The Great Hunt Page 56

  “Even if they are going to Toman Head,” Ingtar said, “by the time we reach it, Fain or one of the other Darkfriends could have blown the Horn a hundred times, and the heroes returned from the grave will ride for the Shadow.”

  “Fain could have blown the Horn a hundred times since leaving Fal Dara,” Verin told him. “And I think he would have, if he could open the chest. What we must worry about is that he might find someone who does know how to open it. We must follow him along the Ways.”

  Perrin’s head came up sharply, and Mat shifted in his chair. Loial gave a low moan.

  “Even if we could somehow sneak past Barthanes’s guards,” Rand said, “I think we’ll find Machin Shin still there. We cannot use the Ways.”

  “How many of us could sneak onto Barthanes’s grounds?” Verin said dismissively. “There are other Waygates. Stedding Tsofu lies not far from the city, south and east. It is a young stedding, rediscovered only perhaps six hundred years ago, but the Ogier Elders were still growing the Ways, then. Stedding Tsofu will have a Waygate. It is there and we will ride at first light.”

  Loial made a slightly louder sound, and Rand was not sure whether it referred to the Waygate or the stedding.

  Ingtar still did not seem convinced, but Verin was as smooth and as implacable as snow sliding down a mountainside. “You will have your soldiers ready to ride, Ingtar. Send Hurin to tell Uno before he goes to bed. I think we should all go to bed as soon as possible. These Darkfriends have gained at least a day on us already, and I mean to make up as much of it as I can tomorrow.” So firm was the plump Aes Sedai’s manner that she was already herding Ingtar to the door before she finished speaking.

  Rand followed the others out, but at the door he stopped beside the Aes Sedai and watched Mat heading down the candle-lit hall. “Why does he look like that?” he asked her. “I thought you Healed him, enough to give him some time, anyway.”

  She waited until Mat and the others had turned up the stairs before speaking. “Apparently, it did not work so well as we believed. The sickness takes an interesting course in him. His strength remains; he will keep that to the end, I think. But his body wastes away. Another few weeks, at most, I would say. You see, there is reason for haste.”

  “I do not need another spur, Aes Sedai,” Rand said, making the title sound hard. Mat. The Horn. Fain’s threat. Light, Egwene! Burn me, I don’t need another spur.

  “And what of you, Rand al’Thor? Do you feel well? Do you fight it still, or have you yet surrendered to the Wheel?”

  “I ride with you to find the Horn,” he told her. “Beyond that, there is nothing between me and any Aes Sedai. Do you understand me? Nothing!”

  She did not speak, and he walked away from her, but when he turned to take the stairs she was still watching him, dark eyes sharp and considering.

  CHAPTER

  34

  The Wheel Weaves

  The first light of morning already pearled the sky by the time Thom Merrilin found himself trudging back to The Bunch of Grapes. Even where the halls and taverns lay thickest, there was a brief time when the Foregate lay quiet, gathering its breath. In his present mood, Thom would not have noticed if the empty street had been on fire.

  Some of Barthanes’s guests had insisted on keeping him long after most had gone, long after Barthanes had taken himself to bed. It had been his own fault for leaving The Great Hunt of the Horn, changing to the sort of tales he told and songs he sang in the villages, “Mara and the Three Foolish Kings” and How Susa Tamed Jain Farstrider and stories of Anla the Wise Councilor. He had meant the choices to be a private comment on their stupidity, never dreaming any of them might listen, much less be intrigued. Intrigued in a way. They had demanded more of the same, but they had laughed in the wrong places, at the wrong things. They had laughed at him, too, apparently thinking he would not notice, or else that a full purse stuffed in his pocket would heal any wounds. He had almost thrown it away twice already.

  The heavy purse burning his pocket and pride was not the only reason for his mood, nor even the nobles’ contempt. They had asked questions about Rand, not even bothering to be subtle with a mere gleeman. Why was Rand in Cairhien? Why had an Andoran lord taken him, a gleeman, aside? Too many questions. He was not sure his answers had been clever enough. His reflexes for the Great Game were rusty.

  Before turning toward The Bunch of Grapes, he had gone to The Great Tree; it was not difficult to find where someone was staying in Cairhien, if you pressed a palm or two with silver. He was still not sure what he had intended to say. Rand was gone with his friends, and the Aes Sedai. It left a feeling of something not done. The boy’s on his own, now. Burn me, I’m out of it!

  He strode through the common room, empty as it seldom was, and took the steps two at a time. At least, he tried to; his right leg did not bend well, and he nearly fell. Muttering to himself, he climbed the rest of the way at a slower pace, and opened the door to his room softly, so as not to wake Dena.

  Despite himself, he smiled when he saw her lying on the bed with her face turned to the wall, still in her dress. Fell asleep waiting for me. Fool girl. But it was a kindly thought; he was not sure there was anything she would do that he would not forgive or excuse. Deciding on the spur of the moment that tonight was the night he’d let her perform for the first time, he lowered his harp case to the floor and put a hand on her shoulder, to wake her and tell her.

  She rolled limply onto her back, staring up at him, glazed eyes open wide above the gash across her throat. The side of the bed that had been hidden by her body was dark and sodden.

  Thom’s stomach heaved; if his throat had not been so tight he could not breathe, he would have vomited, or screamed, or both.

  He had only the creaking of wardrobe doors for warning. He spun, knives coming out of his sleeves and leaving his hands in the same motion. The first blade took the throat of a fat, balding man with a dagger in his hand; the man stumbled back, blood bubbling around his clutching fingers as he tried to cry out.

  Spinning on his bad leg threw Thom’s other blade off, though; the knife stuck in the right shoulder of a heavily muscled man with scars on his face, who was climbing out of the other wardrobe. The big man’s knife dropped from a hand that suddenly would not do what he wanted, and he lumbered for the door.

  Before he could take a second step, Thom produced another knife and slashed him across the back of his leg. The big man yelled and stumbled, and Thom seized a handful of greasy hair, slamming his face against the wall beside the door; the man screamed again as the knife hilt sticking out of his shoulder hit the door.

  Thom thrust the blade in his hand to within an inch of the man’s dark eye. The scars on the big man’s face gave him a hard look, but he stared at the point without blinking and did not move a muscle. The fat man, lying half in the wardrobe, kicked a last kick and was still.

  “Before I kill you,” Thom said, “tell me. Why?” His voice was quiet, numb; he felt numb inside.

  “The Great Game,” the man said quickly. His accent was of the streets, and his clothes as well, but they were a shade too fine, too unworn; he had more coin to spend than any Foregater should. “Nothing against you personal, you see? It is just the Game.”

  “The Game? I’m not mixed up in Daes Dae’mar! Who would want to kill me for the Great Game?” The man hesitated. Thom moved his blade closer. If the fellow blinked, his eyelashes would brush the point. “Who?”

  “Barthanes,” came the hoarse answer. “Lord Barthanes. We would not have killed you. Barthanes wants information. We just wanted to find out what you know. There can be gold in it for you. A nice, fat golden crown for what you know. Maybe two.”

  “Liar! I was in Barthanes’s manor last night, as close to him as I am to you. If he wanted anything of me, I’d never have left alive.”

  “I tell you, we have been looking for you, or anyone who knows about this Andoran lord, for days. I never heard your name until last night, downstairs. Lord Barthane
s is generous. It could be five crowns.”

  The man tried to pull his head away from the knife in Thom’s hand, and Thom pushed him harder against the wall. “What Andoran lord?” But he knew. The Light help him, he knew.

  “Rand. Of House al’Thor. Tall. Young. A blademaster, or at least he wears the sword. I know he came to see you. Him and an Ogier, and you talked. Tell me what you know. I might even throw in a crown or two, myself.”

  “You fool,” Thom breathed. Dena died for this? Oh, Light, she’s dead. He felt as if he wanted to cry. “The boy’s a shepherd.” A shepherd in a fancy coat, with Aes Sedai around him like bees around honeyroses. “Just a shepherd.” He tightened his grip in the man’s hair.

  “Wait! Wait! You can make more than any five crowns, or even ten. A hundred, more like. Every House wants to know about this Rand al’Thor. Two or three have approached me. With what you know, and my knowing who wants to know it, we could both fill our pockets. And there has been a woman, a lady, I have seen more than once while asking after him. If we can find out who she is . . . why, we could sell that, too.”

  “You’ve made one real mistake in it all,” Thom said.

  “Mistake?” The man’s far hand was beginning to slide down toward his belt. No doubt he had another dagger there. Thom ignored it.

  “You should never have touched the girl.”

  The man’s hand darted for his belt, then he gave one convulsive start as Thom’s knife went home.

  Thom let him fall over away from the door and stood a moment before bending tiredly to tug his blades free. The door banged open, and he whirled with a snarl on his face.

  Zera jerked back, a hand to her throat, staring at him. “That fool Ella just told me,” she said unsteadily, “that two of Barthanes’s men were asking after you last night, and with what I’ve heard this morning. . . . I thought you said you didn’t play in the Game anymore.”

  “They found me,” he said wearily.

  Her eyes dropped from his face and widened as they took in the bodies of the two men. Hastily she stepped into the room, shutting the door behind her. “This is bad, Thom. You’ll have to leave Cairhien.” Her gaze fell on the bed, and her breath caught. “Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, Thom, I’m so sorry.”

  “I cannot leave yet, Zera.” He hesitated, then tenderly drew a blanket over Dena, covering her face. “I have another man to kill, first.”

  The innkeeper gave herself a shake and pulled her eyes away from the bed. Her voice was more than a little breathy. “If you mean Barthanes, you’re too late. Everybody’s talking about it already. He is dead. His servants found him this morning, torn to pieces in his bedchamber. The only way they knew it was him was his head stuck on a spike over the fireplace.” She laid a hand on his arm. “Thom, you can’t hide that you were there last night, not from anybody who wants to know. Add these two in, and there’s nobody in Cairhien who won’t believe you were involved.” There was a slight questioning note in her last words, as if she, too, were wondering.

  “It doesn’t matter, I suppose,” he said dully. He could not stop looking down at the blanket-covered shape on the bed. “Perhaps I will go back to Andor. To Caemlyn.”

  She took his shoulders, turning him away from the bed. “You men,” she sighed, “always thinking with either your muscles or your hearts, and never your heads. Caemlyn is as bad as Cairhien, for you. Either place, you’ll end up dead, or in prison. Do you think she’d want that? If you want to honor her memory, stay alive.”

  “Will you take care of. . . .” He could not say it. Growing old, he thought. Going soft. He pulled the heavy purse from his pocket and folded her hands around it. “This should take care of . . . everything. And help when they start asking questions about me, too.”

  “I will see to everything,” she said gently. “You must go, Thom. Now.”

  He nodded reluctantly, and slowly began stuffing a few things in a set of saddlebags. While he worked, Zera got her first close look at the fat man sprawled partway in the wardrobe, and she gave a loud gasp. He looked at her inquiringly; as long as he had known her, she had never been one to go faint over blood.

  “These aren’t Barthanes’s men, Thom. At least, that one isn’t.” She nodded toward the fat man. “It’s the worst kept secret in Cairhien that he works for House Riatin. For Galldrian.”

  “Galldrian,” he said flatly. What has that bloody shepherd gotten me into? What have the Aes Sedai gotten us both into? But it was Galldrian’s men murdered her.

  There must have been something of his thoughts on his face. Zera said sharply, “Dena wants you alive, you fool! You try to kill the King, and you’ll be dead before you get within a hundred spans of him, if you come that close!”

  A roar came from the city walls, as if half of Cairhien were shouting. Frowning, Thom peered from his window. Beyond the top of the gray walls above the rooftops of the Foregate, a thick column of smoke was rising into the sky. Far beyond the walls. Beside the first black pillar, a few gray tendrils quickly grew into another, and more wisps appeared further on. He estimated the distance and took a deep breath.

  “Perhaps you had better think about leaving, too. It looks as if someone is firing the granaries.”

  “I have lived through riots before. Go now, Thom.” With a last look at Dena’s shrouded form, he gathered his things, but as he started to leave, Zera spoke again. “You have a dangerous look in your eyes, Thom Merrilin. Imagine Dena sitting here, alive and hale. Think what she would say. Would she let you go off and get yourself killed to no purpose?”

  “I’m only an old gleeman,” he said from the door. And Rand al’Thor is only a shepherd, but we both do what we must. “Who could I possibly be dangerous to?”

  As he pulled the door to, hiding her, hiding Dena, a mirthless, wolfish grin came onto his face. His leg hurt, but he barely felt it as he hurried purposefully down the stairs and out of the inn.

  Padan Fain reined in his horse atop a hill above Falme, in one of the few sparse thickets remaining on the hills outside the town. The pack horse bearing his precious burden bumped his leg, and he kicked it in the ribs without looking; the animal snorted and jerked back to the end of the lead he had tied to his saddle. The woman had not wanted to give up her horse, no more than any of the Darkfriends who had followed him had wanted to be left alone in the hills with the Trollocs, without Fain’s protecting presence. He had solved both problems easily. Meat in a Trolloc cookpot had no need of a horse. The woman’s companions had been shaken by the journey along the Ways, to a Waygate outside a long-abandoned stedding on Toman Head, and watching the Trollocs prepare their dinner had made the surviving Darkfriends extremely biddable.

  From the edge of the trees, Fain studied the unwalled town and sneered. One short merchant train was rumbling in among the stables and horse lots and wagon yards that bordered the town, while another rumbled out, raising little dust from dirt packed by many years of such traffic. The men driving the wagons and the few riding beside them were all local men by their clothing, yet the mounted men, at least, had swords on baldrics, and even a few spears and bows. The soldiers he saw, and there were few, did not seem to be watching the armed men they had supposedly conquered.

  He had learned something of these people, these Seanchan, in his day and a night on Toman Head. At least, as much as the defeated folk knew. It was never hard to find someone alone, and they always answered questions properly put. Men gathered more information on the invaders, as if they actually believed they would eventually do something with what they knew, but they sometimes tried to hold back. Women, by and large, seemed interested in going on with their lives whoever their rulers were, yet they noted details men did not, and they talked more quickly once they stopped screaming. Children talked the quickest of all, but they seldom said much that was worthwhile.

  He had discarded three quarters of what he had heard as nonsense and rumors growing into fables, but he took some of those conclusions back, now. Anyone at all could enter Falm
e, it appeared. With a start, he saw the truth of a little more “nonsense” as twenty soldiers rode out of the town. He could not make out their mounts clearly, but they were certainly not horses. They ran with a fluid grace, and their dark skins seemed to have a glint in the morning sun, as of scales. He craned his neck to watch them disappear inland, then booted his horse toward the town.

  The local folk among the stables and parked wagons and fenced horse lots gave him no more than a glance or two. He had no interest in them, either; he rode on into the town, onto its cobblestone streets sloping down to the harbor. He could see the harbor clearly, and the large, oddly shaped Seanchan ships anchored there. No one bothered him as he searched streets that were neither crowded nor empty. There were more Seanchan soldiers here. The people hurried about their business with eyes down, bowing whenever soldiers passed, but the Seanchan paid them no mind. It all seemed peaceful on the surface, despite the armored Seanchan in the streets and the ships in the harbor, but Fain could sense the tension underneath. He always did well where men were tense and afraid.

  He came to a large house with more than a dozen soldiers standing guard before it. Fain stopped and dismounted. Except for one obvious officer, most wore armor of unrelieved black, and their helmets made him think of locusts’ heads. Two leathery-skinned beasts with three eyes and horny beaks instead of mouths flanked the front door, squatting like crouching frogs; the soldier standing by each of the creatures had three eyes painted on the breast of his armor. Fain eyed the blue-bordered banner flapping above the roof, the spread-winged hawk clutching lightning bolts, and chortled inside himself.