The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time #2)

The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time #2) Page 81

Rand drummed his fingers on the high pommel of his saddle for a moment, thinking. “We have to stick as close to the trail as we can,” he said finally. “We don't seem to be getting any closer to Fain as it is, and I don't want to lose more time, if we can avoid it. If we see any people, or anything out of the ordinary, then we'll circle around until we pick it up again. But until then, we keep on.”

“As you say, my Lord.” The sniffer sounded odd, and he gave Rand a quick, sidelong look. “As you say.”

Rand frowned for a moment before he understood, and then it was his turn to sigh. Lords did not explain to those who followed them, only to other lords. I didn't ask him to take me for a bloody lord. But he did, a small voice seemed to answer him, and you let him. You made the choice; now the duty is yours.

“Take the trail, Hurin,” Rand said.

With a flash of relieved grin, the sniffer heeled his horse onward.

The weak sun climbed as they rode, and by the time it was overhead, they were only a mile or so from the spire. They had reached one of the streams, in a gully a pace deep, and the intervening trees were sparse. Rand could see the mound it was built on, like a round, flattopped hill. The gray spire itself rose at least a hundred spans, and he could just make out now that the top was carved in the likeness of a bird with outstretched wings.

“A hawk,” Rand said. “It is Hawkwing's monument. It must be. There were people here, whether there are now or not. They just built it in another place here, and never tore it down. Think of it, Hurin. When we get back, you'll be able to tell them what the monument really looked like. There will only be three of us in the whole world who have ever seen it.”

Hurin nodded. “Yes, my Lord. My children would like to hear that tale, their father seeing Hawkwing's spire.”

“Rand,” Loial began worriedly.

“We can gallop the distance,” Rand said. “Come on. A gallop will do us good. This place may be dead, but we're alive.”

“Rand,” Loial said, “I don't think that is a — ”

Not waiting to hear, Rand dug his boots into Red's flanks, and the stallion sprang forward. He splashed across the shallow ribbon of water in two strides, then scrabbled up the far side. Hurin launched his horse right behind him. Rand heard Loial calling behind them, but he laughed, waved for the Ogier to follow, and galloped on. If he kept his eyes on one spot, the land did not seem to slip and slide so badly, and the wind felt good on his face.

The mound covered a good two hides, but the grassy slope rose at an easy slant. The gray spire reared into the sky, squared and broad enough despite its height to seem massive, almost squat. Rand's laughter died, and he pulled Red up, his face grim.

“Is that Hawkwing's monument, Lord Rand?” Hurin asked uneasily. “It doesn't look right, somehow.”

Rand recognized the harsh, angular script that covered the face of the monument, and he recognized some of the symbols chiseled on the breadth, chiseled as tall as a man. The horned skull of the Da'vol Trollocs. The iron fist of the Dhai'mon. The trident of the Ka'bol, and the whirlwind of the Ahf'frait. There was a hawk, too, carved near the bottom. With a wingspan of ten paces, it lay on its back, pierced by a lightning bolt, and ravens pecked at its eyes. The huge wings atop the spire seemed to block the sun.

He heard Loial galloping up behind him.

“I tried to tell you, Rand,” Loial said. “It is a raven, not a hawk. I could see it clearly.” Hurin turned his horse, refusing even to look at the spire any longer.

“But how?” Rand said. “Artur Hawkwing won a victory over the Trollocs here. Ingtar said so.”

“Not here,” Loial said slowly. “Obviously not here. 'From Stone to Stone run the lines of if, between the worlds that might be.' I've been thinking on it, and I believe I know what the 'the worlds that might be' are. Maybe I do. Worlds our world might have been if things had happened differently. Maybe that's why it is all so ... washedout looking. Because it's an 'if,' a 'maybe.' Just a shadow of the real world. In this world, I think, the Trollocs won. Maybe that's why we have not seen any villages or people.”

Rand's skin crawled. Where Trollocs won, they did not leave humans alive except for food. If they had won across an entire world... “If the Trollocs had won, they would be everywhere. We'd have seen a thousand of them by now. We'd be dead since yesterday.”

“I do not know, Rand. Perhaps, after they killed the people, they killed one another. Trollocs live to kill. That is all they do; that is all they are. I just don't know.”

“Lord Rand,” Hurin said abruptly, “something moved down there.”

Rand whirled his horse, ready to see charging Trollocs, but Hurin was pointing back the way they had come, at nothing. “What did you see, Hurin? Where?”

The sniffer let his arm drop. “Right at the edge of that clump of trees there, about a mile. I thought it was ... a woman ... and something else I couldn't make out, but ...” He shivered. “It's so hard to make out things that aren't under your nose. Aaah, this place has my guts all awhirl. I'm likely imagining things, my Lord. This is a place for queer fancies.” His shoulders hunched as if he felt the spire pressing on them. “No doubt it was just the wind, my Lord.”

Loial said, “There's something else to consider, I'm afraid.” He sounded troubled again. He pointed southward. “What do you see off there?”

Rand squinted against the way things far off seemed to slide toward him. “Land like what we've been crossing. Trees. Then some hills, and mountains. Nothing else. What do you want me to see?”

“The mountains,” Loial sighed. The tufts on his ears drooped, and the ends of his eyebrows were down on his cheeks. “That has to be Kinslayer's Dagger, Rand. There aren't any other mountains they could be, unless this world is completely different from ours. But Kinslayer's Dagger lies more than a hundred leagues south of the Erinin. A good bit more. Distances are hard to judge in this place, but ... I think we will reach them before dark.” He did not have to say any more. They could not have covered over a hundred leagues in less than three days.

Without thinking, Rand muttered, “Maybe this place is like the Ways.” He heard Hurin moan, and instantly regretted not kee