A Crown of Swords

## Chapter 2

#### The Butcher’s Yard

At first Perrin did not look downslope toward where he would ride, where he should have gone with Rand this morning. Instead he sat his saddle at the edge of the wagons and sent his eyes anywhere else, though the view everywhere made him want to sick up. It was like being hit in the belly with a hammer.

Hammerstroke. Nineteen fresh graves atop a squat hill to the east; nineteen Two Rivers men who would never see home again. A blacksmith seldom had to see people die because of his decisions. At least the Two Rivers men had obeyed his orders. There would have been more graves, otherwise. Hammerstroke. Rectangles of newly turned earth blanketed the next slope over from that, as well, near to a hundred Mayeners, and more Cairhienin, who had come to Dumai’s Wells to die. Never mind causes or reasons; they had followed Perrin Aybara. Hammerstroke. The ridge-face to the west seemed solid graves, maybe a thousand or more. A thousand Aiel, buried standing upright, to face each sunrise. A thousand. Some were Maidens. The men tied his stomach into knots; the women made him want to sit down and cry. He tried telling himself that they all had chosen to be here, that they had had to be here. Both things were true, but he had given the orders, and that made the responsibility for those graves his. Not Rand’s, not the Aes Sedai’s; his.

The living Aiel had only stopped singing over their dead a short while ago, haunting songs, sung in parts, that lingered in the mind.

Life is a dream—that knows no shade.
Life is a dream—of pain and woe.
A dream from which—we pray to wake.
A dream from which—we wake and go.

Who would sleep—when the new dawn waits?
Who would sleep—when the sweet winds blow?
A dream must end—when the new day comes.
This dream from which—we wake and go.

They appeared to find comfort in those songs. He wished he could, too, but as far as he could see, the Aiel truly did not seem to care whether they lived or died, and that was mad. Any sane man wanted to live. Any sane man would run as far as he could from a battle, run as hard as he could.

Stepper tossed his head, nostrils flaring at the smells from below, and Perrin patted the dun’s neck. Aram was grinning as he looked at what Perrin tried to block out. Loial’s face had so little expression it might have been carved from wood. His lips moved slightly, and Perrin thought he heard, “Light, let me never see the like again.” Drawing a deep breath, he made his eyes follow theirs, to Dumai’s Wells.

In some ways it was not as bad as the graves—he had known some of those people since he was a child—but it all crashed down on him at once anyway, like the scent in his nose made solid and smashing him between the eyes. The memories he wanted to forget came rushing back. Dumai’s Wells had been a killing ground, a dying ground, but now it was worse. Less than a mile away, the charred remains of wagons stood around a small copse of trees nearly hiding the low stone copings of the wells. And surrounding that . . .

A seething sea of black, vultures and ravens and crows in tens of thousands, swirling up in waves and settling again, concealing the broken earth. For which Perrin was more than grateful. The Asha’man’s methods had been brutal, destroying flesh and ground with equal impartiality. Too many Shaido had died to bury in less than days, even had anyone cared to bury them, so the vultures gorged, and the ravens, and the crows. The dead wolves were down there, too; he had wanted to bury them, but that was not the wolves’ way. Three Aes Sedai corpses had been found, their channeling unable to save them from spears and arrows in the madness of battle, and half a dozen dead Warders, too. They were buried in the clearing near the wells.

The birds were not alone with the dead. Far from it. Black-feathered waves rose around Lord Dobraine Taborwin and over two hundred of his mounted Cairhienin armsmen, and Lord Lieutenant Havien Nurelle with all that remained of his Mayeners aside from the guards on the Warders. Con with two white diamonds on blue picked out the Cairhienin officers, all but Dobraine himself, and the Mayeners’ red armor and red-streamered lances made a brave show amid the carnage, but Dobraine was not the only one who held a cloth to his nose. Here and there a man leaned from the saddle trying to empty a stomach already emptied earlier. Mazrim Taim, almost as tall as Rand, was afoot in his black coat with the blue-and-gold Dragons climbing the sleeves, and maybe a hundred more of the Asha’man. Some of them heaved up their bellies, too. There were Maidens by the score, more siswai’aman than Cairhienin and Mayeners and Asha’man combined, and several dozen Wise Ones to boot. All supposedly in case the Shaido returned, or perhaps in case some of the dead were only shamming, though Perrin thought anyone who pretended at being a corpse here would soon go insane. All centered around Rand.

Perrin should have been down there with the Two Rivers men. Rand had asked for them, spoken about trusting men from home, but Perrin had made no promises. He’ll have to settle for me, and late, he thought. In a little bit, when he managed to steel himself to the butcher’s yard below. Only, butcher knives did not mow down people, and they were tidier than axes, tidier than vultures.

The black-coated Asha’man faded into the sea of birds, death swallowed by death, and ravens and crows surging up hid the others, but Rand stood out in the tattered white shirt he had been wearing when rescue came. Though perhaps he hardly needed deliverance by that time. The sight of Min, close beside Rand in pale red coat and snug breeches, made Perrin grimace. That was no place for her, or anyone, but she stayed closer to Rand since the rescue than even Taim did. Somehow Rand had managed to free both himself and her well before Perrin broke through, or even the Asha’man, and Perrin suspected she saw Rand’s presence as the only real safety.

Sometimes as he strode across that charnel ground, Rand patted Min’s arm or bent his head as if speaking to her, but not with his main attention. Dark clouds of birds billowed around them, the smaller darting away to feed elsewhere, the vultures giving ground reluctantly, some refusing to take wing, extending featherless necks and squawking defiantly as they waddled back. Now and then Rand stopped, bending over a corpse. Sometimes fire darted from his hands to strike down vultures that did not give way. Every time, Nandera, who led the Maidens, or Sulin, her second, argued with him. Sometimes Wise Ones did, too, from the way they tugged at the body’s coat as if demonstrating something. And Rand would nod and move on. Not without backward glances, though. And only until another body caught his attention.

“What is he doing?” demanded a haughty voice at Perrin’s knee. By scent he knew her before he looked down. Statuesque and elegant in a green silk riding dress and thin linen dust-cloak, Kiruna Nachiman was sister to King Paitar of Arafel and a powerful noble in her own right, and becoming Aes Sedai had done nothing to dampen her manner. Trapped in what he was watching, he had not heard her approach. “Why is he down in that? He should not be.”

Not all the Aes Sedai in the camp were prisoners, though those who were not had been keeping out of sight since yesterday, talking among themselves, Perrin suspected, and trying to figure out what had happened at the last. Maybe trying to figure some way around it. Now they were out in force. Bera Harkin, another Green, stood at Kiruna’s shoulder, a farmwife by looks despite her ageless face and fine woolen dress, but every scrap as proud as Kiruna in her own way. This farmwife would tell a king to scrape his boots before coming into her house, and be sharp about it. She and Kiruna together led the sisters who had come to Dumai’s Wells with Perrin, or perhaps passed leadership back and forth between them. It was not exactly clear, which was hardly unusual with Aes Sedai.

The other seven stood in a covey not far away. Or maybe in a pride, lionesses, not quail, by their air of being in charge. Their Warders were arrayed behind them, and if the sisters were all outward serenity the Warders made no bones of their feelings. They were disparate men, some in those color-shifting cloaks that seemed to make parts of them disappear, but whether short or tall, thick or thin, just standing there they looked like violence on a frayed leash.

Perrin knew two of those women well, Verin Mathwin and Alanna Mosvani. Short and stout and almost motherly at times in a distracted way, when she was not studying you like a bird studying a worm, Verin was Brown Ajah. Alanna, slim and darkly pretty though a little haggard around the eyes of late for some reason, was Green. Altogether, five of the nine were Green. Once, some time ago, Verin had told him not to trust Alanna too far, and he more than took her at her word. Nor did he trust any of the others, including Verin. Neither did Rand, for all they had fought on his side yesterday, and despite what had happened at the end. Which Perrin still was not sure he believed, even though he had seen it.

A good dozen Asha’man lounged by a wagon about twenty paces from the sisters. A cocky fellow named Charl Gedwyn had charge of them this morning, a hard-faced man who swaggered standing still. All wore a pin in the shape of a silver sword on their tall coat collars, and four or five besides Gedwyn had a Dragon in gold-and-red enamel fastened on the other side. Perrin supposed that had to do with rank in some way. He had seen both on some of the other Asha’man. Not precisely guards, they managed to be wherever Kiruna and the others were. Just taking their ease. And keeping a sharp eye open. Not that the Aes Sedai took any notice, not that you could see. Even so, the sisters smelled wary, and puzzled, and infuriated. Part of that had to be because of the Asha’man.

“Well?” Kiruna’s dark eyes flashed impatience. He doubted that many people kept her waiting.

“I don’t know,” he lied, patting Stepper’s neck again. “Rand doesn’t tell me everything.”

He understood a little—he thought he did—but he had no intention of telling anyone. That was Rand’s to reveal, if he chose. Every body that Rand looked at belonged to a Maiden; Perrin was convinced of it. A Shaido Maiden without a doubt, but he was not sure how much difference that made to Rand. Last night he had walked away from the wagons to be by himself, and as the sound of men laughing because they were alive faded behind him, he found Rand. The Dragon Reborn, who made the world tremble, sitting on the ground, alone in the dark, his arms wrapped around himself, rocking back and forth.

To Perrin’s eyes, the moon was nearly as good as the sun, but right then he wished for pitch blackness. Rand’s face was drawn and twisted, the face of a man who wanted to scream, or maybe weep, and was fighting it down with every scrap of his fiber. Whatever trick the Aes Sedai knew to keep the heat from touching them, Rand and the Asha’man knew, too, but he was not using it now. The night’s heat would have done for a more-than-warm summer day, and sweat slid down Rand’s cheeks as much as Perrin’s.

He did not look around, though Perrin’s boots rustled loudly in the dead grass, yet he spoke hoarsely, still rocking. “One hundred and fifty-one, Perrin. One hundred and fifty-one Maidens died today. For me. I promised them, you see. Don’t argue with me! Shut up! Go away!” Despite his sweat, Rand shivered. “Not you, Perrin; not you. I have to keep my promises, you see. Have to, no matter how it hurts. But I have to keep my promise to myself, too. No matter how it hurts.”

Perrin tried not to think about the fate of men who could channel. The lucky ones died before they went mad; the unlucky died after. Whether Rand was lucky or unlucky, everything rested on him. Everything. “Rand, I don’t know what to say, but—”

Rand seemed not to hear. Back and forth he rocked. Back and forth. “Isan, of the Jarra Sept of the Chareen Aiel. She died for me today. Chuonde of the Spine Ridge Miagoma. She died for me today. Agirin of the Shelan Daryne . . . ”

There had been nothing for it but to settle on his heels and listen to Rand recite all one hundred and fifty-one names in a voice like pain stretched to breaking, listen and hope Rand was holding on to sanity.

Whether or not Rand was still completely sane, though, if a Maiden who came to fight for him had been missed down there somehow, Perrin was sure that not only would she be buried decently with the others on the ridge, there would be one hundred and fifty-two names in that list. And that was none of Kiruna’s business. Not that, or Perrin’s doubts. Rand had to stay sane, or sane enough anyway, and that was that. Light, send it so!

And the Light burn me for thinking it so coldly, Perrin thought.

From the corner of his eye he saw her full mouth tighten momentarily. She liked not knowing everything about as well as being made to wait. She would have been beautiful, in a grand sort of manner, except that hers was a face used to getting what it wanted. Not petulant, just absolutely certain that whatever she wanted was right and proper and must be. “With so many crows and ravens in one place, there are certainly hundreds, perhaps thousands, ready to report what they’ve seen to a Myrddraal.” She made no effort to mask her irritation; she sounded as though he had brought every bird there himself. “In the borderlands, we kill them on sight. You have men, and they have bows.”

It was true, a raven or crow was all too likely to be a spy for the Shadow, but disgust welled up in him. Disgust and weariness. “To what point?” With that many birds, the Two Rivers men and the Aiel could shoot every arrow they had and spies would still report. Most times there was no way to tell whether the bird you killed was the spy or the one that flew away. “Hasn’t there been enough killing? There will be more soon enough. Light, woman, even the Asha’man are sated!”

Eyebrows rose among the onlooking clutch of sisters. No one spoke to Aes Sedai that way, not a king or a queen. Bera gave him a look that said she was considering hauling him out of the saddle and boxing his ears. Still peering toward the shambles below, Kiruna smoothed her skirts, her face coldly determined. Loial’s ears trembled. He had a deep but uneasy respect for Aes Sedai; close to twice as tall as most of the sisters, sometimes he behaved as though one might step on him without noticing if he got in her way.

Perrin gave Kiruna no chance to speak. Give an Aes Sedai a finger, and she took your whole arm, unless she decided to take more. “You’ve been staying clear of me, but I have a few things to say to you. You disobeyed orders yesterday. If you want to call it changing the plan,” he pushed on when she opened her mouth, “then call it that. If you think that makes it better.” She and the other eight had been told to stay with the Wise Ones, well back from the actual fighting, guarded by the Two Rivers men and the Mayeners. Instead they had plunged right into the thick of it, wading in where men were trying to cut one another into dogmeat with swords and spears. “You took Havien Nurelle with you, and half the Mayeners died for it. You don’t go your own way with no regard anymore. I won’t see men die because you suddenly think you see a better way, and the Dark One take what everyone else thinks. Do you understand me?”

“Are you finished, farmboy?” Kiruna’s voice was dangerously calm. The face she turned up to him might have been carved from some dark ice, and she reeked of affront. Standing on the ground, she somehow made it seem that she was looking down at him. Not an Aes Sedai trick, that; he had seen Faile do it. He suspected most women knew how. “I will tell you something, though the meanest intelligence should be able to reason it out. By the Three Oaths, no sister may use the One Power as a weapon except against Shadowspawn or in defense of her life, or that of her Warders or another sister. We could have stood where you would have had us and watched until Tarmon Gai’don without ever being able to do anything effective. Not until we were in danger ourselves. I do not like having to explain my actions, farmboy. Do not make me do it again. Do you understand?”

Loial’s ears wilted, and he stared straight ahead so hard that it was plain he wished he were anywhere but here, even with his mother, who wanted to marry him off. Aram’s mouth hung open, and he always tried to pretend Aes Sedai did not impress him at all. Jondyn and Tod climbed down from their wagon wheel just a touch too casually; Jondyn managed to stroll away, but Tod ran, looking back over his shoulder.

Her explanation sounded reasonable; it was probably the truth. No, by another of the Three Oaths, it was the truth. There were loopholes, though. Like not speaking the whole truth, or talking around it. The sisters might well have put themselves in danger so they could use the Power as a weapon, but Perrin would eat his boots if they had not also been thinking they could reach Rand before anybody else. What would have happened then was anyone’s guess, but he was certain their plans had not included anything like what actually happened.

“He’s coming,” Loial said suddenly. “Look! Rand is coming.” Dropping to a whisper, he added, “Be careful, Perrin.” For an Ogier, it truly was a whisper. Aram and Kiruna probably heard quite clearly, and maybe Bera, but certainly no one besides. “They did not swear anything to you!” His voice went back to its normal boom. “Do you think he might talk to me about what went on inside the camp? For my book.” He was writing a book about the Dragon Reborn, or at least taking notes for one. “I really didn’t see much once the . . . the fighting began.” He had been at Perrin’s side in the thick of it, wielding an axe with a haft nearly as long as he was tall; it was hard to take note of much else when you were trying to stay alive. If you listened to Loial, you would think he was always somewhere else when things became dangerous. “Do you think he might, Kiruna Sedai?”

Kiruna and Bera exchanged looks, then without a word glided across the ground to Verin and the others. Peering after them, Loial heaved a sigh, a wind through caverns.

“You really should have a care, Perrin,” he breathed. “You’re always so hasty with your tongue.” He sounded like a bumblebee the size of a cat instead of a mastiff. Perrin thought he might learn to whisper yet, if they spent enough time around Aes Sedai. He motioned the Ogier to be quiet, though, so he could listen. The sisters began talking right away, but not a sound reached Perrin’s ears. Clearly they had erected a barrier with the One Power.

Clear to the Asha’man as well. They went from lounging to up on their toes in a heartbeat, every line of them focused on the sisters. Nothing said they had taken hold of saidin, the male half of the True Source, but Perrin would have wagered Stepper they had. By Gedwyn’s angry sneer, he was ready to use it, too.

Whatever obstruction the Aes Sedai had raised, they must have dropped it. They folded their hands, turning to look down the slope in silence. Glances passed among the Asha’man, and finally Gedwyn waved them back to apparent indolence. He looked disappointed. Growling irritably, Perrin turned back to look beyond the wagons.

Rand was strolling up the slope with Min on his arm, patting her hand and talking with her. Once he threw back his head and laughed, and she ducked hers to do the same, brushing back dark ringlets that hung to her shoulders. You might have thought him a countryman out with his girl. Except that he had belted on his sword, and sometimes he ran his hand down the long hilt. And except for Taim right at his other shoulder. And the Wise Ones following almost as close behind. And the rings of Maidens and siswai’aman, Cairhienin and Mayeners that completed the procession.

What a relief that he would not have to ride down into that shambles after all; but he needed to warn Rand about all the tangled enmities he had seen this morning. What would he do if Rand did not listen? Rand had changed since leaving the Two Rivers, most of all since being kidnapped by Coiren and that lot. No. He had to be sane.

When Rand and Min entered the wagon circle, most of the procession remained outside, though they hardly came alone, but with quite an assembly in its own right.

Taim shadowed Rand, of course, dark and slightly hook-nosed and what Perrin supposed most women would consider good-looking. A number of the Maidens had certainly given him second looks, and third; they were forward about that sort of thing. As Taim stepped inside, he glanced to Gedwyn, who shook his head just a hair. A grimace flashed across Taim’s face, gone as soon as it appeared.

Nandera and Sulin were right at Rand’s heels, equally of course, and Perrin wondered they did not bring twenty more Maidens. They hardly seemed to let Rand bathe without Maidens guarding the tub, that Perrin could see. He did not understand why Rand put up with it. Each had her shoufa draped around her shoulders, baring short hair cut with a tail at the back. Nandera was a sinewy woman, hair more gray than yellow, but her tough features managed to be handsome if not beautiful. Sulin—wiry, scarred, leathery and white-haired—made Nandera look pretty and almost soft. They glanced at the Asha’man, too, without exactly seeming to, then scanned both groups of Aes Sedai just as circumspectly. Nandera’s fingers flashed Maiden handtalk. Not for the first time, Perrin wished he could understand it, but a Maiden would give up the spear to marry a toad before teaching their handtalk to a man. A Maiden Perrin had not noticed, sitting on her heels against a wagon a few paces from Gedwyn, answered the same way, and so did another who until that moment had been playing at cat’s cradle with a spear-sister near the prisoners.

Amys brought the Wise Ones in and took them aside to confer with Sorilea and a few of the others who had stayed inside the wagons. Despite a face too young for her waist-long white hair, Amys was an important woman, second among the Wise Ones to Sorilea. They used no One Power tricks to shield their talk, but seven or eight Maidens immediately encircled them and began singing softly to themselves. Some sat, some stood, some squatted on their heels, each by herself, and all happenstance. If you were a fool.

It seemed to Perrin that he sighed a great deal since he became mixed up with Aes Sedai and Wise Ones. Maidens, too. Women in general just seemed to give him fits of late.

Dobraine and Havien, leading their horses and minus their soldiers, brought up the rear. Havien had finally seen a battle; Perrin wondered whether he would be so eager to see the next. About the same age as Perrin, he did not look as young today as the day before yesterday. Dobraine, with the front of his long, mostly gray hair shaved in the style of Cairhienin soldiers, definitely was not young, and yesterday definitely had not been his first battle, yet the truth was, he looked older too, and worried. So did Havien. Their eyes sought out Perrin.

Another time, he would have waited to see what they wanted to talk about, but now he slipped from his saddle, tossed Stepper’s reins to Aram, and went to Rand. Others were there ahead of him. Only Sulin and Nandera held their silence.

Kiruna and Bera had moved the moment Rand stepped inside the wagons, and as Perrin approached, Kiruna was saying grandly to Rand, “You refused Healing yesterday, but anyone can see you are still in pain, even if Alanna was not ready to leap out of her—” She cut off as Bera touched her arm, but she picked up again almost without pause. “Perhaps you are ready to be Healed now?” That had the sound of “Perhaps you have come to your fool senses?”

“The matter of the Aes Sedai must be settled without any more delay, Car’a’carn,” Amys said formally, right atop Kiruna.

“They should be given into our care, Rand al’Thor,” Sorilea added at the same time that Taim spoke.

“The Aes Sedai problem does need to be settled, my Lord Dragon. My Asha’man know how to handle them. They could be held at the Black Tower easily.” Dark, slightly tilted eyes flickered toward Kiruna and Bera, and Perrin realized with a shock that Taim meant all the Aes Sedai, not just those who were prisoners now. For that matter, though Amys and Sorilea frowned at Taim, the looks they directed at the two Aes Sedai meant the same.

Kiruna smiled at Taim, at the Wise Ones, a thin smile to fit her lips. It was maybe a fraction harder when directed at the man in the black coat, but she seemed not to realize his intent yet. It was enough that he was who he was. What he was. “Under the circumstances,” she said coolly, “I am certain that Coiren Sedai and the others will give me their parole. You have no more need to worry—”

The others spoke all at once.

“These women have no honor,” Amys said contemptuously, and this time it was clear she included all of them. “How could their parole mean anything? They—”

“They are da’tsang,” Sorilea said in a grim voice, as though pronouncing sentence, and Bera frowned at her. Perrin thought that was something in the Old Tongue—again, the word seemed almost something he should recognize—but he did not know why it should make the Aes Sedai scowl. Or why Sulin should suddenly nod agreement with the Wise One, who went on like a boulder rumbling downhill. “They deserve no better than any other—”

“My Lord Dragon,” Taim said, as if belaboring the obvious, “surely you want the Aes Sedai, all of them, in charge of those you trust, those you know can deal with them, and who better—?”

“Enough!” Rand shouted.

They fell silent as one, but their reactions were very different. Taim’s features went blank, though he smelled of fury. Amys and Sorilea exchanged glances and adjusted their shawls in near unison; their scents were identical, too, and matched their faces in pure determination. They wanted what they wanted and intended to have it, Car’a’carn or no. Looks passed between Kiruna and Bera, as well, speaking such volumes that Perrin wished he could read them the way his nose read scent. His eyes saw two serene Aes Sedai, in command of themselves and anything else they wished to be in command of; his nose smelled two women who were anxious, and more than a little afraid. Of Taim, he was sure. They still seemed to think they could deal with Rand, one way or another, and with the Wise Ones, but Taim and the Asha’man put the fear of the Light into them.

Min tugged at Rand’s shirtsleeve—she had been studying everybody at once, and the scent of her was almost as worried as the sisters. He patted her hand while glaring hard at everyone else. Including Perrin, when he opened his mouth. Everybody in the camp was watching, from the Two Rivers men to the Aes Sedai prisoners, though only a few Aiel stood close enough to hear anything. People might watch Rand, but they tended to stay clear of him, too, if they could.

“The Wise Ones will take charge of the prisoners,” Rand said at last, and Sorilea suddenly smelled so satisfied that Perrin knuckled his nose vigorously. Taim shook his head in exasperation, but Rand rounded on him before he could speak. He had tucked a thumb behind the buckle of his sword belt, a Dragon etched and gilded, and his knuckles were white from gripping it; his other hand worked on the dark boarhide of his sword hilt. “The Asha’man are supposed to train—and recruit—not stand guard. Especially on Aes Sedai.” Perrin’s hackles stirred as he realized what aroma wafted from Rand when he looked at Taim. Hatred, touched with fear. Light, he had to be sane.

Taim gave a short, reluctant nod. “As you command, my Lord Dragon.” Min glanced uneasily at the black-coated man and moved closer to Rand.

Kiruna smelled of relief, but with one last glance at Bera, she drew herself up in stubborn certainty. “These Aiel women are quite worthy—some might have done well, had they come to the Tower—but you cannot simply hand Aes Sedai over to them. It is unthinkable! Bera Sedai and I will—”

Rand raised a hand, and her words stopped in their tracks. Maybe it was his stare, like blue-gray stone. Or maybe it was what showed clearly through his torn sleeve, one of the red-and-gold Dragons that wound around his forearms. The Dragon glittered in the sunlight. “Did you swear fealty to me?” Kiruna’s eyes popped as though something had struck her in the pit of her stomach.

After a moment, she nodded, however unwillingly. She looked as disbelieving now as she had the day before, when she knelt down there by the wells at battle’s end and swore beneath the Light and by her hope of salvation and rebirth to obey the Dragon Reborn and serve him until the Last Battle had come and gone. Perrin understood her shock. Even without the Three Oaths, had she denied it, he would have doubted his own memories. Nine Aes Sedai on their knees, faces aghast at the words coming out of their mouths, reeking of disbelief. Right now Bera’s mouth was puckered up as though she had bitten a bad plum.

An Aielman joined the small group, a tall man about the same height as Rand, with a weathered face and touches of gray in his dark red hair, who nodded to Perrin and touched Amys’ hand lightly. She might have pressed his hand for a moment in return. Rhuarc was her husband, but that was about as much affection as Aiel displayed in front of others. He was also clan chief of the Taardad Aiel—he and Gaul were the only two men who did not wear the siswai’aman headband—and since last night he and a thousand spears had been out scouting in force.

A blind man in another country could have sensed the temper around Rand, and Rhuarc was no fool. “Is this the right moment, Rand al’Thor?” When Rand motioned him to speak, he went on. “The Shaido dogs are still fleeing east as fast as they can run. I saw men with green coats on horses to the north, but they avoided us, and you said to let them go unless they gave trouble. I think they were hunting any Aes Sedai who escaped. There were several women with them.” Cold blue eyes glanced at the two Aes Sedai, anvil flat and anvil hard. Once, Rhuarc had walked lightly around Aes Sedai—any Aiel had—but that had ended yesterday, if not before.

“Good news. I’d give almost anything to have Galina, but still, good news.” Rand touched the hilt of his sword again, eased the blade in its dark scabbard. The action seemed unconscious. Galina, a Red, had been in charge of the sisters who held him prisoner, and if he was calm about her today, yesterday he had been in a fury that she had gotten away. Even now his calm was icy, the sort that could hide smoldering rage, and his scent made Perrin’s skin crawl. “They are going to pay. Every one of them.” There was nothing to say whether Rand meant the Shaido or the Aes Sedai who had escaped or both.

Bera moved her head uneasily, and he turned his attention back to her and Kiruna. “You swore fealty, and I trust that.” He held up his hand, thumb and forefinger nearly touching to show how far. “Aes Sedai always know better than anybody else, or so they think. So I trust you to do what I say, but you won’t so much as take a bath without my permission. Or a Wise One’s.”

This time it was Bera who looked as though she had been struck. Her light brown eyes swiveled to Amys and Sorilea with astonished indignation, and Kiruna quivered with the effort of not doing the same. The two Wise Ones merely shifted their shawls, but once again their aromas were identical. Contentment rolled off of them in waves, a very grim contentment. Perrin thought it a good thing the Aes Sedai did not have his nose, or they would have been ready to go to war right then and there. Or maybe run, and dignity be hanged. That was what he would have done.

Rhuarc stood there idly examining the point of one of his short spears. This was Wise Ones’ business, and he always said he did not care what the Wise Ones did so long as they kept their fingers out of clan chiefs’ business. But Taim . . . He made a show of not caring, folding his arms and looking around the camp with a bored expression, yet his scent was strange, complex. Perrin would have said the man was amused, definitely in a better humor than before.

“The oath we took,” Bera said at last, planting her hands, on her ample hips, “is sufficient to hold anyone but a Darkfriend.” The twist she gave to “oath” was almost as bleak as the one she gave “Darkfriend.” No, they did not like what they had sworn to. “Do you dare to accuse us—?”

“If I thought that,” Rand snapped, “you would be on your way to the Black Tower with Taim. You swore to obey. Well, obey!”

For a long moment Bera hesitated, then in an instant was as regal from head to toe as any Aes Sedai could be. Which was saying something. An Aes Sedai could make a queen on her throne look a slattern. She curtsied slightly, stiffly inclining her head a fraction.

Kiruna, on the other hand, made a visible effort to take hold of herself, the calm she assumed hard and brittle as her voice. “Must we then request permission of these worthy Aiel women to ask whether you are willing to be Healed yet? I know Galina treated you harshly. I know you are welts from shoulders to knees. Accept Healing. Please.” Even “please” sounded part of an order.

Min stirred at Rand’s side. “You should be grateful for it, as I was, sheepherder. You don’t like hurting. Somebody has to do it, or else . . . ” She grinned mischievously, very nearly the Min Perrin remembered from before she was kidnapped. “ . . . or else you won’t be able to sit a saddle.”

“Young men and fools,” Nandera said suddenly to no one in particular, “sometimes bear pain they do not have to as a badge of their pride. And their foolishness.”

“The Car’a’carn,” Sulin added dryly, also to the air, “is not a fool. I think.”

Rand smiled back at Min fondly, and gave Nandera and Sulin wry looks, but when he raised his eyes to Kiruna again, they were stone once more. “Very well.” As she started forward, he added, “But not from you.” Her face grew so stiff it appeared ready to crack. Taim’s mouth quirked in a wry almost-smile, and he stepped toward Rand, but without taking his eyes from Kiruna, Rand flung out a hand behind him. “From her. Come here, Alanna.”

Perrin gave a start. Rand had pointed straight to Alanna with never so much as a glance. That prickled something in the back of his head, but he could not make out what. It seemed to catch Taim, as well. The man’s face became a bland mask, yet dark eyes flickered between Rand and Alanna, and the only name Perrin could put to the scent that writhed in his nose was “puzzled.”

Alanna gave a start, too. For whatever reason, she had been on edge ever since joining Perrin on his way here, her serenity at best a thin veneer. Now she smoothed her skirts, shot a defiant stare at Kiruna and Bera of all people, and glided around in front of Rand. The other two sisters watched her, like teachers intending to make sure a pupil performed well and still not convinced she would. Which made no sense. One of them might be the leader, yet Alanna was Aes Sedai, the same as they. It all deepened Perrin’s suspicion. Mixing with Aes Sedai was too much like wading the streams in the Waterwood near to the Mire. However peaceful the surface, currents beneath could snatch you off your feet. More undercurrents seemed to appear here every moment, and not all from the sisters.

Shockingly, Rand cupped Alanna’s chin, turning her face up. There was a hiss of indrawn breath from Bera, and for once, Perrin agreed. Rand would not have been so forward with a girl at a dance back home, and Alanna was no girl at a dance. Just as surprising, her reaction was to blush and smell of uncertainty. Aes Sedai did not blush, in Perrin’s experience, and they were never uncertain.

“Heal me,” Rand said, a command, not a request. The red in Alanna’s face deepened, and anger touched her scent. Her hands trembled as she reached up to take his head between them.

Unconsciously Perrin rubbed the palm of his hand, the one a Shaido spear had laid open yesterday. Kiruna had Healed several gashes in him, and he had had Healing before, too. It felt like being plunged headfirst into a freezing pond; it left you gasping and shaking and weak-kneed. Hungry, too, usually. The only sign Rand gave that anything had been done, though, was a slight shiver.

“How do you stand the pain?” Alanna whispered at him.

“It’s done, then,” he said, removing her hands. And turned from her without a word of thanks. Seeming on the point of speaking, he paused, half-turning to look back toward Dumai’s Wells.

“They have all been found, Rand al’Thor,” Amys said gently.

He nodded, then again, more briskly. “It’s time to be gone. Sorilea, will you name Wise Ones to take over the prisoners from the Asha’man? And also as companions for Kiruna and . . . my other liegewomen.” For an instant, he grinned. “I wouldn’t want them to err through ignorance.”

“It shall be done as you say, Car’a’carn.” Adjusting her shawl firmly, the leather-faced Wise One addressed the three sisters. “Join your friends until I can find someone to hold your hands.” It was not unexpected that Bera would frown indignantly, or Kiruna become frost personified. Alanna gazed at the ground, resigned, almost sullen. Sorilea was having none of it. Clapping hands sharply, she made brisk shooing motions. “Well? Move! Move!”

Reluctantly, the Aes Sedai let themselves be herded, making it seem they simply were going where they wished. Joining Sorilea, Amys whispered something that Perrin did not quite catch. The three Aes Sedai apparently did, though. They stopped dead, three very startled faces looking back at the Wise Ones. Sorilea just clapped her hands again, louder than before, and shooed even more briskly.

Scratching his beard, Perrin met Rhuarc’s eyes. The clan chief smiled faintly and shrugged. Wise Ones’ business. That was all very well for him; Aiel were fatalistic as wolves. Perrin glanced at Gedwyn. The fellow was watching Sorilea lecture the Aes Sedai. No, it was the sisters he watched, a fox staring at hens in a coop just out of his reach. The Wise Ones have to be better than the Asha’man, Perrin thought. They have to be.

If Rand noticed the by-play, he ignored it. “Taim, you take the Asha’man back to the Black Tower as soon as the Wise Ones have charge of the prisoners. As soon as. Remember to keep an eye out for any man who learns too fast. And remember what I said about recruiting.”

“I can hardly forget, my Lord Dragon,” the black-coated man replied dryly. “I will handle that trip personally. But if I may bring it up again . . . You need a proper honor guard.”

“We have been over that,” Rand said curtly. “I have better uses for the Asha’man. If I need an honor guard, those I am keeping will do. Perrin, will you—?”

“My Lord Dragon,” Taim broke in, “you need more than a few Asha’man around you.”

Rand’s head turned toward Taim. His face matched any Aes Sedai for giving nothing away, but his scent made Perrin’s ears try to lie back. Razor-sharp rage abruptly vanished in curiosity and caution, the one thin and probing, the other foglike; then slashing, murderous fury consumed both. Rand shook his head just slightly, and his smell became stony determination. Nobody’s scent changed that fast. Nobody’s.

Taim had only his eyes to go by, of course, and all they could tell him was that Rand had shaken his head, if just barely. “Think. You have chosen four Dedicated and four soldiers. You should have Asha’man.” Perrin did not understand that; he thought they were all Asha’man.

“You think I can’t teach them as well as you?” Rand’s voice was soft, the whisper of a blade sliding in its sheath.

“I think the Lord Dragon is too busy for teaching,” Taim replied smoothly, yet the anger smell rose again. “Too important. Take men who need the least of it. I can choose the furthest along—”

“One,” Rand cut in. “And I will choose.” Taim smiled, spreading his hands in acquiescence, but the scent of frustration nearly overwhelmed anger. Again Rand pointed without looking. “Him.” This time, he seemed surprised to find he was pointing directly at a man in his middle years sitting atop an upturned cask on the other side of the wagon circle, paying no attention to the gathering around Rand. Instead, elbow on his knee and chin propped on his hand, he was frowning at the Aes Sedai prisoners. The sword and Dragon glittered on the high collar of his black coat. “What is his name, Taim?”

“Dashiva,” Taim said slowly, studying Rand. He smelled even more surprised than Rand did, and irritated, too. “Corlan Dashiva. From a farm in the Black Hills.”

“He will do,” Rand said, but he did not sound sure himself.

“Dashiva is gaining his strength rapidly, but his head is in the clouds often as not. Even when it isn’t, he is not always entirely there. Maybe he’s just a daydreamer, and maybe the taint on saidin is touching his brain already. Better for you to chose Torval or Rochaid or—”

Taim’s opposition seemed to sweep away Rand’s uncertainty. “I said Dashiva will do. Tell him he’s to come with me, then turn the prisoners over to the Wise Ones and go. I don’t intend to stand here all day arguing. Perrin, ready everyone to move. Find me when they are.” Without another word he strode off, Min clinging to his arm, and Nandera and Sulin like shadows. Taim’s dark eyes glittered; then he was stalking away himself, shouting for Gedwyn and Rochaid, Torval and Kisman. Black-coated men came running.

Perrin grimaced. With everything he had to tell Rand, he had not opened his mouth once. At that, maybe it would come better away from the Aes Sedai and the Wise Ones. And Taim.

Really there was not much for him to do. He was supposed to be in charge since he had brought the rescue, but Rhuarc knew what needed doing better than he ever would, and a word to Dobraine and Havien was sufficient for the Cairhienin and Mayeners. They still wanted to say something, though they held back until they were alone and Perrin asked what it was.

Then Havien burst out, “Lord Perrin, it’s the Lord Dragon. All that searching through the corpses—”

“It seemed a little . . . excessive,” Dobraine interrupted smoothly. “We worry for him, as you can understand. A great deal depends on him.” He might look a soldier, and he was, but he was a Cairhienin lord, too, and steeped in the Game of Houses, with all its careful talk, like any other Cairhienin.

Perrin was not steeped in the Game of Houses. “He’s still sane,” he said bluntly. Dobraine simply nodded, as if to say of course, shrugged to say he had never intended to question, but Havien went bright red. Watching them go to their men, Perrin shook his head. He hoped he was not lying.

Gathering the Two Rivers men, he told them to saddle their horses and ignored all the bowing, most of which looked spur-of-the-moment. Even Faile said that sometimes Two Rivers people carried bowing too far; she said they were still working out how to behave with a lord. He thought about shouting “I am not a lord” at them, but he had done that before, and it never worked.

When all the others rushed for their animals, Dannil Lewin and Ban al’Seen remained behind. Cousins, both were beanpoles and they looked much alike, except that Dannil affected mustaches like downturned horns in the Taraboner style, while Ban wore narrow lines of dark hair, in the fashion of Arad Doman, under a nose like a pickaxe. Refugees had brought a lot of new things into the Two Rivers.

“Those Asha’man coming with us?” Dannil asked. When Perrin shook his head, he exhaled so hard in relief that his thick mustaches stirred.

“What about the Aes Sedai?” Ban said anxiously. “They’ll go free, now, won’t they? I mean, Rand is free. The Lord Dragon, that is. They can’t stay prisoners, not Aes Sedai.”

“You two just have everybody ready to ride,” Perrin said. “Leave worrying about Aes Sedai to Rand.” The pair even winced alike. Two fingers rose to scratch worriedly at mustaches, and Perrin jerked his hand away from his chin. A man looked as if he had fleas when he did that.

The camp was abustle in no time. Everyone had been expecting to move soon, yet everyone had things left undone. The captive Aes Sedai’s servants and wagon drivers hurriedly loaded the last items into the wagons and began hitching teams with a jingle of harness. Cairhienin and Mayeners seemed to be everywhere, checking saddles and bridles. Unclothed gai’shain went running every which way, though there did not seem to be much for the Aiel to ready.

Flashes of light outside the wagons announced the departure of Taim and the Asha’man. That made Perrin feel better. Of the nine who remained, another besides Dashiva was in his middle years, a stocky fellow with a farmer’s face, and one, with a limp and a fringe of white hair, might easily have been a grandfather. The rest were younger, some little more than boys, yet they watched all the hubbub with the self-possession of men who had seen as much a dozen times. They did keep to themselves, though, and together except for Dashiva, who stood a few paces apart staring at nothing. Remembering Taim’s caution about the fellow, Perrin hoped he was daydreaming.

He found Rand seated on a wooden crate with his elbows on his knees. Sulin and Nandera squatted easily to either side of Rand, both studiously avoiding looking at the sword at his hip. Holding their spears and bull-hide bucklers casually, here in the midst of people loyal to Rand, they kept a watch on anything that moved near him. Min sat on the ground at his feet with her legs tucked under, smiling up at him.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Rand,” Perrin said, shifting the axe haft so he could drop to his heels. No one was close enough to hear except for Rand and Min and the two Maidens. If Sulin or Nandera went running to the Wise Ones, so be it. Without more preamble he launched into what he had seen so far this morning. What he had smelled, too, though he did not say that. Rand was not among the few who knew about him and wolves; he made it all seem what he had seen and heard. The Asha’man and the Wise Ones. The Asha’man and the Aes Sedai. The Wise Ones and the Aes Sedai. The whole tangle of tinder that might burst into flame any moment. He did not spare the Two Rivers men. “They’re worried, Rand, and if they are sweating, you can be sure some Cairhienin is thinking about doing something. Or a Tairen. Maybe just helping the prisoners escape, maybe something worse. Light, I could see Dannil and Ban and fifty more besides helping them get away, if they knew how.”

“You think something else would be that much worse?” Rand said quietly, and Perrin’s skin prickled.

He met Rand’s gaze directly. “A thousand times,” he said in just as quiet a voice. “I won’t be part of murder. If you will be, I’ll stand in your way.” A silence stretched, unblinking blue-gray eyes meeting unblinking golden.

Frowning at each of them in turn, Min made an exasperated sound in her throat. “You two woolheads! Rand, you know you’ll never give an order like that, or let anyone else give it, either. Perrin, you know he won’t. Now the pair of you stop acting like two strange roosters in a pen.”

Sulin chuckled, but Perrin wanted to ask Min how certain she was, although that was not a question he could voice here. Rand scrubbed his fingers through his hair, then shook his head, for all the world like a man disagreeing with somebody who was not there. The sort of voice that madmen heard.

“It’s never easy, is it?” Rand said after a time, looking sad. “The bitter truth is, I can’t say which would be worse. I don’t have any good choices. They saw to that themselves.” His face was despondent, but rage boiled in his scent. “Alive or dead, they’re a millstone on my back, and either way, they could break it.”

Perrin followed his gaze to the Aes Sedai prisoners. They were on their feet now, and all together, though even so they managed to put a little distance between the three who had been stilled and the rest. The Wise Ones around them were being curt with their orders, by the gestures they made and the tight faces on the sisters. Maybe the Wise Ones were better than Rand keeping them, too. If only he could be sure.

“Did you see anything, Min?” Rand said.

Perrin gave a start and directed a warning glance at Sulin and Nandera, but Min laughed softly. Leaning against Rand’s knee, she really did look the Min he knew, for the first time since finding her at the wells. “Perrin, they know about me. The Wise Ones, the Maidens, maybe all of them. And they don’t care.” She had a talent she kept hidden much as he did the wolves. Sometimes she saw images and auras around people, and sometimes she knew what they meant. “You can’t know what that’s like, Perrin. I was twelve when it started, and I didn’t know to make a secret of it. Everybody thought I was just making things up. Until I said a man on the next street was going to marry a woman I saw him with, only he was already married. When he ran off with her, his wife brought a mob to my aunts’ house claiming I was responsible, that I’d used the One Power on her husband or given the two of them some kind of potion.” Min shook her head. “She wasn’t too clear. She just had to blame somebody. There was talk of me being a Darkfriend, too. There had been some Whitecloaks in town earlier, trying to stir people up. Anyway, Aunt Rana convinced me to say I had just overheard them talking, and Aunt Miren promised to spank me for spreading tales, and Aunt Jan said she’d dose me. They didn’t, of course—they knew the truth—but if they hadn’t been so matter-of-fact about it, about me just being a child, I could have been hurt, or even killed. Most people don’t like somebody knowing things about their future; most people don’t really want to know it themselves, not unless it’s good anyway. Even my aunts didn’t. But to the Aiel, I am sort of a Wise One by courtesy.”

“Some can do things others cannot,” Nandera said, as if that was enough explanation.

Min laughed again and reached out to touch the Maiden’s knee. “Thank you.” Settling her feet beneath her, she looked up at Rand. Now that she was laughing again, she seemed radiant. That held even after she became serious. Serious, and not very pleased. “As for your question, nothing of any use. Taim has blood in his past and blood in his future, but you could guess that. He’s a dangerous man. They seem to be gathering images like Aes Sedai.” A sidelong look through lowered eyelashes at Dashiva and the other Asha’man said who she meant. Most people had few images around them, but Min said Aes Sedai and Warders always did. “The problem is, what I can see is all blurry. I think it’s because they’re holding the Power. That often seems true with Aes Sedai, and it’s worse when they’re actually channeling. Kiruna and that lot have all sorts of things around them, but they stay so close together that it all . . . well . . . jumbles together most of the time. It’s even muddier with the prisoners.”

“Never mind the prisoners,” Rand told her. “That’s what they’ll stay.”

“But Rand, I keep feeling there is something important, if I could only pick it out. You need to know.”

“ ‘If you don’t know everything, you must go on with what you do know,’ ” Rand quoted wryly. “It seems I never do know everything. Hardly enough, most of the time. But there’s no choice but to go on, is there.” That was not at all a question.

Loial strode up, bubbling with energy despite his obvious weariness. “Rand, they say they’re ready to go, but you promised to talk to me while it’s fresh.” Abruptly his ears twitched with embarrassment, and that booming voice became plaintive. “I am sorry; I know it can’t be enjoyable. But I must know. For the book. For the Ages.”

Laughing, Rand got to his feet and tugged at the Ogier’s open coat. “For the Ages? Do writers all talk like that? Don’t worry, Loial. It will still be fresh when I tell you. I won’t forget.” A grim, sour scent flashed from him despite the smile, and was gone. “But back in Cairhien, after we all have a bath and sleep in a bed.” Rand motioned for Dashiva to come closer.

The man was not skinny, yet he moved in a hesitant, creeping way, hands folded at his waist, that made him seem so. “My Lord Dragon?” he said, tilting his head.

“Can you make a gateway, Dashiva?”

“Of course.” Dashiva began dry-washing his hands, flicking at his lips with the tip of his tongue, and Perrin wondered whether the man was always this jittery, or just when speaking to the Dragon Reborn. “That is to say, the M’hael teaches Traveling as soon as a student shows himself strong enough.”

“The M’Hael?” Rand said, blinking.

“The Lord Mazrim Taim’s title, my Lord Dragon. It means ‘leader.’ In the Old Tongue.” The fellow’s smile managed to be nervous and patronizing at the same time. “I read a great deal on the farm. Every book the peddlers brought by.”

“The M’Hael,” Rand muttered disapprovingly. “Well, be that as it may. Make me a gateway to near Cairhien, Dashiva. It’s time to see what the world has been up to while I was away, and what I have to do about it.” He laughed then, in a rueful way, but the sound of it made Perrin’s skin prickle.