that at least is explainable with gateways being woven by the male asha'man. I did like that we finally saw the seanchan encounter trollocs and they were more than a little put off by these "tales of supposed shadowspawn" that they've been spouting about since the Return landed.

I loved that Faile finally did SOMETHING useful rather than being her usual annoying self, but I do agree that it came out of nowhere. it was lightning quick, Masema was obviously running somewhere hard and fast and even though he had a 100 followers who were fanatical, it still seems like it was too quick and easy. The fact that she slipped away from Perrin as someone mentioned up above was very odd too. though am going to be trying to read this almost as a stand alone novel, remembering the world Jordan has created but looking at this as though it were an expansion novel. Then hoping i won't be too disappointed when it doesn't read like RJ all the way through. DYING for it to come out though and almost done on the reread with TGH right now.