The great hunt - By Robert Jordan Page 0,332

of the hills overlooking Falme. The others galloped up behind him.

“What do you mean?” Perrin demanded. “We can help Verin take the Horn where it’s supposed to go? Where are you going to be?”

“Maybe he’s going mad already,” Mat said. “He wouldn’t want to stay with us if he was going mad. Would you, Rand?”

“You three take the Horn to Verin,” Rand said. Egwene. So many threads, in so much danger. So many duties. “You do not need me.”

Mat caressed the dagger’s hilt. “That’s all very well, but what about you? Burn me, you can’t be going mad yet. You can’t!” Hurin gaped at them, not understanding half of it.

“I’m going back,” Rand said. “I should never have left.” Somehow, that did not sound exactly right in his own ears; it did not feel right inside his head. “I have to go back. Now.” That sounded better. “Egwene is still there, remember. With one of those collars around her neck.”

“Are you sure?” Mat said. “I never saw her. Aaaah! If you say she is there, then she’s there. We’ll all take the Horn to Verin, and then we will all go back for her. You don’t think I would leave her there, do you?”

Rand shook his head. Threads. Duties. He felt as if he were about to explode like a firework. Light, what’s happening to me? “Mat, Verin must take you and that dagger to Tar Valon, so you can finally be free of it. You don’t have any time to waste.”

“Saving Egwene isn’t wasting time!” But Mat’s hand had tightened on the dagger till it shook.

“We aren’t any of us going back,” Perrin said. “Not yet. Look.” He pointed back toward Falme.

The wagon yards and horse lots were turning black with Seanchan soldiers, thousands of them rank on rank, with troops of cavalry riding scaled beasts as well as armored men on horses, colorful gonfanons marking the officers. Grolm dotted the ranks, and other strange creatures, almost but not quite like monstrous birds and lizards, and great things like nothing he could describe, with gray, wrinkled skin and huge tusks. At intervals along the lines stood sul’dam and damane by the score. Rand wondered if Egwene were one of them. In the town behind the soldiers, a rooftop still exploded now and again, and lightning still streaked the sky. Two flying beasts, with leathery wings twenty spans tip to tip, soared high overhead, keeping well away from where the bright bolts danced.

“All that for us?” Mat said incredulously. “Who do they think we are?”

An answer came to Rand, but he shoved it away before it had a chance to form completely.

“We aren’t going the other way either, Lord Rand,” Hurin said. “Whitecloaks. Hundreds of them.”

Rand wheeled his horse to look where the sniffer was pointing. A long, white-cloaked line rippled slowly toward them across the hills.

“Lord Rand,” Hurin muttered, “if that lot lays an eye on the Horn of Valere, we’ll never get it close to an Aes Sedai. We’ll never get close to it again ourselves.”

“Maybe that’s why the Seanchan are gathering,” Mat said hopefully. “Because of the Whitecloaks. Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with us at all.”

“Whether it does or not,” Perrin said dryly, “there is going to be a battle here in a few minutes.”

“Either side could kill us,” Hurin said, “even if they never see the Horn. If they do. . . .”

Rand could not manage to think about the Whitecloaks, or the Seanchan. I have to go back. Have to. He was staring at the Horn of Valere, he realized. They all were. The curled, golden Horn hung at Mat’s pommel, the focus of every eye.

“It has to be there at the Last Battle,” Mat said, licking his lips. “Nothing says it can’t be used before then.” He pulled the Horn free of its lashings and looked at them anxiously. “Nothing says it can’t.”

No one else said anything. Rand did not think he could speak; his own thoughts were too urgent to allow room for speech. Have to go back. Have to go back. The longer he looked at the Horn, the more urgent his thoughts became. Have to. Have to.

Mat’s hand shook as he raised the Horn of Valere to his lips.

It was a clear note, golden as the Horn was golden. The trees around them seemed to resonate with it, and the ground under their feet, the sky overhead. That one long sound encompassed everything.

Out of nowhere, a fog began