Snelle smiled at Mat. “Looks like nobody answered you, friend. Guess you’ll have to trust us. You shouldn’t have thrown if you didn’t ask the rules. Now, are you going to pay, or—”
Rittle’s eyes opened wide, and he stood hastily and took his friend’s arm. He leaned in, whispering something. Snelle looked down at Mat’s medallion. He looked up and met Mat’s eyes.
Mat nodded.
“Excuse us,” Rittle said, stumbling away. The other two joined him. They left their dice and coins on the ground.
Mat casually knelt down, scooping up the coins and dumping them in his pouch. He left the dice. They were loaded, meant to almost always throw threes. He had been able to judge that from a few quick throws before laying down coins.
Whispers moved through the inn’s common room like a swarm of ants covering a corpse. Chairs scooted back. Conversations changed tempo, some silencing, others becoming urgent. Mat stood up to go. People hastened out of his way.
Mat left a golden crown on the edge of the bar, then tipped his hat to Hatch, the innkeeper. The man stood behind the bar wiping a glass, his wife next to him. She was a pretty one, but Hatch kept a special cudgel for thumping men who looked too long. Mat gave her only a short look, then.
Mat pulled off his black scarf, leaving it on the floor. It had a hole in it now anyway. He stepped out into the night, and the moment he did, the dice stopped thundering in his head.
It was time to get to work.
He walked out onto the street. He had spent all evening with his face uncovered. He was certain he had been recognized a few times, mostly by men who had slipped out into the night without saying anything. As he walked down off the inn’s front porch, people gathered at the windows and doorway.
Mat tried not to feel like all of those eyes were knives sticking into his back. Light, he felt like he was dangling from another noose. He reached up and felt at the scar on his neck. It had been a long while since he had gone about with his neck uncovered. Even with Tylin, he had normally left the scarf on.
Tonight, though, he danced with Jak o’ the Shadows. He tied his medallion to the ashandarei. He affixed it so that the medallion rested against the flat of the blade, and one edge hung out over the tip. It would be hard to use—he would have to hit with the flat of the blade in most cases to touch the medallion to flesh—but it gave him much better reach than swinging the medallion by hand.
Medallion in place, he picked a direction and began walking. He was in the New City, a place heaped with man-made buildings, a contrast to the fine Ogier work elsewhere in Caemlyn. These buildings were well built, but were narrow and thin, up close next to one another.
The first group tried to kill him before he was one street away from The Rumor Wheel. There were four of them. As they charged him, a group of shadows leaped from a nearby alleyway, Talmanes at their head. Mat spun on the killers, who pulled up short as his soldiers joined him. The street toughs fled in a scramble and Mat nodded to Talmanes.
The men of the Band faded back into the darkness, and Mat continued on his way. He walked slowly, carrying his ashandarei on his shoulder. His men had been told to keep their distance unless he was attacked.
He ended up needing them three more times through the hour, each time scaring away a larger group of thugs. The last time, the Band and he actually clashed with the assassins. The thugs were no match for trained soldiers, even on the darkened streets that were their home. The exchange left five of the thugs dead, but only one of his men wounded. Mat sent Harvell away with a guard of two.
It grew later and later. Mat began to worry that he would have to repeat this act the next night, but then he noticed someone standing in the street ahead. The paving stones were wet from a misting earlier in the night, and they reflected the diffused light of a hidden slivered moon.
Mat stopped, lowering his weapon to his side. He could not make out details about the figure, but the way it stood…
“You think to ambush me?” the gholam asked, sounding amused. “With your men who squish and rip, who die so easily, almost at a touch?”
“I’m tired of being chased,” Mat said loudly.
“So you deliver yourself to me? What a kind gift.”
“Sure,” Mat said, lowering his ashandarei, foxhead on the back gleaming faintly. “Just mind the sharp edges.”
The thing slid forward, and Mat’s men lit lanterns. The men of the Band set the lanterns on the ground, then backed away, a few of them dashing off to deliver messages. They had strict orders not to interfere. Tonight would probably strain their oaths to him on that.
Mat planted himself and waited for the gholam. Only a hero charged a beast like that, and he was no bloody hero. Though his men would be trying to clear away anyone on the streets, trying to keep the area empty so nobody would scare the gholam away. That was not heroism. It might have been stupidity, though.
The gholam’s fluid movements threw lanternlight shadows across the road. Mat met it with a sweep of his ashandarei, but the beast danced to the side, easily evading him. Bloody ashes, but the thing was fast! It reached out, swiping at the front of the ashandarei with the knife it held.
Mat yanked the ashandarei back, not letting the monster cut the medallion free. It danced around Mat, and he spun, staying inside the ring of lanterns. He had chosen a relatively wide street, remembering with a shiver that day in the alleyway of Ebou Dar where the gholam had nearly taken him in close quarters.
The beast slid forward again, and Mat feinted, drawing it in. He almost miscalculated, but twisted the ashandarei in time to slap the gholam with the flat of the weapon. The medallion let out a hiss as it touched the gholam’s arm.
The gholam cursed and backed away. Wavering lanternlight illuminated its features, leaving pockets of darkness and pockets of light. It was smiling again, despite the wisp of smoke rising from its arm. Before, Mat had thought this creature’s face unremarkable, but in the uneven light—and with that smile—it took on a terrifying cast. More angular, reflected lanternlight making its eyes glow like tiny yellow flames consumed by the darkness of its sockets.
Nondescript by day, a horror by night. This thing had slaughtered Tylin while she lay helpless. Mat gritted his teeth. Then he attacked.
It was a bloody stupid thing to do. The gholam was faster than he was, and Mat had no idea if the foxhead could kill it or not. He attacked anyway. He attacked for Tylin, for the men he’d lost to this horror. He attacked because he had no other option. When you really wanted to see what a man was worth, you backed him into a corner and made him fight for his life.
Mat was in the corner now. Bloodied and harried. He knew this thing would eventually find him—or, worse, find Tuon or Olver. It was the kind of situation where a sensible man would have run. But he was a bloody fool instead. Staying in the city because of an oath to an Aes Sedai? Well, if he died, he would go out with weapon in hand.
Mat became a swirling cyclone of steel and wood, yelling as he attacked. The gholam, seeming shocked, actually backed away. Mat slammed his ashandarei into its hand, burning the flesh, then spun and knocked the dagger from its fingers. The creature leaped away, but Mat lunged forward, ramming the butt of his spear between the thing’s legs.
It went down. Its motions were fluid, and it caught itself, but it did go down. As it threw itself to its feet, Mat slashed the ashandarei’s blade at its heel. He neatly severed the gholam’s tendon, and if the thing had been human, it would have collapsed. Instead, it landed without even a wince of pain, and no blood seeped free of the cut.
It spun and lunged at Mat with clawed fingers. He was forced to stumble back, swinging the ashandarei to ward it away. The creature grinned at him.
Then, oddly, it turned and ran.
Mat cursed. Had something scared it away? But no, it was not fleeing. It was going for his men!
“Retreat!” Mat called at them. “Back! Burn you, you bloody monster. I’m here! Fight me!”
The members of the Band scattered at his orders, though Talmanes hung back, wearing a grim expression. The gholam laughed, but did not chase down the soldiers. Instead, the thing kicked over the first lantern, causing it to wink out. It ran around the circle, kicking at each one, plunging the street into darkness.
Bloody ashes! Mat chased after the creature. If it managed to get all of those lights out, with that cloud cover, Mat would be left fighting it unable to see!
Talmanes—blatantly ignoring his own safety—leaped forward and snatched his lantern up to protect it. He fled down the street, and Mat cursed as the gholam chased after.
Mat dashed behind them. Talmanes had a good lead, but the gholam was so quick. It nearly got to him, and Talmanes jerked to the side, backing up the steps of a nearby building. The monster lunged for him, and Talmanes stumbled backward as Mat ran toward them for all he was worth.
The lantern fell from Talmanes’ fingers and splashed oil across the front of the building. The dry wood came alight, tongues of flame rippling across the lamp oil, illuminating the gholam. It leaped for Talmanes.
Mat threw his ashandarei.
The broad-bladed spear was not meant for throwing, but he did not have a knife handy. He aimed for the gholam’s head. One would have never known that, for he missed pitifully. Fortunately, the weapon dipped down and passed between the gholam’s legs.
The monster tripped, thudding heavily to the paving stones. Talmanes scrambled back up the steps of the now-blazing building.
Bless this luck of mine, Mat thought.
The gholam stood up and made a motion to follow Talmanes, but then looked down at what had tripped it. The creature looked at Mat with a wicked grin, half its face cast in the light of the burning building. The creature picked up Mat’s ashandarei—foxhead medallion still tied to the front—then whipped its hand to the side, tossing the weapon away. The ashandarei crashed through a window and passed into the burning building.
Lamps sparked on inside, as if those living there were only now noticing the fight happening in their proximity. Talmanes gave Mat a look, and they met eyes. The Cairhienin man threw himself against the door into the burning building and broke in. The gholam spun on Mat, backlit by the growing flames. They blazed quickly, and Mat’s heart thumped with alarm as the creature came for him, unnaturally fast.
Mat reached into his coat pockets with sweaty fingers. Right before the gholam reached him—hands going for Mat’s neck—Mat pulled something out with each hand, slamming them forward into the gholam’s palms. Hissing rang in the air, like meat being placed on a grill, and the gholam screeched in pain. It stumbled, wide-eyed, as it looked at Mat.
Who held a foxhead medallion in each hand.
He whipped them out, each held on a long, thick chain, spinning them. The medallions caught firelight, seeming to glow as Mat whipped them at the gholam, striking it on the arm.
The creature howled, backing up another step. “How?” it demanded. “How!”
“Don’t rightly know myself.” Elayne had said her copies weren’t perfect, but it seemed they did the job well enough. So long as they hurt the gholam, he didn’t care about their other abilities. Mat grinned, spinning the second medallion forward. “Guess I just got lucky.”