When we last left Our Hero, everything changed when the Trolloc nation attacked. I am excited about this. I don't know why it's bothering him so much, because something is actually happening in this book for once. Wasn't he complaining about nothing exciting ever happening there? Or maybe that was Mat. It's sad that the annoying character has had more characterization than the main character, whose defining trait so far is getting startled easily.
Rand finds it hard to believe that Tam's thin wound is affecting him so badly. I hope Wheelworld isn't one of those places where there magically isn't anything like sickness or infection, because that would send my suspension of disbelief crashing down faster than you can say "maybe poison." Has he seriously not ever seen anything like this before? Come on. How can he manage that while flat-out remarking that Tam has a fever? He can't be that uneducated!
He tries to clean the wound and swears by "Light" twice as he considers the situation. I'd normally raise a stink about this, but he lives in a superstitious backwater, so it makes sense. Then Tam starts hallucinating while Rand makes a litter, spends about a page mulling over taking Tam's sword, and eventually makes his way to the road, though he manages to remember that actually traveling on the road would be dangerous. At this, the narrator suddenly injects a little snark by remarking that "the idea was to reach the village without meeting any Trollocs," and I almost hugged the book even though it probably wasn't intend to be witty there. It's amazing how simply italicizing a single word can turn a sentence from a Captain Obvious announcement to a "someone clearly lacks self-preservation" announcement.
Anyway, he makes his way alongside the road while dragging Tam, and he stumbles around for a while getting more and more tired. While he daydreams about the comfort he will obviously find at Emond's Field (in an attempt to convince the reader that savage monsters won't go out of their way to attack a nearby settlement), Tam starts hallucinating about the war and talking about memories of how "they came over the Dragonwall like a flood" and other vague references that the audience is clueless about. He's talking pretty clearly for someone half dead, most likely because we need drama even though they're already fleeing through the woods on a cold dark night. It's like Jordan's approach, whether it's exposition or drama, is MORE MORE MORE.
There's a tense moment where Rand has to keep Tam quiet, because here come the Black Riders™! They ride along being suitably ominous, and the Trollocs march along behind them. There's a moment when Rand "[knows] what they [are]," and then a paragraph later he wonders "what kind of man would dare turn his back on so many Trollocs." I know this is referring to him realizing that the Riders he and his friends saw earlier are very bad news, but it reads like he suddenly has an epiphany that they're servants of the Dark One (because it is extremely unlikely that they're not), and then just as suddenly forgets it. Maybe he's just tired. I forget obvious things when I'm tired too.
The bad guys head away, but Rand, in a flash of intelligence, decides to wait and be absolutely sure they're gone. His caution is rewarded when a Rider suddenly comes back with unusual silence, and it stops right next to Rand and looks in his direction for a while before continuing on its way. If any of you had doubts that this was "inspired by" Lord of the Rings, this part has taken those doubts out to a back alley and shoved them in a dumpster. It's that blatant. All we need now is a random Tom Bombadil character to suddenly whiplash the mood into something goofy yet bizarrely unsettling.
Rand waits some more, and then the Rider gallops by toward the farm again. Indecisive much? Or else I'm imagining that this Rider is the runty one who all the other Riders make do the boring tasks.
"Go check behind us, Dave. Make sure the townspeople who are no match for us can't follow us."
*he leaves, then comes back a minute later*
"It was too scary, guys. I didn't want to go all the way back and get eaten by the monsters in the woods."
"Dave, we are the monsters in the woods."
"I knew I was forgetting something."
I would totally read something about Black Riders bumbling around and not managing to actually do anything. It would be like The Office, except their boss is in prison somewhere. Actually, that sounds exactly like The Office.
Anyway, Rand starts out again, and starts imagining about Bel Tine celebrations again, somehow forgetting that the Black Riders just came from Bel Tine. And I doubt they were there to kiss flowers and throw orphans. Either Rand is really tired or he thinks that the villagers magically built a wall around the village in the space of two minutes. You can never tell with him.
Tam says ominous things again. He mentions a tree that "makes no seed" (so is it a fungus then?), which of course makes Rand wonder if the Tree of Life is real too. And there's a "Green Man," an "Ogier giant," and an "Aielman" mentioned. If they doesn't show up in this series eventually, I will eat everything I own.
Tam veers into "when I was in the war" territory, and then ...
"... heard a baby cry. Their women fight alongside the men, sometimes, but why they let her come, I don't ... gave birth there alone, before she died of her wounds. [...] Rand is a good name. A good name."
I would probably be more shocked at this if the "secretly adopted" trope hadn't already been done a million times. As it is, it warrants a solid "meh" on the Plot Twist™ scale.
Rand is less casual about this, which is also unsurprising. He tries to brush this off as hallucinations ("Of course it's all in your head, Harry, but why on earth would it not be real?") and ends the chapter by trying to assure himself that Tam is his father, but sneaks in a "Light, who am I?" to top it all off. I know he's in a hurry and all, but did that reaction seem a little underwhelming to anyone else? If my parents and I were hiding from terrorists in Antarctica or somewhere, and they suddenly decided to mention that I was adopted, that would be the straw that broke the camel's back, no?
That's how it goes. This chapter is one of the better ones so far, despite my snarking suggesting otherwise. There's actually a plot awakening at this point! It's standard fantasy fare at this point, but after the nonsense on Emond's Field's history, I'll take what I can get. But they're not out of the woods yet, so keep on eye on this for when they do get out of the woods.
... That sounded like a better ending line in my head. Oh well.
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