Crossroads of Twilight

## Chapter 27

#### What Must Be Done

The winnowing took place on the snowy eastern riverbank, where there was nothing to cut the sharp north wind. Men and women from the town hauled sacks across the bridges in four-horse wagons and one-horse carts even barrows pushed by hand. Normally buyers brought their own wagons to the warehouses, or at worst the grain and dried beans only had to be carried as far as the wharf, but Perrin had no intention of sending his cart drivers into So Habor. Or anyone else, for that matter. Whatever was wrong in that town might be catching. Anyway, the drivers were uneasy enough as it was, frowning at the dirty townsfolk, people who never spoke, but laughed nervously when they accidentally met someone’s eye. The grimy-faced merchants overseeing the work were no better. In the drivers’ native Cairhien, merchants were clean, respectable people, at least outwardly, who very seldom twitched just because someone moved at the corner of their vision. Between merchants with a tendency to peer suspiciously at anyone they did not know, and townsfolk who dragged their feet recrossing the bridges, clearly reluctant to go back inside their own walls, the cart drivers were right on edge. They gathered in little clusters, pale, dark-clad men and women, gripping the hilts of their belt knives and peering at the taller locals as if at murderous madmen.

Perrin rode about slowly, watching the winnowing, examining the row of carts that stretched up the rise and out of sight waiting to be loaded, or the town’s wagons and carts and barrows rolling across the bridges. He made sure he was in plain view. He was not sure why the sight of him pretending to be unconcerned should settle anyone else’s nerves, yet it seemed to. Enough that no one started running, at least, though they continued to look askance at the people of So Habor. They kept their distance, too, and just as well. Let the notion that some of those folk might not be alive get into the Cairhienin’s heads, and half would whip up their cart horses to flee then and there. Most of the rest might not wait much past dark. That sort of tale could twist anyone’s head, come night. The wan sun, nearly hidden by gray overcast, still sat less than halfway to its noonday peak, yet increasingly it was obvious they would have to be there through the night. Maybe more than one. His jaw knotted with the effort of not grinding his teeth, and even Neald began to avoid his scowls. He did not snap at anyone. He just wanted to.

It was an arduous process, the winnowing. Every last sack had to be opened and emptied onto large flat wicker baskets, each of which took two people to toss the grain or beans. The cold wind carried away weevils in a shower of black flecks, and men and women with woven two-handed fans added to the gusts. A swift current swept away everything that was blown into the river, but soon the snow on the riverbank was trampled underfoot and the gray slush layered with insects dead or dying from the cold, and a liberal coating of oats and barley speckled with red beans. There was always a new layer to replace what feet mashed into the snow. What was left on the baskets seemed cleaner, though, if not entirely clean when it was poured back into the coarse jute bags, which had been turned inside out and beaten fiercely with sticks by children to shake out vermin. The refilled sacks went into the Cairhienin’s carts as soon as the tops were tied, but the piles of empty bags grew at a prodigious rate.

He was leaning on the pommel of Stayer’s saddle, trying to calculate whether it was taking two whole cart loads from the warehouses to fill one of his carts with grain, when Berelain brought her white mare up beside him, holding her scarlet cloak close against the wind with one red-gloved hand. Annoura reined in a few paces away, her ageless face smooth and unreadable. The Aes Sedai appeared to be giving them privacy, yet she was close enough to hear anything above whispers even without any tricks of the Power. Smooth face or no, her beak of a nose gave her a predatory look today. Her beaded braids seemed some strange eagle’s lowered crest.

“You cannot save everyone,” Berelain said calmly. Away from the stink of the town, her scent was sharp with urgency, and razor-edged with anger. “Sometimes, you must choose. So Habor is Lord Cowlin’s duty. He had no right to abandon his people.” Not angry with him, then.

Perrin frowned. Did she think he felt guilty? Balanced against Faile’s life, the troubles of So Habor could not budge the scales a hair. But he turned his bay so he was looking at the gray town walls across the river, not the hollow-eyed children piling up empty sacks. A man did what he could. What he had to. “Does Annoura have an opinion on what’s happening here?” he growled. Quietly, but somehow he had no doubt the Aes Sedai heard.

“I’ve little idea what Annoura thinks,” Berelain replied, making no effort to lower her voice. She not only did not care who overheard, she wanted to be heard. “She is not as forthcoming as she once was. As I once thought she was. It is up to her to mend what she has torn.” Without looking at the Aes Sedai, she turned and rode away.

Annoura remained behind, eyes unblinking on Perrin’s face. “You are ta’veren, yes, but you are still only a thread in the Pattern, as am I. In the end, even the Dragon Reborn is just a thread to be woven into the Pattern. Not even a ta’veren thread chooses how it will be woven.”

“Those threads are people,” Perrin said wearily. “Sometimes maybe people don’t want to be woven into the Pattern without any say.”

“And you think this makes a difference?” Not waiting on an answer, she lifted her reins and heeled her fine-ankled brown mare after Berelain in a gallop that fanned her cloak behind her.

She was not the only Aes Sedai who wanted words with Perrin.

“No,” he told Seonid firmly after listening to her, patting Stayer’s neck. It was the rider wanted soothing, though. He wanted to be away from So Habor. “I said no, and I mean no.”

She sat her saddle stiffly, a pale little woman carved of ice. Except that her eyes were dark coals burning, and she reeked of affronted fury barely in check. Seonid was mild as milk-water with the Wise Ones, but he was not a Wise One. Behind her, Alharra’s dark face was a stone, gray streaking his curly black hair like frost. Wynter’s face was red above his curled mustaches. They had to accept what passed between their Aes Sedai and the Wise Ones, but Perrin was not . . . The wind whipped their Warder cloaks about, leaving their hands free for swords if need be. Rippling in the wind, the cloaks shifted in shades of gray and brown, blue and white. It was easier on the stomach than seeing them make parts of a man disappear. Some easier.

“If I have to, I’ll send Edarra to bring you back,” he warned.

Her face stayed cold, her eyes hot, yet a quiver ran through her, swaying the small white gem hanging on her forehead. Not from fear of what the Wise Ones would do to her if she had to be brought back, just from the same offense at Perrin that made her scent a hooked thorn. He was growing accustomed to offending Aes Sedai. Not a habit a wise man got into, but there seemed no way out of it.

“What about you?” he asked Masuri. “Do you want to stay in So Habor as well?”

The slim woman was known for speaking straight to the point, direct as a Green for all she was Brown, but she said calmly, “Would you not send Edarra after me, too? There are many ways to serve, and we cannot always pick the ways we would wish.” Which, come to think, might be to the point, in a way. He still had no idea why she visited Masema in secret. Did she suspect that he knew? Masuri’s face was a bland mask. Kirklin wore a bored expression, now they were out of So Habor. He managed to seem slumped while sitting his horse erect, without a worry in the world or a thought in his head. A man who believed that of Kirklin would return the next day to buy a second pig in a poke.

The townsfolk worked mechanically as the sun rose higher, like people who wanted to lose themselves in the task at hand and feared the return of memories when they stopped. Perrin decided So Habor was making him fanciful. Still, he thought he was right. The air beyond the walls still looked too dim, as though a shading cloud hung over the town.

At noon, the cart drivers cleared patches of snow on the slope rising from the river to make small fires and brew weak tea with leaves brewing their third pot, or maybe fourth. There had been no tea to be had in the town. Some of the drivers looked at the bridges as if thinking to enter So Habor and see what they could find to eat. A glance at the dirt-caked people working the winnowing baskets sent them back to dig out their small bags of oatmeal and ground acorn. At least they knew that mix was clean. A few eyed the sacks already loaded on the carts, but the beans needed to be soaked and the grain run through the large handmills that had been left back in the camp, and that was after the cooks picked out as many more weevils as they thought men could not stomach eating.

Perrin had no appetite, not for the cleanest bread, but he was drinking what passed for tea from a battered tin cup when Latian found him. The Cairhienin did not actually come to him. Instead, the short man in the striped dark coat rode slowly past the small fire where Perrin was standing, then reined in with a frown a little upslope. Dismounting, Latian lifted his gelding’s near forehoof and frowned at it. Of course, he did look up twice to see whether Perrin was coming.

With a sigh, Perrin returned the dented cup to the blocky little woman he had borrowed it from, a graying cart driver who spread her dark skirts in a curtsy. And grinned and shook her head at Latian. Likely, she could sneak ten times as well as the fellow. Neald, squatting by the fire with his hands wrapped around another tin cup, laughed out loud so hard he had to wipe a tear from his eye. Maybe he was beginning to go crazy. Light, but this place gave a man cheerful thoughts.

Latian straightened long enough to make Perrin a leg and say, “I see you, my Lord,” then ducked back down to snatch up the foreleg again like a fool. You did not grab at a horse’s legs that way unless you wanted kicking. But then, Perrin expected nothing but foolishness, really. First there was Latian’s playing at being Aiel, with his shoulder-long hair tied off in a tail at the nape of his neck in weak imitation of how Aiel cut theirs, and now the man was playing at being a spy. Perrin rested a hand on the gelding’s neck to soothe the animal after all that snatching and put an interested look on his face as he peered at a hoof that had absolutely nothing wrong with it. Except for a nick in the shoe where the iron might break in a few days if it was not replaced. His hands itched for farrier’s tools. It seemed years since he had changed a horse’s shoes, or worked a forge.

“Master Balwer sends word, my Lord,” Latian said softly, head down. “His friend is traveling to sell his wares, but is expected back tomorrow or the next day. He said to ask whether it will be all right if we catch up to you then.” Peering under the horse’s belly at the winnowers down by the river, he added, “Though it hardly looks as if you will be away before.”

Perrin scowled down at the winnowing. He scowled at the line of carts waiting their turn to be loaded, at the half dozen or so that already had their canvas covers lashed down. One of those held the first of the leather for patching boots and candles and such. No oil, though. The lamp oil in So Habor smelled as rancid as the cooking oil. What if Gaul and the Maidens brought word of Faile? An actual sighting, perhaps? He would give anything to talk to someone who had seen her, could tell him she was unharmed. What if the Shaido began to move suddenly? “Tell Balwer not to wait too long,” he growled. “As for me, I’ll be away inside the hour.”

He was as good as his word. Most of the carts and drivers had to be left behind to make the one-day journey back to camp on their own, and Kireyin and his green-helmeted soldiers to guard them, with orders that no one was to cross the bridges. Cold-eyed, appearing completely recovered from his breakdown, the Ghealdanin assured him that he was fit and ready. Very likely, orders or not, he would be going back into So Habor just to convince himself he was not afraid. Perrin did not waste time trying to talk him out of it. For one thing, Seonid had to be found. She was not precisely hiding, yet she had learned of his departure, and, leaving her Warders to hold her horse quite openly, she dodged about on foot trying to keep carts between herself and him. The pale Aes Sedai could not hide her scent, though, or if she could, she did not know it was necessary. She was surprised when he tracked her down quickly, and indignant when he marched her to her horse ahead of Stayer. Even so, he was well under the hour riding away from So Habor, with the Winged Guards making their ring of red armor around Berelain, the Two Rivers men surrounding the eight loaded carts that trundled along behind the three remaining banners, and Neald grinning for all he was worth. Not to mention trying to chat up the Aes Sedai. Perrin did not know what to do if the fellow really was going mad. As soon as the rise hid So Habor behind them, he felt the loosening of a knot he had not realized was riding between his shoulders. That left only ten others, and a knot of impatience twisting his belly. Berelain’s obvious sympathy could not loosen those.

Neald’s gateway took them from the snow-covered field to the small clearing of the Traveling ground amid the towering trees, four leagues in a step, but Perrin did not wait for the handful of carts to come through. He thought he heard Berelain make a vexed sound when he booted Stayer to a quick trot, back toward the camp. Or maybe it was one of the Aes Sedai. Much more likely.

There was a sense of stillness when he rode in among the Two Rivers men’s tents and huts. The sun still hung not too far off overhead in the gray sky, but there were no cookpots on the fires and very few of the men gathered around the campfires, holding their cloaks close and peering intently into the flames. A handful were sitting on the rough stools that Ban Crawe knew how to make; the rest stood or squatted. No one so much as looked up. Certainly no one came running to take his horse. Not stillness, he realized. Tension. The smell somehow minded him of a bow drawn to the point of breaking. He could almost hear the creak.

As he dismounted in front of the red-striped tent, Dannil appeared from the direction of the low Aiel tents, walking fast. Sulin and Edarra, one of the Wise Ones, were following him, and keeping up easily though neither appeared to hurry. Sulin’s face was a sun-dark leather mask. Edarra’s, barely revealed by the dark shawl wrapped around her head, was an image of calm. Despite her bulky skirts, she made as little sound as the white-haired Maiden, not so much as a faint clink from her gold and ivory bracelets and necklaces. Dannil was chewing the edge of one thick mustache, absently pulling his sword an inch out of its rough leather scabbard and shoving it back hard. Pull and shove. He drew a deep breath before speaking.

“The Maidens brought in five Shaido, Lord Perrin. Arganda took them over to the Ghealdanin tents to put them to the question. Masema’s with them.”

Perrin brushed aside Masema’s presence inside the camp. “Why did you let Arganda take them?” he asked Edarra. Dannil could not have stopped it, but the Wise Ones were a different proposition.

Edarra appeared not much older than Perrin, yet her cool blue eyes seemed to have seen far more than he ever would. She folded her arms beneath her breasts in a rattle of bracelets. And with a touch of impatience. “Even Shaido know how to embrace pain, Perrin Aybara. It will take days to bring any of them to talk, and there seemed no reason to wait.”

If Edarra’s eyes were cool, Sulin’s were blue ice. “My spear-sisters and I could have done it faster ourselves, a little, but Dannil Lewin said you wanted no blows struck. Gerard Arganda is an impatient man, and he mistrusts us.” She sounded as though she would have spat if she were not Aiel. “You may not learn much, in any case. They are Stone Dogs. They will yield slowly, and as little as possible. In this, it is always necessary to put together a little from one with a little from another to make a picture.”

Embrace pain. There had to be pain, when you put a man to the question. He had not let that thought form in his head before this. But to get Faile back . . .

“Have somebody rub Stayer down,” he said roughly, thrusting the reins at Dannil.

The Ghealdanin portion of the camp could not have been more different from the rude shelters and haphazardly placed tents of the Two Rivers men. Here, the peaked canvas tents stood in precise rows, most with a steel-tipped cone of lances standing at the entry flaps and saddled horses tethered at the side, ready to mount. The flicking of the horses’ tails and the long streamers on the lances, lifting on a cold breeze, were the only disordered things to be seen. The paths between the tents were all the same width, and a straight line could have been drawn through the rows of cookfires. Even the creases in the canvas, from where the tents had been folded away at the bottom of carts until the snows came, made straight lines. All orderly and neat.

A smell of oatmeal porridge and boiled acorn hung in the air, and some green-coated men were scraping the last of the midday meal from their tin plates with their fingers. Others were already scouring out the cookpots. None showed any sign of tension. They were just eating and doing chores, with about equal pleasure. It was something that had to be done.

A large knot of men stood gathered in a ring near the sharpened stakes that marked the outer edge of the camp. No more than half wore the green coats and burnished breastplates of Ghealdanin lancers. Some of the others carried lances or had swords belted over their rumpled coats. Those ranged from fine silk or good wool to the pickings of a ragbag, but none could be called clean except in comparison to So Habor. You could always tell Masema’s men, even from the back.

Another smell came to him as he approached the circle of men. The smell of meat roasting. And there was a muffled sound that he tried not to hear. When he began pushing his way through, the soldiers looked around at him and gave way grudgingly. Masema’s men started back, muttering about yellow eyes and Shadowspawn. Either way, he gained passage to the front.

Four tall men, red-haired or pale in the gray-and-brown cadin’sor, lay bound with their wrists lashed to their ankles in the small of their backs and stout lengths of branch tied behind their knees and elbows. Their faces were battered and bruised, and they had wadded rags tied between their teeth. The fifth man was naked, staked out between four stout pegs driven into the ground and stretched so tight his sinews stood out. He thrashed as much as his binding allowed, though, and howled into the rags stuffing his mouth, a muffled bellow of agony. Hot coals made a small cluster on his belly, giving off a faint smoke. It was the smell of blistering flesh that Perrin’s nose had caught. The coals clung to the stretched man’s skin, and every time his writhing managed to throw one off, a grinning fellow in a filthy green silk coat, squatting beside him, used a pair of tongs to replace it with another from a potful melting a circle of mud in the ground. Perrin knew him. His name was Hari, and he liked to collect ears strung on a leather cord. Men’s ears, women’s ears, children’s ears; it never minded to Hari.

Without thinking, Perrin strode forward and kicked the little pile of coals off the bound man. Some of them struck Hari, who jumped back with a startled squeal that turned to a shriek when his hand came down in the pot. He toppled over sideways, cradling his burned hand and glaring at Perrin, a weasel in a human skin.

“The savage makes a sham, Aybara,” Masema said. Perrin had not even noticed the man standing there, face like a scowling stone beneath his shaved scalp. His dark fevered eyes held a measure of contempt. The scent of madness skittered through the stink of burned flesh. “I know them. They pretend to feel pain, but they do not; not the way other men do. You must be willing and able to hurt a stone to make one of them talk.”

Arganda, rigid beside Masema, was gripping his sword hilt so hard that his hand shook. “Perhaps you are willing to lose your wife, Aybara,” he grated, “but I will not lose my queen!”

“It has to be done,” Aram said, half pleading, half demanding. He was on Masema’s other side, clutching the edges of his green cloak as if to keep his hands from the sword on his back. His eyes were almost as hot as Masema’s. “You taught me that a man does what he must.”

Perrin forced his fists to unknot. What had to be done, for Faile.

Berelain and the Aes Sedai came pushing through the crowd, Berelain wrinkling her nose slightly at the sight of the man stretched out between the pegs. The three Aes Sedai might have been looking at a piece of wood for all their expression. Edarra and Sulin were with them, neither more affected. Some of the Ghealdanin soldiers frowned at the two Aiel women and muttered under their breath. Masema’s rumpled, dirty-faced men glared at Aiel and Aes Sedai alike, but most edged away from the three Warders, and those who did not were pulled away by their companions. Some fools knew the limits of stupidity. Masema glared at Berelain with burning eyes before deciding to pretend she did not exist. Some fools knew no limits.

Bending, Perrin untied the rag around the pegged man’s mouth and tugged the wad from between his teeth. He just managed to snatch his hand back from a snap as vicious as any Slayer could have given.

Immediately, the Aielman threw back his head and began to sing in a deep, clear voice:

“Wash the spears; while the sun climbs high.
Wash the spears; while the sun falls low.

Wash the spears; who fears to die?
Wash the spears; no one I know!”

Masema’s laughter rose in the middle of the singing. Perrin’s hackles rose, too. He had never heard Masema laugh before. It was not a pleasant sound.

He did not want to lose a finger, so he pulled his axe out of its belt loop and carefully used the top of the axe head against the man’s chin to push his mouth shut. Eyes the color of the sky looked up at him out of a sun-dark face, unafraid. The man smiled.

“I don’t ask you to betray your people,” Perrin said. His throat hurt with the effort of keeping his voice steady. “You Shaido captured some women. All I want to know is how to get them back. One is named Faile. She’s as tall as one of your women, with dark tilted eyes, a strong nose and a bold mouth. A beautiful woman. You’d remember her, if you had seen her. Have you?” Pulling the axe away, he straightened.

The Shaido stared at him for a moment, then raised his head and began to sing again, never taking his eyes from Perrin. It was a jolly song, with the rollicking sound of a dance:

“I once met a man who was far from home.
His eyes were yellow and his wits were stone.
He asked me to hold smoke in my hand,
and said he could show me a watery land.
He put his head in the ground and his feet in the air,
and said he could dance like a woman fair.
He said he could stand till he turned to stone.
When I blinked my eyes, he was gone.”

Letting his head fall back, the Shaido chuckled, deep and rich. He could have been lounging at ease on a feather bed.

“If . . . If you can’t do this,” Aram said desperately, “then go away. I’ll help see to it.”

What had to be done. Perrin looked at the faces around him. Arganda, scowling with hatred, at him as much as the Shaido, now. Masema, stinking of madness and filled with a scornful hate. You must be willing and able to hurt a stone. Edarra, her face as unreadable as the Aes Sedai’s, arms folded calmly beneath her breasts. Even Shaido know how to embrace pain. It will take days. Sulin, the scar across her cheek still pale on her leathery skin, her gaze level and her scent implacable. They will yield slowly and as little as possible. Berelain, smelling of judgment, a ruler who had sentenced men to death and never lost a night’s sleep. What had to be done. Willing and able to hurt a stone. Embrace pain. Oh Light, Faile.

The axe was as light as a feather rising in his hand, and came down like a hammer on the anvil, the heavy blade shearing through the Shaido’s left wrist.

The man grunted in pain, then reared up convulsively with a snarl, deliberately spraying the blood that gouted from his wrist across Perrin’s face.

“Heal him,” Perrin said to the Aes Sedai, stepping back. He did not try to wipe his face. The blood was seeping into his beard. He felt hollow. He could not have lifted the axe again if he had to for his life.

“Are you mad?” Masuri said angrily. “We cannot give the man back his hand!”

“I said, Heal him!” he growled.

Seonid was already moving, though, lifting her skirts to glide across the ground and kneel at the man’s head. He was biting at his severed wrist, trying futilely to stem the flow of blood with the pressure of his teeth. But there was no fear in his eyes. Or in his smell. None.

Seonid gripped the Shaido’s head, and suddenly he convulsed again, flinging his arm out wildly. The spray of blood dwindled as he jerked, and was gone before he slumped back to the ground, gray-faced. Unsteadily, he raised the stump of his left arm to look at the smooth skin that now covered the end. If there was a scar, Perrin could not see it. The man bared teeth at him. He still did not smell afraid. Seonid slumped, too, as if she had strained to her limit. Alharra and Wynter took a step forward, and she waved them away, rising by herself with a heavy sigh.

“I’ve been told you can hold out for days and still say next to nothing,” Perrin said. His voice sounded too loud in his ears. “I don’t have time for you to show how tough you are, or how brave. I know you’re brave and tough. But my wife’s been a prisoner too long. You’ll be separated and asked about some women. Whether you’ve seen them and where. That’s all I want to know. There’ll be no hot coals or anything else; just questions. But if anybody refuses to answer, or if your answers are too different, then everybody loses something.” He was surprised to find that he could lift the axe after all. The blade was smeared with red.

“Two hands and two feet,” he said coldly. Light, he sounded like ice. He felt like ice to his bones. “That means you get four chances to answer the same. And if you all hold out, I still won’t kill you. I’ll find a village to leave you in, some place that will let you beg, somewhere the boys will toss a coin to the fierce Aielmen with no hands or feet. You think on it and decide whether it’s worth keeping my wife from me.”

Even Masema was staring at him as if he had never before seen the man standing there with an axe. When he turned to go, Masema’s men and the Ghealdanin alike parted in front of him as though to let a whole fist of Trollocs through.

He found the hedge of sharpened stakes in front of him, and the forest a hundred paces or so beyond, but he did not change direction. Carrying the axe, he walked until huge trees surrounded him and the smell of the camp was left behind. The smell of blood he carried with him, sharp and metallic. There was no running from that.

He could not have said how long he walked through the snow. He barely noticed the sharpening slant of the bars of light that sliced the shadows beneath the forest canopy. The blood was thick on his face, in his beard. Beginning to dry. How many times had he said he would do anything to get Faile back? A man did what he had to. For Faile, anything.

Abruptly, he raised the axe behind his head in both hands and hurled it as hard as he could. It spun end over end, and slammed into the thick trunk of an oak with a solid tchunk.

Letting out a breath that seemed locked in his lungs, he sank down on a rough stone outcrop that stuck up as high and broad as a bench, and put his elbows on his knees. “You can show yourself now, Elyas,” he said wearily. “I can smell you there.”

The other man stepped lightly out of the shadows, yellow eyes glowing faintly beneath the wide brim of his hat. The Aiel were noisy, compared to him. Adjusting his long knife, he took a seat beside Perrin on the outcrop, but for a time he merely sat combing his fingers through the gray-streaked beard that fanned across his chest. He nodded toward the axe stuck in the side of the oak. “I told you once to keep that till you got to like using it too much. Did you start liking it? Back there?”

Perrin shook his head hard. “No! Not that! But . . . ”

“But what, boy? I think you almost have Masema scared. Only, you smell scared, too.”

“About time he was scared of something,” Perrin muttered, shrugging uncomfortably. Some things were hard to give voice. Maybe it was time to, though. “The axe. I didn’t notice it, the first time; only looking back. That was the night I met Gaul, and the Whitecloaks tried to kill us. Later, fighting Trollocs in the Two Rivers, I wasn’t sure. But then, at Dumai’s Wells, I was. I’m afraid in a battle, Elyas, afraid and sad, because maybe I’ll never see Faile again.” His heart clenched till his chest hurt. Faile. “Only . . . I’ve heard Grady and Neald talk about how it is, holding the One Power. They say they feel more alive. I’m too frightened to spit, in a battle, but I feel more alive than any time except when I’m holding Faile. I don’t think I could stand it if I came to feel that way about what I just did back there. I don’t think Faile would have me back if I came to that.”

Elyas snorted. “I don’t think you have that in you, boy. Listen, danger takes different men in different ways. Some are cold as clockwork, but you never struck me as the cold sort. When your heart starts pounding, it heats your blood. Stands to reason it heightens your senses, too. Makes you aware. Maybe you’ll die in a few minutes, maybe in a heartbeat, but you’re not dead now, and you know it from your teeth to your toenails. Just the way things are. Doesn’t mean you like it.”

“I would like to believe that,” Perrin said simply.

“Live as long as I have,” Elyas replied in a dry voice, “and you’ll believe. Till then, just take it that I’ve lived longer than you have, and I’ve been there before you.”

The two of them sat looking at the axe. Perrin wanted to believe. The blood on his axe looked black, now. Blood had never looked so black before. How long had it been? From the angle of the light sifting through the trees, the sun was falling.

His ears caught the crunch of hooves in the snow, slowly coming toward him. Minutes later, Neald and Aram appeared, the onetime Tinker pointing out tracks and the Asha’man shaking his head impatiently. It was a clear trail, but in truth, Perrin would not have bet on Neald being able to follow it. He was a city man.

“Arganda thought we ought to wait till your blood cooled,” Neald said, leaning on his saddle and studying Perrin. “Me, I think it can’t get any cooler.” He nodded, a touch of satisfaction around his mouth. He was accustomed to people being afraid of him, because of his black coat and what it represented.

“They talked,” Aram said, “and they all gave the same answers.” His scowl said he did not like the answers. “I think the threat of leaving them to beg frightened them more than your axe. But they say they’ve never seen the Lady Faile. Or any of the others. We could try the coals again. They might remember then.” Did he sound eager? To find Faile, or to use the coals?

Elyas grimaced. “They’ll just give you back the answers you’ve already given them, now. Tell you what you want to hear. It was a small chance, anyway. There’s thousands of Shaido and thousands of prisoners. A man could live his whole life among that many people and never meet more than a few hundred to remember.”

“Then we have to kill them,” Aram said grimly. “Sulin said the Maidens made sure to take them when they had no weapons, so they could be questioned. They won’t just settle down to be gai’shain. If even one escapes, he can let the Shaido know we’re here. Then they’ll be coming after us.”

Perrin’s joints felt rusted, aching as he stood up. He could not just let the Shaido go. “They can be guarded, Aram.” Haste had almost lost him Faile completely, and he had been hasty again. Hasty. Such a mild word for cutting off a man’s hand. And to no purpose. He had always tried to think carefully and move carefully. He had to think now, but every thought hurt. Faile was lost in a sea of white-clad prisoners. “Maybe other gai’shain would know where she is,” he muttered, turning back toward the camp. But how to put his hands on any of the Shaido’s gai’shain? They were never allowed outside the camp except under guard.

“What about that, boy?” Elyas asked.

Perrin knew what he meant without looking. The axe. “Leave it for whoever finds it.” His voice turned harsh. “Maybe some fool gleeman will make a story out of it.” He strode away toward the camp, never looking back. With its empty loop, the thick belt around his waist was too light. All to no purpose.

Three days later the carts returned from So Habor, heavy laden, and Balwer entered Perrin’s tent with a tall unshaven man, wearing a dirty woolen coat and a sword that looked much better cared for. At first, Perrin did not recognize him behind an untrimmed month’s growth of beard. Then he caught the man’s scent.

“I never expected to see you again,” he said. Balwer blinked, as much as a gasp of startlement from anyone else. Doubtless the bird-like little man had been looking forward to presenting a surprise.

“I’ve been searching for . . . for Maighdin,” Tallanvor said roughly, “but the Shaido moved faster than I could. Master Balwer says you know where she is.”

Balwer gave the younger man a sharp look, but his voice remained as dry and emotionless as his scent. “Master Tallanvor reached So Habor just before I left, my Lord. It was the merest chance that I encountered him. But perhaps a fortunate chance. He may have some allies for you. I will let him tell it.” Tallanvor frowned at his boots and said nothing.

“Allies?” Perrin prompted. “Nothing less than an army will be much use, but I’ll take any aid you can bring.”

Tallanvor looked at Balwer, who returned a half bow and a blandly encouraging smile. The unshaven man drew a deep breath. “Fifteen thousand Seanchan, near enough. Most are Taraboners, actually, but they ride under Seanchan banners. And . . . And they have at least a dozen damane.” His voice quickened with urgency, a need to finish before Perrin could cut him off. “I know it’s like taking help from the Dark One, but they’re hunting the Shaido, too, and I’d take the Dark One’s help to free Maighdin.”

For a moment, Perrin stared at the two men, Tallanvor nervously thumbing his sword hilt, Balwer like a sparrow waiting to see which way a cricket would hop. Seanchan. And damane. Yes, that would be like taking the Dark One’s help. “Sit down and tell me about these Seanchan,” he said.