The carriages passed. So. Another had been caught. Isam would have assumed that the practice had ended, once the taint was cleansed.

Before he turned back to look at the floor, he caught sight of something more incongruous. A small, dirty face watching from the shadows of an alleyway across the street. Wide eyes but a furtive posture. Moridin’s passing, and the coming of the thirteens, had driven the Samma N’Sei off the street. Where they were not, the urchins could go in some safety. Maybe.

Isam wanted to scream at the child to go. Tell it to run, to risk crossing the Blight. To die in the stomach of a Worm was better than to live in this Town, and suffer what it did to you. Go! Flee! Die!

The moment passed quickly, the urchin retreating to the shadows.

Isam could remember being that child. He’d learned so many things then. How to find food that you could mostly trust, and wouldn’t vomit back up once you found out what was in it. How to fight with knives. How to avoid being seen or noticed.

And how to kill a man, of course. Everyone who survived long enough in the Town learned that particular lesson.

The Chosen was still looking at his cup. It was her reflection she was looking at, Isam realized. What did she see there?

“I will need help,” Isam finally said. “The Dragon Reborn has guards, and he is rarely in the dream.”

“Help has been arranged,” she said softly. “But you are to find him, hunter. None of this playing as you did before, trying to draw him to you. Lews Therin will sense such a trap. Besides, he will not deviate from his cause now. Time is short.”

She spoke of the disastrous operation in the Two Rivers. Luc had been in charge then. What knew Isam of real towns, real people? Almost, he felt a longing for those things, though he suspected that was really Luc’s emotion. Isam was just a hunter. People held little interest for him beyond the best places for an arrow to enter so as to hit the heart.

That Two Rivers operation, though . . . it stank like a carcass left to rot. He still didn’t know. Had the point really been to lure al’Thor, or had it been to keep Isam away from important events? He knew his abilities fascinated the Chosen; he could do something that they could not. Oh, they could imitate the way he stepped into the dream, but they needed channeling, gateways, time.

He was tired of being a pawn in their games. Just let him hunt; stop changing the prey with each passing week.

One did not say such things to the Chosen. He kept his objections to himself.

Shadows darkened the doorway to the inn, and the serving woman disappeared into the back. That left the place completely empty save for Isam and the Chosen.

“You may stand,” she said.

Isam did, hastily, as two men stepped into the room. Tall, muscular and red-veiled. They wore brown clothing like Aiel, but didn’t carry spears or bows. These creatures killed with weapons far deadlier.

Though he kept his face impassive, Isam felt a surge of emotion. A childhood of pain, hunger and death. A lifetime of avoiding the gaze of men like these. He fought hard to keep himself from trembling as they strode to the table, moving with the grace of natural predators.

The men dropped their veils and bared their teeth. Burn me. Their teeth were filed.

These had been Turned. You could see it in their eyes—eyes that weren’t quite right, weren’t quite human.

Isam nearly fled right then, stepping into the dream. He couldn’t kill both of these men. He’d have been reduced to ash before he managed to take down one of them. He’d seen Samma N’Sei kill; they often did it just to explore new ways of using their powers.

They didn’t attack. Did they know this woman was Chosen? Why, then, lower their veils? Samma N’Sei never lowered their veils except to kill—and only for the kills they were most eagerly anticipating.

“They will accompany you,” the Chosen said. “You shall have a handful of the Talentless as well to help deal with al’Thor’s guards.” She turned to him and, for the first time, she met his eyes. She seemed . . . revolted. As if she were disgusted to need his aid.

"They will accompany you,” she had said. Not “They will serve you.”

Bloody son of a dog. This was going to be a hateful job.

Talmanes threw himself to the side, narrowly avoiding the Trolloc’s axe. The ground trembled as the axe broke cobblestones; he ducked and rammed his blade through the creature’s thigh. The thing had a bull’s snout, and it threw back its head to bellow.

“Burn me, but you have horrid breath,” Talmanes growled, whipping his sword free and stepping back. The thing went down on one leg, and Talmanes hacked off its weapon hand.

Panting, Talmanes danced back as his two companions struck the Trolloc through the back with spears. You always wanted to fight Trollocs in a group. Well, you always wanted to fight anyone with a team on your side, but it was more important with Trollocs, considering their size and strength.

Corpses lay like heaps of trash in the night. Talmanes had been forced to fire the city gate’s guardhouses to give light; the half-dozen or so guards who had remained were now recruits in the Band, for the time being.

Like a black tide, the Trollocs began to retreat from the gate. They’d overextended themselves in pushing for it. Or, rather, being pushed for it. There had been a Halfman with this crew. Talmanes lowered his hand to the wound in his side. It was wet.

The guardhouse fires were burning low. He’d have to order a few of the shops set on fire. That risked letting the blaze spread, but the city was already lost. No sense in holding back now. “Brynt!” he yelled. “Set that stable aflame!”

Sandip came up as Brynt went running past with a torch. “They’ll be back. Soon, probably.”

Talmanes nodded. Now that the fighting was done, townspeople began to flood out of alleys and recesses, timidly making for the gate and—presumably—safety.

“We can’t stay here and hold this gate,” Sandip said. “The dragons . . .”

“I know. How many men did we lose?”

“I don’t have a count yet. A hundred, at least.”

Light, Mat’s going to have my hide when he hears about that. Mat hated losing troops. There was a softness to the man equal to his genius—an odd, but inspiring, combination. “Send some scouts to watch the city roadways nearby for approaching Shadowspawn. Heap some of these Trolloc carcasses to make barriers; they’ll work as well as anything else. You, soldier!”

One of the wearied soldiers walking past froze. He wore the Queen’s colors. “My Lord?”

“We need to let people know this gate out of the city is safe. Is there a horn call that Andoran peasants would recognize? Something that would bring them here?”

“ ‘Peasants,’ ” the man said thoughtfully. He didn’t seem to like the word. They didn’t use it often, here in Andor. “Yes, the Queen’s March.”

“Sandip?”

“I’ll set the sounders to it, Talmanes,” Sandip said.

“Good.” Talmanes knelt to clean his sword on a fallen Trolloc’s shirt, his side aching. The wound wasn’t bad. Not by normal terms. Just a nick, really.

The shirt was so grimy he almost hesitated to wipe his weapon, but Trolloc blood was bad for a blade, so he swabbed down the sword. He stood up, ignoring the pain in his side, then walked toward the gate, where he’d tied Selfar. He hadn’t dared trust the horse against Shadowspawn. He was a good gelding, but not Borderland-trained.

None of the men questioned him as he climbed into the saddle and turned Selfar westward, out of the city gate, toward those mercenaries he’d seen watching earlier. Talmanes wasn't surprised to find that they'd moved closer to the city. Fighting drew warriors like fire drawing cold travelers on a winter night.