In the crenelations above, dirty-faced men exchanged bleak looks and fierce whispers, shifting crossbows and polearms nervously. Only a few wore helmets or any sort of armor. Most were in rough coats, but on one man Perrin thought he saw what might have been silk under a layer of grime. It was hard to tell, with so much caked dirt. Even his ears could not make out what they were saying.

“How do we know you’re alive?” a hoarse voice shouted down at last.

Berelain blinked in surprise, but no one laughed. It was fool talk, yet Perrin thought the hair on the back of his neck really was standing stiff. Something was very wrong, here. The Aes Sedai seemed not to sense it. Then again, Aes Sedai could hide anything behind those smooth masks of cool serenity. The beads in Annoura’s thin braids clicked faintly as she shook her head. Masuri ran an icy gaze along the men on the wall.

“If I must prove I am alive, you will regret it,” Seonid announced loudly in crisp Cairhienin accents, a little more heated than her face suggested. “If you continue to point that crossbow at me, you will regret it even more.” Several of the men hastily raised their crossbows to point at the sky. Not all, though.

More whispers rustled along the top of the wall, but someone must have recognized Aes Sedai. At last, the gates squealed open on massive rusty hinges. A gagging stench swept out of the town, the stink Perrin had been smelling, only stronger. Old dirt and old sweat, decaying middens and chamber pots too long unemptied. Perrin’s ears tried to lie back. Gallenne half-lifted his red helmet as if to replace it on his head before urging his dun through the gates. Perrin booted Stayer to follow, easing his axe in its belt loop.

Just inside the gate, a filthy man in a torn coat poked Perrin’s leg with a finger, then darted back when Stayer snapped at him. The fellow had been fat, once, but his coat sagged and his skin hung loose. “Just wanted to be sure,” he muttered, scratching his side absently. “My Lord,” he added, a tick late. His eyes seemed to focus on Perrin’s face for the first time, and his scratching fingers froze. Golden yellow eyes were not a common sight, after all.

“Do you see many dead men walking?” Perrin asked wryly, trying to make a joke of it, as he patted the bay’s neck. A trained warhorse wanted to be rewarded for protecting his rider.

The fellow flinched as if the horse had bared teeth at him again; his mouth twitched into a rictus smile, and he edged sideways. Until he bumped solidly into Berelain’s mare. Gallenne was right behind her, still looking ready to don his helmet, his one eye trying to watch six ways at once.