Wil al’Seen met his eyes, then looked down, ashamed. “Lord Perrin, I tried. But…Light, I couldn’t do it. I kept one. The one I’d helped sew.”
“Fetch it, Wil,” Perrin said. His own voice sounded like steel.
Wil ran, smelling frightened. He returned shortly, bearing a folded cloth, white with a red border. Perrin took it, then held it in a reverent hand, hammer in the other. He looked at the crowd. Faile was there, hands clasped before her. She smelled hopeful. She could see into him. She knew.
“I have tried to send you away,” Perrin announced to the crowd. “You would not go. I have failings. You must know this. If we march to war, I will not be able to protect you all. I will make mistakes.”
He looked across the crowd, meeting the eyes of those who stood there. Each man or woman he looked at nodded silently. No regrets, no hesitations. They nodded.
Perrin took a deep breath. “If you wish this, I will accept your oaths. I will lead you.”
They cheered him. An enormous roar of excitement. “Goldeneyes! Goldeneyes the wolf! To the Last Battle! Tai’shar Manetheren!”
“Wil!” Perrin bellowed, holding up the banner. “Raise this banner high. Don’t take it down again until the Last Battle has been won. I march beneath the sign of the wolf. The rest of you, rouse the camp. Get every soldier ready to fight. We have another task tonight!”
The young man took the banner and unfurled it, Jori and Azi joining him and holding it so it didn’t touch the ground. They raised it high, running to get a pole. The group broke up, men running this way and that, shouting the summons.
Perrin took Faile by the hand as she walked up to him. She smelled satisfied. “That’s it, then?”
“No more complaining,” he promised. “I don’t like it. But I don’t like killing, either. I’ll do what must be done.” He looked down at the anvil, blackened from his work. His old hammer, now worn and dented, lay across it. He felt sad to leave it, but he had made his decision.
“What did you do, Neald?” he asked as the Asha’man—still looking pale—stumbled up to his feet. Perrin raised the new hammer, showing the magnificent work.
“I don’t know, my Lord,” Neald said. “It just…well, it was like I said. It felt right. I saw what to do, how to put the weaves into the metal itself. It seemed to draw them in, like an ocean drinking in the water of a stream.” He blushed, as if he thought it a foolish figure of speech.
“That sounds right,” Perrin said. “It needs a name, this hammer. Do you know much of the Old Tongue?”
“No, my Lord.”
Perrin looked at the wolf imprinted on the side. “Does anyone know how you say ‘He who soars’?”
“I…I don’t…”
“Mah’alleinir,” Berelain said, stepping up from where she’d been watching.
“Mah’alleinir,” Perrin repeated. “It feels right. Sulin? What of the Whitecloaks?”
“They have made camp, Perrin Aybara,” the Maiden replied.
“Show me,” he said, gesturing to Arganda’s map.
She pointed out the location: a piece of land on the side of a hill, heights running to the north of it, roadway coming in from the northeast, wrapping around the south of the heights—following the ancient riverbed—and then bending southward when it hit the campsite by the hill. From there, the road headed toward Lugard, but the campsite was protected from wind on two sides. It was a perfect campsite, but also a perfect place for an ambush. The one Arganda and Gallenne had pointed out.
He looked at that passageway and campsite, thinking of what had happened the last few weeks. We met travelers…. said that the muds to the north were almost completely impassable with wagons or carts…
A flock of sheep, running before the pack into the jaws of a beast. Faile and the others, walking toward a cliff. Light!
“Grady, Neald,” Perrin said. “I’m going to need another gateway. Can you manage?”
“I think so,” Neald said. “Just give us a few minutes to catch our breath.”
“Very well. Position it here.” Perrin pointed to the heights above the Whitecloaks’ camp. “Gaul!” As usual, the Aiel man waited nearby. He loped up. “I want you to go speak with Dannil, Arganda, Gallenne. I want the entire army to cross through as quickly as possible, but they are to keep quiet. We move with as much stealth as an army this size can manage.”
Gaul nodded, running off. Gallenne was still nearby; Gaul started by speaking with him.
Faile watched Perrin, smelling curious and a little anxious. “What are you planning, husband?”
“It’s time for me to lead,” Perrin said. He looked one last time at his old hammer, and laid fingers on its haft. Then he hefted Mah’alleinir to his shoulder and strode away, feet crackling on drops of hardened steel.
The tool he left behind was the hammer of a simple blacksmith. That person would always be part of Perrin, but he could no longer afford to let him lead.
From now on, he would carry the hammer of a king.
Faile ran her fingers across the anvil as Perrin strode away, calling further orders to prepare the army.
Did he realize how he’d looked, standing amid those showers of sparks, each blow of his hammer causing the steel before him to pulse and flare to life? His golden eyes had blazed as brightly as the steel; each peal of the hammer had been nearly deafening.
“It has been many centuries since this land has seen the creation of a Power-wrought weapon,” Berelain said. Most others had left to follow Perrin’s orders, and the two were alone, save for Gallenne standing nearby and studying the map while rubbing his chin. “It is a strong Talent the young man just displayed. This will be of use. Perrin’s army will have Power-wrought blades to strengthen them.”
“The process seemed very draining,” Faile said. “Even if Neald can repeat what he did, I doubt we will have time to make many weapons.”
“Every small advantage helps,” Berelain said. “This army your husband has forged, it will be something incredible. Ta’veren is at work here. He gathers men, and they learn with amazing speed and skill.”
“Perhaps,” Faile said, walking around the anvil slowly, keeping her eyes on Berelain, who strolled around it opposite her. What was Ber