The Great Hunt (33 page)

The creature rose in another bound, and at the peak, the arrow struck its central eye. The thing landed, fountaining another huge splash of water and mud. Ripples spread out from it, but it did not move.

“Well shot, and bravely,” the woman called. She was on her horse, riding to meet him. Rand felt vaguely surprised that she had not run once the thing’s attention was diverted. She rode past the bulk, still surrounded by the ripples of its dying, without even a downward glance, scrambled her horse up the bank and dismounted. “Few men would stand to face the charge of a
grolm,
my Lord.”

She was all in white, her dress divided for riding and belted in silver, and her boots, peeking out from under her hems, were tooled in silver, too. Even her saddle was white, and silver-mounted. Her snowy mare, with its arched neck and dainty step, was almost as tall as Rand’s bay. But it was the woman herself—she was perhaps Nynaeve’s age, he thought—who held his eyes. She was tall, for one thing; a hand taller and she could almost look him in the eyes. For another, she was beautiful, ivory-pale skin contrasting sharply with long, night-dark hair and black eyes. He had seen beautiful women. Moiraine was beautiful, if cool, and so was Nynaeve, when her temper did not get the better of her. Egwene, and Elayne, the Daughter-Heir of Andor, were each enough to take a man’s breath. But this woman. . . . His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth; he felt his heart start beating again.

“Your retainers, my Lord?”

Startled, he looked around. Hurin and Loial had joined them. Hurin was staring the way Rand knew he had been, and even the Ogier seemed fascinated. “My friends,” he said. “Loial, and Hurin. My name is Rand. Rand al’Thor.”

“I have never thought of it before,” Loial said abruptly, sounding as if he were talking to himself; “but if there is such a thing as perfect human beauty, in face and form, then you—”

“Loial!” Rand shouted. The Ogier’s ears stiffened in embarrassment. Rand’s own ears were red; Loial’s words had been too close to what he himself was thinking.

The woman laughed musically, but the next instant she was all regal formality, like a queen on her throne. “I am called Selene,” she said. “You have risked your life, and saved mine. I am yours, Lord Rand al’Thor.” And, to Rand’s horror, she knelt before him.

Not looking at Hurin or Loial, he hastily pulled her to her feet. “A man who will not die to save a woman is no man.” Immediately he disgraced himself by blushing. It was a Shienaran saying, and he knew it sounded pompous before it was out of his mouth, but her manner had infected him, and he could not stop it. “I mean. . . . That is, it was. . . .”
Fool, you can’t tell a woman saving her life was nothing.
“It was my honor.” That sounded vaguely Shienaran and formal. He hoped it would do; his mind was as blank of anything else to say as if he were still in the void.

Suddenly he became conscious of her eyes on him. Her expression had not changed, but her dark eyes made him feel as if he were naked. Unbidden, the thought came of Selene with no clothes. His face went red again. “Aaah! Ah, where are you from, Selene? We have not seen another human being since we came here. Is your town nearby?” She looked at him thoughtfully, and he stepped back. Her look made him too aware of how close to her he was.

“I’m not from this world, my Lord,” she said. “There are no people here. Nothing living except the
grolm
and a few other creatures like them. I am from Cairhien. And as to how I came here, I don’t know, exactly. I was out riding, and I stopped to nap, and when I woke, my horse and I were here. I can only hope, my Lord, that you can save me again, and help me go home.”

“Selene, I am not a . . . that is, please call me Rand.” His ears felt hot again.
Light, it won’t hurt anything if she thinks I’m a lord. Burn me, it won’t hurt anything.

“If you wish it . . . Rand.” Her smile made his throat tighten. “You will help me?”

“Of course, I will.”
Burn me, but she’s beautiful. And looking at me like I’m a hero in a story.
He shook his head to clear it of foolishness. “But first we have to find the men we are following. I’ll try to keep you out of danger, but we must find them. Coming with us will be better than staying here alone.”

For a moment she was silent, her face blank and smooth; Rand had no idea what she was thinking, except that she seemed to be studying him anew. “A man of duty,” she said finally. A small smile touched her lips. “I like that. Yes. Who are these miscreants you follow?”

“Darkfriends and Trollocs, my Lady,” Hurin burst out. He made an awkward bow to her from his saddle. “They did murder in Fal Dara keep and stole the Horn of Valere, my Lady, but Lord Rand will fetch it back.”

Rand stared at the sniffer ruefully; Hurin gave a weak grin.
So much for secrecy.
It did not matter here, he supposed, but once back in their world. . . . “Selene, you must not say anything of the Horn to anyone. If it gets out, we’ll have a hundred people on our heels trying to get the Horn for themselves.”

“No, it would never do,” Selene said, “for
that
to fall into the wrong hands. The Horn of Valere. I could not tell you how often I’ve dreamed of touching it, holding it in my hands. You must promise me, when you have it, you will let me touch it.”

“Before I can do that, we have to find it. We had better be on our way.” Rand offered his hand to help her mount; Hurin scrambled down to hold her stirrup. “Whatever that thing was I killed—a
grolm
?—there may be more of them around.” Her hand was firm—there was surprising strength in her grip—and her skin was. . . . Silk? Something softer, smoother. Rand shivered.

“There always are,” Selene said. The tall white mare frisked and bared her teeth once at Red, yet Selene’s touch on the reins quieted her.

Rand slung his bow across his back and climbed onto Red.
Light, how could anyone’s skin be so soft?
“Hurin, where’s the trail? Hurin? Hurin!”

The sniffer gave a start, and left off staring at Selene. “Yes, Lord Rand. Ah . . . the trail. South, my Lord. Still south.”

“Then let’s ride.” Rand gave an uneasy look at the gray-green bulk of the
grolm
lying in the stream. It had been better believing they were the only living things in that world. “Take the trail, Hurin.”

Selene rode alongside Rand at first, talking of this and that, asking him questions and calling him lord. Half a dozen times he started to tell her he was no lord, only a shepherd, and every time, looking at her, he could not get the words out. A lady like her would not talk the same way with a shepherd, he was sure, even one who had saved her life.

“You will be a great man when you’ve found the Horn of Valere,” she told him. “A man for the legends. The man who sounds the Horn will make his own legends.”

“I don’t want to sound it, and I don’t want to be part of any legend.” He did not know if she was wearing perfume, but there seemed to be a scent to her, something that filled his head with her. Spices, sharp and sweet, tickling his nose, making him swallow.

“Every man wants to be great. You could be the greatest man in all the Ages.”

It sounded too close to what Moiraine had said. The Dragon Reborn would certainly stand out through the Ages. “Not me,” he said fervently. “I’m just”—he thought of her scorn if he told her now that he was only a shepherd after letting her believe he was a lord, and changed what he had been going to say—“just trying to find it. And to help a friend.”

She was silent a moment, then said, “You’ve hurt your hand.”

“It is nothing.” He started to put his injured hand inside his coat—it throbbed from holding the reins—but she reached out and took it.

He was so surprised he let her, and then there was nothing to do except either jerk away rudely or else let her unwrap the kerchief. Her touch felt cool and sure. His palm was angrily red and puffy, but the heron still stood out, plainly and clearly.

She touched the brand with a finger, but made no comment on it, not even to ask how he had come by it. “This could stiffen your hand if it’s untended. I have an ointment that should help.” From a pocket inside her cloak she produced a small stone vial, unstopped it, and began gently rubbing a white salve on the burn as they rode.

The ointment felt cold at first, then seemed to melt away warmly into his flesh. And it worked as well as Nynaeve’s ointments sometimes did. He stared in amazement as the redness faded and the swelling went down under her stroking fingers.

“Some men,” she said, not raising her eyes from his hand, “choose to seek greatness, while others are forced to it. It is always better to choose than to be forced. A man who’s forced is never completely his own master. He must dance on the strings of those who forced him.”

Rand pulled his hand free. The brand looked a week old or more, all but healed. “What do you mean?” he demanded.

She smiled at him, and he felt ashamed of his outburst. “Why, the Horn, of course,” she said calmly, putting away her salve. Her mare, stepping along beside Red, was tall enough that her eyes were only a little below Rand’s. “If you find the Horn of Valere, there will be no avoiding greatness. But will it be forced on you, or will you take it? That’s the question.”

He flexed his hand. She sounded so much like Moiraine. “Are you Aes Sedai?”

Selene’s eyebrows lifted; her dark eyes glittered at him, but her voice was soft. “Aes Sedai? I? No.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m sorry.”

“Offend me? I am not offended, but I’m no Aes Sedai.” Her lip curled in a sneer; even that was beautiful. “They cower in what they think is safety when they could do so much. They serve when they could rule, let men fight wars when they could bring order to the world. No, never call me Aes Sedai.” She smiled and laid her hand on his arm to show she was not angry—her touch made him swallow—but he was relieved when she let the mare drop back beside Loial. Hurin bobbed his head at her like an old family retainer.

Rand was relieved, but he missed her presence, too. She was only two spans away—he twisted in his saddle to stare at her, riding by Loial’s side; the Ogier was bent half double in his saddle so he could talk with her—but that was not the same as being right there beside him, close enough for him to smell her heady scent, close enough to touch. He settled back angrily. It was not that he wanted to touch her, exactly—he reminded himself that he loved Egwene; he felt guilty at the need for reminding—but she was beautiful, and she thought he was a lord, and she said he could be a great man. He argued sourly with himself inside his head.
Moiraine says you can be great, too; the Dragon Reborn. Selene is not Aes Sedai. That’s right; she’s a Cairhienin noblewoman, and you’re a shepherd. She doesn’t know that. How long do you let her believe a lie? It’s only till we get out of this place. If we get out. If.
On that note, his thoughts subsided to sullen silence.

He tried to keep a watch on the country through which they rode—if Selene said there were more of those things . . . those
grolm
. . . about, he believed her, and Hurin was too intent on smelling the trail to notice anything else; Loial was too wrapped up in his talk with Selene to see anything until it bit him on the heel—but it was hard to watch. Turning his head too quickly made his eyes water; a hill or a stand of trees could seem a mile off when seen from one angle and only a few hundred spans when seen from another.

The mountains were growing closer, of that much he was sure. Kinslayer’s Dagger, looming against the sky now, a sawtooth expanse of snow-capped peaks. The land around them already rose in foothills heralding the coming of the mountains. They would reach the edge of the mountains proper well before dark, perhaps in only another hour or so.
More than a hundred leagues in less than three days. Worse than that. We spent most of a day south of the Erinin in the real world. Over a hundred leagues in less than two days, here.

“She says you were right about this place, Rand.”

Rand gave a start before he realized Loial had ridden up beside him. He looked for Selene and found her riding with Hurin; the sniffer was grinning and ducking his head and all but knuckling his forehead at everything she said. Rand glanced sideways at the Ogier. “I’m surprised you could let her go, the way you two had your heads together. What do you mean, I was right?”

“She is a fascinating woman, isn’t she? Some of the Elders don’t know as much as she does about history—especially the Age of Legends—and about—oh, yes. She says you were right about the Ways, Rand. The Aes Sedai, some of them, studied worlds like this, and that study was the basis of how they grew the Ways. She says there are worlds where it is time rather than distance that changes. Spend a day in one of those, and you might come back to find a year has passed in the real world, or twenty. Or it could be the other way round. Those worlds—this one, all the others—are reflections of the real world, she says. This one seems pale to us because it is a weak reflection, a world that had little chance of ever being. Others are almost as likely as ours. Those are as solid as our world, and have people. The same people, she says, Rand. Imagine it! You could go to one of them and meet yourself. The Pattern has infinite variation, she says, and every variation that can be, will be.”

Rand shook his head, then wished he had not as the landscape flickered back and forth and his stomach lurched. He took a deep breath. “How does she know all that? You know about more things than anybody I ever met before, Loial, and all you knew about this world amounted to no more than a rumor.”

“She’s Cairhienin, Rand. The Royal Library in Cairhien is one of the greatest in the world, perhaps the greatest outside Tar Valon. The Aiel spared it deliberately, you know, when they burned Cairhien. They will not destroy a book. Did you know that they—”

“I don’t care about Aielmen,” Rand said hotly. “If Selene knows so much, I hope she read how to get us home from here. I wish Selene—”

“You wish Selene what?” The woman laughed as she joined them.

Rand stared at her as if she had been gone months; that was how he felt. “I wish Selene would come ride with me some more,” he said. Loial chuckled, and Rand felt his face burn.