The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time #2)

The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time #2) Page 191

After a time, images came back to him, what the wolves saw. Whitecloaked men on horses crowding around the village, riding among the houses, riding around it, but none leaving. Especially not westward. The wolves said all they smelled moving west was himself and two other twolegs with three of the hardfooted tall ones.

Perrin let go the contact with the wolves gratefully. He was aware of Hurin and Mat looking at him.

“They aren't following,” he said.

“How can you be sure?” Mat demanded.

“I am!” he snapped, then more softly, “I just am.”

Mat opened his mouth and closed it again, and finally said, “Well, if they aren't coming after us, I say we go back to Ingtar and get on Fain's trail. That dagger isn't coming any closer just standing here.”

“We can't pick it up again this close to that village,” Hurin said. “Not without risking running into Whitecloaks. I don't think Lord Ingtar would appreciate that, and not Verin Sedai, neither.”

Perrin nodded. “We'll follow it on a few miles, anyway. But keep a close lookout. We can't be too far from Falme, now. It won't do any good to avoid the Whitecloaks and ride right into a Seanchan patrol.”

As they started out again, he could not help wondering what Whitecloaks were doing there.

Geofram Bornhald peered down the village street, sitting his saddle while the legion spread through the small town and surrounded it. There had been something about the heavyshouldered man who had dashed out of sight, something that tickled his memory. Yes, of course. The lad who claimed to be a blacksmith. What was his name?

Byar pulled up in front of him, hand on heart. “The village is secured, my Lord Captain.”

Villagers in heavy sheepskin coats milled uneasily as whitecloaked soldiers herded them together near the overloaded carts in front of the inn. Crying children clung to their mothers' skirts, but no one looked defiant. Dull eyes stared out of the adult faces, waiting passively for whatever was going to happen. For that much, Bornhald was grateful. He had no real desire to make an example of any of these people, and no wish at all to waste time.

Dismounting, he tossed his reins to one of the Children. “See that the men are fed, Byar. Put the prisoners in the inn with as much food and water as they can carry, then nail all the doors and shutters closed. Make them think I am leaving some men to stand guard, yes?”

Byar touched his heart again and wheeled his horse to shout orders. The herding began anew, into the flatroofed inn, while other Children ransacked houses searching for hammers and nails.

Watching the sullen faces that filed past him, Bornhald thought it should be two or three days before any of them found enough courage to break out of the inn and find there were no guards. Two or three days was all he needed, but he did not intend to risk alerting the Seanchan to his presence now.

Leaving enough men behind to make the Questioners believe his entire legion was still scattered across Almoth Plain, he had brought more than a thousand of the Children nearly the length of Toman Head without giving alarm, so far as he knew. Three skirmishes with Seanchan patrols had ended quickly. The Seanchan had grown used to facing already defeated rabble; the Children of the Light had been a deadly surprise. Yet the Seanchan knew how to fight like the Dark One's hordes, and he could not help remembering the one skirmish that had cost him better than fifty men. He was still not sure which of the two arrowriddled women he had stared at afterwards had been the Aes Sedai.

“Byar!” One of Bornhald's men handed him water in a pottery cup from one of the carts; it was icy in his throat.

The gauntfaced man swung down from his saddle. “Yes, my Lord Captain?”

“When I engage the enemy, Byar,” Bornhald said slowly, “you will not take part. You will watch from a distance, and you will carry word to my son of what happens.”

“But my Lord Captain —!”

“That is my order, Child Byar!” he snapped. “You will obey, yes?”

Byar's back stiffened, and he stared straight ahead. “As you command, my Lord Captain.”

Bornhald studied him for a moment. The man would do as he was told, but it would be better to give him another reason than letting Dain know how his father had died. It was not as if he did not have knowledge that was urgently needed in Amador. Since that skirmish with the Aes Sedai — Was it one of them, or both? Thirty Seanchan soldiers, good fighters, and two women cost me twice the casualties they did. — since then, he no longer expected to live to leave Toman Head. In the small chance the Seanchan did not see to it, very likely the Questioners would.

“When you have found my son — he should be with Lord Captain Eamon Valda near Tar Valon — and told him, you will ride to Amador, and report to the Lord Captain Commander. To Pedron Niall personally, Child Byar. You will tell him what we have learned of the Seanchan; I will write it out for you. Be sure he understands that we can no longer count on the Tar Valon witches being content with manipulating events from the shadows. If they fight openly for the Seanchan, we will surely face them elsewhere.” He hesitated. That last was the most important of all. They had to know under the Dome of Truth that for all their vaunted oaths, Aes Sedai would march into battle. It gave him a sinking feeling, a world where Aes Sedai wielded the Power in battle; he was not sure that he would regret leaving it. But there was one more message he wanted carried to Amador. “And, Byar ... tell Pedron Niall how we were used by the Questioners.”

“As you command, my Lord Captain,” Byar said, but Bornhald sighed at the expression on his face. The man did not understand. To Byar, orders were to be obeyed whether they came from the Lord Captain or the Questioners, whatever they were.

“I will write that out for you to hand to Pedron Niall as well,” he said. He was not sure how much good it would do in any case. A thought came to him, and he frowned at the inn, where some of his men were loudly hammering nails through shutters and doors. “Perrin,” he muttered. “That was his name. Perrin, from the Two Rivers.”

“The Darkfriend, my Lord Captain?”

“Perhaps, Byar.” He was not entirely certain, himself, but surely a man who seemed to have wolves fight for him could be nothing else. Certainly, this Perrin had killed two of the Children. “I thought I saw him when we rode in, but I do not remember anyone among the prisoners who looked