The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time #2)

The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time #2) Page 206

Hastily, Rand helped him tie the banner to the pole. When Perrin remounted, pole in hand, a current of air seemed to ripple the pale length of the banner, so the serpentine Dragon appeared to move, alive. The wind did not touch the heavy fog, only the banner.

“You stay here,” Rand told Hurin. “When it's over ... You will be safe, here.”

Hurin drew his short sword, holding it as if it might actually be of some use from horseback. “Begging your pardon, Lord Rand, but I think not. I don't understand the tenth part of what I've heard ... or what I'm seeing” — his voice dropped to a mutter before picking up again — “but I've come this far, and I think I'll go the rest of the way.”

Artur Hawkwing clapped the sniffer on the shoulder. “Sometimes the Wheel adds to our number, friend. Perhaps you will find yourself among us, one day.” Hurin sat up as if he had been offered a crown. Hawkwing bowed formally from his saddle to Rand. “With your permission ... Lord Rand. Trumpeter, will you give us music on the Horn? Fitting that the Horn of Valere should sing us into battle. Bannerman, will you advance?”

Mat sounded the Horn again, long and high — the mists rang with it — and Perrin heeled his horse forward. Rand drew the heronmark blade and rode between them.

He could see nothing but thick billows of white, but somehow he could still see what he had before, too. Falme, where someone used the Power in the streets, and the harbor, and the Seanchan host, and the dying Whitecloaks, all of it beneath him, all of him hanging above, all of it just as it had been. It seemed as if no time at all had passed since the Horn was first blown, as though time had paused while the heroes answered the call and now resumed counting.

The wild cries Mat wrung from the Horn echoed in the fog, and the drumming of hooves as the horses picked up speed. Rand charged into the mists, wondering if he knew where he was headed. The clouds thickened, hiding the far ends of the rank of heroes galloping to either side of him, obscuring more and more, till he could see only Mat and Perrin and Hurin clearly. Hurin crouched low in his saddle, wideeyed, urging his horse on. Mat sounding the Horn, and laughing between. Perrin, his yellow eyes glowing, the Dragon's banner streaming behind him. Then they were gone, too, and Rand rode on alone, as it seemed.

In a way, he could still see them, but now it was the way he could see Falme, and the Seanchan. He could not tell where they were, or where he was. He tightened his grip on his sword, peered into the mists ahead. He charged alone through the fog, and somehow he knew that was how it was meant to be.

Suddenly Ba'alzamon was before him in the mists, throwing his arms wide.

Red reared wildly, hurling Rand from his saddle. Rand clung to his sword desperately as he soared. It was not a hard landing. In fact, he thought with a sense of wonder that it was very much like landing on... nothing at all. One instant he was sailing through the mists, and the next he was not.

When he climbed to his feet, his horse was gone, but Ba'alzamon was still there, striding toward him with a long, blackcharred staff in his hands. They were alone, only they and the rolling fog. Behind Ba'alzamon was shadow. The mist was not dark behind him; this blackness excluded the white fog.

Rand was aware of the other things, too. Artur Hawkwing and the other heroes meeting the Seanchan in dense fog. Perrin, with the banner, swinging his axe more to fend off those who tried to reach him than harm them. Mat, still blowing wild notes on the Horn of Valere. Hurin down from his saddle, fighting with short sword and swordbreaker in the way he knew. It seemed as if the Seanchan numbers would overwhelm them in one rush, yet it was the darkarmored Seanchan who fell back.

Rand went forward to meet Ba'alzamon. Reluctantly, he assumed the void, reached for the True Source, was filled with the One Power. There was no other way. Perhaps he had no chance against the Dark One, but whatever chance he did have lay in the Power. It soaked into his limbs, seemed to suffuse everything about him, his clothes, his sword. He felt as if he should be glowing like the sun. It thrilled him; it made him want to vomit.

“Get out of my way,” he grated. “I am not here for you!”

“The girl?” Ba'alzamon laughed. His mouth turned to flame. His burns were all but healed, leaving only a few pink scars that were already fading. He looked like a handsome man of middle years. Except for his mouth, and his eyes. “Which one, Lews Therin? You will not have anyone to help you this time. You are mine, or you are dead. In which case, you are mine anyway.”

“Liar!” Rand snarled. He struck at Ba'alzamon, but the staff of charred wood turned his blade in a shower of sparks. “Father of Lies!”

“Fool! Did those other fools you summoned not tell you who you are?” The fires of Ba'alzamon's face roared with laughter.

Even floating in emptiness, Rand felt a chill. Would they have lied? I don't want to be the Dragon Reborn. He firmed his grip on his sword. Parting the Silk, but Ba'alzamon beat every cut aside; sparks flew as from a blacksmith's forge and hammer. “I have business in Falme, and none with you. Never with you,” Rand said. I have to hold his attention until they can free Egwene. In that odd way, he could see the battle rage among the fogshrouded wagon yards and horse lots.

“You pitiful wretch. You have sounded the Horn of Valere. You are linked to it, now. Do you think the worms of the White Tower will ever release you, now? They will put chains around your neck so heavy you will never cut them.”

Rand was so surprised he felt it inside the void. He doesn't know everything. He doesn't know! He was sure it must show on his face. To cover it, he rushed at Ba'alzamon. Hummingbird Kisses the Honeyrose. The Moon on the Water. The Swallow Rides the Air. Lightning arched between sword and staff. Coruscating glitter showered the fog. Yet Ba'alzamon fell back, his eyes blazing in furious furnaces.

At the edge of his awareness, Rand saw the Seanchan falling back in the streets of Falme, fighting desperately. Damane tore the earth with the One Power, but it could not harm Artur Hawkwing, nor the other heroes of the Horn.

“Will you remain a slug beneath a rock?” Ba'alzamon snarled. The darkness behind him boiled and stirred. “You kill yourself while we stand here. The Power rages in you. It burns you. It is killing you! I alone in all the world can teach you how to control it. Serve me, and live. Serve me, or die!”

“Never!” Have to hold him long enough. Hurry, Hawkwing. Hurry! He launched himself at Ba'alzamon again. The Dove Takes