Chapter Five

Faile approached Rand and Mat, while they were talking, and when they had stopped talking, she spoke to them.

"Rand, Mat. I must speak with you. Perrin has gone missing." She looked extremely worried, and she wrung her hands. "Elyas has also gone as well. He took his axe. I think that he may have done something that he will regret." She looked like she was ready to cry.

"Faile, do not worry. I will find him myself." He told servants to go and find Gaul, Bael and Jheran. When they found him carrying a sword, he told them what had happened, and they started to track him.

With all the troops they had, tracking Perrin was harder than finding a specific grain of sand in the Waste, but they found two sets of tracks leading away from the borders of the Blight, into the woodlands.

"Come, we must find Perrin Aybara. It is vital that we have him in the Last Dance of the Spears with Leafblighter." Said Rand. The four of them followed the tracks into the woodlands, leaving the army and the fate of the World to do whatever they wanted for the time being.

Elyas sniffed the air ahead if him as he tracked. They were no Wolves around here, but the smell was wolf-like. He had smelt this unfamiliar smell in the morning, when he made a brief perimeter check of the East Side of the camp. Worried, he followed the tracks and the scent. Now, he knew that he was getting close to the creature that was making this irregular smell. The tracks had made no coherent path whatsoever, trailing back and forth; doubling back and making wide circles before making a line for the Woodlands. As he entered the woods, nausea overwhelmed his senses, as he smelt death on the air.

"It's not a wolf. It could be a Darkhound. That may be why there are no wolves in this area. But what if it isn't? What is it then?"

He found out what was making the smell as he rounded a bend in the track. A deer had had it's throat ripped out, and parts of it's body had been ripped away.

"When it was still alive, by the looks of it." Said Elyas to himself. He found a small piece of fabric on a bramble. It was a piece of black cloth that he recognised well from his time with Rina, his Aes Sedai who he had been bonded to.

Myrddraal Cloak.

Elyas drew his dagger and crept forward cautiously now. He could smell the Twisted One and the Neverborn in the air now. With each step, the smell grew sharper, until he turned around one tree, and he found a sight that he had never seen in his life.

A Myrddraal and three Trollocs lay dead, with their throats ripped out. They still had their blades in their belts. Whatever killed them had killed them rapidly and with brutality. Elyas gripped his dagger tighter, wiping his hand on his fur trousers. He was sweating slightly now, and he was frantically looking over his shoulder for whatever it was that killed the Myrddraal and the three Trollocs. Then from above him, he heard a growl. He looked up, and he was pinned by all his limbs to the ground. His attacker had blood over dried blood around its mouth and it snapped at Elyas' throat.

Elyas Machera was a Borderlander by birth. He was trained as a Warder in Tar Valon, and bonded to Rina Sedai of the Green Ajah. The Red Ajah had accused him of being a Darkfriend because he could talk to wolves. Over his life, he had seen many things, but this would be something that would scare him forever in his dreams.

He stared up at the creature that was pinning him down, and stared into the face of Perrin t'Bashere Aybara.