“Do you think they saw us?” Egwene asked. “We were already in the trees, weren’t we? They couldn’t see us at that distance. Could they? Not that far off.”
“We saw them at that distance,” Elyas said dryly. Perrin shifted uneasily, and Egwene drew a frightened breath. “If they had seen us,” Elyas growled, “they’d have been down on us like they were on that fox. Think, if you want to stay alive. Fear will kill you if you don’t control it.” His penetrating stare held on each of them for a moment. Finally he nodded. “They’re gone, now, and we should be, too. Keep those slings handy. Might be useful again.”
As they moved out of the copse, Elyas angled them westward from the line of march they had been following. Perrin’s breath snagged in his throat; it was as if they were chasing after the last ravens they had seen. Elyas kept on tirelessly, and there was nothing for them to do but follow. After all, Elyas knew a safe place. Somewhere. So he said.
They ran to the next hill, waited till the ravens moved on, then ran again, waited, ran. The steady progress they had been keeping had been tiring enough, but all except Elyas quickly began to flag under this jerky pace. Perrin’s chest heaved, and he gulped air when he had a few minutes to lie on a hilltop, leaving the search to Elyas. Bela stood head down, nostrils flaring, at every stop. Fear lashed them on, and Perrin did not know if it was controlled or not. He only wished the wolves would tell them what was behind them, if anything was, Whatever it was.
Ahead were more ravens than Perrin ever hoped to see again. To the left and right the black birds billowed up, and to the south. A dozen times they reached the hiding place of a grove or the scant shelter of a slope only moments before ravens swept into the sky. Once, with the sun beginning to slide from its midday height, they stood in the open, frozen as still as statues, half a mile from the nearest cover, while a hundred of the Dark One’s feathered spies flashed by a bare mile to the east. Sweat rolled down Perrin’s face despite the wind, until the last black shape dwindled to a dot and vanished. He lost count of the stragglers they brought down with their slings.
He saw more than enough evidence lying in the path the ravens had covered to justify his fear. He had stared with a queasy fascination at a rabbit that had been torn to pieces. The eyeless head stood upright, with the other bits—legs, entrails—scattered in a rough circle around it. Birds, too, stabbed to shapeless masses of feathers. And two more foxes.
He remembered something Lan had said. All the Dark One’s creatures delight in killing. The Dark One’s power is death. And if the ravens found them? Pitiless eyes shining like black beads. Stabbing beaks swirling around them. Needle-sharp beaks drawing blood. A hundred of them. Or can they call more of their kind? Maybe all of them in the hunt? A sickening image built up in his mind. A pile of ravens as big as a hill, seething like maggots, fighting over a few bloody shreds.
Suddenly the image was swept away by others, each one clear for an instant, then spinning and fading into another. The wolves had found ravens to the north. Screaming birds dove and whirled and dove again, beaks drawing blood with every swoop. Snarling wolves dodged and leaped, twisting in the air, jaws snapping. Again and again Perrin tasted feathers and the foul taste of fluttering ravens crushed alive, felt the pain of oozing gashes all over his body, knew with a despair that never touched on giving up that all his effort was not enough. Suddenly the ravens broke away, wheeling overhead for one last shriek of rage at the wolves. Wolves did not die as easily as foxes, and they had a mission. A flap of black wings, and they were gone, a few black feathers drifting down on their dead. Wind licked at a puncture on his left foreleg. There was something wrong with one of Hopper’s eyes. Ignoring her own hurts, Dapple gathered them and they settled into a painful lope in the direction the ravens had gone. Blood matted their fur. We come. Danger comes before us.
Moving in a stumbling trot, Perrin exchanged a glance with Elyas. The man’s yellow eyes were expressionless, but he knew. He said nothing, just watched Perrin and waited, all the while maintaining that effortless lope.
Waiting for me. Waiting for me to admit I feel the wolves.
“Ravens,” Perrin panted reluctantly. “Behind us.”
“He was right,” Egwene breathed. “You can talk to them.”
Perrin’s feet felt like lumps of iron on the ends of wooden posts, but he tried to make them move faster. If he could outrun their eyes, outrun the ravens, outrun the wolves, but above all Egwene’s eyes, that knew him now for what he was. What are you? Tainted, the Light blind me! Cursed!
His throat burned as it never had from breathing the smoke and heat of Master Luhhan’s forge. He staggered and hung on to Egwene’s stirrup until she climbed down and all but pushed him into the saddle despite his protests that he could keep going. It was not long, though, before she was clutching the stirrup as she ran, holding up her skirts with her other hand, and only a little while after that until he dismounted, his knees still wobbling. He had to pick her up to make her take his place, but she was too tired to fight him.
Elyas would not slow down. He urged them, and taunted them, and kept them so close behind the searching ravens to the south that Perrin thought all it would take would be for one bird to look back. “Keep moving, burn you! Think you’ll do any better than that fox did, if they catch us? The one with its insides piled on its head?” Egwene swayed out of the saddle and vomited noisily. “I knew you’d remember. Just keep going a little more. That’s all. Just a little more. Burn you, I thought farm youngsters had endurance. Work all day and dance all night. Sleep all day and sleep all night, looks like to me. Move your bloody feet!”
They began coming down off the hills as soon as the last raven vanished over the next one, then while the last trailers still flapped above the hilltop. One bird looking back. To east and west the ravens searched while they hurried across the open spaces between. One bird is all it will take.
The ravens behind were coming fast. Dapple and the other wolves worked their way around them and were coming on without stopping to lick their wounds, but they had learned all the lessons they needed about watching the sky. How close? How long? The wolves had no notions of time the way men did, no reasons to divide a day into hours. The seasons were time enough for them, and the light and the dark. No need for more. Finally Perrin worked out an image of where the sun would stand in the sky when the ravens overran them from behind. He glanced over his shoulder at the setting sun, and licked his lips with a dry tongue. In an hour the ravens would be on them, maybe less. An hour, and it was a good two hours to sunset, at least two to full dark.
We’ll die with the setting sun, he thought, staggering as he ran. Slaughtered like the fox. He fingered his axe, then moved to his sling. That would be more use. Not enough, though. Not against a hundred ravens, a hundred darting targets, a hundred stabbing beaks.
“It’s your turn to ride, Perrin,” Egwene said tiredly.
“In a bit,” he panted. “I’m good for miles, yet.” She nodded, and stayed in the saddle. She is tired. Tell her? Or let her think we still have a chance to escape? An hour of hope, even if it is desperate, or an hour of despair?
Elyas was watching him again, saying nothing. He must know, but he did not speak. Perrin looked at Egwene again and blinked away hot tears. He touched his axe and wondered if he had the courage. In the last minutes, when the ravens descended on them, when all hope was gone, would he have the courage to spare her the death the fox had died? Light make me strong!
The ravens ahead of them suddenly seemed to vanish. Perrin could still make out dark, misty clouds, far to the east and west, but ahead . . . nothing. Where did they go? Light, if we’ve overrun them. . . .
Abruptly a chill ran through him, one cold, clean tingle as if he had jumped into the Winespring Water in midwinter. It rippled through him and seemed to carry away some of his fatigue, a little of the ache in his legs and the burning of his lungs. It left behind . . . something. He could not say what, only he felt different. He stumble
d to a halt and looked around, afraid.
Elyas watched him, watched them all, with a gleam behind his eyes. He knew what it was, Perrin was sure of it, but he only watched them.
Egwene reined in Bela and looked around uncertainly, half wondering and half fearful. “It’s . . . strange,” she whispered. “I feel as if I lost something.” Even the mare had her head up expectantly, nostrils flaring as if they detected a faint odor of new-mown hay.
“What . . . what was that?” Perrin asked.
Elyas cackled suddenly. He bent over, shoulders shaking, to rest his hands on his knees. “Safety, that’s what. We made it, you bloody fools. No raven will cross that line . . . not one that carries the Dark One’s eyes, anyways. A Trolloc would have to be driven across, and there’d need to be something fierce pushing the Myrddraal to make him do the driving. No Aes Sedai, either. The One Power won’t work here; they can’t touch the True Source. Can’t even feel the Source, like it vanished. Makes them itch inside, that does. Gives them the shakes like a seven-day drunk. It’s safety.”
At first, to Perrin’s eyes, the land was unchanged from the rolling hills and ridges they had crossed the whole day. Then he noticed green shoots among the grass; not many, and they were struggling, but more than he had seen anywhere else. There were fewer weeds in the grass, too. He could not imagine what it was, but there was . . . something about this place. And something in what Elyas said tickled his memory.
“What is it?” Egwene asked. “I feel. . . . What is this place? I don’t think I like it.”
“A stedding,” Elyas roared. “You never listen to stories? Of course, there hasn’t been an Ogier here in three thousand odd years, not since the Breaking of the World, but it’s the stedding makes the Ogier, not the Ogier make the stedding.”
“Just a legend,” Perrin stammered. In the stories, the stedding were always havens, places to hide, whether it was from Aes Sedai or from creatures of the Father of Lies.
Elyas straightened; if not exactly fresh, he gave no sign that he had spent most of a day running. “Come on. We’d better get deeper into this legend. The ravens can’t follow, but they can still see us this close to the edge, and there could be enough of them to watch the whole border of it. Let them keep hunting right on by it.”
Perrin wanted to stay right there, now that he was stopped; his legs trembled and told him to lie down for a week. Whatever refreshment he had felt had been momentary; all the weariness and aches were back. He forced himself to take one step, then another. It did not get easier, but he kept at it. Egwene flapped the reins to get Bela moving again. Elyas settled into an effortless lope, only slowing to a walk when it became apparent the others could not keep up. A fast walk.
“Why don’t—we stay here?” Perrin panted. He was breathing through his mouth, and he forced the words out between deep, wracking breaths. “If it’s really—a stedding. We’d be safe. No Trollocs. No Aes Sedai. Why don’t we—just stay here—until it’s all over?” Maybe the wolves won’t come here, either.
“How long will that be?” Elyas looked over his shoulder with one eyebrow raised. “What would you eat? Grass, like the horse? Besides, there’s others know about this place, and nothing keeps men out, not even the worst of them. And there is only one place where there’s still water to be found.” Frowning uneasily, he turned in a complete circle, scanning the land. When he was done, he shook his head and muttered to himself. Perrin felt him calling to the wolves. Hurry. Hurry. “We take our chances on a choice of evils, and the ravens are sure. Come on. It’s only another mile or two.”
Perrin would have groaned if he had been willing to spare the breath.
Huge boulders began to dot the low hills, irregular lumps of gray, lichen-coated stone half buried in the ground, some as big as a house. Brambles webbed them, and low brush half hid most. Here and there amid the desiccated brown of brambles and brush a lone green shoot announced that this was a special place. Whatever wounded the land beyond its borders hurt it, too, but here the wound did not go quite as deep.
Eventually they straggled over one more rise, and at the base of this hill lay a pool of water. Any of them could have waded across it in two strides, but it was clear and clean enough to show the sandy bottom like a sheet of glass. Even Elyas hurried eagerly down the slope.
Perrin threw himself full length on the ground when he reached the pool and plunged his head in. An instant later he was spluttering from the cold of water that had welled up from the depths of the earth. He shook his head, his long hair spraying a rain of drops. Egwene grinned and splashed back at him. Perrin’s eyes grew sober. She frowned and opened her mouth, but he stuck his face back in the water. No questions. Not now. No explanations. Not ever. But a small voice taunted him. But you would have done it, wouldn’t you?
Eventually Elyas called them away from the pool. “Anybody wants to eat, I want some help.”
Egwene worked cheerfully, laughing and joking as they prepared their scanty meal. There was nothing left but cheese and dried meat; there had been no chance to hunt. At least there was still tea. Perrin did his share, but silently. He felt Egwene’s eyes on him, saw growing worry on her face, but he avoided meeting her eyes as much as he could. Her laughter faded, and the jokes came further apart, each one more strained than the last. Elyas watched, saying nothing. A somber mood descended, and they began their meal in silence. The sun grew red in the west, and their shadows stretched out long and thin.
Not quite an hour till dark. If not for the stedding, all of you would be dead now. Would you have saved her? Would you have cut her down like so many bushes? Bushes don’t bleed, do they? Or scream, and look in your eyes and ask, why?
Perrin drew in on himself more. He could feel something laughing at him, deep in the back of his mind. Something cruel. Not the Dark One. He almost wished it was. Not the Dark One; himself.
For once Elyas had broken his rule about fires. There were no trees, but he had snapped dead branches from the brush and built his fire against a huge chunk of rock sticking out of the hillside. From the layers of soot staining the stone, Perrin thought the site must have been used by generation after generation of travelers.
What showed above ground of the big rock was rounded somewhat, with a sharp break on one side where moss, old and brown, covered the ragged surface. The grooves and hollows eroded in the rounded part looked odd to Perrin, but he was too absorbed in gloom to wonder about it. Egwene, though, studied it as she ate.
“That,” she said finally, “looks like an eye.” Perrin blinked; it did look like an eye, under all that soot.
“It is,” Elyas said. He sat with his back to the fire and the rock, studying the land around them while he chewed a strip of dried meat almost as tough as leather. “Artur Hawkwing’s eye. The eye of the High King himself. This is what his power and glory came to, in the end.” He said it absently. Even his chewing was absentminded; his eyes and his attention were on the hills.
“Artur Hawkwing!” Egwene exclaimed. “You’re joking with me. It isn’t an eye at all. Why would somebody carve Artur Hawkwing’s eye on a rock out here?”
Elyas glanced over his shoulder at her, muttering, “What do they teach you village whelps?” He snorted and straightened back to his watching, but he went on talking. “Artur Paendrag Tanreall, Artur Hawkwing, the High King, united all the lands from the Great Blight to the Sea of Storms, from the Aryth Ocean to the Aiel Waste, and even some beyond the Waste. He even sent armies the other side of the Aryth Ocean. The stories say he ruled the whole world, but what he really did rule was enough for any man outside of a story. And he brought peace and justice to the land.”
“All stood equal before the law,” Egwene said, “and no man raised his hand against another.”
“So you’ve heard the stories, at least.” Elyas chuckled, a dry sound. “Artur Hawkwing brought peace and justice, but he did it with fire and sword. A child could ride alone with a bag of gold from the Aryth Ocean to the Spine of the Worl
d and never have a moment’s fear, but the High King’s justice was as hard as that rock there for anyone who challenged his power, even if it was just by being who they were, or by people thinking they were a challenge. The common folk had peace, and justice, and full bellies, but he laid a twenty-year siege to Tar Valon and put a price of a thousand gold crowns on the head of every Aes Sedai.”
“I thought you didn’t like Aes Sedai,” Egwene said.
Elyas gave a wry smile. “Doesn’t matter what I like, girl. Artur Hawkwing was a proud fool. An Aes Sedai healer could have saved him when he took sick—or was poisoned, as some say—but every Aes Sedai still alive was penned up behind the Shining Walls, using all their Power to hold off an army that lit up the night with their campfires. He wouldn’t have let one near him, anyway. He hated Aes Sedai as much as he hated the Dark One.”
Egwene’s mouth tightened, but when she spoke, all she said was, “What does all that have to do with whether that’s Artur Hawkwing’s eye?”
“Just this, girl. With peace except for what was going on across the ocean, with the people cheering him wherever he went—they really loved him, you see; he was a harsh man, but never with the common folk—well, with all of that, he decided it was time to build himself a capital. A new city, not connected in any man’s mind with any old cause or faction or rivalry. Here, he’d build it, at the very center of the land bordered by the seas and the Waste and the Blight. Here, where no Aes Sedai would ever come willing or could use the Power if they did. A capital from which, one day, the whole world would receive peace and justice. When they heard the proclamation, the common people subscribed enough money to build a monument to him. Most of them looked on him as only a step below the Creator. A short step. It took five years to carve and build. A statue of Hawkwing, himself, a hundred times bigger than the man. They raised it right here, and the city was to rise around it.”
The Eye of the World Page 50