do we not have the women to form a circle, but the Halfmen could stop them.”

"That's encouraging," Alim muttered, his grip on Breeze's reigns white-knuckled. The patchwork cloak around his shoulders did nothing to prevent the cold dread that seized him at the realization that even the presence of an Aes Sedai and her Warder wasn't enough to guarantee their safety. "You know, I really prefer telling stories to living them."

“Encouraging?!” Ivaltern snorted. “I hope you have picked up some of what I showed you.” His face darkened. The sun was almost touching the horizon. In an hour it would be full dark under the trees. “And I would be surprised if it isn't more than three hundred now.”

Parendi moved her mare closer to him. Her face had more expression than his. Concern, worry, but not panic. “We will reach the river, Warder.”

“I know,” Ivaltern’s voice was grim, but his face was as stoic as ever. If he felt the same anxious chill that had spread throughout the others, he didn't show it.