“I. . . . I’m all right, Min.”
“You fought well, blacksmith,” Lan said. The Warder raised his still-bloody sword above his head. “Tai’shar Manetheren! Tai’shar Andor!” True Blood of Manetheren. True Blood of Andor.
The Shienarans still standing—so few—lifted their blades and joined him. “Tai’shar Manetheren! Tai’shar Andor!”
Loial nodded. “Ta’veren,” he added.
Perrin lowered his eyes in embarrassment. Lan had saved him from the questions he did not want to answer, but had given him an honor he did not deserve. The others did not understand. He wondered what they would say if they knew the truth. Min moved closer, and he muttered, “Leya’s dead. I couldn’t. . . . I almost reached her in time.”
“It wouldn’t have made any difference,” she said softly. “You know that.” She leaned to look at his back, and winced. “Moiraine will take care of that for you. She’s Healing those she can.”
Perrin nodded. His back felt sticky with drying blood all the way to his waist, but despite the pain he hardly noticed it. Light, I almost didn’t come back that time. I can’t let that happen again. I won’t. Never again!
But when he was with the wolves, it was all so different. He did not have to worry about strangers being afraid of him just because he was big, then. There was no one thinking he was slow-witted just because he tried to be careful. Wolves knew each other even if they had never met before, and with them he was just another wolf.
No! His hands tightened on the haft of his axe. No! He gave a start as Masema suddenly spoke up.
“It was a sign,” the Shienaran said, turning in a circle to address everyone. There was blood on his arms and his chest—he had fought in nothing but his breeches—and he moved with a limp, but the light in his eyes was as fervent as it had ever been. More fervent. “A sign to confirm our faith. Even wolves came to fight for the Dragon Reborn. In the Last Battle, the Lord Dragon will summon even the beasts of the forest to fight at our sides. It is a sign for us to go forth. Only Darkfriends will fail to join us.” Two of the Shienarans nodded.
“You shut your bloody mouth, Masema!” Uno snapped. He seemed untouched, but then Uno had been fighting Trollocs since before Perrin was born. Yet he sagged with weariness; only the painted eye on his eyepatch seemed fresh. “We’ll flaming go forth when the Lord Dragon bloody well tells us, and not before! You sheep-headed farmers flaming remember that!” The one-eyed man looked at the growing row of men being tended by Moiraine—few were able to as much as sit up, even after she was done with them—and shook his head. “At least we’ll have plenty of flaming wolf hides to keep the wounded warm.”
“No!” The Shienarans seemed surprised at the vehemence in Perrin’s voice. “They fought for us, and we’ll bury them with our dead.”
Uno frowned, and opened his mouth as if to argue, but Perrin fixed him with a steady, yellow-eyed stare. It was the Shienaran who dropped his gaze first, and nodded.
Perrin cleared his throat, embarrassed all over again as Uno gave orders for the Shienarans who were fit to gather the dead wolves. Min was squinting at him the way she did when she saw things. “Where’s Rand?” he asked her.
“Out there in the dark,” she said, nodding upslope without taking her eyes off him. “He will not talk to anyone. He just sits there, snapping at anyone who comes near him.”
“He will talk to me,” Perrin said. She followed him, protesting all the while that he ought to wait until Moiraine had seen to his injuries. Light, what does she see when she looks at me? I don’t want to know.
Rand was seated on the ground just beyond the light of the burning trees, with his back against the trunk of a stunted oak. Staring at nothing, he had his arms wrapped around himself, hands under his red coat, as if feeling the cold. He did not appear to notice their approach. Min sat down beside him, but he did not move even when she laid a hand on his arm. Even here Perrin smelled blood, and not only his own.
“Rand,” Perrin began, but Rand cut him off.
“Do you know what I did during the fight?” Still staring into the distance, Rand addressed the night. “Nothing! Nothing useful. At first, when I reached out for the True Source, I couldn’t touch it, couldn’t grasp it. It kept sliding away. Then, when I finally had hold of it, I was going to burn them all, burn all the Trollocs and Fades. And all I could do was set fire to some trees.” He shook with silent laughter, then stopped with a pained grimace. “Saidin filled me till I thought I’d explode like fireworks. I had to channel it somewhere, get rid of it before it burned me up, and I found myself thinking about pulling the mountain down and burying the Trollocs. I almost tried. That was my fight. Not against the Trollocs. Against myself. To keep from burying us all under the mountain.”
Min gave Perrin a pained look, as if asking for help.
“We . . . dealt with them, Rand,” Perrin said. He shivered, thinking of all the wounded men down below. And the dead. Better that than the mountain down on top of us. “We didn’t need you.”
Rand’s head fell back against the tree and his eyes closed. “I felt them coming,” he said, nearly whispering. “I didn’t know what it was, though. They feel like the taint on saidin. And saidin is always there, calling to me, singing to me. By the time I knew
the difference, Lan was already shouting his warning. If I could only control it, I could have given warning before they were even close. But half the time when I actually manage to touch saidin, I don’t know what I am doing at all. The flow of it just sweeps me along. I could have given warning, though.”
Perrin shifted his bruised feet uncomfortably. “We had warning enough.” He knew he sounded as if he were trying to convince himself. I could have given warning, too, if I’d talked with the wolves. They knew there were Trollocs and Fades in the mountains. They were trying to tell me. But he wondered: If he did not keep the wolves out of his mind, might he not be running with them now? There had been a man, Elyas Machera, who also could talk to wolves. Elyas ran with the wolves all the time, yet seemed able to remember he was a man. But he had never told Perrin how he did it, and Perrin had not seen him in a long time.
The crunch of boots on rock announced two people coming, and a swirl of air carried their scents to Perrin. He was careful not to speak names, though, until Lan and Moiraine were close enough for even ordinary eyes to make them out.
The Warder had a hand under the Aes Sedai’s arm, as if trying to support her without letting her know it. Moiraine’s eyes were haggard, and she carried a small, age-dark ivory carving of a woman in one hand. Perrin knew it for an angreal, a remnant from the Age of Legends that allowed an Aes Sedai to safely channel more of the Power than she could alone. It was a measure of her tiredness that she was using it for Healing.
Min got to her feet to help Moiraine, but the Aes Sedai motioned her away. “Everyone else is seen to,” she told Min. “When I am done here, I can rest.” She shook off Lan as well, and a look of concentration appeared on her face as she traced a cool hand across Perrin’s bleeding shoulder, then along the wound on his back. Her touch made his skin tingle. “This is not too bad,” she said. “The bruising of your shoulder goes deep, but the gashes are shallow. Brace yourself. This will not hurt, but. . . .”
He had never found it easy being near someone he knew was channeling the One Power, and still less if it actually involved him. Yet there had been one or two of those times, and he thought he had some idea what the channeling entailed, but those Healings had been minor, simply washing away tiredness when Moiraine could not afford to have him weary. They had been nothing like this.
The Aes Sedai’s eyes suddenly seemed to be seeing inside him, seeing through him. He gasped and almost dropped his axe. He could feel the skin on his back crawling, muscles writhing as they knit back together. His shoulder quivered uncontrollably, and everything blurred. Cold seared him to the bone, then deeper still. He had the impression of moving, falling, flying; he could not tell which, but he felt as if he were rushing—somewhere, somehow—at great speed, forever. After an eternity the world came into focus again. Moiraine was stepping back, half staggering until Lan caught her arm.
Gaping, Perrin looked down at his shoulder. The gashes and bruises were gone; not so much as a twinge remained. He twisted carefully, but the pain in his back had vanished as well. And his feet no longer hurt; he did not need to look to know all the bruises and scrapes were gone. His stomach rumbled loudly.