“I’m no fool, woman,” he roared back. “You keep telling me I need to lead. Well, today I took your advice!”
“You took it and made the wrong decision.”
“There was no right decision!”
“You could have let us fight them.”
“They intend to fight at the Last Battle,” Perrin said. “Every Whitecloak we killed would be one less man to face the Dark One. Me, my men, the Whitecloaks—none of us matter compared to what is coming! They had to live, and so did we. And this was the only way!”
Light, but it felt wrong to yell at her. Yet it actually softened her temper. Remarkably, the soldiers nearby him started to nod, as if they hadn’t been able to see the truth until he’d bellowed it out.
“I want you to take command of the retreat,” Perrin said to Faile. “The trap hasn’t sprung yet, but I find myself itching more each minute. Something’s watching us; they have taken away our gateways, and they intend to see us dead. They now know we won’t fight the Whitecloaks, which means they’ll attack soon. Maybe this evening; if we’re lucky, they’ll delay until tomorrow morning.”
“We aren’t done with this argument,” she warned.
“What’s done is done, Faile. Look forward.”
“Very well.” She still smelled angry, those beautiful dark eyes of hers fierce, but she contained it.
“I’m going to the wolf dream,” Perrin said, glancing toward the edge of camp, where their tent lay. “I’ll either destroy that dome, or I’ll find a way to force Slayer to tell me how to make Traveling work again. Get the people ready to march, and have the Asha’man try to make a gateway on every count of a hundred. The moment it works, get our people out of here.”
“Where?” Faile asked. “Jehannah?”
Perrin shook his head. “Too close. The enemy might be watching there. Andor. Take them to Caemlyn. Actually, no. Whitebridge. Let’s stay away from anywhere they might expect. Besides, I don’t want to show up with an army on Elayne’s doorstep until I’ve warned her.”
“A good plan,” Faile said. “If you fear attack, we should move the camp followers first, rather than moving the armies through and leaving us undefended.”
Perrin nodded. “But get them moving as soon as the gateways work again.”
“And if you don’t succeed?” Faile had begun to sound determined. Frightened, but determined.
“If I haven’t restored gateways in one hour, start them marching toward the perimeter where Neald discovered that he can make gateways. I don’t think that will work; I think Slayer will just move the dome, always keeping us underneath it. But it’s something.”
Faile nodded, but her scent became hesitant. “That will also put us marching, rather than in camp. Much easier to ambush that way.”
“I know,” Perrin said. “That is why I must not fail.”
She took him into her arms, head against his chest. She smelled so wonderful. Like Faile. That was the definition of wonderful to him. “You’ve said he’s stronger than you are,” she whispered.
“He is.”
“Can I do anything to help you face him?” she asked softly.
“If you watch over them while I’m gone, that will help.”
“What happens if he kills you while you’re there?”
Perrin didn’t reply.
“There’s no other way?” she asked.
He pulled back from her. “Faile, I’m fairly certain that he’s Lord Luc. They smell different, but there’s something similar about them, too. And when I wounded Slayer in the wolf dream before, Luc bore the wound.”
“Is that supposed to help me feel better?” she asked, grimacing.
“It’s all coming back around. We finish with Malden and find ourselves within a stone’s toss of the remnants of the Whitecloaks, Byar and Bornhald with them. Slayer appears in the wolf dream again. That man I told you of, Noam, the one who was in the cage. Do you remember where I found him?”
“You said you were chasing Rand. Through…”
“Ghealdan,” Perrin said. “It happened not one week’s ride from here.”
“An odd coincidence, but—”
“No coincidences, Faile. Not with me. I’m here for a reason. He’s here for a reason. I must face this.”
She nodded. He turned to walk toward their tent, her hand slipping free of his. The Wise Ones had given him a tea that would let him sleep so he could enter the wolf dream.
It was time.
“How could you let him go?” Byar said, knuckles clenched on the pommel of his sword, white cloak flapping behind him. He, Bornhald and Galad walked through the middle of their camp.
“I did what was right,” Galad said.
“Letting him go free was not right!” Byar said. “You can’t believe—”
“Child Byar,” Galad said softly, “I find your attitude increasingly insubordinate. That troubles me. It should trouble you as well.”
Byar closed his mouth and said no more, though Galad could see that it was difficult for him to hold his tongue. Behind Byar, Bornhald walked silently, looking very upset.
“I believe that Aybara will keep his oath,” Galad said. “And if he does not, I now have the legal grounds to hunt him and exact punishment. It is not ideal, but there was wisdom to his words. I do believe the Last Battle is coming, and if so, it is time to unite against the Shadow.”
“My Lord Captain Commander,” Byar said, managing his tone, “with all respect, that man is of the Shadow. He will not be fighting beside us, but against us.”
“If that is true,” Galad said, “we will still have a chance to face him on the field of battle. I have made my decision, Child Byar.” Harnesh strode up to join them and saluted. Galad nodded. “Child Harnesh, strike camp.”
“My Lord Captain Commander? This late in the day?”
“Yes,” Galad said. “We will march into the night and put some distance between us and Aybara, just in case. Leave scouts, make certain he doesn’t try to follow us. We’ll make for Lugard. We can recruit and resupply, then continue on toward Andor.”
“Yes, my Lord Captain Commander,” Harnesh said.
Galad turned to Byar as Harnesh left. The skeletal man gave a salute, sunken eyes dangerously resentful, then stalked off. Galad stopped on the field, between white tents, hands behind his back as he watched messengers relay his orders through camp.
“You are quiet, Child Bornhald,” Galad said after a few moments. “Are you as displeased with my actions as Child Byar is?”
“I don’t know,” Bornhald said. “I’ve believed for so long that Aybara killed my father. And yet, seeing how Jaret acts, remembering his description…There is no evidence. It frustrates me to admit it, Galad, but I have no proof. He did kill Lathin and Yamwick, however. He killed Children, so he is a Darkfriend.”
“I killed one of the Children, too,” Galad said. “And was named Darkfriend for it.”
“That was different.” Something seemed to be troubling Bornhald, something he wasn’t saying.
“Well, that is true,” Galad said. “I do not disagree that Aybara should be punished, but the day’s events leave me strangely troubled.”
He shook his head. Finding answers should be easy. The right thing always came to him. However, whenever he thought he’d seized upon the right course of action regarding Aybara, he found distasteful worries cropping up inside of him.
Life is not so easy as the toss of a coin, his mother had said. One side or the other…your simple illusions…
He did not like the feeling. Not at all.
Perrin inhaled deeply. Flowers bloomed in the wolf dream, even as the sky raged silver, black and gold. The scents were so incongruous. Baking cherry pie. Horse dung. Oil and grease. Soap. A wood fire. Arrath. Thyme. Catfern. A hundred other herbs he couldn’t name.
Very few of them fit the meadow where he had appeared. He’d made certain not to appear where his camp was in the wolf dream; that would have put him too near Slayer.
<
br /> The scents were fleeting. Vanishing too quickly, as if they’d never really been there.
Hopper, he sent.
I am here, Young Bull. The wolf appeared beside him.
“It smells strange.”
Scents blend, Hopper sent. Like the waters of a thousand streams. It is not natural. It is not good. This place begins to break.
Perrin nodded. He shifted, appearing knee deep in brown cockleburrs just outside of the violet dome. Hopper appeared to his right, weeds crackling as he moved among them.
The dome rose, ominous and unnatural. A wind blew, shuffling the weeds and shaking tree limbs. Lightning flashed silently in the sky.
He is there, Hopper sent. Always.
Perrin nodded. Did Slayer come to the wolf dream the way Perrin did? And did spending time in it leave him still tired, as it did Perrin? The man never seemed to leave this area.
He was guarding something. There had to be a way in the wolf dream to disable the dome.
Young Bull, we come. The sending was from Oak Dancer. Her pack was approaching, now only three strong. Sparks, Boundless, Oak Dancer herself. They had chosen to come here, rather than join the wolves running northward.
The three appeared behind Hopper. Perrin looked to them, and sent concern. This will be dangerous. Wolves may die.
Their sending back was insistent. Slayer must fall for what he has done. Together we are strong. Young Bull should not hunt such dangerous prey alone.
He nodded in agreement, letting his hammer appear in his hand. Together, they approached the dome. Perrin walked into it with a slow, determined stride. He refused to feel weakness. He was strong. The dome was nothing but air. He believed the world to be as he wished it.
He stumbled, but pulled through into the inside of the dome. The landscape felt faintly darker here. Elder trees more dim of bark, the dying dogfennel a deeper green or brown. Hopper and the pack moved through the dome around him.
We make for the center, Perrin sent. If there is a secret to discover, it will probably be there.
They moved slowly through the brush and stands of trees. Perrin imposed his will upon the area around him, and the leaves stopped crackling, weeds remaining silent when he brushed against them. That was natural. It was the way things should be. So it was.
It would be a long distance to the center, so Perrin began hopping forward. Not jumps or steps; he simply stopped being in one place, appearing in a different location. He masked his scent, though Slayer was not a wolf.
That has to become my advantage, Perrin thought as they grew closer and closer to the center. He is more experienced than I. But I have the wolf within me. This place is our dream. He is the invader. However skilled he may be, he is not one of us.
And that is why I will win.
Perrin smelled something; an increasing wrongness in the air. He and the wolves crept up to a large hillside, then peered around a cleft in the land there. A small stand of elder trees stood just ahead, perhaps fifty paces away. Looking up, he judged this to be very near the center of the dome. Using the shifting way of wolves, they’d traveled several hours’ worth of walking in a few minutes.
That is it, Perrin sent. He looked at Hopper. The wolf’s scent was masked, but he was coming to know wolves well enough to read concern in Hopper’s stare and the way he stood with forelegs bent just a fraction.
Something changed.
Perrin heard nothing. He smelled nothing. But he felt something, a small tremble in the ground.
Go! he sent, vanishing. He appeared ten paces away to see an arrow hit the hillside where he’d been standing. The shaft split a large stone, embedding itself in the rock and earth up to its black fletching.
Slayer stood from a crouch, turning to look at Perrin across the short expanse of ground. His eyes seemed black, his square face shadowed, his tall body muscular and dangerous. As he often did, he wore a smile. Really a sneer. He wore leather breeches and a shirt of deep green, forearms exposed, hand holding his wicked bow of dark wood. He wore no quiver; he created arrows as he needed them.
Perrin held his eyes, stepping forward as if in challenge. That was enough of a distraction for the wolves to attack from behind.
Slayer yelled, spinning as Boundless slammed into him. Perrin was there in an eyeblink, bringing his hammer down. Slayer vanished, and Perrin struck only earth, but he caught a whiff of where Slayer had gone.
Here? That scent was of the same place that Perrin was. Alarmed, he looked up to see Slayer hovering in the air just above, drawing an arrow.
The wind, Perrin thought. It is so strong!
The arrow loosed, but a sudden gust blew it sideways. It sank into the earth just beside Perrin. He did not flinch, raising his hands, his own bow appearing in them. Already drawn, arrow in place.
Slayer’s eyes opened wider as Perrin loosed. Slayer vanished, appearing on the ground a short distance away—and Hopper leaped on him from above, pulling him to the ground. Slayer cursed with a guttural sound, then vanished.
Here, Hopper sent, showing a hillside.
Perrin was there in an instant, hammer in his hands, the pack with him. Slayer raised a sword in one hand and a knife in the other as Perrin and the four wolves attacked.
Perrin hit first, swinging his hammer with a roar. Slayer actually sank into the ground, as if it were liquid, dropping beneath the hammer blow. He rammed his knife forward—piercing Oak Dancer’s breast with a splash of scarlet blood as he swung to the side, slashing across Sparks’ face.
Oak Dancer didn’t get time to howl; she collapsed to the ground, and Slayer vanished as Perrin brought his hammer back around. Whimpering, Sparks sent agony and panic and vanished. He would live. But Oak Dancer was dead.
Slayer’s scent had been this place again. Perrin turned to smash his hammer into Slayer’s sword as it sought to pierce him from behind. Again a look of surprise from Slayer. The man bared his teeth, pulling back, keeping a wary eye on the two remaining wolves, Hopper and Boundless. Slayer’s forearm was bleeding where Hopper had bitten him.
“How is the dome created, Luc?” Perrin said. “Show me and leave. I will let you depart.”
“Bold words, cub,” Slayer snarled back. “For one who just watched me kill one of your pack.”
Boundless howled in anger, leaping forward. Perrin attacked at the same time, but the ground beneath them trembled, shaking.
No, Perrin thought. His own footing became firm as Boundless was knocked to the ground.
Slayer lunged, and Perrin raised his hammer to block—but Slayer’s weapon turned into smoke and passed right through it, solidifying on the other side. With a yelp, Perrin tried to pull back, but the blade scored him across the chest, cutting through his shirt and leaving a gash from one arm to the other. It flared with pain.
Perrin gasped, stumbling backward. Slayer drove forward, but something crashed into him from above. Hopper. Once again the grizzled wolf bore Slayer to the ground, growling, fangs flashing.
Slayer cursed and kicked the wolf free. Hopper went flying with a whimper of pain, tossed some twenty feet. To the side, Boundless had caused the earth to stop rumbling, but had hurt his paw.
Perrin shook himself free of his pain. Slayer was strong in control over this world. Perrin’s hammer felt sluggish whenever he swung, as if the air itself were thicker.
Slayer had smiled when he’d killed Oak Dancer. Perrin moved forward, enraged. Slayer was on his feet and retreating back down the hillside, toward the trees. Perrin chased after him, ignoring his wound. It wasn’t bad enough to stop him, though he did imagine a bandage in place on it, his clothing mended and tight against his chest to stanch the blood.
He entered the trees just behind Slayer. The branches closed overhead, and vines whipped from the darkened shadows. Perrin didn’t bother fighting them off. Vines didn’t move like that. They couldn’t touch him. Sure enough, as soon as they grew close, they withered and fell still.
Slayer cursed, then began to move in bu
rsting steps, leaving a blur behind him. Perrin followed, enhancing his own speed.
Perrin didn’t consciously make the decision to drop to four legs, but in a heartbeat he had done so, chasing after Slayer as he’d hunted the white stag.
Slayer was fast, but he was merely a man. Young Bull was part of the land itself, the trees, the brush, the stones, the rivers. He moved through the forest like a breeze blowing through a hollow, keeping pace with Slayer, gaining on him. Each log in Slayer’s way was an obstruction, but to Young Bull each was just a part of the pathway.
Young Bull leaped to the side, paws against the tree trunks pushing him when he turned. He soared, over stones and rocks, leaping from one to the next, leaving a blur in the air behind him.
Slayer smelled afraid for the first time. He vanished, but Young Bull followed, appearing in the field where the army camped, beneath the shadow of the large stone sword. Slayer looked over his shoulder and cursed, vanishing again.
Young Bull followed. The place where the Whitecloaks had made camp.
The top of a small plateau.
A cavern burrowed into a hillside.
The middle of a small lake. Young Bull ran upon the surface with ease.
Each place Slayer went, he followed, each moment growing closer. There was no time for swords, hammers, or bows. This was a chase, and Young Bull was the hunter this time. He—
He leaped into the middle of a field, and Slayer wasn’t there. He smelled where the man had gone, however. He followed him, and appeared in another place on the same field. There were scents of places all around. What?
Perrin came to a stop, booted feet grinding into the ground. He spun, bewildered. Slayer must have hopped quickly through several different places in the same field, confusing his trail. Perrin tried to determine which one to follow, but they all faded and intermixed.
“Burn him!” he said.
Young Bull, a sending came. Sparks. The wolf had been wounded, but he hadn’t fled as Perrin had assumed. He sent an image of a thin silver rod, two handspans high, sprouting from the ground in the middle of a stand of dogfennel.
The Wheel of Time Page 1173
