The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time #2)

The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time #2) Page 125

With a sudden heave, Loial threw the Trolloc aside, so hard that the thing cartwheeled against the side of a building. It struck, headfirst, with a loud crack, and slid down the wall to lie with its neck twisted at an impossible angle. Loial stood staring at it, his chest heaving.

Rand looked out of the emptiness for a moment before he realized what had happened. As soon as he did, though, he let void and tainted light go, and hurried to Loial's side.

“I never ... killed before, Rand.” Loial drew a shuddering breath.

“It would have killed you if you hadn't,” Rand told him. Anxiously, he looked at the alleys and shuttered windows and barred doors. Where there were two Trollocs, there had to be more. “I'm sorry you had to do it, Loial, but it would have killed both of us, or worse.”

“I know. But I cannot like it. Even a Trolloc.” Pointing toward the setting sun, the Ogier seized Rand's arm. “There's another of them.”

Against the sun, Rand could not make out details, but it appeared to be another group of men with a huge puppet, coming toward Loial and him. Except that now he knew what to look for, the “puppet” moved its legs too naturally, and the snouted head rose to sniff the air without anyone lifting a pole. He did not think the Trolloc and Darkfriends could see him among the evening shadows, or what lay in the street around him; they moved too slowly for that. Yet it was plain they were hunting, and coming closer.

“Fain knows I am out here somewhere,” he said, hastily wiping his blade on a dead Trolloc's coat. “He's set them to find me. He is afraid of the Trollocs being seen, though, or he wouldn't have them disguised. If we can reach a street where there are people, we'll be safe. We have to get back to Hurin. If Fain finds him, alone with the Horn ...”

He pulled Loial along to the next corner and turned toward the nearest sounds of laughter and music, but long before they reached it, another group of men appeared ahead of them in the otherwise empty street with a puppet that was no puppet. Rand and Loial took the next turning. It led east.

Every time Rand tried to reach the music and laughter, there was a Trolloc in the way, often sniffing the air for a scent. Some Trollocs hunted by scent. Sometimes, here where there were no eyes to see, a Trolloc stalked alone. More than once he was sure it was one he had seen before. They were closing in, and making sure he and Loial did not leave the deserted streets with their shuttered windows. Slowly the two of them were forced east, away from the city and Hurin, away from other people, along narrow, slowly darkening streets that ran in all directions, uphill and down. Rand eyed the houses they passed, the tall buildings closed up tight for the night, with more than a little regret. Even if he pounded on a door until someone opened it, even if they took Loial and him in, none of the doors he saw would stop a Trolloc. All that would do would be to offer up more victims with Loial and himself.

“Rand,” Loial said finally, “there is nowhere else to go.”

They had reached the eastern edge of the Foregate; the tall buildings to either side of them were the last. Lights in windows on the upper stories mocked him, but the lower floors were all shut tight. Ahead lay the hills, cloaked in first twilight and bare of so much as a farmhouse. Not entirely empty, though. He could just make out pale walls surrounding one of the larger hills, perhaps a mile away, and buildings inside.

“Once they push us out there,” Loial said, “they won't have to worry who sees them.”

Rand gestured to the walls around the hill. “Those should stop a Trolloc. It must be a lord's manner. Maybe they'll let us in. An Ogier, and an outland lord? This coat has to be good for something sooner or later. ” He looked back down the street. No Trollocs in sight yet, but he drew Loial around the side of the building anyway.

“I think that is the Illuminators' chapter house, Rand. Illuminators guard their secrets tightly. I don't think they would let Galldrian himself inside there.”

“What trouble have you gotten yourself into now?” said a familiar woman's voice. There was suddenly a spicy perfume in the air.

Rand stared: Selene stepped around the corner they had just rounded, her white dress bright in the dimness. “How did you get here? What are you doing here? You have to leave immediately. Run! There are Trollocs after us.”

“So I saw.” Her voice was dry, yet cool and composed. “I came to find you, and I find you allowing Trollocs to herd you like sheep. Can the man who possesses the Horn of Valere let himself be treated so?”

“I don't have it with me,” he snapped, “and I don't know how it could help if I did. The dead heroes are not supposed to come back to save me from Trollocs. Selene, you have to get away. Now!” He peered around the corner.

Not more than a hundred paces away, a Trolloc was sticking its horned head cautiously into the street, smelling the night. A large shadow by its side had to be another Trolloc, and there were smaller shadows, too. Darkfriends.

“Too late,” Rand muttered. He shifted the flute case to pull off his cloak and wrap it around her. It was long enough to hide her white dress entirely, and trail on the ground besides. “You'll have to hold that up to run,” he told her. “Loial, if they won't let us in, we will have to find a way to sneak in.”

“But, Rand —”

“Would you rather wait for the Trollocs?” He gave Loial a push to start him, and took Selene's hand to follow at a trot. “Find us a path that won't break our necks, Loial.”

“You're letting yourself become flustered,” Selene said. She seemed to have less trouble following Loial in the failing light than Rand did. “Seek the Oneness, and be calm. One who would be great must always be calm.”

“The Trollocs might hear you,” he told her. “I don't want greatness.” He thought he heard an irritated grunt from her.

Stones sometimes turned underfoot, but the way across the hills was not hard despite the twilight shadows. Trees, and even brush, had long since been cleared from the hills for firewood. Nothing grew except kneehigh grass that rustled softly around their legs. A night breeze came up softly. Rand worried that it might carry their scent to the Trollocs.

Loial stopped when they reached the wall; it stood twice as high as the Ogier, the stones covered with a whitish plaster. Rand peered back toward the Foregate. Bands of lighted windows reached out like spokes of a