The great hunt - By Robert Jordan Page 0,297

where a few more days will change anything one way or another, now. Try being a little less hasty for once.”

“It doesn’t matter to me whether we go to Falme now, later, or never,” Perrin said with a shrug, “but if Fain really is threatening Emond’s Field . . . well, Mat’s right. Hurin is the best way to find him.”

“I can find him, Lord Rand,” Hurin put in. “Let me get one sniff of him, and I’ll take you right to him. There’s never anything else left a trail like his.”

“You must make your own choice, Rand,” Verin said carefully, “but remember that Falme is held by invaders about whom we still know next to nothing. If you go to Falme alone, you may find yourself a prisoner, or worse, and that will serve nothing. I am sure whatever choice you make will be the right one.”

“Ta’veren,” Loial rumbled.

Rand threw up his hands.

Uno came in from the square, shaking rain off his cloak.

“Not a flaming soul to be found, my Lord. Looks to me like they ran like striped pigs. Livestock’s all gone, and there isn’t a bloody cart or wagon left, either. Half the houses are stripped to the flaming floors. I’ll wager my next month’s pay you could follow them by the bloody furniture they tossed on the side of the road when they realized it was only weighing down their flaming wagons.”

“What about clothes?” Ingtar asked.

Uno blinked his one eye in surprise. “Just a few bits and pieces, my Lord. Mainly what they didn’t think was bloody worth taking with them.”

“They will have to do. Hurin, I mean to dress you and a few more as local people, as many as we can manage, so you won’t stand out. I want you to swing wide, north and south, until you cross the trail.” More soldiers were coming in, and they all gathered around Ingtar and Hurin to listen.

Rand leaned his hands on the mantel over the fireplace and stared into the flames. They made him think of Ba’alzamon’s eyes. “There isn’t much time,” he said. “I feel . . . something . . . pulling me to Falme, and there isn’t much time.” He saw Verin watching him, and added harshly, “Not that. It’s Fain I have to find. It has nothing to do with . . . that.”

Verin nodded. “The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, and we are all woven into the Pattern. Fain has been here weeks before us, perhaps months. A few more days will make little difference in whatever is going to happen.”

“I’m going to get some sleep,” he muttered, picking up his saddlebags. “They can’t have carried off all the beds.”

Upstairs, he did find beds, but only a few still had mattresses, and those so lumpy he thought it might be more comfortable to sleep on the floor. Finally he chose a bed where the mattress simply sagged in the middle. There was nothing else in the room except one wooden chair and a table with a rickety leg.

He took off his wet things, putting on a dry shirt and breeches before lying down, since there were no sheets or blankets, and propped his sword beside the head of the bed. Wryly, he thought that the only thing dry he had for a coverlet was the Dragon’s banner; he left it safely buckled inside the saddlebags.

Rain drummed on the roof, and thunder growled overhead, and now and again a lightning flash lit the windows. Shivering, he rolled this way and that on the mattress, seeking some comfortable way to lie, wondering if the banner would not do for a blanket after all, wondering if he should ride on to Falme.

He rolled to his other side, and Ba’alzamon was standing beside the chair with the pure white length of the Dragon’s banner in his hands. The room seemed darker there, as if Ba’alzamon stood on the edge of a cloud of oily black smoke. Nearly healed burns crisscrossed his face, and as Rand looked, his pitch-dark eyes vanished for an instant, replaced by endless caverns of fire. Rand’s saddlebags lay by his feet, buckles undone, flap thrown back where the banner had been hidden.

“The time comes closer, Lews Therin. A thousand threads draw tight, and soon you will be tied and trapped, set to a course you cannot change. Madness. Death. Before you die, will you once more kill everything you love?”

Rand glanced at the door, but he made no move