What’s nice about this chapter is that it’s 85% running around and 15% something interesting. Far be it from me to expect a little intrigue within the pages of my book that’s all about people ambling around.

Elyas is being a butthead, going too fast and weaving around too much. It takes a while for anyone to learn what his deal is, but the situation makes itself known when an enormous flock of ravens bursts out of the trees. The ravens are the eyes of the Dark One, almost like sentries, with the ability to swoop down and kill. They make short work of a poor fox, which terrifies Perrin and Egwene, and sends Elyas into an even more urgent tizzy.

They run a lot, avoiding the flock hither and thither for many moons. The wolves are attacked and wounded, but they fight off the ravens. Perrin admits that he sensed it, and finally accepts that he has the Way of the Wolf or whatever you want to call it. I made that up, you can use it if you’d like! Here’s another one: the Wolf Whisperer! Isn’t that clever?!?!

Perrin thinks of something funny here! He says he’ll kill Egwene with an axe instead of letting the ravens kill her if he has to. I don’t know if that’s particularly reassuring, but it’s a sweet gesture nevertheless.

OK, enough of that, this is the part that gets interesting. The group enters a clearing, as if through a barrier, that makes Perrin feel rejuvenated and Egwene feel like a void has opened up within her. They have entered a stedding, and I have to italicize that because they italicize it in the book. A stedding. It’s a sanctuary where the Dark One cannot breach, Trollocs don’t want to breach unless driven to breach, Myrddraal don’t want to breach unless absolutely necessary, and Aes Sedai powers don’t work. They can’t tap into the One Power, or even sense it. The stedding makes them feel empty inside, and Elyas doesn’t seem to catch on to Egwene’s discomfort.

Within the stedding is a rock shaped like an eyeball. Elyas launches into an explanation: Artur Hawkwing was a king who wanted to build his capital city in a stedding to keep the Aes Sedai out, even though this was eventually his undoing since Aes Sedai could have healed his many ailments. Hawkwing died the day his statue, and capital, was finished. His heirs ruined the city with too many arguments, the city fell, the statue fell, and all that’s left is a dang eyeball.

The Eye of the Hawkwing. Really makes you think. (No).