After a while Rand turned his head to look at him. “Do you think Mat is all right? He looked so sick, the last I saw him.”

“He must be all right by now.” He should be in Tar Valon, by now. They’ll Heal him, there. And Nynaeve and Egwene will keep him out of trouble. Egwene and Nynaeve, Rand and Mat and Perrin. All five from Emond’s Field in the Two Rivers. Few people had come into the Two Rivers from outside, except for occasional peddlers, and merchants once a year to buy wool and tabac. Almost no one had ever left. Until the Wheel chose out its ta’veren, and five simple country folk could stay where they were no longer. Could be what they had been no longer.

Rand nodded and was silent.

“Lately,” Perrin said, “I find myself wishing I was still a blacksmith. Do you. . . . Do you wish you were still just a shepherd?”

“Duty,” Rand muttered. “Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain. That’s what they say in Shienar. ‘The Dark One is stirring. The Last Battle is coming. And the Dragon Reborn has to face the Dark One in the Last Battle, or the Shadow will cover everything. The Wheel of Time broken. Every Age remade in the Dark One’s image.’ There’s only me.” He began to laugh mirthlessly, his shoulders shaking. “I have the duty, because there isn’t anybody else, now is there?”

Perrin shifted uneasily. The laughter had a raw edge that made his skin crawl. “I understand you were arguing with Moiraine again. The same thing?”

Rand drew a deep, ragged breath. “Don’t we always argue about the same thing? They’re down there, on Almoth Plain, and the Light alone knows where else. Hundreds of them. Thousands. They declared for the Dragon Reborn because I raised that banner. Because I let myself be called the Dragon. Because I could see no other choice. And they’re dying. Fighting, searching, and praying for the man who is supposed to lead them. Dying. And I sit here safe in the mountains all winter. I . . . I owe them . . . something.”

“You think I like it?” Perrin swung his head in irritation.

“You take whatever she says to you,” Rand grated. “You never stand up to her.”

“Much good it has done you, standing up to her. You have argued all winter, and we have sat here like lumps all winter.”

“Because she is right.” Rand laughed again, that chilling laugh. “The Light burn me, she is right. They are all split up into little groups all over the plain, all across Tarabon and Arad Doman. If I join any one of them, the Whitecloaks and the Domani army and the Taraboners will be on top of them like a duck on a beetle.”