Within the Ways
The darkness of the Ways compressed the light of Perrin's pole-lantern to a sharp-edged pool around himself and Gaul. The creak of his saddle, the gritty click of hooves on stone, seemed to reach no further than light's rim. There was no smell to the air; nothing. The Aielman strode along beside Stepper easily, keeping an eye on the dimly seen lanternglow from Loial's party ahead. Perrin refused to call it Faile's. The Ways did not seem to bother Gaul, for all their reputation. Perrin himself could not help listening, as he had for nearly two days, or what passed for days in this lightless place. His ears would be first to catch the sound that meant they were all going to die or worse, the sound of wind rising where no wind ever blew. No wind but Machin Shin, the Black Wind that ate souls. He could not help thinking that traveling the Ways was slack-witted folly, but when need called, what was foolish changed.
The faint light ahead stopped, and he drew rein in the middle of what appeared to be an ancient stone bridge arching through utter blackness, ancient because of the breaks in the bridge walls, the pits and shallow ragged craters freckling the roadbed. Very likely it had stood close to three thousand years, but it seemed ready to fall, now. Maybe right now.
The packhorse crowded up behind Stepper: the animals whickered to each other and rolled their eyes uneasily at the surrounding dark. Perrin knew how the horses felt. A few more people for company would have lifted some of the endless night's weight. Still, he would not have gone any closer to the lanterns ahead even had he been alone. Not and risk a repeat of what happened back on that first Island, right after entering the Waygate in Tear. He scratched his curly beard irritably. He was not sure what he had expected, but not...
The pole lantern bobbed as he stepped down from his saddle and led Stepper and the packhorse to the Guiding, a tall slab of white stone covered with cursive silver inlays vaguely reminiscent of vines and leaves, all pitted as if splashed with acid. He could not read it, of course - Loial had to do that; it was Ogier script - and after a moment he walked around it, studying the Island. It was the s 252e419c ame as the others he had seen, with a chest high wall of white stone, simple curves and rounds fitted in an intricate pattern. At intervals bridges pierced the wall, arching out into the darkness, and rail less ramps running up or down with no means of support he could see. There were cracks everywhere, ragged pits and shallow craters, as though the stone were rotting. When the horses moved there was a grainy sound of stone flaking away beneath their hooves. Gaul peered into the dark with no visible nervousness, but then, he did not know what might be out there. Perrin did, too well.
When Loial and the others arrived, Faile immediately hopped from her black mare and strode straight to Perrin, eyes intent on his face. He was already regretting making her worry, but she did not look worried at all. He could not have said what her expression was, besides fixed.
"Have you decided to talk to me instead of over my hea-?"
Her full armed slap made spots dance in front of his eyes. "What did you mean," she practically spat, "charging in here like a wild boar? You have no regard. None!"
He took a slow, deep breath. "I asked you before not to do that." Her dark, tilted eyes widened as if he had said something infuriating. He was rubbing his cheek when her second slap caught him on the other side, nearly unhinging his jaw. The Aiel were watching interestedly, and Loial with his ears drooping.
"I told you not to do that," he growled. Her fist was not very big, but her sudden punch to his shortribs drove most of the air from his lungs, hunching him over sideways, and she drew back her fist again. With a snarl, he seized her by the scruff of her neck and...
Well, it was her own fault. It was. He had asked her not to hit him, told her. Her own fault. He was surprised she had not tried to pull one of her knives, though; she seemed to carry as many as Mat.
She had been furious, of course. Furious with Loial for trying to intervene; she could take care of herself, thank you very much. Furious with Bain and Chiad for not intervening; she had been taken aback when they said they did not think she would want them to interfere in a fight she had picked. When you choose the fight, Bain had said, you must take the consequences, win or lose. But she did not seem even the tiniest bit angry with him any longer. That made him nervous. She had only stared at him, her dark eyes glistening with unshed tears, which made him feel guilty, which in turn made him angry. Why should he be guilty? Was he supposed to stand there and let her hit him to her heart's content? She had mounted Swallow and sat there, very stiff-backed, refusing to sit gingerly,
staring at him with an unreadable expression. It made him very nervous. He almost wished she had pulled a knife. Almost.
"They are moving again," Gaul said.
Perrin jerked back to the present. The other light was moving. Now it paused. One of them had noticed his light was not following yet. Probably Loial. Faile might not mind if he got lost, and the two Aiel women had twice tried to talk him into walking off a little way with them. He had not needed the slight shake of Gaul's head to refuse. He heeled Stepper forward, leading the packhorse.
The Guiding here was more pocked than most he had seen, but he rode on past it with only a glance. The light of the other lanterns was already starting down one of the gently sloping ramps, and he followed with a sigh. He hated the ramps. Sided only by darkness, it began to curve, down and around, with nothing discernible beyond the squashed light of the lantern swaying above his head. Something told him that a fall over the edge would never end. Stepper and the packhorse kept to the middle without any urging, and even Gaul avoided the brink. Worse, when the ramp ended on another Island, there was no way to escape the conclusion that it lay directly beneath the one they had just left. He was glad to see Gaul glancing upward, glad he was not alone in wondering what held the Islands up and whether it was still sound.
Once more Loial and Faile's lanterns had stopped by the Guiding, so he reined up again, just off the ramp. This time they did not move on, though. After a few moments, Faile's voice called, "Perrin."
He exchanged looks with Gaul, and the Aiel shrugged. She had not spoken to Perrin since he...
"Perrin, come here." Not peremptory, exactly, but not asking, either.
Bain and Chiad were squatting easily beside the Guiding, and Loial and Faile sat their horses close by, pole-lanterns in hand. The Ogier had their packhorses' lead line; his ear tufts twitched as he looked from Faile to Perrin and back again. She, on the other hand, seemed completely absorbed in adjusting her riding gloves, of soft green leather with golden falcons embroidered on their backs. She had changed her dress, too. The new one was cut in the same fashion, with a high neck and narrow divided skirts, but it was a dark green brocaded silk, and somehow it seemed to emphasize her bosom. Perrin had never seen the dress before.
"What do you want?" he asked warily.
She looked up as if surprised to see him, tilted her head thoughtfully, then smiled as though it had just occurred to her. "Oh, yes. I wanted to see if you could be taught to come when I call." Her smiled deepened; it had to be because she had heard his teeth grinding. He scrubbed at his nose; there was a faint rank smell here.
Gaul chuckled softly. "As well try to understand the sun, Perrin. It simply is, and it is not to be understood. You cannot live without it, but it exacts a price. So with women."
Bain leaned over to whisper in Chiad's ear, and they both laughed. From the way they looked at Gaul and him, Perrin did not think he would like hearing what the women found so funny.
"It is not that at all," Loial rumbled, ears shifting testily. He gave Faile an accusing look, which did not abash her at all; she smiled at him vaguely and went back to her gloves, snugging each finger all over again. "I am sorry, Perrin. She insisted on being the one to call you. This is why. We are there." He pointed to the base of the Guiding, where a wide pit-broken white line ran off, not to bridge or ramp, but into the darkness. "The Waygate at Manetheren, Perrin."
Perrin nodded, saying nothing. He was not about to suggest they follow the line, not and have Faile call him down for trying to take over. He rubbed his nose again absently; that almost imperceptible scent of rankness was irritating. He was not going to make even the most sensible suggestion. If she wanted to lead, let her. But she sat her saddle, fooling with her gloves, obviously waiting for him to speak so she could make some witty remark. She liked wittiness; he preferred saying what he meant. Irritably, he turned Stepper, meaning to go on without her or Loial. The line led to the Waygate, and he could pick out the Avendesora leaf that opened it himself.
Suddenly his ear caught a muffled click of hooves from the darkness, and the fetid smell slammed home in his mind. "Trollocs!" he shouted.
Gaul pivoted smoothly to slide a spear into the black-mailed chest of a wolf-snouted Trolloc dashing into the light with scythe-like sword upraised; in the same effortless motion the Aiel pulled his spearpoint free and sidestepped to let the huge shape fall. More came behind it, though, all goatsnouts and boar's tusks, cruel beaks and twisted horns, with curved swords and spiked axes and hooked spears. The horses danced and screamed.
Holding his pole-lantern high - the thought of facing these things in the dark gave him cold sweat - Perrin clawed for a weapon, swung at a face distorted by a sharp toothed snout. He was surprised to realize he had pulled the hammer free of its lashings on his saddlebags, but if it did not have the axe's sharp edge, ten pounds of steel wielded by a blacksmith's arm still sent the Trolloc staggering back shrieking and clutching a ruined face.
Loial dashed his pole-lantern against a goat-horned head, and the lantern broke; bathed in burning oil, the Trolloc ran howling into the dark. The Ogier flailed about him with the stout pole, a switch in his huge hands, but one that landed with sharp cracks of splintering bone. One of Faile's knives blossomed in an all-too-human eye above a tusked snout. The Aiel danced the spears, having somehow found time to veil themselves. Perrin struck, and struck, and struck. A whirlwind of death that lasted... . A minute? Five? It seemed an hour. But suddenly the Trollocs were down, those not already dead kicking in their death throes.
Perrin sucked air into his lungs; his right arm felt as if the weight of the hammer might pull it off. There was a burning sensation on his face, a wetness trickling down his side, another on his leg, where Trolloc steel had gotten through. Each of the Aiel had at least one damp patch darkening their brown and gray clothes, and Loial wore a bloody gash down his thigh. Perrin's eyes went right past them, seeking Faile. If she was hurt... She sat atop her black mare, a knife in her hand ready to throw. She had actually managed to pull off her gloves and tuck them neatly behind her belt. He could not see a wound on her. In all the blood smell - human, Ogier, Trolloc - he could not have picked out hers if she were bleeding, but he knew her scent, and she did not have the pained smell of injury. Bright lights hurt Trolloc eyes; they did not adapt quickly. Very likely the only reason they were still alive and the Trollocs dead was that abrupt entry from darkness into light.
That was all the time they had, a moment's respite, long enough to glance around, take breath. With a roar like a hundred pounds of bone falling into a huge meat grinder, a Fade leaped into the light, eyeless stare a stare of death, black sword flickering like lightning. The horses screamed, trying to bolt.
Gaul barely managed to turn that blade with his buckler, losing a slice from the side of it as if the layers of cured bullhide were only paper. He stabbed, eluded a thrust - barely - and stabbed again. Arrows sprouted in the Myrddraal's chest. Bain and Chiad had thrust their spears through the harness holding the cased bows on their backs and were using those curved horn bows. More arrows, pincushioning the Halfman's chest. Gaul's spear, darting, stabbing. One of Faile's knives suddenly stood out in that smooth maggot white face. The Fade would not fall, would not stop trying to kill. Only the wildest dodging kept its sword from finding flesh.
Perrin bared his teeth in an unconscious snarl. He hated Trollocs as an enemy of his blood, but the Neverborn... ? It was worth dying to kill a Neverborn. To put my teeth in its throat... ! Careless of whether he blocked Bain and Chiad's arrows, he guided Stepper closer to the Neverborn's back, forcing the reluctant dun nearer with reins and knees. At the last instant, the creature spun away from Gaul, seemingly ignoring a spearpoint that thrust between its shoulders and came out below its throat, staring up at Perrin with the eyeless gaze that sent fear into every man's soul. Too late. Perrin's hammer fell, shattering head and eyeless gaze alike.
Even down and virtually headless, the Myrddraal still thrashed, lashing aimlessly with its Thakan'dar-wrought blade. Stepper danced back, whickering nervously, and suddenly Perrin felt as if he had been doused in icy water. That black steel made wounds even Aes Sedai found hard to Heal, and he had ridden in uncaring. My teeth in its... Light, I have to keep hold of myself. I have to!
He could still hear smothered sounds from the darkness at the far end of the Island, the clatter of hoofed feet, the scrape of boots, harsh breathing and guttural murmurs. More Trollocs; how many he could not say. A pity they had not been linked to the Myrddraal, yet perhaps they might hesitate to attack without it to drive them. Trollocs were usually cowards in their way, preferring strong odds and easy kills. But even lacking a Myrddraal they could work themselves up to come again eventually.
"The Waygate," he said. "We have to get out before they decide what to do without that." He used the bloody hammer to gesture to the still flailing Fade.
Faile reined Swallow around immediately, and he was so surprised, he blurted, "You aren't going to argue?"
"Not when you speak sense," she said briskly. "Not when you speak sense. Loial?"
The Ogier took the lead on his tall, hairy fetlocked mount. Perrin backed Stepper after Faile and Loial, hammer in hand, the Aiel siding him, all with bows ready now. Shuffling hooves and boots followed in the blackness, and harsh mutters in a language too rough for human tongues. Back and back, with the mutters edging closer, working up courage.
Another sound floated to Perrin, like silk sighing across silk. It sent shivers along his bones. Louder, a distant giant's exhalation, rising, falling, rising higher. "Hurry!" he shouted. "Hurry!"
"I am," Loial barked. "I - That sound! Is it -? The Light illumine our souls, and the Creator's hand shelter us! It's opening. It is opening! I must be last. Out! Out! But not too - No, Faile!"
Perrin risked a glance over his shoulder. Twin gates of apparently living leaves were swinging open, revealing a smoked glass view of mountainous country. Loial had dismounted to remove the Avendesora leaf to unlock the gate, and Faile had their pack animals' leads and his huge mount's reins. With a hasty shout of "Follow me! Quickly!" she booted Swallow's ribs, and the Tairen mare sprang toward the opening.
"After her," Perrin told the Aiel. "Hurry! You cannot fight this." Wisely they hesitated only a heartbeat before peeling back, Gaul seizing the packhorse's lead line. Stepper came abreast of Loial. "Can you lock it shut some way? Block it?" A frantic edge had entered the harsh mutterings; the Trollocs had recognized the sound too, now. Machin Shin was coming. Living meant getting out of the Ways.
"Yes," Loial said. "Yes. But go. Go!"
Perrin reined Stepper back quickly toward the Gate, yet before he knew what he was doing he had thrown back his head and howled, defiance and challenge. Foolish, foolish, foolish! Still, he kept his eyes on that pitch dark and backed Stepper into the Waygate. An icy ripple slid across him hair by hair, and time stretched out. The jolt of leaving the Ways hit him, as if he had gone from a dead gallop to a stop in one step.
The Aiel were still turning to face the Waygate, spreading out across the slope with arrows nocked, among low bushes and stunted mountain trees, wind-twisted pine and fir and leatherleaf. Faile was just picking herself up from where she had tumbled from Swallow's saddle, the black mare nuzzling her. Galloping out of a Waygate was at least as bad as galloping in; she was lucky she had not broken her neck, and her horse's, too. Loial's tall horse and her packhorses were trembling as though hit between the eyes. Perrin opened his mouth, and she glared at him, daring him to make any comment at all, maybe a sympathetic one least of all. He grimaced wryly and wisely kept silent.
Abruptly Loial came hurtling out of the Waygate, leaping out of a dull silvery mirror with his own reflection growing behind him, and rolled across the ground. Almost on his heels, two Trollocs appeared, ram's horns and snout, eagle's beak and feathered crest, but before they were more than halfway out, the shimmering surface turned dead black, bubbling and bulging, clinging to them.
Voices whispered in Perrin's head, a thousand babbling mad voices clawing at the inside of his skull. Bitter blood. Blood so bitter. Drink the blood and crack the bone. Crack the bone and suck the marrow. Bitter marrow, sweet the screams. Singing screams. Sing the screams. Tiny souls. Acrid souls. Gobble them down. So sweet the pain. On and on.
Shrieking, howling, the Trollocs beat at the blackness boiling around them, clawed to pull free as it sucked them deeper, deeper, till only one hairy hand remained, clutching frantically, then only darkness, bulging outward, seeking. Slowly the Waygates appeared, sliding together, squeezing the blackness so it oozed back inside between them. The voices in Perrin's head finally stopped. Loial rushed forward quickly to place not one but two three-lobed leaves among the myriad leaves and vines. The Waygate became stone again, a section of stone wall, carved in intricate detail, standing alone on a sparsely wooded mountainside. Among the myriad leaves and vines was not one, but two Avendesora leaves. Loial had replaced the trefoil leaf from inside on the outside.
The Ogier heaved a deep, relieved sigh. "That is the best I can do. It can only be opened from this side now." He gave Perrin a look at once anxious and firm. "I could have locked it forever by not replacing the leaves, but I will not ruin a Waygate, Perrin. We grew the Ways and tended them. Perhaps they can be cleansed someday. I cannot ruin a Waygate."
"It will do," Perrin told him. Had the Trollocs been coming to this Waygate, or had it just been a chance encounter? In either case, it would do.
"Was that -?" Faile began unsteadily, then stopped to swallow. Even the Aiel looked shaken for once.
"Machin Shin," Loial said. "The Black Wind. A creature of the Shadow, or a thing grown of the Ways' own taint - no one knows. I pity the Trollocs. Even them."
Perrin was not sure he did, not even dying like that. He had seen what Trollocs left when they got their hands on humans. Trollocs ate anything, so long as it was meat, and sometimes they liked to keep their meat alive while they butchered. He would not let himself pity Trollocs.
Stepper's hooves crunched on gritty dirt as Perrin turned him to see where they were.
Cloud-capped mountains rose all around; it was the everpresent clouds that gave them their name, the Mountains of Mist. The air was cool at this altitude, even in summer, especially compared to Tear. The late-afternoon sun sat on the western peaks, glinting on streams running down to the river that coursed along the floor of the long valley below. The Manetherendrelle, it was called once it had traveled out of the mountains and much farther west and south, but Perrin had grown up calling the length of it that ran along the south edge of the Two Rivers the White River, an uncrossable stretch of rapids that churned its waters to froth. The Manetherendrelle. Waters of the Mountain Home.
Where bare rock showed in the valley below or on the surrounding slopes, it glittered like glass. Once a city had stood there, covering valley and mountains. Manetheren, city of soaring spires and splashing fountains, capital of a great nation of the same name, perhaps the most beautiful city in the world, according to old Ogier tales. Gone now without a trace, except for the all-but-indestructible Waygate that had stood in the Ogier grove. Burned to barren rock more than two thousand years ago, while the Trolloc Wars still raged, destroyed by the One Power after the death of its last king, Aemon al'Caar al'Thorin, in his last bloody battle against the Shadow. Aemon's Field, men had named that place, where the village called Emond's Field now stood.
Perrin shivered. That was long ago. Trollocs had come once since, on Winternight more than a year gone, the night before he and Rand and Mat were forced to flee in the darkness with Moiraine. That seemed long ago, too, now. It could not happen again, with the Waygate locked. It's Whitecloaks I have to worry about, not Trollocs.
A pair of white-winged hawks wheeled above the far end of the valley. Perrin's eyes barely caught the streak of a rising arrow. One of the hawks cartwheeled and fell, and Perrin frowned. Why would anyone shoot a hawk up here in the mountains? Over a farm, if it was after the chickens or the geese, but up here? Why would anyone even be up here? Two Rivers people avoided the mountains.
The second hawk swooped on snowy wings toward where its mate had fallen, but suddenly it was climbing desperately. A black cloud of ravens burst from the trees, surrounding it in wild melee, and when they settled again, the hawk was gone.
Perrin made himself breathe. He had seen ravens, and other birds, attack a hawk that came too close to their nests before, but he could not make himself believe it that simple this time. The birds had burst up from about where the arrow had risen. Ravens. The Shadow used animals as spies, sometimes. Rats and others that fed on death, usually. Ravens, especially. He had sharp memories of running from sweeping lines of ravens that had hunted him as though they had intelligence.
"What are you staring at?" Faile asked, shading her eyes to peer down the valley. "Were those birds?"
"Just birds," he said. Maybe they were. I can't frighten everybody until I'm sure. Not while they're still shaky from Machin Shin.
He was still holding his bloody hammer, he realized, slick with black Myrddraal blood. His fingers found drying blood on his cheek, matting in his short beard. When he climbed down, his side and his leg burned. He found a shirt in his saddlebags to clean the hammer before the Fade's blood etched the metal. In a moment he would find out if there was anything to fear in these mountains. If it was more than men, the wolves would know.
Faile began unbuttoning his coat.
"What are you doing?" he demanded.
"Tending your wounds," she snapped back. "I'll not have you bleeding to death on me. That would be just like you, to die and leave me the work of burying you. You have no consideration. Hold still."
"Thank you," he said quietly, and she looked surprised.
She made him strip off everything but his smallclothes, so she could wash his wounds, rub them with ointment fetched from her saddlebags. He could not see the cut on his face, of course, but it seemed small and shallow, if uncomfortably close to his eye. The slash across his left side was over a hand long, though, straight along a rib, and the hole a spear had made in his right thigh was deep. Faile had to put stitches in that, with needle and thread from her sewing kit. He took it stoically; she was the one who winced at every stitch. She muttered angrily under her breath the whole time she worked, especially while rubbing her dark stinging cream into his cheek, looking almost as if the hurts were hers, and his fault, yet she tied bandages around his ribs and his thigh with a gentle hand. It made a startling contrast, her soft touch and her furious grumbles. Purely confusing.
While he donned a clean shirt and a spare pair of breeches from his saddlebags, Faile stood fingering the slice in the side of his coat. Two inches to the right, and he would not have left that Island. Stamping his feet in his boots, he reached for his coat - and she flung it at him.
"You needn't think I will sew that up for you. I've done all the sewing for you I mean to! Do you hear me, Perrin Aybara?"
"I didn't ask "
"You needn't think it! That's all!" She stalked away to help the Aiel tend each other and Loial. That was an odd group, the Ogier with his baggy breeches off, Gaul and Chiad eyeing each other like strange cats, Faile spreading her ointment and wrapping bandages and all the while shooting accusing glares at him. What was he supposed to have done now?
Perrin shook his head. Gaul was right, he decided; as well try to understand the sun.
Even knowing what he had to do now, he was reluctant, especially after what had happened in the Ways, with the Fade. Once he had seen a man who had forgotten he was human. The same could happen to him. Fool. You only have to hold out a few more days. Just till you find the Whitecloaks. And he had to know. Those ravens.
He sent his mind questing across the valley for the wolves. There were always wolves where men were not, and if they were close, he could talk with them. Wolves avoided men, ignored them as much as possible, but they hated Trollocs for unnatural things, and despised Myrddraal with a hatred too deep to hold. If Shadowspawn were in the Mountains of Mist, the wolves could tell him.
But he found no wolves. None. They should have been there, in this wilderness. He could see deer browsing down in the valley. Perhaps it was just that no wolves were close enough. They could talk over some distance, but even a mile was too far. Maybe it was less in mountains. That could be it.
His gaze swept across the cloud-capped peaks and settled on the valley's far end, where the ravens had come from. Maybe he would find wolves tomorrow. He did not want to think of the alternatives.
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