He struggled to swim upward, dropping his hammer, but found that the surface inexplicably became ice. Ropes snaked up from the depths, whipping up around Perrin’s arms, yanking him downward. Through the frozen surface above, he could see a shadow moving. Slayer, raising his reformed bow.

The ice vanished and the water parted. Water streamed off Perrin, and he found himself staring up at an arrow pointed directly at his heart.

Slayer released.

Perrin willed himself away.

Shift. He gasped, hitting the stone outcropping where he had been with Hopper. Perrin fell to his knees, seawater streaming from his body. He sputtered, wiping his face, heart pounding.

Hopper appeared beside him, panting, his scent angry. Foolish cub! Stupid cub! Chase down a lion when you’re barely weaned?

Perrin shivered and sat up. Would Slayer follow? Could he? As minutes stretched and nobody appeared, Perrin began to relax. The exchange with Slayer had happened so quickly that it felt like a blur. That strength…it was more than any man could have. And the ice, the ropes…

“He changed things,” Perrin said. “Made the dock vanish beneath me, created ropes to bind me, pushed the water back so that he could get a clear shot at me.”

He is a lion. He kills. Dangerous.

“I need to learn. I must face him, Hopper.”

You are too young. These things are beyond you.

“Too young?” Perrin said, standing. “Hopper, the Last Hunt is nearly upon us!”

Hopper lay down, head on paws.

“You always tell me that I’m too young,” Perrin said. “Or that I don’t know what I’m doing. Well, what is the point of teaching me, if not to show me how to fight men like Slayer?”

We will see, Hopper sent. For tonight, you will go. We are done.

Perrin sensed a mournful cast to the sending, and also a finality. Tonight, Oak Dancer’s pack and Hopper would grieve for Morninglight.

Sighing, Perrin sat with his legs crossed. He concentrated, and managed to imitate the things that Hopper had done in tossing him from the dream.

It faded around him.

He woke on the pallet in his darkened tent, Faile snuggled up beside him.

Perrin lay for a time, staring up at the canvas. The darkness reminded him of the tempestuous sky in the wolf dream. Sleep seemed as far off as Caemlyn. Eventually he rose—carefully extricating himself from Faile—and pulled on his trousers and shirt.

The camp was dark outside, but there was enough light for his eyes. He nodded to Kenly Maerin and Jaim Dawtry, the Two Rivers men who guarded his tent tonight.

“What’s the time?” he asked one of them.

“After midnight, Lord Perrin,” Jaim said.

Perrin grunted. Distant lightning lit the landscape. He walked off, and the men started to follow. “I’ll be fine without guards,” he told them. “Watch over my tent—Lady Faile still sleeps.”

His tent was near the edge of camp. He liked that; it gave him a little more sense of seclusion, nestled near the hillside at the western side of the camp. Though it was late, he passed Gaul sharpening his spear near a fallen log. The tall Stone Dog stood up and began to follow, and Perrin didn’t dismiss him. Gaul felt he hadn’t been fulfilling his self-appointed duty of watching after Perrin lately, and had stepped up his efforts. Perrin thought he really just wanted an excuse to stay away from his own tent and the pair of gai’shain women who had taken up residence there.