An arrow hissed through the air, slicing his shoulder. Perrin cursed and spun. They were on a high rocky hillside. Slayer stood downhill from him, bow raised to his angular face, dark eyes alight with anger. He released another arrow.

A wall, Perrin thought, summoning a wall of bricks in front of him. The arrow punched several inches into the bricks, but stopped. Perrin immediately sent himself away. He couldn’t go far, though, not while carrying the dome.

Perrin changed so that he wasn’t going straight north any longer, but moving toward the east. He doubted that would throw off Slayer—he could probably see the dome moving and judge its direction.

What to do? He’d planned to toss the spike into the ocean, but if Slayer was following, he’d just recover it. Perrin concentrated on moving as quickly as he could, covering leagues with each heartbeat. Could he outrun his foe? The landscape passed him in a blur. Mountains, forests, lakes, meadows.

Just as he thought he might have gotten ahead, a figure appeared just beside him, swinging a sword at his neck. Perrin ducked, barely dodging the attack. He growled, raising his hammer, but Slayer vanished.

Perrin stopped in place, frustrated. Slayer could move faster than Perrin, and could get under the dome by jumping ahead of it, then waiting for Perrin to move it on top of him. From there, he could jump directly to Perrin and attack.

I can’t outrun him, Perrin realized. The only way to be certain, the only way to protect Faile and the others, was to kill Slayer. Otherwise the man would recover the spike from wherever Perrin put it, then return it to trap his people.

Perrin glanced around, getting his bearings. He was on a lightly forested slope, and could see Dragonmount to the north of him. He glanced eastward, and saw the tip of a large structure peeking out over the treetops. The White Tower. The city might give Perrin an advantage, make it easier to hide in one of the many buildings or alleys.

Perrin leaped off in that direction, carrying the spike with him, the dome it created traveling with him as he moved. It would come down to a fight after all.

Chapter 37

Darkness in the Tower

Gawyn sat on a bench in the Caemlyn Palace gardens. It had been several hours since he’d sent Egwene’s messenger away. A gibbous moon hung fat in the sky. Servants occasionally passed by to see if he needed anything. They seemed worried about him.

He just wanted to watch the sky. It had been weeks since he’d been able to do that. The air was cooling, but he left his coat off, hung over the back of the bench. The open air felt good—different, somehow, from the same air beneath a cloudy sky.