The Gathering Storm

by Robert Jordan

  Thom shook his head grimly, and the three of them crept forward. They found the cook in the next hallway, grunting as he beat on the head of what appeared to be the innkeeper. It was a man in a white apron, at least. He was already dead. The fat cook turned toward Mat and Talmanes the moment they entered the hallway, feral rage in his eyes. Mat reluctantly struck, silencing him before he could howl and bring more people against them.

  “There’s fighting on the stairs,” Talmanes said, nodding forward.

  “I’ll bet there’s a servants’ stairwell,” Thom noted. “This looks like a nice enough place for it.”

  Sure enough, by cutting through two hallways in the back, they found a narrow, rickety stairwell leading up into darkness. Mat took a deep breath, then started up the stairs, holding his ashandarei at the ready. The inn was only two stories high, and the flashes had been coming from the second floor, near the front.

  They entered the second floor, pushing open the door to the acrid scent of burned flesh. The hallways here were of wood, the grain obscured by thick white paint. The floor lay under a deep chestnut carpet. Mat nodded to Talmanes and Thom, and—weapons at the ready—they burst out of the stairwell and into the hallway.

  Immediately, a ball of fire whooshed in their direction. Mat cursed, throwing himself backward and into Talmanes, narrowly avoiding the fire. Thom flattened himself with a gleeman’s agility, getting under the fire. Mat and Talmanes almost tumbled back down the stairs.

  “Bloody ashes!” Mat yelled into the hallway. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  There was silence. Followed, finally, by Joline’s voice. “Cauthon?” she called.

  “Who do you bloody think it is!” he shouted back.

  “I don’t know!” she said. “You came around so quickly, weapons out. Are you trying to get killed?”

  “We’re trying to rescue you!” Mat yelled.

  “Do we look like we need rescuing?” came the response.

  “Well, you’re still here, aren’t you?” Mat called back.

  That was met with silence.

  “Oh, for Light’s sake,” Joline finally called back. “Will you come out here?”

  “You’re not going to throw another fireball at me, are you?” Mat muttered, stepping out into the hallway as Thom climbed to his feet, Talmanes following. He found the three Aes Sedai standing at the head of the wide, handsome stairs at the other end of the hallway. Teslyn and Edesina continued to throw fireballs down at unseen villagers below, their hair wet, their dresses disheveled as if they’d been donned hastily. Joline wore only an enveloping white dressing robe, her pretty face calm, her dark hair slick and wet and hanging down over the front of her right shoulder. The robe was parted slightly at the top, giving a hint of what hid inside. Talmanes whistled softly.

  “She’s not a woman, Talmanes,” Mat whispered warningly. “She’s an Aes Sedai. Don’t think of her as a woman.”

  “I’m trying, Mat,” Talmanes said. “But it’s hard.” He hesitated, then added, “Burn me.”

  “Be careful or she will,” Mat said, tugging his hat down slightly in the front. “In fact, she nearly did that just a moment ago.”

  Talmanes sighed, and the three of them crossed the hallway to the women. Joline’s two Warders and the three Redarms, who had their weapons out, stood just inside the bathing chamber. A dozen or so servants were tied up in the corner: a pair of young girls—probably bathing attendants—and several men in vests and trousers. Apparently Joline’s dress had been cut to strips and used for bonds. The silk would work far better than wool towels. Near the top of the stairs, just below the Aes Sedai, Mat could barely make out a cluster of corpses that had fallen to swords, not fire.

  Joline eyed Mat as he approached, a look implying that she considered all this to be his fault somehow. She folded her arms, closing up the top of the robe, though he wasn’t sure if that was because of Talmanes’ gawking or if the move was coincidental.

  “We need to move,” Mat told the women. “The whole city has gone mad.”

  “We can’t go,” Joline said. “Not and leave those servants to the mob. Besides, we need to find Master Tobrad and make certain he is safe.”

  “Master Tobrad is the innkeeper?” Mat asked. A fireball whooshed down the stairs.

  “Yes,” Joline said.

  “Too late,” Mat said. “His brains are already decorating the walls downstairs. Look, like I said, the entire village is crazy. Those servants tried to kill you, didn’t they?”

  Joline hesitated. “Yes.”

  “Leave them,” Mat said. “We can’t do anything for them.”

  “But if we wait until dawn . . .” Joline said hesitantly.

  “And what?” Mat said. “Burn to ash every person who tries to climb those stairs? You’re making a ruckus here, and it’s drawing more and more people. You’re going to have to kill them all to stop them.”

  Joline glanced at the other two women.

  “Look,” Mat said. “I have a wounded Redarm down below, and I intend to get him out of this alive. You can’t do any good for these people here. I suspect the men had to kill that group at the top of the stairs before you all felt threatened enough to use the Power. You know how determined they are.”

  “All right,” Joline said. “I’ll come. But we’re bringing the two serving girls. Blaeric and Fen can carry them.”

  Mat sighed—he’d have liked the Warders’ blades free to help in case they ran into trouble—but said nothing more. He nodded to Talmanes and Thom, and waited impatiently as the Warders picked up the two bound serving girls and slung them over shoulders. After that, the whole group hustled back down the servants’ stairwell, Talmanes leading and Mat and the Redarms at the rear. He could hear screams that sounded half angry, half joyous as the villagers at the base of the stairs realized no more fire would fall. There were thumps and shouts, followed by doors opening, and Mat cringed, imagining the other servants—left tied up in the bathing chamber—falling to the crowd.

  Mat and the others burst out into the backyard of the inn, only to find Delarn on the ground beside Pips. Harnan knelt beside him, and the bearded soldier looked up with anxiety. “Mat!” he said. “He fell from the saddle. I—”

  Edesina cut him off, rushing over and kneeling beside Delarn. She closed her eyes, and Mat felt a chill from his medallion. It made him shiver as he imagined the One Power leaking out of her and into the man. That was almost as bad as dying, bloody ashes but it was! He gripped the medallion beneath his shirt.

  Delarn stiffened, but then gasped, eyes fluttering open.

  “It is done,” Edesina said, standing up. “He will be weak from the Healing, but I reached him in time.”

  Harnan had gathered and saddled all of their horses, Light bless him. Good man. The women mounted, and spared several glances over their shoulders at the inn.

  “It’s as if the darkness itself intoxicates them,” Thom said while Mat helped Delarn into his saddle. “As if Light itself has forsaken them, leaving them only to the Shadow. . . .”

  “Nothing we can do,” Mat said, pulling himself into his saddle behind Delarn. The soldier was too weak to ride on his own, after that Healing. Mat eyed the serving girls that the Warders had slung over the fronts of their horses. They struggled against their bonds, hate in their eyes. He turned and nodded to Talmanes, who had affixed the lantern to a saddle pole. The Cairhienin opened the shield, bathing the inn’s stableyard in light. A path led northward, out of the yard into the dark. Away from the army, but also directly out of the village, toward the hills. That was good enough for Mat.

  “Ride,” he said, kicking Pips into motion. The group fell in beside him.

  “I told you we should leave,” Talmanes noted, looking over his shoulder, riding at Mat’s left. “But you had to stay for one more toss.”

  Mat didn’t look back. “Not my fault, Talmanes. How was I to know that staying would cause them all to start tearing each other’s throats out?”
r />   “What?” Talmanes asked, glancing at him. “Isn’t this usually how people react when you tell them you’re going to spend the night?”

  Mat rolled his eyes, but didn’t feel much like laughing as he led the group out of the village.

  Hours later, Mat sat on a rock outcropping on a dark hillside, looking down at Hinderstap. The village was dark. Not a light burned. It was impossible to tell what was going on, but still he watched. How could a man sleep, after what they’d been through?

  Well, the soldiers did sleep. He didn’t blame Delarn. An Aes Sedai Healing could drain a man. Mat had felt that icy chill himself on occasion, and he didn’t intend to repeat the experience. Talmanes and the other Redarms hadn’t the excuse of a Healing, but they were soldiers. Soldiers learned to sleep when they could, and the night’s experience didn’t seem to have disturbed them nearly as much as it had Mat. Oh, they’d been worried while in the thick of it, but now it was just another battle passed. Another battle survived. That had led stout Harnan to joking and smiling as they bedded down.

  Not Mat. There was an odd wrongness about the entire experience. Was the curfew intended to keep this from happening, somehow? Had Mat, by staying, caused all of these deaths? Blood and bloody ashes. Did no place in the world make sense anymore?

  “Mat, lad,” Thom said, joining him, walking with his familiar limp. He’d had a fractured arm, though he hadn’t mentioned it until Edesina had noticed him flinching and insisted on Healing him. “You should sleep.” Now that the moon had risen—hidden behind the clouds—there was enough light for Mat to see Thom’s concern.

  The group had stopped in a small hollow off one side of the trail. It gave a good view back toward the village, and—more importantly—it overlooked the path that Mat and the others had used to escape. The hollow lay on a steep hillside, the only approach from below. One person on watch could keep a good eye out for anyone trying to sneak into the camp.

  The Aes Sedai had bedded down near the back of the hollow, though Mat didn’t think they were actually sleeping. Joline’s Warders had thought to bring bedrolls, just in case. Warders were like that. Mat’s men only had their cloaks, but that hadn’t deterred them from sleeping. Talmanes was even snoring softly, despite the spring chill. Mat had forbidden a fire. It wasn’t so cold that they needed one, and it would just signal anyone looking for them.

  “I’m fine, Thom,” Mat said, making room on his rock as the gleeman settled down. “You’re the one who should get some sleep.”

  Thom shook his head. “One nice thing I’ve noticed about getting older is that your body doesn’t seem to need its sleep as much anymore. Dying doesn’t take as much energy as growing, I guess.”

  “Don’t start that again,” Mat said. “Do I need to remind you about how you hauled my skinny backside out of trouble back there? What was that you were worried about earlier? That I didn’t need you anymore? If you hadn’t been with me today, if you hadn’t come looking for me, I’d be dead in that village. Delarn too.”

  Thom grinned, eyes bright in the moonlight. “All right, Mat,” he said. “No more. I promise.”

  Mat nodded. The two of them sat for a time on their rock, looking out at the city. “It’s not going to leave me alone, Thom,” Mat finally said.

  “What?”

  “All of this,” Mat said tiredly. “The bloody Dark One and his spawn. They’ve been chasing me since that night in the Two Rivers, and nothing has stopped them.”

  “You think this was him?”

  “What else could it have been?” Mat asked. “Quiet village folk, turning into violent madmen? It’s the Dark One’s own work, and you know it.”

  Thom was silent. “Yes,” he finally said. “I suppose it is at that.”

  “They’re still coming for me,” Mat said angrily. “That bloody gholam is out there, I know it is, but that’s just part of it. Myrddraal and Darkfriends, monsters and ghosts. Chasing me and hunting me. I’ve stumbled from one disaster to another, barely keeping my neck above water, ever since this began. I keep saying I just need to find a hole somewhere to dice and drink, but that won’t stop it. Nothing will.”

  “You’re ta’veren, lad,” Thom said.

  “I didn’t ask to be. Burn me, I wish they’d all just go bother Rand. He likes it.” He shook his head, dispelling the image that formed, showing Rand asleep in his bed, Min curled up beside him.

  “You really think that?” Thom asked.

  Mat hesitated. “I wish I did,” he admitted. “It would make things easier.”

  “Lies never make things easier in the long run. Unless they’re to exactly the right person—usually a woman—at exactly the right time. When you tell them to yourself, you just bring more trouble.”

  “I brought those people trouble. In the village.” He glanced toward the back of the camp, where the two Warders sat, guarding the still-bound serving girls. They continued to struggle. Light! Where did they get the strength? It was inhuman.

  “I don’t think this was you, Mat,” Thom said thoughtfully. “Oh, I don’t disagree that trouble hunts you—the Dark One himself seems to do so. But Hinderstap . . . well, when I was singing in that common room, I heard some tidbits. They seemed like nothing. But looking back, it strikes me that the people were expecting this. Or something like it.”

  “How could they have been?” Mat said. “If this had happened before, they’d all be dead.”

  “Don’t know,” Thom said thoughtfully. Then something seemed to strike him. He began fishing inside his cloak. “Oh, I forgot. Maybe there is some connection between you and what happened. I managed to take this away from a man who was too drunk for his own good.” The gleeman pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to Mat.

  Mat took the paper, frowning, and unfolded it. He squinted in the diffuse moonlight, leaning close, and grunted when he made out what the paper contained—not words, but a very accurate drawing of Mat’s face, hat atop his head. It even had the foxhead medallion drawn in around his neck. Bloody ashes.

  He contained his annoyance. “Handsome fellow. Good nose, straight teeth, dashing hat.”

  Thom snorted.

  “I saw some men showing a paper to the mayor,” Mat said, refolding the drawing. “I didn’t see what was on it, but I’ll bet it was the same as this. What did the man you took this from say about it?”

  “An outlander woman in some village north of here is giving them out and offering a reward to anyone who has seen you. The man got the paper from a friend, so he didn’t have a description of her or the town’s name. Either his friend kept him ignorant, wanting the reward for himself, or he was just too drunk to remember.”

  Mat tucked the paper into his coat pocket. The light of false dawn was beginning to glow to the east. He’d sat up all night, but he didn’t feel tired. Just . . . drained. “I’m going back,” he said.

  “What?” Thom asked, surprised. “To Hinderstap?”

  Mat nodded, rising. “As soon as it’s light. I need to—”

  A muffled curse interrupted him. He spun, reaching for his ashandarei. Thom had a pair of knives in his hands in the blink of an eye. Fen, Joline’s Saldaean Warder, was the one who had cursed. He stood, hand on his sword, searching the ground around him. Blaeric stood by the Aes Sedai, sword out, alert and on guard.

  “What?” Mat asked tersely.

  “The prisoners,” Fen said.

  Mat started, realizing that the lumps that had lain near the Warders were gone. He dashed over, cursing. Talmanes’ snores stopped as the sounds woke him and he sat up. The bonds made from strips of Joline’s dress lay on the ground, but the serving girls were gone.

  “What happened?” Mat asked, looking up.

  “I . . .” The dark-haired Warder looked dumbfounded. “I have no idea. They were here just a moment ago!”

  “Did you doze off?” Mat demanded.

  “Fen wouldn’t have done such a thing,” Joline said, sitting up in her bedroll, her voice calm. She still wore
only that dressing robe.

  “Lad,” Thom said, “we both saw those girls here barely a minute ago.”

  Talmanes cursed and woke the five Redarms. Delarn was looking a great deal better, his weakness from the Healing barely seeming to bother him as he climbed to his feet. The Warders called for a search, but Mat just turned back to the village below. “The answers are there,” Mat said. “Thom, you’re with me. Talmanes, watch the women.”

  “We have little need of being ‘watched,’ Matrim,” Joline said grumpily.

  “Fine,” he snapped. “Thom, you’re with me. Joline, you watch the soldiers. Either way, you all stay here. I can’t worry about a whole group right now.”

  He didn’t give them a chance to argue. Within minutes, Mat and Thom were on their horses, riding down the path back toward Hinderstap.

  “Lad,” Thom said, “what is it you expect to find?”

  “I don’t know,” Mat replied. “If I did, I wouldn’t be so keen to look.”

  “Fair enough,” Thom said softly.

  Mat spotted the oddities almost immediately. Those goats out on the western pasture. He couldn’t tell for certain in the dawn light, but it looked like someone was herding them. And were those lights winking on in the village? There hadn’t been a single one of those all night long! He hastened Pips’ pace, Thom following silently.

  It took the better part of an hour to arrive—Mat hadn’t wanted to risk camping too close, though he’d also been disinclined to hunt a way around and back to the army in the dark. It was fully light, if still very early, by the time they rode back into the inn’s yard. A couple of men in dun coats were working on the back door, which had apparently been broken off its hinges sometime after Mat and the others left. The men looked up as Mat and Thom rode into the yard, and one of them pulled off his cap, looking anxious. Neither one made a threatening move.

  Mat slowed Pips to a halt. One of the men whispered to the other, who ran inside. A moment later, a balding man with a white apron stepped out through the doorway. Mat felt himself go pale.