“What are you doing?” he barked, so angry, so shocked, that the Void cracked and saidin vanished from him. He scrambled to his feet, stalking toward her. “This tops any ingratitude I ever heard of!” He was going to shake her until her teeth rattled. “I just saved your life, in case you failed to notice, and if I offended some bloody Aiel custom, I don't give a —!”
“The next time,” she snapped back, “I will leave the great Car'a'carn to deal with matters by himself!” Awkwardly clutching the blanket close, she ducked stiffbacked into the tent.
For the first time, he looked behind him. At another Draghkar, crumpled on the ground in flames. He had been so angry that he had not heard the crackling and popping as it burned, had not smelled the odor of burning grease. He had not even sensed the evil of it. A Draghkar killed by first sucking the soul away, and then life. It had to be close, touching, but this one lay no more than two paces from where he had been standing. He was not certain how effective a Draghkar's crooning embrace was against someone filled with saidin, but he was glad he had not found out.
Drawing a deep breath, he knelt beside the tent flap. “Aviendha?” He could not go in. A lamp was lit in there, and she could be sitting there naked for all he knew, mentally ripping him up and down the way he deserved. “Aviendha, I am sorry. I apologize. I was a fool to speak as I did without asking why. I should know that you wouldn't harm me, and I... I... I'm a fool,” he finished weakly.
“A great deal you know, Rand al'Thor,” came a muffled reply. “You are a fool!”
How did Aiel apologize? He had never asked her that. Considering ji'e'toh, teaching men to sing, and wedding customs, he did not think he would. “Yes, I am. And I apologize.” There was no answer this time. “Are you in your blankets?” Silence.
Muttering to himself, he stood, working his stockinged toes on the icy ground. He was going to have to remain out here until he was sure she was decently covered. Without boots or coat. He seized hold of saidin, taint and all, just to be distanced from the bonegrinding cold, inside the Void.
The three Wise One dreamwalkers came running, of course, and Egwene, all staring at the burning Draghkar as they skirted it, drawing their shawls around them with almost the same motion.
“Only one,” Amys said. “I thank the Light, but I am surprised.”
“There were two,” Rand told her. “I... destroyed the other.” Why should he be hesitant just because Moiraine had warned him against balefire? It was a weapon like any other. “If Aviendha had not killed this one, it might have gotten me.”
“The feel of her channeling drew us,” Egwene said, looking him up and down. At first he thought she was checking for injuries, but she paid special attention to his stocking feet, then glanced at the tent, where a crack in the tent flap showed lamplight. “You've upset her again, haven't you? She saved your life, and you... Men!” With a disgusted shake of her head, she brushed past him and into the tent. He heard faint voices, but could not make out what was being said.
Melaine gave a hitch to her shawl. “If you do not need us, then we must see what is happening below.” She hurried off without waiting for the other two.
Bair cackled as she and Amys followed. “A wager on who she will check on first? My amethyst necklace that you like so much against that sapphire bracelet of yours?”
“Done. I choose Dorindha.”
The older Wise One cackled again. “Her eyes are still full of Bael. A firstsister is a firstsister, but a new husband...”
They moved on out of earshot, and he bent toward the tent flap. He still could not hear what they were saying, not unless he stuck his ear to the crack, and he was not about to do that. Surely Aviendha had covered herself with Egwene in there. Then again, the way Egwene had taken to Aiel ways, it was just as likely she had peeled out of her clothes instead.
The soft sound of slippers announced Moiraine and Lan, and Rand straightened. Though he could hear both of them breathing, the Warder's steps still made barely an audible noise. Moiraine's hair hung about her face, and she held a dark robe around her, the silk shining with the moon. Lan was fully dressed, booted and armed, wrapped in that cloak that made him part of the night. Of course. The clamor of fighting was dying down in the hills below.
“I am surprised you were not here sooner, Moiraine.” His voice sounded cold, but better his voice than him. He held onto saidin, fought it, and the night's icy chill remained something far off. He was aware of it, aware of each hair on his arms stirring with cold beneath his shirtsleeves, but it did not touch him. “You usually come looking for me as soon as you sense trouble.”
“I have never explained all that I do or do not do.” Her voice was as coolly mysterious as it had ever been, yet even in the moonlight Rand was certain that she was blushing. Lan looked troubled, though with him it was difficult to tell. “I cannot hold your hand forever. Eventually, you must walk alone.”
“I did that tonight, didn't I?” Embarrassment slid across the Void — that sounded as though he had done everything himself — and he added, “Aviendha all but took that one off my back.” The flames on the Draghkar were burning low.
“As well she was here, then,” Moiraine said calmly. “You did not need me.”
She had not been afraid, of that he was sure. He had seen her rush into the midst of Shadowspawn, wielding the Power as skillfully as Lan did his sword, seen it too often to believe fear in her. So why had she not come when she sensed the Draghkar? She could have, and Lan as well; that was one of the gifts a Warder received from the bond between him and an Aes Sedai. He could make her tell, catch her between her oath to him and her inability to lie straight out. No, he could not. Or would not. He would not do that to someone who was trying to help him.
“At least now we know what the attack below was about,” he said. “To make me think something important was happening there while the Draghkar slipped in on me. They tried that at Cold Rocks Hold, and it did not work there either.” Only, maybe it almost had, this time. If that had been the intent. “You would think they would try something different.” Couladin ahead of him; the Forsaken everywhere, it seemed. Why could he not face one enemy at a time?
“Do not make the mistake of thinking the Forsaken simple,” Moiraine said. “That could easily be fatal.” She shifted her robe as though wishing it were thicker. “The hour is late. If you have no further need of me...?”
Aiel began to drift back as she and the Warder left. Some exclaimed over the Draghkar, and roused some of the gai'shain to drag it away, but most simply looked at it before going to their tents. They seemed to expect such things of him now.
When Adelin and the Maidens appeared, their softbooted feet dragged. They stared at the Draghkar being hauled away by whiterobed men, and exchanged long looks before approaching Rand.
“There was nothing here,” Adelin said slowly. “The attack was all below, Darkfriends and Trollocs.”
“Shouting 'Sammael and the Golden Bees,' I heard,” another added. With her head wrapped in a shoufa, Rand could not make out who she was. She sounded young; some of the Maidens were no more than sixteen.
Taking a deep breath, Adelin held out one of her spears, horizontally in front of him, rocksteady. The others did the same, one spear each. “We — I — failed,” Adelin said. “We should have been here when the Draghkar came. Instead we ran like children to dance the spears.”
“What am I supposed to do with those?” Rand asked, and Adelin replied without hesitation.