Gaul kept his distance, and Perrin was glad. Was this how all leaders felt? No wonder so many nations ended up at war with one another—their leaders never had any time to think by themselves, and probably attacked to get people to stop pestering them!

A short distance away, he entered a stand of trees with a small pile of logs. Denton—his serving man until they got Lamgwin back—had frowned when Perrin had asked for them. Once a minor lord of Cairhien, Denton had refused to return to his station. He thought of himself as a servant now, and would not let anyone convince him otherwise.

There was an axe. Not the deadly half-moon blade he had once carried to battle, but a sturdy woodsman’s axe with a fine steel head and a haft smoothed by the sweaty hands of workers. Perrin rolled up his sleeves, then spat on his hands and picked up the axe. It felt good to hold the worked wood in his hands. He raised it to his shoulder, stood the first log in front of him, then stepped back and swung.

He hit the log straight on, splinters flipping into the dark night air, the log falling into two pieces. He split one of the halves next. Gaul took a seat beside a tree, getting out a spear and continuing to sharpen its head. The rasping of metal against metal accompanied Perrin’s thunk of axe against wood.

It felt good. Why was it that his mind worked so much better when he was doing something? Loial spoke much of sitting and thinking. Perrin didn’t think he himself could figure anything out that way.

He split another log, the axe cutting clear. Was it really true? Could his own nature be to blame for the way he acted, not the wolves? He’d never acted like that back in the Two Rivers.

He split another log. I always was good at concentrating my attention. That was part of what had impressed Master Luhhan. Give Perrin a project, and he’d keep working on it until he was done.

He split the halves of that log.

Maybe the changes in him were a result of encountering the outside world. He’d blamed the wolves for many things, and he had placed unnatural demands on Hopper. Wolves weren’t stupid or simple, but they did not care about things that humans did. It must have been very hard for Hopper to teach in a way that Perrin would understand.

What did the wolf owe him? Hopper had died during that fateful night, so long ago. The night when Perrin had first killed a man, the night Perrin had first lost control of himself in a battle. Hopper didn’t owe Perrin anything, but he had saved Perrin on several occasions—in fact, Perrin realized that Hopper’s intervention had helped to keep him from losing himself as a wolf.

He swung at a log, a glancing blow that knocked it to the side. He repositioned and continued, Gaul’s quiet sharpening soothing him. He split it.