The great hunt - By Robert Jordan Page 0,127

know Ogier carried weapons, Loial.”

“Usually we do not,” the Ogier replied almost curtly. “Usually. The price has always been too high.” He hefted the huge quarterstaff and wrinkled his broad nose with distaste. “Elder Haman would surely say I am putting a long handle on my axe, but I am not just being hasty or rash, Rand. This place. . . .” He shivered, and his ears twitched.

“We’ll find our way back soon,” Rand said, trying to sound confident.

Loial spoke as if he had not heard. “Everything is . . . linked, Rand. Whether it lives or not, whether it thinks or not, everything that is, fits together. The tree does not think, but it is part of the whole, and the whole has a—a feeling. I can’t explain any more than I can explain what being happy is, but. . . . Rand, this land was glad for a weapon to be made. Glad!”

“The Light shine on us,” Hurin murmured nervously, “and the Creator’s hand shelter us. Though we go to the last embrace of the mother, the Light illumine our way.” He kept repeating the catechism as if it had a charm to protect him.

Rand resisted the impulse to look around. He definitely did not look up. All it would take to break them all was another of those smoky lines across the sky right at that moment. “There’s nothing here to hurt us,” he said firmly. “And we’ll keep a good watch and make sure nothing does.”

He wanted to laugh at himself, sounding so certain. He was not certain about anything. But watching the others—Loial with his tufted ears drooping, and Hurin trying not to look at anything—he knew one of them had to seem to be sure, at least, or fear and uncertainty would break them all apart. The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills. He squeezed that thought out. Nothing to do with the Wheel. Nothing to with ta’veren, or Aes Sedai, or the Dragon. It’s just the way it is, that’s all.

“Loial, are you done here?” The Ogier nodded, regretfully rubbing the quarterstaff. Rand turned to Hurin. “Do you still have the trail?”

“I do, Lord Rand. I do that.”

“Then let’s keep on with it. Once we find Fain and the Darkfriends, why, we’ll go home heroes, with the dagger for Mat, and the Horn of Valere. Lead out, Hurin.” Heroes? I’ll settle for all of us getting out of here alive.

“I do not like this place,” the Ogier announced flatly. He held the quarterstaff as if he expected to have to use it soon.

“As well we don’t mean to stay here, then, isn’t it?” Rand said. Hurin barked a laugh as if he had made a joke, but Loial gave him a level look.

“As well we don’t, Rand.”

Yet as they rode on southward, he could see that his casual assumption that they would get home had picked them both up a little. Hurin sat a bit straighter in his saddle, and Loial’s ears did not seem so wilted. It was no time or place to let them know he shared their fear, so he kept it to himself, and fought it by himself.

Hurin kept his humor through the morning, murmuring, “As well we don’t mean to stay,” then chuckling, until Rand felt like telling him to be quiet. Toward midday, the sniffer did fall silent, though, shaking his head and frowning, and Rand found he wished the man was still repeating his words and laughing.

“Is there something wrong with the trail, Hurin?” he asked.

The sniffer shrugged, looking troubled. “Yes, Lord Rand, and then again no, as you might say.”

“It must be one or the other. Have you lost the trail? No shame if you have. You said it was weak to start. If we can’t find the Darkfriends, we will find another Stone and get back that way.” Light, anything but that. Rand kept his face smooth. “If Darkfriends can come here and leave, so can we.”

“Oh, I haven’t lost it, Lord Rand. I can still pick out the stink of them. It isn’t that. It’s just. . . . It’s. . . .” With a grimace, Hurin burst out, “It’s like I’m remembering it, Lord Rand, instead of smelling it. But I’m not. There’s dozens of trails crossing it all the time, dozens and dozens, and all sorts of smells of violence, some of them fresh, almost, only washed out like everything else. This morning, right after we left the hollow, I could