The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time #5)

They moved on out of earshot, and he bent toward the tent flap. He still could not hear what they were saying, not unless he stuck his ear to the crack, and he was not about to do that. Surely Aviendha had covered herself with Egwene in there. Then again, the way Egwene had taken to Aiel ways, it was just as likely she had peeled out of her clothes instead.

The soft sound of slippers announced Moiraine and Lan, and Rand straightened. Though he could hear both of them breathing, the Warder's steps still made barely an audible noise. Moiraine's hair hung about her face, and she held a dark robe around her, the silk shining with the moon. Lan was fully dressed, booted and armed, wrapped in that cloak that made him part of the night. Of course. The clamor of fighting was dying down in the hills below.

“I am surprised you were not here sooner, Moiraine.” His voice sounded cold, but better his voice than him. He held onto saidin, fought it, and the night's icy chill remained something far off. He was aware of it, aware of each hair on his arms stirring with cold beneath his shirtsleeves, but it did not touch him. “You usually come looking for me as soon as you sense trouble.”

“I have never explained all that I do or do not do.” Her voice was as coolly mysterious as it had ever been, yet even in the moonlight Rand was certain that she was blushing. Lan looked troubled, though with him it was difficult to tell. “I cannot hold your hand forever. Eventually, you must walk alone.”

“I did that tonight, didn't I?” Embarrassment slid across the Void — that sounded as though he had done everything himself — and he added, “Aviendha all but took that one off my back.” The flames on the Draghkar were burning low.

“As well she was here, then,” Moiraine said calmly. “You did not need me.”

She had not been afraid, of that he was sure. He had seen her rush into the midst of Shadowspawn, wielding the Power as skillfully as Lan did his sword, seen it too often to believe fear in her. So why had she not come when she sensed the Draghkar? She could have, and Lan as well; that was one of the gifts a Warder received from the bond between him and an Aes Sedai. He could make her tell, catch her between her oath to him and her inability to lie straight out. No, he could not. Or would not. He would not do that to someone who was trying to help him.

“At least now we know what the attack below was about,” he said. “To make me think something important was happening there while the Draghkar slipped in on me. They tried that at Cold Rocks Hold, and it did not work there either.” Only, maybe it almost had, this time. If that had been the intent. “You would think they would try something different.” Couladin ahead of him; the Forsaken everywhere, it seemed. Why could he not face one enemy at a time?

“Do not make the mistake of thinking the Forsaken simple,” Moiraine said. “That could easily be fatal.” She shifted her robe as though wishing it were thicker. “The hour is late. If you have no further need of me...?”

Aiel began to drift back as she and the Warder left. Some exclaimed over the Draghkar, and roused some of the gai'shain to drag it away, but most simply looked at it before going to their tents. They seemed to expect such things of him now.

When Adelin and the Maidens appeared, their softbooted feet dragged. They stared at the Draghkar being hauled away by whiterobed men, and exchanged long looks before approaching Rand.

“There was nothing here,” Adelin said slowly. “The attack was all below, Darkfriends and Trollocs.”

“Shouting 'Sammael and the Golden Bees,' I heard,” another added. With her head wrapped in a shoufa, Rand could not make out who she was. She sounded young; some of the Maidens were no more than sixteen.

Taking a deep breath, Adelin held out one of her spears, horizontally in front of him, rocksteady. The others did the same, one spear each. “We — I — failed,” Adelin said. “We should have been here when the Draghkar came. Instead we ran like children to dance the spears.”

“What am I supposed to do with those?” Rand asked, and Adelin replied without hesitation.

“Whatever you wish, Car'a'carn. We stand ready, and will not resist.”

Rand shook his head. Bloody Aiel and their bloody ji'e'toh. “You take those and go back to guarding my tent. Well? Go.” Looks passed between them before they began to obey, as reluctantly as they had approached him in the first place. “And one of you tell Aviendha that I will be coming in when I return,” he added. He was not going to spend the entire night outside wondering whether it was safe. He stalked away, the stony ground hard under his feet.

Asmodean's tent was not very far from his. There had not been a sound out of it. He whipped open the flap and ducked in. Asmodean was sitting in the dark, chewing his lip. He flinched when Rand appeared, and gave him no chance to speak.

“You did not expect me to take a hand, did you? I felt the Draghkar, but you could deal with those; you did. I have never liked Draghkar; we should never have made them. They have fewer brains than a Trolloc. Give them an order, and they still sometimes kill whatever is closest. If I had come out, if I had done something... What if someone noticed? What if they realized it could not be you channeling? I —”

“Well for you that you didn't,” Rand cut him off, sitting crosslegged in the dark. “If I had felt you full of saidin out there tonight, I might have killed you.”

The other man's laugh was shaky. “I thought of that, too.”

“It was Sammael who sent the attack tonight. The Trollocs and Darkfriends, anyway.”

“It is not like Sammael to throw men away,” Asmodean said slowly. “But he'll see ten thousand dead, or ten times that, if it gains him what he thinks is worth the cost. Maybe one of the others wants you to think it was him. Even if the Aiel took prisoners... Trollocs do not think of much besides killing, and Darkfriends believe what they are told.”

“It was him. He tried to bait me into attacking him once in the same way, at Serendahar.” Oh, Light! The thought drifted across the surface of the Void. I said “me.” He did not know where Serendahar had been, or anything but what he had said. The words had just come out.

After a long silence, Asmodean said quietly, “I never knew that.”

“What I want to know is, why?” Rand chose his words carefully, hoping that they were all his. He remembered Sammael's face, a man — Not mine. Not my memory — a compact man with a short yellow beard. Asmodean had described all the Forsaken, but he knew this image was not made from that description. Sammael had always wanted to be taller, and resented it that the Power could not make him so. Asmodean had never told him that. “From what you've told me, he is not likely to want to face me unless he is sure of victory, and maybe not then. You said he'd likely leave me to the Dark One, if he could. So why is he sure he'll win now, if I deci