Robert Jordan: The Shadow Rising

Before anyone could speak, Rand said, "Adelin, would you send someone out to the fair and tell them to stop beating Isendre? She is not as big a thief as they think." The yellow-haired woman looked startled, but immediately spoke to one of the Maidens, who dashed off.

"How did you know about that?" Egwene exclaimed, at the same time Moiraine demanded, "Where have you been? How?" Her wide dark eyes darted from him to Natael, her Aes Sedai calm nowhere in evidence. And the Wise Ones…? Sun-haired Melaine looked ready to drag answers out of him with her bare hands. Bair scowled as though she meant to switch them out. Amys shifted her shawl and ran fingers through her pale hair, unable to decide whether she was worried or relieved.

Adelin handed him his coat, still damp. He wrapped it around the two stone figures. Moiraine was considering those, too. He did not know if she even suspected what they were, but he intended to hide them as best he could from anyone. If he could not trust himself with Callandor's power, how much less with the great sa'angreal? Not until he had learned more of how to control it, and himself.

"What happened here?" he asked, and the Aes Sedai's mouth tightened at being ignored. Egwene did not look much more pleased.

"The Shaido have gone, behind Sevanna and Couladin," Rhuarc said. "All who remain acknowledge you as Car'a'carn."

"The Shaido were not the only ones who fled." Han's leathery face twisted sourly. "Some of my Tomanelle went as well. And Goshien, and Shaarad, and Chareen." Jheran and Erim nodded almost as dourly as Han.

"Not with the Shaido," tall Bael rumbled, "but they went. They will spread what happened here, what you revealed. That was ill done. I saw men throw away their spears and run!"

He will bind you together, and destroy you.

"No Taardad left," Rhuarc put in, not pridefully but as a simple statement of fact. "We are ready to go where you lead."

Where he led. He was not done with the Shaido, with Couladin, or Sevanna. Scanning the Aiel around the canyon he could see shaken faces, for all they had chosen to stay. What must those who had run be like? Yet the Aiel were only a means to an end. He had to remember that. I have to be even harder than they.

Jeade'en waited beside the ledge with Mat's gelding. Motioning Natael to stay close, Rand climbed into the saddle, coat-wrapped bundle secure under his arm. Mouth twisted, the once Foresaken came to stand by his left stirrup. Adelin and her remaining Maidens leaped down to form around them, and surprisingly, Aviendha climbed down to take her usual place on his right. Mat jumped to Pips's saddle in one bound.

Rand looked back up at the people on the ledge, all of them watching, waiting. "It will be a long road back." Bael turned his face away. "Long, and bloody." The Aiel faces did not change. Egwene half stretched out a hand toward him, eyes pained, but he ignored her. "When the rest of the clan chiefs come, it begins."

"It began long ago," Rhuarc said quietly. "The question is where and how it ends."

For that, Rand had no answer. Turning the dapple, he rode slowly across the canyon, surrounded by his peculiar retinue. Aiel parted in front of him, staring, waiting. The night's cold was already coming on.

And when the blood was sprinkled on ground where nothing could grow, the Children of the Dragon did spring up, the People of the Dragon, armed to dance with death. And he did call them forth from the wasted lands, and they did shake the world with battle.

The End

of the Fourth Book of The Wheel of Time