We all know that Rand will be going to meet with "tDotNM" in Ebou Dar and probably be captured. we also know that Mat has just recently left Ebou Dar and is heading north on the Great North road to Lugard.

Now comes the conjecture. Perrin, during WH and CoT has been running around all over altara and that area. the key to discovering where Perrin is is to find out where the city of Malden is.

There are three things from chapter eight of CoT that can help resolve both issues. One comes from Sulin's confusion about why the city was not built closer to the water in the lake, and the other two come from Perrin's description of Malden: “It was not one of the great cities, not like Caemlyn, or Tar Valon...but still a city with high walls and towers and what looked like a fortress at the northernmost end...There seemed to be a road leading roughly south through the farms and another roughly north.” The first important aspect of this quote is that Perrin thinks of Malden as a city. A little later on he considers So Habor, with four or five thousand people in it, a town. Now why would there be a city, even a small city, in the backcountry of northern Altara, built where obtaining water depends on an elaborate engineering project? The last sentence of the quote provides the key information: Malden is a trading center on the Great North road that connects Ebou Dar to Lugard in Murandy! this tells us what road it is on, now we must decide where along the road it is.

“East and south [the wind blew], around the southern reaches of the Mountains of Mist, swirling across high walled Amador...East the wind howled over a desolated land...East, until the wind moaned a dirge over unwalled Abila.” If this is combined with Balwer's statement to Perrin in chapter nine of TPoD that Abila is about forty leagues south of Bethel, a southern Ghealdan town, Abila can be generally placed on a line east of Amador, not too distant from the River Eldar.

Perrin leaves Abila and Travels 40 Miles south. this is very far off and has to retrace his steps. he eventually has to come back to near abila and go east. In chapter 5 we learn that Perrin crossed the Eldar into Altara.

in chapter nine an argument occurs between Therava and Sevanna, because Therava wants the Shaido to move to some mountains east of Malden, and Sevanna scoffs because they are “days or weeks” away. The Hills of Kintara are the only geographical feature on the map that they could be referring to, and this further helps to zero in on Malden. All of this disparate information provides a rough idea of Malden's location, and a reasonable guess might be 150 miles east of the Eldar, roughly in line with Salidar.

Now that we know Mat and Perrin are close to each other, and we can assume that Rand will be taken prisoner, we can also assume that Mat and Perrin will team up for the first time since TSR to help save Rand.