“I have... done as much as I can,” she said faintly. “As much as I can. You must be careful. It could break open again if...” As her voice trailed off, she fell.
Rand caught her, but Lan was there in an instant to scoop her up. As the Warder did so, a look passed across his face, a look as close to tenderness as Perrin ever expected to see from Lan.
“Exhausted,” the Warder said. “She has cared for everyone else, but there's no one to take her fatigue. I will put her to bed.”
“There's Rand,” Min said slowly, but the Warder shook his head.
“It isn't that I do not think you would try, sheepherder,” he said, “but you know so little you might as soon kill her as help her.”
“That's right,” Rand said bitterly. “I'm not to be trusted. Lews Therin Kinslayer killed everyone close to him. Maybe I'll do the same before I am done.”
“Pull yourself together, sheepherder,” Lan said harshly. “The whole world rides on your shoulders. Remember you're a man, and do what needs to be done.”
Rand looked up at the Warder, and surprisingly, all of his bitterness seemed to be gone. “I will fight the best I can,” he said. “Because there's no one else, and it has to be done, and the duty is mine. I'll fight, but I do not have to like what I've become.” He closed his eyes as if going to sleep. “I will fight. Dreams...”
Lan stared down at him a moment, then nodded. He raised his head to look across Moiraine at Perrin and Min. “Get him to his bed, then see to some sleep yourselves. We have plans to make, and the Light alone knows what happens next.”
Chapter 6
(Serpent and Wheel)
The Hunt Begins
Perrin did not expect to sleep, but a stomach stuffed with cold stew — his resolve about the roots had lasted until the smells of supper's leftovers hit his nose — and bone weariness pulled him down on his bed. If he dreamed, he did not remember. He awoke to Lan shaking his shoulders, dawn through the open door turning the Warder to a shadow haloed with light.
“Rand is gone,” was all Lan said before he left at a run, but it was more than enough.
Perrin dragged himself up yawning and dressed quickly in the early chill. Outside, only a handful of Shienarans were in sight, using their horses to drag Trolloc bodies into the woods, and most of those moved as if they should be in a sickbed. A body took time to build back the strength that being Healed took.
Perrin's stomach muttered at him, and his nose tested the breeze in the hope that someone had already started cooking. He was ready to eat those turniplike roots, raw if need be. There were only the lingering stench of slain Myrddraal, the smells of dead Trollocs and men, alive and dead, of horses and the trees. And dead wolves.
Moiraine's hut, high on the other side of the bowl, seemed a center of activity. Min hurried inside, and moments later Masema came out, then Uno. At a trot the oneeyed man vanished into the trees, toward the sheer rock wall beyond the hut, while the other Shienaran limped down the slope.
Perrin started toward the hut. As he splashed across the shallow stream, he met Masema. The Shienaran's face was haggard, the scar on his cheek prominent, and his eyes even more sunken than usual. In the middle of the stream, he raised his head suddenly and caught Perrin's coat sleeve.
“You're from his village,” Masema said hoarsely. “You must know. Why did the Lord Dragon abandon us? What sin did we commit?”
“Sin? What are you talking about? Wherever Rand went, it was nothing you did or didn't do.” Masema did not appear satisfied; he kept his grip on Perrin's sleeve, peering into his face as if there were answers there. Icy water began to seep into Perrin's left boot. “Masema,” he said carefully, “whatever the Lord Dragon did, it was according to his plan. The Lord Dragon would not abandon us.” Or would he? If I were in his place, would I?
Masema nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes, I see that, now. He has gone out alone to spread the word of his coming. We must spread the word, too. Yes.” He limped on across the stream, muttering to himself.
Squelching at every other step, Perrin climbed to Moiraine's hut and knocked. There was no answer. He hesitated a moment, then went in.
The outer room, where Lan slept, was as stark and simple as Perrin's own hut, with a rough bed built against one wall, a few pegs for hanging possessions, and a single shelf. Not much light entered through the open door, and the only other illumination came from crude lamps on the shelf, slivers of oily fatwood wedged into cracks in pieces of rock. They gave off thin streamers of smoke that made a layer of haze under the roof. Perrin's nose wrinkled at the smell.
The low roof was only a little higher than his head. Loial's head actually brushed it, even seated as he was on one end of Lan's bed, with his knees drawn up to make himself small. The Ogier's tufted ears twitched uneasily. Min sat crosslegged on the dirt floor beside the door that led to Moiraine's room, while the Aes Sedai paced back and forth in thought. Dark thoughts, they must have been. Three paces each way was all she had, but she made vigorous use of the space, the calm on her face belied by the quickness of her step.
“I think Masema is going crazy,” Perrin said.
Min sniffed. “With him, how can you tell?”
Moiraine rounded on him, a tightness to her mouth. Her voice was soft. Too soft. “Is Masema the most important thing on your mind this the morning, Perrin Aybara?”
“No. I'd like to know when Rand left, and why. Did anyone see him go? Does anyone know where he went?” He made himself meet her look with one just as level and firm. It was not easy. He loomed over her, but she was Aes Sedai. “Is this of your making Moiraine? Did you rein him in until he was so impatient he'd go anywhere, do anything, just to stop sitting still?” Loial's ears went stiff, and he motioned a surreptitious warning with one thickfingered hand.
Moiraine studied Perrin with her head tilted to one side, and it was all he could do not to drop his eyes. “This is none of my doing,” she said. “He left sometime during the night. When and how and why, I yet hope to learn.”
Loial's shoulders heaved in a quiet sigh of relief. Quiet for an Ogier, it sounded like steam rushing out from quenching redhot iron. “Never anger an Aes Sedai,” he said in a whisper obviously meant just for himself, but audible to everyone.“ 'Better to embrace the sun than to anger an Aes Sedai.' ”Min reached up enough to hand Perrin a folded piece of paper. “Loial went to see him after we got him to bed last night, and Rand asked to borrow pen and paper and ink.”