To Rand’s surprise, Loial appeared from the direction of the stables, riding to join them. The Ogier’s hairy-fetlocked mount was as big and heavy as a prime Dhurran stallion. Beside it, all the other animals looked the size of Bela, but with Loial in the saddle, the horse seemed almost a pony.
Loial carried no weapon that Rand could see; he had never heard of any Ogier using a weapon. Their stedding were protection enough. And Loial had his own priorities, his own ideas of what was needed for a journey. The pockets of his long coat had a telltale bulge, and his saddlebags showed the square imprints of books.
The Ogier stopped his horse a little way off and looked at Rand, his tufted ears twitching uncertainly.
“I didn’t know you were coming,” Rand said. “I’d think you would have had enough of traveling with us. This time there’s no telling how long it will be, or where we will end up.”
Loial’s ears lifted a little. “There was no telling when I first met you, either. Besides, what held then, holds now. I can’t let the chance pass to see history actually weave itself around ta’veren. And to help find the Horn. . . .”
Mat and Perrin rode up behind Loial and paused. Mat looked a little tired around the eyes, but his face wore a bloom of health.
“Mat,” Rand said, “I’m sorry for what I said. Perrin, I didn’t mean it. I was being stupid.”
Mat only glanced at him, then shook his head and mouthed something to Perrin that Rand could not hear. Mat had only his bow and quiver, but Perrin also wore his axe at his belt, with its big half-moon blade balanced by a thick spike.
“Mat? Perrin? Really, I didn’t—” They rode on toward Ingtar.
“That is not a coat for traveling, Rand,” Loial said.
Rand glanced down at the golden thorns climbing his crimson sleeve and grimaced. Small wonder Mat and Perrin still think I’m putting on airs. On returning to his room he had found everything already packed and sent on. All of the plain coats he had been given were on the packhorses, so the servants said; every coat left in the wardrobe was at least as ornate as the one he wore. His saddlebags held nothing in the way of clothes but a few shirts, some wool stockings, and a spare pair of breeches. At least he had removed the golden cord from his sleeve, though he had the red eagle pin in his pocket. Lan had meant it for a gift, after all.
“I’ll change when we stop tonight,” he muttered. He took a deep breath. “Loial, I said things to you I should not have, and I hope you’ll forgive me. You have every right to hold them against me, but I hope you won’t.”
Loial grinned, and his ears stood up. He moved his horse closer. “I say things I should not all the time. The Elders always said I spoke an hour before I thought.”
Suddenly Lan was at Rand’s stirrup, in his gray-green scaled armor that would make him all but disappear in forest or darkness. “I need to talk to you, sheepherder.” He looked at Loial. “Alone, if you please, Builder.” Loial nodded and moved his big horse away.
“I don’t know if I should listen to you,” Rand told the Warder. “These fancy clothes, and all those things you told me, they didn’t help much.”
“When you can’t win a big victory, sheepherder, learn to settle for the small ones. If you made them think of you as something more than a farm-boy who’ll be easy to handle, then you won a small victory. Now be quiet and listen. I’ve only time for one last lesson, the hardest. Sheathing the Sword.”
“You’ve spent an hour every morning making me do nothing but draw this bloody sword and put it back in the scabbard. Standing, sitting, lying down. I think I can manage to get it back in the sheath without cutting myself.”
“I said listen, sheepherder,” the Warder growled. “There will come a time when you must achieve a goal at all costs. It may come in attack or in defense. And the only way will be to allow the sword to be sheathed in your own body.”
“That’s crazy,” Rand said. “Why would I ever—?”
The Warder cut him off. “You will know when it comes, sheepherder, when the price is worth the gain, and there is no other choice left to you. That is called Sheathing the Sword. Remember it.”
The Amyrlin appeared, striding across the crowded courtyard with Leane and her staff, and Lord Agelmar at her shoulder. Even in a green velvet coat, the Lord of Fal Dara did not look out of place among so many armored men. There was still no sign of the other Aes Sedai. As they went by, Rand caught part of their conversation.
“But, Mother,” Agelmar was protesting, “you’ve had no time to rest from the journey here. Stay at least a few days more. I promise you a feast tonight such as you could hardly get in Tar Valon.”
The Amyrlin shook her head without breaking stride. “I cannot, Agelmar. You know I would if I could. I had never planned to remain long, and matters urgently require my presence in the White Tower. I should be there now.”
“Mother, it shames me that you come one day and leave the next. I swear to you, there will be no repetition of last night. I have tripled the guard on the city gates as well as the keep. I have tumblers in from the town, and a bard coming from Mos Shirare. Why, King Easar will be on his way from Fal Moran. I sent word as soon as. . . .”
Their voices faded as they crossed the courtyard, swallowed up by the din of preparation. The Amyrlin never as much as glanced in Rand’s direction.
When Rand looked down, the Warder was gone, and nowhere to be seen. Loial brought his horseback to Rand’s side. “That is a hard man to catch and hold, isn’t he, Rand? He’s not here, then he’s here, then he’s gone, and you don’t see him coming or going.”
Sheathing the Sword. Rand shivered. Warders must all be crazy.
The Warder the Amyrlin was speaking to suddenly sprang into his saddle. He was at a dead gallop before he reached the wide-standing gates. She stood watching him go, and her stance seemed to urge him to go faster.
“Where is he headed in such a hurry?” Rand wondered aloud.
“I heard,” Loial said, “that she was sending someone out today, all the way to Arad Doman. There is word of some sort of trouble on Almoth Plain, and the Amyrlin Seat wants to know exactly what. What I don’t understand is, why now? From what I hear, the rumors of this trouble came from Tar Valon with the Aes Sedai.”
Rand felt cold. Egwene’s father had a big map back at home, a map Rand had pored over more than once, dreaming before he found out what the dreams were like when they came true. It was old, that map, showing some lands and nations the merchants from outside said no longer existed, but Almoth Plain was marked, butting against Toman Head. We will meet again on Toman Head. It was all the way across the world he knew, on the Aryth Ocean. “It has nothing to do with us,” he whispered. “Nothing to do with me.”
Loial appeared not to have heard. Rubbing the side of his nose with a finger like a sausage, the Ogier was still peering at the gate where the Warder had vanished. “If she wanted to know, why not send someone before she left Tar Valon? But you humans are always sudden and excitable, always jumping around and shouting.” His ears stiffened with embarrassment. “I am sorry, Rand. You see what I mean about speaking before I think. I’m rash and excitable sometimes myself, as you know.”
Rand laughed. It was a weak laugh, but it felt good to have something to laugh at. “Maybe if we lived as long as you Ogier, we’d be more settled.” Loial was ninety years old; by Ogier standards, not old enough by ten years to be outside the stedding alone. That he had gone anyway was proof, he maintained, of his rashness. If Loial was an excitable Ogier, Rand thought most of them must be made of stone.
“Perhaps so,” Loial mused, “but you humans do so much with your lives. We do nothing but huddle in our stedding. Planting the groves, and even the building, were all done before the Long Exile ended.” It was the groves Loial held dear, not the cities men remembered the Ogier for building. It was the groves, planted to remind Ogier Builders of the stedding, that Loial had left his home to see. “Since we found our way back to the stedding, we. . . .” His wo
rds trailed off as the Amyrlin approached.
Ingtar and the other men shifted in their saddles, preparing to dismount and kneel, but she motioned them to stay as they were. Leane stood at her shoulder, and Agelmar a pace back. From his glum face, he appeared to have given up trying to convince her to remain longer.
The Amyrlin looked at them one by one before she spoke. Her gaze stayed on Rand no longer than on any other.
“Peace favor your sword, Lord Ingtar,” she said finally. “Glory to the Builders, Loial Kiseran.”
“You honor us, Mother. May peace favor Tar Valon.” Ingtar bowed in his saddle, and the other Shienarans did, too.
“All honor to Tar Valon,” Loial said, bowing.
Only Rand, and his two friends on the other side of the party, stayed upright. He wondered what she had said to them. Leane’s frown took in all three of them, and Agelmar’s eyes widened, but the Amyrlin took no notice.
“You ride to find the Horn of Valere,” she said, “and the hope of the world rides with you. The Horn cannot be left in the wrong hands, especially in Darkfriend hands. Those who come to answer its call, will come whoever blows it, and they are bound to the Horn, not to the Light.”
There was a stir among the listening men. Everyone believed that those heroes called back from the grave would fight for the Light. If they could fight for the Shadow, instead. . . .
The Amyrlin went on, but Rand was no longer listening. The watcher was back. The hair stirred on the back of his neck. He peered up at the packed archers’ balconies overlooking the courtyard, at the rows of people jammed along the guardwalks atop the walls. Somewhere among them was the set of eyes that had followed him unseen. The gaze clung to him like dirty oil. It can’t be a Fade, not here. Then who? Or what? He twisted in his saddle, pulling Red around, searching. The bay began to dance again.
Suddenly something flashed across in front of Rand’s face. A man passing behind the Amyrlin cried out and fell, a black-fletched arrow jutting from his side. The Amyrlin stood calmly looking at a rent in her sleeve; blood slowly stained the gray silk.
A woman screamed, and abruptly the courtyard rang with cries and shouts. The people on the walls milled furiously, and every man in the courtyard had his sword out. Even Rand, he was surprised to realize.
Agelmar shook his blade at the sky. “Find him!” he roared. “Bring him to me!” His face went from red to white when he saw the blood on the Amyrlin’s sleeve. He fell to his knees, head bowed. “Forgive, Mother. I have failed your safety. I am ashamed.”
“Nonsense, Agelmar,” the Amyrlin said. “Leane, stop fussing over me and see to that man. I’ve cut myself worse than this more than once cleaning fish, and he needs help now. Agelmar, stand up. Stand up, Lord of Fal Dara. You have not failed me, and you have no reason for shame. Last year in the White Tower, with my own guards at every gate and Warders all around me, a man with a knife came within five steps of me. A Whitecloak, no doubt, though I’ve no proof. Please stand up, or I will be shamed.” As Agelmar slowly rose, she fingered her sliced sleeve. “A poor shot for a Whitecloak bowman, or even a Darkfriend.” Her eyes flickered up to touch Rand’s. “If it was at me he aimed.” Her gaze was gone before he could read anything on her face, but he suddenly wanted to dismount and hide.
It wasn’t aimed at her, and she knows it.
Leane straightened from where she had been kneeling. Someone had laid a cloak over the face of the man who had taken the arrow. “He is dead, Mother.” She sounded tired. “He was dead when he struck the ground. Even if I had been at his side. . . .”
“You did what you could, Daughter. Death cannot be Healed.”
Agelmar moved closer. “Mother, if there are Whitecloak killers about, or Darkfriends, you must allow me to send men with you. As far as the river, at least. I could not live if harm came to you in Shienar. Please, return to the women’s apartments. I will see them guarded with my life until you are ready to travel.”
“Be at ease,” she told him. “This scratch will not delay me a moment. Yes, yes, I will gladly accept your men as far as the river, if you insist. But I will not let this delay Lord Ingtar a moment, either. Every heartbeat counts until the Horn is found again. Your leave, Lord Agelmar, to order your oathmen?”
He bowed his head in assent. At that moment he would have given her Fal Dara had she asked.
The Amyrlin turned back to Ingtar and the men gathered behind him. She did not look at Rand again. He was surprised to see her smile suddenly.
“I wager Illian does not give its Great Hunt of the Horn so rousing a send-off,” she said. “But yours is the true Great Hunt. You are few, so you may travel quickly, yet enough to do what you must. I charge you, Lord Ingtar of House Shinowa, I charge all of you, find the Horn of Valere, and let nothing bar your way.”
Ingtar whipped his sword from his back and kissed the blade. “By my life and soul, by my House and honor, I swear it, Mother.”
“Then ride.”
Ingtar swung his horse toward the gate.
Rand dug his heels into Red’s flanks and galloped after the column already disappearing through the gates.
Unaware of what had occurred within, the Amyrlin’s pikemen and archers stood walling a path from the gates to the city proper, the Flame of Tar Valon on their chests. Her drummers and trumpeters waited near the gates, ready to fall in when she left. Behind the rows of armored men, people packed the square in front of the keep. Some cheered Ingtar’s banner, and others no doubt thought this was the start of the Amyrlin Seat’s departure. A swelling roar followed Rand across the square.
He caught up with Ingtar where low-eaved houses and shops stood to either side, and more people thickly lined the stone-paved street. Some of them cheered, too. Mat and Perrin had been riding at the head of the column with Ingtar and Loial, but the two of them fell back when Rand joined them. How am I ever going to apologize if they won’t stay near me long enough for me to say anything? Burn me, he doesn’t look like he’s dying.
“Changu and Nidao are gone,” Ingtar said abruptly. He sounded cold and angry, but shaken, too. “We counted every head in the keep, alive or dead, last night and again this morning. They are the only ones not accounted for.”
“Changu was on guard in the dungeon yesterday,” Rand said slowly.
“And Nidao. They had the second watch. They always stayed together, even if they had to trade or do extra duty for it. They were not on guard when it happened, but. . . . They fought at Tarwin’s Gap, a month gone, and saved Lord Agelmar when his horse went down with Trollocs all around him. Now this. Darkfriends.” He drew a deep breath. “Everything is breaking apart.”
A man on horseback forced his way through the throng lining the street and joined in behind Ingtar. He was a townsman, by his clothes, lean, with a lined face and graying hair cut long. A bundle and water-bottles were lashed behind his saddle, and a short-bladed sword and a notched sword-breaker hung at his belt, along with a cudgel.
Ingtar noticed Rand’s glances. “This is Hurin, our sniffer. There was no need to let the Aes Sedai know about him. Not that what he does is wrong, you understand. The King keeps a sniffer in Fal Moran, and there’s another in Ankor Dail. It’s just that Aes Sedai seldom like what they do not understand, and with him being a man. . . . It’s nothing to do with the Power, of course. Aaaah! You tell him, Hurin.”
“Yes, Lord Ingtar,” the man said. He bowed low to Rand from his saddle. “Honor to serve, my Lord.”
“Call me Rand.” Rand stuck out his hand, and after a moment Hurin grinned and took it.
“As you wish, my Lord Rand. Lord Ingtar and Lord Kajin don’t mind a man’s ways—and Lord Agelmar, of course—but they say in the town you’re an outland prince from the south, and some outland lords are strict for every man in his place.”
“I’m not a lord.” At least I’ll get away from that, now. “Just Rand.”
Hurin blinked. “As you wish, my Lor—ah—Rand. I’m a sniffer, you see. Been one four
years this Sunday. I never heard of such a thing before then, but I hear there’s a few others like me. It started slow, catching bad smells where nobody else smelled anything, and it grew. Took a whole year before I realized what it was. I could smell violence, the killing and the hurting. Smell where it happened. Smell the trail of those who did it. Every trail’s different, so there’s no chance of mixing them up. Lord Ingtar heard of it, and took me in his service, to serve the King’s justice.”
“You can smell violence?” Rand said. He could not help looking at the man’s nose. It was an ordinary nose, not large, not small. “You mean you can really follow somebody who, say, killed another man? By smell?”
“I can that, my Lor—ah—Rand. It fades with time, but the worse the violence, the longer it lasts. Aiie, I can smell a battlefield ten years old, though the trails of the men who were there are gone. Up near the Blight, the trails of the Trollocs almost never fade. Not much to a Trolloc but killing and hurting. A fight in a tavern, though, with maybe a broken arm . . . that smell’s gone in hours.”
“I can see where you wouldn’t want Aes Sedai to find out.”
“Ah, Lord Ingtar was right about the Aes Sedai, the Light illumine them—ah—Rand. There was one in Cairhien once—Brown Ajah, but I swear I thought she was Red before she let me go—she kept me a month trying to find out how I do it. She didn’t like not knowing. She kept muttering, ‘Is it old come again, or new?’ and staring at me until you would have thought I was using the One Power. Almost had me doubting myself. But I haven’t gone mad, and I don’t do anything. I just smell it.”
Rand could not help remembering Moiraine. Old barriers weaken. There is something of dissolution and change about our time. Old things walk again, and new things are born. We may live to see the end of an Age. He shivered. “So we’ll track those who took the Horn with your nose.”
Ingtar nodded. Hurin grinned proudly, and said, “We will that—ah—Rand. I followed a murderer to Cairhien, once, and another all the way to Maradon, to bring them back for the King’s justice.” His grin faded, and he looked troubled. “This is the worst ever, though. Murder smells bad, and the trail of a murderer stinks with it, but this. . . .” His nose wrinkled. “There were men in it last night. Darkfriends, must be, but you can’t tell a Darkfriend by smell. What I’ll follow is the Trollocs, and the Halfmen. And something even worse.” He trailed off, frowning and muttering to himself, but Rand could hear it. “Something even worse, the Light help me.”
The Wheel of Time Page 146
