The Wheel of Time: The Path of Daggers

The Path of Daggers, the eighth book of The Wheel of Time, has easily the best cover so far. It depicts Rand, wearing the Crown of Swords, riding in front of an army, the banners of the ancient Aes Sedai Symbol and the Dragon behind him. Although, I must say the horses seem rather small if you compare their sizes to the men riding them...

Things are going seemingly well; Rand leads a mixed and relatively small army to push the Seanchan back into the sea. The Asha'man act a huge part in the campaign's success. All is not well, however. Embracing saidin is becoming hard for Rand. It almost overwhelms him each time now, and he's on the edge otherwise as well, ready to snap at everyone who even slightly irritates him.

As a final crescendo, Rand marches his five thousand men against a Seanchan force ten times stronger in Ebou Dar. Clearly a suicide, even with the Asha'man as the Seanchan have their own damane. I had already wondered why Rand doesn't simply fetch Callandor from Tear as with it he could probably defeat the Seanchan by himself. When Lord Bashere informs the Lord Dragon they will not win the battle, Rand finally reveals Callandor (fetched by one Asha'man) and starts to weave a terrifying lightning storm.

The One Power is acting bit wild in Ebou Dar, though. Probably because of the Bowl of the Winds, used there couple weeks back. There is also a flaw in Callandor as Cadsuade later reveals -- it requires two women for Rand to use it safely because the angreal has no threshold to stop the amount power drawn through it. And thus, the storm Rand channels strikes his own army as much as the Seanchan. An upsetting turn of events, but the Seanchan have been driven back once again.

In the whole book, there's no mention of Mat (or Thom or Juilin for that matter). I wonder if they have been captured by the Seanchan and are now being taken back to Seanchan. I also wonder if the Daughter of the Nine Moons is same as the Empress of the Seanchan. If so, Mat is certainly in big trouble. I hope he gets to keep his fox medallion and the spear, though. Nice things to have those are.

The Path of Daggers introduces a whole bunch of other setbacks; Egwene and the rest are still not aware of the agent of Shadow in their midst, and Elayne and Nynaeve's party includes a Shadowfriend as well.

A few of the Asha'man decide to go rogue at the end of the book, who knows why. Their attempt to kill Rand fails of course. Who could kill the Dragon Reborn but the Dark One himself.

The remaining Shaido Aiel (yes, they still are about) capture Faile. I guess we'll see Perrin go save her in the next book, Winter's Heart, and maybe a final defeat for the Shaido. The Wise One leading the trouble-making Aiel, Sevanna, seems as much delusional as Elaida. And the Prophet of the Dragon has evidently allied with the Seanchan. Rand's task to ally the world against the Shadow is certainly not an easy one.

Some positive things happen as well; the party of fifty White Tower sisters send to annihilate the Black Tower is rendered harmless before they even know what's happening. That's what you get for underestimating your foe. The White Tower is weakening, ready for Egwene to take and unite once more, maybe in the next novel already.

I hope in the next book Mat will make a comeback as well. He might somehow turn the Seanchan into Rand's allies. That would be something. That's just a wild guess of mine, though.

Rand himself thought of asking Nynaeve about cleansing saidin. I doubt that will happen right in Winter's Heart but hopefully later. Channeling men not going mad would really help. I think the two huge statues, which have been mentioned earlier in the series will be used for the cleansing, if that were to happen. Exciting stuff; I can't wait to get my hands on the next book.