The Gathering Storm

28 Night in Hinderstap

“Burn you, Mat!” Talmanes said, yanking his sword free from the gut of a twitching villager. Talmanes almost never swore. “Burn you twice over and once again!” “Me?” Mat snapped, spinning, his ashandarei flashing as he neatly hamstrung two men in bright green vests. They fell to the packed earthen street, eyes wide with rage as they sputtered and growled. “Me? I’m not the one trying to kill you, Talmanes. Blame them!”

Talmanes managed to pull himself into his saddle. “They told us to leave!”

“Yes,” Mat said, grabbing Pips’ reigns and pulling the horse away from The Tipsy Gelding. “And now they’re trying to kill us. I can’t rightly be blamed for their unsociable behavior!” Howls, screams, and yells rose from all across the village. Some were angry, some were terrified, others were agonized.

More and more men piled out of the tavern, each one grunting and yelling, each one trying his best to kill every person around him. Some of them came for Mat, Talmanes or Mat’s Redarms. But many just attacked their companions, hands ripping at skin, nails tearing gouges in faces. They fought with a primal lack of skill, and only a few thought to pick up rocks, mugs or lengths of wood as weapons.

This was far more than a simple bar fight. These men were trying to kill each other. Already there were a half-dozen corpses or near-corpses on the street, and from what Mat could see of the inside of the inn, the fighting was equally brutal inside.

Mat tried to edge closer to the wagon with its load of food, Pips clopping alongside him. His chest of gold still lay on the street. The fighting men ignored both food and coin, concentrating on one another.

Talmanes, as well as Harnan and Delarn—his two soldiers—backed away with him, nervously pulling their own mounts. A group of raving men soon descended on the two villagers Mat had hamstrung, beating their heads against the ground over and over until they stopped moving. Then the pack looked up at Mat and his men, bloodlust clouding their eyes. It was an incongruous expression on the clean faces of men in neat vests and combed hair.

“Blood and bloody ashes,” Mat said, swinging into his saddle. “Mount up!”

Harnan and Delarn needed no further instruction. They cursed, sheathing swords and swinging into saddles. The pack of villagers surged forward, but Mat and Talmanes cut off the attack. Mat tried to go for wounding blows only, but the villagers were deceptively strong and fast, and he found himself fighting just to keep them from pulling him out of the saddle. He cursed, reluctantly beginning to wield killing blows, taking two of the men with sweeps to the neck. Pips kicked out and knocked another to the ground with a hoof to the head. In a few moments, Harnan and Delarn joined the fight.

The villagers didn’t back away. They kept fighting in a frenzy until the entire pack of eight had dropped. Mat’s soldiers fought with wide-eyed terror, and Mat didn’t blame them. It was flaming eerie, seeing common villagers react like this! There didn’t seem to be an ounce of humanity left in them. They spoke only in grunts, hisses, and screams, their faces painted with anger and bloodlust. Now the other villagers—those not directly attacking Mat’s men—started forming into packs, slaughtering the groups smaller than themselves by bludgeoning them, clawing them, biting them. It was unnerving.

As Mat watched, a body broke through one of the tavern window frames. The corpse rolled to the ground, neck broken. On the other side, Barlden stood with wild, nearly inhuman eyes. He screamed into the night, then saw Mat and—for just a moment—seemed to show a hint of recognition. Then it was gone, and the mayor bellowed again, running forward to leap through the broken window and attack a pair of men whose backs were turned.

“Move!” Mat said, rearing Pips as another pack of villagers saw him.

“The gold!” Talmanes said.

“Burn the gold!” Mat said. “We can win more, and that food isn’t worth our lives. Go!”

Talmanes and the soldiers turned their mounts and galloped down the street, Mat kicking Pips to join them, leaving the gold and wagon behind. It wasn’t worth their lives—if possible, he’d bring the army in on the morrow to recover it. But they had to survive first.

They galloped for a short time, and Mat slowed them at the next corner, holding up a hand. He glanced over his shoulder. The villagers were still coming, but the gallop had left them behind for now.

“I’m still blaming you,” Talmanes said.

“I thought you liked fighting,” Mat said.

“I like some fights,” Talmanes said. “On the battlefield or a nice bar fight. This . . . this is insane.” The pack of villagers behind had fallen to all fours and were moving in a strange lope. Talmanes shivered visibly.

There was barely enough light to see by. Now that the sun had set, those mountains and the gray clouds blocked what light remained. Lanterns lined many of the streets, but it didn’t look as if anyone would be lighting them.

“Mat, they’re gaining,” Talmanes said, sword held at the ready.

“This isn’t just about our wager,” Mat said, listening to the screams and shouts. They came from all around the village. Down a side road, a couple of struggling bodies burst through the upper window of a house. They were women, clawing at each other as they fell, crashing to the ground with a sickening thud. They stopped moving.

“Come on,” Mat said, turning Pips. “We’ve got to find Thom and the women.” They galloped down a side street that would intersect with the main thoroughfare, passing packs of men and women fighting in the gutters. A fat man with bloodied cheeks stumbled into the road, and Mat reluctantly rode him down. There were too many people fighting at the sides for him to risk leading his men around the poor fool. Mat even saw children fighting, biting at the legs of those larger than they, throttling those their own age.

“The entire bloody town has gone insane,” Mat muttered grimly as the four of them barreled onto the main street and turned toward the fine inn. They’d pick up the Aes Sedai, then swing out eastward for Thom, as his inn was the most distant.

Unfortunately, the main street was worse than the one Mat had left. It was almost completely dark now. Indeed, it seemed to him that the darkness had come too quickly here. Unnaturally swift. The road’s length squirmed with shadows, figures battling, screeching, struggling in the deepening gloom. In that darkness, the fights looked at times to be solid, single creatures—horrific monstrosities with a dozen waving limbs and a hundred mouths to scream from the blackness.

Mat spurred Pips forward. There was nothing to do but charge down the middle of it.

“Light,” Talmanes yelled as they galloped toward the inn. “Light!”

Mat gritted his teeth and leaned forward on Pips, spear held close to his side as he rode through the nightmare. Roars shook the darkness and bodies rolled across the street. Mat shivered at the horror of it, cursing under his breath. The night itself seemed to be trying to smother them, to strangle them, and to spawn beasts of blackness and murder.

Pips and the other horses were well trained, and the four of them charged straight down the street. Mat narrowly avoided being pulled from the saddle as dark forms leapt for his legs, trying to yank him free. They screamed and hissed, like legions of the drowned trying to pull him down into a deep, unearthly sea.

Beside Mat, Delarn s horse suddenly pulled to a halt, then, as a mass of black figures leaped in front of it, the gelding reared in panic, throwing Delarn from his saddle.

Mat reined in Pips, turning at the man’s scream, which was somehow more distinct and more human than the howls around them.

“Mat!” Talmanes yelled, charging past. “Keep going! We can’t stop!”

No, Mat thought, shoving down his panic. No, I’m not leaving someone to this. He took a deep breath and ignored Talmanes, kicking Pips back toward the black clot of bodies where Delarn had fallen. Sweat sprayed from his forehead, chilled by the wind of the gallop. Moans, screams, and hisses all around him seemed to descend on him.

Mat roared and threw himself from Pips’ back—he couldn’t bring his mount in without risking trampling the man he wanted to save. He hated fighting in darkness, he bloody hated it. He attacked those dark figures, whose faces he couldn’t see save for an occasional flash of teeth or insane eyes reflecting the dying light. It reminded him, briefly, of another night, killing Shadowspawn in the dark. Save these figures he fought didn’t have the grace of a Myrddraal. They didn’t even have the coordination of Trollocs.

For a moment, it seemed Mat fought the shadows themselves—shadows made by sputtering firelight, random and uncoordinated, yet all the more deadly for his inability to anticipate them. He narrowly escaped getting his skull crushed by attacks that made no sense. During the day, those attacks would have been laughable, but from this darkened pack of men—and women—who didn’t care what they hit or who they hurt, the attacks were overwhelming. Mat found himself fighting just to stay alive, spinning his ashandarei in wide arcs, using it to trip as often as he used it to kill. If something moved in the darkness, he struck. How in the light was he going to find Delarn in this!

A shadow moved just a short distance away, and Mat instantly recognized a sword-form. Rat Gnawing the Grain? A villager wouldn’t know that. Good man!

Mat spun toward that shadow, slashing two other shadows across the chest, earning grunts and howls of pain. Delarn’s figure fell beneath a pile of several others, and Mat bellowed in denial, leaping across a fallen body and landing with his spear descending in a broad sweep. Shadows bled where he struck, the blood just another patch of darkness, and Mat used the butt of his weapon to beat back another. He reached down, pulling one of the shadows to its feet, and heard a muttered curse. It was Delarn.

“Come on,” Mat said, pulling the man toward Pips, who stood firm, snorting, in the darkness. The attacking men seemed to ignore animals, which was fortunate. Mat shoved the stumbling Delarn toward the horse, then turned and engaged the pack he’d known would chase after him. Again, Mat danced with the darkness, striking again and again, trying to disengage so that he could climb into the saddle. He risked a glance over his shoulder, and found that Delarn had managed to get onto Pips’ back—but the soldier sat slumped, a huddled mound. How badly was he wounded? He barely seemed able to keep himself upright. Blood and bloody ashes!

Mat turned back to the attackers, spinning his spear, trying to force them back. But they didn’t care about being wounded, they didn’t care how dangerous Mat was. They just kept coming! Surrounding him. Coming at him from every side. Bloody ashes! He twisted just in time to see a dark shape rush him from behind.

Something flashed in the night, reflecting some very distant light.

The dark figure behind Mat slumped to the ground. Another flash, and one of the ones in front of Mat fell. Suddenly, a figure on a white horse rushed past, and another knife flashed in the air, dropping a third man.

“Thom!” Mat called, recognizing the cloak.

“Get on your horse!” Thom’s voice called back. “I’m running out of knives!”

Mat swept out with his spear, dropping two more villagers, then dashed forward and leaped into his saddle, trusting Thom to cover his retreat. Indeed, he heard a few cries of pain from behind. A moment later, a thundering sound on the road announced the imminent approach of horses. Mat pulled himself into his saddle as the creatures tore through the black morass, scattering the villagers.

“Mat, you fool!” Talmanes shouted from one of the horses, barely visible as a silhouette against the night.

Mat smiled gratefully at Talmanes, turning Pips, and caught Delarn as the man almost slid free. The Redarm was alive, for he struggled weakly, but there was a slick wet patch at his side. Mat held the man in front of him, ignoring the reins in the darkness and controlling Pips with a quick twist of the knees. He didn’t know horseback battle commands himself, but those blasted memories did, and so he’d trained Pips to obey.

Thom galloped past, and Mat turned Pips to follow, steadying Delarn with one hand and carrying his spear in the other. Talmanes and Harnan rode to either side of him, charging down the corridor of madness toward the inn at the end.

“Come on, man,” Mat whispered to Delarn. “Hang on. The Aes Sedai are just ahead. They’ll fix you up.”

Delarn whispered something back.

Mat leaned forward. “What was that?”

“. . . and toss the dice until we fly,” Delarn whispered. “To dance with Jak o’ the Shadows. . . .”

“Great,” Mat muttered. There were lights ahead, and he could see they were coming from the inn. Perhaps they’d find one place in this flaming village where the people’s brains hadn’t turned inside out.

But no. Those bursts of light were familiar. Balls of fire, flashing in the upper-story windows of the inn.

“Well,” Talmanes noted from his left, “looks like the Aes Sedai still live. That’s something, at least.”

Figures clustered around the front of the inn, fighting in the darkness, their forms periodically lit from above by the flashes in the windows.

“Round to the back,” Thom suggested.

“Go,” Mat said to them, charging past the fighting figures. Tal-manes, Thom and Harnan followed close on Pips’ hooves. Mat blessed his luck that they didn’t hit a hole or rut in the ground as they crossed the softer earth coming around behind the inn. The horses could easily have tripped and broken a leg, throwing all of them into disaster.

The back of the inn was silent, and Mat reined in. Thom leaped from his horse, his agility defying his earlier complaints about his age. He took up position watching the side of the building to see that they weren’t followed.

“Harnan!” Mat said, thrusting his spear toward the stables. “Get the women’s horses out and ready them. Saddle them if you can, but be ready to go without those if we have to. Light willing, we won’t have to ride far, just a mile or so to get out of the village and away from this insanity.”

Harnan saluted in the darkness, then dismounted and dashed over to the stables. Mat waited long enough to determine that nobody was going to jump out at him from the darkness, then spoke to Delarn, still held in front of him. “You still conscious?”

Delarn nodded weakly. “Yes, Mat. But I’ve taken a gut wound. I____”

“We’ll get the Aes Sedai,” Mat said. “All you need to do is sit right here. Stay in the saddle, all right?”

Delarn nodded again. Mat hesitated at the weakness in the man’s motions, but Delarn took Pips’ reins, and seemed determined. So Mat slid out of the saddle, holding his ashandarei at the ready.

“Mat,” Delarn said from the saddle.

Mat turned back.

“Thank you. For coming back for me.”

“I wasn’t going to leave a man to that,” Mat said, shivering. “Dying on the battlefield is one thing, but to die out there, in that darkness. . . . Well, I wasn’t going to let it happen. Talmanes! See if you can find some light.”

“Working on it,” the Cairhienin said from beside the inn’s back door. He had found a lantern hanging there. A few strikes of flint and steel later, and a small, soft glow lit the backyard of the inn. Talmanes quickly closed the shield, keeping the light mostly hidden.

Thom trotted back to them. “No one following, Mat,” he said.

Mat nodded. By the lanternlight, he could see that Delarn was in bad shape. Not just the gut wound, but scrapes across the face, rips in his uniform, one eye swollen shut.

Mat whipped out a handkerchief and pressed it against the gut wound, standing beside Pips and reaching up to the man in the saddle. “Hold this tight. How’d the wound happen? They don’t use weapons.”

“One got my own sword away from me,” Delarn said with a grunt. “He used it well enough once he had it.”

Talmanes had opened the back door of the inn. He looked to Mat and nodded. The way inside was clear.

“We’ll be back soon,” Mat promised Delarn. Holding his ashandarei in a loose grip, he crossed the short distance to the door and nodded to Talmanes and Thom. The three of them ducked inside.

The door led to the kitchens. Mat scanned the dark room, and Talmanes nudged him, pointing at several lumps on the floor. The sliver of lantern light revealed a pair of kitchen boys, barely ten years old, dead on the ground, their necks twisted. Mat glanced away, steeling himself, and inched into the room. Light! Only lads, and now dead by this insanity.

Thom shook his head grimly, and the three of them crept forward. They found the cook in the next hallway, grunting as he beat on the head of what appeared to be the innkeeper. It was a man in a white apron, at least. He was already dead. The fat cook turned toward Mat and Talmanes the moment they entered the hallway, feral rage in his eyes. Mat reluctantly struck, silencing him before he could howl and bring more people against them.

“There’s fighting on the stairs,” Talmanes said, nodding forward.

“I’ll bet there’s a servants’ stairwell,” Thom noted. “This looks like a nice enough a place for it.”

Sure enough, by cutting through two hallways in the back, they found a narrow, rickety stairwell leading up into darkness. Mat took a deep breath, then started up the stairs, holding his ashandarei at the ready. The inn was only two stories high, and the flashes had been coming from the second floor, near the front.

They entered the second floor, pushing open the door to the acrid scent of burned flesh. The hallways here were of wood, the grain obscured by thick white paint. The floor lay under a deep chestnut carpet. Mat nodded to Talmanes and Thom, and—weapons at the ready—they burst out of the stairwell and into the hallway.

Immediately, a ball of fire whooshed in their direction. Mat cursed, throwing himself backward and into Talmanes, narrowly avoiding the fire. Thom flattened himself with a gleeman’s agility, getting under the fire. Mat and Talmanes almost tumbled back down the stairs.

“Bloody ashes!” Mat yelled into the hallway. “What do you think you’re doing?”

There was silence. Followed, finally, by Joline’s voice. “Cauthon?” she called.

“Who do you bloody think it is!” he shouted back.

“I don’t know!” she said. “You came around so quickly, weapons out. Are you trying to get killed?”

“We’re trying to rescue you!” Mat yelled.

“Do we look like we need rescuing?” came the response.

“Well, you’re still here, aren’t you?” Mat called back.

That was met with silence.

“Oh, for Light’s sake,” Joline finally called back. “Will you come out here?”

“You’re not going to throw another fireball at me, are you?” Mat muttered, stepping out into the hallway as Thom climbed to his feet, Talmanes following. He found the three Aes Sedai standing at the head of the wide, handsome stairs at the other end of the hallway. Teslyn and Edesina continued to throw fireballs down at unseen villagers below, their hair wet, their dresses disheveled as if they’d been donned hastily. Joline wore only an enveloping white dressing robe, her pretty face calm, her dark hair slick and wet and hanging down over the front of her right shoulder. The robe was parted slightly at the top, giving a hint of what hid inside. Talmanes whistled softly.

“She’s not a woman, Talmanes,” Mat whispered warningly. “She’s an Aes Sedai. Don’t think of her as a woman.”

“I’m trying, Mat,” Talmanes said. “But it’s hard.” He hesitated, then added, “Burn me.”

“Be careful or she will,” Mat said, tugging his hat down slightly in the front. “In fact, she nearly did that just a moment ago.”

Talmanes sighed, and the three of them crossed the hallway to the women. Joline’s two Warders, who had their weapons out, stood just inside the bathing chamber. A dozen or so servants were tied up in the corner: a pair of young girls—probably bathing attendants—and several men in vests and trousers. Apparently Joline’s dress had been cut to strips and used for bonds. The silk would work far better than wool towels. Near the top of the stairs, just below the Aes Sedai, Mat could barely make out a cluster of corpses that had fallen to swords, not fire.

Joline eyed Mat as he approached, a look implying that she considered all this to be bis fault somehow. She folded her arms, closing up the top of the robe, though he wasn’t sure if that was because of Talmanes’ gawking or if the move was coincidental.

“We need to move,” Mat told the women. “The whole city has gone mad.”

“We can’t go,” Joline said. “Not and leave those servants to the mob. Besides, we need to find Master Tobrad and make certain he is safe.”

“Master Tobrad is the innkeeper?” Mat asked. A fireball whooshed down the stairs.

“Yes,” Joline said.

“Too late,” Mat said. “His brains are already decorating the walls downstairs. Look, like I said, the entire village is crazy. Those servants tried to kill you, didn’t they?”

Joline hesitated. “Yes.”

“Leave them,” Mat said. “We can’t do anything for them.”

“But if we wait until dawn . . .” Joline said hesitantly.

“And what?” Mat said. “Burn to ash every person who tries to climb those stairs? You’re making a ruckus here, and it’s drawing more and more people. You’re going to have to kill them all to stop them.”

Joline glanced at the other two women.

“Look,” Mat said. “I have a wounded Redarm down below, and I intend to get him out of this alive. You can’t do any good for these people here. I suspect your Warders had to kill that group at the top of the stairs before you all felt threatened enough to use the Power. You know how determined they are.”

“All right,” Joline said. “I’ll come. But we’re bringing the two serving girls. Blaeric and Fen can carry them.”

Mat sighed—he’d have liked the Warders’ blades free to help in case they ran into trouble—but said nothing more. He nodded to Talmanes and Thom, and waited impatiently as the Warders picked up the two bound serving girls and slung them over shoulders. After that, the whole group hustled back down the servants’ stairwell, Talmanes leading and Mat at the rear. He could hear screams that sounded half angry, half joyous as the villagers at the base of the stairs realized no more fire would fall. There were thumps and shouts, followed by doors opening, and Mat cringed, imagining the other servants—left tied up in the bathing chamber—falling to the crowd.

Mat and the others burst out into the backyard of the inn, only to find Delarn on the ground beside Pips. Harnan knelt beside him, and the bearded soldier looked up with anxiety. “Mat!” he said. “He fell from the saddle. I—”

Edesina cut him off, rushing over and kneeling beside Delarn. She closed her eyes, and Mat felt a chill from his medallion. It made him shiver as he imagined the One Power leaking out of her and into the man. That was almost as bad as dying, bloody ashes but it was! He gripped the medallion beneath his shirt.

Delarn stiffened, but then gasped, eyes fluttering open.

“It is done,” Edesina said, standing up. “He will be weak from the Healing, but I reached him in time.”

Harnan had gathered and saddled all of their horses, Light bless him. Good man. The women mounted, and spared several glances over their shoulders at the inn.

“It’s as if the darkness itself intoxicates them,” Thom said while Mat helped Delarn into his saddle. “As if Light itself has forsaken them, leaving them only to the Shadow. ...”

“Nothing we can do,” Mat said, pulling himself into his saddle behind Delarn. The soldier was too weak to ride on his own, after that Healing. Mat eyed the serving girls that the Warders had slung over the fronts of their horses. They struggled against their bonds, hate in their eyes. He turned and nodded to Talmanes, who had affixed the lantern to a saddle pole. The Cairhienin opened the shield, bathing the inn’s stableyard in light. A path led northward, out of the yard into the dark. Away from the army, but also directly out of the village, toward the hills. That was good enough for Mat.

“Ride,” he said, kicking Pips into motion. The group fell in beside him.

“I told you we should leave,” Talmanes noted, looking over his shoulder, riding at Mat’s left. “But you had to stay for one more toss.”

Mat didn’t look back. “Not my fault, Talmanes. How was I to know that staying would cause them all to start tearing each other’s throats out?”

“What?” Talmanes asked, glancing at him. “Isn’t this usually how people react when you tell them you’re going to spend the night?” Mat rolled his eyes, but didn’t feel much like laughing as he led the group out of the village.

Hours later, Mat sat on a rock outcropping on a dark hillside, looking down at Hinderstap. The village was dark. Not a light burned. It was impossible to tell what was going on, but still he watched. How could a man sleep, after what they’d been through?

Well, the soldiers did sleep. He didn’t blame Delarn. An Aes Sedai Healing could drain a man. Mat had felt that icy chill himself on occasion, and he didn’t intend to repeat the experience. Talmanes and Harnan hadn’t the excuse of a Healing, but they were soldiers. Soldiers learned to sleep when they could, and the night’s experience didn’t seem to have disturbed them nearly as much as it had Mat. Oh, they’d been worried while in the thick of it, but now it was just another battle passed. Another battle survived. That had led stout Harnan to joking and smiling as they bedded down.

Not Mat. There was an odd wrongness about the entire experience. Was the curfew intended to keep this from happening, somehow? Had Mat, by staying, caused all of these deaths? Blood and bloody ashes. Did no place in the world make sense anymore?

“Mat, lad,” Thom said, joining him, walking with his familiar limp. He’d had a fractured arm, though he’d hadn’t mentioned it until Edesina had noticed him flinching and insisted on Healing him. “You should sleep.” Now that the moon had risen—hidden behind the clouds—there was enough light for Mat to see Thom’s concern.

The group had stopped in a small hollow off one side of the trail. It gave a good view back toward the village, and—more importantly—it overlooked the path that Mat and the others had used to escape. The hollow lay on a steep hillside, the only approach from below. One person on watch could keep a good eye out for anyone trying to sneak into the camp.

The Aes Sedai had bedded down near the back of the hollow, though Mat didn’t think they were actually sleeping. Joline’s Warders had thought to bring bedrolls, just in case. Warders were like that. Mat’s men only had their cloaks, but that hadn’t deterred them from sleeping. Talmanes was even snoring softly, despite the spring chill. Mat had forbidden a fire. It wasn’t so cold that they needed one, and it would just signal anyone looking for them.

“I’m fine, Thom,” Mat said, making room on his rock as the gleeman settled down. “You’re the one who should get some sleep.”

Thom shook his head. “One nice thing I’ve noticed about getting older is that your body doesn’t seem to need its sleep as much anymore. Dying doesn’t take as much energy as growing, I guess.”

“Don’t start that again,” Mat said. “Do I need to remind you about how you hauled my skinny backside out of trouble back there? What was that you were worried about earlier? That I didn’t need you anymore? If you hadn’t been with me today, if you hadn’t come looking for me, I’d be dead in that village. Delarn too.”

Thom grinned, eyes bright in the moonlight. “All right, Mat,” he said. “No more. I promise.”

Mat nodded. The two of them sat for a time on their rock, looking out at the city. “It’s not going to leave me alone, Thom,” Mat finally said.

“What?”

“All of this,” Mat said tiredly. “The bloody Dark One and his spawn. They’ve been chasing me since that night in the Two Rivers, and nothing has stopped them.”

“You think this was him?”

“What else could it have been?” Mat asked. “Quiet village folk, turning into violent madmen? It’s the Dark One’s own work, and you know it.”

Thom was silent. “Yes,” he finally said. “I suppose it is at that.”

“They’re still coming for me,” Mat said angrily. “That bloody gholam is out there, I know it is, but that’s just part of it. Myrddraal and Dark-friends, monsters and ghosts. Chasing me and hunting me. I’ve stumbled from one disaster to another, barely keeping my neck above water, ever since this began. I keep saying I just need to find a hole somewhere to dice and drink, but that won’t stop it. Nothing will.”

“You’re ta’veren, lad,” Thom said.

“I didn’t ask to be. Burn me, I wish they’d all just go bother Rand. He likes it.” He shook his head, dispelling the image that formed, showing Rand asleep in his bed, Min curled up beside him.

“You really think that?” Thom asked.

Mat hesitated. “I wish I did,” he admitted. “It would make things easier.”

“Lies never make things easier in the long run. Unless they’re to exactly the right person—usually a woman—at exactly the right time. When you tell them to yourself, you just bring more trouble.”

“I brought those people trouble. In the village.” He glanced toward the back of the camp, where the two Warders sat, guarding the still-bound serving girls. They continued to struggle. Light! Where did they get the strength? It was inhuman.

“I don’t think this was you, Mat,” Thom said thoughtfully. “Oh, I don’t disagree that trouble hunts you—the Dark One himself seems to do so. But Hinderstap . . . well, when I was singing in that common room, I heard some tidbits. They seemed like nothing. But looking back, it strikes me that the people were expecting this. Or something like it.”

“How could they have been?” Mat said. “If this had happened before, they’d all be dead.”

“Don’t know,” Thom said thoughtfully. Then something seemed to strike him. He began fishing inside his cloak. “Oh, I forgot. Maybe there is some connection between you and what happened. I managed to take this away from a man who was too drunk for his own good.” The glee-man pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to Mat.

Mat took the paper, frowning, and unfolded it. He squinted in the diffuse moonlight, leaning close, and grunted when he made out what the paper contained—not words, but a very accurate drawing of Mat’s face, hat atop his head. It even had the foxhead medallion drawn in around his neck. Bloody ashes.

He contained his annoyance. “Handsome fellow. Good nose, straight teeth, dashing hat.”

Thom snorted.

“I saw some men showing a paper to the mayor,” Mat said, refolding the drawing. “I didn’t see what was on it, but I’ll bet it was the same as this. What did the man you took this from say about it?”

“An outlander woman in some village north of here is giving them out and offering a reward to anyone who has seen you. The man got the paper from a friend, so he didn’t have a description of her or the town’s name. Either his friend kept him ignorant, wanting the reward for himself, or he was just too drunk to remember.”

Mat tucked the paper into his coat pocket. The light of false dawn was beginning to glow to the east. He’d sat up all night, but he didn’t feel tired. Just . . . drained. “I’m going back,” he said.

“What?” Thom asked, surprised. “To Hinderstap?”

Mat nodded, rising. “As soon as it’s light. I need to—”

A muffled curse interrupted him. He spun, reaching for his asban-darei. Thom had a pair of knives in his hands in the blink of an eye. Fen,

Joline’s Saldaean Warder, was the one who had cursed. He stood, hand on his sword, searching the ground around him. Blaeric stood by the Aes Sedai, sword out, alert and on guard.

“What?” Mat asked tersely.

“The prisoners,” Fen said.

Mat started, realizing that the lumps that had lain near the Warders were gone. He dashed over, cursing. Talmanes’ snores stopped as the sounds woke him and he sat up. The bonds made from strips of Joline’s dress lay on the ground, but the serving girls were gone.

“What happened?” Mat asked, looking up.

“I ...” The dark-haired Warder looked dumbfounded. “I have no idea. They were here just a moment ago!”

“Did you doze off?” Mat demanded.

“Fen wouldn’t have done such a thing,” Joline said, sitting up in her bedroll, her voice calm. She still wore only that dressing robe.

“Lad,” Thom said, “we both saw those girls here barely a minute ago.”

Talmanes cursed and woke the two Redarms. Delarn was looking a great deal better, his weakness from the Healing barely seeming to bother him as he climbed to his feet. The Warders called for a search, but Mat just turned back to the village below. “The answers are there,” Mat said. “Thom, you’re with me. Talmanes, watch the women.”

“We have little need of being ‘watched,’ Matrim,” Joline said grumpily.

“Fine,” he snapped. “Thom, you’re with me. Joline, you watch the soldiers. Either way, you all stay here. I can’t worry about a whole group right now.”

He didn’t give them a chance to argue. Within minutes, Mat and Thom were on their horses, riding down the path back toward Hinder-stap.

“Lad,” Thom said, “what is it you expect to find?”

“I don’t know,” Mat replied. “If I did, I wouldn’t be so keen to look.”

“Fair enough,” Thom said softly.

Mat spotted the oddities almost immediately. Those goats out on the western pasture. He couldn’t tell for certain in the dawn light, but it looked like someone was herding them. And were those lights winking on in the village? There hadn’t been a single one of those all night long! He hastened Pips’ pace, Thom following silently.

It took the better part of an hour to arrive—Mat hadn’t wanted to risk camping too close, though he’d also been disinclined to hunt a way around and back to the army in the dark. It was fully light, if still very early, by the time they rode back into the inn’s yard. A couple of men in dun coats were working on the back door, which had apparently been broken off its hinges sometime after Mat and the others left. The men looked up as Mat and Thom rode into the yard, and one of them pulled off his cap, looking anxious. Neither one made a threatening move.

Mat slowed Pips to a halt. One of the men whispered to the other, who ran inside. A moment later, a balding man with a white apron stepped out through the doorway. Mat felt himself go pale.

“The innkeeper,” Mat said. “Burn me, I saw you dead!”

“Best go get the mayor, son,” the innkeeper said to one of the working men. He glanced back at Mat. “Quickly.”

“What in the bloody name of Hawkwing’s left hand is going on here?” Mat demanded. “Was it all some kind of twisted show? You—”

A head stuck out of the inn door, peeking around the innkeeper toward Mat. The pudgy face had curly blond hair. Last time he’d seen this man, the cook, Mat had been forced to gut the man and slit his throat.

“You!” he said, pointing. “I killedyou!”

“Calm down, now, son,” the innkeeper said. “Come in, we’ll get you some tea, and—”

“I’m not going anywhere with you, spirit,” Mat said. “Thom, you seeing this?”

The gleeman rubbed his chin. “Perhaps we should hear the man out, Mat.”

“Ghosts and spirits,” Mat muttered, turning Pips. “Come on.” He urged Pips forward, charging around to the front of the inn, Thom following. Here he caught a glimpse of many workers inside, carrying buckets of white paint. To fix the places where Aes Sedai fire had scored the building, likely.

Thom pulled up beside Mat. “I’ve never seen anything like this, Mat,” he said. “Why would spirits need to paint walls and repair doors?”

Mat shook his head. He’d spotted the place where he’d fought the villagers to save Delarn. He pulled Pips to a halt suddenly, making Thom curse and round his own mount around to come back.

“What?” Thom asked.

Mat pointed. There was a stain of blood on the ground and across several rocks beside the road. “Where they stabbed Delarn,” he said.

“All right,” Thom said. Around them, men passed on the street, gazes averted. They gave Mat and Thom a wide berth.

Blood and bloody ashes, Mat thought. I’ve gotten us surrounded again. What if they attack? Bloody fool!

“So there’s blood,” Thom said. “What did you expect?”

“Where’s the rest of the blood, Thom?” Mat growled. “I killed a good dozen men here, and I saw them bleed. You dropped three with your knives. Where’s the blood?”

“It vanishes,” a voice said.

Mat spun Pips to find the burly, hairy-armed mayor standing on the road a short distance away. He must have been near already; there was no way the workers could have fetched him that quickly. Of course, the way things seemed to be going in this village, who could tell that for certain? Barlden wore a cloak and shirt with several fresh rips in them.

“The blood vanishes,” he said, sounding exhausted. “None of us have seen it. We just wake up and it’s gone.”

Mat hesitated, looking around the village. Women peeked out of houses, holding children. Men left for the fields, carrying crooks or hoes. Save for the air of anxiety at Mat and Thom’s presence, one would never know anything had gone wrong in the village.

“We won’t hurt you,” the mayor said, turning away from Mat. “So you needn’t look so worried. At least, not until the sun sets. I’ll give you an explanation, if you want one. Either come and listen or be gone with you. I don’t really care, so long as you stop disturbing my town. We’ve work to do. Much more than usual, thanks to you.”

Mat glanced at Thom, who shrugged. “It never hurts to listen,” Thom said.

“I don’t know,” Mat said, eyeing Barlden. “Not unless you think it could hurt to end up surrounded by crazy, homicidal mountainfolk.”

“We leave, then?”

Mat shook his head slowly. “No. Burn me, they’ve still got my gold. Come on, let’s see what he has to say.”

“It started several months back,” the mayor said, standing beside the window. They were in a neat—yet simple—sitting room in his manor. The curtains and carpet were of a soft pale green, almost the color of ox-eye leaves, with light tan wood paneling. The mayor’s wife had brought tea made from dried sweetberries. Mat hadn’t chosen to drink any, and he had made certain to lean against the wall near the street door. His spear rested beside him.

Barlden’s wife was a short, brown-haired woman, faintly pudgy, with a motherly air. She returned from the kitchen, carrying a bowl of honey for the tea, then hesitated as she saw Mat leaning by the wall. She eyed the spear, then put the bowl on the table and retreated.

“What happened?” Mat asked, glancing at Thom, who had also declined a seat. The old gleeman stood with arms crossed beside the door from the kitchens. He nodded to Mat; the woman wasn’t listening at the door. He’d make a motion if he heard someone approach.

“We aren’t sure if it was something we did, or just a cruel curse by the Dark One himself,” the mayor said. “It was a normal day, early this year, just before the Feast of Abram. Nothing really special about it that I can remember. The weather had broken by then, though the snows hadn’t come yet. A lot of us went about our normal activities the next morning, thinking nothing of it.

“The oddities were small, you see. A broken door here, a rip in someone’s clothing they didn’t remember. And the nightmares. We all shared them, nightmares of death and killing. A few of the women started talking, and they realized that they couldn’t remember turning in the previous evening. They could remember waking, safe and comfortable in their beds, but only a few remembered actually getting into bed. Those who could remember had gone to sleep early, before sunset. For the rest of us, the late evening was just a blur.”

He fell silent. Mat glanced at Thom, who did not respond. Mat could see in those blue eyes of his that he was memorizing the tale. He’d better get it right if he puts me in any ballads, Mat thought, folding his arms. And he’d better include my hat. This is a good bloody hat.

“I was in the pastures that night,” the mayor continued. “I was helping old man Garken with a broken strip of fencing. And then . . . nothing. A fuzzing. I awoke the next morning in my own bed, next to my wife. We felt tired, as if we hadn’t slept well.” He stopped, then more softly, he added, “And I had the nightmares. They’re vague, and they fade. But I can remember one vivid image. Old man Garken, dead at my feet. Killed as if by a wild beast.”

Barlden stood next to a window in the eastern wall, opposite Mat, staring out. “But I went to see Garken the next day, and he was fine. We finished fixing the fence. It wasn’t until I got back to town that I heard the chattering. The shared nightmares, the missing hours just after sunset. We gathered, talking it through, and then it happened again. The sun set, and when it rose I woke up in bed again, tired, mind full of nightmares.”

He shivered, then walked over to the table and poured himself a cup of tea.

“We don’t know what happens at night,” the mayor said, stirring in a spoonful of honey.

“You don’t know?” Mat demanded. “I can bloody tell you what happens at night. You—”

“We don’t know what happens,” the mayor interrupted, looking up sharply. “And have no care to know.”

“But—”

“We have no need to know, outlander,” the mayor said harshly. “We want to live our lives as best we can. Many of us turn in early, lying down before sunset. There are no holes in our memories that way. We go to bed, we wake up in that same bed. There are nightmares, perhaps some damage to the house, but nothing that can’t be fixed. Others prefer to visit a tavern and drink to the setting of the sun. There’s a blessing in that, I suppose. Drink all you want, and you never have to worry about getting home. You always wake safe and sound in bed.”

“You can’t avoid this entirely,” Thom said softly. “You can’t pretend nothing is different.”

“We don’t.” Barlden took a drink of tea. “We have the rules. Rules that you ignored. No fires lit after sunset—we can’t have a blaze starting in the night, without anyone to fight it. And we forbid outsiders inside the town after sunset. We learned that lesson quickly. The first people trapped here after nightfall were relatives of Sammrie the cooper. We found blood on the walls of his home the next morning. But his sister and her family were safely asleep in the beds he’d given them.” The mayor paused. “Now they have the same nightmares we do.”

“So just leave,” Mat said. “Leave this bloody place and go somewhere else!”

“We’ve tried,” the mayor said. “We always wake up back here, no matter how far we go. Some have tried ending their lives. We buried the bodies. They woke up the next morning in their beds.”

The room fell silent.

“Blood and bloody ashes,” Mat whispered. He felt chilled.

“You survived the night,” the mayor said, stirring his tea again. “I assumed that you hadn’t, after seeing that bloodstain. We were curious to see where you’d wake up. Most of the rooms in the inns are permanently taken by travelers who are now, for better or worse, part of our village. We aren’t able to choose where someone awakens. It just happens. An empty bed gets a new occupant, and from then on they wake up there each morning.

“Anyway, when I heard you talking to one another about what you’d seen, I realized that you must have escaped. You remember the night too vividly. Anyone who . . . joins us simply has the nightmares. Count yourselves lucky. I suggest you move on and forget Hinderstap.”

“We have Aes Sedai with us,” Thom said. “They might be able to do something to help you. We could tell the White Tower, have them send—”

“No!” Barlden said sharply. “Our lives aren’t so bad, now that we know how to deal with our situation. We don’t want Aes Sedai eyes on us.” He turned away. “We nearly turned your group away flat. We do that, sometimes, if we sense that the travelers won’t obey our rules. But you had Aes Sedai with you. They ask questions, they get curious. We worried that if we turned you away, they’d get suspicious and force entrance.”

“Forcing them to leave at sunset made them even more curious,” Mat said. “And having their bathing attendants bloody try to kill them isn’t a good way to keep the secret either.”

The mayor looked wan. “Some wished . . . well, that you’d be trapped here. They thought that if Aes Sedai were bound here, they’d find a way out for all of us. We don’t all agree. Either way, it’s our problem. Please, just. . . .Just go.”

“Fine.” Mat stood up straight and picked up his spear. “But first, tell me where these came from.” He pulled the paper from his pocket, the one that bore a drawing of his face.

Barlden glanced at it. “You’ll find those spread around the nearby villages,” he said. “Someone’s looking for you. As I told Ledron last night, I’m not in the business of selling out guests. I wasn’t about to kidnap you and risk keeping you here overnight just for some reward.”

“Who’s looking for me?” Mat repeated.

“About twenty leagues to the northeast, there’s a small town called Trustair. Rumor says that if you want a little coin, you can bring news about a man who looks like the one in this picture, or the other one. Visit an inn in Trustair called The Shaken Fist to find the one looking for you.”

“Other picture?” Mat asked, frowning.

“Yes. A burly fellow with a beard. A note at the bottom says he has golden eyes.”

Mat glanced at Thom, who’d raised a bushy eyebrow.

“Blood and bloody ashes,” Mat muttered and pulled the side of his hat down. Who was looking for him and Perrin, and what did they want? “We’ll be going, I suppose,” he said. He glanced at Barlden. Poor fellow. That went for the entire village. But what was Mat to do about it? There were rights you could win, and others you just had to leave for someone else.

“Your gold is on the wagon outside,” the mayor said. “We didn’t take any from your winnings. The food is there too.” He met Mat’s eyes. “We hold to our word, here. Other things are out of our control, particularly for those who don’t listen to the rules. But we aren’t going to rob a man just because he’s an outsider.”

“Mighty tolerant of you,” Mat said flatly, pulling open the door. “Have a good day, then, and when night comes, try not to kill anyone I wouldn’t kill. Thom, you coming?”

The gleeman joined him, limping slightly from his old wound. Mat glanced back at Barlden, who stood with sleeves rolled up in the center of the room, looking down at his teacup. He seemed like he was wishing that cup held something a little stronger.

“Poor fellow,” Mat said, then stepped out into the morning light after Thom and pulled the door shut behind him.

“I assume we’re going after that person spreading around pictures of you?” Thom asked.

“Right as Light, we are,” Mat said, tying his ashandarei to Pips’ saddle. “It’s on the way to Four Kings anyway. I’ll lead your horse if you can drive the wagon.”

Thom nodded. He was studying the mayor’s home.

“What?” Mat asked.

“Nothing, lad,” the gleeman said. “It’s just . . . well, it’s a sad tale. Something’s wrong in the world. There’s a snag in the Pattern here. The town unravels at night, and then the world tries to reset it each morning to make things right again.”

“Well, they should be more forthcoming,” Mat said. The villagers had pulled the food-filled wagon up while Mat and Thom had been chatting with the mayor. It was hitched to two strong draft horses, tan of coloring and wide of hoof.

“More forthcoming?” Thom asked. “How? The mayor is right, they did try to warn us.”

Mat grunted, walking over to open the chest and check on his gold. It was there, as the mayor had said. “I don’t know,” he said. “They could put up a warning sign or something. Hello. Welcome to Hinderstap. We will murder you in the night and eat your bloody face if you stay past sunset. Try the pies. Martna Baily makes them fresh daily.”

Thom didn’t chuckle. “Poor taste, lad. There’s too much tragedy in this town for levity.”

“Funny,” Mat said. He counted out about as much gold as he figured would be a good price for the food and the wagon. Then, after a moment, he added ten more silver crowns. He set all of this in a pile on the mayor’s doorstep, then closed the chest. “The more tragic things get, the more I feel like laughing.”

“Are we really going to take this wagon?”

“We need the food,” Mat said, lashing the chest to the back of the wagon. Several large wheels of white cheese and a half dozen legs of mutton lay prominently alongside the casks of ale. The food smelled good, and his stomach rumbled. “I won it fair.” He glanced at the villagers passing on the street. When he’d first seen them the day before, he’d thought the slowness of their pace was due to the lazy nature of the mountain villagers. Now it struck him that there was another reason entirely.

He turned back to his work, checking the horses’ harness. “And I don’t feel a bit bad taking the wagon and horses. I doubt these villagers are going to be doing much traveling in the future. …”