Will could see the tightness around Gared's mouth,the barely suppressed anger in his eyes under the thick black hood of his cloak.Gared had spent forty years in the Night's Watch, man and boy,and he was not accustomed to being made light of. Yet it was more than that.Under the wounded pride, Will could sense something else in the older man.You could taste it; a nervous tension that came perilous close to fear.Will shared his unease. He had been four years on the Wall.The first time he had been sent beyond, all the old stories had come rushing back, and his bowels had turned to water.He had laughed about it afterward. He was a veteran of a hundred rangings by now,and the endless dark wilderness that the southron called the haunted forest had no more terrors for him.Until tonight. Something was different tonight. There was an edge to this darkness that made his hackles rise.Nine days they had been riding, north and northwest and then north again, farther and farther from the Wall,hard on the track of a band of wildling raiders. Each day had been worse than the day that had come before it.Today was the worst of all. A cold wind was blowing out of the north, and it made the trees rustle like living things.All day, Will had felt as though something were watching him, something cold and implacable that loved him not.
