“Do you know what I did during the fight?” Still staring into the distance, Rand addressed the night. “Nothing! Nothing useful. At first, when I reached out for the True Source, I couldn’t touch it, couldn’t grasp it. It kept sliding away. Then, when I finally had hold of it, I was going to burn them all, burn all the Trollocs and Fades. And all I could do was set fire to some trees.” He shook with silent laughter, then stopped with a pained grimace. “Saidin filled me till I thought I’d explode like fireworks. I had to channel it somewhere, get rid of it before it burned me up, and I found myself thinking about pulling the mountain down and burying the Trollocs. I almost tried. That was my fight. Not against the Trollocs. Against myself. To keep from burying us all under the mountain.”

Min gave Perrin a pained look, as if asking for help.

“We . . . dealt with them, Rand,” Perrin said. He shivered, thinking of all the wounded men down below. And the dead. Better that than the mountain down on top of us. “We didn’t need you.”

Rand’s head fell back against the tree and his eyes closed. “I felt them coming,” he said, nearly whispering. “I didn’t know what it was, though. They feel like the taint on saidin. And saidin is always there, calling to me, singing to me. By the time I knew the difference, Lan was already shouting his warning. If I could only control it, I could have given warning before they were even close. But half the time when I actually manage to touch saidin, I don’t know what I am doing at all. The flow of it just sweeps me along. I could have given warning, though.”

Perrin shifted his bruised feet uncomfortably. “We had warning enough.” He knew he sounded as if he were trying to convince himself. I could have given warning, too, if I’d talked with the wolves. They knew there were Trollocs and Fades in the mountains. They were trying to tell me. But he wondered: If he did not keep the wolves out of his mind, might he not be running with them now? There had been a man, Elyas Machera, who also could talk to wolves. Elyas ran with the wolves all the time, yet seemed able to remember he was a man. But he had never told Perrin how he did it, and Perrin had not seen him in a long time.

The crunch of boots on rock announced two people coming, and a swirl of air carried their scents to Perrin. He was careful not to speak names, though, until Lan and Moiraine were close enough for even ordinary eyes to make them out.