A final bound took him back onto a slope above Manetheren’s grave, crouching among meager, wind-slanted pines with bow ready to draw. Below him, among the stunted trees and boulders, the arrow had been fired. Slayer had to be down there somewhere. He had to be down … .
Without thinking, Perrin leaped away, the mountains a smear of gray and brown and green.
“Almost,” he growled. Almost, he had duplicated his mistake in the Waterwood, thinking again an enemy would move to suit him, wait where he wanted.
This time he ran as hard as he could, only three flashing strides to the edge of the Sand Hills, hoping he had not been seen. This time he circled wide, coming back higher on that same mountainside, up where the air felt thin and cold and the few trees were thick-trunked bushes fifty paces or more apart, up above where a man might set himself to watch for another who meant to sneak up on the place that arrow had fired.
And there his quarry was, a hundred paces below, dark-haired and dark-coated, a tall man crouched beside a table-sized granite outcrop, his own half-drawn bow in hand, studying the slope farther down with eager patience. This was the first time Perrin had gotten a good look at him; a hundred paces was little distance for his eyes. This Slayer’s high-collared coat had a Borderland cut, and his face looked enough like Lan’s to be the Warder’s brother’s. Only Lan had no brothers—no living kin at all, that Perrin knew—and if he had had any, they would not have been here. A Borderlander, though. Maybe Shienaran, though his hair was long, not shaved to a topknot, and was held back by a braided leather cord just like Lan’s. He could not be Malkieri; Lan was the last living Malkieri.
Wherever he came from, Perrin felt no compunction at all in drawing his bow, broadhead point aimed at Slayer’s back. The man had tried to kill him from ambush. A downhill shot could be tricky.
Perhaps he had taken too long, or perhaps the fellow felt his cold gaze, but suddenly Slayer became a blur, streaking away east.
With a curse, Perrin pursued, three strides to the Sand Hills, another into the Westwood. Among the oaks and leatherleaf and underbrush, Slayer seemed to vanish.
Halting, Perrin listened. Silence. The squirrels and birds had gone still. He inhaled deeply. A small herd of deer had passed that way not long since. And a faint tinge of something, human but too cold for a man, too emotionless, a scent that tickled his mind with familiarity. Slayer was somewhere close. The air lay as still as the forest; no stir of breeze to tell him which way that scent came.
“A neat trick, Goldeneyes, locking the Waygate.”
Perrin tensed, ears straining. No telling from where in this dense growth that voice had come. Not so much as a leaf rustled.
“If you knew how many of the Shadowwrought died trying to get out of the Ways there, it would lift your heart. Machin Shin feasted at that gate, Goldeneyes. But not a good enough trick. You saw: the gate is open now.”
There, off to the right. Perrin slipped through the trees as silently as he had when he had hunted here.
“It was only a few hundred to begin, Goldeneyes. Just enough to keep those fool Whitecloaks off balance and see that the renegade died.” Slayer’s voice became angry. “The Shadow consume me if that man does not have more luck than the White Tower.” Abruptly he chuckled. “But you, Goldeneyes. Your presence was a surprise. There are those who want your head on a pike. Your precious Two Rivers will be harrowed from end to end, now, to root you out. What do you say to that, Goldeneyes?”
Perrin froze close beside the gnarled trunk of a great oak. Why was the man talking so much? Why was he talking at all? He’s drawing me right to him.
Putting his back against the oak’s thick bole, he studied the forest. No movement. Slayer wanted him to come nearer. No doubt into an ambush. And he wanted to find the man and rip his throat out. Yet it could easily be himself
who died, and if that happened, no one would know the Waygate was open, and Trollocs coming by hundreds, maybe even thousands. He would not play Slayer’s game.
With a mirthless smile he stepped out of the wolf dream, telling himself to wake, and …
… Faile twined her arms around his neck and nipped his beard with small white teeth, while Tinkers’ fiddles sang some wild, heated tune around the campfires. Ila’s powder. I can’t wake up! Awareness that it was a dream faded. Laughing, he scooped Faile up in his arms and carried her into the shadows, where the grass was soft.
Waking was a slow process wrapped around the dull pain filling his side. Daylight streamed in at the small windows. Bright light. Morning. He tried to sit up, and fell back with a groan.
Faile sprang up from a low stool; her dark eyes looked as if she had not slept. “Lie still,” she said. “You did enough thrashing in your sleep. I have not kept you from rolling over and driving that thing the rest of the way through you just to watch you do it now you’re awake.” Ihvon stood leaning against the doorframe like a dark blade.
“Help me up,” Perrin said. Talking hurt, but so did breathing, and he had to talk. “I have to get to the mountains. To the Waygate.”
She put a hand to his forehead, frowning. “No fever,” she murmured. Then, more strongly, “You are going to Emond’s Field, where one of the Aes Sedai can Heal you. You are not going to kill yourself trying to ride into the mountains with an arrow in you. Do you hear me? If I hear one more word about mountains or Waygates, I will have Ila mix something that will put you back to sleep, and you will travel on a litter. I’m not certain you should not anyway.”
“The Trollocs, Faile! The Waygate is open again! I have to stop them!”
The woman did not even hesitate before shaking her head. “You can do nothing about it, the state you are in. It is Emond’s Field for you.”
“But—!”
“But me no buts, Perrin Aybara. Not another word on it.”
He ground his teeth. The worst was that she was right. If he could not rise from a bed alone, how could he stay in the saddle as far as Manetheren? “Emond’s Field,” he said graciously, but she still sniffed and muttered something about “pigheaded.” What did she want? I was bloody gracious, burn her for stubborn!
“So there will be more Trollocs,” Ihvon said musingly. He did not ask how Perrin knew. Then he shook his head as if dismissing Trollocs. “I will tell the others you are awake.” He slipped out, closing the door behind him.
“Am I the only one who sees the danger?” Perrin muttered.