Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time 11)

"Lord Mat will tell you what he wants to see," Talmanes said. "Shall we leave you to it, Mat?"

But Toy was already telling the mapmaker what he wanted, the map marked with the Seanchan camps. In short order it was sorted out from the others in one of the cases and spread on the ground with Toy squatting on his heels beside it. Master Roidelle sent one of his assistants running to fetch him a stool. He would have burst his coat buttons trying to imitate Toy, and likely have fallen over besides. Tuon stared at that map hungrily. How to get her hands on it?

Exchanging glances and laughing as if being snubbed were the funniest thing in the world, Talmanes and the other three men strolled toward Tuon. The Aes Sedai gathered around the map on the ground until Toy told them to quit peering over his shoulder. They moved off a little, Bethamin and Seta heeling them at a distance, and began talking quietly among themselves, occasionally glancing in his direction. If Toy had been paying any heed to their expressions, especially Joline's, he might have been worried in spite of the incredible ter'angreal Mistress Anan said he carried.

"We're about here, right?" he said, marking a spot with his finger. Master Roidelle murmured that they were. "So this is the camp where the raken supposedly is? The flying beast?" Another murmur of assent. "Good. What kind of camp is it? How many men are there?"

"Reportedly it's a supply camp, my Lord. For resupplying patrols." The young man returned with another folding stool, and the stout man eased himself down with a grunt. "Supposedly about a hundred soldiers, mostly Altaran, and about two hundred laborers, but I'm told there can be as many as five hundred more soldiers at times." A careful man, Master Roidelle.

Talmanes made one of those odd bows, with one foot forward, and the other three mirrored him. "My Lady," Talmanes said, "Vanin told me of your circumstances, and the promises Lord Mat made. I just want to tell you, he keeps his word."

"That he does, my Lady," Edorion murmured. "Always." Tuon motioned him to step aside so she could continue to watch Toy, and he did so with a surprised glance at Toy and another for her. She gave him a stern look. The last thing she wanted was for these men to start imagining things. Not everything had fallen out as it had to, yet. There was still a chance this could all go awry. "Is he a lord or is he not?" she demanded.

"Excuse me," Talmanes said, "but would you say that again? I apologize. I must have dirt in my ears." She repeated herself carefully, but it still took them a minute to puzzle out what she had said.

"Burn my soul, no," Reimon said finally with a laugh. He stroked his beard. "Except to us. Lord enough for us."

"He dislikes nobles for the most part," Carlomin said. "I count it an honor to be among the few he doesn't dislike."

"An honor," Reimon agreed. Edorion contented himself with nodding.

"Soldiers, Master Roidelle," Toy said firmly. "Show me where the soldiers are. And more than any few hundred."

"What is he doing?" Tuon said, frowning. "He can't think to sneak this many men out of Altara even if he knows where every last soldier is. There are always patrols, and sweeps by raken." Again they took their time before answering. Perhaps she should try speaking very fast.

"We've seen no patrols in better than three hundred miles, and no—raken?—no raken," Edorion said quietly. He was studying her. Too late to stop his imaginings.

Reimon laughed again. "If I know Mat, he's planning us a battle. The Band of the Red Hand rides to battle again. It's been too long, if you ask me."

Selucia sniffed, and so did Mistress Anan. Tuon had to agree with them. "A battle won't get you out of Altara," she said sharply.

"In that case," Talmanes said, "he's planning us a war." The other three nodded agreement as if that were the most normal thing under the Light. Reimon even laughed. He seemed to think everything was humorous.

"Three thousand?" Toy said. "You're sure?”

“Sure enough, man.”

“Sure enough will do. Vanin can locate them if they haven't moved too far."

Tuon looked at him, squatting there by the map, moving his fingers over its surface, and suddenly she saw him in a new light. A buffoon? No. A lion stuffed into a horse-stall might look like a peculiar joke, but a lion on the high plains was something very different. Toy was loose on the high plains, now.

She felt a chill. What sort of man had she entangled herself with? After all this time, she realized, she had hardly a clue.

>

The night was cool enough to send a small shiver through Perrin whenever the breeze gusted despite his fur-lined cloak. A halo around the fat crescent moon said there would be more rain before long. Thick clouds drifting across the moon made the pale light dim and strengthen, dim and strengthen, yet it was enough for his eyes. He sat Stepper just inside the edge of the trees and watched the cluster of four tall gray stone windmills in a clearing atop the ridge, their pale sails gleaming and shadowed by turns as they rotated. The machinery of the windmills groaned loudly. It seemed doubtful the Shaido even knew they should grease the works of the things. The stone aqueduct was a dark bar stretching east on high stone arches past abandoned farms and rail-fenced fields—the Shaido had planted, too early, with this much rain—toward another ridge and the lake beyond. Maiden lay one more ridge west. He eased the heavy hammer in its loop on his belt. Maiden and Faile. In a few hours, he would add a fifty-fourth knot to the leather cord in his pocket.

He cast his mind out. Are you ready, Snowy Dawn? he thought. Are you close enough yet? Wolves avoided towns, and with Shaido hunting parties in the surrounding forest during the day, they stayed farther from Maiden than usual.

Patience, Young Bull, came the reply, touched with irritation. But then, Snowy Dawn was irascible by nature, a scarred male of considerable age for a wolf who had once killed a leopard by himself. Those old injuries sometimes kept him from sleeping very long at a stretch. Two days from now, you said. We will be there. Now let me try to sleep. We must hunt well tomorrow, since we cannot hunt the day after. They were images and smells rather than words, of course—"two days" was the sun crossing the sky twice, and "hunt" a pack trotting with noses into the breeze blended with the scent of deer—but Perrin's mind converted the images to words even as he saw them in his head.

Patience. Yes. Haste spoiled the work. But it was hard now that he was so close. Very hard.

A form appeared from the dark door at the base of the nearest windmill and waved an Aiel spear back and forth overhead. The groaning had convinced him the windmills must still be deserted—they had been when the Maidens scouted them earlier, and no one would put up with that noise any longer than they had to—but he had sent Gaul and some of the Maidens to be sure one way or another.

"Let's go, Mishima," he said, gathering his reins. "It's done." One way or another.

"How can you make out anything?" the Seanchan muttered. He avoided looking at Perrin, whose golden eyes would be glowing in the night. That had made the scarred man jump the first time he saw it. He did not smell amused tonight. He smelled tense. But he called softly over his shoulder. "Bring the carts ahead. Quickly, now. Quickly. And be quiet about it, or I'll have your ears!"