The Gathering Storm Read Online Free PDF Page B

now?”
    He shrugged. “I’m a soldier, General Tylee.”
    “I hadn’t noticed,” she said dryly.
    He grunted. “I mean that I don’t pay attention to trees. Trees don’t bleed. Perhaps they should have budded, but perhaps not. Few things make sense on this side of the ocean. Trees that don’t bud in spring, that’s just another oddity. Better that than more
marath’damane
acting like they were of the Blood, everyone bowing and scraping to them.” He shuddered visibly.
    Tylee nodded, but she didn’t share his revulsion. Not completely. She wasn’t certain what to think of Perrin Aybara and his Aes Sedai, let alone his Asha’man. And she didn’t know much more about trees than Mishima. But it felt to her that they should have started to bud. And those men the scouts kept seeing in the fields, how could they vanish so quickly, even with the One Power?
    The quartermaster had opened up one of their packs of travel rations today and found only dust. Tylee would have started a search for a thief or a prankster if the quartermaster hadn’t insisted that he’d checked that pack justmoments before. Karm was a solid man; he’d been her quartermaster for years. He did not make mistakes.
    Rotting food was so common here. Karm blamed the heat of this strange land. But travel rations couldn’t rot or spoil, at least not this unpredictably. The omens were all bad, these days. Earlier today, she’d seen two dead rats lying on their backs, one with a tail in the mouth of the other. It was the worst omen she’d ever seen in her life, and it still chilled her to think of it.
    Something was happening. Perrin hadn’t been willing to speak of it much, but she saw a weight upon him. He knew much more than he had spoken.
    We can’t afford to be fighting these people,
she thought. It was a rebellious thought, one she wouldn’t speak to Mishima. She didn’t dare ponder it. The Empress, might she live forever, had ordered that this land be reclaimed. Suroth and Galgan were the Empire’s chosen leaders in the venture, until the Daughter of the Nine Moons revealed herself. While Tylee couldn’t know the High Lady Tuon’s thoughts, Suroth and Galgan were united in their desire to see this land subdued. It was practically the only thing they
did
agree upon.
    None of them would listen to suggestions that they should be looking for allies among the people of this land, rather than enemies. Thinking about it was close to treason. Insubordination, at least. She sighed and turned to Mishima, prepared to give the order to begin scouting for a place to camp for the night.
    She froze. Mishima had an arrow through his neck, a wicked, barbed thing. She hadn’t heard it strike. He met her eyes, stunned, trying to speak and only letting out blood. He slid from the saddle and collapsed in a heap as something enormous charged through the underbrushbeside Tylee, cracking gnarled branches, throwing itself at her. She barely had time to pull free her sword and shout before Duster—a good, solid warhorse that had never failed her in battle—reared in panic, tossing her to the ground.
    That probably saved her life, as her attacker swung a thick-bladed sword, cutting into the saddle where Tylee had been. She scrambled to her feet, armor clanking, and screamed the alert. “To arms! Attack!”
    Her voice joined hundreds who made the same call at virtually the same time. Men screamed. Horses whinnied.
    An ambush,
she thought, raising her blade.
And we walked right into it! Where are the scouts? What happened?
She launched herself at the man who had tried to kill her. He spun, snorting.
    And for the first time, she saw just what he was. Not quite a man—instead, some creature with twisted features, the head covered in coarse brown hair, the too-wide forehead wrinkled with thick skin. Those eyes were disturbingly human-like, but the nose below was flattened like that of a boar and the mouth jutted with two prominent tusks. The creature roared at