Lord of Chaos

"Did the soap get out to the camps?" he muttered.

Edorion heard despite the uproar. "It did. Most trade it back to the peddlers for cheap wine. They don’t want soap; they want to cross the river, or else drown their miseries."

Mat grunted sourly. Passage to Aringill was one thing he could not give them.

Until civil war and worse tore Cairhien apart, Maerone had been a transit point for trade between Cairhien and Tear, which meant it had almost as many i

The River Gate, all the way across town, had been Maerone’s best i

At The Fox and Goose a gleeman was juggling flaming batons, a stout man in his middle years, while another, a ski

A handful of others dotted the members of the Band. Here a lean, fork-bearded Kandori with a moonstone the size of his thumbnail in one earlobe and silver chains across the chest of his red coat, there a copper-ski

As he and Edorion stepped out of The Wagoner’s Whip, Mat stopped to watch a blocky woman in divided brown skirts wend her way through the crowds. Unblinking eyes that caught everything in the street belied the apparent placidity of her round face, and so did the studded cudgel at her belt, and a dagger heavy-bladed enough to do for an Aielman. So, a third woman in the lot. Hunters for the Horn was what they were, the legendary Horn of Valere that would call dead heroes back from the grave to fight in the Last Battle. Whoever found it would earn a place in the histories. If there’s anyone left to write a bloody history, Mat thought wryly.

Some believed the Horn would turn up where there was turmoil and strife. Four hundred years since the Hunt of the Horn was last called, and this time people had all but dropped out of the trees to take the oaths. He had seen flocks of Hunters in the streets of Cairhien, and he expected to see more flocks when he reached Tear. Without doubt they would be streaming toward Caemlyn now as well. He wished one of them had found the thing. To the best of his knowledge the Horn of bloody Valere lay somewhere deep in the White Tower, and if he knew anything about Aes Sedai he would be surprised if a dozen of them were aware of it.

A troop of foot behind a mounted officer in a dented breastplate and a Cairhienin helmet marched between him and the blocky woman, close to two hundred pikemen, weapons a tall forest of spikes, followed by fifty or more archers with quivers on hips and bows slung on shoulders. Not the Two Rivers longbow Mat had grown up with, but a fair enough weapon. He had to find enough crossbows to go around, though the archers would not willingly make the change. They sang as they marched, the massed voices enough to punch through the rest of the noise.

"You’ll feed on beans and on rotten hay, and a horse’s hoof come your naming day. You’ll sweat and bleed till you grow old, and your only gold will be dreams of gold, if you go to be a soldier. If you go to be a soldier."

A fat knot of civilians trailed along behind, townsmen and refugees mingled, young men all, watching curiously and listening. It never ceased to amaze Mat. The worse the song made soldiering seem – this was far from the worst – the larger the crowd. Sure as water was wet, some of those men would be talking to a ba

"Your girl will marry another man. A muddy grave will be all your land. Food for the worms and none to mourn. You’ll curse the day you were ever born, if you go to be a soldier. If you go to be a soldier."

"There’s a good deal of wondering," Edorion said casually as the formation swung on down the street with its trail of idiots, "about when we’ll be heading south. There are rumors." He peered at Mat from the corner of his eye, measuring his mood. "I noticed the farriers checking the teams for the supply wagons."

"We’ll move when we move," Mat told him. "No need to let Sammael know we’re coming."

Edorion gave him a level look. This Tairen was no dunce. Not that Nalesean was – he was just overeager sometimes – but Edorion had a sharp mind. Nalesean would never have noticed the farriers. Too bad that House Aldiaya outranked House Selorna, or Mat would have had Edorion in Nalesean’s place. Fool nobles and their fool fixation on rank. No, Edorion was no blockhead; he knew that as soon as the Band moved south word would speed ahead with the river traffic, and maybe by pigeon as well. Mat would not have placed a bet against spies in Maerone if he had felt his luck strong enough to pound his skull apart.