The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time #2)

The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time #2) Page 30

The door to the outer guardroom opened, spilling in a flood of light, darkly outlining a figure in the doorway.

Fain stood. “You! Not who I expected.” He stretched with a casualness he did not feel. Blood raced through his veins; he thought he could leap over the keep if he tried. “Surprises for everyone, eh? Well, come on. The night's getting old, and I want some sleep sometime.”

As a lamp came into the cell chamber, Fain raised his head, grinning at something, unseen yet felt, beyond the dungeon's stone ceiling. “It isn't over yet,” he whispered.

“The battle's never over.”

Chapter 6

(Horned Skull)

Dark Prophecy

The farmhouse door shook under furious blows from outside; the heavy bar across the door jumped in its brackets. Beyond the window next to the door moved the heavymuzzled silhouette of a Trolloc. There were windows everywhere, and more shadowy shapes outside. Not shadowy enough, though. Rand could still make them out.

The windows, he thought desperately. He backed away from the door, clutching his sword before him in both hands. Even if the door holds, they can break in the windows. Why aren't they trying the windows?

With a deafening metallic screech, one of the brackets pulled partly away from the doorframe, hanging loose on nails ripped a finger's width out of the wood. The bar quivered from another blow, and the nails squealed again.

“We have to stop them!” Rand shouted. Only we can't. We can't stop them. He looked around for a way to run, but there was only the one door. The room was a box. Only one door, and so many windows. “We have to do something. Something!”

“It's too late,” Mat said. “Don't you understand?” His grin looked odd on a bloodless pale face, and the hilt of a dagger stood out from his chest, the ruby that capped it blazing as if it held fire. The gem had more life than his face. “It's too late for us to change anything.”

“I've finally gotten rid of them,” Perrin said, laughing. Blood streamed down his face like a flood of tears from his empty sockets. He held out red hands, trying to make Rand look at what he held. “I'm free, now. It's over.”

“It's never over, al'Thor,” Padan Fain cried, capering in the middle of the floor. “The battle's never done.”

The door exploded in splinters, and Rand ducked away from the flying shards of wood. Two redclad Aes Sedai stepped through, bowing their master in. A mask the color of dried blood covered Ba'alzamon's face, but Rand could see the flames of his eyes through the eyeslits; he could hear the roaring fires of Ba'alzamon's mouth.

“It is not yet done between us, al'Thor,” Ba'alzamon said, and he and Fain spoke together as one, “For you, the battle is never done.”

With a strangled gasp Rand sat up on the floor, clawing his way awake. It seemed he could still hear Fain's voice, as sharp as if the peddler were standing beside him. It's never over. The battle's never done.

Blearyeyed, he looked around to convince himself that he was still hidden away where Egwene had left him, bedded down on a pallet in a corner of her room. The dim light of a single lamp suffused the room, and he was surprised to see Nynaeve, knitting in a rocking chair on the other side of the lone bed, its covers still in place. It was night outside.

Darkeyed and slender, Nynaeve wore her hair in a fat braid, pulled over one shoulder and hanging almost to her waist. She had not given up on home. Her face was calm, and she seemed aware of nothing except her knitting as she rocked gently. The steady clickclick of her knitting needles was the only sound. The rug silenced the rocking chair.

There had been nights of late when he had wished for a carpet on the cold stone floor of his room, but in Shienar men's rooms were always bare and stark. The walls here had two tapestries, mountain scenes with waterfalls, and flowerembroidered curtains alongside the arrowslits. Cut flowers, white morningstars, stood in a flat, round vase on the table by the bed, and more nodded in glazed white sconces on the walls. A tall mirror stood in a corner, and another hung over the washstand, with its bluestriped pitcher and bowl. He wondered why Egwene needed two mirrors; there was none in his room, and he did not miss it. There was only one lamp lit, but four more stood around the room, which was nearly as large as the one he shared with Mat and Perrin. Egwene had it alone.

Without looking up, Nynaeve said, “If you sleep in the afternoon, you can't expect to sleep at night.”

He frowned, though she could not see it. At least, he thought she could not. She was only a few years older than he, but being Wisdom added fifty years of authority. “I needed a place to hide, and I was tired,” he said, then quickly added, “I didn't just come here. Egwene invited me into the women's apartments.”

Nynaeve lowered her knitting and gave him an amused smile. She was a pretty woman. That was something he would never have noticed back home; one just did not think of a Wisdom that way. “The Light help me, Rand, you are becoming more Shienaran every day. Invited into the women's apartments, indeed.” She sniffed. “Any day now, you'll start talking about your honor, and asking peace to favor your sword.” He colored, and hoped she did not notice in the dim light. She eyed his sword, its hilt sticking out of the long bundle beside him on the floor. He knew she did not approve of the sword, of any sword, but she said nothing about it for once. “Egwene told me why you need a place to hide. Don't worry. We will keep you hidden from the Amyrlin, or from any other Aes Sedai, if that is what you want.”

She met his eyes and jerked hers away, but not before he saw her uneasiness. Her doubt. That's right, I can channel the Power. A man wielding the One Power! You ought to be helping the Aes Sedai hunt me down and gentle me.

Scowling, he straightened the leather jerkin Egwene had found for him and twisted around so he could lean back against the wall. “As soon as I can, I will hide in a cart, or sneak out. You won't have to hide me long.” Nynaeve did not say anything; she fixed on her knitting, making an angry sound when she dropped a stitch. “Where is Egwene?”

She let the knitting fall onto her lap. “I don't know why I am even trying tonight. I can't keep track of my stitches for some reason. She has gone down to see Padan Fain. She thinks seeing faces he knows might help him.”

“Mine certainly did not. She ought to stay away from him.