Haman gave her a look and lettered in the name just above the River Iralell, not far north of Haddon Mirk. In the strip west of the Dragonwall from the southern border of Shienar to the Sea of Storms, there were only four, all newfound as the Ogier considered it, meaning the youngest, Tsofu, had had Ogier back for six hundred years and none of the others for more than a thousand. Some of the locations were as big a surprise as the Borderlands, such as the Mountains of Mist, which had six, and the Shadow Coast. The Black Hills were included, and the forests above the River Ivo, and the mountains above the River Dhagon, just north of Arad Doman.

Sadder was the list of stedding abandoned, given up because the numbers there had grown too few. The Spine of the World and the Mountains of Mist and the Shadow Coast were in that list too, and so was a stedding deep on Almoth Plain, near the great forest called the Paerish Swar, and one in the low mountains along the north of Toman Head, facing the Aryth Ocean. Perhaps saddest was the one marked on the very edge of the Blight in Arafel; Myrddraal might be reluctant to enter a stedding, but as the Blight marched south year by year, it swept over everything.

Pausing, Haman said sadly, “Sherandu was swallowed by the Great Blight one thousand eight hundred forty-three years ago, and Chandar nine hundred sixty-eight.”

“May their memories flourish and flower in the Light,” Covril and Erith murmured together.

“I know of one you didn’t mark,” Rand said. Perrin had told him of sheltering in it once. He pulled out a map of Andor east of the River Arinelle and touched a spot well above the road from Caemlyn to White-bridge. It was close enough.

Haman grimaced, almost a snarl. “Where Hawkwing’s city was to be. That was never reclaimed. Several stedding were found and never reclaimed. We try to stay away from the lands of men as much as possible.” All of the marks were in rugged mountains, in places men found hard to enter, or in a few cases just far from any human habitation. Stedding Tsofu lay far closer than any other to where humans dwelled, and even then Rand knew it was a full day to the nearest village.

“This would be a fine discussion another time,” Covril said, directing her words to Rand yet plainly meaning them for Haman, as her sidelong looks indicated, “but I want to make as far west as I can before nightfall.” Haman sighed heavily.

“Surely you’ll stay here awhile,” Rand protested. “You must be exhausted, walking all the way from Cairhien.”