The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time #2)

“Changu and Nidao are gone,” Ingtar said abruptly. He sounded cold and angry, but shaken, too. “We counted every head in the keep, alive or dead, last night and again this morning. They are the only ones not accounted for.”

“Changu was on guard in the dungeon yesterday,” Rand said slowly.

“And Nidao. They had the second watch. They always stayed together, even if they had to trade or do extra duty for it. They were not on guard when it happened, but ... They fought at Tarwin's Gap, a month gone, and saved Lord Agelmar when his horse went down with Trollocs all around him. Now this. Darkfriends.” He drew a deep breath. “Everything is breaking apart.”

A man on horseback forced his way through the throng lining the street and joined in behind Ingtar. He was a townsman, by his clothes, lean, with a lined face and graying hair cut long. A bundle and waterbottles were lashed behind his saddle, and a shortbladed sword and a notched swordbreaker hung at his belt, along with a cudgel.

Ingtar noticed Rand's glances. “This is Hurin, our sniffer. There was no need to let the Aes Sedai know about him. Not that what he does is wrong, you understand. The King keeps a sniffer in Fal Moran, and there's another in Ankor Dail. It's just that Aes Sedai seldom like what they do not understand, and with him being a man ... It's nothing to do with the Power, of course. Aaaah! You tell him, Hurin.”

“Yes, Lord Ingtar,” the man said. He bowed low to Rand from his saddle. “Honor to serve, my Lord.”

“Call me Rand.” Rand stuck out his hand, and after a moment Hurin grinned and took it.

“As you wish, my Lord Rand. Lord Ingtar and Lord Kajin don't mind a man's ways — and Lord Agelmar, of course — but they say in the town you're an outland prince from the south, and some outland lords are strict for every man in his place.”

“I'm not a lord.” At least I'll get away from that, now. “Just Rand.”

Hurin blinked. “As you wish, my Lor—ah —Rand. I'm a sniffer, you see. Been one four years this Sunday. I never heard of such a thing before then, but I hear there's a few others like me. It started slow, catching bad smells where nobody else smelled anything, and it grew. Took a whole year before I realized what it was. I could smell violence, the killing and the hurting. Smell where it happened. Smell the trail of those who did it. Every trail's different, so there's no chance of mixing them up. Lord Ingtar heard of it, and took me in his service, to serve the King's justice.”

“You can smell violence?” Rand said. He could not help looking at the man's nose. It was an ordinary nose, not large, not small. “You mean you can really follow somebody who, say, killed another man? By smell?”

“I can that, my Lor—ah—Rand. It fades with time, but the worse the violence, the longer it lasts. Aiie, I can smell a battlefield ten years old, though the trails of the men who were there are gone. Up near the Blight, the trails of the Trollocs almost never fade. Not much to a Trolloc but killing and hurting. A fight in a tavern, though, with maybe a broken arm ... that smell's gone in hours.”

“I can see where you wouldn't want Aes Sedai to find out.”

“Ah, Lord Ingtar was right about the Aes Sedai, the Light illumine them–ah–Rand. There was one in Cairhien once — Brown Ajah, but I swear I thought she was Red before she let me go — she kept me a month trying to find out how I do it. She didn't like not knowing. She kept muttering, 'Is it old come again, or new?' and staring at me until you would have thought I was using the One Power. Almost had me doubting myself. But I haven't gone mad, and I don't do anything. I just smell it.”

Rand could not help remembering Moiraine. Old barriers weaken. There is something of dissolution and change about our time. Old things walk again, and new things are born. We may live to see the end of an Age. He shivered. “So we'll track those who took the Horn with your nose.”

Ingtar nodded. Hurin grinned proudly, and said, “We will that — ah — Rand. I followed a murderer to Cairhien, once, and another all the way to Maradon, to bring them back for the King's justice.” His grin faded, and he looked troubled. “This is the worst ever, though. Murder smells bad, and the trail of a murderer stinks with it, but this ...” His nose wrinkled. “There were men in it last night. Darkfriends, must be, but you can't tell a Darkfriend by smell. What I'll follow is the Trollocs, and the Halfmen. And something even worse.” He trailed off, frowning and muttering to himself, but Rand could hear it. “Something even worse, the Light help me.”

They reached the city gates, and just beyond the walls Hurin lifted his face to the breeze. His nostrils flared, then he gave a snort of disgust. “That way, my Lord Ingtar.” He pointed south.

Ingtar looked surprised. “Not toward the Blight?”

“No, Lord Ingtar. Faugh!” Hurin wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “I can almost taste them. South, they went.”

“She was right, then, the Amyrlin Seat,” Ingtar said slowly. “A great and wise woman, who deserves better than me to serve her. Take the trail, Hurin.”

Rand turned and peered back through the gates, up the street to the keep. He hoped Egwene was all right. Nynaeve will look after her. Maybe it's better this way, like a clean cut, too quick to hurt till after it's done.

He rode after Ingtar and the Gray Owl banner, south. The wind was making up, and cold against his back despite the sun. He thought he heard laughter in it, faint and mocking.

The waxing moon lit the humid, nightdark streets of Illian, which still rang with celebration left over from daylight. In only a few more days, the Great Hunt of the Horn would be sent forth with pomp and ceremony that tradition claimed dated to the Age of Legends. The festivities for the Hunters had blended into the Feast of Teven, with its famed contests and prizes for gleemen. The greatest prize of all, as always, would go for the best telling of The Great Hunt of the Horn.

Tonight the gleemen entertained in the palaces and mansions of the city, where the great and mighty disported themselves, and the Hunters come from every nation to ride out and find, if not the Horn of Valere itself, at least immortality in song and story. They would have music and dancing, and fans and ices to dispel the year's first real heat, but carnival filled the streets, too, in the moonbright muggy night. Every day was a carnival, until the Hunt