We last left Rand leading the way to his dying father at the Emond’s Field inn. Lan, the Warder, is emotionless, yet impatient. Moiraine, the Aes Sedai, is emotionless, yet patient. They make quite a team.

Rand is bossy and pushy enough to be on thin ice with this people, all like “MY DAD IS DYING” and “HELP MY DAD, YOU CUNTS”. However, we come to find out that there might be more to Tam than meets the eye. And the ear. Not the nose, though, that much is abundantly clear. They do not have showers on their farm. But Lan notices Tam’s sword. It has a heron on the hilt, and this makes it special. Curious that a stinky sheepherder just happens to have one of these whiz-bang swords. Very curious. Very. Curious.

Rand learns much about Trollocs and Myrddraal from these two strangers from a strange land, and one thing is for certain: this was not a random raid just for killing and funsies. This was a targeted attack. As it turns out, only three places in the entire Two Rivers metropolitan area were directly hit. The al’Thor farm (Rand). The Ayabara farm (Perrin). And the Cauthon household in Emond’s Field (Mat). These three whipper-snappers are nearly the exact same age, down to the week. Moiraine tells Rand that there is clearly something in these three that the Dark One fears and wants to eradicate.

Needless to say, their presence in the Two Rivers area is going to be very dangerous for all their loved ones, the sheep, and the various rocks and stones that are strewn about the land. The three boys are going to be leaving with the Aes Sedai and the Warder to Tar Valon, the breeding ground for Aes Sedai or something to that effect. It’s the titular “place of safety”, but the town/village/city/hovel is literally hundreds of miles away. And the bullet train hasn’t been working for years. A journey awaits.

Oh yeah, and Moiraine does her thing and Tam recovers, although she did say that his superficial wound was actually serious because Trolloc weapons are magical. They can taint the wounded with horrible magical miasma that can lead to unhealable maladies, severe fevers, hallucinations, diarrhea out the mouth, and an affinity for anime girls. Luckily, Moiraine removed Tam’s taint! I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.

ALSO SOMETHING TO NOTE: When Moiraine and Lan arrived at the inn, the gleeman was like “HURDY DURR WELL, IT’S GOOD PIPE WEATHER AND I’M GONNA GO SMOKE MY PIPE OUTSIDE NOW HEH HEH DON’T FOLLOW ME PLEASE AND DON’T WAIT UP! *run* BYEEEE!” I want to know what history this gleeman has with Moiraine and Lan. Perhaps a threesome didn’t go well at all for him. Some of those scars will never go away. Physical, mental, emotional, all of them. His butt will never be the same.