"Not with the Shaido," tall Bael rumbled, "but they went. They will spread what happened here, what you revealed. That was ill done. I saw men throw away their spears and run!"

He will bind you together, and destroy you.

"No Taardad left," Rhuarc put in, not pridefully but as a simple statement of fact. "We are ready to go where you lead."

Where he led. He was not done with the Shaido, with Couladin, or Sevanna. Scanning the Aiel around the canyon he could see shaken faces, for all they had chosen to stay. What must those who had run be like? Yet the Aiel were only a means to an end. He had to remember that. I have to be even harder than they.

Jeade'en waited beside the ledge with Mat's gelding. Motioning Natael to stay close, Rand climbed into the saddle, coat-wrapped bundle secure under his arm. Mouth twisted, the once Foresaken came to stand by his left stirrup. Adelin and her remaining Maidens leaped down to form around them, and surprisingly, Aviendha climbed down to take her usual place on his right. Mat jumped to Pips's saddle in one bound.

Rand looked back up at the people on the ledge, all of them watching, waiting. "It will be a long road back." Bael turned his face away. "Long, and bloody." The Aiel faces did not change. Egwene half stretched out a hand toward him, eyes pained, but he ignored her. "When the rest of the clan chiefs come, it begins."

"It began long ago," Rhuarc said quietly. "The question is where and how it ends."

For that, Rand had no answer. Turning the dapple, he rode slowly across the canyon, surrounded by his peculiar retinue. Aiel parted in front of him, staring, waiting. The night's cold was already coming on.

The End

of the Fourth Book of The Wheel of Time