“Your dreams? Have they been troubling you again?” Nynaeve sounded concerned, but Egwene was in no mood to accept sympathy.
She made her voice sound as everyday as she could manage. “From the rumors we heard, I can’t tell what might be going on. They have everything I know about so twisted, so wrong.”
“Everything has been wrong since Moiraine came into our lives,” Nynaeve said brusquely. “Perrin and Rand. . . .” She hesitated, grimacing. Egwene thought Nynaeve believed everything that Rand had become was Moiraine’s doing. “They will have to take care of themselves for now. I’m afraid we have something to worry about ourselves. Something is not right. I can . . . feel it.”
“Do you know what?” Egwene asked.
“It feels almost like a storm.” Nynaeve’s dark eyes studied the morning sky, clear and blue, with only a few scattered white clouds, and she shook her head again. “Like a storm coming.” Nynaeve had always been able to foretell the weather. Listening to the wind, it was called, and the Wisdom of every village was expected to do it, though many really could not. Yet since leaving Emond’s Field, Nynaeve’s ability had grown, or changed. The storms she felt sometimes had to do with men rather than wind, now.
Egwene bit her underlip, thinking. They could not afford to be stopped or slowed, not after coming so far, not so close to Tar Valon. For Mat’s sake, and for reasons that her mind might tell her were more important than the life of one village youth, one childhood friend, but that her heart could not rate so high. She looked at the others, wondering if any of them had noticed something.
Verin Sedai, short and plump and all in shades of brown, rode apparently lost in thought, the hood of her cloak pulled forward till it all but hid her face, in the lead but letting her horse amble at its own pace. She was of the Brown Ajah, and the Brown sisters usually cared more for seeking out knowledge than for anything in the world around them. Egwene was not so sure of Verin’s detachment, though. Verin had put herself hip-deep in the affairs of the world by being with them.
Elayne, of an age with Egwene and also a novice, but golden-haired and blue-eyed where Egwene was dark, rode back beside the litter where Mat lay unconscious. In the same gray as Egwene and Nynaeve, she was watching him with the worry they all felt. Mat had not roused in three days, now. The lean, long-haired man riding on the other side of the litter seemed to be trying to look everywhere without anyone noticing, and the lines of his face had deepened in concentration.
“Hurin,” Egwene said, and Nynaeve nodded. They slowed to let the litter catch up to them. Verin ambled on ahead.
“Do you sense something, Hurin?” Nynaeve asked. Elayne lifted her eyes, suddenly intent, from Mat’s litter.
With the three of them looking at him, the lean man shifted in his saddle and rubbed the side of his long nose. “Trouble,” he said, curt and reluctant at the same time. “I think maybe . . . tr
ouble.”
A thief-taker for the King of Shienar, he did not wear a Shienaran warrior’s topknot, yet the short sword and notched sword-breaker at his belt were worn with use. Years of experience seemed to have given him some talent at sniffing out wrongdoers, especially those who had done violence.
Twice on the journey he had advised them to leave a village after being there less than an hour. The first time, they had all refused, saying they were too tired, but before the night was done the innkeeper and two other men of the village had tried to murder them in their beds. They were only simple thieves, not Darkfriends, just greedy for the horses and whatever they had in their saddlebags and bundles. But the rest of the village knew of it, and apparently considered strangers fair gleanings. They had been forced to flee a mob waving axe handles and pitchforks. The second time, Verin ordered them to ride on as soon as Hurin spoke.
But the thief-taker was always wary when talking to any of his companions. Except Mat, back when Mat could talk; the two of them had joked and played at dice, when the women were not too close at hand. Egwene thought he might be uneasy at being alone, for all practical purposes, with an Aes Sedai and three women in training for sisterhood. Some men found facing a fight easier than facing Aes Sedai.
“What kind of trouble?” Elayne said.
She spoke easily, but with such a clear note of expecting to be answered, immediately and in detail, that Hurin opened his mouth. “I smell—” He cut himself short and blinked as if surprised, eyes darting from one woman to another. “Just a feeling,” he said finally. “A . . . a hunch. I’ve seen some tracks, yesterday, and today. A lot of horses. Twenty or thirty going this way, twenty or thirty that. It makes me wonder. That’s all. A feeling. But I say it’s trouble.”
Tracks? Egwene had not noticed them. Nynaeve said sharply, “I did not see anything worrisome in them.” Nynaeve prided herself on being as good a tracker as any man. “They were days old. What makes you think they are trouble?”
“I just think they are,” Hurin said slowly, as if he wanted to say more. He dropped his eyes, rubbing at his nose and inhaling deeply. “It’s been a long time since we saw a village,” he muttered. “Who knows what news from Falme has come before us? We might not find so good a welcome as we expect. I’m thinking these men could be brigands, killers. We should be wary, I’m thinking. If Mat was on his feet, I’d scout ahead, but maybe it’s best I don’t leave you alone.”
Nynaeve’s eyebrows lifted. “Do you believe we cannot look after ourselves?”
“The One Power won’t do you much good if somebody kills you before you can use it,” Hurin said, addressing the tall pommel of his saddle. “Begging your pardon, but I think I. . . . I’ll just ride up with Verin Sedai for a time.” He dug in his heels and galloped forward before any of them could speak again.
“Now that is a surprise,” Elayne said as Hurin slowed a little distance from the Brown sister. Verin did not seem to notice him any more than she noticed anything else, and he appeared content to leave it so. “He has been staying as far from Verin as he could ever since we left Toman Head. He always looks at her as if he’s afraid of what she might say.”
“Respecting Aes Sedai doesn’t mean he is not afraid of them,” Nynaeve said, then added, reluctantly, “Of us.”
“If he thinks there might be trouble, we ought to send him out scouting.” Egwene took a deep breath and gave the other two women as level a look as she could manage. “If there is trouble, we can defend ourselves better than he could with a hundred soldiers to help him.”
“He doesn’t know that,” Nynaeve said flatly, “and I am not about to tell him. Or anyone else.”
“I can imagine what Verin would have to say about it.” Elayne sounded anxious. “I wish I had some idea how much she does know. Egwene, I don’t know if my mother could help me if the Amyrlin found out, much less help the pair of you. Or even whether she would try.” Elayne’s mother was Queen of Andor. “She was only able to learn a little of the Power before she left the White Tower, for all she has lived as if she had been raised to full sister.”
“We cannot hope to rely on Morgase,” Nynaeve said. “She is in Caemlyn, and we will be in Tar Valon. No, we may be in enough trouble already for going off as we did, no matter what we’ve brought back. It will be best if we stay low, behave humbly, and do nothing to attract more attention than we already have.”
Another time, Egwene would have laughed at the idea of Nynaeve pretending to be humble. Even Elayne managed a better job of it. But at present she did not feel like laughing. “And if Hurin is right? If we are attacked? He cannot defend us against twenty or thirty men, and we might be dead if we wait for Verin to do something. You said you sense a storm, Nynaeve.”
“You do?” Elayne said. Red-gold curls swung as she shook her head. “Verin will not like it if we. . . .” She trailed off. “Whatever Verin likes or doesn’t like, we may have to.”
“I will do what must be done,” Nynaeve said sharply, “if there is anything to be done, and you two will run, if need be. The White Tower may be all abuzz with your potential, but don’t think they will not still you both if the Amyrlin Seat or the Hall of the Tower decides it is necessary.”