CHAPTER
43
Shadowbrothers
The dark-eyed girl climbed back on her table and started singing again, in an unsteady voice. The tune was one Perrin knew as “Mistress Aynora’s Rooster,” and though the words were different once more, to his disappointment—and embarrassment that he was disappointed—it actually was about a rooster. Mistress Luhhan herself would not have disapproved. Light, I’m getting as bad as Mat.
None of the listeners complained; some of the men did look a bit disgruntled, but they seemed to be as anxious about what Moiraine might approve as the singer was. No one wished to offend an Aes Sedai, even with her gone. Bili came back and hoisted two more Gray Men; a few of the men listening to the song glanced at the corpses and shook their heads. One of them spat on the sawdust.
Lan came to stand in front of Perrin. “How did you know them, blacksmith?” he asked quietly. “Their taint of evil is not strong enough for Moiraine or me to sense. Gray Men have walked past a hundred guards without being noticed, and Warders among them.”
Very conscious of Zarine’s eyes on him, Perrin tried to make his voice even softer than Lan’s. “I . . . I smelled them. I’ve smelled them before, at Jarra and at Remen, but it always vanished. They were gone before we got there, both times.” He was not sure whether Zarine had overheard or not; she was leaning forward trying to listen, and trying to appear not to at the same time.
“Following Rand, then. Following you, now, blacksmith.” The Warder gave no visible sign of surprise. He raised his voice to a more normal level. “I am going to look around outside, blacksmith. Your eyes might see something I miss.” Perrin nodded; it was a measure of the Warder’s worry that he asked for help. “Ogier, your folk see better than most, too.”
“Oh, ah,” Loial said. “Well, I suppose I could take a look, too.” His big, round eyes rolled sideways toward the two Gray Men still on the floor. “I would not think any more of them were out there. Would you?”
“What are we looking for, stone-face?” Zarine said.
Lan eyed her a moment, then shook his head as if he had decided not to say something. “Whatever we find, girl. I will know it when I see it.”
Perrin thought about going upstairs for his axe, but the Warder made for the door, and he was not wearing his sword. He hardly needs it, Perrin thought grumpily. He is almost as dangerous without it as with. He held on to the chair leg as he followed. It was a relief to see that Zarine still had her knife in her hand.
Thick black clouds were roiling overhead. The street was as dark as late twilight, and empty of people who had apparently not waited to be caught in the rain. One fellow was running across a bridge down the street; he was the only person Perrin saw in any direction. The wind was picking up, blowing a rag along the uneven paving stones; another, caught under the edge of one of the mounting blocks, flapped with a small snapping sound. Thunder grumbled and rolled.
Perrin wrinkled his nose. There was a smell of fireworks on that wind. No, not fireworks, exactly. It was a burned sulphur sort of smell. Almost.
Zarine tapped the chair leg in his hands with her knife blade. “You really are strong, big man. You tore that chair apart as if it were made of twigs.”
Perrin grunted. He realized he was standing straighter, and deliberately made himself slouch. Fool girl! Zarine laughed softly, and suddenly he did not know whether to straighten or stay as he was. Fool! This time he meant it for himself. You’re supposed to be looking. For what? He did not see anything but the street, did not smell anything but the almost burned sulphur scent. And Zarine, of course.
Loial appeared to be wondering what it was he was looking for, too. He scratched a tufted ear, peered one way down the street, then the other, then scratched the other ear. Then he stared up at the roof of the inn.
Lan appeared from the alleyway beside the inn and moved out into the street, eyes studying the darker shadows along the buildings.
“Maybe he missed seeing something,” Perrin muttered, though he found it hard to believe, and turned toward the alley. I am supposed to be looking, so I’ll look. Maybe he did miss something.
Lan had stopped a little way down the street, staring at the paving stones in front of his feet. The Warder started back toward the inn, walking quickly, but peering at the street ahead of him as if following something. Whatever it was led straight to one of the mounting blocks, almost beside the inn door. He stopped there, staring at the top of the gray stone block.
; Perrin decided to abandon going down the alley—it stank as much as the canals in this part of Illian, for one thing—and walked over to Lan, instead. He saw what the Warder was staring at right away. Pressed into the top of the stone mounting block were two prints, as if a huge hound had rested its forepaws there. The smell that was almost burned sulphur was strongest here. Dogs don’t make footprints in stone. Light, they don’t! He could make out the trail Lan had followed, too. The hound had trotted up the street as far as the mounting block, then turned and gone back the way it had come. Leaving tracks in the stone as if they had been a plowed field. They just don’t!
“Darkhound,” Lan said, and Zarine gasped. Loial moaned softly. For an Ogier. “A Darkhound leaves no mark on dirt, blacksmith, not even on mud, but stone is another matter. There hasn’t been a Darkhound seen south of the Mountains of Dhoom since the Trolloc Wars. This one was hunting for something, I’d say. And now that it has found it, it has gone to tell its master.”
Me? Perrin thought. Gray Men and Darkhounds hunting me? This is crazy!
“Are you telling me Nieda was right?” Zarine demanded in a shaky voice. “Old Grim is really riding with the Wild Hunt? Light! I always thought it was just a story.”
“Don’t be a complete fool, girl,” Lan said harshly. “If the Dark One were free, we’d all be worse than dead by now.” He peered off down the street, the way the tracks went. “But Darkhounds are real enough. Almost as dangerous as Myrddraal, and harder to kill.”
“Now you bring Fetches into it,” Zarine muttered. “Gray Men. Fetches. Darkhounds. You had better lead me to the Horn of Valere, farmboy. What other surprises do you have waiting for me?”
“No questions,” Lan told her. “You still know little enough that Moiraine will release you from your oath, if you swear not to follow. I’ll take that oath myself, and you can go now. You would be wise to give it.”
“You will not frighten me away, stone-face,” Zarine said. “I do not frighten easily.” But she sounded frightened. And smelled it, too.
“I have a question,” Perrin said, “and I want an answer. You didn’t sense this Darkhound, Lan, and neither did Moiraine. Why not?”