"Of course I'm angry about Maighdin," she said. They'd been through Malden together, and she hadn't told Faile that she was the Queen of bloody
Andor? It made Faile look like a fool—like a small-town braggart, extol-ling her skill with the sword in front of a passing blademaster.
"She didn't know if she could trust us," Perrin said. "She was fleeing one of the Forsaken, it seems. I'd have hidden myself, too."
Faile glared at him.
"Don't look at me like that," he said. "She didn't do it to make you look bad, Faile. She had her reasons. Let it go."
That made her feel a little better; it was so nice that he would stand up for himself now. "Well, it makes me wonder who Lini will turn out to be. Some Seanchan queen? Master Gill, the King of Arad Doman in hiding?"
Perrin smiled. "I suspect they're her attendants. Gill is who he says he is, at least. Balwer is probably having a fit for not having figured this out."
"I bet he did figure it out," Faile said, kneeling beside him. "Perrin, I meant what I said about this trial. I'm worried."
"I won't let myself be taken," he said. "I only said I'd sit through a trial and give them a chance to present evidence."
"Then what's the point?" Faile said.
"It gives me more time to think," he said, "and it might stop me from having to kill them. Their captain, Damodred—something about him smells better than many of the rest. Not rabid with anger or hate. This will get our people back and let me plead my side. It feels good for a man to be able to have his say. Maybe that's what I've needed, all this time."
"Well, all right," Faile said. "But in the future, please consider warning me of your plans."
"I will," he said, yawning and lying back. "In truth, it didn't occur to me until the last moment."
Faile kept her tongue with some difficulty. At least something good had come from that parley. She'd watched Berelain when she'd met Damodred, and she'd rarely seen a woman's eyes light up so brightly. Faile might be able to make use of that.
She looked down. Perrin was already snoring softly.
Perrin found himself sitting with his back against something hard and smooth. The too-dark, almost evil sky of the wolf dream boiled above the forest, which was a mixture of fir, oak and leatherleaf.
He stood up, then turned and looked at what he had been leaning against. A massive steel tower stretched toward the turbulent sky. Too straight, with walls that looked like a single piece of seamless metal, the tower exuded a completely unnatural feel.
I told you this place was evil, Hopper sent, suddenly sitting next to Per-rin. Foolish cub.
"I didn't come here by choice," Perrin protested. "I woke here."
Your mind is focused on it, Hopper said. Or the mind of one to whom you are
connected.
"Mat" Perrin said, without understanding how he knew. The colors didn't appear. They never did in the wolf dream.
As foolish a cub as yourself?
"Maybe more foolish."
Hopper smelled incredulous, as if unwilling to believe that was possible. Come, the wolf sent. It has returned.
"What has—"
Hopper vanished. Perrin followed with a frown. He now could easily catch the scent of where Hopper had gone. They appeared on the Jehannah Road, and that strange violet glass wall was there again, slicing the roadway in half, extending high in the air and into the distance in either direction. Perrin walked up to a tree. Its bare branches seemed trapped in the glass, immobile.
Hopper paced nearby. We have seen this thing before, he sent. Long, long ago. So many lives ago.
"What is it?"
A thing of men.
Hopper's sending included confused images. Flying, glowing discs. Impossibly tall structures of steel. Things from the Age of Legends? Hopper didn't understand their use any more than he understood the use of a horse cart or a candle.
Perrin looked down the roadway. He didn't recognize this section of Ghealdan; it must be farther toward Lugard. The wall had appeared in a different place than it had last time.
A thought occurring to him, Perrin moved down the roadway in a few jumping bursts. A hundred of paces away, he looked back and confirmed his suspicions. That glass didn't make a wall, but an enormous dome. Translucent, with a violet tint, it seemed to extend for leagues.
Hopper moved at a blur, coming to stand beside him. We must go.
"He's in there, isn't he?" Perrin asked. He reached out. Oak Dancer, Sparks and Boundless were near. Ahead, inside the dome. They responded with quick, frantic sendings, at hunt and being hunted.
"Why don't they flee?" Perrin asked.
Hopper sent confusion.
"I'm going to them," Perrin said, willing himself forward.
Nothing happened.
Perrin felt a stab of panic in his gut. What was wrong? He tried again, this time trying to send himself to the base of the dome.
It worked. He arrived in an eyeblink, that glasslike surface rising in a cliff face before him. It's this dome, he thought. It's blocking me. Suddenly, he understood the trapped feeling the wolves had sent. They couldn't get away.
Was that the purpose of this dome, then? To trap wolves so that Slayer could kill them? Perrin growled, stepping up to the surface of the dome. He couldn't pass in by imagining himself there, but perhaps he could he get through by more mundane means. He raised a hand, then hesitated. He didn't know what touching the surface would do.
The wolves sent images of a man in black and leather, with a harsh lined face and a smile curling on his lips as he launched arrows. He smelled wrong, so wrong. He also smelled of dead wolves.
Perrin couldn't leave them in there. No more than he could leave Master Gill and the others to the Whitecloaks. Furious at Slayer, he touched the surface of the dome.
His muscles suddenly lost strength. They felt like water, his legs unable to hold him up. He fell to the ground, hard. His foot was still touching the dome—passing through it. The dome appeared to have no substance.
His lungs no longer worked; inflating his chest was too difficult. Panicked, he imagined himself elsewhere, but it didn't work. He was trapped, as surely as the wolves!
A gray-silver blur appeared next to him. Jaws grabbed his shoulder. As Hopper pulled him free of the violet dome, Perrin immediately felt his strength return. He gasped for breath.
Foolish cub, Hopper sent.
"You'd leave them?" Perrin said, voice ragged.
Not foolish to dig in the hole. Foolish for not waiting for me in case hornets came out. Hopper turned toward the dome. Help me if I fall. He padded forward, then touched his nose to the dome. Hopper stumbled, but righted himself and continued on slowly. On the other side, he collapsed, but his chest continued to move.
"How did you do it?" Perrin asked, rising.
I am me. Hopper as he saw himself—which was identical to who he was. Also scents of strength and stability.
The trick, it seemed, was to be in complete control of who you were. Like many things in the wolf dream, the strength of one's mental image was more powerful than the substance of the world itself.
Come, Hopper sent. Be strong, pass through.
"I have a better idea," Perrin said, standing up. He charged forward at fuII speed. He hit the violet dome and immediately went limp, but his momentum carried him to the other side, where he rolled to a stop. He groaned, shoulder hurt, arm scraped. Foolish cub, Hopper sent. You must learn. "Now isn't the time," Perrin said, climbing to his feet. "We have to
help the others."
Arrows in the wind, thick, black, deadly. The hunter's laughter. The scent of a man who was stale. The killer was here. Hopper and Perrin ran down the road, and Perrin found that he could increase his speed within the dome. Tentatively, he tried jumping forward with a thought, and it worked. But when he tried to send himself outside, nothing happened.
So the dome was a barrier. Within it, he could move freely, but he could not move to a place outside it by imagining h
imself elsewhere. He had to pass the dome's wall physically if he wanted out.
Oak Dancer, Boundless and Sparks were ahead. And Slayer, too. Perrin growled—frantic sendings flooded him. Dark woods. Slayer. He seemed so tall to the wolves, a dark monster with a face chiseled as if from rock.
Blood on the grass. Pain, anger, terror, confusion. Sparks was wounded. The other two jumped back and forth, taunting and distracting Slayer while Sparks crawled toward the border of the dome.
Care, Young Bull, Hopper sent. This man hunts well. He moves almost like a wolf, though he is something wrong.
"I'll distract him. You get Sparks."
You have arms. You carry. There was more to the sending than that, of course: Hopper's age and experience, Perrin still a pup.
Perrin gritted his teeth, but didn't argue. Hopper was more experienced than he was. They parted, Perrin reaching out for Sparks, finding where he was—hidden within a patch of trees—and taking himself directly there.
The dark brown wolf had an arrow in his thigh, and he was whimpering softly, trailing blood as he crawled. Perrin knelt quickly and pulled the arrow out. The wolf continued to whimper, smelling frightened. Perrin held the arrow up. It smelled evil. Disgusted, he tossed it aside and picked up the wolf.
Something crackled nearby, and Perrin spun. Boundless leaped between two trees, smelling anxious. The other two wolves were leading Slayer away.
Perrin turned and ran toward the dome's nearest edge, carrying Sparks. He couldn't leap directly to the edge of the dome because he didn't know where it was.
He burst from the trees, heart thumping. The wolf in his arms seemed
to grow stronger as they left the arrow behind. Perrin ran more quicly, using a speed that felt reckless, moving hundreds of paces with blurring speed. The dome wall approached, and he pulled to a stop.
Slayer was suddenly there, standing before him, bow drawn. He wore a black cloak that billowed around him; he was no longer smiling, and his eyes were thunderous.
He released. Perrin shifted and never saw where the arrow landed. He appeared in the place where he'd first entered the dome; he should have gone there first. He hurled himself through the violet dome, collapsing on the other side, sending Sparks tumbling.
The wolf yelped. Perrin hit hard.
Young Bull! Sparks sent an image of Slayer, dark like a thunderhead, standing right inside the barrier with bow drawn.
Perrin didn't look. He shifted, sending himself to the slopes of Dragon-mount. Once there, he leaped to his feet, anxious, hammer appearing in his hand. Groups of nearby wolves sent greeting. Perrin ignored them for the moment.
Slayer did not follow. After a few tense moments, Hopper appeared. "Did the others get away?" Perrin asked.
They are free, he sent. Whisperer is dead. The sending showed the wolf— from the viewpoint of the others in the pack—being killed moments after the dome appeared. Sparks had taken an arrow as he nuzzled at her side in panic.
Perrin growled. He nearly jumped away to confront Slayer again, but a caution from Hopper stopped him. Too soon! You must learn!
"It's not only him," Perrin said. "I need to look at the area around my camp and that of the Whitecloaks. Something smells wrong there in the waking world. I need to see if something is odd there."
Odd? Hopper sent the image of the dome.
"It is probably related." The two oddities seemed likely to be more than mere coincidence.
Search another time. Slayer is too strong for you.
Perrin took a deep breath. "I have to face him eventually, Hopper."
Not now.
"No," Perrin agreed. "Not now. Now we practice." He turned to the wolf. "As we will do every night until I am ready."
Rodel Ituralde rolled over in his cot, neck slick with sweat. Had Saldaea always been this hot and muggy? He wished for home, the cool ocean breezes of Bandar Eban.
Things felt wrong. Why hadn't the Shadowspawn attacked? A hundred
possibilities rattled in his mind. Were they waiting for new siege engines?
Were they scouting out forests in order to build them? Or were their com-
manders content with a siege? The entire city was surrounded, but there
had to be enough Trollocs out there to overwhelm it now.
They had taken to beating drums. All hours. Thump, thump, thump. Steady, like the heartbeat of an enormous animal, the Great Serpent itself, coiling around the city.
Dawn was beginning to shine outside. He hadn't turned in until well after midnight. Durhem—who commanded the morning watch—had ordered that Ituralde not be disturbed until noon. His tent was in a shadowed alcove of the courtyard. He had wanted to be close to the wall, and had refused a bed. That had been foolish. Though a cot had been fine for him in previous years, he wasn't as young as he'd once been. Tomorrow, he'd move.
Now, he told himself, sleep.
It wasn't that easy. The accusation that he was Dragonsworn left him unsettled. In Arad Doman, he'd been fighting for his king, someone he'd believed in. Now he was fighting in a foreign land for a man he'd met only once. All because of a gut feeling.
Light, but it was hot. Sweat ran down his cheeks, making his neck itch. It shouldn't be this hot so early in the morning. It wasn't natural. Those burning drums, still pounding.
He sighed, climbing off his sweat-dampened cot. His leg ached. It had for days now.
You're an old man, Rodel, he thought, stripping off his sweaty smallclothes and getting out some freshly washed ones. He stuffed his trousers into knee-high riding boots. A simple white shirt with black buttons went on next, and then his gray coat, buttoning straight up to the collar.
He was strapping on his sword when he heard hurried footsteps outside, followed by whispers. That conversation grew heated, and he stepped outside just as someone said, "Lord Ituralde will wish to know!"
Know what?" Ituralde asked. A messenger boy was arguing with his guards. All three turned toward him sheepishly.
"I'm sorry, my Lord," Connel said. "We were instructed to let you sleep."
A man who can sleep in this heat must be half-lizard, Connel," Ituralde said. "Lad, what's the word?"
Captain Yoeli is on the wall, sir," the youth said. Ituralde recognized the young man—he'd been with him from near the beginning of this campaign. "He said you should come."
Ituralde nodded. He laid a hand on Connel's arm. "Thank you for watching me, old friend, but these bones aren't so frail as you think."
Connel nodded, blushing. The guard fell into place behind as Ituralde crossed the courtyard. The sun had risen. Many of his troops were up. Too many. He wasn't the only one having difficulty sleeping.
Atop the wall, he was greeted by a disheartening sight. On the dying land, thousand upon thousands of Trollocs camped, burning fires. Ituralde didn't like to think about where the wood for those fires came from. Hopefully all of the nearby homesteaders and villagers had heeded the call to evacuate.
Yoeli stood gripping the crenelated stone of the wall, next to a man in a black coat. Deepe Bhadar was senior among the Asha'man whom al'Thor had given him, one of only three who wore both the Dragon and the sword pins on his collar. The Andoran man had a flat face and black hair that he wore long. Ituralde had sometimes heard some of the black-coated men mumbling to themselves, but not Deepe. He seemed fully in control.
Yoeli kept glancing at the Asha'man; Ituralde didn't feel comfortable. with men who could channel either. But they were an excellent tool, and they hadn't failed him. He preferred to let experience, instead of rumor, rule him.
"Lord Ituralde," Deepe said. The Asha'man never saluted Ituralde, just al'Thor.
"What is it?" Ituralde asked, scanning the hordes of Trollocs. They didn't seem to have changed since he'd bedded down.
"Your man claims to be able toyW something," Yoeli said. "Out there."
"They have channelers, Lord Ituralde," Deepe said. "I suspect at least six, perhaps more. Men, since I can feel the Power they
're wielding, doing something powerful. If I squint at the far camps, I think I can sometimes see weaves, but it may be my imagination."
Ituralde cursed. "That's what they've been waiting for."
"What?" Yoeli asked.
"With Asha'man of their own—"
"They are not Asha'man," Deepe said fervently.
"All right, then. With channelers of their own, they can tear this wall down easily as knocking over a pile of blocks, Yoeli. That sea of Trollocs will surge in and fill your streets."
"Not so long as I stand," Deepe said.
"I like determination in a soldier, Deepe," Ituralde said, "but you look as exhausted as I feel."
Deepe shot him a glare. His eyes were red from lack of sleep, and he
clenched his teeth, the muscles in his neck and face tense. He met Itural-
de-s eyes, then took a long, forced breath.
"You are correct," Deepe said. "But neither of us can do anything
about that." He raised his hand, doing something that Ituralde couldn't
see. A flash of red light appeared over his hand—the signal he used to
draw the others to him. "Prepare your men, General, Captain. It will not
be long. They cannot continue to hold that kind of Power without . . .
consequences."
Yoeli nodded, then hurried away. Ituralde took Deepe's arm, drawing
his attention.
"You Asha'man are too important a resource to lose," Ituralde said. "The Dragon sent us here to help, not to die. If this city falls, I want you to take the others and whatever wounded you can and get out. Do you understand, soldier?"
"Many of my men will not like this."
"But you know it is for the best," Ituralde said. "Don't you?"
Deepe hesitated. "Yes. You are correct, as you so often are. I will get them out." He spoke in a lower voice. "This is a hopeless resistance, my Lord. Whatever is happening out there, it will be deadly. It galls me to suggest it . . . but what you have said about my Asha'man applies to your soldiers as well. Let us flee." He said the word "flee" with bitterness.
"The Saldaeans wouldn't leave with us."
"I know."
Ituralde considered it. Finally, he shook his head. "Every day we delay up here keeps these monsters away from my homeland a day longer. No, I cannot go, Deepe. This is still the best place to fight. You've seen how fortified those buildings are; we can hold inside for a few days, split apart, keep the army busy."
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