The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time 4)

The water at Imre Stand turned out to be a tiny spring at the back of the crevice, feeding a deep, roughly round pool—what Rhuarc called a tank—less than two paces across. Enough for herdsmen, enough for the Jindo to fill some of their waterskins. No Shaido went near; in Taardad land, the Jindo had first claim on water. It seemed the goats got their moisture purely from the thick leaves of the thorny bushes. Rhuarc assured Rand there would be much more water at the next night’s stop.

Kadere produced a surprise while the wagon drivers were unhitching their teams and fetching buckets from the waterwagons. When he came out of his wagon, a dark-haired young woman accompanied him, in a red silk gown and red velvet slippers more suited to a palace than to the Waste. A filmy red scarf wound almost like shoufa and veil provided no protection from the sun, and certainly did nothing to hide a palely beautiful heart-shaped face. Clinging to the peddler’s thick arm, she swayed enticingly as he took her to see the blood-splashed room; Moiraine and the others had gone off to where the gai’shain were erecting the Wise Ones’ camp. When the pair came back out, the young woman shuddered delicately. Rand was sure it was pretense, just as he was sure she had asked to view that butcher’s workroom. Her show of revulsion lasted all of two seconds, and then she was peering about interestedly at the Aiel.

It appeared that Rand himself was one of the sights she wanted to see. Kadere seemed ready to take her back to the wagon, but she guided him to Rand instead, the alluring smile on her full lips plain behind her diaphanous veil. “Hadnan has been telling me of you,” she said in a smoky voice. She might have been hanging on the peddler, but her dark eyes traced Rand boldly. “You are the one the Aiel talk of. He Who Comes With the Dawn.” Keille and the gleeman came out of the second wagon and stood together at a distance, watching.

“It seems I am,” he said.

“Strange.” Her smile became wickedly mischievous. “I thought you would be handsomer.” Patting Kadere on the cheek, she sighed. “This dreadful heat is so wearing. Do not be too long.”

Kadere did not speak until she had climbed the steps back inside. His hat had been replaced by a long white scarf tied atop his head, the ends handing down his neck. “You must forgive Isendre, good sir. She is … too forward, sometimes.” His voice was mollifying, but his eyes belonged on a bird of prey. He hesitated, then went on. “I have heard other things. I have heard that you took Callandor out of the Heart of the Stone.”

The man’s eyed never changed. If he knew about Callandor, he knew Rand was the Dragon Reborn, knew he could wield the One Power. And his eyes never changed. A dangerous man. “I have heard it said,” Rand told him, “that you should believe nothing you hear, and only half of what you see.”

“A wise rule,” Kadere said after a moment. “Yet to achieve greatly, a man must believe something. Belief and knowledge pave the road to greatness. Knowledge is perhaps the most valuable of all. We all seek the coin of knowledge. Your pardon, good sir. Isendre is not a patient woman. Perhaps we will have another opportunity to talk.”

Before the man had taken three steps, Aviendha said in a low, hard voice, “You belong to Elayne, Rand al’Thor. Do you stare so at every woman who comes in front of your eyes, or only those who go half-naked? If I strip off my clothes, will you stare so at me? You belong to Elayne!”

He had forgotten she was there. “I don’t belong to anyone, Aviendha. Elayne? She cannot seem to make up her mind what she thinks.”

“Elayne laid her heart bare to you, Rand al’Thor. If she did not show you in the Stone of Tear, did her two letters not tell you what she feels? You are hers, and no other’s.”

Rand threw up his hands and stalked away from her. At least, he tried. She followed on his heels, a disapproving shadow in the sun’s glare.

Swords. The Aiel might have forgotten why they did not carry swords, but they had kept the contempt for them. Swords might make her leave him alone. Seeking out Lan in the Wise Ones’ camp, he asked the Warder to watch him work the forms. Bair was the only one of the four in view, and a scowl surely deepened the creases on her face. Egwene was not to be seen either. Moiraine wore calm like a mask, dark eyes cool; he could not say whether she approved.

He was not out to offend the Aiel, so he set up with Lan between the Wise Ones’ tents and the Jindo’s. He used one of the practice swords Lan carried in his baggage, a bundle of loosely tied lathes in place of a blade. The weight and balance were right, though, and he could forget himself in the dancelike flow from form to form, the practice sword alive in his hands, a part of him. Usually it was that way. Today the sun was a furnace in the sky baking out moisture and strength. Aviendha squatted off to one side, hugging her knees to her chest and staring at him.

Finally, panting, he let his arms drop.

“You lost concentration,” Lan told him. “You must hold on to that even when your muscles turn to water. Lose it, and that is the day you die. And it will probably be a farmboy who has his hands on a sword for the first time who does it.” His smile was sudden, odd on that stony face.

“Yes. Well, I’m not a farmboy any longer, am I?” They had gained an audience, if at a distance. Aiel lined the edge of both the Shaido and Jindo camps. Keille’s cream-wrapped bulk stood out among the Jindo, the gleeman beside her in his cloak of colored patches. Which one did he choose? He did not want them to see him watching them. “How do Aiel fight, Lan?”

“Hard,” the Warder said dryly. “They never lose concentration. Look here.” With his sword he drew on the hard, cracked clay, a circle and arrows. “Aiel change tactics according to circumstances, but here is one they favor. They move in a column, divided into quarters. When they meet an enemy, the first quarter rushes in to pin them. The second and third sweep wide to either side, hitting the flanks and rear. The last quarter waits in reserve, often not even watching the battle, except for their leader. When a weakness opens—a hole, anything—the reserve strikes there. Finish!” His sword stabbed into a circle already pierced with arrows.

“How do you beat that?” Rand asked.

“With difficulty. When you make first contact—you’ll not spot Aiel before they strike unless you are lucky—immediately send out horsemen to break up, or at least delay, their flanking attacks. If you keep most of your strength back and defeat the holding attack, then you can wheel on the others in turn and defeat them, too.”

“Why do you want to learn how to fight Aiel?” Aviendha burst out. “Are you not He Who Comes With the Dawn, meant to bind us together and return us all to old glories? Besides, if you want to know how to fight Aiel, ask Aiel, not a wetlander. His way will not work.”

“It has worked we

ll enough with Bordermen from time to time.” Rhuarc’s soft boots made very little sound on the hard ground. He had a waterskin under his arm. “Allowances are always made when someone suffers a disappointment, Aviendha, but there is a limit to sulking. You gave up the spear for your obligation to the people and the blood. One day no doubt you will be making a clan chief do what you want instead of what he wants, but if instead you are Wise One to the smallest hold of the smallest sept of the Taardad, the obligation remains, and it cannot be met by tantrums.”

A Wise One. Rand felt a fool. Of course that was why she had gone to Rhuidean. But he would never have thought Aviendha would choose to give up the spear. It certainly explained why she had been chosen to spy on him, though. Suddenly he found himself wondering if she could channel. It seemed Min had been the only woman in his life since that Winternight who could not.

Rhuarc tossed him the sloshing waterskin. The lukewarm water slid down his throat like chilled wine. He tried not to splash any over his face, not to waste it, but it was hard.

“I thought you might like to learn the spear,” Rhuarc said when Rand finally lowered the half-empty skin. For the first time Rand realized the clan chief was carrying only two spears, and a pair of bucklers. Not practice spears if there were any such, a foot of sharp steel tipped each.

Steel or wood, his muscles cried out for rest. His legs wanted him to sit down, and his head wanted to lie down. Keille and the gleeman were gone, but Aiel were still watching from both camps. They had seen him practicing with a despised sword, if a wooden one. They were his people. He did not know them, but they were his, in more senses than one. Aviendha was still watching him, too, glowering as though blaming him for Rhuarc having set her down. Not that she had anything to do with his decision, of course. The Jindo and Shaido were watching; that was it.

“That mountain can grow awfully heavy sometimes,” he sighed, taking a spear and buckler from Rhuarc. “When do you find a chance to put it down awhile?”

“When you die,” Lan said simply.

Forcing his legs to move—and trying to ignore Aviendha—Rand squared off with Rhuarc. He did not mean to die just yet. No, not for a long time yet.