Chapter 4: CHAPTER 4
The journey to Baerlon took nearly a week. Lan complained about the slowness of the trip, but it was he who set the pace and forced the rest to keep up with him. With himself and his stallion, Mandarb — he said it meant "Blade" in the Old Tongue — he was not so lenient. The Warder covered twice their distance, galloping ahead, his color-changing cloak swirling in the wind, to scout what lay ahead of them, or falling back to check the rear. Anyone else who tried to move faster than a walk, however, was met with sharp words about taking care of their animals and biting comments about how well they would do on foot if the Trollocs appeared. Not even Moiraine was safe from his tongue if she let her white mare set her own pace. Aldieb was the mare's name; in the Old Tongue, "West Wind," the wind that brings the spring rains.
The Warder's scouting revealed no sign of pursuit or ambush. He spoke only to Moiraine about what he saw, and then quietly, so as not to be overheard, and the Aes Sedai informed the rest of them what she thought they needed to know. At first, Rand looked back as often as he looked forward. He wasn't the only one. Perrin often reached for his axe, and Mat rode with an arrow nocked to his bow, at first. But the land behind remained free of Trollocs and black-cloaked figures, and the sky stayed empty of Draghkar. Slowly, Rand began to think that perhaps they had indeed escaped.
There was nothing carefree about their slow movement. The North Road — Rand still thought of it that way, though he suspected it might have a different name here, north of the Taren — still ran almost exactly north, but, at Lan's insistence, their path meandered through the forest as often as it followed the hard-packed dirt road. A village, a farm, or any sign of men or civilization would cause them to detour for miles to avoid them, though they didn't encounter many such signs. All through the first day, Rand saw no evidence, besides the road, that men had ever been in that forest. It occurred to him that even when he reached the foothills of the Mountains of Mist, he probably hadn't been as far from human habitation as he was that day.
The first farm he saw, a huge house and a tall barn with steep thatched roofs, a spiral of smoke rising from a stone chimney, was a shock. "It's no different from where we come from," Perrin said, frowning as he looked at the distant buildings, barely visible between the trees. People moved about the farmyard, unaware of the travelers. "Of course it is," Mat said. "We're just not close enough to see." "I'm telling you. It's no different," Perrin insisted. "It has to be. We're north of the Taren, after all." "Quiet, you two," Lan grunted. "We don't want to be seen, remember? This way." He turned west to circle through the trees around the farm.
They always stopped while there was still light in the sky, so Rand could set up his tent, if it could be called that. He set up his protections which proved effective for the Warder and the Aes Sedai, where she always questioned him or went to check the object wanting to understand how it worked. She asked many questions related to magic and how he acquired his knowledge, and he always ignored them; his friends were on the other side of the evening fire while Moiraine examined a symbol of a triangle, a circle, and a line. After reading the book, she thought it was a tale, soon handing it to the minstrel along with the glasses.
The boys' dreams were often restless, full of ghostly figures and voices that murmured unintelligible words. One night, while lying in his tent, he had a recurring dream. In it, he was in a dark and empty place, surrounded by a darkness that seemed to swallow everything. Yet, somewhere in the distance, a faint light shone, a light that seemed familiar and comforting. He tried to move toward the light, but something pulled him back, an invisible force preventing him from advancing. He awoke sweating, his heart pounding. Moiraine stood outside the tent, watching him with piercing eyes. She seemed to know more than she said, but continued to keep secrets.
The road to Baerlon was long, and Rand began to wonder what awaited them in the city. He still had many questions, and the answers always seemed just out of reach, unattainable. However, one thing was certain: his life had changed irrevocably since leaving Emond's Field, and the world around him was proving to be much more complex and dangerous than he could have imagined.
At their first stop, before the sun set, Lan began to teach the boys what to do with the weapons they carried. He started with the bow. After seeing Mat put three arrows into a knot the size of a man's head in the trunk of a dead leatherleaf tree at a hundred paces, he told the others to do the same. Perrin duplicated Mat's feat, and Rand, using occlusion and staying completely calm, placed his three arrows so close their points almost touched. Mat gave him a look of praise, more seeming to remember something, he turned his gaze and walked away to the other side. Lan showed Perrin some techniques for using that large-bladed axe; raising an axe to strike someone, or something, wielding a weapon was very different from chopping wood or swinging the weapon playfully. Lan put the large apprentice blacksmith through a series of exercises, blocking, dodging, and striking, and did the same with Rand. His style was smooth, though it seemed incomplete. When Lan questioned him, he said his technique was used in conjunction with a magic wand, hence it seemed something was missing, but it still remained excellent; only those who observed closely could identify that something was missing.
The evening meal was always different from lunch and breakfast, unleavened bread, cheese, and dried meat. But at night there was hot tea to accompany, juices, and some fruits he had never seen. During the night, Thom entertained them. Lan didn't let the gleeman play the harp or the flute — there was no need to wake the camp, the Warder said — but Thom juggled and told stories. "Mara and the Three Foolish Kings" or one of the hundreds of stories about Anla, the Wise Counselor, or some tale of glory and adventure, like The Great Hunt of the Horn, but always with a happy ending and a cheerful return home.
However, if the land around them was peaceful, if no Trollocs emerged from the trees, no Draghkar from the clouds, it seemed to Rand that they managed to increase their tensions themselves whenever they were at risk of fading.
Like, for instance, the morning Egwene woke up and began undoing her hair braid. Rand watched her out of the corner of his eye while he rolled up his blanket. At night, when the fire was put out, everyone went to their rooms, except Egwene and the Aes Sedai. The two women always moved away from the others and stayed talking for an hour or two in the training room, returning when everyone else was asleep. Egwene ran the comb through her hair — a hundred times, he counted — reading some books, and eating a fruit, he was waiting for her to finish so they could leave. Then she put away the comb, threw her loose hair over her shoulder, and raised the hood of her cloak.
"What are you doing?" She shot him a sideways look without answering. It was the first time he had spoken to her in days. "All your life you waited to wear your hair in a braid, and now you're giving it up? Why? Because she doesn't braid hers?"
"Aes Sedai don't braid their hair," Egwene replied simply. "At least, not if they don't want to."
"You're not an Aes Sedai. You're Egwene al'Vere, from Emond's Field, you haven't even reached the Tower to start acting like one and the Women's Circle would have a fit if they saw you now."
"What the Women's Circle does is none of your business, Rand al'Thor. And I will be an Aes Sedai. As soon as I reach Tar Valon."
He snorted.
"As soon as you reach Tar Valon. Why? By the Light, tell me. You're not a Darkfriend."
"Do you think Moiraine Sedai is a Darkfriend? Do you really?" She turned completely and faced him with clenched fists, and he almost thought she was going to punch him. "After she saved the village? After she saved your father? I see how you are treating her while she's trying to help you. Especially you, Rand. You're selfish to the point of not even answering the most basic questions from the person who saved your father's life."
Rand's face changed to an expression of anger, which she noticed and he didn't bother to hide. She tried to justify herself, but he had already mounted Thunder and refused to look at her again.
"Are you two trying to wake everyone within ten miles?" the Warder asked.
Egwene's face turned red up to her eyebrows, and she spun on her heel with a mutter — "Men!" — that seemed directed as much at the Warder as at him.
Suspicious, Rand looked around. Everyone was staring at him, not just the Warder. Mat and Perrin, their faces white. Thom, tense, as if ready to flee or fight.
Moiraine. The Aes Sedai's face was expressionless, but her eyes seemed to pierce his head. Smiling, he remembered exactly what he had said about Aes Sedai and Darkfriends.
"It's time for us to leave," Moiraine announced.
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