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"Kinder," Rand said in a flat voice, setting thein the wine My soul is black with blood, and daed; a siht wish for, Torval"

Torval’s cruel s hard The sums were easy; one man in ten destroyed, one man in fifty mad, and more surely to come Early days yet, and no way till the day you died to know you had beaten the odds Except that the odds would beat you, one way or another, in the end Whatever else, Torval stood under that threat, too

Abruptly Rand becanized the expression on her face, and when he did, he bit back cold words How dare she feel pity! Did she think Tarmon Gai’don could be ithout blood? The Prophecies of the Dragon demanded blood like rain!

"Leave us," he told her, and she quietly gathered the servants But she still carried co around for a way to change thePity weakened as surely as fear, and they had to be strong To face what they had to face, they all , his responsibility

Lost in his own thoughts, Narish froh the side of the tent Torval cast sideways glances at Rand and struggled to put the scornful twist back on his mouth Dashiva alone appeared unaffected, with his arht study a horse offered for sale

Into the painfully stretching silence burst a husky, windblown young on on his collar Of an age with Hopwil, still not old enough to marry most places, Fedwin Morr wore intensity more closely than his shirt; hecat that knew itself hunted in turn He had been different, once, and not so long ago "The Seanchan will move froainst Illian next" Hopwil gave a start and a gasp, jolted out of his dark study Once again, Dashiva’s response was to laugh, on Scepter After all, he carried it for re he wished for

If Rand received the announce his sneer, he raised a contemptuous eyebrow "Did they tell you all that, now?" he said ly "Or have you learned to read ainst Amadicians and Domani both, and no army takes a city then packs itself up to march a thousand miles! More than a thousand miles! Or do you think they can Travel?"

Morr met Torval’s derision calave was running a thu sword hilt "I did talk to so by ship every day, or near enough" Shouldering past Torval to the table, he favored the Taraboner with a level look "All stepping right quick whenever anybody with a slurring way of speech opened a er pressed on hurriedly, to Rand "They’re putting soldiers all along the Venir Mountains Five hundred, soether All the way to Arran Head already And they’re buying or taking every wagon and cart within twenty leagues of Ebou Dar, and the anions! Is it that they mean to hold a market fair, do you think? And what fool would ood roads?" He noticed Rand watching him, and cut off with a small frown, suddenly uncertain

"I told you to stay low, Morr" Rand let anger touch his voice The young Asha’man had to step back as he ju the Seanchan their plans To look and stay low"

"I was careful; I didn’t wear e for Rand, still hunter and hunted in one He see inside Had Rand not known better, he would have thought Morr held the Power, struggling to survive saidin even as it gave him life ten times over His face seemed to want to sweat "If any of thenext, they didn’t say, and I didn’t ask, but they illing to co all the ti up all the ale in the city as fast as they could, because they say they have to ons, just like I said" That all cah to trapsuddenly, Rand clapped hions would have been enough, but you did well Wagons are i to Torval "If an army feeds off the country, it eats what it finds Or not, if it doesn’t" Torval had not flickered an eyelid at hearing of Seanchan in Ebou Dar If that tale had reached the Black Tohy had Taim not mentioned it? Rand hoped his se supply trains, but when you have one you know there’s fodder for the ani"

Sorting through the hted at one side with his sword and at the other with the Dragon Scepter The coast between Illian and Ebou Dar stared up at hith by hills and es and sanize Ebou Dar had been theirs barely more than a week, but the merchants’ eyesandears wrote of repairs well under way on the da, of clean sickhouses set up for the ill, of food and work arranged for the poor and those driven from their ho countryside were patrolled so that no one need fear footpads or bandits, day or night, and whilehad been cut to a trickle if not less Those honest IllianerWhat were the Seanchan organizing now?

The others gathered around the table as Rand perused the ling things, marked as little more than cart paths The broad trade roads lay inland, avoiding the worst of the terrain and the worst of what the Sea of Stor out of thoseto use the inland roads," he said finally "By controlling the mountains, they ht, Morr They ar