Chapter 29: Seanchan

Lord Captain Bornhald rides into a village on Almoth Plain to find thirty hanged bodies, children among them, on a crude gibbet. Questioners under Carridin have been slaughtering villagers while disguised in Taraboner and Domani cloaks, staging atrocities to justify their campaign. Bornhald orders the bodies cut down and questions a captured Taraboner officer about the invaders.

The prisoners call the invaders Seanchan, or Hailene, Those Who Come Before, and speak of a Return to lands their ancestors once ruled. A messenger arrives ordering Bornhald back into the plain to hunt Darkfriends. He refuses. Convinced the real threat sits at Falme, he sends word to every unit of the Children he can reach: the legion marches onto Toman Head.

Off the coast of Toman Head, Domon's ship is run down by a towering Seanchan vessel. When he tries to flee into shallows, the sea erupts in pillars of fire and he surrenders. The boarding party is led by Captain Egeanin, a hard-faced woman in lacquered armor, accompanied by a leashed woman in grey called a damane. Domon realises the damane is a channeler, collared and owned; saying the name Aes Sedai earns him a backhand and a warning never to speak it again.

Egeanin searches Spray, finds the cuendillar seal Domon took from Domon's hidden stash, and orders him to sail for Falme. The harbour is crowded with hundreds of Seanchan ships, and leathery three-eyed beasts pad the streets beside their handlers. The Watchers Over the Waves still man their towers at the harbour mouth, but the First Watcher hangs in a cage beside them. The local people bow to every Seanchan who passes, sworn to obey, await, and serve.

Egeanin brings Domon before High Lord Turak, who leads the Forerunners. Turak already has the cuendillar disk and reveals a cabinet of matching pieces, including the seal's exact twin. Rather than let Domon go, Turak keeps him as a fellow collector and conversationalist.