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The servant stood in the hallway, not entering "You arments if you wish, my Lord None will see you depart here, nor arrive at your destination, but it may be best to arrive already properly clothed Someone will come soon to show you the way"

Untouched by any visible hand, the door swung shut

The man who called himself Bors shivered in spite of his and pulled out his usual cloak In the back of his mind a small voice wondered if the pro like this, but he laughed it down immediately For that much power, I would praise the Great Lord of the Dark under the Doiven hi sun worked on the breast of the white cloak, and the red shepherd’s crook behind the sun, syhed There ork, great work, to be done in Tarabon, and on Almoth Plain

Chapter 1

The Flaes coend, then fade to e, called the Third Age by so past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Dhoos nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Tied peaks, where death roaerous, the wind blew south across the tangled forest of the Great Blight, a forest tainted and twisted by the touch of the Dark One The sickly sweet smell of corruption faded by the time the wind crossed that invisible linethick in the trees It should have been su, and the land had run wild to catch up Newcorowth tipped every tree branch The wind rippled farmers’ fields like verdant ponds, solid with crops that almost seemed to creep upward visibly

The s before the wind reached the stonewalled town of Fal Dara on its hills, and whipped around a tower of the fortress in the very center of the town, a tower atop which two h, Fal Dara, both keep and town, never taken, never betrayed The wind led rooftops, around tall stone chie

Stripped to the waist, Rand al’Thor shivered at the wind’s cold caress, and his fingers flexed on the long hilt of the practice sword he held The hot sun had slicked his chest, and his dark, reddish hair clung to his head in a sweatcurled mat A faint odor in the swirl of air made his nose twitch, but he did not connect the srave freshopened that flashed through his head He was barely aware of odor or ie at all; he strove to keep histhe tower top with hi on the emptiness Ten paces across, the tower top was, encircled by a chesthigh, crenellated wall Big enough and more not to feel crowded, except when shared with a Warder

Young as he was, Rand was taller than most men, but Lan stood just as tall and more heavily muscled, if not quite so broad in the shoulders A narrow band of braided leather held the Warder’s long hair back froles, a face unlined as if to belie the tinge of gray at his teht coat of sweat glistened on his chest and ar for some hint of what the other man intended The Warder never seemed to blink, and the practice sword in his hands moved surely and smoothly as he flowed from one stance to another

With a bundle of thin, loosely bound staves in place of a blade, the practice sould , and leave a here it hit flesh Rand knew all too well Three thin red lines stung on his ribs, and another burned his shoulder It had taken all his efforts not to wear ht, Rand forle flame in his mind and concentrated on it, tried to feed all emotion and passion into it, to forht outside Emptiness came As was too often the case of late it was not a perfect eht sending ripples through the stillness But it was enough, barely The cool peace of the void crept over him, and he was one with the practice sword, with the smooth stones under his boots, even with Lan All was one, and he ht in a rhythm that matched the Warder’s step for step andof bells fro has finally coh the void on waves of light, disturbing the emptiness, and as if the Warder could read Rand’s mind, the practice shirled in Lan’s hands

For a longfilled the tower top Rand made no effort to reach the other man; it was all he could do to keep the Warder’s strikes fro Lan’s blows at the last possible ed; the practice sword see slash changed in ht by surprise, Rand stepped back, already wincing with the blow he knew he could not stop this time

The wind howled across the tower and trapped hi hi him forward Time and motion slowed; horrified, he watched Lan’s practice sword drift toward his chest There was nothing slow or soft about the impact His ribs creaked as if he had been struck with a haive way; it still carried him forward, instead The lathes of Lan’s practice sword flexed and bent -- ever so slowly, it see toward his heart, jagged lathes piercing his skin Pain lanced through his body; his whole skin felt slashed He burned as though the sun had flared to crisp him like bacon in a pan

With a shout, he threw hiainst the stone wall Hand treashes on his chest and raised bloody fingers before his gray eyes in disbelief

"And as that fool rated "You know better by now, or should unless you have forgotten everything I’ve tried to teach you How badly are you -- ?" He cut off