Perrin turned, and Hopper was there, a big gray wolf, grizzled and scarred. “You are dead. I saw you die. I felt you die!” A sending flooded Perrin's mind.
Run now! You must not be here now. Danger. Great danger. Worse than all the Neverborn. You must go. Go now! Now!
“How?” Perrin shouted. “I want to go, but how?”
Go! Teeth bared, Hopper leaped for Perrin's throat.
With a strangled cry, Perrin sat up on the bed, hands going to his throat to hold in lifeblood. They met unbroken skin. He swallowed with relief, but the next moment his fingers touched a damp spot.
Almost falling in his haste, he scrambled off the bed, stumbled to the washstand and seized the pitcher, splashed water everywhere as he filled the basin. The water turned pink as he washed his face. Pink with the blood of that strangely dressed man.
More dark spots dotted his coat and breeches. He tore them off and tossed them into the furthest corner. He meant to leave them there. Simion could burn them.
A gust of wind whipped in the open window. Shivering in shirt and smallclothes, he sat on the floor and leaned back against the bed. This should be uncomfortable enough. Sourness tinged his thoughts, and worry, and fear. And determination. I won't give in to this. I won't!
He was still shivering when sleep finally came, a shallow half sleep filled with vague awareness of the room around him and thoughts of the cold. But the bad dreams that came were better than some others.
Rand huddled under the trees in the night, watching the heavyshouldered black dog come nearer his hiding place. His side ached, the wound Moiraine could not quite Heal, but he ignored it. The moon gave barely enough light for him to make out the dog, waisthigh, with its thick neck and massive head, and its teeth that seemed to shine like wet silver in the night. It sniffed the air and trotted toward him.
Closer, he thought. Come closer. No warning for your master this time. Closer. That's it. The dog was only ten paces away, now, a deep growl rumbling in its chest as it suddenly bounded forward. Straight at Rand.
The Power filled him. Something leaped from his outstretched hands; he was not sure what it was. A bar of white light, solid as steel. Liquid fire. For an instant, in the middle of that something, the dog seemed to become transparent, and then it was gone.
The white light faded except for the afterimage burned across Rand's vision. He sagged against the nearest tree trunk, the bark rough on his face. Relief and silent laughter shook him. It worked. Light save me, it worked this time. It had not always. There had been other dogs this night.
The One Power pulsed in him, and his stomach twisted with the Dark One's taint on saidin, wanted to empty itself. Sweat beaded on his face despite the cold night wind, and his mouth tasted full of sickness. He wanted to lie down and die. He wanted Nynaeve to give him some of her medicines, or Moiraine to Heal him, or... Something, anything, to stop the sick feeling that was suffocating him.
But saidin flooded him with life, too, life and energy and awareness larded through the illness. Life without saidin was a pale copy. Anything else was a wan imitation.
But they can find me if I hold on. Track me, find me. I have to reach Tear. I'll find out there. If I am the Dragon, there'll be an end to it. And if I am not... If it's all a lie, there will be an end to that, too. An end.
Reluctantly, with infinite slowness, he severed contact with saidin, gave up its embrace as if giving up life's breath. The night seemed drab. The shadows lost their infinite sharp shadings and washed together.
In the distance, to the west, a dog howled, a shivering cry in the silent night.
Rand's head came up. He peered in that direction as though he could see the dog if he tried hard enough.
A second dog answered the first, then another, and two more together, all spread out somewhere west of him.
“Hunt me,” Rand snarled. “Hunt me if you will. I'm no easy meat. No more!”
Pushing himself away from the tree, he waded a shallow, icy stream, then settled into a steady trot eastward. Cold water filled his boots, and his side hurt, but he ignored both. The night was quiet again behind him, but he ignored that, too. Hunt me. I can hunt, too. I am no easy meat.
Chapter 10
(Sunburst)
Secrets
Ignoring her companions for a moment, Egwene al'Vere stood in her stirrups hoping for a glimpse of Tar Valon in the distance, but all she could see was something indistinct, gleaming white in the morning sunlight. It had to be the city on the island, though. The lone, brokentopped mountain called Dragonmount, rising out of the rolling plain, had first appeared on the horizon late the afternoon before, and that lay just this side of the River Erinin from Tar Valon. It was a landmark, that mountain — one jagged fang sticking up out of rolling flatlands — easily seen for many miles, easy to avoid, as all did, even those who went to Tar Valon.
Dragonmount was where Lews Therin Kinslayer had died, so it was said; and other words had been spoken of the mountain, prophecy and warning. Rich reasons to stay away from its black slopes.
She had reason not to stay away, and more than one. Only in Tar Valon could she find the training she needed, the training she had to have. I will never be collared again! She pushed the thought away, but it came back turned end about. I will never lose my freedom again! In Tar Valon, Anaiya would resume testing her dreams; the Aes Sedai would have to, though she had found no real evidence that Egwene was a Dreamer, as Anaiya suspected. Egwene's dreams had been troubling since leaving Almoth Plain. Aside from dreams of the Seanchan — and those still made her wake sweating — she dreamed more and more of Rand. Rand running. Running toward something, but running away from something, too.
She peered harder toward Tar Valon. Anaiya would be there. And Galad, too, perhaps. She blushed in spite of herself, and banished him from her mind entirely. Think about the weather. Think about anything else. Light, but it feels warm.
This early in the year, with winter only yesterday's memory, white still capped Dragonmount, but here below, the snows were melted. Early shoots poked through the matted brown of last year's grasses, and where trees topped a low hill here and there, the first red of new growth was showing. After a winter spent traveling, sometimes trapped in village or camp for days by storms, sometimes covering less ground between sunrise and sunset, with snowdrifts bellydeep on the horses, than she could have walked by noon in better weather, it was good to see signs of spring.