Chapter 10

Ingtar sets a punishing pace as Hurin leads them south by scent. Rand, isolated from Mat and Perrin, keeps silent. The party alternates trotting and riding to spare horses. That night, Rand discovers only ornate coats packed for him, fueling his refusal to be used. Around the fire, tensions surface—Masema’s hostility, Uno’s bluntness, and talk of Aiel harden Rand’s unease about who he is.

At dawn, scouts find an abandoned camp; Hurin smells murder, and the trail abruptly turns northeast, then south again, a pattern repeating over days with bodies left behind. Ingtar grows obsessive, pushing longer hours and invoking the charge to recover the Horn.

Reaching the Erinin, they find a hamlet deserted, doors open and a fleeting figure that vanishes. Hurin senses “hurting” but no clear killing. After scouting, they ferry across and discover the two missing Fal Dara guards, Changu and Nidao, skinned alive and hanged. Ingtar orders their burial with Borderlander rites and forces the company onward, shaken but resolute.

South across abandoned Hardan, Ingtar laments the lands’ decline. Scouts report another village directly in their path. It, too, is empty. Rand enters a house and is trapped in a freezing, looping vision of a family’s interrupted meal; swarms of flies engulf him until a searing heat within him shreds the unseen snare, leaving only a few dead flies.

In the square, the company finds a Myrddraal spiked to a doorway, even its eyes nailed in place—an act beyond their understanding. With no answers, Ingtar orders them to ride. Hurin confirms the trail remains true: still south, and the hunt continues.