The Dragon Reborn - By Robert Jordan Page 0,241

the first to reach him that time, with the Wisdom and his father and the Mayor all right behind her, and none believing he just meant to look. I could have put them all back together. “I think Perrin could make one, if he saw those little wheels and springs and I don’t know what all.”

“You would be surprised, boy,” Thom said dryly. “Even a bad clockmaker is a fairly rich man, and they earn it. But a clock does not explode in your face!”

“Neither did this. Well, it is useless, now.” He tossed the handful of paper and little pebbles into the fire to a screech from Thom; the pebbles sparked and made tiny flashes, and there was a smell of acrid smoke.

“You are trying to kill us.” Thom’s voice was unsteady, and it rose in intensity and pitch as he spoke. “If I decide I want to die, I will go to the Royal Palace when we reach Caemlyn, and I’ll pinch Morgase!” His long mustaches flailed. “Do not do that again!”

“It did not explode,” Mat said, frowning at the fire. He fished into the oiled-cloth roll on the other side of the log and pulled out a firework of the next larger size. “I wonder why there was no bang.”

“I do not care why there was no bang! Do not do it again!”

Mat glanced at him and laughed. “Stop shaking, Thom. There’s no need to be afraid. I know what is inside them, now. At least, I know what it looks like, but. . . . Don’t say it. I will not be cutting any more open, Thom. It is more fun to set them off, anyway.”

“I am not afraid, you mud-footed swineherd,” Thom said with elaborate dignity. “I am shaking with rage because I’m traveling with a goat-brained lout who might kill the pair of us because he cannot think past his own—”

“Ho, the fire!”

Mat exchanged glances with Thom as horses’ hooves approached. It was late for anyone honest to be traveling. But the Queen’s Guards kept the roads safe this close to Caemlyn, and the four who rode into the firelight certainly did not look like robbers. One was a woman. The men all wore long cloaks and seemed to be her retainers, while she was pretty and blue-eyed, in gold necklace and a gray silk dress and a velvet cloak with a wide hood. The men dismounted. One held her reins and another her stirrup, and she smiled at Mat, doffing her gloves as she came near the fire.

“I fear we are caught out late, young master,” she said, “and I would trouble you for directions to an inn, if you know one.”

He grinned and started to rise. He had made it as far as a crouch when he heard one of the men mutter something, and another produced a crossbow from under his cloak, already drawn, with a clip holding the bolt.

“Kill him, fool!” the woman shouted, and Mat tossed the firework into the flames and threw himself toward his quarterstaff. There was a loud bang and a flash of light—“Aes Sedai!” a man cried. “Fireworks, fool!” the woman shouted—and he rolled to his feet with the staff in his hand to see the crossbow bolt sticking out of the fallen log almost where he had been sitting, and the crossbowman falling with the hilt of one of Thom’s knives adorning his chest.

It was all he had time to see, for the other two men darted past the fire at him, drawing swords. One of them suddenly stumbled to his knees, dropping his sword to claw at the knife in his back as he fell facedown. The last man did not see his companion fall; he obviously expected to be one of a pair, dividing their opponent’s attention, as he thrust his blade at Mat’s middle. Feeling almost contemptuous, Mat cracked the fellow’s wrist with one end of his staff, sending the sword flying, and cracked his forehead with the other. The man’s eyes rolled up in his head as he collapsed.

From the corner of his eye, Mat saw the woman walking toward him, and he stuck a finger at her like a knife. “Fine clothes you wear for a thief, woman! You sit down till I decide what to do with you, or I’ll—”

She looked as surprised as Mat at the knife that suddenly bloomed in her throat, a red flower of spreading blood. He took a half step as if to