The Dragon Reborn - By Robert Jordan Page 0,275

he hasn’t, you saved them. Now will you bloody walk faster? The Defenders won’t be long coming, and they are not so gentle as the Queen’s Guards.”

Mat shook his arm free and picked up his pace unsteadily, dragging the quarterstaff. “He let it slip that he hadn’t located them, yet. But he said he was not the only one. Thom, I believe him. I was looking him in the eye, and he was telling the truth. I still have to find them, Thom. And now I don’t even know who is after them. I have to find them.”

Stifling a huge yawn with his fist, Thom pulled Mat’s hood up against the rain. “Not tonight, boy. I need sleep, and so do you.”

Wet. My hair’s dripping in my face. His head seemed fuzzy. With a need for sleep, he realized after a moment. And he realized how tired he was, if he had to think just to know it. “All right, Thom. But I am going to look again as soon as it’s light.” Thom nodded and coughed, and they made their way back to The White Crescent through the rain.

Dawn was not long in coming, but Mat rousted himself out of bed, and he and Thom set off trying to search every inn inside the walls of Tear. Mat let himself wander wherever the mood and the next turning took him, not looking for inns at all, and tossing a coin to decide whether to go in. For three days and nights he did this, and for three days and nights it rained without stopping, sometimes thundering, sometimes quiet, but always pouring down.

Thom’s cough grew worse, so he had to stop playing the flute and telling stories, and he would not carry his harp out in that weather; he insisted on going along, however, and men still talked to a gleeman. Mat’s luck with the dice seemed even better since he had begun this random wander, though he never stayed in one inn or tavern long enough to win more than a few coins. Neither of them heard anything useful. Rumors of war with Illian. Rumors of invading Mayene. Rumors of invasion from Andor, of the Sea Folk shutting off trade, of Artur Hawkwing’s armies returning from the dead. Rumors the Dragon was coming. The men Mat gambled with were as gloomy about one rumor as the next; they seemed to him to hunt for the darkest rumors they could find and half believe them all. But he heard not a whisper that might lead him to Egwene and the others. Not one innkeeper had seen women matching their descriptions.

He began to have bad dreams, no doubt from all his worrying. Egwene and Nynaeve and Elayne, and some fellow with close-cropped white hair, wearing a coat with puffy, striped sleeves like Comar’s, laughing and weaving a net around them. Only sometimes it was Moiraine he was weaving the net for, and sometimes he held a crystal sword instead, a sword that blazed like the sun as soon as he touched it. Sometimes it was Rand who held the sword. For some reason, he dreamed of Rand a good deal.

Mat was sure it was all because he was not getting enough sleep, not eating except when he happened to remember, but he would not stop. He had a wager to win, he told himself, and he meant to win this one if it killed him.

CHAPTER

50

The Hammer

The afternoon sun was hot as the ferry docked in Tear; puddles stood on the steaming stones of the dock, and the air seemed almost as damp to Perrin as Illian’s had. The air smelled of pitch and wood and rope—he could see shipyards further south along the river—of spices and iron and barley, of perfumes and wines and a hundred different aromas he could not single out from the melange, most coming from the warehouses behind the docks. When the wind swirled momentarily out of the north, he caught the scents of fish, too, but those faded as the wind swung back. No smells of anything to hunt. His mind reached out to feel for wolves before he realized what he was doing and snapped his guards shut. He had done that too often of late. There had been no wolves, of course. Not in a city like this. He wished it did not feel so—alone.

As soon as the ramp at the end of the barge was lowered, he led Stepper up to the dock