The Great Hunt

  “How can that be?” Nynaeve said. “I thought the Seanchan put leashes on any woman who can channel.”

  “All of those they find,” Egwene told her. “But those they can find are like you, and me, and Elayne. We were born with it, ready to channel whether anyone taught us or not. But what about Seanchan girls who aren’t born with the ability, but who could be taught? Not just any woman can become a—a Leash Holder. Renna thought she was being friendly telling me about it. It is apparently a feastday in Seanchan villages when the sul’dam come to test the girls. They want to find any like you and me, and leash them, but they let all the others put on a bracelet to see if they can feel what the poor woman in the collar feels. Those who can are taken away to be trained as sul’dam. They are the women who could be taught.”

  Seta was moaning under her breath. “No. No. No.” Over and over again.

  “I know she is horrible,” Elayne said, “but I feel as if I should help her somehow. She could be one of our sisters, only the Seanchan have twisted it all.”

  Nynaeve opened her mouth to say they had better worry about helping themselves, and the door opened.

  “What is going on here?” Renna demanded, stepping into the room. “An audience?” She stared at Nynaeve, hands on hips. “I never gave permission for anyone else to link with my pet, Tuli. I do not even know who you—” Her eyes fell on Egwene—Egwene wearing Nynaeve’s dress instead of damane gray. Egwene with no collar around her throat—and her eyes grew as big as saucers. She never had a chance to yell.

  Before anyone else could move, Egwene snatched the pitcher from her washstand and smashed it into Renna’s midriff. The pitcher shattered, and the sul’dam lost all her breath in a gurgling gasp and doubled over. As she fell, Egwene leaped on her with a snarl, shoving her flat, grabbing for the collar she had worn where it still lay on the floor, snapping it around the other woman’s neck. With one jerk on the silver leash, Egwene pulled the bracelet from the peg and fitted it to her own wrist. Her lips were pulled back from her teeth, her eyes fixed on Renna’s face with a terrible concentration. Kneeling on the sul’dam’s shoulders, she pressed both hands over the woman’s mouth. Renna gave a tremendous convulsion, and her eyes bulged in her face; hoarse sounds came from her throat, screams held back by Egwene’s hands; her heels drummed on the floor.

  “Stop it, Egwene!” Nynaeve grabbed Egwene’s shoulders, pulling her off of the other woman. “Egwene, stop it! That isn’t what you want!” Renna lay gray-faced and panting, staring wildly at the ceiling.

  Suddenly Egwene threw herself against Nynaeve, sobbing raggedly at her breast. “She hurt me, Nynaeve. She hurt me. They all did. They hurt me, and hurt me, until I did what they wanted. I hate them. I hate them for hurting me, and I hate them because I couldn’t stop them from making me do what they wanted.”

  “I know,” Nynaeve said gently. She smoothed Egwene’s hair. “It is all right to hate them, Egwene. It is. They deserve it. But it isn’t all right to let them make you like they are.”

  Seta’s hands were pressed to her face. Renna touched the collar at her throat disbelievingly, with a shaking hand.

  Egwene straightened, brushing her tears away quickly. “I’m not. I am not like them.” She almost clawed the bracelet off of her wrist and threw it down. “I’m not. But I wish I could kill them.”

  “They deserve it.” Min was staring grimly at the two sul’dam.

  “Rand would kill someone who did a thing like that,” Elayne said. She seemed to be steeling herself. “I am sure he would.”

  “Perhaps they do,” Nynaeve said, “and perhaps he would. But men often mistake revenge and killing for justice. They seldom have the stomach for justice.” She had often sat in judgment with the Women’s Circle. Sometimes men came before them, thinking women might give them a better hearing than the men of the Village Council, but men always thought they could sway the decision with eloquence, or pleas for mercy. The Women’s Circle gave mercy where it was deserved, but justice always, and it was the Wisdom who pronounced it. She picked up the bracelet Egwene had discarded and closed it. “I would free every woman here, if I could, and destroy every last one of these. But since I cannot. . . .” She slipped the bracelet over the same peg that held the other one, then addressed herself to the sul’dam. Not Leash Holders any longer, she told herself. “Perhaps, if you are very quiet, you will be left alone here long enough to manage to remove the collars. The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, and it may be that you’ve done enough good to counterbalance the evil you have done, enough that you will be allowed to remove them. If not, you will be found, eventually. And I think whoever finds you will ask a great many questions before they remove those collars. I think perhaps you will learn at first hand the life you have given to other women. That is justice,” she added, to the others.

  Renna wore a fixed stare of horror. Seta’s shoulders shook as she sobbed into her hands. Nynaeve hardened her heart—It is justice, she told herself. It is—and herded the others out of the room.

  No one paid any more attention to them going out than they had coming in. Nynaeve supposed she had the sul’dam dress to thank for that, but she could not wait to change into something else. Anything else. The dirtiest rag would feel cleaner on her skin.

  The girls were silent, walking close behind her, until they were out on the cobblestone street again. She did not know if it was what she had done or the fear that someone might stop them. She scowled. Would they have felt better if she had let them work themselves up to cutting the women’s throats?

  “Horses,” Egwene said. “We will need horses. I know the stable where they took Bela, but I don’t think we can get to her.”

  “We have to leave Bela here,” Nynaeve told her. “We are leaving by ship.”

  “Where is everybody?” Min said, and suddenly Nynaeve realized the street was empty.

  The crowds were gone, not a sign of them to be seen; every shop and window along the street were shuttered tight. But up the street from the harbor came a formation of Seanchan soldiers, a hundred or more in ordered ranks, with an officer at their head in his painted armor. They were still halfway down the street from the women, but they marched with a grim, implacable step, and it seemed to Nynaeve that every eye was fixed on her. That’s ridiculous. I can’t see their eyes inside those helmets, and if anybody had given an alarm, it would be behind us. She stopped anyway.

  “There are more behind us,” Min murmured. Nynaeve could hear those boots, now. “I don’t know which will reach us first.”

  Nynaeve took a deep breath. “They are nothing to do with us.” She looked beyond the approaching soldiers, to the harbor, filled with tall, boxy Seanchan ships. She could not make out Spray; she prayed it was still there, and ready. “We will walk right past them.” Light, I hope we can.

  “What if they want you to join them, Nynaeve?” Elayne asked. “You are wearing that dress. If they start asking questions. . . .”

  “I will not go back,” Egwene said grimly. “I’ll die first. Let me show them what they’ve taught me.” To Nynaeve’s eye, a golden nimbus suddenly seemed to surround her.

  “No!” she said, but it was too late.

  With a roar like thunder, the street under the first ranks of Seanchan erupted, dirt and cobblestones and armored men thrown aside like spray from a fountain. Still glowing, Egwene spun to stare up the street, and the thunderous roar was repeated. Dirt rained down on the women. Shouting Seanchan soldiers scattered in good order to shelter in alleys and behind stoops. In moments they were all out of sight, except for those who lay around the two large holes marring the street. Some of those stirred feebly, and moans drifted along the street.

  Nynaeve threw up her hands, trying to look in both directions at once. “You fool! We are trying not to attract attention!” There was no hope of that now. She only hoped they could manage to work their way around the soldiers to the harbor through the alleys. The damane must know, too, now. They could not have missed that. br />
  “I won’t go back to that collar,” Egwene said fiercely. “I won’t!”

  “Look out!” Min shouted.

  With a shrill whine, a fireball as big as a horse arched into the air over the rooftops and began to fall. Directly toward them.

  “Run!” Nynaeve shouted, and threw herself into a dive toward the nearest alleyway, between two shuttered shops.

  She landed awkwardly on her stomach with a grunt, losing half her breath, as the fireball struck. Hot wind washed over her down the narrow passage. Gulping air, she rolled onto her back and stared back into the street.

  The cobblestones where they had been standing were chipped and cracked and blackened in a circle ten paces across. Elayne was crouched just inside another alley on the other side of the street. Of Min and Egwene, there was no sign. Nynaeve clapped a hand to her mouth in horror.

  Elayne seemed to understand what she was thinking. The Daughter-Heir shook her head violently and pointed down the street. They had gone that way.

  Nynaeve heaved a sigh of relief that immediately turned to a growl. Fool girl! We could have gotten by them! There was no time for recriminations, though. She scooted to the corner and peered cautiously around the edge of the building.

  A head-sized fireball flashed down the street toward her. She leaped back just before it exploded against the corner where her own head had been, showering her with stone chips.

  Anger had her awash in the One Power before she was aware of it. Lightning flashed out of the sky, striking somewhere up the street with a crash near the origin of the fireball. Another jagged bolt split the sky, and then she was running down the alley. Behind her, lightning lanced the mouth of the alley.

  If Domon doesn’t have that ship waiting, I’ll. . . . Light, let us all reach it safely.

  Bayle Domon jerked erect as lightning streaked across the slate-gray sky, striking somewhere in the town, then again. There do no be enough clouds for that!

  Something rumbled loudly up in the town, and a ball of fire smashed into a rooftop just above the docks, throwing splintered slates in wide arcs. The docks had emptied themselves of people a while back, except for a few Seanchan; they ran wildly, now, drawing swords and shouting. A man appeared from one of the warehouses with a grolm at his side, running to keep up with the beast’s long leaps as they vanished into one of the streets leading up from the water.

  One of Domon’s crewmen jumped for an axe and swung it high over a mooring cable.

  In two strides, Domon seized the upraised axe with one hand and the man’s throat with the other. “Spray do stay till I do say sail, Aedwin Cole!”

  “They’re going mad, Captain!” Yarin shouted. An explosion sent echoes rumbling across the harbor, sending the gulls into screaming circles, and lightning flickered again, crashing to earth inside Falme. “The damane will kill us all! Let us go while they’re busy killing one another. They will never notice us till we are gone!”

  “I did give my word,” Domon said. He wrenched the axe from Cole’s hand and threw it clattering onto the deck. “I did give my word.” Hurry, woman, he thought, Aes Sedai or whatever you be. Hurry!

  Geofram Bornhald eyed the lightning flashing over Falme and dismissed it from his mind. Some huge flying creature—one of the Seanchan monsters, no doubt—flew wildly to escape the bolts. If there was a storm, it would hinder the Seanchan as much as it did him. Nearly treeless hills, a few topped by sparse thickets, still hid the town from him, and him from it.

  His thousand men lay spread out to either side of him, one long, mounted rank rippling along the hollows between hills. The cold wind tossed their white cloaks and flapped the banner at Bornhald’s side, the wavy-rayed golden sun of the Children of the Light.

  “Go now, Byar,” he commanded. The gaunt-faced man hesitated, and Bornhald put a snap into his voice. “I said, go, Child Byar!”

  Byar touched hand to heart and bowed. “As you command, my Lord Captain.” He turned his horse away, every line of him shouting reluctance.

  Bornhald put Byar out of his mind. He had done what he could, there. He raised his voice. “The legion will advance at a walk!”

  With a creak of saddles the long line of white-cloaked men moved slowly toward Falme.

  Rand peered around the corner at the approaching Seanchan, then ducked back into the narrow alley between two stables with a grimace. They would be there soon. There was blood crusted on his cheek. The cuts he had from Turak burned, but there was nothing to be done for them now. Lightning flashed across the sky again; he felt the rumble of its plummet through his boots. What in the name of the Light is happening?

  “Close?” Ingtar said. “The Horn of Valere must be saved, Rand.” Despite the Seanchan, despite the lightning and strange explosions down in the town proper, he seemed preoccupied with his own thoughts. Mat and Perrin and Hurin were down at the other end of the alley, watching another Seanchan patrol. The place where they had left the horses was close, now, if they could only reach it.

  “She’s in trouble,” Rand muttered. Egwene. There was an odd feeling in his head, as if pieces of his life were in danger. Egwene was one piece, one thread of the cord that made his life, but there were others, and he could feel them threatened. Down there, in Falme. And if any of those threads was destroyed, his life would never be complete, the way it was meant to be. He did not understand it, but the feeling was sure and certain.

  “One man could hold fifty here,” Ingtar said. The two stables stood close together, with barely room for the pair of them to stand side by side between them. “One man holding fifty at a narrow passage. Not a bad way to die. Songs have been made about less.”

  “There’s no need for that,” Rand said. “I hope.” A rooftop in the town exploded. How am I going to get back in here? I have to reach her. Reach them? Shaking his head, he peeked around the corner again. The Seanchan were closer, still coming.

  “I never knew what he was going to do,” Ingtar said softly, as if talking to himself. He had his sword out, testing the edge with his thumb. “A pale little man you didn’t seem to really notice even when you were looking at him. Take him inside Fal Dara, I was told, inside the fortress. I did not want to, but I had to do it. You understand? I had to. I never knew what he intended until he shot that arrow. I still don’t know if it was meant for the Amyrlin, or for you.”

  Rand felt a chill. He stared at Ingtar. “What are you saying?” he whispered.

  Studying his blade, Ingtar did not seem to hear. “Humankind is being swept away everywhere. Nations fail and vanish. Darkfriends are everywhere, and none of these southlanders seem to notice or care. We fight to hold the Borderlands, to keep them safe in their houses, and every year, despite all we can do, the Blight advances. And these southlanders think Trollocs are myths, and Myrddraal a gleeman’s tale.” He frowned and shook his head. “It seemed the only way. We would be destroyed for nothing, defending people who do not even know, or care. It seemed logical. Why should we be destroyed for them, when we could make our own peace? Better the Shadow, I thought, than useless oblivion, like Caralain, or Hardan, or. . . . It seemed so logical, then.”

  Rand grabbed Ingtar’s lapels. “You aren’t making any sense.” He can’t mean what he’s saying. He can’t. “Say it plain, whatever you mean. You are talking crazy!”

  For the first time Ingtar looked at Rand. His eyes shone with unshed tears. “You are a better man than I. Shepherd or lord, a better man. The prophecy says, ‘Let who sounds me think not of glory, but only salvation.’ It was my salvation I was thinking of. I would sound the Horn, and lead the heroes of the Ages against Shayol Ghul. Surely that would have been enough to save me. No man can walk so long in the Shadow that he cannot come again to the Light. That is what they say. Surely that would have been enough to wash away what I have been, and done.”

  “Oh, Light, Ingtar.” Rand released his hold on the other man and sagged back against the stable wall. “I think. . . . I think wanting to is enough. I think all y
ou have to do is stop being . . . one of them.” Ingtar flinched as if Rand had said it out loud. Darkfriend.

  “Rand, when Verin brought us here with the Portal Stone, I—I lived other lives. Sometimes I held the Horn, but I never sounded it. I tried to escape what I’d become, but I never did. Always there was something else required of me, always something worse than the last, until I was. . . . You were ready to give it up to save a friend. Think not of glory. Oh, Light, help me.”

  Rand did not know what to say. It was as if Egwene had told him she had murdered children. Too horrible to be believed. Too horrible for anyone to admit to unless it was true. Too horrible.

  After a time, Ingtar spoke again, firmly. “There has to be a price, Rand. There is always a price. Perhaps I can pay it here.”

  “Ingtar, I—”

  “It is every man’s right, Rand, to choose when to Sheathe the Sword. Even one like me.”

  Before Rand could say anything, Hurin came running down the alley. “The patrol turned aside,” he said hurriedly, “down into the town. They seem to be gathering down there. Mat and Perrin went on.” He took a quick look down the street and pulled back. “We’d better do the same, Lord Ingtar, Lord Rand. Those bug-headed Seanchan are almost here.”

  “Go, Rand,” Ingtar said. He turned to face the street and did not look at Rand or Hurin again. “Take the Horn where it belongs. I always knew the Amyrlin should have given you the charge. But all I ever wanted was to keep Shienar whole, to keep us from being swept away and forgotten.”

  “I know, Ingtar.” Rand drew a deep breath. “The Light shine on you, Lord Ingtar of House Shinowa, and may you shelter in the palm of the Creator’s hand.” He touched Ingtar’s shoulder. “The last embrace of the mother welcome you home.” Hurin gasped.

  “Thank you,” Ingtar said softly. A tension seemed to go out of him. For the first time since the night of the Trolloc raid on Fal Dara, he stood as he had when Rand first saw him, confident and relaxed. Content.