A few minutes of bargaining followed. She passed over three silver marks, frowned at the coppers she got back, then stuffed them into her purse and came forward to stand beside Perrin.

She had an herbal scent to her, light and fresh and clean. Those dark, tilted eyes regarded him over high cheekbones, then turned to look back toward shore. She was about his own age, he decided; he could not decide if her nose fit her face, or dominated it. You are a fool, Perrin Aybara. Why care what the looks like?

The gap to the wharf was a good twenty paces, now; the sweeps dug in, cutting white furrows in black water. For a moment he considered tossing her over the side.

"Well," she said after a moment, "I never expected my travels to take me back to Illian so soon as this." Her voice was high, and she had a flat way of speaking, but it was not unpleasant. "You are going to Illian, are you not?" He tightened his mouth. "Don't sulk," she said. "You left quite a mess back there, you and that Aielman between you. The uproar was just beginning when I left."

"You did not tell them?" he said in surprise.

"The townsfolk think the Aielman chewed through the chain, or broke it with his bare hands. They had not decided which when I left." She made a sound suspiciously like a giggle. "Orban was quite loud in his disgust that his wounds would keep him from hunting down the Aielman personally."

Perrin snorted. "If he ever sees an Aiel again, he'll bloody soil himself." He cleared his throat and muttered, "Sorry."

"I do not know about that," she said, as if his remark had been nothing out of the way. "I saw him in Jehannah during the winter. He fought four men together, killed two and made the other two yield. Of course, he started the fight, so that takes something away from it, but they knew what they were doing. He did not pick a fight with men who could not defend themselves. Still, he is a fool. He has these peculiar ideas about the Great Blackwood. What some call the Forest of Shadows. Have you ever heard of it?"

He eyed her sideways. She spoke of fighting and killing as calmly as another woman might speak of baking. He had never heard of any Great Blackwood, but the Forest of Shadows lay just south of the Two Rivers. "Are you following me? You were staring at me, back at the inn. Why? And why didn't you tell them what you saw?"

"An Ogier," she said, staring at the river, "is obviously an Ogier, and the others were not much more difficult to figure out. I managed a much better look inside Lady Alys's hood than Orban did, and her face makes that stone-faced fellow a Warder. The Light burn me if I'd want that one angry with me. Does he always look like that, or did he eat a rock for his last meal? Anyway, that left only you. I do not like things I cannot account for."

Once again he considered tossing her over the side. Seriously, this time, But Remen was now only a blotch of light well behind them in the darkness, and no telling how far it was to shore.

She seemed to take his silence as an urging to go on. "So there I have an" – she looked around, then dropped her voice, though the closest crewman was working a sweep ten feet away – "an Aes Sedai, a Warder, an Ogier – and you. A countryman, by first look at you." Her tilted eyes rose to study his yellow ones intently – he refused to look away – and she smiled. "Only you free a caged Aielman, hold a long talk with him, then help him chop a dozen Whitecloaks into sausage. I assume you do this regularly; you certainly looked as if it were nothing out of the ordinary for you. I scent something strange in a party of travelers such as yours, and strange trails are what Hunters look for."

He blinked; there was no mistaking that emphasis. "A Hunter? You? You cannot be a Hunter. You're a girl."

Her smile became so innocent that he almost walked away from her. She stepped back, made a flourish with each hand, and was holding two knives as neatly as old Thom Merrilin could have done it. One of the men at the sweeps made a choking sound, and two others stumbled; sweeps thrashed and tangled, and the Snow Goose lurched a little before the captain's shouts set things right. By that time, the black-haired girl had made the knives disappear again.

"Nimble fingers and nimble wits will take you a good deal further than a sword and muscles. Sharp eyes help, as well, but fortunately, I have these things."

"And modesty, as well," Perrin murmured. She did not seem to notice.

"I took the oath and received the blessing in the Great Square of Tammaz, in Illian. Perhaps I was the youngest, but in that crowd, with all the trumpets and drums and cymbals and shouting... A six-year-old could have taken the oath, and none would have noticed. There were over a thousand of us, perhaps two, and every one with an idea of where to find the Horn of Valere. I have mine – it still may be the right one – but no Hunter can afford to pass up a strange trail. The Horn will certainly lie at the end of a strange trail, and I have never seen one any stranger than the trail you four make. Where are you bound? Illian? Somewhere else?"

"What was your idea?" he asked. "About where the Horn is?" Safe in Tar Valon, I hope, and the Light send I never see it again. "You think it's in Ghealdan?"

She frowned at him – he had the feeling she did not give up a scent once she had raised it, but he was ready to offer her as many side trails as she would take – then said, "Have you ever heard of Manetheren?"

He nearly choked. "I have heard of it," he said cautiously.

"Every queen of Manetheren was an Aes Sedai, and the king the Warder bound to her. I can't imagine a place like that, but that is what the books say. It was a large land – most of Andor and Ghealdan and more besides – but the capital, the city itself, was in the Mountains of Mist. That is where I think the Horn is. Unless you four lead me to it."

His hackles stirred. She was lecturing him as if he were an untaught village lout. "You'll not find the Horn or Manetheren. The city was destroyed during the Trolloc Wars, when the last queen drew too much of the One Power to destroy the Dreadlords who had killed her husband." Moiraine had told him the names of that king and queen, but he did not remember them.

"Not in Manetheren, farmboy," she said calmly, "though a land such as that would make a good hiding place. But there were other nations, other cities, in the Mountains of Mist, so old that not even Aes Sedai remember them. And think of all those stories about it being bad luck to enter the mountains. What better place for the Horn to be hidden than in one of those forgotten cities."

"I have heard stories of something being hidden in the mountains." Would she believe him? He had never been good at lying. "The stories did not say what, but it's supposed to be the greatest treasure in the world, so maybe it is the Horn. But the Mountains of Mist stretch for hundreds of leagues. If you are going to find it, you should not waste time following us. You'll need it all to find the Horn before Orban and Gann."

"I told you, those two have some strange idea the Horn is hidden in the Great Blackwood." She smiled up at him. Her mouth was not too big at all, when she smiled. "And I told you a Hunter has to follow strange trails. You are lucky Orban and Gann were injured fighting all those Aielmen, or they might well be aboard, too. At least I will not get in your way, or try to take over, or pick a fight with the Warder."

He growled disgustedly. "We are just travelers on our way to Illian, girl. What is your name? If I have to share this ship with you for days yet, I can't keep calling you girl."

"I call myself Mandarb." He could not stop the guffaw that burst out of him. Those tilted eyes regarded him with heat. "I will teach you something, farmboy." Her voice remained level. Barely. "In the Old Tongue, Mandarb means 'blade.' It is a name worthy of a Hunter of the Horn!"