Perrin wasn’t falling. He just hung there. He waved his arms reflexively, as if to swim, panicking as his mind tried to make sense of the disorientation.
The wolf dream, he thought. I’m in the wolf dream. I went to sleep, hoping to come here.
He forced himself to breathe in and out and still his flailing, though it was difficult to be calm while hanging hundreds of feet up in the sky. Suddenly, a gray-furred form shot past him, leaping through the air. The wolf soared down to the field below, landing easily.
“Hopper!”
Jump down, Young Bull. Jump. It is safe. As always, the Sending from the wolf came as a mixture of scents and images. Perrin was getting better and better at interpreting those—the soft earth as a representation of the ground, rushing wind as an image of jumping, the scent of relaxation and calmness to indicate there was no need to fear.
“But how?”
Times before, you always rushed ahead, like a pup newly weaned. Jump. Jump down! Far below, Hopper sat on his haunches in the field, grinning up at Perrin.
Perrin ground his teeth and muttered a curse or two for stubborn wolves. It seemed to him that the dead ones were particularly bullheaded. Though Hopper did have a point. Perrin had leaped before in this place, if never from the sky itself.
He took a deep breath, then closed his eyes and imagined himself jumping. Air rushed around him in a sudden burst, but then his feet hit soft ground. He opened his eyes. A large gray wolf, scarred from many fights, was sitting on the ground beside him, and wild millet spread out in a broad plain around him, heavily mixed with stands of long, thin grasses that reached high in the air. Scratchy stalks rubbed against Perrin’s arms in the wind, making him itch. The grasses smelled too dry, like cut hay left in a barn over the winter.
Some things were transitory here in the Wolf Dream; leaves lay in a pile by his feet at one moment, but then were gone the next. Everything smelled just faintly stale, as if it weren’t quite there.
He looked up. The sky was stormy. Normally, clouds in this place were as transitory as other things. It could be completely overcast; then, in a blink, it would suddenly be clear. This time, those dark storm clouds remained. They boiled, spun, and shot lines of lightning between different thunderheads. Yet the lightning never struck the ground, and it made no noise.
The plain was oddly silent. The clouds shrouded the entire sky, ominous. And they did not leave.
The Last Hunt comes. Hopper looked up at the sky. We will run together, then. Unless we sleep instead.
“Sleep?” Perrin said. “What of the Last Hunt?”
It comes, Hopper agreed. If Shadowkiller falls to the storm, all will sleep forever. If he lives, then we will hunt together. You and us.
Perrin rubbed his chin, trying to sort through the Sending of images, smells, sounds, feelings. It made little sense to him.
But, well, he was here now. He’d wanted to come, and he’d decided that he’d get some answers from Hopper, if he could. It was good to see Hopper again.
Run, Hopper sent. His Sending was not alarmed. It was an offer. Let us run together.
Perrin nodded, and began to jog through the grasses. Hopper loped beside him, sending amusement. Two legs, Young Bull? Two legs are slow! That Sending was an image of men stumbling over themselves, tripping because of their elongated, silly legs.
Perrin hesitated. “I have to keep control, Hopper,” he said. “When I let the wolf take control . . . well, I do dangerous things.”
The wolf cocked his head, trotting beside Perrin across the grassy field. The stalks crunched and scraped as the two of them passed through, finding a small game trail, turning along it.
Run, Hopper urged, obviously confused at Perrin’s reluctance.
“I can’t,” Perrin said, stopping. Hopper turned and took a few bounds back to him. He smelled confused.
“Hopper, I frighten myself,” Perrin said, “when I lose control. The first time it happened to me was just after I met the wolves. You need to help me understand.”
Hopper simply continued to stare at him, tongue hanging out the front of his mouth just slightly, jaws parted.
Why am I doing this? Perrin thought, shaking his head. Wolves didn’t think like men. What did it matter what Hopper thought of it all?
We will hunt together, Hopper sent.
“What if I don’t want to hunt with you?” Perrin said. Saying the words made his heart twist. He did like this place, the wolf dream, dangerous though it could be. There were wonderful things about what had happened to him since leaving the Two Rivers.
But he couldn’t continue to lose control. He had to find a balance. Throwing away the axe had made a difference. The axe and the hammer were different weapons—one could be used only for killing, while the other gave him a choice.
But he had to make good on that choice. He had to control himself. And the first step seemed to be learning to control the wolf within him.
Run with me, Young Bull, Hopper sent. Forget these thoughts. Run like a wolf.
“I can’t,” Perrin replied. He turned, scanning the plains. “But I need to know this place, Hopper. I need to learn how to use it, control it.”
Men, Hopper thought, Sending the smells of dismissiveness and anger. Control. Always control.
“I want you to teach me,” Perrin said, turning back to the wolf. “I want to master this place. Will you show me how?”
Hopper sat back on his haunches.
“Fine,” Perrin said. “I will search out other wolves who will.”
He turned, striking down the game trail. He didn’t recognize this place, but he’d learned that the wolf dream was unpredictable. This meadow with the waist-high grass and its stands of yew could be anywhere. Where would he find wolves? He quested out with his mind, and found that it was much more difficult to do here.
You don’t want to run. But you look for wolves. Why are you so difficult, cub? Hopper sat in front of him in the grass.
Perrin grumbled, then took a leap that launched him through the air a hundred yards. He landed with his foot falling to the grass as if it had been a normal step.
And there Hopper was ahead of him. Perrin hadn’t seen the wolf leap. He had been in one place, and now in another. Perrin gritted his teeth, questing out again. For other wolves. He felt something, distant. He needed to push harder. He concentrated, drew more strength into himself, somehow, and managed to push his mind farther.
This is dangerous, Young Bull, Hopper sent. You come here too strongly. You will die.
“You always say that,” Perrin replied. “Tell me what I want to know. Show me how to learn.”
Stubborn pup, Hopper Sent. Return when you aren’t determined to poke your snout into a fireasp’s den.
With that, something slammed against Perrin, a weight against his mind. Everything vanished, and he was tossed—like a leaf before a storm—out of the wolf dream.
Faile felt her husband stir next to her as he slept. She glanced at him in the dark tent; though she lay beside him on the pallet, she hadn’t been sleeping. She’d been waiting, listening to his breaths. He turned onto his back, muttering drowsily.
Of all the nights for him to be restless . . . she thought with annoyance.
They were a week out of Malden. The refugees had made camp—or, well, camps—near a waterway that led straight to the Jehannah Road, which was only a short distance away.
Things had gone smoothly these last few days, though Perrin had judged the Asha’man too tired still to make gateways. She had spent the evening with her husband, reminding him of several important reasons why he’d married her in the first place. He’d certainly been enthusiastic, though there was that odd edge to his eyes. Not a dangerous edge, just a sorrowful one. He had grown haunted while they were apart. She could understand that. She had a few ghosts of her own. One could not expect everything to remain the same, and she could tell that he still loved her—loved her fiercely. That was enough, and so she didn’t worry on it further.
But she was planning an argument that would pull his secrets from him. She would wait a few more days for that. It was good to remind a husband that one would not sit content with everything he did, but it wouldn’t do to make him think she was unappreciative to have him back.
Quite the opposite. She smiled, rolling over and laying her hand on his chest, furred with hair, her head on his bare shoulder. She loved this burly, tumbling avalanche of a man. Being back with him was sweeter, even, than the victory of her escape from the Shaido.
His eyes fluttered open and she sighed. Love him or not, she wished he’d remain asleep this night! Hadn’t she tired him out enough?
He looked at her; his golden eyes seemed to glow just faintly in the darkness, though she knew it was a trick of the light. Then he pulled her a little closer. “I didn’t sleep with Berelain,” he said, voice gruff. “No matter what the rumors say.”
Dear, sweet, blunt Perrin. “I know you didn’t,” she said consolingly. She’d heard the rumors. Virtually every woman she’d talked to in the camp, from Aes Sedai to servant, had pretended she was trying to hold her tongue, yet spilled the same news. Perrin, spending a night in the First of Mayene’s tent.
“No, really,” Perrin said, a pleading tone entering his voice. “I didn’t, Faile. Please.”
“I said I believed you.”
“You sounded . . . I don’t know. Burn it, woman, you sounded jealous.”
Would he never learn? “Perrin,” she said flatly. “It took me the better part of a year—not to mention considerable trouble—to seduce you, and then it only worked because there was a marriage involved! Berelain hasn’t the skill to handle you.”
He reached his right hand up, scratching his beard, seeming confused. Then he just smiled.
“Besides,” she added, snuggling closer, “you spoke the words. And I trust you.”
“So you’re not jealous?”
“Of course I am,” she said, swatting his chest. “Perrin, haven’t I explained this? A husband needs to know his wife is jealous, otherwise he won’t realize how much she cares for him. You guard that which you find most precious. Honestly, if you keep making me spell things out like this, then I won’t have any secrets left!”
He snorted softly at that last comment. “I doubt that’s possible.”
He grew quiet, and she closed her eyes, hoping he’d go back to sleep. Outside the tent, she could hear the distant voices of guards chatting on patrol and the sound of one of the farriers—Jerasid, Aemin or Falton—working late into the night, pounding out a shoe or nail to ready one of the horses for the next day’s march. It was good to hear that sound again. The Aiel were useless when it came to horses, and the Shaido had either released the ones they captured or turned them into workhorses. She had seen many fine saddle mares pulling carts during her days in Malden.
Should it feel strange to be back? She had spent less than two months as a captive, but it had seemed like years. Years spent running errands for Sevanna, being punished arbitrarily. But that time had not broken her. Strangely, she’d felt more like a noblewoman during those days than she had before.
It was as if she hadn’t quite understood what it was to be a lady until Malden. Oh, she’d had her share of victories. Cha Faile, the people of the Two Rivers, Alliandre and Perrin’s camp members. She’d put her training to use, helping Perrin learn to be a leader. All of this had been important, had required her to use what her mother and father had trained her to be.
But Malden had opened her eyes. There, she had found people who had needed her more than she’d ever been needed before. Beneath Sevanna’s cruel dictatorship, there had been no time for games, no room for mistakes. She had been humiliated, beaten and nearly killed. And that had given her a true understanding of what it was to be a liege lady. She actually felt a stab of guilt for the times she had lorded over Perrin, trying to force him—or others—to bend to her will. Being a noblewoman meant going first. It meant being beaten so others were not. It meant sacrificing, risking death, to protect those who depended upon you.
No, it didn’t feel strange to be back, for she’d taken Malden—the parts that mattered—with her. Hundreds had sworn allegiance to her among the gai’shain, and she had saved them. She had done it through Perrin, but she had made plans, and one way or another, she would have escaped and brought back an army to free those who had sworn to her.
There had been costs. But she would deal with those later tonight, Light willing. She opened an eye and peeked at Perrin. He seemed to be sleeping, but was his breath even? She slipped her arm free.
“I don’t care what happened to you,” he said.
She sighed. No, not asleep. “What happened to me?” she asked with confusion.
He opened his eyes, staring up at the tent. “The Shaido, the man who was with you when I saved you. Whatever he did . . . whatever you did to survive. It’s all right.”
Was that what was bothering him? Light! “You big ox,” she said, thumping a fist on his chest, causing him to grunt. “What are you saying? That it would be all right for me to be unfaithful? Just after you were so concerned to tell me that you hadn’t been?”
“What? No, it’s different, Faile. You were a prisoner, and—”
“And I can’t care for myself? You are an ox. No one touched me. They’re Aiel. You know they wouldn’t dare harm a gai’shain.” It wasn’t quite true; women had often been abused in the Shaido camp, for the Shaido had stopped acting like Aiel.
But there had been others in the camp, Aiel who hadn’t been Shaido. Men who had refused to accept Rand as their Car’a’carn, but who also had trouble accepting Shaido authority. The Brotherless had been men of honor; though they’d called themselves cast off, they had been the only ones in Malden who had maintained the old ways. When the gai’shain women had started to be in danger, the Brotherless had chosen and protected those they could. They hadn’t asked anything for their efforts.
Well . . . that wasn’t true. They had asked for much, but had demanded nothing. Rolan had always been an Aiel to her in action, if not in word. But, like Masema’s death, her relationship with Rolan was not something Perrin needed to know about. She had never so much as kissed Rolan, but she had used his desire for her as an advantage. And she suspected that he’d known what she was doing.
Perrin had killed Rolan. That was another reason that her husband didn’t need to know about the Brotherless man’s kindness. It would tear Perrin apart inside if he knew what he’d done.
Perrin relaxed, closing his eyes. He had changed during these two months, perhaps as much as she had. That was good. In the Borderlands, her people had a saying: “Only the Dark One stays the same.” Men grew and progressed; the Shadow just remained as it was. Evil.
“We’ll have to do some planning tomorrow,” Perrin said, yawning. “Once gateways are available, we will have to decide whether to force the people to leave, and decide who goes first. Has anyone discovered what happened to Masema?”
“Not that I know of,” she said carefully. “But with so many of his possessions gone from his tent. . . .”
“Masema doesn’t care about possessions,” Perrin mumbled quietly, eyes still closed. “Though maybe he would have taken them to rebuild. I guess he might have run off, though it’s strange that nobody knows where or how.”
“He probably slipped away during the confusion after the battle.”
“Probably,” Perrin agreed. “I wonder . . .” He yawned. “I wonder what Rand will say. Masema was the point of this whole trip. I was to fetch him and bring him back, and I guess I’ve failed.”
“You destroyed the men who were murdering and robbing in the Dragon’s name,” Faile said, “and you cut out the heart of the Shaido leadership, not to mention all you’ve learned about the Seanchan. I think the Dragon will find that what you’ve accomplished here far outweighs not bringing Masema back.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Perrin mumbled sleepily. “Blasted colors. . . . I don’t wa
nt to watch you sleeping, Rand. What happened to your hand? Light-blinded fool, take better care of yourself. . . . You’re all we have. . . . Last Hunt coming. . . .”
She could barely make out that last part. Why was he talking about Rand’s hand going hunting? Was he actually falling asleep this time?
Sure enough, he soon started snoring softly. She smiled, shaking her head fondly. He was an ox, sometimes. But he was her ox. She climbed off of the pallet and moved through their tent, pulling on a robe and tying its belt. A pair of sandals followed, and then she slipped out through the tent flaps. Arrela and Lacile guarded there, along with two Maidens. The Maidens nodded to her; they would keep her secret.
Faile left the Maiden guards, but took Arrela and Lacile with her as she walked out into the darkness. Arrela was a dark-haired Tairen woman who was taller than most Maidens, with a brusque way about her. Lacile was short, pale, and very slender, and she walked with a graceful sway. They were as different as women could get, perhaps, though their captivity had united them all. Both members of Cha Faile had been captured with her and gone to Malden as gai’shain.
After traveling a short distance, they picked up two other Maidens—Bain and Chiad had spoken with them, likely. They passed out of the camp, moving to a spot where a pair of willow trees stood side by side. There, Faile was met by a pair of women who still wore gai’shain white. Bain and Chiad were Maidens themselves, first-sisters and dear to Faile. They were more loyal—even—than those who had sworn to her. Loyal to her, yet free of oaths to her. A contradiction only Aiel could pull off.
Unlike Faile and the others, Bain and Chiad would not put off the white just because their captors had been defeated. They would wear the clothing for a year and a day. In fact, coming here this night—acknowledging their lives from before they had been taken—stretched what their honor would allow. However, they admitted that being gai’shain in the Shaido camp had been anything but standard.
Faile met them with a smile, but did not shame them by calling them by name or by using Maiden handtalk. However, she couldn’t keep herself from asking, “You are well?” as she accepted a small bundle from Chiad.
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