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They rode south

Chapter 14

(Wolf)

Wolf brother

"Gone?" Ingtar de! They cannot just be gone!"

Listening, Perrin hunched his shoulders and looked at Mat, who stood a little way off frowning andwith hi over the horizon, past ti across the hollow, stretched out and thinned, but still like the trees that made them The packhorses, loaded and on their lead line, stamped impatiently, but everyone stood by histrack, my Lord" He sounded offended; failure touched on his skill "Burnhoof scrape They just bloody vanished"

"Three rowled "Go over the ground again, Uno If anyone can find where they went, it’s you"

"Maybe they just ran away," Mat said Uno stopped and glared at hily

"Why would they run away?" Ingtar’s voice was dangerously soft "Rand, the Builder, my sniffer -- my sniffer! -- ould any of theed "I don’t know Rand was " Perrin wanted to throw sotar and Uno atching He felt a flood of relief when Mat hesitated, then spread his hands and ht rowled as if he did not believe it for an instant "The Builder can go as he will, but Hurin would not run away And neither would Rand al’Thor He would not; he knows his duty, now Go on, Uno Search the ground again" Uno gave a half bow and hurried away, sword hilt bobbing over his shoulder Ingtar grumbled, "Why would Hurin leave like that, in the ht, without a word? He knoe’re about How aive a thousand gold crowns for a pack of trail hounds If I did not know better, I would say the DarkfriendsPeace, I don’t know if I do know better" He stumped off after Uno

Perrin shifted uneasily The Darkfriends were doubtless getting further aith everyfurther away, and with theoth He did not think that Rand, whatever he had become, whatever had happened to hio, and why? Loial o with Rand for friendship -- but why Hurin?

"Maybe he did run away," he muttered, then looked around No one appeared to have heard; even Mat was not paying hih his hair If Aes Sedai had been after hi about Rand was doing nothing to help track the Darkfriends

There was a way, perhaps, if he illing to take it He did not want to take it He had been running away froht for what I told Rand I wish I could run Even knohat he could do to help -- what he had to do -- he hesitated

No one was looking at hi even if they did look Finally, reluctantly, he closed his eyes and let hihts drift, out, away fro before his eyes began to change fro, that first instant of recognition, he had refused to believe, and he had run fronition ever since He still wanted to run

His thoughts drifted, feeling for what must be out there, as always out there in country wherefor his brothers He did not like to think of the he had been afraid that what he did had some taint of the Dark One, or of the One Power -- equally bad for aht, and in peace Fro of how Rand felt, afraid of hi unclean He was still not past that entirely This thing he did was older than hu from the birth of Ti vanished, now coh he wished she did not He wished no one did He hoped she had not told anyone

Contact He felt them, felt other hts caes and e except the raw emotion, but now his s that talks A faded i olves, two packs hunting together We have heard this co Tooth?

It was a faint picture of aknife in his hand, but overlaid on the ier than the rest, a steel tooth gleaht as the wolf led the pack in a desperate charge through deep snoard the deer that would mean life instead of slow death by starvation, and the deer thrashing to run in powder to their bellies, and the sun glinting on the white until it hurt the eyes, and the wind howling down the passes, swirling the fine snow like es

Perrin recognized the man Elyas Machera, who had first introduced him to wolves Soht, and tried to picture himself in his e he had y, brown curls, a young ht ht slowly That man was there, somewhere in the er by far was athrough the night with the speed and exuberance of youth, curlyhaired coat glea Whitecloaks on their horses, with the air crisp and cold and dark, and blood so red on the horns, and

Young Bull

For a moment Perrin lost the contact in his shock He had not dreaiven him a name He wished he could not remember how he had earned it He touched the axe at his belt, with its gleaht help me, I killed two men They would have killed me even q