Chapter 10: The Hunt Begins

Ingtar drives the column south at a killing pace, with Hurin tracking by scent. Mat and Perrin keep their distance from Rand. At camp, Ingtar tells him Masema served three years against the Aiel at Ankor Dail and cannot stop seeing one in his face.

The trail zigzags daily, with a fresh murder at every change of direction. At the River Erinin they cross to a village whose ferry sits on the far bank, and find Changu and Nidao skinned alive and hung from a stoneoak. Ingtar buries them with Shienaran rites, refusing to name them Darkfriends despite Loial's certainty that they opened the Dog Gate.

A second village stands empty, the people vanished from their suppers. Inside one house Rand is caught in a freezing, looping vision of a family fleeing some unseen horror, and breaks free in a surge of heat that kills every fly in the room. In the square they find a Myrddraal spiked to the meeting-hall doors, killed by something none of them can name.