“He called it useless, did he? He must not always have thought so.” Lan touched the scabbard at Rand’s waist briefly with one finger. “There are places where the heron is a symbol of the master swordsman. That blade must have traveled a strange road to end up with a sheepherder in the Two Rivers.”
Rand ignored the unspoken question. Moiraine still had not moved. Was the Aes Sedai doing anything? He shivered and rubbed his arms, not sure he really wanted to know what she was doing. An Aes Sedai.
A question of his own popped into his head then, one he did not want to ask, one he needed an answer to. “The Mayor—” He cleared his throat, and took a deep breath. “The Mayor said the only reason there’s anything left of the village is because of you and her.” He made himself look at the Warder. “If you had been told about a man in the woods . . . a man who made people afraid just by looking at them . . . would that have warned you? A man whose horse doesn’t make any noise? And the wind doesn’t touch his cloak? Would you have known what was going to happen? Could you and Moiraine Sedai have stopped it if you’d known about him?”
“Not without half a dozen of my sisters,” Moiraine said, and Rand started. She still knelt by the bed, but she had taken her hands from Tam and half turned to face the two of them on the bench. Her voice never raised, but her eyes pinned Rand to the wall. “Had I known when I left Tar Valon that I would find Trollocs and Myrddraal here, I would have brought half a dozen of them, a dozen, if I had to drag them by the scruffs of their necks. By myself, a month’s warning would have made little difference. Perhaps none. There is only so much one person can do, even calling on the One Power, and there were probably well over a hundred Trollocs scattered around this district last night. An entire fist.”
“It would still have been good to know,” Lan said sharply, the sharpness directed at Rand. “When did you see him, exactly, and where?”
“That’s of no consequence now,” Moiraine said. “I will not have the boy thinking he is to blame for something when he is not. I am as much to blame. That accursed raven yesterday, the way it behaved, should have warned me. And you, too, my old friend.” Her tongue clicked angrily. “I was overconfident to the point of arrogance, sure that the Dark One’s touch could not have spread so far. Nor so heavily, not yet. So sure.”
Rand blinked. “The raven? I don’t understand.”
“Carrion eaters.” Lan’s mouth twisted in distaste. “The Dark One’s minions often find spies among creatures that feed on death. Ravens and crows, mainly. Rats, in the cities, sometimes.”
A quick shiver ran through Rand. Ravens and crows as spies of the Dark One? There were ravens and crows everywhere now. The Dark One’s touch, Moiraine had said. The Dark One was always there—he knew that—but if you tried to walk in the Light, tried to live a good life, and did not name him, he could not harm you. That was what everybody believed, what everybody learned with his mother’s milk. But Moiraine seemed to be saying. . . .
His glance fell on Tam, and everything else was pushed right out of his head. His father’s face was noticeably less flushed than it had been, and his breathing sounded almost normal. Rand would have leaped up if Lan had not caught his arm. “You’ve done it.”
Moiraine shook her head and sighed. “Not yet. I hope it is only not yet. Trolloc weapons are made at forges in the valley called Thakan’dar, on the very slopes of Shayol Ghul itself. Some of them take a taint from that place, a stain of evil in the metal. Those tainted blades make wounds that will not heal unaided, or cause deadly fevers, strange sicknesses that medicines cannot touch. I have soothed your father’s pain, but the mark, the taint, is still in him. Left alone, it will grow again, and consume him.”
“But you won’t leave it alone.” Rand’s words were half plea, half command. He was shocked to realize he had spoken to an Aes Sedai like that, but she seemed not to notice his tone.
“I will not,” she agreed simply. “I am very tired, Rand, and I have had no chance to rest since last night. Ordinarily it would not matter, but for this kind of hurt. . . . This”—she took a small bundle of white silk from her pouch—“is an angreal.” She saw his expression. “You know of angreal, then. Good.”
Unconsciously he leaned back, further away from her and what she held. A few stories mentioned angreal, those relics of the Age of Legends that Aes Sedai used to perform their greatest wonders. He was startled to see her unwrap a smooth ivory figurine, age-darkened to deep brown. No longer than her hand, it was a woman in flowing robes, with long hair falling about her shoulders.
“We have lost the making of these,” she said. “So much is lost, perhaps never to be found again. So few remain, the Amyrlin Seat almost did not allow me to take this one. It is well for Emond’s Field, and for your father, that she did give her permission. But you must not hope too much. Now, even with it, I can do little more than I could have without it yesterday, and the taint is strong. It has had time to fester.”
“You can help him,” Rand said fervently. “I know you can.”
Moiraine smiled, a bare curving of her lips. “We shall see.” Then she turned back to Tam. One hand she laid on his forehead; the other cupped the ivory figure. Eyes closed, her face took on a look of concentration. She scarcely seemed to breathe.
“That rider you spoke of,” Lan said quietly, “the one who made you afraid—that was surely a Myrddraal.”
“A Myrddraal!” Rand exclaimed. “But Fades are twenty feet tall and. . . .” The words faded away under the Warder’s mirthless grin.
“Sometimes, sheepherder, stories make things larger than truth. Believe me, the truth is big enough with a Halfman. Halfman, Lurk, Fade, Shadowman; the name depends on the land you’re in, but they all mean Myrddraal. Fades are Trolloc spawn, throwbacks almost to the human stock the Dreadlords used to make the Trollocs. Almost. But if the human strain is made stronger, so is the taint that twists the Trollocs. Halfmen have powers of a kind, the sort that stem from the Dark One. Only the weakest Aes Sedai would fail to be a match for a Fade, one against one, but many a good man and true has fallen to them. Since the wars that ended the Age of Legends, since the Forsaken were bound, they have been the brain that tells the Trolloc fists where to strike. In the days of the Trolloc Wars, Halfmen led the Trollocs in battle, under the Dreadlords.”
“He scared me,” Rand said faintly. “He just looked at me, and. . . .” He shivered.
“No need for shame, sheepherder. They scare me, too. I’ve seen men who have been soldiers all their lives freeze like a bird facing a snake when they confronted a Halfman. In the north, in the Borderlands along the Great Blight, there is a saying. The look of the Eyeless is fear.”
“The Eyeless?” Rand said, and Lan nodded.
“Myrddraal see like eagles, in darkness or in light, but they have no eyes. I can think of few things more dangerous than facing a Myrddraal. Moiraine Sedai and I both tried to kill the one that was here last night, and we failed every time. Halfmen have the Dark One’s own luck.”
Rand swallowed. “A Trolloc said the Myrddraal wanted to talk to me. I didn’t know what it meant.”
Lan’s head jerked up; his eyes were blue stones. “You talked to a Trolloc?”
“Not exactly,” Rand stammered. The Warder’s gaze held him like a trap. “It talked to me. It said it wouldn’t hurt me, that the Myrddraal wanted to talk to me. Then it tried to kill me.” He licked his lips and rubbed his hand along the nobby leather of the sword hilt. In short, choppy sentences he explained about returning to the farmhouse. “I killed it, instead,” he finished. “By accident, really. It jumped at me, and I had the sword in my hand.”
Lan’s face softened slightly, if rock could be said to soften. “Even so, that is something to speak of, sheepherder. Until last night there were few men south of the Borderlands who could say they had seen a Trolloc, much less killed one.”
“And fewer still who have slain a Trolloc alone and unaided,” Moiraine said wearily. “It is done, Rand. Lan, h
elp me up.”
The Warder sprang to her side, but he was no quicker than Rand darting to the bed. Tam’s skin was cool to the touch, though his face had a pale, washed-out look, as if he had spent far too long out of the sun. His eyes were still closed, but he drew the deep breaths of normal sleep.
“He will be all right now?” Rand asked anxiously.
“With rest, yes,” Moiraine said. “A few weeks in bed, and he will be as good as ever.” She walked unsteadily, despite holding Lan’s arm. He swept her cloak and staff from the chair cushion for her to sit, and she eased herself down with a sigh. With a slow care she rewrapped the angreal and returned it to her pouch.
Rand’s shoulders shook; he bit his lip to keep from laughing. At the same time he had to scrub a hand across his eyes to clear away tears. “Thank you.”
“In the Age of Legends,” Moiraine went on, “some Aes Sedai could fan life and health to flame if only the smallest spark remained. Those days are gone, though—perhaps forever. So much was lost; not just the making of angreal. So much that could be done which we dare not even dream of, if we remember it at all. There are far fewer of us now. Some talents are all but gone, and many that remain seem weaker. Now there must be both will and strength for the body to draw on, or even the strongest of us can do nothing in the way of Healing. It is fortunate that your father is a strong man, both in body and spirit. As it is, he used up much of his strength in the fight for life, but all that is left now is for him to recuperate. That will take time, but the taint is gone.”
“I can never repay you,” he told her without taking his eyes from Tam, “but anything I can do for you, I will. Anything at all.” He remembered the talk of prices, then, and his promise. Kneeling beside Tam he meant it even more than before, but it still was not easy to look at her. “Anything. As long as it does not hurt the village, or my friends.”
Moiraine raised a hand dismissively. “If you think it is necessary. I would like to talk with you, anyway. You will no doubt leave at the same time we do, and we can speak at length then.”
“Leave!” he exclaimed, scrambling to his feet. “Is it really that bad? Everyone looked to me as if they were ready to start rebuilding. We are pretty settled folk in the Two Rivers. Nobody ever leaves.”
“Rand—”
“And where would we go? Padan Fain said the weather is just as bad everywhere else. He’s . . . he was . . . the peddler. The Trollocs. . . .” Rand swallowed, wishing Thom Merrilin had not told him what Trollocs ate. “The best I can see to do is stay right here where we belong, in the Two Rivers, and put things back together. We have crops in the ground, and it has to warm enough for the shearing, soon. I don’t know who started this talk about leaving—one of the Coplins, I’ll bet—but whoever it was—”
“Sheepherder,” Lan broke in, “you talk when you should be listening.”
He blinked at both of them. He had been half babbling, he realized, and he had rambled on while she tried to talk. While an Aes Sedai tried to talk. He wondered what to say, how to apologize, but Moiraine smiled while he was still thinking.
“I understand how you feel, Rand,” she said, and he had the uncomfortable feeling that she really did. “Think no more of it.” Her mouth tightened, and she shook her head. “I have handled this badly, I see. I should have rested, first, I suppose. It is you who will be leaving, Rand. You who must leave, for the sake of your village.”
“Me?” He cleared his throat and tried again. “Me?” It sounded a little better this time. “Why do I have to go? I don’t understand any of this. I don’t want to go anywhere.”
Moiraine looked at Lan, and the Warder unfolded his arms. He looked at Rand from under his leather headband, and Rand had the feeling of being weighed on invisible scales again. “Did you know,” Lan said suddenly, “that some homes were not attacked?”
“Half the village is in ashes,” he protested, but the Warder waved it away.
“Some houses were only torched to create confusion. The Trollocs ignored them afterwards, and the people who fled from them as well, unless they actually got in the way of the true attack. Most of the people who’ve come in from the outlying farms never saw a hair of a Trolloc, and that only at a distance. Most never knew there was any trouble until they saw the village.”
“I did hear about Darl Coplin,” Rand said slowly. “I suppose it just didn’t sink in.”
“Two farms were attacked,” Lan went on. “Yours and one other. Because of Bel Tine everyone who lived at the second farm was already in the village. Many people were saved because the Myrddraal was ignorant of Two Rivers customs. Festival and Winternight made its task all but impossible, but it did not know that.”
Rand looked at Moiraine, leaning back in the chair, but she said nothing, only watched him, a finger laid across her lips. “Our farm, and who else’s?” he asked finally.
“The Aybara farm,” Lan replied. “Here in Emond’s Field, they struck first at the forge, and the blacksmith’s house, and Master Cauthon’s house.”
Rand’s mouth was suddenly dry. “That’s crazy,” he managed to get out, then jumped as Moiraine straightened.
“Not crazy, Rand,” she said. “Purposeful. The Trollocs did not come to Emond’s Field by happenstance, and they did not do what they did for the pleasure of killing and burning, however much that delighted them. They knew what, or rather who, they were after. The Trollocs came to kill or capture young men of a certain age who live near Emond’s Field.”
“My age?” Rand’s voice shook, and he did not care. “Light! Mat. What about Perrin?”
“Alive and well,” Moiraine assured him, “if a trifle sooty.”
“Ban Crawe and Lem Thane?”
“Were never in any danger,” Lan said. “At least, no more than anyone else.”
“But they saw the rider, the Fade, too, and they’re the same age as I am.”
“Master Crawe’s house was not even damaged,” Moiraine said, “and the miller and his family slept through half the attack before the noise woke them. Ban is ten months older than you, and Lem eight months younger.” She smiled dryly at his surprise. “I told you I asked questions. And I also said young men of a certain age. You and your two friends are within weeks of one another. It was you three the Myrddraal sought, and none others.”
Rand shifted uneasily, wishing she would not look at him like that, as if her eyes could pierce his brain and read what lay in every corner of it. “What would they want with us? We’re just farmers, shepherds.”
“That is a question that has no answer in the Two Rivers,” Moiraine said quietly, “but the answer is important. Trollocs where they have not been seen in almost two thousand years tells us that much.”
“Lots of stories tell about Trolloc raids,” Rand said stubbornly. “We just never had one here before. Warders fight Trollocs all the time.”
Lan snorted. “Boy, I expect to fight Trollocs along the Great Blight, but not here, nearly six hundred leagues to the south. That was as hot a raid last night as I’d expect to see in Shienar, or any of the Borderlands.”
“In one of you,” Moiraine said, “or all three, there is something the Dark One fears.”
“That . . . that’s impossible.” Rand stumbled to the window and stared out at the village, at the people working among the ruins. “I don’t care what’s happened, that is just impossible.” Something on the Green caught his eye. He stared, then realized it was the blackened stump of the Spring Pole. A fine Bel Tine, with a peddler, and a gleeman, and strangers. He shivered, and shook his head violently. “No. No, I’m a shepherd. The Dark One can’t be interested in me.”
“It took a great deal of effort,” Lan said grimly, “to bring so many Trollocs so far without raising a hue and cry from the Borderlands to Caemlyn and beyond. I wish I knew how they did it. Do you really believe they went to all that bother just to burn a few houses?”
“They will be back,” Moiraine added.
Rand had his mouth open t
o argue with Lan, but that brought him up short. He spun to face her. “Back? Can’t you stop them? You did last night, and you were surprised, then. Now you know they are here.”
“Perhaps,” Moiraine replied. “I could send to Tar Valon for some of my sisters; they might have time to make the journey before we need them. The Myrddraal knows I am here, too, and it probably will not attack—not openly, at least—lacking reinforcements, more Myrddraal and more Trollocs. With enough Aes Sedai and enough Warders, the Trollocs can be beaten off, though I cannot say how many battles it will take.”
A vision danced in his head, of Emond’s Field all in ashes. All the farms burned. And Watch Hill, and Deven Ride, and Taren Ferry. All ashes and blood. “No,” he said, and felt a wrenching inside as if he had lost his grip on something. “That’s why I have to leave, isn’t it? The Trollocs won’t come back if I am not here.” A last trace of obstinacy made him add, “If they really are after me.”
Moiraine’s eyebrows raised as if she were surprised that he was not convinced, but Lan said, “Are you willing to bet your village on it, sheepherder? Your whole Two Rivers?”
Rand’s stubbornness faded. “No,” he said again, and felt that emptiness inside again, too. “Perrin and Mat have to go, too, don’t they?” Leaving the Two Rivers. Leaving his home and his father. At least Tam would get better. At least he would be able to hear him say all that on the Quarry Road had been nonsense. “We could go to Baerlon, I suppose, or even Caemlyn. I’ve heard there are more people in Caemlyn than in the whole Two Rivers. We’d be safe there.” He tried out a laugh that sounded hollow. “I used to daydream about seeing Caemlyn. I never thought it would come about like this.”
There was a long silence, then Lan said, “I would not count on Caemlyn for safety. If the Myrddraal want you badly enough, they will find a way. Walls are a poor bar to a Halfman. And you would be a fool not to believe they want you very badly indeed.”
Rand thought his spirits had sunk as low as they possibly could, but at that they slid deeper.
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