He did not like the feeling. Not at all.
Perrin inhaled deeply. Flowers bloomed in the wolf dream, even as the sky raged silver, black and gold. The scents were so incongruous. Baking cherry pie. Horse dung. Oil and grease. Soap. A wood fire. Arrath. Thyme. Catfern. A hundred other herbs he couldn't name.
Very few of them fit the meadow where he had appeared. He'd made certain not to appear where his camp was in the wolf dream; that would have put him too near Slayer.
The scents were fleeting. Vanishing too quickly, as if they'd never really been there.
Hopper, he sent. I am here, Young Bull. The wolf appeared beside him.
'It smells strange.'
Scents blend, Hopper sent. Like the waters of a thousand streams. It is not natural. It is not good. This place begins to break.
Perrin nodded. He shifted, appearing knee deep in brown cockleburrs just outside of the violet dome. Hopper appeared to his right, weeds crackling as he moved among them.
The dome rose, ominous and unnatural. A wind blew, shuffling the weeds and shaking tree limbs. Lightning flashed silently in the sky.
He is there, Hopper sent. Always.
Perrin nodded. Did Slayer come to the wolf dream the way Perrin did? And did spending time in it leave him still tired, as it did Perrin? The man never seemed to leave this area.
He was guarding something. There had to be a way in the wolf dream to disable the dome.
Young Bull, we come. The sending was from Oak Dancer. Her pack was approaching, now only three strong. Sparks, Boundless, Oak Dancer herself. They had chosen to come here, rather than join the wolves running northward.
The three appeared behind Hopper. Perrin looked to them, and sent concern. This will be dangerous. Wolves may die.
Their sending back was insistent. Slayer must fall for what he has done. Together we are strong. Young Bull should not hunt such dangerous prey alone.
He nodded in agreement, letting his hammer appear in his hand. Together, they approached the dome. Perrin walked into it with a slow, determined stride. He refused to feel weakness. He was strong. The dome was nothing but air. He believed the world to be as he wished it.
He stumbled, but pulled through into the inside of the dome. The landscape felt faintly darker here. Elder trees more dim of bark, the dying dogfennel a deeper green or brown. Hopper and the pack moved through the dome around him.
We make for the center, Perrin sent. If there is a secret to discover, it will probably be there.
They moved slowly through the brush and stands of trees. Perrin imposed his will upon the area around him, and the leaves stopped crackling, weeds remaining silent when he brushed against them. That was natural. It was the way things should be. So it was.
It would be a long distance to the center, so Perrin began hopping forward. Not jumps or steps; he simply stopped being in one place, appearing in a different location. He masked his scent, though Slayer was not a wolf.
That has to become my advantage, Perrin thought as they grew closer and closer to the center. He is more experienced than I. But I have the wolf within me. This place is our dream. He is the invader. However skilled he may be, he is not one of us.
And that is why I will win.
Perrin smelled something; an increasing wrongness in the air. He and the wolves crept up to a large hillside, then peered around a cleft in the land there. A small stand of elder trees stood just ahead, perhaps fifty paces away. Looking up, he judged this to be very near the center of the dome. Using the shifting way of wolves, they'd traveled several hours' worth of walking in a few minutes.
That is it, Perrin sent. He looked at Hopper. The wolf's scent was masked, but he was coming to know wolves well enough to read concern in Hoppers stare and the way he stood with forelegs bent just a fraction.
Something changed.
Perrin heard nothing. He smelled nothing. But he felt something, a small tremble in the ground.
Go! he sent, vanishing. He appeared ten paces away to see an arrow hit the hillside where he'd been standing. The shaft split a large stone, embedding itself in the rock and earth up to its black fletching.
Slayer stood from a crouch, turning to look at Perrin across the short expanse of ground. His eyes seemed black, his square face shadowed, his tall body muscular and dangerous. As he often did, he wore a smile. Really a sneer. He wore leather breeches and a shirt of deep green, forearms exposed, hand holding his wicked bow of dark wood. He wore no quiver; he created arrows as he needed them.
Perrin held his eyes, stepping forward as if in challenge. That was enough of a distraction for the wolves to attack from behind.
Slayer yelled, spinning as Boundless slammed into him. Perrin was there in an eyeblink, bringing his hammer down. Slayer vanished, and Perrin struck only earth, but he caught a whiff of where Slayer had gone.
Here? That scent was of the same place that Perrin was. Alarmed, he looked up to see Slayer hovering in the air just above, drawing an arrow.
The wind, Perrin thought. It is so strong!
The arrow loosed, but a sudden gust blew it sideways. It sank into the earth just beside Perrin. He did not flinch, raising his hands, his own bow appearing in them. Already drawn, arrow in place.
Slayer's eyes opened wider as Perrin loosed. Slayer vanished, appearing on the ground a short distance away—and Hopper leaped on him from above, pulling him to the ground. Slayer cursed with a guttural sound, then vanished.
Here, Hopper sent, showing a hillside.
Perrin was there in an instant, hammer in his hands, the pack with him. Slayer raised a sword in one hand and a knife in the other as Perrin and the four wolves attacked.
Perrin hit first, swinging his hammer with a roar. Slayer actually sank into the ground, as if it were liquid, dropping beneath the axe blow. He rammed his knife forward—piercing Oak Dancer's breast with a splash of scarlet blood as he swung to the side, slashing across Sparks' face. Oak Dancer didn't get time to howl; she collapsed to the ground, and Slayer vanished as Perrin brought his hammer back around. Whimpering, Sparks sent agony and panic and vanished. He would live. But Oak Dancer was dead.
Slayer's scent had been this place again. Perrin turned to smash his hammer into Slayer's sword as it sought to pierce him from behind. Again a look of surprise from Slayer. The man bared his teeth, pulling back, keeping a wary eye on the two remaining wolves, Hopper and Boundless. Slayer's forearm was bleeding where Hopper had bitten him.
'How is the dome created, Luc?' Perrin said. 'Show me and leave. I will let you depart.'
'Bold words, cub,' Slayer snarled back. 'For one who just watched me kill one of your pack.'
Boundless howled in anger, leaping forward. Perrin attacked at the same time, but the ground beneath them trembled, shaking.
No, Perrin thought. His own footing became firm as Boundless was knocked to the ground.
Slayer lunged, and Perrin raised his hammer to block—but Slayer's weapon turned into smoke and passed right through it, solidifying on the other side. With a yelp, Perrin tried to pull back, but the blade scored him across the chest, cutting through his shirt and leaving a gash from one arm to the other. It flared with pain.
Perrin gasped, stumbling backward. Slayer drove forward, but something crashed into him from above. Hopper. Once again the grizzled wolf bore Slayer to the ground, growling, fangs flashing.
Slayer cursed and kicked the wolf free. Hopper went flying with a whimper of pain, tossed some twenty feet. To the side, Boundless had caused the earth to stop rumbling, but had hurt his paw.
Perrin shook himself free of his pain. Slayer was strong in control over this world. Perrin's hammer felt sluggish whenever he swung, as if the air itself were thicker.
Slayer had smiled when he'd killed Oak Dancer. Perrin moved forward, enraged. Slayer was on his feet and retreating back down the hillside, toward the trees. Perrin chased after him, ignoring his wound. It wasn't bad
