WOT: A Memory of Light prologue excerpt

Tor.com posted today an excerpt for the upcoming finale to the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, A Memory of Light.  The extract is from the prologue of the book that will be released on January 8, 2013.  Here's a glimpse:

Bayrd pressed the coin between his thumb and forefinger. It was thoroughly unnerving to feel the metal squish.

 

He removed his thumb. The hard copper now clearly bore its print, reflecting the uncertain torchlight. He felt chilled, as if he’d spent an entire night in a cold cellar.

 

His stomach growled. Again.

 

The north wind picked up, making torches sputter. Bayrd sat with his back to a large rock near the center of the warcamp. Hungry men muttered as they warmed their hands around fire pits; the rations had spoiled long ago. Other soldiers nearby began laying out all of their metal—swords, armor clasps, mail—on the ground, like linen to be dried. Perhaps they hoped that when the sun rose, it would change the material back to normal.

 

Bayrd rolled the once-coin into a ball between his fingers. Light preserve us, he thought. Light... He dropped the ball to the grass, then reached over and picked up the stones he’d been working with.

 

“I want to know what happened here, Karam,” Lord Jarid snapped at his advisor. Jarid stood nearby, in front of a table draped with maps. “I want to know where they are and how they drew so close, and I want that bloody, Darkfriend Aes Sedai queen’s head!” Jarid slammed his fist down on the table. Once, his eyes hadn’t displayed such a crazed fervor. The pressure of it all—the lost rations, the strange things in the nights—was changing him.

 

Behind Jarid, the command tent lay in a heap. Jarid’s dark hair—grown long during their exile—blew free, face bathed in ragged torchlight. Bits of dead grass still clung to his coat from when he’d crawled out of the tent.