The Shadow Rising

There was a way to see for himself, perhaps. He had avoided the wolf dream since his last visit; the desire to hunt down this Slayer rose up whenever he thought of going back, and his responsibilities lay here in Emond's Field. But now, perhaps... Sleep rolled in while he was still considering.

He stood on the Green bathed by an afternoon sun low in the sky, a few white clouds drifting. There were no sheep or cattle around the tall pole where a breeze ruffled the red wolfhead ba

As he sca

Perrin shivered. These wolf-dream visions never seemed to have any real co

He was not surprised to find he wore a blacksmith's long leather vest and no shirt, but when he put a hand to his belt, he found the hammer, not his axe. Frowning, he concentrated on the long half-moon blade and thick spike. That was what he needed now. That was what he was now. The hammer changed slowly, as if resisting, but when the axe finally hung in the thick loop, it kept shining dangerously. Why did it fight him so? He knew what he wanted. A filled quiver appeared on his other hip, a longbow in his hand, a leather bracer on his left forearm.

Three land-blurring strides took him where the nearest Trolloc camps supposedly lay, three miles from the village. The last step landed him among nearly a dozen tall heaps of wood laid on old ashes amid trampled-down barley, the logs mixed with broken chairs and table legs and even a farmhouse door. Great black iron cauldrons stood ready to be hung over the laid cook fires. Empty cauldrons, of course, though he knew what would be cut up into them, what would be spitted on the thick iron rods stretched over some of the fires. How many Trollocs would these fires serve? There were no tents, and the blankets scattered about, filthy and stinking of old acrid Trolloc sweat, were no real guide; many Trollocs slept like animals, uncovered on the ground, even hollowing out a hole to lie in.

In smaller steps that covered no more than a hundred paces each, the land seeming only to haze, he circled Emond's Field, from farm to farm, pasture to barley field to rows of tabac, through scattered copses of trees, along cart tracks and footpaths, finding more and more clusters of waiting Trolloc fires as he slowly spiraled outward. Too many. Hundreds of fires. That had to mean several thousand Trollocs. Five thousand or ten or twice that – it would make little difference to Emond's Field if they all came at once.

Farther south the signs of Trollocs vanished. Signs of their immediate presence, at least. Few farmhouses or barns stood unburned. Scattered fields of charred stubble remained where barley or tabac had been torched; others had great swathes trampled through the crops. No reason for it but the joy of destruction; the people had been long gone when most of it was done. Once he lighted in the midst of large patches of ash, some charred wagon wheels still showing hints of bright color here and there. The site of the Tuatha'an caravan's destruction pained him even more than the farmhouses. The Way of the Leaf should have a chance. Somewhere. Not here. Not letting himself look, he leaped south a mile or more.

Eventually he came to Deven Ride, rows of thatch-roofed houses surrounding a green and a pond fed by a spring walled 'round with stone, the spillover splashing from cuts long since worn deeper than they had been made. The i

In three circuits around the village Perrin found only half a dozen Trolloc camps. Enough to keep people in. Pen them until Emond's Field was dealt with. Then the Trollocs could fall on Deven Ride at the Fades' leisure. Perhaps he could find a way to get word to these villagers. If they fled south, they might find some way across the White River. Even trying to cross the trackless Forest of Shadows below the river was better than waiting to die...

The golden sun had not moved an inch. Time was different, here.

Ru

Here, too, he found only a few Trolloc camps, enough to pen the villagers. There was an easier way out from here than trying to cross the White, with its endless stretch of rapids.

On northward he ran, to Taren Ferry, on the bank of the Tarendrelle, which he had grown up calling the River Taren. Tall, narrow houses built on high stone foundations to escape the Taren's yearly flooding when the snows melted in the Mountains of Mist. Nearly half those foundations supported only piles of ash and charred beams in that unchanging afternoon light. There were no wagons here, no signs of any defense. And no Trolloc camps that he could find. Perhaps no people remained here.

At the water's edge stood a stout wooden dock, a heavy rope drooping as it arced across the swift-flowing river. The rope ran through iron rings on a flat-decked barge snugged against the dock. The ferry was still there, still usable.

A jump took him across the river, where wheel ruts scarred the bank and household objects lay about. Chairs and stand-mirrors, chests, even a few tables and a polished wardrobe with birds carved on the doors, all the things panicked people had tried to save, then abandoned to run faster. They would be spreading the word of what had happened here, what was happening in the Two Rivers. Some could have reached Baerlon by now, a hundred miles or more north, and surely the farms and villages between Baerlon and the river. Word spreading. In another month it might reach Caemlyn, and Queen Morgase with her Queen's Guards and her power to raise armies. A month with luck. And as much to return, once Morgase believed. Too late for Emond's Field. Maybe too late for the whole Two Rivers.

Still, it hardly made sense that the Trollocs had let anyone escape. Or the Myrddraal at any rate; Trollocs did not seem to think much beyond the moment. He would have thought destroying the ferry would have been the Fades' first task. How could they be sure there were not enough soldiers at Baerlon to come down on them?