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The fetid feel grew stronger, and a burned sulfur s away fro the outside of the rooht and big as ponies Eyes shining silver, they circled him warily With the Power in hi He could not hear theh; perhaps they did not

He channeled, and a sas in his hands, its slightly curving, heron ha even worse than the Eyeless, but for dogs, even Shadon dogs, the sould be enough Whoever had sent them did not know him Lan said he had very nearly reached the level of a bladeh with praise to ht have passed onto that level already

With snarls like bones being ground to dust, the dogs hurtled at hi horses

He did not move until they were almost on hih dancing In the blink of an eye the sword form called Whirlwind on the Mountain beca the Fan Great black heads flew apart fro teeth, like burnished steel, still bared as they bounced across the floor He was already stepping fro, bleeding heaps

Laughing to hih he held on to saidin, to the raging Power, the sweetness and the taint Contes Shadon, certainly, but still just Laughter died

Slowly, the dead dogs and their heads wereinto pools of liquid shadow that quivered slightly, as if alive Their blood fanned across the floor, trembled Suddenly the smaller pools flowed across the floor in viscous streaer, which oozed away froe black dogs stood there once athered massive haunches under them

He did not knohy he felt surprise, dis, yes, but Shadon Whoever had sent theht But they still did not know hiain, he channeled as he res leaped, and a thick shaft of white light shot from his hands, like ing creatures; for an instant they becae shadows of themselves, all colors reversed, and then they weremotes that broke apart, so of the thing he had ht still seee

Across the great chamber a piece of one of the coluht -- or whatever it had been; not light, exactly -- had swung, neat slices were gone fro swath cut half the width of the wall behind them

"Did any of them bite you, or bleed on you?"

He spun at the sound of Moiraine’s voice; absorbed in what he had done, he had not heard her co her skirts with both hands, peering at his the same way he did, but to be here so quickly she must have run "The Maidens let you pass? Have you becoes of a Wise One," she said in a rush, iuards I had to speak with you urgently Now, answer me! Did the Darkhounds bite you, or bleed on you? Did their saliva touch you?"

"No," he answered slowly Darkhounds The little he knew he had gotten frohten children in the southlands Sorownups believed, too "Why should a bite worry you? You could Heal it Does this mean the Dark One is free?" Enclosed in the Void as he was, even fear was distant

The tales he had heard said the Darkhounds ran the night in the Wild Hunt, with the Dark One himself the hunter; they left no print on even the softest dirt, only on stone, and they would not stop until you faced and defeated the water between you Crossroads were supposed to be particularly dangerous places to meet them, and the tih old stories walking by now to believe that any of it could be true

"No, not that, Rand" She see her selfcontrol; her voice was silver chiain, calm and cool "They are only another kind of Shadon, so that should never have been er in the heart, and I do not think I could have Healed such a wound before it killed you Their blood, even their saliva, is poison A drop on the skin can kill, sloith great pain at the end You are lucky there were only three: Unless you killed er, as many as ten or twelve, or so say the scraps left froer packs He was not the only target in Rhuidean for one of the Forsaken…

"We an, but he was already running as hard as he could, ignoring her cries to knohere he was going and why

Down flights of stairs, through darkened corridors where sleepy Maidens, roused by the pounding boots, peered at hih the front doors, where Lan stood restlessly with the to Warder’s cloak about his shoulders, ht

"Where is Moiraine?" he shouted as Rand dashed by, but Rand leaped down the broad steps two at a ti

The halfhealed wound in his side clenched like a fist, pain he was only vaguely aware of inside the Void, by the tie of Rhuidean, far from the plaza, as far from the camp Moiraine shared with the Wise Ones as it was possible to be and remain in the city The upper floors had collapsed in a mound of rubble that fanned out onto the cracked earth beyond the pave his body’s efforts to hunch over around the pain, he went in, still at a dead run

Once the great antechamber, encircled by a stone balcony, had been tall; noas taller, open to the night sky, its pale stone floor streith rubble from the collapse In the moonshadows beneath the balcony, three Darkhounds were up on their hind legs, clawing and chewing at a bronzeclad door that shivered under their assault The smell of burned sulf