Towers of Midnight

9 Blood in the Air

Mat ducked immediately. That instinct saved his life as something swung through the air above his head. Mat rolled to the side, his hand hitting something wet as it touched the floor. “Murder!” he bellowed. “Murder in the camp! Bloody murder!”

Something moved toward him. The tent was completely black, but he could hear it. Mat stumbled, but luck was with him as again something swished near him.

Mat hit the ground and rolled, flinging his hand to the side. He had left…

There! He came up beside his sleeping pallet, his hand grasping at the long wooden haft there. He threw himself backward to his feet, hauling the ashandarei up, then spun and slashed—not at the form moving through the tent toward him, but at the wall.

The fabric cut easily and Mat leaped out, clutching his long-bladed spear in one hand. With his other hand, he reached for the leather strap at his neck, his fingernails ripping at his skin in his haste. He pulled the fox-head medallion off and turned in the brush outside the tent.

A weak light came from a nearby lantern on a post at an intersection of camp pathways. By it, Mat made out the figure sliding out the rip in the tent. A figure he had feared to see. The gholam looked like a man, slender with sandy hair and unremarkable features. The only thing distinct about the thing was the scar on its cheek.

It was supposed to look harmless, supposed to be forgettable. If most people saw this thing in a crowd, they would ignore it. Right up to the point where it ripped their throat out.

Mat backed away. His tent was near a hillside, and he backed up to it, pulling the foxhead medallion up and wrapping it tightly by its leather strap to the side of his ashandarei’s blade. It was far from a perfect fit, but he had practiced this. The medallion was the only thing he knew that could hurt the gholam. He worked swiftly, still yelling for help. Soldiers would be no use against this thing, but the gholam had said before that it had been ordered to avoid too much notice. Attention might frighten it away.

It did hesitate, glancing toward the camp. Then it turned back to Mat stepping forward. Its movements were as fluid as silk rippling in the wind. “You should be proud,” it whispered. “The one who now controls me wants you more than anyone else. I am to ignore all others until I have tasted your blood.”

In its left hand, the creature carried a long dagger. Its right hand dripped blood. Mat felt a freezing chill. Who had it killed? Who else had been murdered in Matrim Cauthon’s stead? The image of Tylin flashed in his mind again. He had not seen her corpse; the scene was left to his imagination. Unfortunately, Mat had a pretty good imagination.

That image in his head, smelling the blood on the air, he did the most foolish thing he could have. He attacked.

Screaming in the open darkness, Mat spun forward, swinging the ashandarei. The creature was so fast. It seemed to flow out of the way of his weapon.

It rounded him, like a circling wolf, footsteps barely making a sound in the dried weeds. It struck, its form a blur, and only a backward jump by reflex saved Mat. He scrambled through the weeds, swinging the ashandarei. It seemed wary of the medallion. Light, without that, Mat would be dead and bleeding on the ground!

It came at him again, like liquid darkness. Mat swung wildly and clipped the gholam more by luck than anything else. The medallion made a searing hiss as it touched the beast’s hand. The scent of burned flesh rose in the air, and the gholam scrambled back.

“You didn’t have to kill her, burn you,” Mat yelled at it. “You could have left her! You didn’t want her; you wanted me!”

The thing merely grinned, its mouth an awful black, teeth twisted. “A bird must fly. A man must breathe. I must kill.” It stalked forward, and Mat knew he was in trouble. The cries of alarm were loud now. It had only been a few moments, but a few more, and help would arrive. Only a few more moments…

“I’ve been told to kill them all,” the gholam said softly. “To bring you out. The man with the mustache, the aged one who interfered last time, the little dark-skinned woman who holds your affection. All of them, unless I take you now.”

Burn that gholam; how did the thing know about Tuon? How? It was impossible!

He was so startled that he barely had time to raise the ashandarei as the gholam leaped for him. Mat cursed, twisting to the side, but too late. The creature’s knife flashed in the air. Then the weapon jerked and ripped sideways from its fingers. Mat started, then felt something wrap around him and jerk him backward, out of the reach of the gholam’s swipe.

Weaves of Air. Teslyn! She stood in front of his tent, her face a mask of concentration.

“You won’t be able to touch it directly with weaves!” Mat screamed as her Air deposited him a short distance from the gholam. If she had been able to bloody raise him up high enough, he would have been fine with that! But he had never seen an Aes Sedai lift someone more than a pace or so in the air.

He scrambled to the side, the gholam charging after him. Then something large flew between them, causing the gholam to dodge fluidly. The object—a chair!—crashed into the hillside beside them. The gholam spun as a large bench smashed into it, throwing it backward.

Mat steadied himself, looking at Teslyn, who was reaching into his tent with invisible weaves of Air. Clever woman, he thought. Weaves could not touch the gholam, but something thrown by them could.

That would not stop it. Mat had seen the creature pluck out a knife that had been rammed into its chest; it had shown the indifference a man would show at plucking a burr from his clothing. But now soldiers were leaping over pathways, carrying pikes or swords and shields. The entire camp was being lit up.

The gholam gave Mat a glare, then dashed off toward the darkness outside of camp. Mat spun, then froze as he saw two Redarms set pikes against the oncoming gholam. Gorderan and Fergin. Both men who had survived the time in Ebou Dar.

“No!” Mat yelled. “Let it—”

Too late. The gholam indifferently slid between the pikes, grabbing each man’s throat in a hand, then crushing its fingers together. With a spin, it ripped free their flesh, dropping both men. Then it was off into the darkness.

Burn you! Mat thought, starting to dash after it. I’ll gut you and— He froze. Blood in the air. From inside his tent. He had nearly forgotten that.

Olver! Mat scrambled back to the tent. It was dark within, though the scent of blood once again assaulted him. “Light! Teslyn, can you—”

A globe of light appeared behind him.

The light of her globe was enough to illuminate a terrible scene inside. Lopin, Mats serving man, lay dead, his blood darkening the tent floor in a large black pool. Two other men—Riddem and Will Reeve, Redarms who had been guarding his door—were heaped onto his sleeping pallet. He should have noticed that they were missing from their post. Fool!

Mat felt a stab of sorrow for the dead. Lopin, who had only recently shown that he was recovered from Nalesean’s death. Light burn him, he had been a good man! Not even a soldier, just a serving man, content to have someone to take care of. Mat now felt terrible for having complained about him. Without Lopin’s help, Mat would not have been able to escape Ebou Dar.

And the four Redarms, two of whom had survived Ebou Dar and the gholam’s previous attack.

I should have sent word, Mat thought. Should have put the entire camp on alert. Would that have done any good? The gholam had proven itself practically unstoppable. Mat had the suspicion that it could cut down the entire Band in getting to him, if it needed to. Only its master’s command that it avoid attention prevented it from doing so.

He did not see any sign of Olver, though the boy should have been sleeping on his pallet in the corner. Lopin’s blood had pooled nearby, and Olver’s blanket was soaking it up from the bottom. Mat took a deep breath and began searching through the shambles, overturning blankets and looking behind travel furniture, worried at what he might find.

More soldiers arrived, cursing. The camp was coming alert: horns of warning blowing, lanterns being lit, armor clanking.

“Olver,” Mat said to the soldiers gathering at his doorway. He had searched the entire bloody tent! “Has anyone seen him?”

“I think he was with Noal,” said Slone Maddow, a wide-eared Redarm. “They—”

Mat shoved his way out of the tent, then ran through camp toward Noal’s tent. He arrived just as the white-haired man was stepping out, looking about in alarm.

“Olver?” Mat asked, reaching the older man.

“He’s safe, Mat,” Noal said, grimacing. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to alarm you. We were playing Snakes and Foxes, and the boy fell asleep on the floor. I pulled a blanket over him; he’s been staying up so late waiting for you these nights that I figured it was best not to wake him. I should have sent word.”

“You’re sorry?” Mat said, grabbing Noal in an embrace. “You bloody wonderful man. You saved his life!”

An hour later, Mat sat with Thom and Noal inside Thom’s small tent. A dozen Redarms guarded the place, and Olver had been sent to sleep in Teslyn’s tent. The boy did not know how close he had come to being killed. Hopefully he never would.

Mat wore his medallion again, though he needed to find a new leather strap. The ashandarei had cut the other one up pretty bad. He would need to find a better way to tie it on there.

“Thom,” Mat said softly, “the creature threatened you, and you too, Noal. It didn’t mention Olver, but it did mention Tuon.”

“How would the thing know about her?” Thom asked, scratching at his head.

“The guards found another corpse outside of the camp. Derry.” Derry was a soldier who had gone missing a few days back, and Mat had presumed him to have deserted. It happened sometimes, though desertion was irregular in the Band. “He’d been dead a few days.”

“It took him that long ago?” Noal said, frowning. Noal’s shoulders were stooped and he had a nose the shape of a large, bent pepper growing right out the middle of his face. He had always looked… worn to Mat. His hands were so gnarled, they seemed to be all knuckles.

“It must have interrogated him,” Mat said. “Found out people I spent time with, where my tent was.”

“Is the thing capable of that?” Thom said. “It seemed more like a hound to me, hunting you out.”

It knew where to find me in Tylin’s palace,” Mat said. “Even after I was gone, it went to her rooms. So either it asked someone, or it was observing. We’ll never know if Derry was tortured, or if he just ran across the gholam while it was sneaking about the camp and spying. But the thing is clever.”

It wouldn’t actually go after Tuon, would it? Threatening his friends was probably just a way to unhinge Mat. After all, the thing had shown tonight that it still had orders to avoid too much attention. That didn’t console Mat much. If that monster hurt Tuon…

There was only one way to make sure that didn’t happen.

“So what do we do?” Noal asked.

“We’re going to hunt it,” Mat said softly, “and we’re going to kill the bloody thing.”

Noal and Thom fell silent.

“I won’t have this thing chasing us all the way to the Tower of Ghenjei,” Mat said.

“But can it be killed, Mat?” Thom asked.

“Anything can be killed,” Mat said. “Teslyn proved that she could still hurt it using the One Power, if she was clever. We’ll have to do something similar.”

“What?” Noal asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Mat said. “I want you two to continue your preparations; get us ready so that we can leave for the Tower of Ghenjei as soon as my oath to Verin will let us. Burn me, I still need to talk to Elayne. I want Aludra’s dragons started. I’ll have to write her another letter. Stronger, this time.

“For now, we’re going to make some changes. I’m going to start sleeping in the city. A different inn each night. We’ll let the Band know it, so if the gholam listens, it will find out. There will be no need for it to attack the men.

“You two will need to move to the city too. Until this is done, until it is dead or I am. The question is what to do about Olver. The thing didn’t mention him, but…”

He saw understanding in Thom’s and Noal’s eyes. Mat had left Tylin behind, and she was dead now. He was not going to do the same to Olver.

“We’ll have to take the boy with us,” Thom said. “Either that or send him away.”

“I heard the Aes Sedai talking earlier,” Noal said, rubbing his face with a bony finger. “They’re planning to leave. Maybe send him with them?”

Mat grimaced. The way Olver leered at women, the Aes Sedai would have him strung up by his toes in a day flat. Mat was surprised it had not happened already. If he ever found out which of the Redarms was teaching the boy to act that way around women…

“I doubt we’d be able to get him to go,” Mat said. “He’d be out of their sight and back here their first night away.”

Thom nodded in agreement.

“We’ll have to take him with us,” Mat said. “Have him stay at the inns inside the city. Maybe that—”

“Matrim Cauthon!” The shrill call came from outside Thom’s tent.

Mat sighed, then nodded to the other two and stood up. He stepped out of the tent to find that Joline and her Warders had bullied their way through the Redarms and had nearly yanked open the tent flaps to come stalking in. His appearance drew her up short.

Several of the Redarms looked abashed at having let her through, but the men could not be blamed. Bloody Aes Sedai would bloody do what they bloody pleased.

The woman herself was everything that Teslyn was not. Slender and pretty, she wore a white dress with a deep neckline. She often smiled, though that smile became thin-lipped when she turned it on Mat, and she had large brown eyes. The type of eyes that could suck a man in and try to drown him.

Pretty as she was, Mat did not think of her as a match for one of his friends. He would never wish Joline upon someone he liked. In fact, he was too gentlemanly to wish her on most of his enemies. Best she stayed with Fen and Blaeric, her Warders, who were madmen in Mat’s opinion.

Both were Borderlanders—one Shienaran, the other Saldaean. Fen’s tilted eyes were hard. He always seemed to be looking for someone to murder; each conversation with him was an interview to see if you fit the criteria. Blaeric’s topknot was growing in, and getting longer, but it was still too short. Mat would have mentioned that it looked remarkably like a badger’s tail glued to his head, except that he did not feel like being murdered today. It had already been a bloody awful evening.

Joline folded her arms beneath her breasts. “It appears that your reports of this… creature that is chasing you were accurate.” She sounded skeptical. He had lost five good men, and she sounded skeptical. Bloody Aes Sedai.

“And?” he asked. “You know something about gholam?”

“Not a thing,” she said. “Regardless, I need to return to the White Tower. I will be leaving tomorrow.” She looked hesitant. “I would like to ask if you would lend me some horses for the trip. Whatever you can spare. I will not be picky.”

“Nobody in town would sell you any, eh?” Mat said with a grunt.

Her face became even more serene.

“Well, all right,” Mat said. “At least you asked nicely this time, though I can see how hard it was for you. I’ve promised some to Teslyn already. You have some too. It will be worth it to have you bloody women out of my hair.”

“Thank you,” she said, her voice controlled. “However, a word of advice. Considering the company you often keep, you might want to learn to control your language.”

“Considering the company I keep all too often,” Mat said, “it’s bloody amazing I don’t swear more. Off with you, Joline. I need to write a letter to Her Royal bloody Majesty Queen Elayne the prim.”

Joline sniffed. “Are you going to swear at her too?”

“Of course I am,” Mat muttered, turning to go back to Thom’s tent “How else is she going to trust that it’s really from me?”