Possibly that makes Avi a Lady instead of a savage in a dress :D but Idunno. Not sure my oppinion on how things will pan out time-wise really, it's gonna take ages for lan to get to Tarwain's Gap and it'd be a real shame to kick things off without him, but on the other hand you don't hold a war untill you're enemy is in position to fight you for the sake of things going "Properly" as it were.

Maybe RJ fudged it a little but I thought, though I could be wrong, that only a few months had passed since WH.

I'm not so scared about the last battle coming too soon. The dead walking is only among the first sign of it, and we've really only seen a big uprising of that in the last book or so.  :)

Demandred, my impression was that Elayne was already "showing"--i.e. she was visibly pregnant--as of KoD.

 

I would imagine you got that impression because everyone knows that she is pregnant, and in a world without EPT, that usually doesn't happen until a woman shows.  (Yes, I know that a woman begins missing her menstrual cycle long before she shows, I'm not talking about her knowing, I'm talking about "everyone" knowing)  But Elayne knew she was pregnant the day after she conceived, and more importantly, so did Aviendha.  So, the news spread, and everyone knows.  But, she is not showing yet, or else, she is barely, barely showing.

 

At the end of Knife of Dreams, it has been less than three months since Elayne became pregnant (closer to two).  While it varies from woman to woman, the majority do not start really showing until the second trimester (4-6 months).