Perrin's story line is going to see a big return to the wolfbrother/wolves stuff, after the Faile interlude (most of which happened in wooded areas and this may be important: the Pattern calls Perrin to the wilderness, it wants him there, because his final mission is to start there, and he needed to go back to the wolves, learn to accept and master his gift. Even Faile's kidnapping held him to the woods, forced him not to return to civilization pronto with Masema in toe. Heck, the Pattern even seemed to have removed Masema now, the reason why Perrin needed to return to Rand quickly.. and the Asha'man can't Travel for a while.. keeping Perrin in the woods again... Doesn't it look like he's where he needs to be and must just see it at last?).

I think it will be fairly central to what goes on in his story line before the reunion with the others. It won't be only that, but it will be a central element.

The blurb hints very strongly at a lot of "wolf stuff", and there's more than meets the eye at first in there, even. What's the thematic connection between Byar and Slayer, for instance? Byar was the big wolf-hater in TEOTW. He believed Perrin a DF because of his connection to the wolves, that's how he got to hate Perrin so much. The other encounter with Byar came in the episode where Perrin got involved with Slayer. Now it looks like Byar the wolf-hater and the slayer of wolves will both be around Perrin, again, at the time the wolf-stuff is relevant, again.

Another connection is through TDR. That was the book with that poor lost Wolfbrother, this is when Perrin got his hammer, when he met Darkhounds and killed one for the first time.. with a longbow. He's got a lot of longbowmen now, and channellers. As long as Rand is wrong that there is a "new breed" that only balefire can kill, Perrin should do fine if he faces a pack of DH again. He'll lose people, but he should survive.

Slayer, we should recall, is named Slayer only because he hunts and kills wolves in TAR and in the real world. Even in WH, Jordan reminded us of how much he loves that. We might be very wrong to think for him it's "a hobby" and not one of his main purposes for the Shadow, maybe even the real reason why the DO gave him his TAR ability. Perrin got involved with Slayer via the wolfbrother story arc even before he met him in the flesh as Luc. In fact, we still don't know for sure if Slayer was in the Two Rivers primarly to kill wolves and he bumped into Fain there and got ordered to take him out, of if he went to the Two Rivers hunting down Fain and was killing wolves to pass time (why would he have time to kill if he had already located his target in Watch Hill and all he had left to do was kill him? A puzzling question, isn't it?). If he was there primarly for Fain, then Perrin didn't interfere one bit with that mission, and the way Isam made himself Perrin's antagonist, the way he got so pissed off at Perrin and it became so personal between them remains quite strange. It's with his hunt in TAR Perrin interferred, that is what pissed off Slayer, then it was with Luc's efforts to keep the TR people at home and out of the woods, away from the Shadowspawn.

Furthermore, Fain and Isam interferred with one another, but Isam never tried to take him out. And it's not at all against Fain he threw his army, but against Perrin, and he let Fain escape totally unharmed in the confusion. Strange for someone used to efficient, no nonsense and fast assassinations, isn't it? It looks to me that Isam may have gotten his mission to hunt down Fain and kill him only after the events in the Two Rivers happened, after Moridin's return. So what was Isam doing there, hunting down wolves in TAR in the TR and in the flesh there as Luc, bringing large groups of Shadowspawn to the woods and manipulating TR people away from them? What if his primary mission was to empty Perrin's place of wolves witgh those Trollocs and Myrddraal, before continuing this mission everywhere else? The wolves are being hunted down, they even gave a name to the being hunting them: Slayer. It didn't get that for killing a few in his spare time, he's hunting them down systematically.

And this got me thinking about how scarce the contacts with the wolves have become as the series progressed, and Perrin noticed that, and Jordan attracted our attention to it.

And this got me thinking further, about the very large darkhounds pack. Over the years we've all had many theories about who they were hunting down. Everyone from Rand, to Tuon and Mat, to Fain... But if we look more closely at the connections, Jordan used this episode to reveal the "shadowbrothers" and how the DH are connected to the wolves, and also this was a warning to Perrin the wolves expect him to run with them in "the last hunt" and it's very close. Perrin also met them in a forest where the wolves were very elusive and not all in the mood to contact Perrin as earlier on as of they had other things to deal with than wolfbrothers (though he was able to contact them again at Malden), and the DH circled a camp in which there were... two wolfbrothers. The pack was also especially large. Perhaps because there are a lot more DH once more... a lot more.

The clues might be all there: this DH pack Perrin met very possibly isn't quite the only one currently hunting, and the packs have gotten larger thanks to Isam's efforts "recruiting" wolf souls. Who were those the DH were hunting in the forested middle of nowhere in Altara? No one! This was a red herring. The shadow has unleashed packs of DH to kill the wolves and gather their souls before Tarmon Gai'don, and Perrin has bumped into one of those packs. What Slayer was doing in the Two Rivers early on, the DH are now doing at large - perhaps even with him as their master. That would be why the characters haven't meet any, except Perrin and Elyas. The wolves don't come close to humans, and the DH wouldn't be hunting near humans as a result, they'd be where the wolves are, and like Hopper and the wolves in the TR... the wolves would be hiding as best as they could, which would be why the DH Perrin met smelled frustrated. They approached Perrin's camp only because the weird smell of wolfbrothers, so similar to wolves, has attracted them. They circled the camp, and then decided this wasn't their quarry. We may have been way to quick to dismiss the possibility that the DH were tied to Perrin's story line, because they just circled his camp and went way....

This would also explain the fearful/hateful mutterings about "shadowbrothers" and "the last hunt is coming" and no more the wolves gave Perrin when he asked questions.

KOD named Perrin the "Wolf King", but this story line had to wait, because Perrin was obsessed with rescuing Faile and put that on the backburner... but typically Jordan would along the way place the elements he will use later... and that could be the purpose of the DH in WH. A "major" element showed up in KOD, however: Aram (who was linked to Elyas and wolfbrothers all the way back to the EOTW) turned on Perrin because Masema convinced him his eyes linked him to Shadowspawn, and this despite knowing very well what wolbrothers were. In the "teaser chapters" in TGS, Perrin got involved with wolfbrother stuff again, and the blurb reveals it was very relevant, and it's in fact a major issue Perrin will be involved in in ToM. More... he's gonna get stuck with the wolf-hating WC soon, especially Byar, and he's soon to get involved with the "Slayer of wolves" again. Harriet made a point of calling Slayer, the "slayer of wolves"..

And this got me to make yet another possible connection: what is Perrin possibly doing for so long in the middle of forested nowhere, camping in the woods off the Jehannah road, near that big statue? And I came up with an idea: sooner or later, the wolves will begin to gather to the Wolf-King for the Last Hunt. He's already got Elyas with him too. Perrin will have to accept his nature as wolfbrother, and understand his purpose as wolf-king. And he's still in danger of losing his humanity if he fails. We're on the eve of Tarmon Gai'don now. It's about time the wolves in the south start gathering to Perrin. If he's accepted he needs to lead them, then he won't try to stop it, he will see it as his duty to let them come to him. He will need to stop or travel slowly for all the southern packs to reach him, so they can go with him to the north. And he won't gather them at a city (how many times has Perrin pointed out wolves won't approach cities?), he'll gather them... in the forests, in the middle of nowhere, like this camp off the Jehannah road he's stuck at. That may very well be the reason why Perrin appears "stranded", because the wolves are all around his camp (not too near it, though) and more and more are coming, and the DH are still hunting them, and Slayer is getting involved with Perrin's efforts in person. Perrin has not passed on Travelling because he's lost the possibility... he's not Travelling because the big gathering isn't finished.

Assuming this theory is correct, the gathering of the wolves explains why Slayer is going to get involved with Perrin again, especially if I'm correct that Slayer has long been in charge of hunting down the wolves and he's even now using large DH packs for this task, while himself hunts in TAR and tries to track down signs of Padan Fain.

If I'm correct, Perrin and Slayer have opposite missions and in the course of ToM they will clash.

And it seems Perrin will also have another hidden agent of the Shadow hunting him down. That would not directly concern the wolves, but most likely Moridin's orders to hunt and kill Perrin, whoever is the one following those orders (Cyndane possibly, Aran'gar others have suggested... in any case we just know it's not Slayer because he would then be named twice in a row as a threat in the blurb).

I would even suggest that the fact Slayer was emptying the Two Rivers of wolves, which happened in book 4 and got mentionned a few times since but has never been the topic of big theories (I don't think people have really suggested he was seeking to eliminate all the wolves before, though some have wondered if Slayer was collecting their souls - but it appears all he does his destroy forever the dead ones in TAR and it's the DH who are collecting wolf souls in the real world), could be the (not completely but largely)overlooked detail Brandon is talking about. It would sure explain why he spoke of that detail now, just before TOM, if it's in that book it becomes a central element, this hunt for the wolves and why the Shadow fears the wolves and why Slayer hunts even the dead ones in TAR to destroy them, and why one of the three most important people in the world right now will lead the wolves in TG according to prophecies in which he appears as The Wolf King. Why are the wolves important enough that they needed a ta'veren made to lead them in the Last Hunt? It would all come together in TOM.