The Gathering Storm

"Well," Mat said, relaxing. "Thank you kindly for the game, then. We—"

"GO!" the mayor bellowed. He looked at the last slivers of sunlight on the horizon, then cursed and began waving for the men to enter The Tipsy Gelding. Some lingered, glancing at Mat with shock or hostility, but the mayor's urgings soon bullied them into the low-roofed inn. He pulled the door shut and left Mat, Talmanes and the two soldiers standing alone on the street.

It suddenly seemed eerily quiet. There wasn't a villager on the street. Shouldn't there be some noise from inside the tavern, at least? Some clinking of mugs, some grumbling about the lost wager?

"Well," Mat said, voice echoing against silent housefronts, "I guess that's that." He walked over to Pips, calming the horse, who had begun to shuffle nervously. "Now, see, I told you, Talmanes. Nothing to be worried about at all."

And that's when the screaming began.

CHAPTER 28

Night in Hinderstap

Burn you, Mat!" Talmanes said, yanking his sword free from the gut of a twitching villager. Talmanes almost never swore. "Burn you twice over and once again!" "Me?" Mat snapped, spinning, his ashandarei flashing as he neatly hamstrung two men in bright green vests. They fell to the packed earthen street, eyes wide with rage as they sputtered and growled. "Me? I'm not the one trying to kill you, Talmanes. Blame them\"

Talmanes managed to pull himself into his saddle. "They told us to leave!"

"Yes," Mat said, grabbing Pips' reigns and pulling the horse away from The Tipsy Gelding. "And now they're trying to kill us. I can't rightly be blamed for their unsociable behavior!" Howls, screams, and yells rose from all across the village. Some were angry, some were terrified, others were agonized.

More and more men piled out of the tavern, each one grunting and yelling, each one trying his best to kill every person around him. Some of them came for Mat, Talmanes or Mat's Redarms. But many just attacked their companions, hands ripping at skin, nails tearing gouges in faces. They fought with a primal lack of skill, and only a few thought to pick up rocks, mugs or lengths of wood as weapons.

This was far more than a simple bar fight. These men were trying to kill each other. Already there were a half-dozen corpses or near-corpses on the street, and from what Mat could see of the inside of the inn, the fighting was equally brutal inside.

Mat tried to edge closer to the wagon with its load of food, Pips clopping alongside him. His chest of gold still lay on the street. The fighting men ignored both food and coin, concentrating on one another.

Talmanes, as well as Harnan and Delarn—his two soldiers—backed away with him, nervously pulling their own mounts. A group of raving men soon descended on the two villagers Mat had hamstrung, beating their heads against the ground over and over until they stopped moving. Then the pack looked up at Mat and his men, bloodlust clouding their eyes. It was an incongruous expression on the clean faces of men in neat vests and combed hair.

"Blood and bloody ashes," Mat said, swinging into his saddle. "Mount up!"

Harnan and Delarn needed no further instruction. They cursed, sheathing swords and swinging into saddles. The pack of villagers surged forward, but Mat and Talmanes cut off the attack. Mat tried to go for wounding blows only, but the villagers were deceptively strong and fast, and he found himself fighting just to keep them from pulling him out of the saddle. He cursed, reluctantly beginning to wield killing blows, taking two of the men with sweeps to the neck. Pips kicked out and knocked another to the ground with a hoof to the head. In a few moments, Harnan and Delarn joined the fight.

The villagers didn't back away. They kept fighting in a frenzy until the entire pack of eight had dropped. Mat's soldiers fought with wide-eyed terror, and Mat didn't blame them. It was flaming eerie, seeing common villagers react like this! There didn't seem to be an ounce of humanity left in them. They spoke only in grunts, hisses, and screams, their faces painted with anger and bloodlust. Now the other villagers—those not directly attacking Mat's men—started forming into packs, slaughtering the groups smaller than themselves by bludgeoning them, clawing them, biting them. It was unnerving.

As Mat watched, a body broke through one of the tavern window frames. The corpse rolled to the ground, neck broken. On the other side, Barlden stood with wild, nearly inhuman eyes. He screamed into the night, then saw Mat and—for just a moment—seemed to show a hint of recognition. Then it was gone, and the mayor bellowed again, running forward to leap through the broken window and attack a pair of men whose backs were turned.

"Move!" Mat said, rearing Pips as another pack of villagers saw him.

"The gold!" Talmanes said.

"Burn the gold!" Mat said. "We can win more, and that food isn't worth our lives. Go!"

Talmanes and the soldiers turned their mounts and galloped down the street, Mat kicking Pips to join them, leaving the gold and wagon behind. It wasn't worth their lives—if possible, he'd bring the army in on the morrow to recover it. But they had to survive first.

They galloped for a short time, and Mat slowed them at the next corner, holding up a hand. He glanced over his shoulder. The villagers were still coming, but the gallop had left them behind for now.

"I'm still blaming you," Talmanes said.

"I thought you liked fighting," Mat said.

"I like some fights," Talmanes said. "On the battlefield or a nice bar fight. This . . . this is insane." The pack of villagers behind had fallen to all fours and were moving in a strange lope. Talmanes shivered visibly.

There was barely enough light to see by. Now that the sun had set, those mountains and the gray clouds blocked what light remained. Lanterns lined many of the streets, but it didn't look as if anyone would be lighting them.

"Mat, they're gaining," Talmanes said, sword held at the ready.

"This isn't just about our wager," Mat said, listening to the screams and shouts. They came from all around the village. Down a side road, a couple of struggling bodies burst through the upper window of a house. They were women, clawing at each other as they fell, crashing to the ground with a sickening thud. They stopped moving.

"Come on," Mat said, turning Pips. "We've got to find Thom and the women." They galloped down a side street that would intersect with the main thoroughfare, passing packs of men and women fighting in the gutters. A fat man with bloodied cheeks stumbled into the road, and Mat reluctantly rode him down. There were too many people fighting at the sides for him to risk leading his men around the poor fool. Mat even saw children fighting, biting at the legs of those larger than they, throttling those their own age.