Moiraine and Co. get to have dozens of armed men escort them to the edge of the Borderlands. Ingtar, their leader, is DEEPLY SADDENED that he can’t go any further once they reach the border, but he HAS to go back to Tarwin’s Gap to SLAY A BUNCH OF TROLLOCS which he DEFINITELY DOESN’T WANT TO DO AT ALL. *sarcasm*

Anyway, with that business out of the way, the group makes their way across the land and head toward the Blight proper. As they move, the landscape slowly shifts to this extremely gross, foul-smelling, disease-ridden, decaying, swampy hot land where the moldy fruits on the trees smell like rotting meat and there are thousands of different bug-like creatures that can kill you if you so much as a look at them funny or talk about their mothers in an unseemly manner. Mat throws up. Egwene just about passes out. Everyone is affected except for Lan and Perrin, because the former is a badass and the latter is some kind of wolfman now.

Eventually, and it takes a while, they come across some putrid lakes that have giant centipede creatures in them. They set up camp and Moiraine puts a magic spell around it to ward off potential baddies and mean, ugly bugs. Egwene is excited because Moiraine says that she’s almost strong enough to be able to do this magic spell herself. Maybe Egwene will go to Tar Valon sooner rather than later! Maybe Nynaeve wants to join her! Maybe Rand can be Egwene’s Warder! All sorts of positivity for roughly half a page before everyone tries to go to bed in the 900% humidity.

Rand pretends to be asleep while eavesdropping on a conversation between Lan and Nynaeve. The conversation can be boiled down to this: Nynaeve is in love with Lan and actually, to the best of her abilities, lays some cards out on the table. Lan is all “I have a duty to yada yada yada” and tells her that it ain’t ever happenin’, sister.

Rand REALLY tries to sleep because Nynaeve’s crying really starts harshing his buzz.

The next chapter will be a lot more Blight travelling. More stinky fruit and more Mat puking. Good times will be had by all!