Lord of Chaos

## Chapter 54

#### The Sending

With the sun just a thin glowing slice on the horizon, the second day of the Feast of Lights saw the streets of Cairhien already filled with revelers. Indeed, they had never really emptied through the night. There was a frenzied air to the celebration, and few gave more than a glance to the curly-bearded man with the grim face and the axe on his hip, riding a tall bay down the arrow-straight streets toward the river. Some did look at his companions; an Aielman was a common enough sight now, though they had abandoned the streets when the celebrations began, but it was not every day that you saw an Ogier, taller than the man on horseback, especially one carrying an axe propped across one shoulder, with a haft nearly as long as he was tall. The Ogier made the bearded man look jolly.

The ships on the Alguenya had all their lanterns lit, including the Sea Folk ship that occasioned so much rumor, for being in Cairhien at all, for remaining at anchor so long with barely any contact with the shore. By the rumors Perrin had heard, the Sea Folk disapproved of the carrying on in the city even more than the Aiel did, and he had thought Gaul would die from shock at all the men and women kissing. Whether or not the woman wore a blouse did not appear to bother Gaul nearly as much as the fact that they were kissing where they could be seen. That was indecent.

Long stone piers thrust out into the river between tall flanking walls, and boats of all sizes and types were tied along them, including ferries that could take one horse or fifty, but Perrin did not see more than one man on any of them. He reined in the bay as he came to a broad, mastless craft some six or seven spans long lashed to stone posts. Its ramp to the dock was in place. A stout, gray-haired man with no shirt was sitting on an upended cask on the deck, a gray-haired woman with half a dozen bright slashes across the bosom of her dark dress on his knees.

“We want to cross,” Perrin said loudly, trying to look only enough to see whether the pair took their arms from around each other. They did not. Perrin tossed an Andoran crown down onto the ferry, and the sound of the fat gold coin bouncing on the deck brought the fellow’s head around. “We want to cross,” Perrin said, hefting a second gold crown on his palm. After a moment, he added another.

The ferryman licked his lips. “I will have to find oarsmen,” he muttered, staring at Perrin’s hand.

Sighing, Perrin pulled two more from his purse; he could remember when his eyes would have fallen out at having one of those coins.

The ferryman leaped up, dropping the noblewoman onto her bottom with a thump, and scrambled up the ramp panting that he would be only moments, my Lord, only moments. The woman gave Perrin a very reproachful look, and glided away down the dock with a dignity somewhat spoiled by rubbing herself; before she had gone very far, though, she gathered her skirts and ran to join a group of dancers capering along the waterfront. Perrin could hear her laughing.

It took more than moments, but apparently the promise of gold was enough, for in not too long a time the ferryman had enough fellows gathered to man most of the long sweeps. Perrin stood stroking the bay’s nose as the vessel swung out into the river. He had not decided on a name, yet; the animal came from the Sun Palace stable. Well-shod, with white forefeet, the horse looked a stayer, though not a patch on Stepper.

His unstrung Two Rivers bow was thrust through the saddle girth on one side, and the full quiver hung in front of the high-cantled saddle, balancing a long, narrow, neatly wrapped bundle. Rand’s sword. Faile had tied that package herself and handed it to him without a word. She had said something, after he had turned away realizing he would receive no kiss.

“If you fall,” she whispered, “I will take up your sword.”

He was still not sure whether she meant him to hear or not. Her scent had been such a jumble he could make nothing out.

He knew he should be thinking of what he was about, but Faile always crept softly back into his mind. At one point he had been sure she was about to announce that she was coming with him, and his heart had clenched. Had she done so, he did not think he could have made himself refuse her—not that or anything, after all the hurt he had given her—but there were six Aes Sedai ahead, and blood and death. If Faile died, Perrin knew he would go mad. That point had come when Berelain said she would be leading her Mayener Winged Guards in this chase. Luckily, the moment had been gotten past quickly, if in an odd way.

“If you leave the city Rand al’Thor has given to you as his hand,” Rhuarc said quietly, “how many rumors will grow of it? If you send all of your spears, how many rumors? What will grow from those tales?” It sounded like advice, and then again it did not; something in the clan chief’s voice made it much stronger.

Berelain gazed at him, smelling stubborn and head high. Slowly the stubborn smell faded, and she muttered to herself, “Sometimes I think there are too many men who can . . . ” It was just audible to Perrin. Smiling, she spoke aloud, in a remarkably regal tone. “That is sound advice, Rhuarc. I think that I will take it.”

The most remarkable thing, however, had been the way their scents combined, Rhuarc’s and hers. To Perrin they had seemed he-wolf and near-grown cub; an indulgent father, fond of his daughter and she of him, though sometimes he still had to nip her nose to make her behave properly. But what was important was that Perrin could see the intention fading from Faile’s eyes. What was he to do? If he lived to see her again, what was he to do?

In the beginning the coarsely dressed, sometimes bare-chested oarsmen made rough jokes, not too unfriendly, about how any amount of gold was hardly worth what they were missing. They laughed as they strode back and forth along the deck, working the sweeps, and every one claimed he had been dancing with or kissing a noblewoman. One lanky fellow with a big chin even claimed he had a Tairen noblewoman on his knee before he came out to Manal’s shout, but no one believed that. Perrin certainly did not; the Tairen men had taken one look at what was going on and dived headfirst into the celebrations; the Tairen women had taken one look and shut themselves up in their rooms with guards on the doors.

Jokes and laughter did not last long. Gaul stood as near the center of the boat as he could, slightly wild eyes fixed on the far shore, up on his toes as though ready to leap. It was all that water, of course, but the boatmen could not know that. And Loial, leaning on the long-handled axe he had found in the Sun Palace, with its ornately engraved head like the head of a huge wood-axe, stood still as a statue with his broad face truly looking carved from granite. The ferrymen shut their mouths and worked their oars as hard as they could, hardly daring to look at their passengers. When the ferry finally pulled into a stone dock on the west bank of the Alguenya, Perrin gave the owner—come to think of it, he hoped the man was the owner—the rest of the gold and a handful of silver to pass around besides, to soothe them for being frightened by Loial and Gaul. The fat man flinched back from him in taking it, and bowed so deeply in spite of his bulk that his head nearly touched his knees. Perhaps Gaul and Loial did not have the only frightening faces.

Huge windowless buildings stood surrounded by wooden scaffolding, the stone blackened, and fallen in many places. The granaries had been burned in riots some time ago, and repairs were only now really taking hold, but there was no one in sight at all on the streets lined with granaries and stables, warehouses and wagon yards. Every last man who worked here was in the city. There was no one in sight until two men rode out of a side street.

“We are ready, Lord Aybara,” Havien Nurelle said eagerly. The pink-cheeked young man, considerably taller than his companion, appeared gaudy in his red-painted breastplate and helmet, with a single slender red plume. He even smelled eager, and young.

“I began to think you were not coming,” Dobraine muttered. Helmetless, he wore steel-backed gauntlets and a battered breastplate that retained remnants of once ornate gilding. He glanced at Perrin’s face and added, “Under the Light, I meant no disrespect, Lord Aybara.”

“We have a long way to go,” Perrin said, turning the bay. Stayer? What was he to do about Faile? Rand’s need seethed beneath his skin. “They’ve four days on us, now.” He dug in his heels lightly and put Stayer to a steady walk. A long chase; it would not do to founder the horses. Neither Loial nor Gaul had any difficulty keeping up.

The widest of the straight streets abruptly became the Tar Valon Road—Cairhien’s Tar Valon Road; there were others—a wide band of hard-packed earth winding west and north through forested hills lower than those the city stood on. A mile into the forest, they were joined by two hundred Mayener Winged Guards and five hundred armsmen of House Taborwin, all mounted on the best animals that could be found.

The Mayeners were all in red breastplates and helmets like rimmed pots that covered the nape of the neck, and their lances bore red streamers. Many of them seemed almost as eager as Nurelle. The shorter Cairhienin wore plain breastplates and helmets like bells cut away to expose hard faces, helmets and breastplates alike often dented. Their lances were unadorned, though here and there Dobraine’s con, a small stiff square on a short staff, blue with two white diamonds, marked officers or minor lords of House Taborwin. None of them looked eager, only grim. They had seen fighting. In Cairhien, they called it “seeing the wolf.”

That nearly made Perrin laugh. It was not time for the wolves yet.

Near midday, a small cluster of Aiel trotted out of the trees and down the slope to the road. Two Maidens loped at Rhuarc’s shoulder, Nandera and, Perrin realized after a moment, Sulin. She looked very different in cadin’sor, with her white hair cut close except for the tail on the back of her neck. She looked . . . natural . . . which she never had in livery. Amys and Sorilea came with them, shawls looped over their arms, clattering with necklaces and bracelets of gold and ivory, holding up their bulky skirts on the slope, but matching the others stride for stride.

Perrin swung down to walk with them, ahead of everyone else. “How many?” was all he said.

Rhuarc glanced back to where Gaul and Loial were walking alongside Dobraine and Nurelle in advance of the column. Too far maybe for even Perrin to hear anything over the clump of hooves and jingle of bridles and creak of saddles, but Rhuarc held his voice low anyway. “Five thousand men from different societies; a few more than five. I could not bring many. Timolan was suspicious as it is that I did not go with him against the Shaido. If it becomes common knowledge that Aes Sedai hold the Car’a’carn, I fear the bleakness will swallow us all.” Nandera and Sulin coughed loudly at the same time; the two women glared at one another, and after a moment Sulin looked away, blushing. Rhuarc spared them a glance—he smelled exasperated—and muttered, “I also have nearly a thousand Maidens. Had I not tightened my fist, I would have every last one of them running after me, carrying a torch to tell the world that Rand al’Thor is in danger.” Abruptly his voice hardened. “Any Maiden I find following us will learn that I mean what I say.”

Sulin and Nandera both went red, the color startling on those hard sun-dark faces. “I—” both began at the same instant. Again those glares passed, and again Sulin looked away, her face even more crimson. Perrin did not remember all this blushing from Bain and Chiad, the only two Maidens he really knew. “I have promised,” Nandera said stiffly, “and every Maiden has promised on pledge. It will be as the chief has commanded.”

Perrin forbore asking what the bleakness was, just as he did not ask how Rhuarc had gotten the Aiel across the Alguenya without ferries when water they could not step across was the only thing in the world that could give an Aiel pause. He would have liked to know, but the answers were unimportant. Six thousand Aiel, five hundred of Dobraine’s armsmen, and two hundred Winged Guards. Against six Aes Sedai, their Warders and some five hundred guards apparently, that should be enough. Except. The Aes Sedai held Rand. If they put a knife to his throat, would anyone dare lift a hand?

“There are also ninety-four Wise Ones,” Amys said. “They are the strongest in the One Power of those near the city.” That came out reluctantly—he had the idea Aiel women did not like to admit they could channel—but her voice picked up. “We would not have brought so many, but all wanted to come.” Sorilea cleared her throat, and this time Amys blushed. He was going to have to ask Gaul. Aiel were so unlike anyone else he had ever met; maybe they began blushing when they grew older. “Sorilea leads us,” Amys finished, and the older woman gave a snort that sounded extremely satisfied. She certainly smelled satisfied.

For Perrin, he only just stopped from shaking his head. What he knew of the One Power could be stuffed into a thimble with room left for a fat thumb, but he had traveled with Moiraine, seen what Verin and Alanna could do, and he had seen that flame Sorilea had made. If she was one of the strongest in the Power among the Wise Ones, he was not sure six Aes Sedai would not wrap all ninety-four of them into a bundle. At this point, though, he would not have turned aside field mice.

“They must be seventy or eighty miles ahead of us,” he said. “Maybe as much as a hundred, if they’re pushing their wagons. We will have to press as hard as we can.” As he climbed back to his saddle, Rhuarc and the other Aiel were already trotting back up the hill. Perrin raised his hand, and Dobraine signaled the horsemen to advance. It never occurred to Perrin to wonder why men old enough to be his father, women old enough to be his mother, men and women used to command, were following him.

What he did wonder about, worry about, was how fast they could move. Aiel in cadin’sor could keep up with the horses, he knew, yet at first he had worried about Wise Ones in skirts, some maybe as old as Sorilea. Skirts or no, white hair or no, the Wise Ones walked as quickly as anyone, keeping up with the horses while talking quietly in groups.

The road wound clear ahead; no one set out during the Feast of Lights, and few for days before, unless their business was as urgent as his. The sun climbed higher, and the hills grew lower, and by the time they made camp at twilight, he estimated they might have come as much as thirty-five miles. A good day’s travel, excellent for so large a party; half again what the Aes Sedai could manage unless they were willing to kill the teams drawing their wagons. He no longer worried whether he could catch them before they reached Tar Valon, only what he could do once he did.

Lying on his blankets with his head pillowed on his saddle, Perrin smiled up at the waxing quarter-moon. With any clouds at all, the night would not have been nearly so bright. It was a good night for hunting. A good night for wolves.

In his mind he formed an image. A curly-haired young wild bull, proud, with horns that gleamed like polished metal in morning sunlight. His thumb ran across the axe lying beside him, with its wicked curving blade and sharp spike. The steel horns of Young Bull; that was what the wolves called him.

He let his mind quest, sent the image out into the night. There would be wolves, and they would know of Young Bull. News of a human able to speak with wolves would pass across the land like a rushing wind. Perrin had only met two. One a friend, the other a poor wretch who had not been able to hold on to humanity. He had heard tales from the refugees who trickled into the Two Rivers. They had old stories of men turning into wolves, stories few really believed, told to entertain children. Three claimed to have known men who became wolves and ran wild, though, and if the details had seemed wrong to Perrin, the uneasy way two of them had avoided his yellow eyes made confirmation of a sort. Those two, a woman from Tarabon and a man from Almoth Plain, would not go outdoors at night. They also kept giving him gifts of garlic for some reason, which he ate with great pleasure. But he no longer tried to find others like himself.

He felt wolves, and their names began coming to him. Two Moons and Wildfire and Old Deer and dozens more cascading into his head. They were not names as such, really, but images and sensations. Young Bull was a very simple image to name a wolf. Two Moons was really a night-shrouded pool, smooth as ice in the instant before the breeze stirred, with a tang of autumn in the air, and one moon hanging full in the sky and another reflected so perfectly on the water that it was difficult to tell which was real. And that was cutting it to the bone.

For a time there was only the exchanging of names and scents. Then he thought, I seek people who are ahead of me. Aes Sedai and men, with horses and wagons. That was not exactly what he thought, of course, any more than Two Moons was just two moons. People were “two-legs” and horses “hard-footed four-legs.” Aes Sedai were “two-leg shes who touch the wind that moves the sun and call fire.” Wolves did not like fire, and they were even more wary of Aes Sedai than of other humans; they thought it amazing that he could not tell an Aes Sedai; he had only learned they could by chance. They took the ability as much for granted as he took being able to pick out one white horse among a herd of black, certainly nothing to mention, and certainly nothing they could explain clearly.

In his head the night sky seemed to whirl, suddenly capping a camp of wagons and tents and campfires. They did not look quite right—wolves cared little for anything human, so the wagons and tents seemed vague; the campfires appeared to roar dangerously; the horses looked quite tasty—and this was passed from wolf to wolf before reaching him. The camp was larger than Perrin expected, but Wildfire was in no doubt. Her pack was even then skirting wide of where the “two-leg shes who touch the wind that moves the sun and call fire” were. Perrin tried asking how many, but wolves had no grasp of numbers; they told how many things there were by showing how many they had seen, and once Wildfire and her pack sensed Aes Sedai, they had no intention of going any closer.

How far? received a better answer, again passed wolf to wolf, if one that had to be puzzled out. Wildfire said she could walk to the hill where a sour male named Half Tail had his pack feeding on a deer while the moon moved so far across the sky, at that angle. Half Tail could reach Rabbit Nose—apparently a young and very fierce male—while the moon moved that far, at another angle. And so it went until Two Moons was reached. Two Moons maintained a dignified silence, suitable for an old male with a muzzle more white than not; he and his pack were not much beyond a mile from Perrin, and it would have been insulting to think Perrin did not know exactly where they sat.

Reasoning it out as best he could, Perrin came up with a figure of sixty or seventy miles. Tomorrow he would be able to tell how fast he was closing on them. They surely could not be moving as fast as he with wagons.

Why? That was Half Tail, passed along and scent-marked.

Perrin hesitated before answering. He had dreaded this. He felt about the wolves as he did about Two Rivers people. They have caged Shadowkiller, he thought at last. That was what the wolves called Rand, but he had no idea whether they considered Rand important

The shock filling his mind was answer enough, but howls filled the night, near and far, howls filled with anger and fear. In the camp horses whinnied fearfully, stamping their hooves as they shied against the picket ropes. Men ran to calm them, and others to peer into the darkness as if expecting a huge pack to come after the mounts.

We come, Half Tail replied at last. Only that, and then others answered, packs Perrin had spoken to and packs that had listened silently to the two-legs who could speak as the wolves did. We come. No more.

Rolling over, Perrin went to sleep, and dreamed he was a wolf running across endless hills. The next morning there was no sign of wolves—not even the Aiel reported seeing one—but Perrin could feel them, several hundred of them and more on the way.

The land flattened into rolling plains over the next four days, where the tallest rises hardly seemed to warrant the name hill compared to what had been around them back by the Alguenya. The forest thinned and faded into grassland, brown and sere, with thickets increasingly far between. The rivers and streams they crossed barely wet the horses’ hooves, and would not have done much more before they had narrowed between banks of sun-hardened mud and stones. Each night the wolves told Perrin what they could of the Aes Sedai ahead, which was not much. Wildfire’s pack shadowed, but well back. One thing did become clear. Perrin was covering as much ground each day as he had the first, and each day he sliced as much as ten miles from the Aes Sedai lead. But when he caught up, what then?

Before the wolves each night, Perrin would sit talking quietly with Loial, as they smoked their pipes together. It was the “what then” that Perrin wanted to talk about. Dobraine seemed to think they should charge in and die doing their best. Rhuarc only said that they must wait to see what the sun shone on tomorrow and that all men must wake from the dream, which was not so different from Dobraine. Loial might be a young Ogier, but he was still ninety-odd; Perrin suspected Loial had read more books than he himself had seen, and he often came out with surprising knowledge about Aes Sedai.

“There are several books about Aes Sedai dealing with men who can channel.” Loial frowned around his pipe; its leaf-carved bowl was as big as Perrin’s two fists. “Elora, daughter of Amar daughter of Coura, wrote Men of Fire and Women of Air in the early days of Artur Hawkwing’s reign. And Ledar, son of Shandin son of Koimal, wrote A Study of Men, Women and the One Power Among Humans only some three hundred years ago. Those are the two best, I think. Elora in particular; she wrote in the style of . . . no. I will be brief.” Perrin doubted that, brevity was seldom numbered among Loial’s virtues when he spoke of books. The Ogier cleared his throat. “By Tower law, the man must be taken to the Tower for trial before he can be gentled.” For a moment Loial’s ears twitched violently, and his long eyebrows drew down grimly, but he patted Perrin’s shoulder in an effort at comfort. “I cannot think they mean to do that, Perrin. I hear they spoke of honoring him, and he is the Dragon Reborn. They know that.”

“Honor?” Perrin said quietly. “Maybe they’re letting him sleep on silk, but a prisoner is still a prisoner.”

“I am sure they are treating him well, Perrin. I am sure.” The Ogier did not sound sure, and his sigh was a hollow gale. “And he is safe until he does reach Tar Valon. What I do not understand is how they captured him.” That huge head swung in open puzzlement. “Perrin, both Elora and Ledar say that when Aes Sedai find a man of great power, they always gather thirteen to take him. Oh, they recount stories of four or five, and both mention Caraighan—she brought a man nearly two thousand miles to the Tower by herself after he killed both of her Warders—but . . . Perrin, they wrote of Yurian Stonebow and Guaire Amalasan. Of Raolin Darksbane and Davian, as well, but the others are who worry me.” Those were four of the most powerful among the men who had called themselves the Dragon Reborn, all long ago, before Artur Hawkwing. “Six Aes Sedai tried to capture Stonebow, and he killed three and captured the others himself. Six tried to take Amalasan; he killed one and stilled two more. Surely Rand is as strong as Stonebow or Amalasan. Are there really only six ahead of us? It would explain much.”

Perhaps it did, but no comfort in it. Thirteen Aes Sedai might be able to beat off any attack Perrin could mount by themselves, without their Warders and guards. Thirteen Aes Sedai could threaten to gentle Rand if Perrin attacked. Surely they would not—they did know Rand was the Dragon Reborn; they knew he had to be there at the Last Battle—but could Perrin risk it, Tower law or no Tower law? Who knew why Aes Sedai did anything? He had never been able to make himself trust even Aes Sedai who had tried to show themselves friends. They always held their secrets, and how could a man ever be sure when he could feel them moving behind his back, however much they smiled to his face? Who could say what Aes Sedai would do?

In truth, Loial did not know much that would help when the day came, and besides, he was much more interested in talking about Erith. Perrin knew he had left two letters with Faile, one addressed to his mother and the other to Erith, to be delivered when she could if anything untoward should happen. Which Loial had nearly bent over backward trying to assure her would not happen; he always worried terribly about worrying anyone else. Perrin had left his own letter for Faile; Amys had carried it out to leave with the Wise Ones in the Aiel camp.

“She is so beautiful,” Loial murmured, staring at the night as if seeing her. “Her face is so delicate, yet strong at the same time. When I looked at her eyes, it seemed I could see nothing else. And her ears!” Abruptly his own ears were vibrating wildly, and he choked on his pipe. “Please,” he gasped, “forget I mentioned . . . I should not have spoken of . . . you know I am not coarse, Perrin.”

“I’ve forgotten already,” Perrin said weakly. Her ears?

Loial wanted to know what it was like being married. Not that he had any intention of marrying yet, he was quick to add; he was too young, and he had his book to finish, and he was not ready to settle down to a life of never leaving the stedding except to visit another, which a wife would assuredly insist on. He was just curious. No more than that.

So Perrin spoke of life with Faile, how she had transplanted his roots before he knew it. Once the Two Rivers had been home; now home was wherever Faile was. The thought that she was waiting quickened his step. Her presence brightened a room, and at her smile, every trouble receded. Of course, he could not speak of how thinking of her made his blood leap, or looking at her his heart pound—it would not have been decent—and he certainly had no intention of mentioning the trouble she had planted in his bones. What was he to do? He really was ready to go on his knees to her, but a stubborn iron seed in him required that one word from her first. If only she would just say she wanted things to be as they had been.

“What about her jealousy?” Loial asked, and it was Perrin’s turn to choke. “Are wives all like that?”

“Jealousy?” Perrin said stoutly. “Faile is not jealous. Where did you get that idea? She is perfect.”

“Of course she is,” Loial said faintly, peering into his pipe bowl. “Do you have any more Two Rivers tabac? All I have after this is some sharp Cairhienin leaf.”

Had it all been like that, the journey would have been peaceful in a way, as much as such a chase could be. The land rolled by without another soul in sight. If the sun was molten gold, turning the air to an oven, hawks often wheeled in the cloudless blue sky. The wolves, not wanting humans coming out where they were, drove deer toward the road in such numbers that there were more than even such a large group needed, and it was not unusual to see a proud buck with a tall forked rack and his does and a few spike-horns standing in plain sight as the column passed. But there was an old saying, “The only man completely at peace is a man without a navel.”

The Cairhienin were not easy with the Aiel, of course, frequently frowning at them, or sneering openly. More than once Dobraine muttered about being outnumbered twelve to one. He respected their fighting abilities, but in the way you respected the dangerous qualities of a pack of rabid leopards. The Aiel did not glare or sneer; they just made it plain the Cairhienin were beneath notice. Perrin would not have been surprised to see one of them try to walk through a Cairhienin for refusing to admit he was there. Rhuarc said there would be no trouble, so long as the treekillers started none. Dobraine said there would be no trouble, so long as the savages kept out of his way. Perrin wished he could be certain they would not start killing one another before they even saw the Aes Sedai holding Rand.

He had some hope the Mayeners might be a bridge between the two, though at times he found himself regretting it. The men in red breastplates got on well with the shorter men in plain armor—there had never been a war between Mayene and Cairhien—and the Mayeners also got on with the Aiel. Except for the Aiel War, Mayeners had never fought Aiel. Dobraine was quite friendly with Nurelle, often sharing the evening meal, and Nurelle took to smoking a pipe with various of the Aiel. Especially Gaul. That was where the regret came from.

“I have been talking with Gaul,” Nurelle said diffidently. It was the fourth day on the road, and he had come up from the Mayeners to ride beside Perrin at the head of the column. Perrin was only half-listening; Wildfire had allowed one of the younger males in her pack to creep close soon after the Aes Sedai began moving that morning, and he had not smelled Rand. Every wolf knew the scent of Shadowkiller, it seemed. Still, for all the sketchiness of what Morning Clouds had seen, every wagon but one appeared to have a canvas cover on hoops. Rand was probably inside one of the others, and a good deal more comfortable out of the sun than Perrin was, with sweat rolling down his neck. “He was telling me of the Battle of Emond’s Field,” Nurelle went on, “and your Two Rivers Campaign. Lord Aybara, it would honor me greatly to hear of your battles from yourself.”

Abruptly Perrin sat up stiff in his saddle, staring at the boy. No, not a boy, despite those pink cheeks and that open face. Nurelle was surely as old as he himself. But the man’s scent, all bright and quivering slightly . . . Perrin very nearly groaned. He had smelled that from young boys back home, but to be hero-worshiped by a man his own age was almost more than he could take.

If that had been the worst of it, though, he would hardly have minded. He expected the Aiel and the Cairhienin not to like one another. He should have expected a young man who had never seen a battle to look up to one who had fought Trollocs. It was the things he could not have foreseen that frayed his nerves. The unforeseen could bite you on the ankle when you least expected it and could least afford to be distracted.

Except for Gaul and Rhuarc, every Aielman wore a strip of crimson cloth tied around his temples, with that black-and-white disc above his brows. Perrin had seen them in Cairhien, and in Caemlyn, but now when he asked Gaul, and then Rhuarc, if that marked them as this siswai’aman Rhuarc had spoken of, both men tried to pretend they did not know what he was talking about, as if they could not see red headbands on five thousand men. Perrin even asked the man who seemed to be in charge under Rhuarc, Urien, a Two Spires Reyn whom Perrin had met long ago, but Urien seemed not to understand either. Well, Rhuarc had said he could only bring siswai’aman, so that was how Perrin thought of them, even if he did not know what it meant.

What he did know was there might be trouble between the siswai’aman and the Maidens. When some of those men looked at the Maidens, Perrin caught a whiff of jealousy. When some of the Maidens looked at the siswai’aman, their scent made him think of a wolf hunkering over the carcass of a deer, not meaning to let any other of the pack have a bite if she choked to death swallowing it all. He could not begin to fathom why, but there it was, and sharp.

That was a “maybe” though, some time to come. Other things were not. For the first two days after leaving the city, Sulin and Nandera both put themselves forward whenever Rhuarc said anything concerning the Maidens; every time Sulin backed away, blushing, but she was right there the next time, every time. The second evening, when camp was made, they tried to kill each other with their bare hands.

At least, that was what it looked like to Perrin, kicking each other, hitting with fists, tossing each other to the ground, bending arms so that he was sure bones must break—until whoever was at a disadvantage managed to free herself with a twist or a blow. Rhuarc stopped him when he tried to interfere, and looked surprised that he wanted to. A good many of the Cairhienin and Mayeners gathered around to watch and place bets, but no Aiel so much as glanced at the fight, not even the Wise Ones.

Finally Sulin had Nandera facedown with an arm doubled painfully behind her; seizing Nandera’s hair, she slammed the other woman’s head against the ground until she lay limp. For a long time the older woman stood looking down at the one she had beaten. Then Sulin heaved the unconscious Nandera up onto her shoulders and staggered away with her.

Perrin assumed that Sulin would do the talking from then on, but such was not the case at all. She was still always there, but a bruised Nandera answered Rhuarc’s questions and took his commands while an equally bruised Sulin kept silent, and when Nandera asked Sulin to do something, she did it without hesitation. Perrin could only scratch his head and wonder whether he actually had seen the fight end as he thought it had.

The Wise Ones always walked alongside the road in groups that varied in size and seemed to shift members constantly. By the end of the first day Perrin realized that all that shifting really centered around two women, Sorilea and Amys. By the end of the second, he was sure the two were urging very different viewpoints; there were too many glares and frowns. Now and then Perrin heard Aes Sedai mentioned; he caught snatches about “custom” and “battle,” but never enough to understand. Amys began backing down more slowly, and blushing considerably less. Sometimes Rhuarc smelled faintly anxious when he looked at his wife, but that was the only sign he saw anything. By the third camp out of the city, Perrin half-expected to see Sulin and Nandera’s fight repeated between Wise Ones.

Instead, the two women took a waterskin and went off a little distance, where they sat by themselves on the ground and removed their folded scarves so their long hair hung loose. He watched them into moonlit darkness, keeping far enough back that he would not eavesdrop even by accident, until he went to his own bed, but all they did was drink cups of water and talk. The next morning, the rest of the Wise Ones still shifted from group to group, but before the long column had covered three miles, Perrin realized that all centered on Sorilea now. Now and then she and Amys went off to one side of the road by themselves to talk, but there were no more glares. Had they been wolves, Perrin would have said a challenge to the pack leader had been defeated, but by their scents, Sorilea accepted Amys as almost an equal now, which did not fit wolves at all.

The seventh day out of Cairhien, riding beneath a broiling morning sun, he was worrying about what sort of surprise the Aiel were going to give him next, worrying about whether the Aiel and Cairhienin would stay away from each others’ throats another day, about what he was going to do when he caught the Aes Sedai in another three or four days.

All of that vanished at a sending from Half Tail. There was a large party of men—and women maybe; wolves sometimes had difficulty telling male humans from female—only a few miles to the west, and riding hard in the same direction Perrin was heading. It was the sketchy image of the two banners they rode behind that drew Perrin up.

He was surrounded quickly, by Dobraine and Nurelle, Rhuarc and Urien, Nandera and Sulin, Sorilea and Amys. “Keep on,” he told them, turning Stayer west. “We may have a few friends to join us, but we don’t want to lose any time.”

They did keep on as he rode away, but they did not let him go alone. Before he covered a quarter of a mile he was trailed by a dozen of the Winged Guards and as many Cairhienin, at least twenty Maidens led by Sulin and an equal number of siswai’aman behind a gray-haired man with green eyes and a face that appeared to have been used to break stone. Perrin was only surprised there was not a Wise One or two.

“Friends,” Sulin murmured to herself, trotting at his stirrup. “Friends who appear suddenly, with no warning, and he suddenly just knows they are there.” Looking up at him, she spoke louder. “I would not like to see you trip over a pillow and fall on your nose again.”

Perrin shook his head, wondering what other cudgels he had given her while she masqueraded as a servant. Aiel were strange.

By the sun he rode for nearly an hour, guided by the wolves, as surely as arrow to target, and when he topped a low rise, he was not surprised by what he saw perhaps two miles ahead, mounted men in a long column of twos, Two Rivers men with his own Red Wolfhead banner at their head streaming on a light breeze. What did surprise him was that there really were women with them—nine, he counted—and a number of men he was sure were not Two Rivers folk. What tightened his jaw was the second banner. The Red Eagle of Manetheren. He could not say how many times he had told them not to take one of those out of the Two Rivers; one of the few things he had not been able to stop back home just by suggesting was the flying of that flag. Still, the wolves’ imperfect sending of the banners had prepared him.

They saw him and his companions quickly, of course. There were good eyes in that band. They drew up, waiting, and some unlimbered bows from their backs, the great Two Rivers bows that could kill a man at three hundred paces and more.

“No one get in front of me,” Perrin said. “They’ll not shoot if they recognize me.”

“It seems yellow eyes see far,” Sulin said flatly. A number of the others were looking at him oddly.

“Just stay behind me,” Perrin sighed.

As he rode closer at the head of his strange party, bows that had been raised were lowered and arrows un-nocked. They had Stepper, he saw with delight, and with less delight, Swallow. Faile would never forgive him if he let her black mare be injured. It would be good to be back on his dun, but maybe he would keep Stayer as well; a lord could have two horses. Even a lord who might not have more than another four days to live.

Dannil rode out from the Two Rivers column, knuckling his thick mustaches, and Aram, and the women rode with them. Perrin recognized ageless Aes Sedai faces even before he picked out Verin and Alanna, both riding to the rear of the women. He did not know any of the others, but he was certain who they were, if not how they had gotten here. Nine. Nine Aes Sedai could be more than useful in three or four days now, yet how far could he trust them? They were nine, and Rand had told them only six could follow him. He wondered which one was Merana, their leader.

A square-faced Aes Sedai who looked like a farmer beneath her agelessness spoke before Dannil could. Her mount was a solid brown mare. “So you are Perrin Aybara. Lord Perrin, I should say. We’ve heard a great deal about you.”

“It is a surprise to meet you here,” an arrogant if beautiful woman said coolly, “with such odd companions.” She rode a dark gelding with a fierce eye; Perrin would have wagered the animal was trained as a warhorse. “We thought sure you would be ahead of us yet.”

Ignoring them—one of those two must be Merana, and he was not certain what to say to her yet—Perrin looked at Dannil. “Not that I’m displeased, but how did you come here?”

Dannil glanced at the Aes Sedai and stroked his mustaches furiously. “We started out like you said, Lord Perrin, and as fast as we could. I mean, we left the wagons and all, since it seemed there must be some reason for you to leave so quick. Then Kiruna Sedai and Bera Sedai and the others caught us up, and they said Alanna could find Rand—the Lord Dragon, I mean—and since you went with him, I thought sure you’d be wherever he was, and no way to tell us if you’d gone from Cairhien, and . . . ” He drew a deep breath. “Anyway, it seems they were right, weren’t they, Lord Perrin.”

Perrin frowned, wondering how Alanna could find Rand. But she must be able to, or Dannil and the rest would not be here. She and Verin were continuing to stay back, with a slim, hazel-eyed woman who seemed to sigh often.

“I am Bera Harkin,” the square-faced woman said, “and this is Kiruna Nachiman.” She indicated her haughty companion. Apparently the others could do without introductions yet. “Will you tell us why you are here when young al’Thor—the Lord Dragon—is several days north?”

It did not take much consideration. If these nine meant to join the Aes Sedai ahead, there was little he could do to stop it. Nine Aes Sedai on his side, however . . . “He’s being held prisoner. An Aes Sedai named Coiren and at least five others are taking him to Tar Valon. At least, they mean to. I mean to stop them.” That caused considerable shock, with Dannil’s eyes widening and Aes Sedai all talking at once. Aram was the only one who did not appear affected, but then, he did not seem to care much about anything except Perrin and his sword. The smells from the Aes Sedai were all outrage and fear for all their calm faces.

“We have to stop them, Bera,” came from a woman with her hair in beaded Taraboner braids, just as a pale Cairhienin woman on a lanky bay mare said, “We cannot allow Elaida to have him, Bera.”

“Six?” the hazel-eyed woman said incredulously. “Six could not take him. I am sure of it.”

“I told you he was injured,” Alanna half-wept. Perrin knew her scent well enough to pick it out; she smelled of pain. “I told you.” Verin kept silent, but she smelled furious—and afraid.

Kiruna ran a dark, contemptuous gaze over Perrin’s party. “You mean to stop Aes Sedai with this, young man? Verin did not say you were a fool.”

“I have a few more than this back on the Tar Valon Road,” he said dryly.

“Then you may join them to us,” Kiruna told him, as though making a concession. “That will be all right, Bera, will it not?” Bera nodded.

He could not understand why Kiruna’s attitude grated at him so, but this was no time to try puzzling it out. “I also have three hundred Two Rivers archers I intend to take back to the road with me.” How could Alanna know whether Rand was hurt? “You Aes Sedai are welcome to come along.”

They did not like it, certainly. They rode off a dozen paces to one side to discuss it—even his ears heard nothing; they must have been using the Power somehow—and for a time, Perrin thought they were going to ride on alone.

In the end they did come, but Bera and Kiruna rode on either side of him all the way back to the road, taking turns telling him how dangerous and delicate this situation was, and he must do nothing that might endanger young al’Thor. Bera at least remembered to call Rand the Dragon Reborn sometimes. One thing they made quite clear was that Perrin was not to so much as put one foot in front of the other without asking them first. Bera began to seem a little vexed that he would not repeat her words back to her; Kiruna seemed to take them for said. Perrin began to wonder whether he had made a mistake asking them to come.

If the Aes Sedai were impressed by the collection of Aiel and Mayeners and Cairhienin marching along the road, they gave no sign to either eye or nose. They did add their little bit to the bubbling of the kettle, though. The Mayeners and Cairhienin seemed very heartened at the appearance of nine Aes Sedai and sixteen Warders, and they nearly bowed and scraped whenever one of the women came close. Maidens and siswai’aman looked at the Aes Sedai as though they expected the women to crush them underfoot, but though the Wise Ones kept faces as smooth as the Aes Sedai, Perrin smelled waves of pure fury from them. Except for a Brown named Masuri, the Aes Sedai ignored the Wise Ones entirely at first, but after Masuri had been rebuffed at least two dozen times over the next few days—she was persistent, yet the Wise Ones avoided the Aes Sedai so smoothly that Perrin thought they must do it by instinct—after that, Bera and Kiruna and all the rest were constantly looking at the Wise Ones and talking among themselves behind some invisible barrier that kept Perrin from hearing what they said.

He would have eavesdropped if he could; they were hiding more than talk about the Aiel women. For one thing, Alanna refused to tell him how she knew where Rand was—“There is knowledge that would burn any mind but Aes Sedai,” she had told him, cool and mysterious, but she fairly reeked of anxiety and pain—and she would not even admit to having said he was injured in some way. Verin hardly said a word to him, only watched everything with those dark birdlike eyes and a small secret smile, yet she gave off waves of frustration and anger. By smell he would have said Bera or Kiruna was the leader; Bera, he thought, though it was close and sometimes seemed to shift the other way for a time. It was hard to say otherwise, though one or the other rode beside him a good hour every day, repeating variations of their original “advice” and generally assuming they were in charge. Nurelle seemed to think they were, taking their commands without so much as a glance at Perrin, and Dobraine did no more than glance first. For a full day and a half Perrin assumed Merana had remained in Caemlyn, and it came as a shock to hear the slim hazel-eyed woman addressed by that name. Rand had said she headed the embassy from Salidar, but for all that the Aes Sedai appeared equals on the surface, Perrin marked her as low wolf in the pack; dull resignation and anxiety filled her scent. No surprise that Aes Sedai kept secrets, of course, but he intended to rescue Rand from Coiren and the lot ahead, and he would have liked a hint as to whether he would have to rescue him from Kiruna and her friends.

At least it was good being reunited with Dannil and the others even if they were nearly as bad around the Aes Sedai as the Mayeners and Cairhienin. The Two Rivers men were so glad to see him that few even grumbled when he told them to put away the Red Eagle; it would come out again, Perrin was sure, but Dannil’s brother Tell, who looked almost exactly like him except for a pickaxe nose and long thin mustaches in the Domani manner, folded it carefully into his saddlebags. They did not go on without banners, of course. For one thing, there was his own Red Wolfhead. They might have ignored him if he told them to pack that away, and for some reason, Kiruna’s cool, disdainful gaze made him want to display it. But beside that, Dobraine and Nurelle produced banners, since one had been shown already. Not the Rising Sun of Cairhien or the Golden Hawk in flight of Mayene. Each had brought a pair of Rand’s standards, the Dragon red-and-gold on white, and the black-and-white disc on crimson. The Aiel did not seem to care one way or another, and the Aes Sedai grew very cold, but they seemed fitting ensigns to go on behind.

On the tenth day, with the sun almost halfway to its peak, Perrin was feeling grim despite banners and Two Rivers men and Stepper under him. They should overtake the Aes Sedai wagons not long after noon, but he still did not know what to do after that. It was then that the sending came from the wolves. Come now. Many two-legs. Many, many, many! Come now!