The Great Hunt Read online

  “What was that?” Mat asked. “About spitting in the Dark One’s eye.”

  “That’s how long the Aiel say they’ll fight,” Ingtar said, “and I don’t doubt they will. Except for peddlers and gleemen, Aiel divide the world in two. Aiel, and enemies. They changed that for Cairhien five hundred years ago, for some reason no one but an Aiel could understand, but I do not think they will ever do so again.”

  “I suppose not,” Loial sighed. “But they do let the Tuatha’an, the Traveling People, cross the Waste. And they don’t see Ogier as enemies, either, though I doubt any of us would want to go out into the Waste. Aiel come to Stedding Shangtai sometimes to trade for sung wood. A hard people, though.”

  Ingtar nodded. “I wish I had some as hard. Half as hard.”

  “Is that a joke?” Mat laughed. “If I ran a mile wearing all the iron you’re wearing, I would fall down and sleep a week. You’ve done it mile after mile all day.”

  “Aiel are hard,” Ingtar said. “Man and woman, hard. I’ve fought them, and I know. They will run fifty miles, and fight a battle at the end of it. They’re death walking, with any weapon or none. Except a sword. They will not touch a sword, for some reason. Or ride a horse, not that they need to. If you have a sword, and the Aielman has his bare hands, it is an even fight. If you’re good. They herd cattle and goats where you or I would die of thirst before the day was done. They dig their villages into huge rock spires out in the Waste. They’ve been there since the Breaking, near enough. Artur Hawkwing tried to dig them out and was bloodied, the only major defeats he ever suffered. By day the air in the Aiel Waste shimmers with heat, and by night it freezes. And an Aiel will give you that blue-eyed stare and tell you there is no place on earth he would rather be. He won’t be lying, either. If they ever tried to come out, we would be hard-pressed to stop them. The Aiel War lasted three years, and that was only four out of thirteen clans.”

  “Gray eyes from his mother doesn’t make him an Aiel,” Mat said.

  Ingtar shrugged. “As I said, I ask no questions.”

  When Rand finally settled down for the night, his head hummed with unwanted thoughts. Image of an Aielman. Moiraine Sedai wants to say you’re from the Two Rivers. Aiel ravaged all the way to Tar Valon. Born on the slopes of Dragonmount. The Dragon Reborn.

  “I will not be used,” he muttered, but sleep was a long time coming.

  Ingtar broke camp before the sun was up in the morning. They had breakfasted and were riding south while the clouds in the east were still red with sunrise to come and dew still hung on the leaves. This time Ingtar put out scouts, and though the pace was hard, it was no longer horse-killing. Rand thought maybe Ingtar had realized they were not going to do it all in a day. The trail still led south, Hurin said. Until, two hours after the sun rose, one of the scouts came galloping back.

  “Abandoned camp ahead, my Lord. Just on that hilltop there. Must have been at least thirty or forty of them there last night, my Lord.”

  Ingtar put spurs to horse as if he had been told the Darkfriends were still there, and Rand had to keep pace or be trampled by the Shienarans who galloped up the hill behind him.

  There was not much to see. The cold ashes of campfires, well hidden in the trees, with what looked like the remnants of a meal tossed in them. A refuse heap too near the fires and already buzzing with flies.

  Ingtar kept the others back, and dismounted to walk through the campsite with Uno, examining the ground. Hurin rode the circumference of the site, sniffing. Rand sat his stallion with the other men; he had no desire for any closer look at a place where Trollocs and Darkfriends had camped. And a Fade. And something worse.

  Mat scrambled up the hill afoot and stalked into the campsite. “Is this what a Darkfriend camp looks like? Smells a bit, but I can’t say it looks any different from anybody else’s.” He kicked at one of the ash heaps, knocking out a piece of burned bone, and stooped to pick it up. “What do Darkfriends eat? Doesn’t look like a sheep bone, or a cow.”

  “There was murder done here,” Hurin said mournfully. He scrubbed at his nose with a kerchief. “Worse than murder.”

  “There were Trollocs here,” Ingtar said, looking straight at Mat. “I suppose they got hungry, and the Darkfriends were handy.” Mat dropped the blackened bone; he looked as if he were going to be sick.

  “They are not going south any longer, my Lord,” Hurin said. That took everyone’s attention. He pointed back, to the northeast. “Maybe they’ve decided to break for the Blight after all. Go around us. Maybe they were just trying to put us off by coming south.” He did not sound as if he believed it. He sounded puzzled.

  “Whatever they were trying,” Ingtar snarled, “I’ll have them now. Mount!”

  Little more than an hour later, though, Hurin drew rein. “They changed again, my Lord. South again. And they killed someone else here.”

  There were no ashes there, in the gap between two hills, but a few minutes’ search found the body. A man curled up and stuffed under some bushes. The back of his head was smashed in, and his eyes still bulged with the force of the blow. No one recognized him, though he was wearing Shienaran clothes.

  “We’ll waste no time burying Darkfriends,” Ingtar growled. “We ride south.” He suited his own words almost before they were out of his mouth.

  The day was the same as the day before had been, though. Uno studied tracks and droppings, and said they had gained a little ground on their quarry. Twilight came with no sight of Trollocs or Darkfriends, and the next morning there was another abandoned camp—and another murder done, so Hurin said—and another change of direction, this time to the northwest. Less than two hours on that track found another body, a man with his skull split open by an axe, and another change of direction. South again. Again gaining ground, by Uno’s reading of the tracks. Again seeing nothing but distant farms until nightfall. And the next day was the same, changes in direction, murders and all. And the next.

  Every day brought them a little closer behind their prey, but Ingtar fumed. He suggested cutting straight across when the trail changed direction of a morning—surely they would come on the trail heading south again, and gain more time—and before anyone could speak, he said it was a bad idea, in case this once the men they hunted did not turn south. He urged everyone to greater speed, to start earlier and ride till full dark. He reminded them of the charge the Amyrlin Seat had given them, to recover the Horn of Valere, and let nothing bar their way. He spoke of the glory they would have, their names remembered in story and history, in gleemen’s tales and bards’ songs, the men who found the Horn. He talked as if he could not stop, and he stared down the trail they followed as if his hope of the Light lay at the end of it. Even Uno began to look at him askance.

  And so they came to the River Erinin.

  It could not properly be called a village at all, to Rand’s mind. He sat his horse among the trees, peering up at half a dozen small houses with wood-shingled roofs and eaves almost to the ground, on a hilltop overlooking the river beneath the morning sun. Few people passed this way. It was only a few hours since they had broken camp, but past time for them to have found the remains of the Darkfriends’ resting place if the pattern held. They had seen nothing of the sort, however.

  The river itself was not much like the mighty Erinin of story, here so far toward its source in the Spine of the World. Perhaps sixty paces of swift water to the far bank, lined with trees, and a barge-like ferry on a thick rope spanning the distance. The ferry sat snugged against the other side.

  For once the trail had led straight to human habitation. Straight to the houses on the hill. No one moved on the single dirt street around which the dwellings clustered.

  “Ambush, my Lord?” Uno said softly.

  Ingtar gave the necessary orders, and the Shienarans unlimbered their lances, sweeping around to encircle the houses. At a hand signal from Ingtar they galloped between the houses from four directions, thundering in with eyes searching, lances ready, dust ris
ing under their hooves. Nothing moved but them. They drew rein, and the dust began to settle.

  Rand returned to his quiver the arrow he had nocked, and slung his bow on his back again. Mat and Perrin did the same. Loial and Hurin had just waited there where Ingtar had left them, watching uneasily.

  Ingtar waved, and Rand and the others rode up to join the Shienarans.

  “I don’t like the smell of this place,” Perrin muttered as they came among the houses. Hurin gave him a look, and he stared back until Hurin dropped his eyes. “It smells wrong.”

  “Bloody Darkfriends and Trollocs went straight through, my Lord,” Uno said, pointing to a few tracks not chopped to pieces by the Shienarans. “Straight through to the goat-kissing ferry, which they bloody left on the other side. Blood and bloody ashes! We’re flaming lucky they didn’t cut it adrift.”

  “Where are the people?” Loial asked.

  Doors stood open, curtains flapped at open windows, but no one had come out for all the thunder of hooves.

  “Search the houses,” Ingtar commanded. Men dismounted and ran to comply, but they came back shaking their heads.

  “They’re just gone, my Lord,” Uno said. “Just bloody gone, burn me. Like they’d picked up and decided to flaming walk away in the middle of the bloody day.” He stopped suddenly, pointing urgently to a house behind Ingtar. “There’s a woman at that window. How I bloody missed her. . . .” He was running for the house before anyone else could move.

  “Don’t frighten her!” Ingtar shouted. “Uno, we need information. The Light blind you, Uno, don’t frighten her!” The one-eyed man disappeared through the open door. Ingtar raised his voice again. “We will not harm you, good lady. We are Lord Agelmar’s oathmen, from Fal Dara. Do not be afraid! We will not harm you.”

  A window at the top of the house flew up, and Uno stuck his head out, staring around wildly. With an oath he pulled back. Thumps and clatters marked his passage back, as if he were kicking things in frustration. Finally he appeared from the doorway.

  “Gone, my Lord. But she was there. A woman in a white dress, at the window. I saw her. I even thought I saw her inside, for a moment, but then she was gone, and. . . .” He took a deep breath. “The house is empty, my Lord.” It was a measure of his agitation that he did not curse.

  “Curtains,” Mat muttered. “He’s jumping at bloody curtains.” Uno gave him a sharp look, then returned to his horse.

  “Where did they go?” Rand asked Loial. “Do you think they ran off when the Darkfriends came?” And Trollocs, and a Myrddraal. And Hurin’s something worse. Smart people, if they ran as hard as they could.

  “I fear the Darkfriends took them, Rand,” Loial said slowly. He grimaced, almost a snarl with his broad nose like a snout. “For the Trollocs.” Rand swallowed and wished he had not asked; it was never pleasant to think on how Trollocs fed.

  “Whatever was done here,” Ingtar said, “our Darkfriends did it. Hurin, was there violence here? Killing? Hurin!”

  The sniffer gave a start in his saddle and looked around wildly. He had been staring across the river. “Violence, my Lord? Yes. Killing, no. Or not exactly.” He glanced sideways at Perrin. “I’ve never smelled anything exactly like it before, my Lord. But there was hurting done.”

  “Is there any doubt they crossed over? Have they doubled back again?”

  “They crossed, my Lord.” Hurin looked uneasily at the far bank. “They crossed. What they did on the other side, though. . . .” He shrugged.

  Ingtar nodded. “Uno, I want that ferry back on this side. And I want the other side scouted before we cross. Just because there was no ambush here doesn’t mean there will not be one when we are split by the river. That ferry does not look big enough to carry us all in one trip. See to it.”

  Uno bowed, and in moments Ragan and Masema were helping each other out of their armor. Stripped down to breechclouts, with a dagger stuck behind in the small of the back, they trotted to the river on horsemen’s bowed legs and waded in, beginning to work their way hand over hand along the thick rope along which the ferry ran. The cable sagged enough in the middle to put them in the river to their waists, and the current was strong, pulling them downstream, yet in less time than Rand expected they were hauling themselves over the slatted sides of the ferry. Drawing their daggers, they disappeared into the trees.

  After what seemed like forever, the two men reappeared and began pulling the ferry slowly across. The barge butted against the bank below the village, and Masema tied it off while Ragan trotted up to where Ingtar waited. His face was pale, the arrow scar on his cheek sharp, and he sounded shaken.

  “The far bank. . . . There is no ambush on the far bank, my Lord, but. . . .” He bowed deeply, still wet and shivering from his excursion. “My Lord, you must see for yourself. The big stoneoak, fifty paces south from the landing. I cannot say the words. You must see it yourself.”

  Ingtar frowned, looking from Ragan to the other bank. Finally, he said, “You have done well, Ragan. Both of you have.” His voice became more brisk. “Find these men something to dry themselves on from the houses, Uno. And see if anybody left water on for tea. Put something hot into them, if you can. Then bring the second file and the pack animals over.” He turned to Rand. “Well, are you ready to see the south bank of the Erinin?” He did not wait for an answer, but rode down to the ferry with Hurin and half the lancers.

  Rand hesitated only a moment before following. Loial went with him. To his surprise, Perrin rode down ahead of them, looking grim. Some of the lancers, making gruff jokes, dismounted to haul on the rope and walk the ferry over.

  Mat waited until the last minute, when one of the Shienarans was untying the ferry, before he kicked his horse and crowded aboard. “I have to come sooner or later, don’t I?” he said, breathless, to no one in particular. “I have to find it.”

  Rand shook his head. With Mat looking as healthy as he ever had, he had almost forgotten why he was along. To find the dagger. Let Ingtar have the Horn. I just want the dagger for Mat. “We will find it, Mat.”

  Mat scowled at him—with a sneering glance for his fine red coat—and turned away. Rand sighed.

  “It will all come right, Rand,” Loial said quietly. “Somehow, it will.”

  The current took the ferry as it was hauled out from the bank, tugging it against the cable with a sharp creak. The lancers were odd ferrymen, walking the deck in helmets and armor, with swords on their backs, but they took the ferry out into the river well enough.

  “This is how we left home,” Perrin said suddenly. “At Taren Ferry. The ferrymen’s boots clunking on the deck, and the water gurgling around the ferry. This is how we left. It will be worse, this time.”

  “How can it be worse?” Rand asked. Perrin did not answer. He searched the far bank, and his golden eyes almost seemed to shine, but not with eagerness.

  After a minute, Mat asked, “How can it be worse?”

  “It will be. I can smell it,” was all Perrin would say. Hurin eyed him nervously, but then Hurin seemed to be eyeing everything nervously since they had left Fal Dara.

  The ferry bumped against the south bank with a hollow thud of stout planks against hard clay, almost under overhanging trees, and the Shienarans who had been hauling on the rope mounted their horses, except for two Ingtar told to take the ferry back over for the others. The rest followed Ingtar up the bank.

  “Fifty paces to a big stoneoak,” Ingtar said as they rode into the trees. He sounded too matter-of-fact. If Ragan could not speak of it. . . . Some of the soldiers eased the swords on their backs, and held their lances ready.

  At first Rand thought the figures hanging by their arms from the thick gray limbs of the stoneoak were scarecrows. Crimson scarecrows. Then he recognized the two faces. Changu, and the other man who had been on guard with him. Nidao. Eyes staring, teeth bared in a rictus of pain. They had lived a long time after it began.

  Perrin made a sound in his throat, nearly a growl.

  “A
s bad as ever I’ve seen, my Lord,” Hurin said faintly. “As bad as ever I’ve smelled, excepting the dungeon at Fal Dara that night.”

  Frantically Rand sought the void. The flame seemed to get in the way, the queasy light fluttering in time with his convulsive swallows, but he pushed on until he had wrapped himself in emptiness. The queasiness pulsed in the void with him, though. Not outside, for once, but inside. No wonder, looking at this. The thought skittered across the void like a drop of water on a hot griddle. What happened to them?

  “Skinned alive,” he heard someone behind him say, and the sounds of somebody else retching. He thought it was Mat, but it was all far away from him, inside the void. But that nauseous flickering was in there, too. He thought he might throw up himself.

  “Cut them down,” Ingtar said harshly. He hesitated a moment, then added, “Bury them. We cannot be sure they were Darkfriends. They could have been taken prisoner. They could have been. Let them know the last embrace of the mother, at least.” Men rode forward gingerly with knives; even for battle-hardened Shienarans it was no easy task, cutting down the flayed corpses of men they knew.

  “Are you all right, Rand?” Ingtar said. “I am not used to this either.”

  “I . . . am all right, Ingtar.” Rand let the void vanish. He felt less sick without it; his stomach still curdled, but it was better. Ingtar nodded and turned his horse so he could watch the men working.

  The burial was simple. Two holes dug in the ground, and the bodies laid in as the rest of the Shienarans watched in silence. The grave diggers began shoveling earth into the graves with no more ado.

  Rand was shocked, but Loial explained softly. “Shienarans believe we all came from earth, and must return to earth. They never use coffins or shrouds, and the bodies are never clothed. The earth must hold the body. The last embrace of the mother, they call it. And there are never any words except ‘The Light shine on you, and the Creator shelter you. The last embrace of the mother welcome you home.’ ” Loial sighed and shook his huge head. “I do not think anyone will say them this time. No matter what Ingtar says, Rand, there cannot be much doubt that Changu and Nidao slew the guards at the Dog Gate and let the Darkfriends into the keep. It had to be they who were responsible for all of it.”