The Great Hunt Read online

  From the look on Amalisa’s face, Liandrin did not think failure would come from any lack of effort on her part.

  Pulling the door shut behind her, Liandrin suddenly felt a prickling across her skin. Breath catching, she whirled about, looking up and down the dimly lit hall. Empty. It was full night beyond the arrowslits. The hall was empty, yet she was sure there had been eyes on her. The vacant corridor, shadowy between the lamps on the walls, mocked her. She shrugged uneasily, then started down the hall determinedly. Fancies take me. Nothing more.

  Full night already, and there was much to do before dawn. Her orders had been explicit.

  Pitch-blackness covered the dungeons whatever the hour, unless someone brought in a lantern, but Padan Fain sat on the edge of his cot, staring into the dark with a smile on his face. He could hear the other two prisoners grumbling in their sleep, muttering in nightmares. Padan Fain was waiting for something, something he had been awaiting for a long time. For too long. But not much longer.

  The door to the outer guardroom opened, spilling in a flood of light, darkly outlining a figure in the doorway.

  Fain stood. “You! Not who I expected.” He stretched with a casualness he did not feel. Blood raced through his veins; he thought he could leap over the keep if he tried. “Surprises for everyone, eh? Well, come on. The night’s getting old, and I want some sleep sometime.”

  As a lamp came into the cell chamber, Fain raised his head, grinning at something, unseen yet felt, beyond the dungeon’s stone ceiling. “It isn’t over yet,” he whispered. “The battle’s never over.”

  CHAPTER

  6

  Dark Prophecy

  The farmhouse door shook under furious blows from outside; the heavy bar across the door jumped in its brackets. Beyond the window next to the door moved the heavy-muzzled silhouette of a Trolloc. There were windows everywhere, and more shadowy shapes outside. Not shadowy enough, though. Rand could still make them out.

  The windows, he thought desperately. He backed away from the door, clutching his sword before him in both hands. Even if the door holds, they can break in the windows. Why aren’t they trying the windows?

  With a deafening metallic screech, one of the brackets pulled partly away from the doorframe, hanging loose on nails ripped a finger’s width out of the wood. The bar quivered from another blow, and the nails squealed again.

  “We have to stop them!” Rand shouted. Only we can’t. We can’t stop them. He looked around for a way to run, but there was only the one door. The room was a box. Only one door, and so many windows. “We have to do something. Something!”

  “It’s too late,” Mat said. “Don’t you understand?” His grin looked odd on a bloodless pale face, and the hilt of a dagger stood out from his chest, the ruby that capped it blazing as if it held fire. The gem had more life than his face. “It’s too late for us to change anything.”

  “I’ve finally gotten rid of them,” Perrin said, laughing. Blood streamed down his face like a flood of tears from his empty sockets. He held out red hands, trying to make Rand look at what he held. “I’m free, now. It’s over.”

  “It’s never over, al’Thor,” Padan Fain cried, capering in the middle of the floor. “The battle’s never done.”

  The door exploded in splinters, and Rand ducked away from the flying shards of wood. Two red-clad Aes Sedai stepped through, bowing their master in. A mask the color of dried blood covered Ba’alzamon’s face, but Rand could see the flames of his eyes through the eyeslits; he could hear the roaring fires of Ba’alzamon’s mouth.

  “It is not yet done between us, al’Thor,” Ba’alzamon said, and he and Fain spoke together as one, “For you, the battle is never done.”

  With a strangled gasp Rand sat up on the floor, clawing his way awake. It seemed he could still hear Fain’s voice, as sharp as if the peddler were standing beside him. It’s never over. The battle’s never done.

  Bleary-eyed, he looked around to convince himself that he was still hidden away where Egwene had left him, bedded down on a pallet in a corner of her room. The dim light of a single lamp suffused the room, and he was surprised to see Nynaeve, knitting in a rocking chair on the other side of the lone bed, its covers still in place. It was night outside.

  Dark-eyed and slender, Nynaeve wore her hair in a fat braid, pulled over one shoulder and hanging almost to her waist. She had not given up on home. Her face was calm, and she seemed aware of nothing except her knitting as she rocked gently. The steady click-click of her knitting needles was the only sound. The rug silenced the rocking chair.

  There had been nights of late when he had wished for a carpet on the cold stone floor of his room, but in Shienar men’s rooms were always bare and stark. The walls here had two tapestries, mountain scenes with waterfalls, and flower-embroidered curtains alongside the arrowslits. Cut flowers, white morningstars, stood in a flat, round vase on the table by the bed, and more nodded in glazed white sconces on the walls. A tall mirror stood in a corner, and another hung over the washstand, with its blue-striped pitcher and bowl. He wondered why Egwene needed two mirrors; there was none in his room, and he did not miss it. There was only one lamp lit, but four more stood around the room, which was nearly as large as the one he shared with Mat and Perrin. Egwene had it alone.

  Without looking up, Nynaeve said, “If you sleep in the afternoon, you can’t expect to sleep at night.”

  He frowned, though she could not see it. At least, he thought she could not. She was only a few years older than he, but being Wisdom added fifty years of authority. “I needed a place to hide, and I was tired,” he said, then quickly added, “I didn’t just come here. Egwene invited me into the women’s apartments.”

  Nynaeve lowered her knitting and gave him an amused smile. She was a pretty woman. That was something he would never have noticed back home; one just did not think of a Wisdom that way. “The Light help me, Rand, you are becoming more Shienaran every day. Invited into the women’s apartments, indeed.” She sniffed. “Any day now, you’ll start talking about your honor, and asking peace to favor your sword.” He colored, and hoped she did not notice in the dim light. She eyed his sword, its hilt sticking out of the long bundle beside him on the floor. He knew she did not approve of the sword, of any sword, but she said nothing about it for once. “Egwene told me why you need a place to hide. Don’t worry. We will keep you hidden from the Amyrlin, or from any other Aes Sedai, if that is what you want.”

  She met his eyes and jerked hers away, but not before he saw her uneasiness. Her doubt. That’s right, I can channel the Power. A man wielding the One Power! You ought to be helping the Aes Sedai hunt me down and gentle me.

  Scowling, he straightened the leather jerkin Egwene had found for him and twisted around so he could lean back against the wall. “As soon as I can, I will hide in a cart, or sneak out. You won’t have to hide me long.” Nynaeve did not say anything; she fixed on her knitting, making an angry sound when she dropped a stitch. “Where is Egwene?”

  She let the knitting fall onto her lap. “I don’t know why I am even trying tonight. I can’t keep track of my stitches for some reason. She has gone down to see Padan Fain. She thinks seeing faces he knows might help him.”

  “Mine certainly did not. She ought to stay away from him. He’s dangerous.”

  “She wants to help him,” Nynaeve said calmly. “Remember, she was training to be my assistant, and being a Wisdom is not all predicting the weather. Healing is part of it, too. Egwene has the desire to heal, the need to. And if Padan Fain is so dangerous, Moiraine would have said something.”

  He barked a laugh. “You didn’t ask her. Egwene admitted it, and I can just see you asking permission for anything.” Her raised eyebrow wiped the laugh off his face. He refused to apologize, though. They were a long way from home, and he did not see how she could go on being Wisdom of Emond’s Field if she was going to Tar Valon. “Have they started to search for me, yet? Egwene is not sure they will, but Lan says the Amyrl
in Seat is here because of me, and I think I’ll take his opinion over hers.”

  For a moment Nynaeve did not answer. Instead she fussed with her skeins of yarn. Finally she said, “I am not sure. One of the serving women came a little while ago. To turn down the bed, she said. As if Egwene would be going to sleep already, with the feast for the Amyrlin tonight. I sent her away; she didn’t see you.”

  “Nobody turns your bed down for you in the men’s quarters.” She gave him a level look, one that would have set him stammering a year ago. He shook his head. “They wouldn’t use the maids to look for me, Nynaeve.”

  “When I went to the buttery for a cup of milk earlier, there were too many women in the halls. Those who are attending the feast should have been getting dressed, and the others should either have been helping them or getting ready to serve, or to. . . .” She frowned worriedly. “There’s more than enough work for everybody with the Amyrlin here. And they were not just here in the women’s apartments. I saw the Lady Amalisa herself coming out of a storeroom near the buttery with her face all over dust.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Why would she be part of a search? Or any of the women, for that matter. They’d be using Lord Agelmar’s soldiers, and the Warders. And the Aes Sedai. They must just be doing something for the feast. Burn me if I know what a Shienaran feast takes.”

  “You are a woolhead, sometimes, Rand. The men I saw didn’t know what the women were doing either. I heard some of them complaining about having to do all the work by themselves. I know it makes no sense that they were looking for you. None of the Aes Sedai seemed to be taking any interest. But Amalisa was not readying herself for the feast by dirtying her dress in a storeroom. They were looking for something, something important. Even if she began right after I saw her, she would barely have time to bathe and change. Speaking of which, if Egwene doesn’t come back soon, she’ll have to choose between changing and being late.”

  For the first time, he realized that Nynaeve was not wearing the Two Rivers woolens he was used to. Her dress was pale blue silk, embroidered in snowdrop blossoms around the neck and down the sleeves. Each blossom centered on a small pearl, and her belt was tooled in silver, with a silver buckle set with pearls. He had never seen her in anything like that. Even feastday clothes back home might not match it.

  “You’re going to the feast?”

  “Of course. Even if Moiraine had not said I should, I would never let her think I was. . . .” Her eyes lit up fiercely for a moment, and he knew what she meant. Nynaeve would never let anyone think she was afraid, even if she was. Certainly not Moiraine, and especially not Lan. He hoped she did not know he was aware of her feelings for the Warder.

  After a moment her gaze softened as it fell on the sleeve of her dress. “The Lady Amalisa gave me this,” she said so softly he wondered if she was speaking to herself. She stroked the silk with her fingers, outlining the embroidered flowers, smiling, lost in thought.

  “It’s very pretty on you, Nynaeve. You’re pretty tonight.” He winced as soon as he said it. Any Wisdom was touchy about her authority, but Nynaeve was touchier than most. The Women’s Circle back home had always looked over her shoulder because she was young, and maybe because she was pretty, and her fights with the Mayor and the Village Council had been the stuff of stories.

  She jerked her hand away from the embroidery and glared at him, brows lowering. He spoke quickly to forestall her.

  “They can’t keep the gates barred forever. Once they are opened, I will be gone, and the Aes Sedai will never find me. Perrin says there are places in the Black Hills and the Caralain Grass you can go for days without seeing a soul. Maybe—maybe I can figure out what to do about. . . .” He shrugged uncomfortably. There was no need to say it, not to her. “And if I can’t, there’ll be no one to hurt.”

  Nynaeve was silent for a moment, then she said slowly, “I am not so sure, Rand. I can’t say you look like more than another village boy to me, but Moiraine insists you are ta’veren, and I don’t think she believes the Wheel is finished with you. The Dark One seems—”

  “Shai’tan is dead,” he said harshly, and abruptly the room seemed to lurch. He grabbed his head as waves of dizziness sloshed through him.

  “You fool! You pure, blind, idiotic fool! Naming the Dark One, bringing his attention down on you! Don’t you have enough trouble?”

  “He’s dead,” Rand muttered, rubbing his head. He swallowed. The dizziness was already fading. “All right, all right. Ba’alzamon, if you want. But he’s dead; I saw him die, saw him burn.”

  “And I wasn’t watching you when the Dark One’s eye fell on you just now? Don’t tell me you felt nothing, or I’ll box your ears; I saw your face.”

  “He’s dead,” Rand insisted. The unseen watcher flashed through his head, and the wind on the tower top. He shivered. “Strange things happen this close to the Blight.”

  “You are a fool, Rand al’Thor.” She shook a fist at him. “I would box your ears for you if I thought it would knock any sense—”

  The rest of her words were swallowed as bells crashed out ringing all over the keep.

  He bounded to his feet. “That’s an alarm! They’re searching. . . .” Name the Dark One, and his evil comes down on you.

  Nynaeve stood more slowly, shaking her head uneasily. “No, I don’t think so. If they are searching for you, all the bells do is warn you. No, if it’s an alarm, it is not for you.”

  “Then what?” He hurried to the nearest arrowslit and peered out.

  Lights darted through the night-cloaked keep like fireflies, lamps and torches dashing here and there. Some went to the outer walls and towers, but most of those that he could see milled through the garden below and the one courtyard he could just glimpse part of. Whatever had caused the alarm was inside the keep. The bells fell silent, unmasking the shouts of men, but he could not make out what they were calling.

  If it isn’t for me. . . . “Egwene,” he said suddenly. If he’s still alive, if there’s any evil, it’s supposed to come to me.

  Nynaeve turned from looking through another arrowslit. “What?”

  “Egwene.” He crossed the room in quick strides and snatched his sword and scabbard free of the bundle. Light, it’s supposed to hurt me, not her. “She’s in the dungeon with Fain. What if he’s loose somehow?”

  She caught him at the door, grabbing his arm. She was not as tall as his shoulder, but she held on like iron. “Don’t be a worse goat-brained fool than you’ve already been, Rand al’Thor. Even if this doesn’t have anything to do with you, the women are looking for something! Light, man, this is the women’s apartments. There will be Aes Sedai out there in the halls, likely as not. Egwene will be all right. She was going to take Mat and Perrin with her. Even if she met trouble, they would look after her.”

  “What if she couldn’t find them, Nynaeve? Egwene would never let that stop her. She would go alone, the same as you, and you know it. Light, I told her Fain is dangerous! Burn me, I told her!” Pulling free, he jerked open the door and dashed out. Light burn me, it’s supposed to hurt me!

  A woman screamed at the sight of him, in a laborer’s coarse shirt and jerkin with a sword in his hand. Even invited, men did not go armed in the women’s apartments unless the keep was under attack. Women filled the corridor, serving women in the black-and-gold, ladies of the keep in silks and laces, women in embroidered shawls with long fringes, all talking loudly at the same time, all demanding to know what was happening. Crying children clung to skirts everywhere. He plunged through them, dodging where he could, muttering apologies to those he shouldered aside, trying to ignore their startled stares.

  One of the women in a shawl turned to go back into her room, and he saw the back of her shawl, saw the gleaming white teardrop in the middle of her back. Suddenly he recognized faces he had seen in the outer courtyard. Aes Sedai, staring at him in alarm, now.

  “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  “Is the keep under attack?
Answer me, man!”

  “He’s no soldier. Who is he? What’s happening?”

  “It’s the young southland lord!”

  “Someone stop him!”

  Fear pushed his lips back, baring his teeth, but he kept moving, and tried to move faster.

  Then a woman came out into the hall, face-to-face with him, and he stopped in spite of himself. He recognized that face above the rest; he thought he would remember it if he lived forever. The Amyrlin Seat. Her eyes widened at the sight of him, and she started back. Another Aes Sedai, the tall woman he had seen with the staff, put herself between him and the Amyrlin, shouting something at him that he could not make out over the increasing babble.

  She knows. Light help me, she knows. Moiraine told her. Snarling, he ran on. Light, just let me make sure Egwene’s safe before they. . . . He heard shouting behind him, but he did not listen.

  There was enough turmoil around him out in the keep. Men running for the courtyards with swords in hand, never looking at him. Over the clamor of alarm bells, he could make out other noises, now. Shouts. Screams. Metal ringing on metal. He had just time to realize they were the sounds of battle—Fighting? Inside Fal Dara?—when three Trollocs came dashing around a corner in front of him.

  Hairy snouts distorted otherwise human faces, and one of them had ram’s horns. They bared teeth, raising scythe-like swords as they sped toward him.

  The hallway that had been full of running men a moment before was empty now except for the three Trollocs and himself. Caught by surprise, he unsheathed his sword awkwardly, tried Hummingbird Kisses the Honeyrose. Shaken at finding Trollocs in the heart of Fal Dara keep, he did the form so badly Lan would have stalked off in disgust. A bear-snouted Trolloc evaded it easily, bumping the other two off stride for just an instant.