Knife of Dreams

by Robert Jordan

  Instead, he stared at the town's gates, standing wide open as they had every time he had gazed on them. Invitingly wide. They called to him. Soon, Faile and her companions would know it was time to head for those gates, and the towered fortress that bulked at the north end of the town. She might be at chores, if the Maidens were right about how the prisoners would be treated as gai'shain, but she would know to slip away and go to the fortress. She and her friends, and likely Alyse as well. Whatever her scheme with the Shaido, the Aes Sedai would not want to remain on a battleground. A second sister in the fortress might come in handy. The Light send it did not come to that.

  He had planned with care for every eventuality he could imagine down to outright disaster, yet this was no blacksmith's puzzle however much he wished it were. The twisted iron pieces of a blacksmith's puzzle moved only in certain ways. Move them in the right way, and the puzzle came apart. People could move in a thousand ways, sometimes in directions you never believed possible till it happened. Would his plans stand up when the Shaido did something unexpected? They would do it, almost certainly, and all he could do in return was hope it would not lead to that disaster. With a last, longing look at Maiden's gates, he turned and walked back up the ridge.

  Inside the fog, even he could not see ten paces, but he soon found Dannil Lewin among the trees on the ridgetop. Lean to the point of skinny, with a pickaxe for a nose and thick mustaches in the Taraboner style, Dannil stood out even when you could not see his face clearly. Other Two Rivers men were shapes beyond him, growing dimmer and dimmer with distance. Most were squatting or sitting on the ground, resting while they had the chance. Jori Congar was trying to entice some of the others into a game of dice, but he was quiet about it, so Perrin let it pass. No one was accepting the offer anyway. Jori was uncommon lucky with his dice.

  Dannil made a leg when he saw Perrin and murmured, "My Lord." The man had been spending too much time with Faile's people. He called it acquiring polish, whatever that was supposed to mean. A man was not a piece of brass.

  "Make sure nobody does anything woolhead foolish like I just did, Dannil. Sharp eyes below might spot movement near the edge of the fog and send men to investigate."

  Dannil coughed discreetly into his hand. Light, he was getting as bad as any of those Cairhienin and Tairens. "As you say, my Lord. I'll keep everybody back."

  "My Lord?" Balwer's dry voice said out of the mist. "Ah, there you are, my Lord." The little stick of a man appeared, followed by two larger shapes, though one was not much taller. They halted at a gesture from him, indistinct forms in the fog, and he came on alone. "Masema has put in an appearance below, my Lord," he said quietly, folding his hands. 'I thought it best to keep Haviar and Nerion out of his sight, and his men's, under the circumstances. I don't believe he is suspicious of them. I think he has anyone he is suspicious of killed. But out of sight, out of mind is best."

  Perrin's jaw tightened. Masema was supposed to be beyond the eastern ridge with his army, if it could be called that. He had counted those men—and a few women—as they shuffled uneasily through gateways made by the two Asha'man, and they were twenty thousand if they were one. Masema had always been vague about their numbers, and Perrin had not had an accurate count until last night. Ragged and dirty, only one here or there wore a helmet, much less a breastplate, but every hand had gripped sword or spear or axe, halberd or crossbow, the women included. The women among Masema's followers were worse than the men by far, and that was saying something. For the most part the lot of them were only good for terrorizing people into swearing to follow the Dragon Reborn—the colors whirled in his head and were shattered by his anger—that and murdering them if they refused. They had a better purpose today.

  "Maybe it's time for Haviar and Nerion to start staying away from Masema's people for good," he said.

  "If you wish it, my Lord, but in my judgment, they still are as safe as any man can be doing what they do, and they're eager." Balwer tilted his head, a curious sparrow in a branch. "They haven't been corrupted, if that's what you fear, my Lord. That's always a danger when you send a man to pretend to be what he isn't, but I have a keen nose for the signs."

  "Keep them close, Balwer." After today, with luck, there might not be much of Masema's army left to spy on in any case. There might not even be a Masema to worry about.

  Perrin scrambled down the brushy reverse slope, past where the Mayener and Ghealdanin lancers were waiting beside their horses in the thick mist, streamered lances propped on their shoulders or steel heads driven into the ground. The Winged Guards' red-painted helmets and breastplates might have been safe enough on the ridgetop, but not the Ghealdanin's burnished armor, and since Gallenne and Arganda both bristled if one was favored over the other, both waited here.

  The fog extended quite some distance—Neald claimed that was intentional, but the man had smelled surprised, and pleased, when he realized what he had done—so Perrin was still walking through grayness when he reached the bottom of the ridge, where all of the high-wheeled carts stood in a line with horses hitched. The dim figures of the Cairhienin cart drivers moved about them, checking harness, tightening the ropes that held the canvas covers on.

  Masema was waiting, and Perrin wanted nothing so much as to chew off the man's arm, but he spotted the stout shape of Basel Gill beside one of the carts and headed that way. Lini was with him, wrapped in a dark cloak, and Breane with her arm around the waist of Lamgwin, Perrin's hulking manservant. Master Gill snatched off his brimmed hat to reveal thin graying hair combed back over a bald spot that it failed to cover. Lini sniffed and pointedly avoided looking at Perrin while pretending to adjust her cowl. She smelled of anger and fear. Master Gill just smelled of fear.

  "It's time for you to start north, Master Gill," Perrin said. "When you reach the mountains, follow them until you strike the Jehannah Road. With luck, we'll catch you up before you reach the mountains, but if not, send Alliandre's servants off to Jehannah, then you head east through the pass, then north again. We'll be as close behind you as we can." If his plan did not go too far awry. Light, he was a blacksmith, not a soldier. But even Tylee had finally agreed it was a good plan.

  "I will not leave this spot until I know that Maighdin is safe," Lini told the fog, her thin voice a reed of iron. "And the Lady Faile, of course."

  Master Gill rubbed a hand back over his head. "My Lord, Lamgwin and I were thinking maybe we could help out. The Lady Faile means a great deal to us, and Maighdin . . . Maighdin is one of our own. I know one end of a sword from the other, and so does Lamgwin." He was wearing one belted around his bulk, yet if he had handled a sword these past twenty years, Perrin would eat the whole great length of that belt. Breane's grip on Lamgwin tightened, but the big man patted her shoulder and rested his other hand on the hilt of a shortsword. The fog obscured his scarred face and sunken knuckles. He was a tavern brawler, though a good man even so, but never a swordsman.

  "You're my shambayan, Master Gill," Perrin said firmly. "It's your duty to get the cart drivers and grooms and servants to safety. Yours and Lamgwin's. Now go on with you and see to it."

  The stout man nodded reluctantly. Breane breathed a small sigh of relief when Lamgwin knuckled his forehead in acquiescence. Perrin doubted that the man could have heard the sigh, though Lamgwin put his arm around her and murmured comforting words.

  Lini was not so compliant. Back stiff as a rod, she addressed the fog again. "I will not leave this spot until I know—"

  Perrin slapped his hands together with a loud crack, startling her into looking at him in surprise. "All you can do here is catch the ague from standing in the damp. That and die, if the Shaido manage to break through. I'll bring Faile out. I'll bring Maighdin and the others out." He would, or die himself in the attempt. There was no point saying that, though, and reason not to. They had to believe in their bones that he would be following with Faile and the rest. "And you are going north, Lini. Faile will be upset with me if I let anything happen to you. Mas
ter Gill, you make sure she rides with you if you have to tie her up and put her in the back of a cart."

  Master Gill jerked, crumpling his hat between his hands. He smelled of alarm, suddenly, and Lini of pure indignation. Amusement filled Lamgwin's scent, and he rubbed at his nose as though concealing a smile, but strangely, Breane was indignant, too. Well, he had never claimed to understand women. If he could not understand the woman he was married to, which he could not half the time, then it was unlikely he ever would understand the rest of them.

  In the end, Lini actually climbed up beside the driver of a cart without having to be forced, though she slapped away Master Gill's hand when he tried to assist her, and the line of carts began to trundle off northward though the fog. Behind one of the carts, laden with the Wise Ones' tents and possessions, marched a cluster of white-clad gai'shain, meek even now, men and women with their cowls up and their eyes lowered. They were Shaido, taken at Cairhien, and in a few months they would put off white and return to their clan. Perrin had had them watched, discreetly, despite the Wise Ones' assurances that they would adhere to ji'e'toh in this regard whatever others they abandoned, yet it appeared the Wise Ones were right. They still numbered seventeen. None had tried to run off and warn the Shaido beyond the ridge. The carts' axles had been greased liberally, but they still creaked and squealed to his ears. With luck, he and Faile would catch up to them shy of the mountains.

  As the strings of spare horses began to pass him, on long leads held by mounted grooms, a Maiden appeared in the mist coming down the line of carts. Slowly she resolved into Sulin, shoufa around her neck to bare her short white hair and black veil hanging down onto her chest. A fresh slash across her left cheek would add another scar to her face unless she accepted Healing from one of the sisters. She might not. Maidens seemed to have odd attitudes about Wise Ones' apprentices, or maybe it was just that these apprentices were Aes Sedai. They even saw Annoura as an apprentice, though she was not.

  "The Shaido sentries to the north are dead, Perrin Aybara," she said. "And the men who were going out to replace them. They danced well, for Shaido."

  "You took casualties?" he asked quietly.

  "Elienda and Briain woke from the dream." She might have been speaking of the weather rather than two deaths among women she knew. "We all must wake eventually. We had to carry Aviellin the last two miles. She will need Healing." So. She would accept it.

  "I'll send one of the Aes Sedai with you," he said, looking around in the fog. Aside from the line of horses passing him, he could see nothing. "As soon as I can find one."

  They found him almost as he spoke, Annoura and Masuri striding out of the fog leading their horses with Berelain and Masema, his shaven head glistening damply.

  Even in the mist, there was no mistaking the rumpled nature of the man's brown coat, or the crude darn on the shoulder. None of the gold his followers looted stuck to his hands. It all went to the poor. That was the only good that could be said of Masema. But then, a fair number of the poor that gold went to feed had been made poor by having their possessions stolen and their shops or farms burned by Masema's people.

  For some reason, Berelain was wearing the coronet of the First of Mayene this morning, the golden hawk in flight above her brow, though her riding dress and cloak were plain dark gray. Beneath her light, flowery perfume, her scent was patience and anxiety, as odd a combination as Perrin had ever smelled.

  The six Wise Ones were with them, too, dark shawls draped over their arms, folded kerchiefs around their temples holding back their long hair. With all their necklaces and bracelets of gold and ivory, they made Berelain appear simply dressed for once.

  Aram was one of their number as well, the wolfhead pommel of his sword rising above one red-striped shoulder, and the fog could not hide the absence of his habitual glower. The man gravitated toward Masema and seemed almost to bask in some light that Masema gave off. Perrin wondered whether he should have sent Aram with the carts. But if he had, he was sure Aram would have leaped off and sneaked back as soon as he was out of Perrin's sight.

  He explained Aviellin's need to the two Aes Sedai, but to his surprise, when Masuri said she would come, fair-haired Edarra raised a hand that stopped the slim Brown in her tracks. Annoura shifted uncomfortably. She was no apprentice, and uneasy over Seonid and Masuri's relationship with the Wise Ones. They tried to include her in it, and sometimes succeeded.

  "Janina will see to it," Edarra said. "She has more skill than you, Masuri Sokawa."

  Masuri's mouth tightened, but she kept silent. The Wise Ones were quite capable of switching an apprentice for speaking up at the wrong time, even if she did happen to be an Aes Sedai. Sulin led Janina, a flaxen-haired woman who never seemed to be ruffled by anything, off into the fog, Janina striding as quickly as Sulin despite her bulky skirts. So the Wise Ones had learned Healing, had they? That might be useful later in the day; the Light send it was not needed often.

  Watching the pair disappear into the murk, Masema grunted. The thick mist hid the ever-burning intensity of his deep-set eyes and obscured the triangular white scar on his cheek, but his scent was full in Perrin's nose, hard and sharp as a freshly stropped razor yet twitching in a frenzy. That smell of madness sometimes made him think his nose must bleed from breathing it.

  "Bad enough you use these blasphemous women who do what only the Lord Dragon, blessed be his name, may do," Masema said, his voice full of the heat that the fog concealed in his eyes.

  The colors spinning in Perrin's head turned into a brief image of Rand and Min and a tall man in a black coat, an Asha'man, and he felt a shock right down to his boots. Rand's left hand was gone! No matter. Whatever had happened, had happened. And today his business lay elsewhere.

  ". . . but if they know Healing," Masema continued, "it will be that much harder to kill the savages. A pity you won't let the Seanchan leash all of them." His sidelong glance at Annoura and Masuri said he included them, despite the fact both had visited him in secret more than once.

  They regarded him with Aes Sedai calm, though Masuri's slim hands moved once as if to smooth her brown skirts. She said she had changed her mind and now believed the man must be killed, so why was she meeting him? Why was Annoura? Why did Masema allow them? He more than hated Aes Sedai. Perhaps answers could be found now that Haviar and Nerion no longer needed protection.

  Behind Masema, the Wise Ones stirred. Fire-haired Carelle, who looked as if she possessed a temper though she did not, actually stroked the hilt of her belt knife, and Nevarin, who could have given Nynaeve lessons in getting angry, gripped hers. Masema should have felt those eyes boring into his back, but his scent never shifted. Insane he might be, but never a coward.

  "You wanted to speak to Lord Perrin, my Lord Prophet," Berelain said gently, though Perrin could smell the strain of her smile.

  Masema stared at her. "I am simply the Prophet of the Lord Dragon, not a lord. The Lord Dragon is the only lord, now. His coming has shattered all bonds and destroyed all titles. King and queens, lords and ladies, are but dust beneath his feet."

  Those whirling hues threatened again, but Perrin crushed them. "What are you doing here?" he demanded. There was no way to soften moments with Masema. The man was as hard as a good file. "You're supposed to be with your men. You risked being seen by coming here, and you'll risk it again going back. I don't trust your people to hold for five minutes without you there to stiffen their spines. They'll run as soon as they see the Shaido coming their way."

  "They are not my people, Aybara. They are the Lord Dragon's people." Light, being around Masema meant having to stomp on those colors every few minutes! "I left Nengar in charge. He has fought more battles than you have dreamed of. Including against the savages. I also gave the women orders to kill any man who tries to run and have let it be known that I will hunt down anyone who escapes the women. They will hold to the last man, Aybara.''

  "You sound as if you're not going back," Perrin said.

  "I intend
to stay close to you." Fog might hide the heat in Masema's eyes, but Perrin could feel it. "A pity if any misfortune should befall you just as you reclaim your wife."

  So a small part of his plan had unraveled already. A hope really, rather than part of the plan. If all else went well, the Shaido who managed to flee would carve a way through Masema's people without more than slowing a step, but instead of taking a Shaido spear through his ribs, Masema would be . . . keeping an eye on him.

  Without any doubt, the man's bodyguard was not far off in the fog, two hundred or so ruffians better armed and better mounted than the rest of his army. Perrin did not look at Berelain, but the scent of her worry had strengthened. Masema had reason to want both of them dead. He would warn Gal-lenne that his primary task today would be protecting Berelain from Masema's men. And he would have to watch his own back.

  Off in the fog, a brief flash of silver-blue light appeared, and he frowned. It was too early yet for Grady.

  Two figures coalesced out of the mist. One was Neald, not strutting for once. In fact, he stumbled. His face looked tired. Burn him, why was he wasting his strength this way? The other was a young Seanchan in lacquered armor with a single thin plume on the peculiar helmet he carried beneath his arm. Perrin recognized him, Gueye Arabah, a lieutenant Tylee thought well of. The two Aes Sedai gathered their skirts as if to keep him from brushing against them, though he went nowhere near them. For his part, he missed a step when he came close enough to make out their faces, and Perrin heard him swallow hard. He smelled skittish, of a sudden.

  Arabah's bow included Perrin and Berelain, and he frowned slightly at Masema as though wondering what such a ragged fellow was doing in their company. Masema sneered, and the Seanchan's free hand drifted toward his sword hilt before he stopped it. They seemed touchy folk, Seanchan did. But Arabah did not waste time.