COT - Darkhound Pack

[eflynn]

Any good speculation about what the large darkhound pack Perrin encounters in COT is looking for?  Whatever happened to those hounds anyway?  Are they still at large?

 

Sorry if this has been talked about before.

[Dragon21]

Best I remember they are still at large. And I have no clue as to what they were looking for. Sorry. :)

[deidof]

I've always kind of felt that they must be part of a building Slayer/darkhound  Perrin/wolf  front of TG.

 

I really dont have anything to back it up other then the beleif Slayer is killing wolves in TAR to make darkhounds ...it just seems appropriate though.

[Majsju]

My guess is that they are helping Slayer look for Fain. I strongly doubt the shadow gave up on killing him after Slayers failure in the Two Rivers.

[eflynn]

I really dont have anything to back it up other then the belief Slayer is killing wolves in TAR to make darkhounds...

 

I never thought of that.  Elyas did say that the Darkhounds used to be wolves (I think it was Elyas -either him or Masuri).

[nashdude]

I really dont have anything to back it up other then the belief Slayer is killing wolves in TAR to make darkhounds...

 

I never thought of that.  Elyas did say that the Darkhounds used to be wolves (I think it was Elyas -either him or Masuri).

 

It was Elyas. I actually just got to this point in my re-read this morning  :D

[Luckers]

One possibility is that they could be searching for Tuon.

[cloglord]

I have another odd slayer tie in that might point to Fain.  It struck me as odd, but in the perrin PoV's from TSR there was a connection between slayer and ravens.  THe first appearance of slayer, an arrow from slayer killed a hawk, and then a flock of ravens came from out of the same thicket and killed another.  When Perrin shot him later, the cawing of the crows cut off abruptly.  I think that slayer might have the ability to communicate to some shadow alligned animals, and that the huge sweeps of ravens from Perrin/Egwene's flight in TEotW, might not have been looking for them directly, but might have rather been searching for Fain, who was at that point most likely chasing Perrin, having lost Mat and Rand on the river. 

[RobertAlexWillis]

If Fain was following Perrin, he wouldn't have gotten to Caemlyn before Moiraine and Perrin did ...

 

... however if he was following Rand and Mat, he would have.  And thats what happened.

 

Fain had no way to cross the river (unless he swam, like Perrin) and given the fact that he fits the description of the "crazy man" that Rand and Mat heard about in Whitebridge, he seems to have gone downstream from Shadar Logoth to Whitebridge on the western side of the river.  He crossed there toward Caemlyn, according to the innkeeper Bartim (TEoTW ch 26)  He was in Caemlyn asking about Rand and Mat as early as TEoTW ch 39 (indeed, it was fleeing from him that caused Rand to get into the situation that caused him to climb the Palace wall).

 

So, it is unlikely that Fain was anywhere near Perrin and those thousands of ravens.  Also ... assuming Slayer can communicate with Shadoweyes (which, while being quite an assumption, is not impossible) using thousands of them in one place is hardly the most effective search method ... I doubt Slayer would choose to employ them in that fashion.

 

There is also the fact that Ba'alzamon did not likely know that Fain was no longer his creature until after the jailbreak in Fal Dara ... otherwise he wouldn't have ordered him sprung.  Fain was still following Rand, after all, as ordered.  It wasn't until Fain took off with the Horn that Ishy would have reason to doubt his loyalty.  So, the point in the story which you are describing, Ishy had no reason to order Slayer to find Fain.