The Great Hunt Page 47

  Selene was no less unnerving. She strode as casually as if they were on a city street. She did not bump anything, did not make a sound, but she also made no effort to keep the cloak closed. The white of her dress seemed brighter than all the walls together. He peered at the lighted windows, waiting for someone to appear. All it would take was one; Selene could not fail to be seen, the alarm given.

  The windows remained empty, though. Rand was just breathing a sigh of relief as they approached the low wall—and the alleys and buildings behind it—when Loial brushed against another rack, standing right beside the wall. It held ten soft-looking sticks, as long as Rand’s arm, with thin streams of smoke rising from their tips. The rack made hardly a sound when it fell, the smoldering sticks sprawling across one of the fuses. With a crackling hiss, the fuse burst into flame, and the flame raced toward one of the tall tubes.

  Rand goggled for an instant, then he tried to whisper a shout. “Behind the wall!”

  Selene made an angry noise when he bore her to the ground behind the wall, but he did not care. He tried to spread himself over her protectively as Loial crowded beside them. Waiting for the tube to burst, he wondered if there would be anything left of the wall. There was a hollow thump that he felt through the ground as much as heard. Cautiously, he lifted himself off of Selene enough to peer around the edge of the wall. She fisted him in the ribs, hard, and wriggled out from under him with an oath in a language he did recognize, but he was beyond noticing.

  A trickle of smoke was leaking from the top of one of the tubes. That was all. He shook his head wonderingly. If that’s all there is to it. . . .

  With a crash like thunder, a huge flower of red and white bloomed high in the now dark sky, then slowly began drifting away in sparkles.

  As he goggled at it, the lighted building erupted with noise. Shouting men and women filled the windows, staring and pointing.

  Rand longingly eyed the dark alleyway, only a dozen steps away. And the first step would be in full view of the people at the windows. Pounding feet poured from the building.

  He pressed Loial and Selene back against the wall, hoping they looked like just another shadow. “Be still and be silent,” he whispered. “It’s our only hope.”

  “Sometimes,” Selene said quietly, “if you are very still, no one can see you at all.” She did not sound the least bit worried.

  Boots thumped back and forth on the other side of the wall, and voices were raised in anger. Especially the one Rand recognized as Aludra.

  “You great buffoon, Tammuz! You great pig, you! Your mother, she was a goat, Tammuz! One day you will kill us all.”

  “I am not to blame for this, Aludra,” the man protested. “I have been sure to put everything where it belonged, and the punks, they were—”

  “You will not speak to me, Tammuz! A great pig does not deserve to speak like a human!” Aludra’s voice changed in answer to another man’s question. “There is no time to prepare another. Galldrian, he must be satisfied with the rest for tonight. And one early. And you, Tammuz! You will set everything right, and tomorrow you will leave with the carts to buy the manure. Does anything else go wrong this night, I will not trust you again even with so much as the manure!”

  Footsteps faded back toward the building to the accompaniment of Aludra’s muttering. Tammuz remained, growling under his breath about the unfairness of it all.

  Rand stopped breathing as the man came over to right the toppled stand. Pressed back in the shadows against the wall, he could see Tammuz’s back and shoulder. All the man had to do was turn his head, and he could not miss seeing Rand and the others. Still complaining to himself, Tammuz arranged the smoldering sticks in the stand, then stalked off toward the building where everyone else had gone.

  Letting his breath go, Rand took a quick look after the man, then pulled back into the shadows. A few people still stood at the windows. “We can’t expect any more luck tonight,” he whispered.

  “It is said great men make their own luck,” Selene said softly.

  “Will you stop that,” he told her wearily. He wished the smell of her did not fill his head so; it made it hard to think clearly. He could remember the feel of her body when he pushed her down—softness and firmness in a disturbing blend—and that did not help either.

  “Rand?” Loial was peering around the end of the wall away from the lighted building. “I think we need some more luck, Rand.”

  Rand shifted to look over the Ogier’s shoulder. Beyond open space, in the alleyway that led to the barless door, three Trollocs were peering cautiously out of the shadows toward the lighted windows. One woman was standing at a window; she did not seem to see the Trollocs.

  “So,” Selene said quietly. “It becomes a trap. These people may kill you if they take you. The Trollocs surely will. But perhaps you can slay the Trollocs too quickly for them to make any outcry. Perhaps you can stop the people from killing you to preserve their little secrets. You may not want greatness, but it will take a great man to do these things.”

  “You don’t have to sound happy about it,” Rand said. He tried to stop thinking about how she smelled, how she felt, and the void almost surrounded him. He shook it away. The Trollocs did not seem to have located them, yet. He settled back, staring at the nearest dark alleyway. Once they made a move toward it, the Trollocs would surely see, and so would the woman at the window. It would be a race as to whether Trollocs or Illuminators reached them first.

  “Your greatness will make me happy.” Despite the words, Selene sounded angry. “Perhaps I should leave you to find your own way for a time. If you’ll not take greatness when it is in your grasp, perhaps you deserve to die.”

  Rand refused to look at her. “Loial, can you see if there’s another door down that alley?”

  The Ogier shook his head. “There is too much light here and too much dark there. If I were in the alley, yes.”

  Rand fingered the hilt of his sword. “Take Selene. As soon as you see a door—if you do—call out, and I’ll follow. If there isn’t a door at the end, you will have to lift her so she can reach the top of the wall and climb over.”

  “All right, Rand.” Loial sounded worried. “But when we move, those Trollocs will come after us, no matter who is watching. Even if there is a door, they will be on our heels.”

  “You let me worry about the Trollocs.” Three of them. I might do it, with the void. The thought of saidin decided him. Too many strange things had happened when he let the male half of the True Source come close. “I will follow as soon as I can. Go.” He turned to peer around the wall at the Trollocs.

  From the corner of his eye, he had an impression of Loial’s bulk moving, of Selene’s white dress, half covered by his cloak. One of the Trollocs beyond the tubes pointed to them excitedly, but still the three hesitated, glancing up at the window where the woman still watched. Three of them. There has to be a way. Not the void. Not saidin.

  “There is a door!” came Loial’s soft call. One of the Trollocs took a step out of the shadows, and the others followed, gathering themselves. As from a distance, Rand heard the woman at the window cry out, and Loial shouted something.

  Without thinking, Rand was on his feet. He had to stop the Trollocs somehow, or they would run him down, and Loial and Selene. He snatched one of the smoldering sticks and hurled himself at the nearest tube. It tilted, started to fall over, and he caught the square wooden base; the tube pointed straight at the Trollocs. They slowed uncertainly—the woman at the window screamed—and Rand touched the smoking end of the stick to the fuse right where it joined the tube.

  The hollow thump came immediately, and the thick wooden base slammed against him, knocking him down. A roar like a thunderclap broke the night and a blinding burst of light tore away the dark.

  Blinking, Rand staggered to his feet, coughing in thick, acrid smoke, ears ringing. He stared in amazement. Half the tubes and all of the racks lay on their sides, and one corner of the building beside which the Tr
ollocs had stood was simply gone, flames licking at ends of planks and rafters. Of the Trollocs there was no sign.

  Through the ringing in his ears, Rand heard shouts from the Illuminators in the building. He broke into a tottering run, lumbered into the alley. Halfway down it he stumbled over something and realized it was his cloak. He snatched it up without pausing. Behind him, the cries of the Illuminators filled the night.

  Loial was bouncing impatiently on his feet beside the open door. And he was alone.

  “Where is Selene?” Rand demanded.

  “She went back, Rand. I tried to grab her, and she slipped right out of my hands.”

  Rand turned back toward the noise. Through the incessant sound in his ears, some of the shouts were barely distinguishable. There was light there, now, from the flames.

  “The sand buckets! Fetch the sand buckets quickly!”

  “This is disaster! Disaster!”

  “Some of them went that way!”

  Loial grabbed Rand’s shoulder. “You cannot help her, Rand. Not by being taken yourself. We must go.” Someone appeared at the end of the alley, a shadow outlined by the glow of flames behind, and pointed toward them. “Come on, Rand!”

  Rand let himself be pulled out of the door into the darkness. The fire faded behind them until it was only a glow in the night, and the lights of the Foregate came closer. Rand almost wished more Trollocs would appear, something he could fight. But there was only the night breeze ruffling the grass.

  “I tried to stop her,” Loial said. There was a long silence. “We really couldn’t have done anything. They would just have taken us, too.”

  Rand sighed. “I know, Loial. You did what you could.” He walked backwards a few steps, staring at the glow. It seemed less; the Illuminators must be putting out the flames. “I have to help her somehow.” How? Saidin? The Power? He shivered. “I have to.”

  They went through the Foregate by the lighted streets, wrapped in a silence that shut out the gaiety around them.

  When they entered The Defender of the Dragonwall, the innkeeper held out his tray with a sealed parchment.

  Rand took it, and stared at the white seal. A crescent moon and stars. “Who left this? When?”

  “An old woman, my Lord. Not a quarter of an hour gone. A servant, though she did not say from what House.” Cuale smiled as if inviting confidences.

  “Thank you,” Rand said, still staring at the seal. The innkeeper watched them go upstairs with a thoughtful look.

  Hurin took his pipe out of his mouth when Rand and Loial entered the room. Hurin had his short sword and sword-breaker on the table, wiping them with an oily rag. “You were long with the gleeman, my Lord. Is he well?”

  Rand gave a start. “What? Thom? Yes he’s. . . .” He broke open the seal with his thumb and read.

  When I think I know what you are going to do, you do something else. You are a dangerous man. Perhaps it will not be long before we are together again. Think of the Horn. Think of the glory. And think of me, for you are always mine.

  Again, it bore no signature but the flowing hand itself.

  “Are all women crazy?” Rand demanded of the ceiling. Hurin shrugged. Rand threw himself into the other chair, the one sized for an Ogier; his feet dangled above the floor, but he did not care. He stared at the blanket-covered chest under the edge of Loial’s bed. Think of the glory. “I wish Ingtar would come.”

  CHAPTER

  28

  A New Thread in the Pattern

  Perrin watched the mountains of Kinslayer’s Dagger uncomfortably as he rode. The way still slanted upwards, and looked as if it would climb forever, though he thought the crest of the pass must not be too much further. To one side of the trail, the land sloped sharply down to a shallow mountain stream, dashing itself to froth over sharp rocks; to the other side the mountains reared in a series of jagged cliffs, like frozen stone waterfalls. The trail itself ran through fields of boulders, some the size of a man’s head, and some as big as a cart. It would take no great skill to hide in that.

  The wolves said there were people in the mountains. Perrin wondered if they were some of Fain’s Darkfriends. The wolves did not know, or care. They only knew the Twisted Ones were somewhere ahead. Still far ahead, though Ingtar had pressed the column hard. Perrin noticed that Uno was watching the mountains around them much the way he himself was.

  Mat, his bow slung across his back, rode with seeming unconcern, juggling three colored balls, yet he looked paler than he had. Verin examined him two and three times a day now, frowning, and Perrin was sure she had even tried Healing at least once, but it made no difference Perrin could see. In any case, she seemed to be more absorbed in something about which she did not speak.

  Rand, Perrin thought, looking at the Aes Sedai’s back. She always rode at the head of the column with Ingtar, and she always wanted them to move even faster than the Shienaran lord would allow. Somehow, she knows about Rand. Images from the wolves flickered in his head—stone farmhouses and terraced villages, all beyond the mountain peaks; the wolves saw them no differently than they saw hills or meadows, except with a feeling that they were spoiled land. For a moment he found himself sharing that regret, remembering places the two-legs had long since abandoned, remembering the swift rush through the trees, and the ham-stringing snap of his jaws as the deer tried to flee, and. . . . With an effort he pushed the wolves out of his head. These Aes Sedai are going to destroy all of us.

  Ingtar let his horse fall back beside Perrin’s. Sometimes, to Perrin’s eyes, the crescent crest on the Shienaran’s helmet looked like a Trolloc’s horns. Ingtar said softly, “Tell me again what the wolves said.”

  “I’ve told you ten times,” Perrin muttered.

  “Tell me again! Anything I may have missed, anything that will help me find the Horn. . . .” Ingtar drew a breath and let it out slowly. “I must find the Horn of Valere, Perrin. Tell me again.”

  There was no need for Perrin to order it in his mind, not after so many repetitions. He droned it out. “Someone—or something—attacked the Darkfriends in the night and killed those Trollocs we found.” His stomach no longer lurched at that. Ravens and vultures were messy feeders. “The wolves call him—or it—Shadowkiller; I think it was a man, but they wouldn’t go close enough to see clearly. They are not afraid of this Shadowkiller; awe is more like it. They say the Trollocs now follow Shadowkiller. And they say Fain is with them”—even after so long the remembered smell of Fain, the feel of the man, made his mouth twist—“so the rest of the Darkfriends must be, too.”

  “Shadowkiller,” Ingtar murmured. “Something of the Dark One, like a Myrddraal? I have seen things in the Blight that might be called Shadowkillers, but. . . . Did they see nothing else?”

  “They would not come close to him. It was not a Fade. I’ve told you, they will kill a Fade quicker than they will a Trolloc, even if they lose half the pack. Ingtar, the wolves who saw it passed this to others, then still others, before it reached me. I can only tell you what they passed on, and after so many tellings. . . .” He let the words die as Uno joined them.

  “Aielman in the rocks,” the one-eyed man said quietly.

  “This far from the Waste?” Ingtar said incredulously. Uno somehow managed to look offended without changing his expression, and Ingtar added, “No, I don’t doubt you. I am just surprised.”

  “He flaming wanted me to see him, or I likely wouldn’t have.” Uno sounded disgusted at admitting it. “And his bloody face wasn’t veiled, so he’s not out for killing. But when you see one bloody Aiel, there’s always more you don’t.” Suddenly his eye widened. “Burn me if it doesn’t look like he bloody wants more than to be seen.” He pointed: a man had stepped into the way ahead of them.

  Instantly Masema’s lance dropped to a couch, and he dug his heels into his horse, leaping to a dead gallop in three strides. He was not the only one; four steel points hurtled toward the man on the ground.

  “Hold!” Ingtar shouted. “Hold,
I said! I’ll have the ears of any man who doesn’t stop where he stands!”

  Masema pulled in his horse viciously, sawing the reins. The others also stopped, in a cloud of dust not ten paces from the man, their lances still held steady on the man’s chest. He raised a hand to wave away the dust as it drifted toward him; it was the first move he had made.

  He was a tall man, with skin dark from the sun and red hair cut short except for a tail in the back that hung to his shoulders. From his soft, laced knee-high boots to the cloth wrapped loosely around his neck, his clothes were all in shades of brown and gray that would blend into rock or earth. The end of a short horn bow peeked over his shoulder, and a quiver bristled with arrows at his belt at one side. A long knife hung at the other. In his left hand he gripped a round hide buckler and three short spears, no more than half as long as he was tall, with points fully as long as those of the Shienaran lances.

  “I have no pipers to play the tune,” the man announced with a smile, “but if you wish the dance. . . .” He did not change his stance, but Perrin caught a sudden air of readiness. “My name is Urien, of the Two Spires sept of the Reyn Aiel. I am a Red Shield. Remember me.”

  Ingtar dismounted and walked forward, removing his helmet. Perrin hesitated only a moment before climbing down to join him. He could not miss the chance to see an Aiel close up. Acting like a black-veiled Aiel. In story after story Aiel were as deadly and dangerous as Trollocs—some even said they were all Darkfriends—but Urien’s smile somehow did not look dangerous despite the fact that he seemed poised to leap. His eyes were blue.

  “He looks like Rand.” Perrin looked around to see that Mat had joined them, too. “Maybe Ingtar’s right,” Mat added quietly. “Maybe Rand is an Aiel.”

  Perrin nodded. “But it doesn’t change anything.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” Mat sounded as if he were talking about something beside what Perrin meant.

  “We are both far from our homes,” Ingtar said to the Aiel, “and we, at least, have come for other things than fighting.” Perrin revised his opinion of Urien’s smile; the man actually looked disappointed.