Perrin moved among the tents, looking to see if he could discover anything that Elyas and the Aiel had not. It was unlikely, but he figured it was worth an attempt, while he was here. Besides, he wanted to see the place with his own eyes. He lifted flaps, moved between groupings of tents, inspecting the place and getting a feel for it and its occupants. The camp was arranged in a very orderly manner. The insides were less stable than the tents themselves, but what he saw was also kept orderly.
The Whitecloaks liked things neat, tidy and carefully folded. And they liked to pretend the entire world could be polished up and cleaned the same way, people defined and explained in one or two words.
Perrin shook his head, making his way to the Lord Captain Commander's tent. The organization of the tents led him to it easily, at the center ring, It wasn't much larger than the other tents, and Perrin ducked inside, trying to see if he could find anything of use. It was furnished simply, with a bed—that was in a different position each time Perrin looked at it, along with a table holding objects that vanished and appeared at random.
Perrin stepped up to it, picking up something that appeared there. A signet ring. He didn't recognize the signet, a winged dagger, but memorized it just before the ring vanished from his fingers, too transient to stay long in the wolf dream. Though he'd met with the Whitecloak leader, and corresponded with the man, he didn't know much about the man's past. Perhaps this would help.
He searched through the tent a while longer, finding nothing of use, then went to the large tent where Gaul had explained that many of the captives were being kept. Here, he saw Master Gill's hat appear for a moment, then vanish.
Satisfied, Perrin walked back out of the tent. As he did so, he found something bothering him. Shouldn't he have tried something like this when Faile was kidnapped? He'd sent numerous scouts to Maiden. Light he'd had to restrain himself from marching off to find Faile on his own. But he'd never tried visiting the place in the wolf dream.
Perhaps it would have been useless. But he hadn't considered the possibility, and that troubled him.
He froze, passing a cart parked beside one of the Whitecloak tents. The back was open, and a grizzled silver wolf lay there, watching him.
"I do let my attention grow too narrow, Hopper," Perrin said. "When I get consumed by a goal, it can make me careless. That can be dangerous. As in battle, when concentrating on the adversary in front of you can expose you to the archer on the side."
Hopper cracked his mouth open, smiling after the way of wolves. He hopped from the cart. Perrin could sense other wolves nearby—the others of the pack he had run with before. Oak Dancer, Sparks and Boundless.
"All right," he said to Hopper. "I'm ready to learn."
Hopper sat down on his haunches, regarding Perrin. Follow, the wolf sent.
Then vanished.
Perrin cursed, looking about. Where had the wolf gone? He moved through the camp, searching, but couldn't sense Hopper anywhere. He reached out with his mind. Nothing.
Young Bull. Suddenly Hopper was behind him. Follow. He vanished again.
Perrin growled, then moved about the camp in a flash. When he didn't find the wolf, he shifted to the field of grain where he'd met Hopper last time. The wolf wasn't there. Perrin stood among the blowing grain, frustrated.
Hopper found him a few minutes later. The wolf smelled dissatisfied. Follow! he sent.
"I don't know how," Perrin said. "Hopper, I don't know where you're going."
The wolf sat down. He sent an image of a wolf pup, joining others of the pack. The pup watched his elders and did what they did.
"I'm not a wolf, Hopper," Perrin said. "I don't learn the way you do. You must explain to me what you want me to do."
Follow here. The wolf sent an image of, oddly, Emond's Field. Then he Perrin followed, appearing on a familiar green. A group of buildings lined it, which felt wrong. Emond's Field should have been a little village, not a town with a stone wall and a road running past the mayor's inn, paved with stones. Much had changed in the short time he had been away.
"Why have we come here?" Perrin asked. Disturbingly, the wolfhead banner still flew on the pole above the green. It could have been a trick of the wolf dream, but he doubted it. He knew all too well how eagerly the people of the Two Rivers flew the standard of "Perrin Goldeneyes."
Men are strange, Hopper sent.
Perrin turned to the old wolf.
Men think strange thoughts, Hopper said. We do not try to understand them. Why does the stag flee, the sparrow fly, the tree grow? They do. That is all.
"Very well," Perrin said.
I cannot teach a sparrow to hunt, Hopper continued. And a sparrow does not teach a wolf to fly.
"But here, you can fly," Perrin said.
Yes. And I was not taught. I know. Hopper's scent was full of emotion and confusion. Wolves all remembered everything that one of their kind knew. Hopper was frustrated because he wanted to teach Perrin, but wasn't accustomed to doing things in the way of people.
"Please," Perrin said. "Try to explain to me what you mean. You always tell me I'm here 'too strongly.' It's dangerous, you say. Why?"
You slumber, Hopper said. The other you. You cannot stay here too long. You must always remember that you are unnatural here. This is not your den.
Hopper turned toward the houses around them. This is your den, the den of your sire. This place. Remember it. It will keep you from being lost. This was how your kind once did it. You understand.
It wasn't a question, though it was something of a plea. Hopper wasn't certain how to explain further.
"I can try," Perrin thought, interpreting the sending as best he could. But Hopper was wrong. This place wasn't his home. Perrin's home was with Faile. He needed to remember that, somehow, to keep himself from getting drawn into the wolf dream too strongly.
I have seen your she in your mind, Young Bull, Hopper sent, cocking his head. She is like a hive of bees, with sweet honey and sharp stings. Hopper's image of Faile was that of a very confusing female wolf. One who would playfully nip at his nose one moment, then growl at him the next, refusing to share her meat.
Perrin smiled.
The memory is part, Hopper sent. But the other part is you. You must stay as Young Bull. A wolfs reflection in the water, shimmering and growing indistinct as ripples crossed it.
"I don't understand."
The strength of this place, Hopper sent an image of a wolf carved of stone is the strength of you. The wolf thought for a moment. Stand. Remain. Be you. With that, the wolf stood and backed up, as if preparing to run at Perrin.
Confused, Perrin imagined himself as he was, holding that image in his head as strongly as he could.
Hopper ran and jumped at him, slamming his body into Perrin. He'd done this before, somehow forcing Perrin out of the wolf dream.
This time, however, Perrin was set and waiting. Instinctively, Perrin pushed back. The wolf dream wavered around him, but then grew firm again. Hopper rebounded off him, though the heavy wolf should have knocked Perrin to the ground.
Hopper shook his head, as if dazed. Good, he sent, pleased. Good. You learn. Again.
Perrin steadied himself just in time to get slammed by Hopper a second time. Perrin growled, but held steady.
Here, Hopper sent, giving an image of the field of grain. Hopper vanished, and Perrin followed. As soon as he appeared, the wolf slammed into him, mind and body.
Perrin fell to the ground this time, everything wavering and shimmering. He felt himself being pushed away, forced out of the wolf dream and into his ordinary dreams.
No, he thought, holding to an image of himself kneeling among those fields of grain. He was there. He imagined it, solid and real. He smelled the oats, the humid air, alive with the scents of dirt and fallen leaves.
The landscape coalesced. He panted, kneeling on the ground, but he was still in the wolf dream.
Good, Hopper sent. You learn quickly.
"There's no other opti
on," Perrin said, climbing to his feet.
The Last Hunt comes, Hopper agreed, sending an image of the Whitecloak camp.
Perrin followed, bracing himself. No attack came. He looked around for the wolf.
Something slammed into his mind. There was no motion, only the mental attack. It wasn't as strong as before, but it was unexpected. Perrin barely managed to fight it off.
Hopper fell from the air, landing gracefully on the ground. Always be ready, the wolf sent. Always, but especially when you move. An image of a careful wolf, testing the air before moving out into an open pasture.
"I understand."
But do not come too strongly, Hopper chided.
Immediately, Perrin forced himself to remember Faile and the place where he slept. His home. He… faded slightly. His skin didn't grow translucent, and the wolf dream stayed the same, but he felt more exposed.
Good, Hopper sent. Always ready, but never holding on too strong. Like carrying a pup in your jaws.
"That's not going to be an easy balance," Perrin said.
Hopper gave a slightly confused scent. Of course it was difficult.
Perrin smiled. "What now?"
Running, Hopper sent. Then more practice.
The wolf dashed away, zipping in a blur of gray and silver off toward the road. Perrin followed. He sensed determination from Hopper—a scent that was oddly similar to the way Tam smelled when training the refugees to fight. That made Perrin smile.
They ran down the road, and Perrin practiced the balance of not being in the dream too strongly, yet being ready to solidify his sense of self at any moment. Occasionally Hopper would attack him, trying to throw him from the wolf dream. They continued until Hopper—suddenly—stopped running.
Perrin took a few extra steps, surging ahead of the wolf, before stopping. There was something in front of him. A translucent violet wall that cut directly through the roadway. It extended up into the sky and distantly to both the right and the left.
"Hopper?" Perrin asked. "What is this?"
Wrongness, Hopper sent. It should not be here. The wolf smelled angry.
Perrin stepped forward and raised a hand toward the surface, but hesitated. It looked like glass. He'd never seen anything like this in the wolf dream. Might it be like the bubbles of evil? He looked up at the sky.
The wall flashed suddenly and was gone. Perrin blinked, stumbling back. He glanced at Hopper. The wolf sat on his haunches, staring at the Place where the wall had been. Come, Young Bull, the wolf finally sent, standing. We will practice in another place.
He loped away. Perrin looked back down the road. Whatever the wall had been, it had left no visible sign of its existence. Troubled, Perrin followed after Hopper.
"Burn me, where are those archers!" Rodel Ituralde climbed up to the ton of the hillside. "I wanted them formed up on the forward towers an hour ago to relieve the crossbowmen!"
Before him, the battle clanged and screamed and grunted and thumped and roared. A band of Trollocs had surged across the river, crossing on ford rafts or a crude floating bridge fashioned from log rafts. Trollocs hated crossing water. It took a lot to get them over.
Which was why this fortification was so useful. The hillside sloped directly down to the only ford of reasonable size in leagues. To the north Trollocs boiled through a pass out of the Blight and ran right into the River Arinelle. When they could be forced across, they faced the hillside, which had been dug with trenches, piled with bulwarks and set with archer towers at the top. There was no way to reach the city of Maradon from the Blight except by passing over this hill.
It was an ideal position for holding back a much larger force, but even the best fortifications could be overrun, particularly when your men were tired from weeks of fighting. The Trollocs had crossed and fought their way up the slope under a hail of arrows, falling into the trenches, having difficulty surmounting the high bulwarks.
The hillside had a flat area at the top, where Ituralde had his command position, in the upper camp. He called orders as he looked down on the woven mass of trenches, bulwarks and towers. The Trollocs were dying to pikemen behind one of the bulwarks. Ituralde watched until the last Trolloc—an enormous, ram-faced beast—roared and died with three pikes in its gut.
It looked as if another surge was coming, the Myrddraal driving another mass of Trollocs through the pass. Enough bodies had fallen in the river that it was clogged for the moment, running red, the carcasses providing a footing for those running up behind.
"Archers!" Ituralde bellowed. "Where are those bloody—"
A company of archers finally ran past, some of the reserves he'd held back. Most of them had the coppery skin of Domani, though there were a few stray Taraboners mixed in. They carried a wide variety of bows: narrow Domani longbows, serpentine Saldaean shortbows scavenged from guard posts or villages, even a few tall Two Rivers longbows.
"Lidrin," Ituralde called. The young, hard-eyed officer hurried across the hillside to him. Lidrin's brown uniform was wrinkled and dirty at the knees, not because he was undisciplined, but because there were times when his men needed him more than his laundry did.
"Go with those archers to the towers," Ituralde said. "Those Trollocs are going to try another push. I do not want another fist breaking through to the top, hear me? If they seize our position and use it against us, I'm going to have a rotten morning."
Lidrin didn't smile at the comment, as he once might have. He didn't smile much at all anymore; usually only when he got to kill a Trolloc. He saluted, turning to jog after the archers.
Ituralde turned looked down the backside of the hill. The lower camp was set up there, in the shadow of the steep hillside. This hill had been a natural formation, once, but the Saldaeans had built it up over the years with one long slope extending toward the river and a steeper one on the opposite side. In the lower camp, his troops could sleep and eat, and their supplies could be protected, all sheltered from enemy arrows by the steep hillside upon which Ituralde now stood.
Both of his camps, upper and lower, were patchwork things. Some of the tents had been purchased from Saldaean villages, some were of Domani make, and dozens had been brought in by gateway from all over the land. A large number of them were enormous Cairhienin things with striped patterns. They kept the rain off his men, and that was enough.
The Saldaeans certainly knew how to build fortifications. If only Ituralde had been able to persuade them to leave their hiding place in the city of Maradon and come help.
"Now," Ituralde said, "where in—"
He cut off as something darkened the sky. He barely had time to curse and duck away as a group of large objects rained down, arcing high to fall on the upper camp, eliciting howls of pain and confusion. Those weren't boulders: they were corpses. The hulking bodies of dead Trollocs. The Shadowspawn army had finally set up their trebuchets.
A part of Ituralde was impressed that he'd driven them to it. The siege equipment had undoubtedly been brought to assault Maradon, which was a little to the south. Setting up the trebuchets across the ford to assault Ituralde's lines instead not only would slow the Shadowspawn, but would expose their trebuchets to his counterfire.
He hadn't expected them to hurl carcasses. He cursed as the sky darkened again, more bodies falling, knocking down tents, crushing soldiers.
"Healers!" Ituralde bellowed. "Where are those Asha'man?" He'd pushed the Asha'man hard, since this siege had begun. To the brink of exhaustion. Now he held them back, using them only when Trolloc assaults got too close to the upper camp.
"Sir!" A young messenger with dirt under his fingernails scrambled up from front lines. His Domani face was ashen, and he was still too young to grow a proper mustache. "Captain Finsas reports the Shadowspawn army moving trebuchets into range. There are sixteen by his count."
"Let Captain Finsas know that his bloody timing could be better," Ituralde growled.
"I'm sorry, my Lord. They rolled them down through the pass before we figured ou
t what was going on. The initial volley hit our watchpost. Lord Finsas himself was wounded."
Ituralde nodded; Rajabi was arriving to take command of the upper camp and organize the wounded. Below, a lot of bodies had hit the lower camp, too. The trebuchets could get the height and range to launch over the hill and fall down on his men in their previously sheltered area. He'd have to pull the lower camp back, farther across the plain toward Maradon, which would delay response times. Bloody ashes. I never used to swear this much, Ituralde thought. It was that boy, the Dragon Reborn. Rand al'Thor had given Ituralde promises, some spoken, some implied. Promises to protect Arad Doman from the Seanchan. Promises that Ituralde could live, rather than die trapped by the Seanchan. Promises to give him something to do, something important, something vital. Something impossible.
Hold back the Shadow. Fight until help arrived.
The sky darkened again, and Ituralde ducked into the command pavilion, which had a wooden roof as a precaution against siege weapons. He'd feared sprayshot of smaller rocks, not carcasses. The men scattered to help pull the wounded down to the relative safety of the lower camp, and from there across the plain toward Maradon. Rajabi led the effort. The lumbering man had a neck as thick as a ten-year-grown ash and arms nearly as wide. He now hobbled as he walked, his left leg hurt in the fighting and amputated beneath the knee. Aes Sedai had Healed him as best he could, and he walked on a peg. He'd refused to retire through gateways with the badly injured, and Ituralde hadn't forced him. You didn't throw away a good officer because of one wound.
A young officer winced as a bloated carcass thumped against the top of the pavilion. The officer—Zhell—didn't have the coppery skin of a Domani, though he wore a very Domani mustache and a beauty mark on his cheek in the shape of an arrow.
They could not hold against Trollocs here for much longer, not with the numbers they were fielding. Ituralde would have to fall back, point-to-point, farther into Saldaea, farther toward Arad Doman. Odd, how he was always retreating toward his homeland. First from the south, now from the northeast.
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