The great hunt - By Robert Jordan Page 0,155

them, then they came on with guttural cries gleeful, bloodthirsty, swords and axes raised. He danced among them to the song of saidin. Hummingbird Kisses the Honeyrose. So cunning that song, filling him. Cat on Hot Sand. The sword seemed alive in his hands as it had never been before, and he fought as if a heron-mark blade could keep saidin from him. The Heron Spreads Its Wings.

Rand stared at the motionless shapes on the ground around him. “Better to be dead,” he murmured. He raised his eyes, back up the hill toward where the camp lay. Fain was there, and Darkfriends, and more Trollocs. Too many to fight. Too many to face and live. He took a step that way. Another.

“Rand, come on!” Loial’s urgent, whispered call drifted through the emptiness to him. “For life and the Light, Rand, come on!”

Carefully, Rand bent to wipe his blade on a Trolloc’s coat. Then, as formally as if Lan were watching him train, he sheathed it.

“Rand!”

As though he knew of no urgency, Rand joined Loial by the horses. The Ogier was tying the golden chest atop his saddle with straps from his saddlebags. His cloak was stuffed underneath to help balance the chest on the rounded saddle seat.

Saidin sang no more. It was there, that stomach-turning glow, but it held back as if he truly had fought it off. Wonderingly, he let the void vanish. “I think I am going mad,” he said. Suddenly realizing where they were, he peered back the way they had come. Shouts and howls came from half a dozen different directions; signs of search, but none of pursuit. Yet. He swung up onto Red’s back.

“Sometimes I do not understand half of what you say,” Loial said. “If you must go mad, could it at least wait until we are back with the Lady Selene and Hurin?”

“How are you going to ride with that in your saddle?”

“I will run!” The Ogier suited his words by breaking into a quick trot, pulling his horse behind him by the reins. Rand followed.

The pace Loial set was as fast as a horse could trot. Rand was sure the Ogier could not keep it for long, but Loial’s feet did not flag. Rand decided that his boast of once outrunning a horse might really be true. Now and again Loial looked behind them as he ran, but the shouts of Darkfriends and howls of Trollocs faded with distance.

Even when the ground began to slope upwards more sharply, Loial’s pace barely slowed, and he trotted into their campsite on the mountainside with only a little hard breathing.

“You have it.” Selene’s voice was exultant as her gaze rested on the ornately worked chest on Loial’s saddle. She was wearing her own dress again; it looked as white as new snow to Rand. “I knew you would make the right choice. May I . . . have a look at it?”

“Did any of them follow, my Lord?” Hurin asked anxiously. He stared at the chest with awe, but his eyes slid off into the night, down the mountain. “If they followed, we’ll have to move quick.”

“I do not think they did. Go to the outcrop and see if you can see anything.” Rand climbed down from his saddle as Hurin hurried up the mountain. “Selene, I don’t know how to open the chest. Loial, do you?” The Ogier shook his head.

“Let me try. . . .” Even for a woman of Selene’s height, Loial’s saddle was high above the ground. She reached up to touch the finely wrought patterns on the chest, ran her hands across them, pressed. There was a click, and she pushed the lid up, let it fall open.

As she stretched on tiptoe to put a hand inside, Rand reached over her shoulder and lifted out the Horn of Valere. He had seen it once before, but never touched it. Though beautifully made, it did not look a thing of great age, or power. A curled golden horn, gleaming in the faint light, with inlaid silver script flowing around the mouth of the bell. He touched the strange letters with a finger. They seemed to catch the moon.

“Tia mi aven Moridin isainde vadin,” Selene said. “ ‘The grave is no bar to my call.’ You will be greater than Artur Hawkwing ever was.”

“I am taking it to Shienar, to Lord Agelmar.” It should go to Tar Valon, he thought, but I’m done with Aes Sedai. Let Agelmar or Ingtar take it