Robert Jordan - The Gathering Storm

Mat and the others burst out into the backyard of the inn, only to find Delarn on the ground beside Pips. Harnan knelt beside him, and the bearded soldier looked up with anxiety. "Mat!" he said. "He fell from the saddle. I—"

Edesina cut him off, rushing over and kneeling beside Delarn. She closed her eyes, and Mat felt a chill from his medallion. It made him shiver as he imagined the One Power leaking out of her and into the man. That was almost as bad as dying, bloody ashes but it was! He gripped the medallion beneath his shirt.

Delarn stiffened, but then gasped, eyes fluttering open.

"It is done," Edesina said, standing up. "He will be weak from the Healing, but I reached him in time."

Harnan had gathered and saddled all of their horses, Light bless him. Good man. The women mounted, and spared several glances over their shoulders at the inn.

"It's as if the darkness itself intoxicates them," Thorn said while Mat helped Delarn into his saddle. "As if Light itself has forsaken them, leaving them only to the Shadow. ..."

"Nothing we can do," Mat said, pulling himself into his saddle behind Delarn. The soldier was too weak to ride on his own, after that Healing. Mat eyed the serving girls that the Warders had slung over the fronts of their horses. They struggled against their bonds, hate in their eyes. He turned and nodded to Talmanes, who had affixed the lantern to a saddle pole. The Cairhienin opened the shield, bathing the inn's stableyard in light. A path led northward, out of the yard into the dark. Away from the army, but also directly out of the village, toward the hills. That was good enough for Mat.

"Ride," he said, kicking Pips into motion. The group fell in beside him.

"I told you we should leave," Talmanes noted, looking over his shoulder, riding at Mat's left. "But you had to stay for one more toss."

Mat didn't look back. "Not my fault, Talmanes. How was I to know that staying would cause them all to start tearing each other's throats out?"

"What?" Talmanes asked, glancing at him. "Isn't this usually how people react when you tell them you're going to spend the night?" Mat rolled his eyes, but didn't feel much like laughing as he led the group out of the village.

Hours later, Mat sat on a rock outcropping on a dark hillside, looking down at Hinderstap. The village was dark. Not a light burned. It was impossible to tell what was going on, but still he watched. How could a man sleep, after what they'd been through?

Well, the soldiers did sleep. He didn't blame Delarn. An Aes Sedai Healing could drain a man. Mat had felt that icy chill himself on occasion, and he didn't intend to repeat the experience. Talmanes and Harnan hadn't the excuse of a Healing, but they were soldiers. Soldiers learned to sleep when they could, and the night's experience didn't seem to have disturbed them nearly as much as it had Mat. Oh, they'd been worried while in the thick of it, but now it was just another battle passed. Another battle survived. That had led stout Harnan to joking and smiling as they bedded down.

Not Mat. There was an odd wrongness about the entire experience. Was the curfew intended to keep this from happening, somehow? Had Mat, by staying, caused all of these deaths? Blood and bloody ashes. Did no place in the world make sense anymore?

"Mat, lad," Thorn said, joining him, walking with his familiar limp. He'd had a fractured arm, though he'd hadn't mentioned it until Edesina had noticed him flinching and insisted on Healing him. "You should sleep." Now that the moon had risen—hidden behind the clouds—there was enough light for Mat to see Thorn's concern.

The group had stopped in a small hollow off one side of the trail. It gave a good view back toward the village, and—more importantly—it overlooked the path that Mat and the others had used to escape. The hollow lay on a steep hillside, the only approach from below. One person on watch could keep a good eye out for anyone trying to sneak into the camp.

The Aes Sedai had bedded down near the back of the hollow, though Mat didn't think they were actually sleeping. Joline's Warders had thought to bring bedrolls, just in case. Warders were like that. Mat's men only had their cloaks, but that hadn't deterred them from sleeping. Talmanes was even snoring softly, despite the spring chill. Mat had forbidden a fire. It wasn't so cold that they needed one, and it would just signal anyone looking for them.

"I'm fine, Thorn," Mat said, making room on his rock as the gleeman settled down. "You're the one who should get some sleep."

Thorn shook his head. "One nice thing I've noticed about getting older is that your body doesn't seem to need its sleep as much anymore. Dying doesn't take as much energy as growing, I guess."

"Don't start that again," Mat said. "Do I need to remind you about how you hauled my skinny backside out of trouble back there? What was that you were worried about earlier? That I didn't need you anymore? If you hadn't been with me today, if you hadn't come looking for me, I'd be dead in that village. Delarn too."

Thom grinned, eyes bright in the moonlight. "All right, Mat," he said. "No more. I promise."

Mat nodded. The two of them sat for a time on their rock, looking out at the city. "It's not going to leave me alone, Thom," Mat finally said.

"What?"

"All of this," Mat said tiredly. "The bloody Dark One and his spawn. They've been chasing me since that night in the Two Rivers, and nothing has stopped them."

"You think this was him?"

"What else could it have been?" Mat asked. "Quiet village folk, turning into violent madmen? It's the Dark One's own work, and you know it."

Thom was silent. "Yes," he finally said. "I suppose it is at that."

"They're still coming for me," Mat said angrily. "That bloody gholam is out there, I know it is, but that's just part of it. Myrddraal and Dark-friends, monsters and ghosts. Chasing me and hunting me. I've stumbled from one disaster to another, barely keeping my neck above water, ever since this began. I keep saying I just need to find a hole somewhere to dice and drink, but that won't stop it. Nothing will."

"You're ta'veren, lad," Thom said.

"I didn't ask to be. Burn me, I wish they'd all just go bother Rand. He likes it." He shook his head, dispelling the image that formed, showing Rand asleep in his bed, Min curled up beside him.

"You really think that?" Thom asked.

Mat hesitated. "I wish I did," he admitted. "It would make things easier."

"Lies never make things easier in the long run. Unless they're to exactly the right person—usually a woman—at exactly the right time. When you tell them to yourself, you just bring more trouble."

"I brought those people trouble. In the village." He glanced toward the back of the camp, where the two Warders sat, guarding the still-bound serving girls. They continued to struggle. Light! Where did they get the strength? It was inhuman.

"I don't think this was you, Mat," Thom said thoughtfully. "Oh, I don't disagree that trouble hunts you—the Dark One himself seems to do so. But Hinderstap . . . well, when I was singing in that common room, I heard some tidbits. They seemed like nothing. But looking back, it strikes me that the people were expecting this. Or something like it."

"How could they have been?" Mat said. "If this had happened before, they'd all be dead."

"Don't know," Thom said thoughtfully. Then something seemed to strike him. He began fishing inside his cloak. "Oh, I forgot. Maybe there is some connection between you and what happened. I managed to take this away from a man who was too drunk for his own good." The glee-man pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to Mat.

Mat took the paper, frowning, and unfolded it. He squinted in the diffuse moonlight, leaning close, and grunted when he made out what the paper contained—not words, but a very accurate drawing of Mat's face, hat atop his head. It even had the foxhead medallion drawn in around his neck. Bloody ashes.

He contained his annoyance. "Handsome fellow. Good nose, straight teeth, dashing hat."

Thom snorted.

"I saw some men showing a paper to the mayor," Mat said, refolding the drawing. "I didn't see what was on it, but I'll bet it was the same as this. What did the man you took this from say about it?"

"An outlander woman in some village north of here is giving them out and offering a reward to anyone who has seen you. The man got the paper from a friend, so he didn't have a description of her or the town's name. Either his friend kept him ignorant, wanting the reward for himself, or he was just too drunk to remember."

Mat tucked the paper into his coat pocket. The light of false dawn was beginning to glow to the east. He'd sat up all night, but he didn't feel tired. Just . . . drained. "I'm going back," he said.

"What?" Thom asked, surprised. "To Hinderstap?"

Mat nodded, rising. "As soon as it's light. I need to—"

A muffled curse interrupted him. He spun, reaching for his asban-darei. Thom had a pair of knives in his hands in the blink of an eye. Fen,

Joline's Saldaean Warder, was the one who had cursed. He stood, hand on his sword, searching the ground around him. Blaeric stood by the Aes Sedai, sword out, alert and on guard.

"What?" Mat asked tersely.

"The prisoners," Fen said.

Mat started, realizing that the lumps that had lain near the Warders were gone. He dashed over, cursing. Talmanes' snores stopped as the sounds woke him and he sat up. The bonds made from strips of Joline's dress lay on the ground, but the serving girls were gone.

"What happened?" Mat asked, looking up.

"I ..." The dark-haired Warder looked dumbfounded. "I have no idea. They were here just a moment ago!"

"Did you doze off?" Mat demanded.

"Fen wouldn't have done such a thing," Joline said, sitting up in her bedroll, her voice calm. She still wore only that dressing robe.

"Lad," Thom said, "we both saw those girls here barely a minute ago."

Talmanes cursed and woke the two Redarms. Delarn was looking a great deal better, his weakness from the Healing barely seeming to bother him as he climbed to his feet. The Warders called for a search, but Mat just turned back to the village below. "The answers are there," Mat said. "Thom, you're with me. Talmanes, watch the women."

"We have little need of being 'watched,' Matrim," Joline said grumpily.

"Fine," he snapped. "Thom, you're with me. Joline, you watch the soldiers. Either way, you all stay here. I can't worry about a whole group right now."

He didn't give them a chance to argue. Within minutes, Mat and Thom were on their horses, riding down the path back toward Hinder-stap.

"Lad," Thom said, "what is it you expect to find?"

"I don't know," Mat replied. "If I did, I wouldn't be so keen to look."

"Fair enough," Thom said softly.

Mat spotted the oddities almost immediately. Those goats out on the western pasture. He couldn't tell for certain in the dawn light, but it looked like someone was herding them. And were those lights winking on in the village? There hadn't been a single one of those all night long! He hastened Pips' pace, Thom following silently.

It took the better part of an hour to arrive—Mat hadn't wanted to risk camping too close, though he'd also been disinclined to hunt a way around and back to the army in the dark. It was fully light, if still very early, by the time they rode back into the inn's yard. A couple of men in dun coats were working on the back door, which had apparently been broken off its hinges sometime after Mat and the others left. The men looked up as Mat and Thorn rode into the yard, and one of them pulled off his cap, looking anxious. Neither one made a threatening move.