The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time #2)

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 swordbreaker 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 he 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 blanketcovered chest under the edge of Loial's bed. Think of the glory. “I wish Ingtar would come.”

Chapter 28

(Wolf)

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 twolegs had long since abandoned, remembering the swift rush through the trees, and the hamstringing 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 Darkfr