“You’re sorry?” Mat said, grabbing Noal in an embrace. “You bloody wonderful man. You saved his life!”

An hour later, Mat sat with Thom and Noal inside Thom’s small tent. A dozen Redarms guarded the place, and Olver had been sent to sleep in Teslyn’s tent. The boy did not know how close he had come to being killed. Hopefully he never would.

Mat wore his medallion again, though he needed to find a new leather strap. The ashandarei had cut the other one up pretty bad. He would need to find a better way to tie it on there.

“Thom,” Mat said softly, “the creature threatened you, and you too, Noal. It didn’t mention Olver, but it did mention Tuon.”

“How would the thing know about her?” Thom asked, scratching at his head.

“The guards found another corpse outside of the camp. Derry.” Derry was a soldier who had gone missing a few days back, and Mat had presumed him to have deserted. It happened sometimes, though desertion was irregular in the Band. “He’d been dead a few days.”

“It took him that long ago?” Noal said, frowning. Noal’s shoulders were stooped and he had a nose the shape of a large, bent pepper growing right out the middle of his face. He had always looked…worn to Mat. His hands were so gnarled, they seemed to be all knuckles.

“It must have interrogated him,” Mat said. “Found out people I spent time with, where my tent was.”

“Is the thing capable of that?” Thom said. “It seemed more like a hound to me, hunting you out.”

“It knew where to find me in Tylin’s palace,” Mat said. “Even after I was gone, it went to her rooms. So either it asked someone, or it was observing. We’ll never know if Derry was tortured, or if he just ran across the gholam while it was sneaking about the camp and spying. But the thing is clever.”

It wouldn’t actually go after Tuon, would it? Threatening his friends was probably just a way to unhinge Mat. After all, the thing had shown tonight that it still had orders to avoid too much attention. That didn’t console Mat much. If that monster hurt Tuon…

There was only one way to make sure that didn’t happen.

“So what do we do?” Noal asked.

“We’re going to hunt it,” Mat said softly, “and we’re going to kill the bloody thing.”

Noal and Thom fell silent.

“I won’t have this thing chasing us all the way to the Tower of Ghenjei,” Mat said.

“But can it be killed, Mat?” Thom asked.

“Anything can be killed,” Mat said. “Teslyn proved that she could still hurt it using the One Power, if she was clever. We’ll have to do something similar.”

“What?” Noal asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Mat said. “I want you two to continue your preparations; get us ready so that we can leave for the Tower of Ghenjei as soon as my oath to Verin will let us. Burn me, I still need to talk to Elayne. I want Aludra’s dragons started. I’ll have to write her another letter. Stronger, this time.