Free Shadow Rising, The by Robert Jordan Page B

injured? Did it … ?”
    “I’m all right,” he told her. “But are you? I did not mean to frighten you.”
    She peered up at him. “Truly? You are not hurt in any way?”
    “Completely unhurt. I—” Her full-armed slap made his head ring like hammer on anvil.
    “You great hairy lummox! I thought you were dead! I was afraid it had killed you! I thought—!” She cut off as he caught her second slap in mid-swing.
    “Please don’t do that again,” he said quietly. The smarting imprint of her hand burned on his cheek, and he thought his jaw would ache the rest of the night.
    He gripped her wrist as gently as he would have a bird, but though she struggled to pull free, his hand did not budge an inch. Compared to swinging a hammer all day at the forge, holding her was no effort at all, even after his fight against the axe. Abruptly she seemed to decide to ignore his grip and stared him in the eye; neither dark nor golden eyes blinked. “I could have helped you. You had no right—”
    “I had every right,” he said firmly. “You could not have helped. If you had stayed, we’d both be dead. I couldn’t have fought—not the way I had to—and kept you safe, too.” She opened her mouth, but he raised his voice and went on. “I know you hate the word. I’ll try my best not to treat you like porcelain, but if you ask me to watch you die, I will tie you like a lamb for market and send you off to Mistress Luhhan. She won’t stand for any such nonsense.”

    Tonguing a tooth and wondering if it was loose, he almost wished he could see Faile trying to ride roughshod over Alsbet Luhhan. The blacksmith’s wife kept her husband in line with scarcely more effort than she needed for her house. Even Nynaeve had been careful of her sharp tongue around Mistress Luhhan. The tooth still held tight, he decided.
    Faile laughed suddenly, a low, throaty laugh. “You would, too, wouldn’t you? Don’t think you would not dance with the Dark One if you tried, though.”
    Perrin was so startled he let go of her. He could not see any real difference between what he had just said and what he had said before, but the one had made her blaze up, while this she took … fondly. Not that he was certain the threat to kill him was entirely a joke. Faile carried knives hidden about her person, and she knew how to use them.
    She rubbed her wrist ostentatiously and muttered something under her breath. He caught the words “hairy ox,” and promised himself he would shave every last whisker of that fool beard. He would.
    Aloud, she said, “The axe. That was him, wasn’t it? The Dragon Reborn, trying to kill us.”
    “It must have been Rand.” He emphasized the name. He did not like thinking of Rand the other way. He preferred remembering the Rand he had grown up with in Emond’s Field. “Not trying to kill us, though. Not him.”
    She gave him a wry smile, more a grimace. “If he was not trying, I hope he never does.”
    “I don’t know what he was doing. But I mean to tell him to stop it, and right now.”
    “I don’t know why I care for a man who worries so about his own safety,” she murmured.
    He frowned at her quizzically, wondering what she meant, but she only tucked her arm through his. He was still wondering as they started off through the Stone. The axe he left where it was; stuck in the door, it would not harm anyone.
     
     
    Teeth clamped on a long-stemmed pipe, Mat opened his coat a bit more and tried to concentrate on the cards lying facedown in front of him, and on the coins spilled in the middle of the table. He had had the bright red coat made to an Andoran pattern, of the best wool, with golden embroidery scrolling around the cuffs and long collar, but day by day he was
reminded how much farther south Tear lay than Andor. Sweat ran down his face, and plastered the shirt to his back.
    None of his companions around the table appeared to notice the heat at all, despite coats that looked even heavier than his, with