There was only one way to make sure that didn’t happen.
“So what do we do?” Noal asked.
“We’re going to hunt it,” Mat said softly, “and we’re going to kill the bloody thing.”
Noal and Thom fell silent.
“I won’t have this thing chasing us all the way to the Tower of Ghenjei,” Mat said.
“But can it be killed, Mat?” Thom asked.
“Anything can be killed,” Mat said. “Teslyn proved that she could still hurt it using the One Power, if she was clever. We’ll have to do something similar.”
“What?” Noal asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Mat said. “I want you two to continue your preparations; get us ready so that we can leave for the Tower of Ghenjei as soon as my oath to Verin will let us. Burn me, I still need to talk to Elayne. I want Aludra’s dragons started. I’ll have to write her another letter. Stronger, this time.
“For now, we’re going to make some changes. I’m going to start sleeping in the city. A different inn each night. We’ll let the Band know it, so if the gholam listens, it will find out. There will be no need for it to attack the men.
“You two will need to move to the city too. Until this is done, until it is dead or I am. The question is what to do about Olver. The thing didn’t mention him, but…”
He saw understanding in Thom’s and Noal’s eyes. Mat had left Tylin behind, and she was dead now. He was not going to do the same to Olver.
“We’ll have to take the boy with us,” Thom said. “Either that or send him away.”
“I heard the Aes Sedai talking earlier,” Noal said, rubbing his face with a bony finger. “They’re planning to leave. Maybe send him with them?”
Mat grimaced. The way Olver leered at women, the Aes Sedai would have him strung up by his toes in a day flat. Mat was surprised it had not happened already. If he ever found out which of the Redarms was teaching the boy to act that way around women…
“I doubt we’d be able to get him to go,” Mat said. “He’d be out of their sight and back here their first night away.”
Thom nodded in agreement.
“We’ll have to take him with us,” Mat said. “Have him stay at the inns inside the city. Maybe that—”
“Matrim Cauthon!” The shrill call came from outside Thom’s tent.
Mat sighed, then nodded to the other two and stood up. He stepped out of the tent to find that Joline and her Warders had bullied their way through the Redarms and had nearly yanked open the tent flaps to come stalking in. His appearance drew her up short.
Several of the Redarms looked abashed at having let her through, but the men could not be blamed. Bloody Aes Sedai would bloody do what they bloody pleased.
The woman herself was everything that Teslyn was not. Slender and pretty, she wore a white dress with a deep neckline. She often smiled, though that smile became thin-lipped when she turned it on Mat, and she had large brown eyes. The type of eyes that could suck a man in and try to drown him.
Pretty as she was, Mat did not think of her as a match for one of his friends. He would never wish Joline upon someone he liked. In fact, he was too gentlemanly to wish her on most of his enemies. Best she stayed with Fen and Blaeric, her Warders, who were madmen in Mat’s opinion.
Both were Borderlanders—one Shienaran, the other Saldaean. Fen’s tilted eyes were hard. He always seemed to be looking for someone to murder; each conversation with him was an interview to see if you fit the criteria. Blaeric’s topknot was growing in, and getting longer, but it was still too short. Mat would have mentioned that it looked remarkably like a badger’s tail glued to his head, except that he did not feel like being murdered today. It had already been a bloody awful evening.
Joline folded her arms beneath her br**sts. “It appears that your reports of this…creature that is chasing you were accurate.” She sounded skeptical. He had lost five good men, and she sounded skeptical. Bloody Aes Sedai.
“And?” he asked. “You know something about gholam?”
“Not a thing,” she said. “Regardless, I need to return to the White Tower. I will be leaving tomorrow.” She looked hesitant. “I would like to ask if you would lend me some horses for the trip. Whatever you can spare. I will not be picky.”
“Nobody in town would sell you any, eh?” Mat said with a grunt.
Her face became even more serene.
“Well, all right,” Mat said. “At least you asked nicely this time, though I can see how hard it was for you. I’ve promised some to Teslyn already. You can have some too. It will be worth it to have you bloody women out of my hair.”
“Thank you,” she said, her voice controlled. “However, a word of advice. Considering the company you often keep, you might want to learn to control your language.”
“Considering the company I keep all too often,” Mat said, “it’s bloody amazing I don’t swear more. Off with you, Joline. I need to write a letter to Her Royal bloody Majesty Queen Elayne the prim.”
Joline sniffed. “Are you going to swear at her too?”
“Of course I am,” Mat muttered, turning to go back to Thom’s tent. “How else is she going to trust that it’s really from me?”
Chapter 10
After the Taint
“I agree with those counts,” Elyas said, walking at Perrin’s side. Grady walked on the other side, thoughtful in his black coat. Montem al’San and Azi al’Thone—Perrin’s two guards for the day—trailed behind.
It was still early in the morning. Perrin was ostensibly checking on guard posts, but he really just wanted to be walking. They’d moved the camp to an elevated meadow along the Jehannah Road. It had a good water supply and was near enough to the road to control it, but far enough back to be defensible.
On one side of the meadow, an ancient statue lay before a patch of trees. The statue had fallen on its side long ago, and most of it was now buried, but an arm rose from the earth, holding the hilt of a sword. The blade was thrust into the ground.
“I shouldn’t have sent Gill and the others ahead,” Perrin said. “That let them be snatched up by the first passing force.”
“You couldn’t have anticipated this,” Elyas said. “Nor could you have anticipated being delayed. Where would you have left them? Shaido were coming up behind, and if our battle at Malden hadn’t gone well, Gill and the others would have been trapped between two gro
