Towers of Midnight (The Wheel of Time #13)

Towers of Midnight (The Wheel of Time #13) Page 185

There were angry murmurs from the Two Rivers men at that last charge. Those Trollocs had killed Perrin’s own family.

Galad continued, “The last charge cannot be substantiated yet, as my men were forced out of the Two Rivers before they could gather proof. As to the first two charges, Aybara has already admitted his guilt.”

“Is this so, Lord Aybara?” Morgase asked.

“I killed those men, sure enough,” Perrin said. “But it wasn’t murder.”

“Then this is what the court will determine,” Morgase said formally. “And this is the dispute.”

Morgase seemed a completely different person from Maighdin. Was this how people expected Perrin to act when they came to him for judgment? He had to admit, she did lend the proceedings a measure of needed formality. After all, the trial was happening in a tent on a field with the judge’s chair elevated by what appeared to be a small stack of boxes with a rug thrown over them.

“Galad,” Morgase said. “Your men may tell their side of the story.”

Galad nodded to Byar. He stood, and another Whitecloak—a young man with a completely bald head—stepped forward to join him. Bornhald remained seated.

“Your Grace,” Byar said, “it happened about two years ago. During the spring. An unnaturally cold spring, I remember. We were on our way back from important business at the command of the Lord Captain Commander, and we were passing through the wilderness of central Andor. We were going to camp for the night at an abandoned Ogier stedding, at the base of what was once an enormous statue. The kind of place you assume will be safe.”

Perrin remembered that night. A chill east wind blowing across him, ruffling his cloak as he stood by a pool of fresh water. He remembered the sun dying silently in the west. He remembered staring at the pool in the waning light, watching the wind ruffle its surface, holding the axe in his hands.

That blasted axe. He should have thrown it away right then. Elyas had persuaded him to keep it.

“When we arrived,” Byar continued, “we found that the campsite had been used recently. That concerned us; few people knew of the stedding. We determined, from the single firepit, that there were not many of these mysterious wayfarers.”

His voice was precise, his description methodical. That wasn’t how Perrin remembered the night. No, he remembered the hiss of the flames, sparks fluttering angrily into the air as Elyas dumped the teapot’s contents into the firepit. He remembered a hasty sending from the wolves flooding his mind, confusing him.

The wolves’ wariness had made it hard to separate himself from them. He remembered the smell of fear on Egwene, the way he fumbled with Bela’s saddle as he cinched it. And he remembered hundreds of men who smelled wrong. Like the Whitecloaks in the pavilion. They smelled like sick wolves who snapped at anything that got too close.

“The Lord Captain was worried,” Byar continued. He was obviously not mentioning the captain’s name, perhaps to spare Bornhald. The young Whitecloak captain sat perfectly still, staring at Byar as if he didn’t trust himself to look at Perrin. “He thought that maybe the camp had been used by brigands. Who else would douse their fire and vanish the moment someone else approached? That’s when we saw the first wolf.”

Hiding, breath coming in quick short gasps, Egwene huddled beside him in the dark. The scent of campfire smoke rising from her clothing and from his. Bela breathing in the darkness. The sheltering confines of an enormous stone hand, the hand of Artur Hawkwing’s statue, which had broken free long before.

Dapple, angry and worried. Images of men in white with flaming torches. Wind, darting between the trees.

“The Lord Captain thought the wolves were a bad sign. Everyone knows they serve the Dark One. He sent us to scout. My team searched to the east, looking through the rock formations and shards of the enormous broken statue.”

Pain. Men shouting. Perrin? Will you dance with me at Sunday? If we’re home by then….

“The wolves started to attack us,” Byar said, voice growing hard. “It was obvious that they were no ordinary creatures. There was too much coordination to their assaults. There seemed to be dozens of them, moving through the shadows. There were men among them, striking and killing our mounts.”

Perrin had watched it with two sets of eyes. His own, from the vantage of the hand. And the eyes of the wolves, who only wanted to be left alone. They had been wounded earlier by an enormous flock of ravens. They’d tried to drive the men away. Scare them.

So much fear. Both the fear of the men and the fear of the wolves. It had ruled that night, controlling both sides. He could remember fighting to remain himself, bewildered by the sendings.

“That night stretched long,” Byar said, voice growing softer, yet full of anger. “We passed a hillside with a massive flat rock at the top, and Child Lathin said he thought he saw something in the shadows there. We stopped, holding forward our lights, and saw the legs of a horse beneath the overhang. I gave Lathin a nod, and he stepped forward to order whoever was in there down to identify themselves.

“Well, that man—Aybara—came out of the darkness with a young woman. He was carrying a wicked axe, and he walked calmly right up to Lathin, ignoring the lance pointed at his chest. And then….”

And then the wolves took over. It was the first time it had happened to Perrin. Their sendings had been so strong that Perrin had lost himself. He could remember crushing Lathin’s neck with his teeth, the warm blood bursting into his mouth as if he’d bitten into a fruit. That memory had been Hopper’s, but Perrin couldn’t separate himself from the wolf for the moments of that fight.

“And then?” Morgase prompted.

“And then there was a fight,” Byar said. “Wolves leaped from the shadow and Aybara attacked us. He didn’t move like a man, but like a beast, growling. We subdued him and killed one of the wolves, but not before Aybara had managed to kill two of the Children.”

Byar sat down. Morgase asked no questions. She turned to the other Whitecloak who had stood with Byar.

“I have little to lend,” the man said. “I was there, and I remember it exactly the same way. I want to point out that when we took Aybara into custody, he was already judged guilty. We were going to—”

“That judgment is of no concern to this trial,” Morgase said coldly.

“Well, then, allow my voice to be the testimony of a second witness. I saw it all, too.” The