but he may be at home, and I’ve not seen him in several years.” This was the first time he had ever mentioned having a friend anywhere, and a town buried in the north of Altara seemed a peculiar place for it, but Perrin nodded. He suspected there was more to this friend than Balwer was letting on. He was beginning to suspect there was more to Balwer than the man let on.
“And your companions, Master Balwer?” Berelain’s face stayed smooth inside her fur-lined cowl, but she smelled amused. She knew very well that Faile had used her young followers as spies and was sure that Perrin made the same use of them.
“They wanted an outing, my Lady First,” the bony little man replied blandly. “I will vouch for them, my Lord. They’ve promised to cause no trouble, and they may learn something.” He smelled amused, too — a musty smell, of course, coming from him — though with a touch of irritation. Balwer knew she knew, which did not please him, but she never made open reference to the fact, which did. There definitely was more to Balwer than he let on. The man must have his reasons for taking them along. He had managed to take up all of Faile’s young followers one way and another, and had them eavesdropping and watching among the Ghealdanin and the Mayeners and even the Aiel. According to him, what your friends said and did could be as interesting as what your enemies planned, and that was when you were sure they were your friends. Of course, Berelain knew that her people were being spied on. And Balwer knew she knew that, too. And she knew that he… It was all too sophisticated for a country blacksmith.
“We’re wasting time,” Perrin said. “Open the gateway, Neald.”
The Asha’man grinned at him and stroked his waxed mustaches — Neald grinned too much since the Shaido were found; maybe he was eager to come to grips with them — he grinned and gestured grandly with one hand. “As you command,” he said in a cheerful voice, and the familiar silvery slash of light appeared, widening into a hole in the air.
Without waiting for anyone else, Perrin rode through into a snow-covered field, surrounded by a low stone wall, in rolling country that seemed almost treeless compared with the forest he had left behind, just a few miles from So Habor unless Neald had made a substantial error. If he had, Perrin thought he might pull those fool mustaches right off the man’s face. How could the fellow be
Soon, though, he was riding west beneath a gray cloudy sky, along a snowy road with the high-wheeled carts trundling along in a line after him and early-morning shadows stretching ahead. Stayer tugged at the reins, wanting to run, but Perrin held him to a steady walk, no faster than the carthorses could manage. Gallenne’s Mayeners had to cross fields beside the road to maintain their ring around him and Berelain, and that meant getting past the low walls of rough stone that divided field from field. Some had gates from one farmer’s property to the next, probably to allow sharing plow-teams, and others they jumped flamboyantly with the streamers on their lances flying, risking their animal’s legs and their necks. Perrin cared the less about their necks, in truth.
Wil and the two fools carrying the Wolfhead and the Red Eagle joined the Mayener bannerman behind the Aes Sedai and Warders, but the other Two Rivers men strung themselves out flanking the line of carts. There were far too many carts for fewer than twenty men to guard, yet the cart drivers would feel easier seeing them. Not that anyone expected brigands, or Shaido for that matter, but no one felt comfortable outside the protection of the camp. In any case, here they would be able to see any threat well before it reached them.
The low rolling hills did not really allow a very long view, but it was farm country, with sturdy thatch-roofed stone houses and barns scattered among the fields, and nothing of wildness about it anywhere. Even most of the small thickets clinging to the slopes were coppiced for firewood. But it struck Perrin suddenly that the snow on the road ahead of him was not fresh; yet the only tracks were those made by Gallenne’s foreriders. No one moved around any of those dark houses and barns; no smoke rose from any of the thick chimneys. The countryside seemed absolutely still and absolutely empty. The hair on the back of his neck stirred, trying to stand.
An exclamation from one of the Aes Sedai made him look over his shoulder, and he followed Masuri’s pointing finger north to a shape flying through the air. It might have been taken for a large bat at first glance, sweeping eastward on long ribbed wings, a strange bat with a long neck and a long thin tail trailing behind. Gallenne barked an oath and pressed his looking glass to his eye. Perrin could see it well enough unaided, and even make out the figure of a human being clinging to the creature’s back, riding it like a horse.
“Seanchan,” Berelain breathed, both her voice and the smell of her worried.
Perrin twisted in his saddle to watch the thing’s flight until the glare of the sunrise made him turn away. “Nothing to do with us,” he said. If Neald had made a mistake, he would strangle the man.
CHAPTER 26
As it happened, Neald, who had had to remain to hold the gateway open till Kireyin and the Ghealdanin were through, had placed the hole in the air very close to where he aimed. He and Kireyin caught up at a gallop just as Perrin topped a rise and drew rein with the town of So Habor in front of him, on the other side of a small river crossed by a pair of arching timber bridges. Perrin was no soldier, but he knew right away why Masema had left this place alone. Hard against the river, the town had two massive stone walls dotted with towers around it, the inner rising taller than the outer. A pair of barges were tied to a long wharf that ran along the river wall from bridge to bridge, yet the wide bridge gates, iron-strapped and closed tight, seemed to be the only openings in that expanse of rough gray stone, and battlements topped the whole length of it. Built to hold off greedy neighboring nobles, So Habor would have had little fear of the Prophet’s rabble even if they came by thousands. Anyone wanting to break into this town would need siege engines and patience, and Masema was more comfortable terrorizing villages and towns without walls or defenses.
“Well, it’s glad I am to see people on the walls over there,” Neald said. “I was beginning to think everyone in this country was dead and buried.” He sounded only half joking, and his grin looked forced.
“As long as they’re alive enough to sell grain,” Kireyin murmured in his nasal, bored voice. Unbuckling his silvery, white-plumed helmet, he lifted it down to the tall pommel of his saddle. His eyes swept past Perrin and paused briefly on Berelain before he twisted around to address the Aes Sedai in the same weary tone. “Are we going to sit here, or go down?” Berelain arched an eyebrow at him, a dangerous look, as a man with any brains would see. Kireyin did not see.
Perrin’s hackles were still trying to stand, the more so since seeing the town. Maybe it was just the part of him that was wolf, disliking walls. But he did not think so. The people atop the walls pointed toward them, and some held looking glasses. Those, at least, would be able to make out the banners clearly. Everyone would be able to see the soldiers, with the streamers on their lances floating on a morning breeze. And the first few carts of the line that stretched down the road out of their sight. Maybe everyone from the farms was crowded into the town. “We didn’t come here to sit,” he said.
Berelain and Annoura between them had laid out how to approach So Habor. The local lord or lady had surely heard of Shaido depredations not many miles to the north of them, and they might have heard of the Prophet’s presence in Altara, too. Either thing was enough to make anyone wary; together, they might be enough to make people loose arrows and wait till after to ask who they had shot. In any case, it was highly unlikely they would welcome outland soldiers through their gates at the moment. The lancers remained spread along the rise, a show that these visitors possessed some armed might even if they chose not to employ it. Not that So Habor would be overly impressed by a hundred men, but the burnished armor of the Ghealdanin and the red armor of the Winged Guards said the visitors were not wandering tricksters. The Two Rivers men would impress no one until they used their bows, so they remained back with the carts, to hold up the cart drivers’ spirits. It was all an elaborate bit of nonsense, fluff and feathers, but Perrin was a country blacksmith no matter who called him lord. The First of Mayene and an Aes Sedai should know what they were about in a thing like this.
Gallenne led the way down to the river at a slow walk, bright crimson helmet resting on his saddle, his back straight. Perrin and Berelain rode a little way behind, with Seonid between them and Masuri and Annoura to either side, the Aes Sedai with their hoods thrown back so anyone on those walls who could recognize an Aes Sedai face would have the opportunity to see three. Aes Sedai were welcomed most places, even where people really would rather not. At their backs came all four bannermen, with the Warders spaced among them in their eye-wrenching
