Egwene sat by the fire, staring up at the fragment of statue, but Perrin went down by the pool to be alone. Day was fading, and the night wind was already rising out of the east, ruffling the surface of the water. He took the axe from the loop on his belt and turned it over in his hands. The ashwood haft was as long as his arm, and smooth and cool to the touch. He hated it. He was ashamed of how proud he had been of the axe back in Emond’s Field. Before he knew what he might be willing to do with it.
“You hate her that much?” Elyas said behind him.
Startled, he jumped and half raised the axe before he saw who it was. “Can . . . ? Can you read my mind, too? Like the wolves?”
Elyas cocked his head to one side and eyed him quizzically. “A blind man could read your face, boy. Well, speak up. Do you hate the girl? Despise her? That’s it. You were ready to kill her because you despise her, always dragging her feet, holding you back with her womanish ways.”
“Egwene never dragged her feet in her life,” he protested. “She always does her share. I don’t despise her, I love her.” He glared at Elyas, daring him to laugh. “Not like that. I mean, she isn’t like a sister, but she and Rand . . . Blood and ashes! If the ravens caught us . . . If . . . I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. If she had to choose her way of dying, which do you think she’d pick? One clean blow of your axe, or the way the animals we saw today died? I know which I’d take.”
“I don’t have any right to choose for her. You won’t tell her, will you? About . . . ” His hands tightened on the axe haft; the muscles in his arms corded, heavy muscles for his age, built by long hours swinging the hammer at Master Luhhan’s forge. For an instant he thought the thick wooden shaft would snap. “I hate this bloody thing,” he growled. “I don’t know what I’m doing with it, strutting around like some kind of fool. I couldn’t have done it, you know. When it was all pretend and maybe, I could swagger, and play as if I . . . ” He sighed, his voice fading. “It’s different, now. I don’t ever want to use it again.”
“You’ll use it.”
Perrin raised the axe to throw it in the pool, but Elyas caught his wrist.
“You’ll use it, boy, and as long as you hate using it, you will use it more wisely than most men would. Wait. If ever you don’t hate it any longer, then will be the time to throw it as far as you can and run the other way.”
Perrin hefted the axe in his hands, still tempted to leave it in the pool. Easy for him to say wait. What if I wait and then can’t throw it away?
He opened his mouth to ask Elyas, but no words came out. A sending from the wolves, so urgent that his eyes glazed over. For an instant he forgot what he had been going to say, forgot he had been going to say anything, forgot even how to speak, how to breathe. Elyas’s face sagged, too, and his eyes seemed to peer inward and far away. Then it was gone, as quickly as it had come. It had only lasted a heartbeat, but that was enough.
Perrin shook himself and filled his lungs deeply. Elyas did not pause; as soon as the veil lifted from his eyes, he sped toward the fire without any hesitation. Perrin ran wordlessly behind him.
“Douse the fire!” Elyas called hoarsely to Egwene. He gestured urgently, and he seemed to be trying to shout in a whisper. “Get it out!”
She rose to her feet, staring at him uncertainly, then stepped closer to the fire, but slowly, clearly not understanding what was happening.
Elyas pushed roughly past her and snatched up the tea kettle, cursing when it burned him. Juggling the hot pot, he upended it over the fire just the same. A step behind him, Perrin arrived in time to start kicking dirt over the hissing coals as the last of the tea splashed into the fire, hissing and rising in tendrils of steam. He did not stop until the last vestige of the fire was buried.
Elyas tossed the kettle to Perrin, who immediately let it fall with a choked-off yell. Perrin blew on his hands, frowning at Elyas, but the fur-clad man was too busy giving their campsite a hasty look to pay any attention.
“No chance to hide that somebody’s been here,” Elyas said. “We’ll just have to hurry and hope. Maybe they won’t bother. Blood and ashes, but I was sure it was the ravens.”
Hurriedly Perrin tossed the saddle on Bela, propping the axe against his thigh while he bent to tighten the girth.
“What is it?” Egwene asked. Her voice shook. “Trollocs? A Fade?”
“Go east or west,” Elyas told Perrin. “Find a place to hide, and I’ll join you as soon as I can. If they see a wolf . . . ” He darted away, crouching almost as if he intended to go to all fours, and vanished into the lengthening shadows of evening.
Egwene hastily gathered her few belongings, but she still demanded an explanation from Perrin. Her voice was insistent and growing more frightened by the minute as he kept silent. He was frightened, too, but fear made them move faster. He waited until they were headed toward the setting sun. Trotting ahead of Bela and holding the axe across his chest in both hands, he told what he knew over his shoulder in snatches while hunting for a place to go to ground and wait for Elyas.
“There are a lot of men coming, on horses. They came up behind the wolves, but the men didn’t see them. They’re heading toward the pool. Probably they don’t have anything to do with us; it’s the only water for miles. But Dapple says . . . ” He glanced over his shoulder. The evening sun painted odd shadows on her face, shadows that hid her expression. What is she thinking? Is she looking at you as if she doesn’t know you anymore? Does she know you? “Dapple says they smell wrong. It’s . . . sort of the way a rabid dog smells wrong.” The pool was lost to sight behind them. He could still pick out boulders—fragments of Artur Hawkwing’s statue—in the deepening twilight, but not to tell which was the stone where the fire had been. “We’ll stay away from them, find a place to wait for Elyas.”
“Why should they bother us?” she demanded. “We’re supposed to be safe here. It’s supposed to be safe. Light, there has to be some place safe.”
Perrin began looking harder for somewhere to hide. They could not be very far from the pool, but the twilight was thickening. Soon it would be too dark to travel. Faint light still bathed the crests. From the hollows between, where there was barely enough to see, it seemed bright by contrast. Off to the left a dark shape stood sharp against the sky, a large, flat stone slanting out of a hillside, cloaking the slope beneath in darkness.
“This way,” he said.
He trotted toward the hill, glancing over his shoulder for any sign of the men who were coming. There was nothing—yet. More than once he had to stop and wait while the others stumbled after him. Egwene was crouched over Bela’s neck, and the mare was picking her way carefully over the uneven ground. Perrin thought they both must be more tired than he had believed. This had better be a good hiding place. I don’t think we can hunt for another.
At the base of the hill he studied the massive, flat rock outlined against the sky, jutting out the slope almost at the crest. There was an odd familiarity to the way the top of the huge slab seemed to form irregular steps, three up and one down. He climbed the short distance and felt across the stone, walking along it. Despite the weathering of centuries he could still feel four joined columns. He glanced up at the step-like top of the stone, towering over his head like a huge lean-to. Fingers. We’ll shelter in Artur Hawkwing’s hand. Maybe some of his justice is left here.
He motioned for Egwene to join him. She did not move, so he slid back down to the base of the hill and told her what he had found.
Egwene peered up the hill with her head pushed forward. “How can you see anything?” she asked.
Perrin opened his mouth, then shut it. He licked his lips as he looked around, for the first time really aware of what he was seeing. The sun was down. All the way down, now, and clouds hid the full moon, but it still seemed like the deep purple fringes of twilight to him. “I felt the rock,” he said finally. “That’s what it has to be. They won’t be able to pick us out against the shadow of it even if they come this far.” He took Bela’s bridle to lead her to the shelter of the hand. He could feel Egwene’s eyes on his back.
As he was helping her down from the saddle, the night broke out in shouts back toward the pool. She laid a hand on Perrin’s arm, and he heard her unspoken question.
“The men saw Wind,” he said reluctantly. It was difficult to pick out the meaning of the wolves’ thoughts. Something about fire. “They have torches.” He pressed her down at the base of the fingers and crouched beside her. “They’re breaking up into parties to search. So many of them, and the wolves are all hurt.” He tried to make his voice heartier. “But Dapple and the others should be able to keep out of their way, even injured, and they don’t expect us. People don’t see what they don’t expect. They’ll give up soon enough and make camp.” Elyas was with the wolves, and would not leave them while they were hunted. So many riders. So persistent. Why so persistent?
He saw Egwene nod, but in the dark she did not realize it. “We’ll be all right, Perrin.”
Light, he thought wonderingly, she’s trying to comfort me.
The shouts went on and on. Small knots of torches moved in the distance, flickering points of light in the darkness.
“Perrin,” Egwene said softly, “will you dance with me at Sunday? If we’re home by then?”
His shoulders shook. He made no sound, and he did not know if he was laughing or crying. “I will. I promise.” Against his will his hands tightened on the axe, reminding him that he still held it. His voice dropped to a whisper. “I promise,” he said again, and hoped.
Groups of torch-carrying men now rode through the hills, bunches of ten or twelve. Perrin could not tell how many groups there were. Sometimes three or four were in sight at once, quartering back and forth. They continued to shout to one another, and sometimes there were screams in the night, the screams of horses, the screams of men.
He saw it all from more than one vantage. He crouched on the hillside with Egwene, watching the torches move through the darkness like fireflies, and in his mind he ran in the night with Dapple, and Wind, and Hopper. The wolves had been too hurt by the ravens to run far or fast, so they intended to drive the men out of the darkness, drive them to the shelter of their fires. Men always sought the safety of fires in the end, when wolves roamed the night. Some of the mounted men led strings of horses without riders; they whinnied and reared with wide, rolling eyes when the gray shapes darted among them, screaming and pulling their lead ropes from the hands of the men who held them, scattering in all directions as fast as they could run. Horses with men on their backs screamed, too, when gray shadows flashed out of the dark with hamstringing fangs, and sometimes their riders screamed as well, just before jaws tore out their throats. Elyas was out there, also, more dimly sensed, stalking the night with his long knife, a two-legged wolf with one sharp steel tooth. The shouts became curses more often than not, but the searchers refused to give up.
Abruptly Perrin realized that the men with torches were following a pattern. Each time some of the parties came in view, one of them, at least, was closer to the hillside where he and Egwene were hiding. Elyas had said to hide, but . . . What if we run? Maybe we could hide in the dark, if we keep moving. Maybe. It has to be dark enough for that.
He turned to Egwene, but as he did the decision was taken away from him. Bunched torches, a dozen of them, came around the base of the hill, wavering with the trot of the horses. Lanceheads gleamed in the torchlight. He froze, holding his breath, hands tightening on his axe haft.
The horsemen rode past the hill, but one of the men shouted, and the torches swung back. He thought desperately, seeking for a way to go. But as soon as they moved they would be seen, if they had not already been, and once they were marked they would have no chance, not even with the darkness to help.
The horsemen drew up at the foot of the hill, each man holding a torch in one hand and a long lance in the other, guiding his horse by the pressure of his knees. By the light of the torches Perrin could see the white cloaks of the Children of the Light. They held the torches high and leaned forward in their saddles, peering up at the deep shadows under Artur Hawkwing’s fingers.
“There is something up there,” one of them said. His voice was too loud, as if he was afraid of what lay outside the light of his torch. “I told you somebody could hide in that. Isn’t that a horse?”
Egwene laid a hand on Perrin’s arm; her eyes were big in the dark. Her silent question plain despite the shadow hiding her features. What to do? Elyas and the wolves still hunted through the night. The horses below shifted their feet nervously. If we run now, they’ll chase us down.
One of the Whitecloaks stepped his horse forward and shouted up the hill. “If you can understand human speech, come down and surrender. You’ll not be harmed if you walk in the Light. If you don’t surrender, you will all be killed. You have one minute.” The lances lowered, long steel heads bright with torchlight.
“Perrin,” Egwene whispered, “we can’t outrun them. If we don’t give up, they’ll kill us. Perrin?”
Elyas and the wolves were still free. Another distant, bubbling scream marked a Whitecloak who had hunted Dapple too closely. If we run . . . Egwene was looking at him, waiting for him to tell her what to do. If we run . . . He shook his head wearily and stood up like a man in a trance, stumbling down the hill toward the Children of the Light. He heard Egwene sigh and follow him, her feet dragging reluctantly. Why are the Whitecloaks so persistent, as if they hate wolves with a passion? Why do they smell wrong? He almost thought he could smell the wrongness himself, when the wind gusted from the riders.
“Drop that axe,” the leader barked.
Perrin stumbled toward him, wrinkling his nose to get rid of the smell he thought he smelt.
“Drop it, bumpkin!” The leader’s lance shifted toward Perrin’s chest.
For a moment he stared at the lancehead, enough sharp steel to go completely through him, and abruptly he shouted, “No!” It was not at the horseman he shouted.
Out of the night Hopper came, and Perrin was one with the wolf. Hopper, the cub who had watched the eagles soar, and wanted so badly to fly through the sky as the eagles did. The cub who hopped and jumped and leaped until he could leap higher than any other wolf, and who never lost the cub’s yearning to soar through the sky. Out of the night Hopper came and left the ground in a leap, soaring like the eagles. The Whitecloaks had only a moment to begin cursing before Hopper’s jaws closed on the throat of the man with his lance leveled at Perrin. The big wolf’s momentum carried them both off the other side of the horse. Perrin felt the throat crushing, tasted the blood.
Hopper landed lightly, already apart from the man he had killed. Blood matted his fur, his own blood and that of others. A gash down his face crossed the empty socket where his left eye had been. His good eye met Perrin’s two for just an instant. Run, brother! He whirled to leap again, to soar one last time, and a lance pinned him to the earth. A second length of steel thrust through his ribs, driving into the ground under him. Kicking, he snapped at the shafts that held him. To soar.
Pain filled Perrin, and he screamed, a wordless scream that had something of a wolf’s cry in it. Without thinking he leaped forward, still screaming. All thought was gone. The horsemen had bunched too much to be able to use their lances, and the axe was a feather in his hands, one huge wolf’s tooth of steel. Something crashed into his head, and as he fell, he did not know if it was Hopper or himself who died.
“ . . . soar like the eagles.”
Mumbling, Perrin opened his eyes woozily. His head hurt, and he could not remember why. Blinking against the light, he looked around. Egwene was kneeling and watching him where he lay. They were in a square tent as big as a medium-sized room in a farmhouse, with a ground cloth for a floor. Oil lamps on tall stands, one in each corner, gave a bright light.
“Thank the Light, Perrin,” she breathed. “I was afraid they had killed you.”
Instead of answering, he stared at the gray-haired man seated in the lone chair in the tent. A dark-eyed, grandfatherly face looked back at him, a face at odds in his mind with the white-and-gold tabard the man wore, and the burnished armor strapped over his pure-white undercoat. It seemed a kindly face, bluff and dignified, and something about it fit the elegant austerity of the tent’s furnishings. A table and a folding bed, a washstand with a plain white basin and pitcher, a single wooden chest inlaid in simple geometric patterns. Where there was wood, it was polished to a soft glow, and the metal gleamed, but not too brightly, and nothing was showy. Everything in the tent had the look of craftsmanship, but only someone who had watched the work of craftsmen—like Master Luhhan, or Master Aydaer, the cabinetmaker—would see it.
Frowning, the man stirred two small piles of objects on the table with a blunt finger. Perrin recognized the contents of his pockets in one of those piles, and his belt knife. The silver coin Moiraine had given him toppled out, and the man pushed it back thoughtfully. Pursing his lips, he left the piles and lifted Perrin’s axe from the table, hefting it. His attention came back to the Emond’s Fielders.
Perrin tried to get up. Sharp pain stabbing along his arms and legs turned the movement into a flop. For the first time he realized that he was tied, hand and foot. His eyes went to Egwene. She shrugged ruefully, and twisted so that he could see her back. Half a dozen lashings wrapped her wrists and ankles, the cords making ridges in her flesh. A length of rope ran between the bonds around ankles and wrists, short enough to stop her from straightening to more than a crouch if she got to her feet.
Perrin stared. That they were tied was shock enough, but they wore enough ropes to hold horses. What do they think we are?
The gray-haired man watched them, curious and thoughtful, like Master al’Vere puzzling out a problem. He held the axe as if he had forgotten it.
The tent flap shifted aside, and a tall man stepped into the tent. His face was long and gaunt, with eyes so deeply set they seemed to look out from caves. There was no excess flesh on him, no fat at all; his skin was pulled tight over the muscle and bone beneath.
Perrin had a glimpse of night outside, and campfires, and two white-cloaked guards at the entrance of the tent, then the flap fell back into place. As soon as the newcomer was into the tent, he stopped, standing as rigid as an iron rod, staring straight ahead of him at the far wall of the tent. His plate-and-mail armor gleamed like silver against his snowy cloak and undercoat.
“My Lord Captain.” His voice was as hard as his posture, and grating, but somehow flat, without expression.
The gray-haired man made a casual gesture. “Be at your ease, Child Byar. You have tallied our costs for this . . . encounter?”
The tall man moved his feet apart, but other than that Perrin did not see anything ease about his stance. “Nine men dead, my Lord Captain, and twenty-three injured, seven seriously. All can ride, though. Thirty horses had to be put down. They were hamstrung!” He emphasized that in his emotionless voice, as if what had happened to the horses were worse than the deaths and injuries to men. “Many of the remounts are scattered. We may find some at daybreak, my Lord Captain, but with wolves to send them on their way, it will take days to gather them all. The men who were supposed to be watching them have been assigned to night guard until we reach Caemlyn.”
“We do not have days, Child Byar,” the gray-haired man said mildly. “We ride at dawn. Nothing can change that. We must be in Caemlyn in time, yes?”
“As you command, my Lord Captain.”
The gray-haired man glanced at Perrin and Egwene, then away again. “And what have we to show for it, aside from these two younglings?”
Byar drew a deep breath and hesitated. “I have had the wolf that was with this lot skinned, my Lord Captain. The hide should make a fine rug for my Lord Captain’s tent.”
Hopper! Not even realizing what he was doing, Perrin growled and struggled against his bonds. The ropes dug into his skin—his wrists became slippery with blood—but they did not give.
For the first time Byar looked at the prisoners. Egwene started back from him. His face was as expressionless as his voice, but a cruel light burned in his sunken eyes, as surely as flames burned in Ba’alzamon’s. Byar hated them as if they were enemies of long years instead of people never seen before tonight.
Perrin stared back defiantly. His mouth curled into a tight smile at the thought of his teeth meeting in the man’s throat.
Abruptly his smile faded, and he shook himself. My teeth? I’m a man, not a wolf! Light, there has to be an end to this! But he still met Byar’s glare, hate for hate.
“I do not care about wolf-hide rugs, Child Byar.” The rebuke in the Lord Captain’s voice was gentle, but Byar’s back snapped rigid again, his eyes locking to the wall of the tent. “You were reporting on what we achieved this night, no? If we achieved anything.”
“I would estimate the pack that attacked us at fifty beasts or more, my Lord Captain. Of that, we killed at least twenty, perhaps thirty. I did not consider it worth the risk of losing more horses to have the carcasses brought in tonight. In the morning I will have them gathered and burned, those that aren’t dragged off in the dark. Besides these two, there were at least a dozen other men. I believe we disposed of four or five, but it is unlikely we will find any bodies, given the Darkfriends’ propensity for carrying away their dead to hide their losses. This seems to have been a coordinated ambush, but that raises the question of . . . ”
Perrin’s throat tightened as the gaunt man went on. Elyas? Cautiously, reluctantly, he felt for Elyas, for the wolves . . . and found nothing. It was as if he had never been able to feel a wolf’s mind. Either they’re dead, or they’ve abandoned you. He wanted to laugh, a bitter laugh. At last he had what he had been wishing for, but the price was high.
The gray-haired man did laugh, just then, a rich, wry chuckle that made a red spot bloom on each of Byar’s cheeks. “So, Child Byar, it is your considered estimate that we were attacked in a planned ambush by upwards of fifty wolves and better than half a score of Darkfriends? Yes? Perhaps when you’ve seen a few more actions . . . ”
“But, my Lord Captain Bornhald . . . ”
“I would say six or eight wolves, Child Byar, and perhaps no other humans than these two. You have the true zeal, but no experience outside the cities. It is a different thing, bringing the Light, when streets and houses are far distant. Wolves have a way of seeming more than they are, in the night—and men, also. Six or eight at most, I think.” Byar’s flush deepened slowly. “I also suspect they were here for the same reason we are: the only easy water for at least a day in any direction. A much simpler explanation than spies or traitors within the Children, and the simplest explanation is usually the truest. You will learn, with experience.”
Byar’s face went deathly white as the grandfatherly man spoke; by contrast, the two spots in his hollow cheeks deepened from red to purple. He cut his eyes toward the two prisoners for an instant.
He hates us even more, now, Perrin thought, for hearing this. But why did he hate us in the first place?
“What do you think of this?” the Lord Captain said, holding up Perrin’s axe.
Byar looked a question at his commander and waited for an answering nod before he broke his rigid stance to take the weapon. He hefted the axe and gave a surprised grunt, then whirled it in a tight arc above his head that barely missed the top of the tent. He handled it as surely as if he had been born with an axe in his hands. A look of grudging admiration flickered across his face, but by the time he lowered the axe he was expressionless once more.
“Excellently balanced, my Lord Captain. Plainly made, but by a very good weaponsmith, perhaps even a master.” His eyes burned darkly at the prisoners. “Not a villager’s weapon, my Lord Captain. Nor a farmer’s.”
“No.” The gray-haired man turned toward Perrin and Egwene with a weary, slightly chiding smile, a kindly grandfather who knew his grandchildren had been up to some mischief. “My name is Geofram Bornhald,” he told them. “You are Perrin, I understand. But you, young woman, what is your name?”
Perrin glowered at him, but Egwene shook her head. “Don’t be silly, Perrin. I’m Egwene.”
“Just Perrin, and just Egwene,” Bornhald murmured. “But I suppose if you truly are Darkfriends, you wish to hide your identities as much as possible.”
Perrin heaved himself up to his knees; he could rise no further because of the way he was bound. “We aren’t Darkfriends,” he protested angrily.
The words were not completely out of his mouth before Byar reached him. The man moved like a snake. He saw the handle of his own axe swinging toward him and tried to duck, but the thick haft caught him over the ear. Only the fact that he was moving away from the blow kept his skull from being split. Even so, lights flashed in his eyes. Breath left him as he struck the ground. His head rung, and blood ran down his cheek.
“You have no right,” Egwene began, and screamed as the axe handle whipped toward her. She threw herself aside, and the blow whistled through empty air as she tumbled to the ground cloth.
“You will keep a civil tongue,” Byar said, “when speaking to an Anointed of the Light, or you will have no tongue. “ The worst of it was his voice still had no emotion at all. Cutting out their tongues would give him no pleasure and no regret; it was just something he would do.
“Go easy, Child Byar.” Bornhald looked at the captives again. “I expect you do not know much about the Anointed, or about Lords Captain of the Children of the Light, do you? No, I thought not. Well, for Child Byar’s sake, at least, try not to argue or shout, yes? I want no more than that you should walk in the Light, and letting anger get the better of you won’t help any of us.”
Perrin looked up at the gaunt-faced man standing over them. For Child Byar’s sake? He noticed that the Lord Captain did not tell Byar to leave them alone. Byar met his eyes and smiled; the smile touched only his mouth, but the skin of his face drew tighter, until it looked like a skull. Perrin shivered.
“I have heard of this thing of men running with wolves,” Bornhald said musingly, “though I have not seen it before. Men supposedly talking with wolves, and with other creatures of the Dark One. A filthy business. It makes me fear the Last Battle is indeed coming soon.”
“Wolves aren’t—” Perrin cut off as Byar’s boot drew back. Taking a deep breath, he went on in a milder tone. Byar lowered his foot with a disappointed grimace. “Wolves aren’t creatures of the Dark One. They hate the Dark One. At least, they hate Trollocs, and Fades.” He was surprised to see the gaunt-faced man nod as if to himself.
Bornhald raised an eyebrow. “Who told you that?”
“A Warder,” Egwene said. She scrunched away from Byar’s heated eyes. “He said wolves hate Trollocs, and Trollocs are afraid of wolves.” Perrin was glad she had not mentioned Elyas.
“A Warder,” the gray-haired man sighed. “A creature of the Tar Valon witches. What else would that sort tell you, when he is a Darkfriend himself, and a servant of Darkfriends? Do you not know Trollocs have wolves’ muzzles and teeth, and wolves’ fur?”
Perrin blinked, trying to clear his head. His brain still felt like jellied pain, but there was something wrong here. He could not get his thoughts straight enough to puzzle it out.
“Not all of them,” Egwene muttered. Perrin gave Byar a wary look, but the gaunt man only watched her. “Some of them have horns, like rams or goats, or hawks’ beaks, or . . . or . . . all sorts of things.”
Bornhald shook his head sadly. “I give you every chance, and you dig yourself deeper with every word.” He held up one finger. “You run with wolves, creatures of the Dark One.” A second finger. “You admit to being acquainted with a Warder, another creature of the Dark One. I doubt he would have told you what he did if it was only in passing.” A third finger. “You, boy, carry a Tar Valon mark in your pocket. Most men outside Tar Valon get rid of those as fast as they can. Unless they serve the Tar Valon witches.” A fourth. “You carry a fighting man’s weapon while you dress like a farmboy. A skulker, then.” The thumb rose. “You know Trollocs, and Myrddraal. This far south, only a few scholars and those who have traveled in the Borderlands believe they are anything but stories. Perhaps you have been to the Borderlands? If so, tell me where? I have traveled a good deal in the Borderlands; I know them well. No? Ah, well, then.” He looked at his spread hand, then dropped it hard on the table. The grandfatherly expression said the grandchildren had been up to some very serious mischief indeed. “Why do you not tell me the truth of how you came to be running in the night with wolves?”
Egwene opened her mouth, but Perrin saw the stubborn set of her jaw and knew right away she was going to tell one of the stories they had worked out. That would not do. Not now, not here. His head ached, and he wished he had time to think it out, but there was no time. Who could tell where this Bornhald had traveled, with what lands and cities he was familiar? If he caught them in a lie, there would be no going back to the truth. Bornhald would be convinced they were Darkfriends, then.
“We’re from the Two Rivers,” he said quickly.
Egwene stared at him openly before she caught herself, but he pressed on with the truth—or a version of it. The two of them had left the Two Rivers to see Caemlyn. On the way they had heard of the ruins of a great city, but when they found Shadar Logoth, there were Trollocs there. The two of them managed to escape across the River Arinelle, but by that time they were completely lost. Then they fell in with a man who offered to guide them to Caemlyn. He had said his name was none of their business, and he hardly seemed friendly, but they needed a guide. The first either of them had seen of wolves had been after the Children of the Light appeared. All they had been trying to do was hide so they would not get eaten by wolves or killed by the men on horses.
“ . . . If we’d known you were Children of the Light,” he finished, “we’d have gone to you for help.”
Byar snorted with disbelief. Perrin did not care overmuch; if the Lord Captain was convinced, Byar could not harm them. It was plain that Byar would stop breathing if Lord Captain Bornhald told him to.
“There is no Warder in that,” the gray-haired man said after a moment.
Perrin’s invention failed him; he knew he should have taken time to think it out. Egwene leaped into the breach. “We met him in Baerlon. The city was crowded with men who had come down from the mines after the winter, and we were put at the same table in an inn. We only talked to him for the length of a meal.”
Perrin breathed again. Thank you, Egwene.
“Give them back their belongings, Child Byar. Not the weapons, of course.” When Byar looked at him in surprise, Bornhald added, “Or are you one of those who have taken to looting the unenlightened, Child Byar? It is a bad business, that, yes? No man can be a thief and walk in the Light.” Byar seemed to struggle with disbelief at the suggestion.
“Then you’re letting us go?” Egwene sounded surprised. Perrin lifted his head to stare at the Lord Captain.
“Of course not, child,” Bornhald said sadly. “You may be telling the truth about being from the Two Rivers, since you know about Baerlon, and the mines. But Shadar Logoth . . . ? That is a name very, very few know, most of them Darkfriends, and anyone who knows enough to know the name, knows enough not to go there. I suggest you think of a better story on the journey to Amador. You will have time, since we must pause in Caemlyn. Preferably the truth, child. There is freedom in truth and the Light.”
Byar forgot some of his diffidence toward the gray-haired man. He spun from the prisoners, and there was an outraged snap to his words. “You can’t! It is not allowed!” Bornhald raised one eyebrow quizzically, and Byar pulled himself up short, swallowing. “Forgive me, my Lord Captain. I forgot myself, and I humbly beg pardon and submit myself for penance, but as my Lord Captain himself has pointed out, we must reach Caemlyn in time, and with most of our remounts gone, we will be hard pressed enough without carrying prisoners along.”
“And what would you suggest?” Bornhald asked calmly.
“The penalty for Darkfriends is death.” The flat voice made it all the more jarring. He might have been suggesting stepping on a bug. “There is no truce with the Shadow. There is no mercy for Darkfriends.”
“Zeal is to be applauded, Child Byar, but, as I must often tell my son, Dain, overzealousness can be a grievous fault. Remember that the Tenets also say, ‘No man is so lost that he cannot be brought to the Light.’ These two are young. They cannot yet be deep in the Shadow. They can yet be led to the Light, if they will only allow the Shadow to be lifted from their eyes. We must give them that chance.”
For a moment Perrin almost felt affection for the grandfatherly man who stood between them and Byar. Then Bornhald turned his grandfather’s smile on Egwene.
“If you refuse to come to the Light by the time we reach Amador, I will be forced to turn you over to the Questioners, and beside them Byar’s zeal is but a candle beside the sun.” The gray-haired man sounded like a man who regretted what he must do, but who had no intention of ever doing anything but his duty as he saw it. “Repent, renounce the Dark One, come to the Light, confess your sins and tell what you know of this vileness with wolves, and you will be spared that. You will walk free, in the Light.” His gaze centered on Perrin, and he sighed sadly. Ice filled Perrin’s spine. “But you, just Perrin from the Two Rivers. You killed two of the Children.” He touched the axe that Byar still held. “For you, I fear, a gibbet waits in Amador.”