The great hunt - By Robert Jordan Page 0,83

came from Tar Valon with the Aes Sedai.”

Rand felt cold. Egwene’s father had a big map back at home, a map Rand had pored over more than once, dreaming before he found out what the dreams were like when they came true. It was old, that map, showing some lands and nations the merchants from outside said no longer existed, but Almoth Plain was marked, butting against Toman Head. We will meet again on Toman Head. It was all the way across the world he knew, on the Aryth Ocean. “It has nothing to do with us,” he whispered. “Nothing to do with me.”

Loial appeared not to have heard. Rubbing the side of his nose with a finger like a sausage, the Ogier was still peering at the gate where the Warder had vanished. “If she wanted to know, why not send someone before she left Tar Valon? But you humans are always sudden and excitable, always jumping around and shouting.” His ears stiffened with embarrassment. “I am sorry, Rand. You see what I mean about speaking before I think. I’m rash and excitable sometimes myself, as you know.”

Rand laughed. It was a weak laugh, but it felt good to have something to laugh at. “Maybe if we lived as long as you Ogier, we’d be more settled.” Loial was ninety years old; by Ogier standards, not old enough by ten years to be outside the stedding alone. That he had gone anyway was proof, he maintained, of his rashness. If Loial was an excitable Ogier, Rand thought most of them must be made of stone.

“Perhaps so,” Loial mused, “but you humans do so much with your lives. We do nothing but huddle in our stedding. Planting the groves, and even the building, were all done before the Long Exile ended.” It was the groves Loial held dear, not the cities men remembered the Ogier for building. It was the groves, planted to remind Ogier Builders of the stedding, that Loial had left his home to see. “Since we found our way back to the stedding, we. . . .” His words trailed off as the Amyrlin approached.

Ingtar and the other men shifted in their saddles, preparing to dismount and kneel, but she motioned them to stay as they were. Leane stood at her shoulder, and Agelmar a pace back. From his glum face, he appeared to have given up trying to convince her to remain longer.

The Amyrlin looked at them one by one before she spoke. Her gaze stayed on Rand no longer than on any other.

“Peace favor your sword, Lord Ingtar,” she said finally. “Glory to the Builders, Loial Kiseran.”

“You honor us, Mother. May peace favor Tar Valon.” Ingtar bowed in his saddle, and the other Shienarans did, too.

“All honor to Tar Valon,” Loial said, bowing.

Only Rand, and his two friends on the other side of the party, stayed upright. He wondered what she had said to them. Leane’s frown took in all three of them, and Agelmar’s eyes widened, but the Amyrlin took no notice.

“You ride to find the Horn of Valere,” she said, “and the hope of the world rides with you. The Horn cannot be left in the wrong hands, especially in Darkfriend hands. Those who come to answer its call, will come whoever blows it, and they are bound to the Horn, not to the Light.”

There was a stir among the listening men. Everyone believed that those heroes called back from the grave would fight for the Light. If they could fight for the Shadow, instead. . . .

The Amyrlin went on, but Rand was no longer listening. The watcher was back. The hair stirred on the back of his neck. He peered up at the packed archers’ balconies overlooking the courtyard, at the rows of people jammed along the guardwalks atop the walls. Somewhere among them was the set of eyes that had followed him unseen. The gaze clung to him like dirty oil. It can’t be a Fade, not here. Then who? Or what? He twisted in his saddle, pulling Red around, searching. The bay began to dance again.

Suddenly something flashed across in front of Rand’s face. A man passing behind the Amyrlin cried out and fell, a black-fletched arrow jutting from his side. The Amyrlin stood calmly looking at a rent in her sleeve; blood slowly stained the gray silk.

A woman screamed, and abruptly the courtyard rang with cries and shouts. The people on the walls milled furiously, and every man