The Eye of the World (70 page)

The horsemen rode past the hill, but one of the men shouted, and the torches swung back. He thought desperately, seeking for a way to go. But as soon as they moved they would be seen, if they had not already been, and once they were marked they would have no chance, not even with the darkness to help.

The horsemen drew up at the foot of the hill, each man holding a torch in one hand and a long lance in the other, guiding his horse by the pressure of his knees. By the light of the torches Perrin could see the white cloaks of the Children of the Light. They held the torches high and leaned forward in their saddles, peering up at the deep shadows under Artur Hawkwing’s fingers.

“There
is
something up there,” one of them said. His voice was too loud, as if he was afraid of what lay outside the light of his torch. “I told you somebody could hide in that. Isn’t that a horse?”

Egwene laid a hand on Perrin’s arm; her eyes were big in the dark. Her silent question plain despite the shadow hiding her features. What to do? Elyas and the wolves still hunted through the night. The horses below shifted their feet nervously.
If we run now, they’ll chase us down.

One of the Whitecloaks stepped his horse forward and shouted up the hill. “If you can understand human speech, come down and surrender. You’ll not be harmed if you walk in the Light. If you don’t surrender, you will all be killed. You have one minute.” The lances lowered, long steel heads bright with torchlight.

“Perrin,” Egwene whispered, “we can’t outrun them. If we don’t give up, they’ll kill us. Perrin?”

Elyas and the wolves were still free. Another distant, bubbling scream marked a Whitecloak who had hunted Dapple too closely.
If we run.
 . . . Egwene was looking at him, waiting for him to tell her what to do.
If we run
. . . . He shook his head wearily and stood up like a man in a trance, stumbling down the hill toward the Children of the Light. He heard Egwene sigh and follow him, her feet dragging reluctantly.
Why are the Whitecloaks so persistent, as if they hate wolves with a passion? Why do they smell wrong?
He almost thought he could smell the wrongness himself, when the wind gusted from the riders.

“Drop that axe,” the leader barked.

Perrin stumbled toward him, wrinkling his nose to get rid of the smell he thought he smelt.

“Drop it, bumpkin!” The leader’s lance shifted toward Perrin’s chest.

For a moment he stared at the lancehead, enough sharp steel to go completely through him, and abruptly he shouted, “No!” It was not at the horseman he shouted.

Out of the night Hopper came, and Perrin was one with the wolf. Hopper, the cub who had watched the eagles soar, and wanted so badly to fly through the sky as the eagles did. The cub who hopped and jumped and leaped until he could leap higher than any other wolf, and who never lost the cub’s yearning to soar through the sky. Out of the night Hopper came and left the ground in a leap, soaring like the eagles. The Whitecloaks had only a moment to begin cursing before Hopper’s jaws closed on the throat of the man with his lance leveled at Perrin. The big wolf’s momentum carried them both off the other side of the horse. Perrin felt the throat crushing, tasted the blood.

Hopper landed lightly, already apart from the man he had killed. Blood matted his fur, his own blood and that of others. A gash down his face crossed the empty socket where his left eye had been. His good eye met Perrin’s two for just an instant.
Run, brother!
He whirled to leap again, to soar one last time, and a lance pinned him to the earth. A second length of steel thrust through his ribs, driving into the ground under him. Kicking, he snapped at the shafts that held him.
To soar.

Pain filled Perrin, and he screamed, a wordless scream that had something of a wolf’s cry in it. Without thinking he leaped forward, still screaming. All thought was gone. The horsemen had bunched too much to be able to use their lances, and the axe was a feather in his hands, one huge wolf’s tooth of steel. Something crashed into his head, and as he fell, he did not know if it was Hopper or himself who died.

“. . . soar like the eagles.”

Mumbling, Perrin opened his eyes woozily. His head hurt, and he could not remember why. Blinking against the light, he looked around. Egwene was kneeling and watching him where he lay. They were in a square tent as big as a medium-sized room in a farmhouse, with a ground cloth for a floor. Oil lamps on tall stands, one in each corner, gave a bright light.

“Thank the Light, Perrin,” she breathed. “I was afraid they had killed you.”

Instead of answering, he stared at the gray-haired man seated in the lone chair in the tent. A dark-eyed, grandfatherly face looked back at him, a face at odds in his mind with the white-and-gold tabard the man wore, and the burnished armor strapped over his pure-white undercoat. It seemed a kindly face, bluff and dignified, and something about it fit the elegant austerity of the tent’s furnishings. A table and a folding bed, a washstand with a plain white basin and pitcher, a single wooden chest inlaid in simple geometric patterns. Where there was wood, it was polished to a soft glow, and the metal gleamed, but not too brightly, and nothing was showy. Everything in the tent had the look of craftsmanship, but only someone who had watched the work of craftsmen—like Master Luhhan, or Master Aydaer, the cabinetmaker—would see it.

Frowning, the man stirred two small piles of objects on the table with a blunt finger. Perrin recognized the contents of his pockets in one of those piles, and his belt knife. The silver coin Moiraine had given him toppled out, and the man pushed it back thoughtfully. Pursing his lips, he left the piles and lifted Perrin’s axe from the table, hefting it. His attention came back to the Emond’s Fielders.

Perrin tried to get up. Sharp pain stabbing along his arms and legs turned the movement into a flop. For the first time he realized that he was tied, hand and foot. His eyes went to Egwene. She shrugged ruefully, and twisted so that he could see her back. Half a dozen lashings wrapped her wrists and ankles, the cords making ridges in her flesh. A length of rope ran between the bonds around ankles and wrists, short enough to stop her from straightening to more than a crouch if she got to her feet.

Perrin stared. That they were tied was shock enough, but they wore enough ropes to hold horses.
What do they think we are?

The gray-haired man watched them, curious and thoughtful, like Master al’Vere puzzling out a problem. He held the axe as if he had forgotten it.

The tent flap shifted aside, and a tall man stepped into the tent. His face was long and gaunt, with eyes so deeply set they seemed to look out from caves. There was no excess flesh on him, no fat at all; his skin was pulled tight over the muscle and bone beneath.

Perrin had a glimpse of night outside, and campfires, and two white-cloaked guards at the entrance of the tent, then the flap fell back into place. As soon as the newcomer was into the tent, he stopped, standing as rigid as an iron rod, staring straight ahead of him at the far wall of the
tent. His plate-and-mail armor gleamed like silver against his snowy cloak and undercoat.

“My Lord Captain.” His voice was as hard as his posture, and grating, but somehow flat, without expression.

The gray-haired man made a casual gesture. “Be at your ease, Child Byar. You have tallied our costs for this . . . encounter?”

The tall man moved his feet apart, but other than that Perrin did not see anything ease about his stance. “Nine men dead, my Lord Captain, and twenty-three injured, seven seriously. All can ride, though. Thirty horses had to be put down. They were hamstrung!” He emphasized that in his emotionless voice, as if what had happened to the horses were worse than the deaths and injuries to men. “Many of the remounts are scattered. We may find some at daybreak, my Lord Captain, but with wolves to send them on their way, it will take days to gather them all. The men who were supposed to be watching them have been assigned to night guard until we reach Caemlyn.”

“We do not have days, Child Byar,” the gray-haired man said mildly. “We ride at dawn. Nothing can change that. We must be in Caemlyn in time, yes?”

“As you command, my Lord Captain.”

The gray-haired man glanced at Perrin and Egwene, then away again. “And what have we to show for it, aside from these two younglings?”

Byar drew a deep breath and hesitated. “I have had the wolf that was with this lot skinned, my Lord Captain. The hide should make a fine rug for my Lord Captain’s tent.”

Hopper!
Not even realizing what he was doing, Perrin growled and struggled against his bonds. The ropes dug into his skin—his wrists became slippery with blood—but they did not give.

For the first time Byar looked at the prisoners. Egwene started back from him. His face was as expressionless as his voice, but a cruel light burned in his sunken eyes, as surely as flames burned in Ba’alzamon’s. Byar hated them as if they were enemies of long years instead of people never seen before tonight.

Perrin stared back defiantly. His mouth curled into a tight smile at the thought of his teeth meeting in the man’s throat.

Abruptly his smile faded, and he shook himself.
My teeth? I’m a man, not a wolf! Light, there has to be an end to this!
But he still met Byar’s glare, hate for hate.

“I do not care about wolf-hide rugs, Child Byar.” The rebuke in the
Lord Captain’s voice was gentle, but Byar’s back snapped rigid again, his eyes locking to the wall of the tent. “You were reporting on what we achieved this night, no? If we achieved anything.”

“I would estimate the pack that attacked us at fifty beasts or more, my Lord Captain. Of that, we killed at least twenty, perhaps thirty. I did not consider it worth the risk of losing more horses to have the carcasses brought in tonight. In the morning I will have them gathered and burned, those that aren’t dragged off in the dark. Besides these two, there were at least a dozen other men. I believe we disposed of four or five, but it is unlikely we will find any bodies, given the Darkfriends’ propensity for carrying away their dead to hide their losses. This seems to have been a coordinated ambush, but that raises the question of. . . .”

Perrin’s throat tightened as the gaunt man went on. Elyas? Cautiously, reluctantly, he felt for Elyas, for the wolves . . .  and found nothing. It was as if he had never been able to feel a wolf’s mind.
Either they’re dead, or they’ve abandoned you.
He wanted to laugh, a bitter laugh. At last he had what he had been wishing for, but the price was high.

The gray-haired man did laugh, just then, a rich, wry chuckle that made a red spot bloom on each of Byar’s cheeks. “So, Child Byar, it is your considered estimate that we were attacked in a planned ambush by upwards of fifty wolves and better than half a score of Darkfriends? Yes? Perhaps when you’ve seen a few more actions . . . .”

“But, my Lord Captain Bornhald . . . .”

“I would say six or eight wolves, Child Byar, and perhaps no other humans than these two. You have the true zeal, but no experience outside the cities. It is a different thing, bringing the Light, when streets and houses are far distant. Wolves have a way of seeming more than they are, in the night—and men, also. Six or eight at most, I think.” Byar’s flush deepened slowly. “I also suspect they were here for the same reason we are: the only easy water for at least a day in any direction. A much simpler explanation than spies or traitors within the Children, and the simplest explanation is usually the truest. You will learn, with experience.”

Byar’s face went deathly white as the grandfatherly man spoke; by contrast, the two spots in his hollow cheeks deepened from red to purple. He cut his eyes toward the two prisoners for an instant.

He hates us even more, now,
Perrin thought,
for hearing this. But why did he hate us in the first place?

“What do you think of this?” the Lord Captain said, holding up Perrin’s axe.

Byar looked a question at his commander and waited for an answering nod before he broke his rigid stance to take the weapon. He hefted the axe and gave a surprised grunt, then whirled it in a tight arc above his head that barely missed the top of the tent. He handled it as surely as if he had been born with an axe in his hands. A look of grudging admiration flickered across his face, but by the time he lowered the axe he was expressionless once more.

“Excellently balanced, my Lord Captain. Plainly made, but by a very good weaponsmith, perhaps even a master.” His eyes burned darkly at the prisoners. “Not a villager’s weapon, my Lord Captain. Nor a farmer’s.”

“No.” The gray-haired man turned toward Perrin and Egwene with a weary, slightly chiding smile, a kindly grandfather who knew his grandchildren had been up to some mischief. “My name is Geofram Bornhald,” he told them. “You are Perrin, I understand. But you, young woman, what is your name?”

Perrin glowered at him, but Egwene shook her head. “Don’t be silly, Perrin. I’m Egwene.”

“Just Perrin, and just Egwene,” Bornhald murmured. “But I suppose if you truly are Darkfriends, you wish to hide your identities as much as possible.”

Perrin heaved himself up to his knees; he could rise no further because of the way he was bound. “We aren’t Darkfriends,” he protested angrily.

The words were not completely out of his mouth before Byar reached him. The man moved like a snake. He saw the handle of his own axe swinging toward him and tried to duck, but the thick haft caught him over the ear. Only the fact that he was moving away from the blow kept his skull from being split. Even so, lights flashed in his eyes. Breath left him as he struck the ground. His head rung, and blood ran down his cheek.

“You have no right,” Egwene began, and screamed as the axe handle whipped toward her. She threw herself aside, and the blow whistled through empty air as she tumbled to the ground cloth.

“You will keep a civil tongue,” Byar said, “when speaking to an Anointed of the Light, or you will have no tongue.” The worst of it was his voice still had no emotion at all. Cutting out their tongues would give him no pleasure and no regret; it was just something he would do.