The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time #5) 75

For five hundred years riches had flowed into Cairhien with the silk and the ivory. Five hundred years, and Avendoraldera grew in Cairhien. And then King Laman had the tree cut down to make a throne. The nations knew why the Aiel had crossed the Spine of the World twenty years ago — Laman's Sin, they called it, and Laman's Pride — but few knew that to the Aiel it had not been a war. Four clans had come to find an oathbreaker, and when they had killed him, they returned to the Threefold Land. But their contempt for the treekillers, the oathbreakers, had never died. Moiraine being Aes Sedai offset her being Cairhienin, but Rand was never sure how much.

“These folk broke no oaths,” he told them. “Find the others; the saddlemaker says there are about a hundred. And be gentle with them. If any of them were watching, they're probably running away into the mountains by now.” The two Aiel started to turn away, and he added, “Did you hear what they told me? What do you think of what Couladin did here?”

“They killed more than they had to,” Dhearic said with a disgusted shake of his head. “Like black ferrets falling on rockhens' nests in a gully.” Killing was as easy as dying, so the Aiel said; any fool could do either.

“And the other thing? Taking prisoners. Gai'shain.”

Rhuarc and Dhearic exchanged looks, and Dhearic's mouth tightened. Clearly they had heard, and it made them uncomfortable. It took a great deal to make an Aiel uncomfortable.

“It cannot be so,” Rhuarc said at last. “If it is... Gai'shain is a thing of ji'e'toh. No one can be made gai'shain who does not follow ji'e'toh, else they are only human animals, such as the Sharans keep.”

“Couladin has abandoned ji'e'toh.” Dhearic sounded as though he were saying stones had grown wings.

Mat guided Pips closer, using his knees. He had never been more than an indifferent rider, but sometimes, when he was thinking of something else, he rode as though born on a horse's back. “That surprises you?” he said. “After everything he has done already? The man would cheat at dice with his mother.”

They gave him flateyed stares, like blue stones. In many ways, Aiel were ji'e'toh. And whatever else Couladin was, he was still Aiel in their eyes. Sept before clan, clan before outsiders, but Aiel before wetlanders.

Some of the Maidens joined them, Enaila and Jolien and Adelin, and wiry, whitehaired Sulin, who had been chosen roofmistress of the Roof of the Maidens in Rhuidean. She had told the Maidens who stayed to choose another, and now she led the Maidens here. They sensed the mood, and said nothing, only grounded their spearpoints patiently. An Aiel who wanted to could make the rocks look hasty.

Lan broke the silence. “If Couladin expects you to be following him, he may have left a surprise somewhere in the pass. A hundred men could hold some of those narrows against an army. A thousand...”

“We will camp here, then,” Rand said, “and send scouts ahead to make sure the way is clear. Duadhe Mahdi'in?”

“Water Seekers,” Dhearic agreed, sounding pleased. That had been his society before he became clan chief.

Sulin and the other Maidens gave Rand flat stares as the Reyn chief walked away downslope. He had chosen scouts from other societies for the last three days, when he had begun to fear what he might find here, and he had the feeling they knew he was not just giving the others their turns. He tried to ignore their looks. Sulin's was especially difficult; the woman could have driven nails with those pale blue eyes.

“Rhuarc, once the survivors are found, see that they're fed. And well treated. We will take them with us.” His gaze was drawn to the town wall. Some Aiel were already using their curved horn bows to kill ravens. Sometimes Shadowspawn used ravens and other animals that fed on death as spies; Shadoweyes, the Aiel called them. These barely paused in the frenzied feeding until they fell transfixed with an arrow, but a wise man did not take chances with ravens or rats. “And see that the dead are buried.” At least in that, right and necessity were the same.

Chapter 21

(Rising Sun)

The Gift of a Blade

The camp began to go up quickly, in the mouth of Jangai Pass, if away from Taien, and spreading over the hills around the approaches, among the scattered thornbushes, and even onto the slopes of the mountains. Not that anything was very visible except what was inside the pass; Aiel tents blended into the stony soil so well that you could miss them even when you knew what you were looking for and where. In the hills the Aiel camped by clan, but those in the pass itself grouped themselves by society. They were mostly Maidens, but the men's societies sent their representatives, too, some fifty each, spreading tents well above the ruins of Taien in slightly separated camps. Everyone understood, or thought they did, about the Maidens carrying Rand's honor, but all societies wanted to guard the Car'a'carn.

Moiraine — and Lan, of course — went to get Kadere's wagons settled, just below the town; the Aes Sedai fussed over what was in those wagons nearly as much as she did over Rand. The drivers muttered and cursed about the town's smell, and avoided watching the Aiel cut bodies down from the wall, but after their months in the Waste, they seemed to like being close even to the wreckage of what they saw as civilization.

Gai'shain were erecting the Wise Ones' tents — those of Amys and Bair and Melaine — below the town, astride the faded track that led up out of the hills. Rand was sure they would say they had chosen the spot to be available to him as well as to the countless dozens of Wise Ones below, but he thought it no coincidence that anyone coming up from the hills to him would have to go through or around their camp to reach him. He was a little surprised to see Melaine directing the whiterobed figures. Only three nights before, she had married Bael, in a ceremony that made her his wife and firstsister to his other wife, Dorindha. That part had been just as important as the marriage, apparently; Aviendha had been shocked at his surprise, or maybe angry.

When Egwene arrived with Aviendha up behind her on the gray mare, those full skirts pushed above their knees, they looked a matched pair despite their different coloring and Aviendha being tall enough to look over Egwene's shoulder without stretching, each with just one ivory bracelet and one necklace. The work of removing the hanged corpses had barely begun. Most of the ravens lay dead, bundles of black feathers littering the ground, and the rest had flown, but vultures too gorged to flap aloft still waddled through t