Olver! Mat scrambled back to the tent. It was dark within, though the scent of blood once again assaulted him. "Light! Teslyn, can you—"
A globe of light appeared behind him.
The light of her globe was enough to illuminate a terrible scene inside. Lopin, Mats serving man, lay dead, his blood darkening the tent floor in a large black pool. Two other men—Riddem and Will Reeve, Redarms who had been guarding his door—were heaped onto his sleeping pallet. He should have noticed that they were missing from their post. Fool!
Mat felt a stab of sorrow for the dead. Lopin, who had only recently shown that he was recovered from Nalesean's death. Light burn him, he had been a good man! Not even a soldier, just a serving man, content to have someone to take care of. Mat now felt terrible for having complained about him. Without Lopin's help, Mat would not have been able to escape Ebou Dar.
And the four Redarms, two of whom had survived Ebou Dar and the gholam's previous attack.
I should have sent word, Mat thought. Should have put the entire camp on alert. Would that have done any good? The gholam had proven itself practically unstoppable. Mat had the suspicion that it could cut down the entire Band in getting to him, if it needed to. Only its master's command that it avoid attention prevented it from doing so.
He did not see any sign of Olver, though the boy should have been sleeping on his pallet in the corner. Lopin's blood had pooled nearby, and Olver's blanket was soaking it up from the bottom. Mat took a deep breath and began searching through the shambles, overturning blankets and looking behind travel furniture, worried at what he might find.
More soldiers arrived, cursing. The camp was coming alert: horns of warning blowing, lanterns being lit, armor clanking.
"Olver," Mat said to the soldiers gathering at his doorway. He had searched the entire bloody tent! "Has anyone seen him?"
"I think he was with Noal," said Slone Maddow, a wide-eared Redarm. "They—"
Mat shoved his way out of the tent, then ran through camp toward Noal's tent. He arrived just as the white-haired man was stepping out, looking about in alarm.
"Olver?" Mat asked, reaching the older man.
"He's safe, Mat," Noal said, grimacing. "I'm sorry—I didn't mean to alarm you. We were playing Snakes and Foxes, and the boy fell asleep on the floor. I pulled a blanket over him; he's been staying up so late waiting for you these nights that I figured it was best not to wake him. I should have sent word."
"You're sorry?" Mat said, grabbing Noal in an embrace. "You bloody wonderful man. You saved his life!"
An hour later, Mat sat with Thom and Noal inside Thom's small tent. A dozen Redarms guarded the place, and Olver had been sent to sleep in Teslyn's tent. The boy did not know how close he had come to being killed. Hopefully he never would.
Mat wore his medallion again, though he needed to find a new leather strap. The ashandarei had cut the other one up pretty bad. He would need to find a better way to tie it on there.
"Thom," Mat said softly, "the creature threatened you, and you too, Noal. It didn't mention Olver, but it did mention Tuon."
"How would the thing know about her?" Thom asked, scratching at his head.
"The guards found another corpse outside of the camp. Derry." Derry was a soldier who had gone missing a few days back, and Mat had presumed him to have deserted. It happened sometimes, though desertion was irregular in the Band. "He'd been dead a few days."
"It took him that long ago?" Noal said, frowning. Noal's shoulders were stooped and he had a nose the shape of a large, bent pepper growing right out the middle of his face. He had always looked… worn to Mat. His hands were so gnarled, they seemed to be all knuckles.
"It must have interrogated him," Mat said. "Found out people I spent time with, where my tent was."
"Is the thing capable of that?" Thom said. "It seemed more like a hound to me, hunting you out."
It knew where to find me in Tylin's palace," Mat said. "Even after I was gone, it went to her rooms. So either it asked someone, or it was observing. We'll never know if Derry was tortured, or if he just ran across the gholam while it was sneaking about the camp and spying. But the thing is clever."
It wouldn't actually go after Tuon, would it? Threatening his friends was probably just a way to unhinge Mat. After all, the thing had shown tonight that it still had orders to avoid too much attention. That didn't console Mat much. If that monster hurt Tuon…
There was only one way to make sure that didn't happen.
"So what do we do?" Noal asked.
"We're going to hunt it," Mat said softly, "and we're going to kill the bloody thing."
Noal and Thom fell silent.
"I won't have this thing chasing us all the way to the Tower of Ghenjei," Mat said.
"But can it be killed, Mat?" Thom asked.
"Anything can be killed," Mat said. "Teslyn proved that she could still hurt it using the One Power, if she was clever. We'll have to do something similar."
"What?" Noal asked.
"I don't know yet," Mat said. "I want you two to continue your preparations; get us ready so that we can leave for the Tower of Ghenjei as soon as my oath to Verin will let us. Burn me, I still need to talk to Elayne. I want Aludra's dragons started. I'll have to write her another letter. Stronger, this time.
"For now, we're going to make some changes. I'm going to start sleeping in the city. A different inn each night. We'll let the Band know it, so if the gholam listens, it will find out. There will be no need for it to attack the men.
"You two will need to move to the city too. Until this is done, until it is dead or I am. The question is what to do about Olver. The thing didn't mention him, but…"
He saw understanding in Thom's and Noal's eyes. Mat had left Tylin behind, and she was dead now. He was not going to do the same to Olver.
"We'll have to take the boy with us," Thom said. "Either that or send him away."
"I heard the Aes Sedai talking earlier," Noal said, rubbing his face with a bony finger. "They're planning to leave. Maybe send him with them?"
Mat grimaced. The way Olver leered at women, the Aes Sedai would have him strung up by his toes in a day flat. Mat was surprised it had not happened already. If he ever found out which of the Redarms was teaching the boy to act that way around women…
"I doubt we'd be able to get him to go," Mat said. "He'd be out of their sight and back here their first night away."
Thom nodded in agreement.
"We'll have to take him with us," Mat said. "Have him stay at the inns inside the city. Maybe that—"
"Matrim Cauthon!" The shrill call came from outside Thom's tent.
Mat sighed, then nodded to the other two and stood up. He stepped out of the tent to find that Joline and her Warders had bullied their way through the Redarms and had nearly yanked open the tent flaps to come stalking in. His appearance drew her up short.
Several of the Redarms looked abashed at having let her through, but the men could not be blamed. Bloody Aes Sedai would bloody do what they bloody pleased.
The woman herself was everything that Teslyn was not. Slender and pretty, she wore a white dress with a deep neckline. She often smiled, though that smile became thin-lipped when she turned it on Mat, and she had large brown eyes. The type of eyes that could suck a man in and try to drown him.
Pretty as she was, Mat did not think of her as a match for one of his friends. He would never wish Joline upon someone he liked. In fact, he was too gentlemanly to wish her on most of his enemies. Best she stayed with Fen and Blaeric, her Warders, who were madmen in Mat's opinion.
Both were Borderlanders—one Shienaran, the other Saldaean. Fen's tilted eyes were hard. He always seemed to be looking for someone to murder; each conversation with him was an interview to see if you fit the criteria. Blaerics topknot was growing in, and getting longer, but it was still too short. Mat would have mentioned that it looked remarkably like a badger's tail glued to his head, except that he did not feel like bei
ng murdered today. It had already been a bloody awful evening.
Joline folded her arms beneath her breasts. "It appears that your reports of this… creature that is chasing you were accurate." She sounded skeptical. He had lost five good men, and she sounded skeptical. Bloody Aes Sedai.
"And?" he asked. "You know something about gholam?"
"Not a thing," she said. "Regardless, I need to return to the White Tower. I will be leaving tomorrow." She looked hesitant. "I would like to ask if you would lend me some horses for the trip. Whatever you can spare. I will not be picky."
"Nobody in town would sell you any, eh?" Mat said with a grunt.
Her face became even more serene.
"Well, all right," Mat said. "At least you asked nicely this time, though I can see how hard it was for you. I've promised some to Teslyn already. You have some too. It will be worth it to have you bloody women out of my hair."
"Thank you," she said, her voice controlled. "However, a word of advice. Considering the company you often keep, you might want to learn to control your language."
"Considering the company I keep all too often," Mat said, "it's bloody amazing I don't swear more. Off with you, Joline. I need to write a letter to Her Royal bloody Majesty Queen Elayne the prim."
Joline sniffed. "Are you going to swear at her too?"
"Of course I am," Mat muttered, turning to go back to Thom's tent "How else is she going to trust that it's really from me?"
CHAPTER 10
After the Taint
"I agree with those counts," Elyas said, walking at Perrin's side. Grady walked on the other side, thoughtful in his black coat. Montem al'San and Azi al'Thone—Perrin's two guards for the day—trailed behind.
It was still early in the morning. Perrin was ostensibly checking on guard posts, but he really just wanted to be walking. They'd moved the camp to an elevated meadow along the Jehannah Road. It had a good water supply and was near enough to the road to control it, but far enough back to be defensible.
On one side of the meadow, an ancient statue lay before a patch of trees. The statue had fallen on its side long ago, and most of it was now buried, but an arm rose from the earth, holding the hilt of a sword. The blade was thrust into the ground.
"I shouldn't have sent Gill and the others ahead," Perrin said. "That let them be snatched up by the first passing force."
"You couldn't have anticipated this," Elyas said. "Nor could you have anticipated being delayed. Where would you have left them? Shaido were coming up behind, and if our battle at Maiden hadn't gone well, Gill and the others would have been trapped between two groups of enemy Aiel."
Perrin growled to himself. His booted feet stuck a little in the sodden ground. He hated the scent of that trampled, stagnant mud mixed with rotting dead plants. It wasn't nearly as bad as the Blight disease, but it seemed to him the whole land was only a few steps away from that.
They approached a guard post. Two men—Hu Barran and Darl Coplin—stood watch here. There would be additional scouts, of course: Two Rivers men in trees, Maidens patrolling the ground. But Perrin had learned that a few men given posts around the camp lent everyone inside a sense of order.
The guards saluted him, though Darl's salute was sloppy. They gave off an odd mixture of scents—regret, frustration, disappointment. And embarrassment. That last one was faint, but still there. Perrin's supposed dalliance with Berelain was still recent in their minds, and Faile's return seemed to increase their discomfort. In the Two Rivers, one did not easily live down a reputation for infidelity.
Perrin nodded to them, then continued on. He didn't do much formal inspecting. If the men knew he would walk by sometime each day, they'd keep themselves in order. For the most part. Last night, he had needed to prod sleeping Berin Thane awake with his boot, and he was always careful to watch for the scent of strong drink among them. He wouldn't put it past Jori Congar to sneak a nip or two while on guard.
"All right," Perrin said. "The Whitecloaks have our people and our supplies." He grimaced, thinking of the grain purchased in So Habor going to fill Whitecloak bellies. "Could we sneak in and free them?"
"I don't see the need for sneaking," Grady said from behind. "Pardon, my Lord, but you seem to be making this a larger problem than it is."
Perrin looked back at the leathery man. "They're Whitecloaks, Grady. They're always a large problem."
"They won't have anyone who can channel the One Power." Grady shrugged, hands clasped behind his back as he walked. With the black coat, the pin and the increasingly soldierlike attitude, he was looking less and less like a farmer. "Neald is feeling better. He and I could pound those Children down until they give us what we want."
Perrin nodded. He hated the idea of letting the Asha'man loose with impunity. The scent of burned flesh in the air, the earth ripped apart and broken. The scents of Dumai's Wells. However, he couldn't afford another distraction like Maiden. If there were no other choice, he'd give the order.
Not yet, though. There are no coincidences with ta'veren. The wolves, the Whitecloaks. Things he had been outrunning for some time were returning to hunt him. He'd pushed the Children out of the Two Rivers. Many of the men who had been with him then now followed him here.
"Perhaps it will come to that," Perrin said to Grady, still walking. "But maybe not. We've got a larger force than they do, and with that blasted wolfhead banner finally taken down, they may not realize who we are. We fly the banner of the Queen of Ghealdan, and they're passing through Alliandre's territory. Likely they saw the supplies in our people's carts and decided to 'protect them.' Some discussion, perhaps a little intimidation, may be enough to persuade them to return our people."
Elyas nodded, and Grady seemed to agree, though Perrin wasn't convinced by his own words. The Whitecloaks had haunted him since his early days out of the Two Rivers. Dealing with them had never been simple.
It felt like the time had come. Time to make an end to his troubles with them, one way or another.
He continued his rounds, arriving at the Aiel section of the camp. He nodded at a pair of Maidens lounging on guard with relaxed alertness. They didn't stand up or salute—which suited him fine—though they did nod. He'd apparently gained great ji in their eyes by the way he'd planned, then accomplished, the attack on the Shaido.
The Aiel maintained their own guard posts, and he had no reason to inspect them. But he included them in his rounds anyway. It seemed that if he was going to visit the other sections of camp, he should do it here, too.
Grady stopped suddenly and spun toward the Wise Ones' tents.
"What?" Perrin asked urgently, scanning the camp. He couldn't see anything unusual.
Grady smiled. "I think they've managed it." He started into the Aiel camp, ignoring the glares several Maidens gave him. They might very well have tossed him out, Asha'man or no, if Perrin hadn't been there.
Neald, Perrin thought. He's been working with the Aes Sedai to figure out circles. If Grady had seen something in the weaves…
Perrin followed, and soon they reached a ring of Wise One tents in the center of the Aiel camp, the area between them dried—perhaps by weaves—and the ground packed down. Neald, Edarra and Masuri sat there. Fager Neald was a young Murandian with a mustache that curled to points. He wore no pins on the collar of his black coat, though he'd likely be promoted as soon as the group returned from their excursion. He'd grown in Power since they'd begun.
He was still pale from the snakebites he'd taken, but looked much better than he had only a few days back. He was smiling, staring at the air in front of him, and he smelled exuberant.
A large gateway split the air. Perrin grunted. It appeared to lead back to a place where they'd camped several weeks ago—an open field of no real note.
"It's working?" Grady said, kneeling down beside Neald.
"It's beautiful, Jur," Neald said softly. His voice bore no hint of the bravado he often displayed. "I can feel saidar. It's like I'm more complete now."
"No. I don't need to. I can use it."
"Use it how?" Grady asked, eager.
"I… It's hard to explain. The weaves are saidin, but I seem to be able to strengthen them with saidar. So long as I can make a gateway on my own it appears that I can increase the Power—and size—with what the women lend me. Light! It's wonderful. We should have done this months ago."
Perrin glanced at the two women, Masuri and Edarra. Neither seemed as exultant as Neald. Masuri looked a little sick, and she smelled of fear. Edarra smelled curious and wary. Grady had mentioned that creating a circle this way seemed to require the men to gain control over the women.
"We'll send the scouting group through to Cairhien soon, then," Perrin said, fingering the blacksmith's puzzle in his pocket. "Grady, arrange with the Aiel about that mission, set up the gateways as they ask."
"Yes, my Lord," Grady said, rubbing his leathery face. "I should probably learn this technique rather than continuing on rounds. Though there's something I'll be wanting to talk to you about first. If you've the time."
"If you wish," Perrin said, stepping away from the group. To the side, several of the other Wise Ones came forward and told Neald it was their turn to try the circle with him. They didn't act at all as if Neald were in charge, and he was quick to obey. He'd been walking lightly around the Aiel since he'd said something a little too frisky to a Maiden and ended up playing Maiden's Kiss.
"What is this about, Grady?" Perrin asked once they were a little way off.
"Well, Neald and I are both well enough to make gateways, it seems," Grady said. "I was wondering if I might…" He seemed hesitant. "Well, if I might have leave to slip over to the Black Tower for an afternoon, to see my family."
That's right, Perrin thought. He's got a wife and a son. The Asha'man didn't often talk about them. Actually, he didn't often talk about much.
"I don't know, Grady," Perrin said, glancing up at the darkly clouded sky. "We have Whitecloaks ahead, and there's still no telling for sure if those Shaido will loop around and try to ambush us. I'm loath to be without you until I know we're someplace safe."
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