The great hunt - By Robert Jordan Page 0,259

men and one of our own youths.” Loial hunched his shoulders as if trying to disappear.

Verin gave the Aiel a regretful look, as if she wanted to talk with them, then motioned Juin to lead, and he took her away without another word or even the first look at Loial.

For a few moments, Rand and the others stood facing the three Aiel women uneasily. At least, Rand knew he was uneasy. Ingtar seemed steady as a stone, with no more expression than one. The Aiel might have unveiled their faces, but they still had spears in their hands, and they studied the four men as though trying to see inside them. Rand in particular received increasingly angry looks. He heard the youngest woman mutter, “He is wearing a sword,” in tones of mingled horror and contempt. Then the three were leaving, stopping to retrieve the wooden bowl and looking over their shoulders at Rand and the others until they vanished among the trees.

“Maidens of the Spear,” Ingtar muttered. “I never thought they’d stop once they veiled their faces. Certainly not for a few words.” He looked at Rand and his two friends. “You should see a charge by Red Shields, or Stone Dogs. As easy to stop as an avalanche.”

“They would not break the Pact once it was recalled to them,” Erith said, smiling. “They came for sung wood.” A note of pride entered her voice. “We have two Treesingers in Stedding Tsofu. They are rare, now. I have heard that Stedding Shangtai has a young Treesinger who is very talented, but we have two.” Loial blushed, but she did not appear to notice. “If you will come with me, I will show you where you may wait until the Elders have spoken.”

As they followed her, Perrin murmured, “Sung wood, my left foot. Those Aiel are searching for He Who Comes With the Dawn.”

And Mat added dryly, “They’re looking for you, Rand.”

“For me! That is crazy. What makes you think—”

He cut off as Erith showed them down the steps of a wildflower-covered house apparently set aside for human guests. The rooms were twenty paces from stone wall to stone wall, with painted ceilings a good two spans above the floor, but the Ogier had done their best making something that would be comfortable for humans. Even so, the furniture was a little too large for comfort, the chairs tall enough to lift a man’s heels off the floor, the table higher than Rand’s waist. Hurin, at least, could have walked erect into the stone fireplace, which seemed to have been worn by water rather than made by hands. Erith eyed Loial doubtfully, but he waved away her concern and pulled one of the chairs into the corner least easily seen from the door.

As soon as the Ogier girl left, Rand got Mat and Perrin over to one side. “What do you mean they’re looking for me? Why? For what reason? They looked right at me, and went away.”

“They looked at you,” Mat said with a grin, “like you hadn’t bathed in a month, and had doused yourself with sheepdip besides.” His grin faded. “But they could be looking for you. We met another Aiel.”

Rand listened in growing amazement to their tale of the meeting in Kinslayer’s Dagger. Mat told most of it, with Perrin putting in a correcting word now and again when he embellished too much. Mat made a great show of how dangerous the Aielman had been, and how close the meeting had come to a fight.

“And since you’re the only Aiel we know,” he finished, “well, it could be you. Ingtar says Aiel never live outside the Waste, so you must be the only one.”

“I don’t think that’s funny, Mat,” Rand growled. “I am not an Aiel.” The Amyrlin said you are. Ingtar thinks you are. Tam said. . . . He was sick, fevered. They had severed the roots he had thought he had, the Aes Sedai and Tam between them, though Tam had been too sick to know what he was saying. They had cut him loose to tumble before the wind, then offered him something new to hold on to. False Dragon. Aiel. He could not claim those for roots. He would not. “Maybe I don’t belong to anyone. But the Two Rivers is the only home I know.”

“I didn’t mean anything,” Mat protested. “It’s just. . . . Burn me, Ingtar says you are. Masema says you are. Urien could have been your