“What are you two staring at?” Zarine squinted at the rock. “What is it? Her? Who?”
“Many nations have risen and fallen since the Breaking,” Moiraine said without turning, “some leaving no more than names on a yellowed page, or lines on a tattered map. Will we leave as much behind?” The blood-drenched howls rose again, still closer. Perrin tried to calculate their pace, and thought Lan had been right; the horses could not have outrun them, after all. They would not have long to wait.
“Ogier,” Lan said, “you and the girl hold the horses.” Zarine protested, but he rode straight over to her. “Your knives will not do much good here, girl.” His sword blade gleamed in the moonlight as he drew it. “Even this is a last resort. It sounds like ten out there, not one. Your work is to keep the horses from running when they smell the Darkhounds. Even Mandarb does not like that smell.”
If the Warder’s sword was no good, then neither was the axe. Perrin felt something near to relief at that, even if they were Shadowspawn; he would not have to use the axe. He drew the length of his unstrung bow from under Stepper’s saddle girths. “Maybe this will do some good.”
“Try if you wish, blacksmith,” Lan said. “They do not die easily. Perhaps you will kill one.”
Perrin drew a fresh bowstring from his pouch, trying to shield it from the soft rain. The beeswax coating was thin, and not much protection against prolonged damp. Setting the bow slantwise between his legs, he bent it easily, fixing the loops of the bowstring into the horn nocks at the ends of the bow. When he straightened, he could see the Darkhounds.
They ran like horses at a gallop, and as he caught sight of them, they gathered speed. They were only ten large shapes running in the night, sweeping through the scattered trees, yet he pulled a broadhead arrow from his quiver, nocked it but did not draw. He had been far from the best bowman in Emond’s Field, but among the younger men, only Rand had been better.
At three hundred paces he would shoot, he decided. Fool! You’d have a hard time hitting a target standing still at that distance. But if I wait, the way they are moving. . . . Stepping up beside Moiraine, he raised his bow—I just have to imagine that moving shadow is a big dog—drew the goose-feather fletchings to his ear, and loosed. He was sure the shaft merged with the nearest shadow, but the only result was a snarl. It is not going to work. They’re coming too fast! He was already drawing another arrow. Why aren’t you doing something, Moiraine? He could see their eyes, shining like silver, their teeth gleaming like burnished steel. Black as the night itself and as big as small ponies, they sped toward him, silent now, seeking the kill. The wind carried a stink near to burned sulphur; the horses whickered fearfully, even Lan’s warhorse. Burn you, Aes Sedai, do something! He loosed again; the frontmost Darkhound faltered and came on. They can die! He shot once more, and the lead Darkhound tumbled, staggered to its feet, then fell, yet even as it did he knew a moment of despair. One down, and the other nine had covered two thirds of the distance already; they seemed to be running even faster, like shadows flowing across the ground. One more arrow. Time for one more, maybe, and then it’s the axe. Burn you, Aes Sedai! He drew again.
“Now,” Moiraine said as his arrow left the bow. The air between her hands caught fire and streaked toward the Darkhounds, vanquishing night. The horses squealed and leaped against being held.
Perrin threw an arm across his eyes to shield them from a white-hot glare like burning, heat like a forge cracking open; sudden noon flared in the darkness, and was gone. When he uncovered his eyes, spots flickered across his vision, and the faint, fading image of that line of fire. Where the Darkhounds had been was nothing but night-covered ground and the soft rain; the only shadows that moved were cast by clouds crossing the moon.
I thought she’d throw fire at them, or call lightning, but this. . . . “What was that?” he asked hoarsely.
Moiraine was peering off toward Illian again, as if she could see through all those miles of darkness. “Perhaps he did not see,” she said, almost to herself. “It is far, and if he was not watching, perhaps he did not notice.”
“Who?” Zarine demanded. “Sammael?” Her voice shook a little. “You said he was in Illian. How could he see anything here? What did you do?”
“Something forbidden,” Moiraine said coolly. “Forbidden by vows almost as strong as the Three Oaths.” She took Aldieb’s reins from the girl, and patted the mare’s neck, calming her. “Something not used in nearly two thousand years. Something I might be stilled just for knowing.”
“Perhaps . . . ?” Loial’s voice was a faint boom. “Perhaps we should be going? There could be more.”
“I think not,” the Aes Sedai said, mounting. “He would not loose two packs at once, even if he has two; they would turn on each other instead of their prey. And I think we a
re not his main quarry, or he would have come himself. We were . . . an annoyance, I think”—her tone was calm, but it was clear she did not like being regarded so lightly—“and perhaps a little something extra to slip into his gamebag, if we were not too much trouble. Still, there is small good in remaining any nearer him than we must.”
“Rand?” Perrin asked. He could almost feel Zarine leaning forward to listen. “If we are not what he hunts, is it Rand?”
“Perhaps,” Moiraine said. “Or perhaps Mat. Remember that he is ta’veren also, and he blew the Horn of Valere.”
Zarine made a strangled sound. “He blew it? Someone has found it already?”
The Aes Sedai ignored her, leaning out of her saddle to stare closely into Perrin’s eyes, dark gleaming into burnished gold. “Once again events outpace me. I do not like that. And neither should you. If events outrun me, they may well trample you, and the rest of the world with you.”
“We have many leagues to Tear yet,” Lan said. “The Ogier’s suggestion is a good one.” He was already in his saddle.
After a moment Moiraine straightened and touched the mare’s ribs with her heels. She was halfway down the side of the mound before he could get his bow unstrung and take Stepper’s reins from Loial. Burn you, Moiraine! I’ll find some answers somewhere!
Leaning back against a fallen log, Mat enjoyed the warmth of the campfire—the rains had drifted south three days earlier, but he still felt damp—yet right at that moment, he was hardly aware of the dancing flames. He peered thoughtfully at the small, wax-covered cylinder in his hand. Thom was engrossed in tuning his harp, muttering to himself of rain and wet, never glancing Mat’s way. Crickets chirped in the dark thicket around them. Caught between villages by sunset, they had chosen this copse away from the road. Two nights they had tried to buy a room for the night; twice a farmer had loosed his dogs on them.
Mat unsheathed his belt knife, and hesitated. Luck. It only explodes sometimes, she said. Luck. As carefully as he could, he slit along the length of the tube. It was a tube, and of paper, as he had thought—he had found bits of paper on the ground after fireworks were set off, back home—layers of paper, but all that filled the inside was something that looked like dirt, or maybe tiny gray-black pebbles and dust. He stirred them on his palm with one finger. How in the Light could pebbles explode?
“The Light burn me!” Thom roared. He thrust his harp into its case as if to protect it from what was in Mat’s hand. “Are you trying to kill us, boy? Haven’t you ever heard those things explode ten times as hard for air as for fire? Fireworks are the next thing to Aes Sedai work, boy.”
“Maybe,” Mat said, “but Aludra did not look like any Aes Sedai to me. I used to think that about Master al’Vere’s clock—that it had to be Aes Sedai work—but once I got the back of the cabinet open, I saw it was full of little pieces of metal.” He shifted uncomfortably at the memory. Mistress al’Vere had been the first to reach him that time, with the Wisdom and his father and the Mayor all right behind her, and none believing he just meant to look. I could have put them all back together. “I think Perrin could make one, if he saw those little wheels and springs and I don’t know what all.”
“You would be surprised, boy,” Thom said dryly. “Even a bad clockmaker is a fairly rich man, and they earn it. But a clock does not explode in your face!”
“Neither did this. Well, it is useless, now.” He tossed the handful of paper and little pebbles into the fire to a screech from Thom; the pebbles sparked and made tiny flashes, and there was a smell of acrid smoke.
“You are trying to kill us.” Thom’s voice was unsteady, and it rose in intensity and pitch as he spoke. “If I decide I want to die, I will go to the Royal Palace when we reach Caemlyn, and I’ll pinch Morgase!” His long mustaches flailed. “Do not do that again!”