The Shadowspawn

The Myrddraal

Myrddraal:
[TEotW, Glossary, 666]

Creatures of the Dark One, commanders of the Trollocs. Twisted offspring of Trollocs in which the human stock used to create the Trollocs has resurfaced, but tainted by the evil that made the Trollocs. Physically they are like men except that they have no eyes, but can see like eagles in light or dark. They have certain powers stemming from the Dark One, including the ability to cause fear with a look and the ability to vanish wherever there are shadows. One of their few known weaknesses is that they are reluctant to cross running water. In different lands they are knwn by many names, among them Halfmen, the Eyeless, Shadowmen, Lurk, and Fade.

[TEotW: 8, A Place of Safety, 91]

"Halfman, Lurk, Fade, Shadowman; the name depends on the land you're in, but they all mean Myrddraal. Fades are Trolloc spawn, throwbacks almost to the human stock the Dreadlords used to make the Trollocs. Almost. But if the human strain is made stronger, so is the taint that twists the Trollocs. Halfmen have powers of a kink, the sort that stem from the Dark One. Only the weakest Aes Sedai would fail to be a match for a Fade, one against one, but many a good man and true has fallen to them. Since the wars that ended the Afe of Legends, since the Forsaken were bound, they have been the brain that tells the Trolloc fists where to strike. In the days of the Trolloc Wars, Halfmen led the Trollocs in battle, under the Dreadlords..."
--Moiraine Damodred Sedai

The Chosen Speak

[TDR: 26, Daughter of the Night, 342]

"Only Gray Men and Myrddraal are denied dreams. Even Trollocs can dream.

--Lanfear

[LoC: 6, Threads Woven of Shadow, 141]

It had nothing to do with the Power, but on the edges of shadow, where light was becoming dark, a Myrddraal could suddenly be elsewhere, in another shadow far away. Long ago Aginor had tested over a hundred of them to destruction in a vain effort to learn how it was done. The Myrddraal themselves did not know...

--Semirhage

[ACoS: 15, Insects, 289]

"Once, long ago, I saw three Myrddraal make a man give them his wife and his daughters one by one, then beg them to cut off his right leg, then the left, then his arms, and burn out his eyes... It was a game with them, you understand, to see how much they could make him beg them to take. They left his tongue for last, of course, but there wasn't a great deal of him remaining by then. He had been quite powerful, handsome and famous. Envied. No one would ever envy what they finally tossed to the Trollocs. You wouldn't believe the sounds it made."

--Sammael

[TPoD: 12, New Alliances, 266]

The Myrddraal [Shaidar Haran] strode by her sinuously, seeming not to pay her any heed. Its long black cloak hung undisturnbed by its movements. Aginor had thought the creatures were not guite in the world in the same way everything else was; "slightly out of phase with time and reality," he had called it, whatever that meant.

--Graendal