The Gathering Storm

"You don't have to kill anyone today. Please."

He turned to look back at the city. Slowly, mercifully, the access key stopped glowing. "Hurin!" he barked.

He must be close to fraying, Nynaeve thought. His anger is slipping out in his voice.

The thief-taker rode up to the front of the group. The Aiel kept their distance, however. "Yes, Lord Rand?"

"Return to your masters inside of their box," Rand said, voice under control again. "You are to give them a message for me."

"What message, Lord Rand?"

Rand hesitated, then slipped the access key back in its place. "Tell them that it will not be long before the Dragon Reborn rides to battle at Shayol Ghul. If they wish to return to their posts with honor, I will provide them with transport back to the Blight. Otherwise, they can remain here, hiding. Let them explain to their children and grandchildren why they were hundreds of leagues away from their posts when the Dark One was slain and the prophecies fulfilled."

Hurin looked shaken. "Yes, Lord Rand."

With that, Rand turned his horse about and rode back toward the clearing. Nynaeve followed, too slowly. Beautiful though Moonlight was, she'd have traded the beautiful mare in an instant for a biddable, dependable Two Rivers horse like Bela.

Hurin stayed behind. He still looked shaken. His reunion with "Lord Rand" had obviously been far from what he expected. Nynaeve gritted her teeth as the trees obscured her view of him. Inside the clearing, Rand had opened another gateway, a direct gateway to Tear.

They rode out into the Traveling ground prepared outside the Stone of Tear's stableyards. The air was hot and muggy in Tear, despite the overcast sky, and thick with the sounds of men training and gulls shrieking. Rand rode out to where stablehands waited, then dismounted, his face unreadable.

As Nynaeve climbed off of Moonlight and handed the reins to a ruddy-faced stable worker, Rand walked past her. "Look for a statue," he said.

"What?" she asked with surprise.

He glanced back at her, stopping. "You asked where Perrin was. He's camped with an army beneath the shade of an enormous fallen statue shaped like a sword stabbing the earth. I'm certain scholars here can tell you where it is; it's very distinctive."

"How . . . how do you know that?"

Rand just shrugged. "I just do."

"Why tell me?" she asked, walking alongside him across the yard of packed earth. She hadn't expected him to give up the information—he had gotten into the habit of holding onto whatever he knew, even if that knowledge was meaningless.

;Who chased after you and me, Hurin," Rand called, "the time when we were trapped in that distant shadow land? What nationality of men did I fell with the bow?"

"Men?" Hurin asked, voice almost a squawk. "Lord Rand, there were no men in that place! None that we met, beyond Lady Selene, that is. All I remember are those frog beasts, the same ones folk say those Seanchan ride!"

Rand spun Hurin around in the Air, regarding him with cold eyes. Then he urged his mount closer. Nynaeve and the Asha'man did as well.

"You don't believe that I'm me, Lord Rand?" Hurin asked as he hung in the air.

"I take very little as it is presented to me, these days," Rand said. "I assume the Borderlanders sent you because of our familiarity?"

Hurin nodded, sweating. Nynaeve felt a stab of pity for the man. He was absolutely devoted to Rand. They had spent a lot of time together, chasing down Fain and the Horn of Valere. On the return trip to Tar Valon, she'd seldom been able to stop Hurin from gossiping about this or that grand feat that Rand had accomplished. Being treated this way by the man he idolized was probably very unsettling for the lean thief-taker.

"Why only you?" Rand asked quietly.

"Well," Hurin said, sighing. "They did tell you—" He hesitated, seeming distracted by something. He sniffed audibly. "Now that. . . that's strange. Never smelled that before."

"What?" Rand asked.

"I don't know," Hurin said. "The air ... it smells like a lot of death, a lot of violence, only not. It's darker. More terrible." He shuddered visibly. Hurin's ability to smell violence was one of those oddities that the Tower couldn't explain. Not something related to the Power, yet obviously not quite natural either.

Rand didn't seem to care what Hurin smelled. "Tell me why they sent only you, Hurin."

"I was saying, Lord Rand. See, this here, we're to discuss terms."

"Terms regarding your armies moving back where they belong," Rand said.