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he could choose. Banish it, like snuffing a lantern. Kaladin bowed beneath the weight. I should have saved him, I should have saved him, I should have saved him. Maps, Dunny, Amark, Goshel, Dallet, Nalma. Tien. “Kaladin.” Syl’s voice. “Be strong.” “If I were strong,” he hissed, “they would live.” “The other bridgemen still need you. You promised them, Kaladin. You gave your oath.” Kaladin looked up. The bridgemen seemed anxious and worried. There were only eight of them; Kaladin had sent the others to look for fallen bridgemen from other crews. They’d found three initially, minor wounds that Skar could care for. No runners had come for him. Either the bridge crews had no other wounded, or those wounded were beyond help. Maybe he should have gone to look, just in case. But—numb—he could not face yet another dying man he could not save. He stumbled to his feet and walked away from the corpse. He stepped up to the chasm and forced himself to fall into the old stance Tukks had taught him. Feet apart, hands behind his back, clasping forearms. Straight-backed, staring forward. The familiarity brought him strength. You were wrong, Father, he thought. You said I’d learn to deal with the deaths. And yet here I am. Years later. Same problem. The bridgemen fell in around him. Lopen approached with a waterskin. Kaladin hesitated, then accepted the skin, washing off his face and hands. The warm water splashed across his skin, then brought welcome coolness as it evaporated. He let out a deep breath, nodding thanks to the short Herdazian man. Lopen raised an eyebrow, then gestured to the pouch tied to his waist. He had recovered the newest pouch of spheres they’d stuck to the bridge with an arrow. This was the fourth time they’d done that, and had recovered them each without incident. “Did you have any trouble?” Kaladin asked. “No, gancho,” Lopen said, smiling widely. “Easy as tripping a Horneater.” “I heard that,” Rock said gruffly, standing in parade rest a short distance away. “And the rope?” Kaladin asked. “I dropped the whole coil right over the side,” Lopen said. “But I didn’t tie the end to anything. Just like you said.” “Good,” Kaladin said. A rope dangling from a bridge would have just been too obvious. If Hashal or Gaz caught scent of what Kaladin was planning… And where is Gaz? Kaladin thought. Why didn’t he come on the bridge run? Lopen gave Kaladin the pouch of spheres, as if eager to be rid of the responsibility. Kaladin accepted it, stuffing it into his trouser pocket. Lopen retreated, and Kaladin fell back into parade rest. The plateau on the other side of the chasm was long and thin, with steep slopes on the sides. Just as in the last few battles, Dalinar Kholin helped Sadeas’s force. He always arrived late. Perhaps he blamed his slow, chull-pulled bridges. Very convenient. His men often had the luxury of crossing without archery fire. Sadeas and Dalinar won more battles this way. Not that it mattered to the
bridgemen. Many people were dying on the other side of the chasm, but Kaladin didn’t feel a thing for them. No itch to heal them, no desire to help. Kaladin could thank Hav for that, for training him to think in terms of “us” and “them.” In a way, Kaladin had learned what his father had talked about. In the wrong way, but it was something. Protect the “us,” destroy the “them.” A soldier had to think like that. So Kaladin hated the Parshendi. They were the enemy. If he hadn’t learned to divide his mind like that, war would have destroyed him. Perhaps it had done so anyway. As he watched the battle, he focused on one thing in particular to distract himself. How did the Parshendi treat their dead? Their actions seemed irregular. The Parshendi soldiers rarely disturbed their dead after they fell; they’d take roundabout paths of attack to avoid dead bodies. And when the Alethi marched over the Parshendi dead, they formed points of terrible conflict. Did the Alethi notice? Probably not. But he could see that the Parshendi revered their dead—revered them to the extent that they would endanger the living to preserve the corpses of the fallen. Kaladin could use that. He would use that. Somehow. The Alethi eventually won the battle. Before long, Kaladin and his team were slogging back across the plateau, carrying their bridge, three wounded lashed to the top. They had found only those three, and a part of Kaladin felt sick inside as he realized another part of him was glad. He had already rescued some fifteen men from other bridge crews, and it was straining their resources—even with the money from the pouches—to feed them. Their barrack was crowded with the wounded. Bridge Four reached a chasm, and Kaladin moved to lower his burden. The process was rote to him now. Lower the bridge, quickly untie the wounded, push the bridge across the chasm. Kaladin checked on the three wounded. Every man he rescued this way seemed bemused at what he’d done, even though he’d been doing it for weeks now. Satisfied that they were all right, he moved to stand at parade rest while the soldiers crossed. Bridge Four fell in around him. Increasingly, they earned scowls from the soldiers—both darkeyed and lighteyed—who crossed. “Why do they do that?” Moash said quietly as a passing soldier tossed an overripe pile-vine fruit at the bridgemen. Moash wiped the stringy, red fruit from his face, then sighed and fell back into his stance. Kaladin had never asked them to join him, but they did it each time. “When I fought in Amaram’s army,” Kaladin said, “I dreamed about joining the troops at the Shattered Plains. Everyone knew that the soldiers left in Alethkar were the dregs. We imagined the real soldiers, off fighting in the glorious war to bring retribution to those who had killed our king. Those soldiers would treat their fellows with fairness. Their discipline would be firm. Each would be an expert with the spear, and he would
not break rank on the battlefield.” To the side, Teft snorted quietly. Kaladin turned to Moash. “Why do they treat us so, Moash? Because they know they should be better than they are. Because they see discipline in bridgemen, and it embarrasses them. Rather than bettering themselves, they take the easier road of jeering at us.” “Dalinar Kholin’s soldiers don’t act like that,” Skar said from just behind Kaladin. “His men march in straight ranks. There is order in their camp. If they’re on duty, they don’t leave their coats unbuttoned or lounge about.” Will I never stop hearing about Dalinar storming Kholin? Kaladin thought. Men had spoken that way of Amaram. How easy it was to ignore a blackened heart if you dressed it in a pressed uniform and a reputation for honesty. Several hours later, the sweaty and exhausted group of bridgemen tramped up the incline to the lumberyard. They dumped their bridge in its resting place. It was getting late; Kaladin would have to purchase food immediately if they were going to have supplies for the evening stew. He wiped his hands on his towel as the members of Bridge Four lined up. “You’re dismissed for evening activities,” he said. “We have chasm duty early tomorrow. Morning bridge practice will have to be moved to late afternoon.” The bridgemen nodded, then Moash raised a hand. As one, the bridgemen raised their arms and crossed them, wrists together, hands in fists. It had the look of a practiced effort. After that, they trotted away. Kaladin raised an eyebrow, tucking his towel into his belt. Teft hung back, smiling. “What was that?” Kaladin asked. “The men wanted a salute,” Teft said. “We can’t use a regular military salute—not with the spearmen already thinking we’re too bigheaded. So I taught them my old squad salute.” “When?” “This morning. While you were getting our schedule from Hashal.” Kaladin smiled. Odd, how he could still do that. Nearby, the other nineteen bridge crews on today’s run dropped off their bridges, one by one. Had Bridge Four once looked like them, with those ragged beards and haunted expressions? None of them spoke to one another. Some few glanced at Kaladin as they passed, but they looked down as soon as they saw he was watching. They’d stopped treating Bridge Four with the contempt they’d once shown. Curiously, they now seemed to regard Kaladin’s crew as they did everyone else in camp—as people above them. They hastened to avoid his notice. Poor sodden fools, Kaladin thought. Could he, maybe, persuade Hashal to let him take a few into Bridge Four? He could the use extra men, and seeing those slumped figures twisted his heart. “I know that look, lad,” Teft said. “Why is it you always have to help everyone?” “Bah,” Kaladin said. “I can’t even protect Bridge Four. Here, let me look at that arm of yours.” “It’s not that bad.” Kaladin grabbed his arm anyway, peeling away the blood-crusted bandage. The cut was long, but shallow. “We need antiseptic on this,” Kaladin said, noting
a few red rotspren crawling around on the wound. “I should probably sew it up.” “It’s not that bad!” “Still,” Kaladin said, waving for Teft to follow as he approached one of the rain barrels alongside the lumberyard. The wound was shallow enough that Teft would probably be able to show the others spear thrusts and blocks tomorrow during chasm duty, but that was no excuse for leaving it alone to fester or scar. At the rain barrel, Kaladin washed out the wound, then called for Lopen—who was standing in the shade beside the barrack—to bring his medical equipment. The Herdazian man gave that salute again, though he did it with one arm, and sauntered away to get the pack. “So, lad,” Teft said. “How do you feel? Any odd experiences lately?” Kaladin frowned, looking up from the arm. “Storm it, Teft! That’s the fifth time in two days you’ve asked me that. What are you getting at?” “Nothing, nothing!” “It is something,” Kaladin said. “What is it you’re digging for, Teft? I—” “Gancho,” Lopen said, walking up, carrying the medical supply pack over his shoulder. “Here you go.” Kaladin glanced at him, then reluctantly accepted the pack. He pulled the drawstrings open. “We’ll want to—” A quick motion came from Teft. Like a punch being thrown. Kaladin moved by reflex, taking in a sharp breath, moving to a defensive stance, arms up, one hand a fist, the other back to block. Something blossomed within Kaladin. Like a deep breath drawn in, like a burning liquor injected directly into his blood. A powerful wave pulsed through his body. Energy, strength, awareness. It was like the body’s natural alert response to danger, only it was a hundredfold more intense. Kaladin caught Teft’s fist, moving blurringly quick. Teft froze. “What are you doing?” Kaladin demanded. Teft was smiling. He stepped back, pulling his fist free. “Kelek,” he said, shaking his hand. “That’s some grip you’ve got.” “Why did you try to strike me?” “I wanted to see something,” Teft said. “You’re holding that pouch of spheres Lopen gave you, you see, and your own pouch with what we’ve gathered lately. More Stormlight than you’ve probably ever carried, at least recently.” “What does that have to do with anything?” Kaladin demanded. What was that heat inside of him, that burning in his veins? “Gancho,” Lopen said, his voice awed. “You’re glowing.” Kaladin frowned. What is he— And then he noticed it. It was very faint, but it was there, wisps of luminescent smoke curling up from his skin. Like steam coming off a bowl of hot water on a cold winter night. Shaking, Kaladin put the medical pack on the broad rim of the water barrel. He felt a moment of coldness on his skin. What was that? Shocked, he raised his other hand, looking at the wisps streaming off of it. “What did you do to me?” he demanded, looking up at Teft. The older bridgeman was still smiling. “Answer me!” Kaladin said, stepping forward, grabbing the front of Teft’s shirt. Stormfather, but I
feel strong! “I didn’t do anything, lad,” Teft said. “You’ve been doing this for a while now. I caught you feeding off Stormlight when you were sick.” Stormlight. Kaladin hastily released Teft, fishing at the pouch of spheres in his pocket. He yanked it free and pulled it open. It was dark inside. All five gemstones had been drained. The white light streaming from Kaladin’s skin faintly illuminated the inside of the bag. “Now that’s something,” Lopen said from the side. Kaladin spun to find the Herdazian man bending down and looking at the medical pack. Why was that so important? Then Kaladin saw it. He thought he’d set the pack on the rim of the barrel, but in his haste he’d just pressed it against the side of the barrel. The pack now clung to the wood. Stuck there, hanging as if from an invisible hook. Faintly streaming light, just like Kaladin. As Kaladin watched, the light faded, and the pack slumped free and fell to the ground. Kaladin raised a hand to his forehead, looking from the surprised Lopen to the curious Teft. Then he glanced around the lumberyard, frantic. Nobody else was looking at them; in the sunlight, the vapors were too faint to see from a distance. Stormfather…what…how… He caught sight of a familiar shape above. Syl moved like a blown leaf, tossed this way and that, leisurely, faint. She did it! Kaladin thought. What has she done to me? He stumbled away from Lopen and Teft, running toward Syl. His footsteps propelling him forward with too much speed. “Syl!” he bellowed, stopping beneath her. She zipped down to hover before him, changing from a leaf to a young woman standing in the air. “Yes?” Kaladin glanced around. “Come with me,” he said, hurrying to one of the alleys between barracks. He pressed himself up against a wall, standing in the shade, breathing in and out. Nobody could see him here. Syl alighted in the air before him, hands behind her back, looking closely at him. “You’re glowing.” “What have you done to me?” She cocked her head, then shrugged. “Syl…” he said threateningly, though he wasn’t certain what harm he could do a spren. “I don’t know, Kaladin,” she said frankly, sitting down, her legs hanging over the side of the invisible platform. “I can…I can only faintly remember things I used to know so well. This world, interacting with men.” “But you did do something.” “We have done something. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t you. But together…” She shrugged again. “That isn’t very helpful.” She grimaced. “I know. I’m sorry.” Kaladin raised a hand. In the shade, the light streaming off of him was more obvious. If someone walked by…“How do I get rid of it?” “Why do you want to get rid of it?” “Well, because…I…Because.” Syl didn’t respond. Something occurred to Kaladin. Something, perhaps, he should have asked long ago. “You’re not a windspren, are you?” She hesitated, then shook her head. “No.” “What are you, then?” “I don’t know. I bind things.” Bind
things. When she played pranks, she made items stick together. Shoes stuck to the ground and made men trip. People reached for their jackets hanging on hooks and couldn’t pull them free. Kaladin reached down, picking a stone up off the ground. It was as big as his palm, weathered smooth by highstorm winds and rain. He pressed it against the wall of the barrack and willed his Light into the stone. He felt a chill. The rock began to stream with luminescent vapors. When Kaladin pulled his hand away, the stone remained where it was, clinging to the side of the building. Kaladin leaned close, squinting. He thought he could faintly make out tiny spren, dark blue and shaped like little splashes of ink, clustering around the place where the rock met the wall. “Bindspren,” Syl said, walking up beside his head; she was still standing in the air. “They’re holding the rock in place.” “Maybe. Or maybe they’re attracted to what you’ve done in affixing the stone there.” “That’s not how it works. Is it?” “Do rotspren cause sickness,” Syl said idly, “or are they attracted to it?” “Everyone knows they cause it.” “And do windspren cause the wind? Rainspren cause the rain? Flamespren cause fires?” He hesitated. No, they didn’t. Did they? “This is pointless. I need to find out how to get rid of this light, not study it.” “And why,” Syl repeated, “must you get rid of it? Kaladin, you’ve heard the stories. Men who walked on walls, men who bound the storms to them. Windrunners. Why would you want to be rid of something like this?” Kaladin struggled to define it. The healing, the way he never got hit, running at the front of the bridge…Yes, he’d known something odd was happening. Why did it frighten him so? Was it because he feared being set apart, like his father always was as the surgeon in Hearthstone? Or was it something greater? “I’m doing what the Radiants did,” he said. “That’s what I just said.” “I’ve been wondering if I’m bad luck, or if I’ve run afoul of something like the Old Magic. Maybe this explains it! The Almighty cursed the Lost Radiants for betraying mankind. What if I’m cursed too, because of what I’m doing?” “Kaladin,” she said, “you are not cursed.” “You just said you don’t know what’s happening.” He paced in the alleyway. To the side, the rock finally plopped free and clattered to the ground. “Can you say, with all certainty, that what I’m doing might not have drawn bad luck down upon me? Do you know enough to deny it completely, Syl?” She stood in the air, her arms folded, saying nothing. “This…thing,” Kaladin said, gesturing toward the stone. “It isn’t natural. The Radiants betrayed mankind. Their powers left them, and they were cursed. Everyone knows the legends.” He looked down at his hands, still glowing, though more faintly than before. “Whatever we’ve done, whatever has happened to me, I’ve somehow brought upon myself their same curse. That’s why everyone around me
dies when I try to help them.” “And you think I’m a curse?” she asked him. “I…Well, you said you’re part of it, and…” She strode forward, pointing at him, a tiny, irate woman hanging in the air. “So you think I’ve caused all of this? Your failures? The deaths?” Kaladin didn’t respond. He realized almost immediately that silence might be the worst response. Syl—surprisingly human in her emotions—spun in the air with a wounded look and zipped away, forming a ribbon of light. I’m overreacting, he told himself. He was just so unsettled. He leaned back against the wall, hand to head. Before he had time to collect his thoughts, shadows darkened the entry to the alleyway. Teft and Lopen. “Rock talkers!” Lopen said. “You really shine in shade, gancho!” Teft gripped Lopen’s shoulder. “He’s not going to tell anyone, lad. I’ll make certain of it.” “Yeah, gancho,” Lopen said. “I swore I’d say nothing. You can trust a Herdazian.” Kaladin looked at the two, overwhelmed. He pushed past them, running out of the alley and across the lumberyard, fleeing from watching eyes. By the time night drew close, the light had long since stopped streaming from Kaladin’s body. It had faded like a fire going out, and had only taken a few minutes to vanish. Kaladin walked southward along the edge of the Shattered Plains, in that transitional area between the warcamps and the Plains themselves. In some areas—like at the staging area near Sadeas’s lumbercamp—there was a soft slope leading down between the two. At other points, there was a short ridge, eight or so feet tall. He passed one of these now, rocks to his right, open Plains to his left. Hollows, crevasses, and nooks scored the rock. Some shadowed sections here still hid pools of water from the highstorms days ago. Creatures still scuttled around the rocks, though the cooling evening air would soon drive them to hide. He passed a place pocked with small, water-filled holes; cremlings—multilegged, bearing tiny claws, their elongated bodies plated with carapace—lapped and fed at the edges. A small tentacle snapped out, yanking one down into the hole. Probably a grasper. Grass grew up the side of the ridge beside him, and the blades peeked from their holes. Bunches of fingermoss sprouted like flowers amid the green. The bright pink and purple fingermoss tendrils were reminiscent of tentacles themselves, waving at him in the wind. When he passed, the timid grass pulled back, but the fingermoss was bolder. The clumps would only pull into their shells if he tapped the rock near them. Above him, on the ridge, a few scouts stood watch over the Shattered Plains. This area beneath the ridge belonged to no specific highprince, and the scouts ignored Kaladin. He would only be stopped if he tried to leave the warcamps at the southern or northern sides. None of the bridgemen had come after him. He wasn’t certain what Teft had told them. Perhaps he’d said Kaladin was distraught following Maps’s death. It felt odd to be alone. Ever
since he’d been betrayed by Amaram and made a slave, he had been in the company of others. Slaves with whom he’d plotted. Bridgemen with whom he’d worked. Soldiers to guard him, slavemasters to beat him, friends to depend on him. The last time he’d been alone had been that night when he’d been tied up for the highstorm to kill him. No, he thought. I wasn’t alone that night. Syl was there. He lowered his head, passing small cracks in the ground to his left. Those lines eventually grew into chasms as they moved eastward. What was happening to him? He wasn’t delusional. Teft and Lopen had seen it too. Teft had actually seemed to expect it. Kaladin should have died during that highstorm. And yet, he had been up and walking shortly afterward. His ribs should still be tender, but they hadn’t ached in weeks. His spheres, and those of the other bridgemen near him, had consistently run out of Stormlight. Had it been the highstorm that had changed him? But no, he’d discovered drained spheres before being hung out to die. And Syl…she’d as much as admitted responsibility for some of what had happened. This had been going on a long time. He stopped beside a rock outcropping, resting against it, causing grass to shrink away. He looked eastward, over the Shattered Plains. His home. His sepulcher. This life on them was ripping him apart. The bridgemen looked up to him, thought him their leader, their savior. But he had cracks in him, like the cracks in the stone here at the edges of the Plains. Those cracks were growing larger. He kept making promises to himself, like a man running a long distance with no energy left. Just a little farther. Run just to that next hill. Then you can give up. Tiny fractures, fissures in the stone. It’s right that I came here, he thought. We belong together, you and I. I’m like you. What had made the Plains break in the first place? Some kind of great weight? A melody began playing distantly, carrying over the Plains. Kaladin jumped at the sound. It was so unexpected, so out of place, that it was startling despite its softness. The sounds were coming from the Plains. Hesitant, yet unable to resist, he walked forward. Eastward, onto the flat, windswept rock. The sounds grew louder as he walked, but they were still haunting, elusive. A flute, though one lower in pitch than most he’d heard. As he grew closer, Kaladin smelled smoke. A light was burning out there. A tiny campfire. Kaladin walked out to the edge of this particular peninsula, a chasm growing from the cracks until it plunged down into darkness. At the very tip of the peninsula—surrounded on three sides by chasm—Kaladin found a man sitting on a boulder, wearing a lighteyes’s black uniform. A small fire of rockbud shell burned in front of him. The man’s hair was short and black, his face angular. He wore a thin, black-sheathed sword at his waist. The man’s
eyes were a pale blue. Kaladin had never heard of a lighteyed man playing a flute. Didn’t they consider music a feminine pursuit? Lighteyed men sang, but they didn’t play instruments unless they were ardents. This man was extremely talented. The odd melody he played was alien, almost unreal, like something from another place and time. It echoed down the chasm and came back; it almost sounded like the man was playing a duet with himself. Kaladin stopped a short distance away, realizing that the last thing he wanted to do now was deal with a brightlord, particularly one who was eccentric enough to dress in black and wander out onto the Shattered Plains to practice his flute. Kaladin turned to go. The music cut off. Kaladin paused. “I always worry that I’ll forget how to play her,” a soft voice said from behind. “It’s silly, I know, considering how long I’ve practiced. But these days I rarely give her the attention she deserves.” Kaladin turned toward the stranger. His flute was carved from a dark wood that was almost black. The instrument seemed too ordinary to belong to a lighteyes, yet the man held it reverently. “What are you doing here?” Kaladin asked. “Sitting. Occasionally playing.” “I mean, why are you here?” “Why am I here?” the man asked, lowering his flute, leaning back and relaxing. “Why are any of us here? That’s a rather deep question for a first meeting, young bridgeman. I generally prefer introductions before theology. Lunch too, if it can be found. Perhaps a nice nap. Actually, practically anything should come before theology. But especially introductions.” “All right,” Kaladin said. “And you are…?” “Sitting. Occasionally playing… with the minds of bridgemen.” Kaladin reddened, turning again to go. Let the fool lighteyes say, and do, what he wished. Kaladin had difficult decisions to think about. “Well, off with you then,” the lighteyes said from behind. “Glad you are going. Wouldn’t want you too close. I’m rather attached to my Stormlight.” Kaladin froze. Then he spun. “What?” “My spheres,” the strange man said, holding up what appeared to be a fully infused emerald broam. “Everyone knows that bridgemen are thieves, or at least beggars.” Of course. He had been talking about spheres. He didn’t know about Kaladin’s… affliction. Did he? The man’s eyes twinkled as if at a grand joke. “Don’t be insulted at being called a thief,” the man said, raising a finger. Kaladin frowned. Where had the sphere gone? He had been holding it in that hand. “I meant it as a compliment.” “A compliment? Calling someone a thief?” “Of course. I myself am a thief.” “You are? What do you steal?” “Pride,” the man said, leaning forward. “And occasionally boredom, if I may take the pride unto myself. I am the King’s Wit. Or I was until recently. I think I shall probably lose the title soon.” “The king’s what?” “Wit. It was my job to be witty.” “Saying confusing things isn’t the same as being witty.” “Ah,” the man said, eyes twinkling. “Already you prove
yourself more wise than most who have been my acquaintance lately. What is it to be witty, then?” “To say clever things.” “And what is cleverness?” “I…” Why was he having this conversation? “I guess it’s the ability to say and do the right things at the right time.” The King’s Wit cocked his head, then smiled. Finally, he held out his hand to Kaladin. “And what is your name, my thoughtful bridgeman?” Kaladin hesitantly raised his own hand. “Kaladin. And yours?” “I’ve many.” The man shook Kaladin’s hand. “I began life as a thought, a concept, words on a page. That was another thing I stole. Myself. Another time, I was named for a rock.” “A pretty one, I hope.” “A beautiful one,” the man said. “And one that became completely worthless for my wearing it.” “Well, what do men call you now?” “Many a thing, and only some of them polite. Almost all are true, unfortunately. You, however, you may call me Hoid.” “Your name?” “No. The name of someone I should have loved. Once again, this is a thing I stole. It is something we thieves do.” He glanced eastward, over the rapidly darkening Plains. The little fire burning beside Hoid’s boulder shed a fugitive light, red from glimmering coals. “Well, it was pleasant to meet you,” Kaladin said. “I will be on my way….” “Not before I give you something.” Hoid picked up his flute. “Wait, please.” Kaladin sighed. He had a feeling that this odd man was not going to let him escape until he was done. “This is a Trailman’s flute,” Hoid said, inspecting the length of dark wood. “It is meant to be used by a storyteller, for him to play while he is telling a story.” “You mean to accompany a storyteller. Being played by someone else while he speaks.” “Actually, I meant what I said.” “How would a man tell a story while playing the flute?” Hoid raised an eyebrow, then lifted the flute to his lips. He played it differently from flutes Kaladin had seen—instead of holding it down in front of him, Hoid held it out to the side and blew across its top. He tested a few notes. They had the same melancholy tone that Kaladin had heard before. “This story,” Hoid said, “is about Derethil and the Wandersail.” He began to play. The notes were quicker, sharper, than the ones he’d played earlier. They almost seemed to tumble over one another, scurrying out of the flute like children racing one another to be first. They were beautiful and crisp, rising and falling scales, intricate as a woven rug. Kaladin found himself transfixed. The tune was powerful, almost demanding. As if each note were a hook, flung out to spear Kaladin’s flesh and hold him near. Hoid stopped abruptly, but the notes continued to echo in the chasm, coming back as he spoke. “Derethil is well known in some lands, though I have heard him spoken of less here in the East. He was a king during the shadowdays, the
time before memory. A powerful man. Commander of thousands, leader of tens of thousands. Tall, regal, blessed with fair skin and fairer eyes. He was a man to envy.” Just as the echoes faded below, Hoid began to play again, picking up the rhythm. He actually seemed to continue just where the echoing notes grew too soft, as if there had never been a break in the music. The notes grew more smooth, suggesting a king walking through court with his attendants. As Hoid played, eyes closed, he leaned forward toward the fire. The air he blew over the flute churned the smoke, stirring it. The music grew softer. The smoke swirled, and Kaladin thought he could make out the face of a man in the patterns of smoke, a man with a pointed chin and lofty cheekbones. It wasn’t really there, of course. Just imagination. But the haunting song and the swirling smoke seemed to encourage his imagination. “Derethil fought the Voidbringers during the days of the Heralds and Radiants,” Hoid said, eyes still closed, flute just below his lips, the song echoing in the chasm and seeming to accompany his words. “When there was finally peace, he found he was not content. His eyes always turned westward, toward the great open sea. He commissioned the finest ship men had ever known, a majestic vessel intended to do what none had dared before: sail the seas during a highstorm.” The echoes tapered off, and Hoid began playing again, as if alternating with an invisible partner. The smoke swirled, rising in the air, twisting in the wind of Hoid’s breath. And Kaladin almost thought he could see an enormous ship in a shipyard, with a sail as large as a building, secured to an arrowlike hull. The melody became quick and clipped, as if to imitate the sounds of mallets pounding and saws cutting. “Derethil’s goal,” Hoid paused and said, “was to seek the origin of the Voidbringers, the place where they had been spawned. Many called him a fool, yet he could not hold himself back. He named the vessel the Wandersail and gathered a crew of the bravest of sailors. Then, on a day when a highstorm brewed, this ship cast off. Riding out into the ocean, the sail hung wide, like arms open to the stormwinds….” The flute was at Hoid’s lips in a second and he stirred the fire by kicking at a piece of rockbud shell. Sparks of flame rose in the air and smoke puffed, swirling as Hoid rotated his head down and pointed the flute’s holes at the smoke. The song became violent, tempestuous, notes falling unexpectedly and trilling with quick undulations. Scales rippled into high notes, where they screeched airily. And Kaladin saw it in his mind’s eye. The massive ship suddenly miniscule before the awesome power of a highstorm. Blown, carried out into the endless sea. What had this Derethil hoped or expected to find? A highstorm on land was terrible enough. But on the sea? The sounds bounced off the echoing walls
below. Kaladin found himself sinking down to the rocks, watching the swirling smoke and rising flames. Seeing the tiny ship captured and held within a furious maelstrom. Eventually, Hoid’s music slowed, and the violent echoes faded, leaving a much gentler song. Like lapping waves. “The Wandersail was nearly destroyed in the crash, but Derethil and most of his sailors survived. They found themselves on a ring of small islands surrounding an enormous whirlpool, where, it is said, the ocean drains. Derethil and his men were greeted by a strange people with long, limber bodies who wore robes of single color and shells in their hair unlike any that grow back on Roshar. “These people took the survivors in, fed them, and nursed them back to health. During his weeks of recovery, Derethil studied the strange people, who called themselves the Uvara, the People of the Great Abyss. They lived curious lives. Unlike the people in Roshar—who constantly argue— the Uvara always seemed to agree. From childhood, there were no questions. Each and every person went about his duty.” Hoid began the music again, letting the smoke rise unhindered. Kaladin thought he could see in it a people, industrious, always working. A building rose among them with a figure at the window, Derethil, watching. The music was calming, curious. “One day,” Hoid said, “while Derethil and his men were sparring to regain strength, a young serving girl brought them refreshment. She tripped on an uneven stone, dropping the goblets to the floor and shattering them. In a flash, the other Uvara descended on the hapless child and slaughtered her in a brutal way. Derethil and his men were so stunned that by the time they regained their wits, the child was dead. Angry, Derethil demanded to know the cause of the unjustified murder. One of the other natives explained. ‘Our emperor will not suffer failure.’” The music began again, sorrowful, and Kaladin shivered. He witnessed the girl being bludgeoned to death with rocks, and the proud form of Derethil bowing above her fallen body. Kaladin knew that sorrow. The sorrow of failure, of letting someone die when he should have been able to do something. So many people he loved had died. He had a reason for that now. He’d drawn the ire of the Heralds and the Almighty. It had to be that, didn’t it? He knew he should be getting back to Bridge Four. But he couldn’t pull himself away. He hung on the storyteller’s words. “As Derethil began to pay more attention,” Hoid said, his music echoing softly to accompany him, “he saw other murders. These Uvara, these People of the Great Abyss, were prone to astonishing cruelty. If one of their members did something wrong—something the slightest bit untoward or unfavorable—the others would slaughter him or her. Each time he asked, Derethil’s caretaker gave him the same answer. ‘Our emperor will not suffer failure.’” The echoing music faded, but once again Hoid lifted his flute just as it grew too soft to hear. The melody grew solemn. Soft, quiet,
like a lament for one who had passed. And yet it was edged with mystery, occasional quick bursts, hinting at secrets. Kaladin frowned as he watched the smoke spin, making what appeared to be a tower. Tall, thin, with an open structure at the top. “The emperor, Derethil discovered, resided in the tower on the eastern coast of the largest island among the Uvara.” Kaladin felt a chill. The smoke images were just from his mind, adding to the story, weren’t they? Had he really seen a tower before Hoid mentioned it? “Derethil determined that he needed to confront this cruel emperor. What kind of monster would demand that such an obviously peaceful people kill so often and so terribly? Derethil gathered his sailors, a heroic group, and they armed themselves. The Uvara did not try to stop them, though they watched with fright as the strangers stormed the emperor’s tower.” Hoid fell silent, and didn’t turn back to his flute. Instead, he let the music echo in the chasm. It seemed to linger this time. Long, sinister notes. “Derethil and his men came out of the tower a short time later, carrying a desiccated corpse in fine robes and jewelry. ‘This is your emperor?’ Derethil demanded. ‘We found him in the top room, alone.’ It appeared that the man had been dead for years, but nobody had dared enter his tower. They were too frightened of him. “When he showed the Uvara the dead body, they began to wail and weep. The entire island was cast into chaos, as the Uvara began to burn homes, riot, or fall to their knees in torment. Amazed and confused, Derethil and his men stormed the Uvara shipyards, where the Wandersail was being repaired. Their guide and caretaker joined them, and she begged to accompany them in their escape. So it was that Nafti joined the crew. “Derethil and his men set sail, and though the winds were still, they rode the Wandersail around the whirlpool, using the momentum to spin them out and away from the islands. Long after they left, they could see the smoke rising from the ostensibly peaceful lands. They gathered on the deck, watching, and Derethil asked Nafti the reason for the terrible riots.” Hoid fell silent, letting his words rise with the strange smoke, lost to the night. “Well?” Kaladin demanded. “What was her response?” “Holding a blanket around herself, staring with haunted eyes at her lands, she replied, ‘Do you not see, Traveling One? If the emperor is dead, and has been all these years, then the murders we committed are not his responsibility. They are our own.’” Kaladin sat back. Gone was the taunting, playful tone Hoid had used earlier. No more mockery. No more quick tongue intended to confuse. This story had come from within his heart, and Kaladin found he could not speak. He just sat, thinking of that island and the terrible things that had been done. “I think…” Kaladin finally replied, licking his dry lips, “I think that is cleverness.” Hoid raised an
eyebrow, looking up from his flute. “Being able to remember a story like that,” Kaladin said, “to tell it with such care.” “Be wary of what you say,” Hoid said, smiling. “If all you need for cleverness is a good story, then I’ll find myself out of a job.” “Didn’t you say you were already out of a job?” “True. The king is finally without wit. I wonder what that makes him.” “Um… witless?” Kaladin said. “I’ll tell him you said that,” Hoid noted, eyes twinkling. “But I think it’s inaccurate. One can have a wit, but not a witless. What is a wit?” “I don’t know. Some kind of spren in your head, maybe, that makes you think?” Hoid cocked his head, then laughed. “Why, I suppose that’s as good an explanation as any.” He stood up, dusting off his black trousers. “Is the story true?” Kaladin asked, rising too. “Perhaps.” “But how would we know it? Did Derethil and his men return?” “Some stories say they did.” “But how could they? The highstorms only blow one direction.” “Then I guess the story is a lie.” “I didn’t say that.” “No, I said it. Fortunately, it’s the best kind of lie.” “And what kind is that?” “Why, the kind I tell, of course.” Hoid laughed, then kicked out the fire, grinding the last of the coals beneath his heel. It didn’t really seem there had been enough fuel to make the smoke Kaladin had seen. “What did you put in the fire?” Kaladin said. “To make that special smoke?” “Nothing. It was just an ordinary fire.” “But, I saw—” “What you saw belongs to you. A story doesn’t live until it is imagined in someone’s mind.” “What does the story mean, then?” “It means what you want it to mean,” Hoid said. “The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon. Too often, we forget that.” Kaladin frowned, looking westward, back toward the warcamps. They were alight now with spheres, lanterns, and candles. “It means taking responsibility,” Kaladin said. “The Uvara, they were happy to kill and murder, so long as they could blame the emperor. It wasn’t until they realized there was nobody to take the responsibility that they showed grief.” “That’s one interpretation,” Hoid said. “A fine one, actually. So what is it you don’t want to take responsibility for?” Kaladin started. “What?” “People see in stories what they’re looking for, my young friend.” He reached behind his boulder, pulling out a pack and slinging it on his shoulder. “I have no answers for you. Most days, I feel I never have had any answers. I’ve come to your land to chase an old acquaintance, but I end up spending most of my time hiding from him instead.” “You said… about me and responsibility…” “Just an idle comment, nothing more.” He reached over, laying a hand on Kaladin’s shoulder. “My comments are often idle. I never can get them to do any solid work. Would that I
could make my words carry stones. That would be something to see.” He held out the dark wood flute. “Here. I’ve carried her for longer than you’d believe, were I to tell you the truth. Take her for yourself.” “But I don’t know how to play it!” “Then learn,” Hoid said, pressing the flute into Kaladin’s hand. “When you can make the music sing back at you, then you’ve mastered it.” He began to walk away. “And take good care of that blasted apprentice of mine. He really should have let me know he was still alive. Perhaps he feared I’d come to rescue him again.” “Apprentice?” “Tell him I graduate him,” Hoid said, still walking. “He’s a full Worldsinger now. Don’t let him get killed. I spent far too long trying to force some sense into that brain of his.” Sigzil, Kaladin thought. “I’ll give him the flute,” he called after Hoid. “No you won’t,” Hoid said, turning, walking backward as he left. “It’s a gift to you, Kaladin Stormblessed. I expect you to be able to play it when next we meet!” And with that, the storyteller turned and broke into a jog, heading off toward the warcamps. He didn’t move to go up into them, however. His shadowed figure turned to the south, as if he were intending to leave the camps. Where was he going? Kaladin looked down at the flute in his hand. It was heavier than he had expected. What kind of wood was it? He rubbed its smooth length, thinking. “I don’t like him,” Syl’s voice said suddenly, coming from behind. “He’s strange.” Kaladin spun to find her on the boulder, sitting where Hoid had been a moment ago. “Syl!” Kaladin said. “How long have you been here?” She shrugged. “You were watching the story. I didn’t want to interrupt.” She sat with hands in her lap, looking uncomfortable. “Syl—” “I’m behind what is happening to you,” she said, voice soft. “I’m doing it.” Kaladin frowned, stepping forward. “It’s both of us,” she said. “But without me, nothing would be changing in you. I’m… taking something from you. And giving something in return. It’s the way it used to work, though I can’t remember how or when. I just know that it was.” “I—” “Hush,” she said. “I’m talking.” “Sorry.” “I’m willing to stop it, if you want,” she said. “But I would go back to being as I was before. That scares me. Floating on the wind, never remembering anything for longer than a few minutes. It’s because of this tie between us that I can think again, that I can remember what and who I am. If we end it, I lose that.” She looked up at Kaladin, sorrowful. He looked into those eyes, then took a deep breath. “Come,” he said, turning, walking back down the peninsula. She flew over, becoming a ribbon of light, floating idly in the air beside his head. Soon they reached the place beneath the ridge leading to the warcamps. Kaladin turned north, toward Sadeas’s camp. The
cremlings had retreated to their cracks and burrows, but many of the plants still continued to let their fronds float in the cool wind. When he passed, the grass pulled back in, looking like the fur of some black beast in the night, lit by Salas. What responsibility are you avoiding…. He wasn’t avoiding responsibility. He took too much responsibility! Lirin had said it constantly, chastising Kaladin for feeling guilt over deaths he couldn’t have prevented. Though there was one thing he clung to. An excuse, perhaps, like the dead emperor. It was the soul of the wretch. Apathy. The belief that nothing was his fault, the belief that he couldn’t change anything. If a man was cursed, or if he believed he didn’t have to care, then he didn’t need to hurt when he failed. Those failures couldn’t have been prevented. Someone or something else had ordained them. “If I’m not cursed,” Kaladin said softly, “then why do I live when others die?” “Because of us,” Syl said. “This bond. It makes you stronger, Kaladin.” “Then why can’t it make me strong enough to help the others?” “I don’t know,” Syl said. “Maybe it can.” If I get rid of it, I’ll go back to being normal. For what purpose… so I can die with the others? He continued to walk in the darkness, passing lights above that made vague, faint shadows on the stones in front of him. The tendrils of fingermoss, clumped in bunches. Their shadows seemed arms. He thought often about saving the bridgemen. And yet, as he considered, he realized that he often framed saving them in terms of saving himself. He told himself he wouldn’t let them die, because he knew what it would do to him if they did. When he lost men, the wretch threatened to take over because of how much Kaladin hated failing. Was that it? Was that why he searched for reasons why he might be cursed? To explain his failure away? Kaladin began to walk more quickly. He was doing something good in helping the bridgemen—but he also was doing something selfish. The powers had unsettled him because of the responsibility they represented. He broke into a jog. Before long, he was sprinting. But if it wasn’t about him—if he wasn’t helping the bridgemen because he loathed failure, or because he feared the pain of watching them die— then it would be about them. About Rock’s affable gibes, about Moash’s intensity, about Teft’s earnest gruff ness or Peet’s quiet dependability. What would he do to protect them? Give up his illusions? His excuses? Seize whatever opportunity he could, no matter how it changed him? No matter how it unnerved him, or what burdens it represented? He dashed up the incline to the lumberyard. Bridge Four was making their evening stew, chatting and laughing. The nearly twenty wounded men from other crews sat eating gratefully. It was gratifying, how quickly they had lost their hollow-eyed expressions and begun laughing with the other men. The smell of spicy Horneater stew was thick
in the air. Kaladin slowed his jog, coming to a stop beside the bridgemen. Several looked concerned as they saw him, panting and sweating. Syl landed on his shoulder. Kaladin sought out Teft. The aging bridgeman sat alone below the barrack’s eaves, staring down at the rock in front of him. He hadn’t noticed Kaladin yet. Kaladin gestured for the others to continue, then walked over to Teft. He squatted down before the man. Teft looked up in surprise. “Kaladin?” “What do you know?” Kaladin said quietly, intense. “And how do you know it?” “I—” Teft said. “When I was a youth, my family belonged to a secret sect that awaited the return of the Radiants. I quit when I was just a youth. I thought it was nonsense.” He was holding things back; Kaladin could tell from the hesitation in his voice. Responsibility. “How much do you know about what I can do?” “Not much,” Teft said. “Just legends and stories. Nobody really knows what the Radiants could do, lad.” Kaladin met his eyes, then smiled. “Well, we’re going to find out.” “I have a serious loathing of being wrong.” Adolin reclined in his chair, one hand resting leisurely on the crystal-topped table, the other swirling wine in his cup. Yellow wine. He wasn’t on duty today, so he could indulge just a tad. Wind ruffled his hair; he was sitting with a group of other young lighteyes at the outdoor tables of an Outer Market wineshop. The Outer Market was a collection of buildings that had grown up near the king’s palace, outside the warcamps. An eclectic mix of people passed on the street below their terraced seating. “I should think that everyone shares your dislike, Adolin,” Jakamav said, leaning with both elbows on the table. He was a sturdy man, a lighteyes of the third dahn from Highprince Roion’s camp. “Who likes being wrong?” “I’ve known a number of people who prefer it,” Adolin said thoughtfully. “Of course, they don’t admit that fact. But what else could one presume from the frequency of their error?” Inkima—Jakamav’s accompaniment for the afternoon—gave a tinkling laugh. She was a plump thing with light yellow eyes who dyed her hair black. She wore a red dress. The color did not look good on her. Danlan was also there, of course. She sat on a chair beside Adolin, keeping proper distance, though she’d occasionally touch his arm with her freehand. Her wine was violet. She did like her wine, though she seemed to match it to her outfits. A curious trait. Adolin smiled. She looked extremely fetching, with that long neck and graceful build wrapped in a sleek dress. She didn’t dye her hair, though it was mostly auburn. There was nothing wrong with light hair. In fact, why was it that they all were so fond of dark hair, when light eyes were the ideal? Stop it, Adolin told himself. You’ll end up brooding as much as Father. The other two—Toral and his companion Eshava—were both lighteyes from Highprince Aladar’s camp. House Kholin
was currently out of favor, but Adolin had acquaintances or friends in nearly all of the warcamps. “Wrongness can be amusing,” Toral said. “It keeps life interesting. If we were all right all the time, where would that leave us?” “My dear,” his companion said. “Didn’t you once claim to me that you were nearly always right?” “Yes,” Toral said. “And so if everyone were like me, who would I make sport of? I’d dread being made so mundane by everyone else’s competence.” Adolin smiled, taking a drink of his wine. He had a formal duel in the arena today, and he’d found that a cup of yellow beforehand helped him relax. “Well, you needn’t worry about me being right too often, Toral. I was sure Sadeas would move against my father. It doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t he?” “Positioning, perhaps?” Toral said. He was a keen fellow, known for his refined sense of taste. Adolin always wanted him along when trying wines. “He wants to look strong.” “He was strong,” Adolin said. “He gains no more by not moving against us.” “Now,” Danlan said, voice soft with a breathless quality to it, “I know that I’m quite new to the warcamps, and my assessment is bound to reflect my ignorance, but—” “You always say that, you know,” Adolin said idly. He liked her voice quite a bit. “I always say what?” “That you’re ignorant,” Adolin said. “However, you’re anything but. You’re among the most clever women I’ve met.” She hesitated, looking oddly annoyed for a moment. Then she smiled. “You shouldn’t say such things—Adolin—when a woman is attempting humility.” “Oh, right. Humility. I’ve forgotten that existed.” “Too much time around Sadeas’s lighteyes?” Jakamav said, eliciting another tinkling laugh from Inkima. “Anyway,” Adolin said. “I’m sorry. Please continue.” “I was saying,” Danlan said, “that I doubt Sadeas would wish to start a war. Moving against your father in such an obvious way would have done that, wouldn’t it?” “Undoubtedly,” Adolin said. “So perhaps that is why he held himself back.” “I don’t know,” Toral said. “He could have cast shame on your family without attacking you—he could have implied, for instance, that you’d been negligent and foolish in not protecting the king, but that you hadn’t been behind the assassination attempt.” Adolin nodded. “That still could have started a war,” Danlan said. “Perhaps,” Toral said. “But you have to admit, Adolin, that the Blackthorn’s reputation is a little less than… impressive of late.” “And what does that mean?” Adolin snapped. “Oh, Adolin,” Toral said waving a hand and raising his cup for some more wine. “Don’t be tiresome. You know what I’m saying, and you also know I mean no insult by it. Where is that serving woman?” “One would think,” Jakamav added, “that after six years out here, we could get a decent winehouse.” Inkima laughed at that too. She was really getting annoying. “My father’s reputation is sound,” Adolin said. “Or have you not been paying attention to our victories lately?” “Achieved with Sadeas’s help,” Jakamav said. “Achieved nonetheless,” Adolin
said. “In the last few months, my father’s saved not only Sadeas’s life, but that of the king himself. He fights boldly. Surely you can see that previous rumors about him were absolutely unfounded.” “All right, all right,” Toral said. “No need to get upset, Adolin. We can all agree that your father is a wonderful man. But you were the one who complained to us that you wanted to change him.” Adolin studied his wine. Both of the other men at the table wore the sort of outfits Adolin’s father frowned upon. Short jackets over colorful silk shirts. Toral wore a thin yellow silk scarf at the neck and another around his right wrist. It was quite fashionable, and looked far more comfortable than Adolin’s uniform. Dalinar would have said that the outfits looked silly, but sometimes fashion was silly. Bold, different. There was something invigorating about dressing in a way that interested others, moving with the waves of style. Once, before joining his father at the war, Adolin had loved being able to design a look to match a given day. Now he had only two options: summer uniform coat or winter uniform coat. The serving maid finally arrived, bringing two carafes of wine, one yellow and one deep blue. Inkima giggled as Jakamav leaned over and whispered something in her ear. Adolin held up a hand to forestall the maid from filling his cup. “I’m not sure I want to see my father change. Not anymore.” Toral frowned. “Last week—” “I know,” Adolin said. “That was before I saw him rescue Sadeas. Every time I start to forget how amazing my father is, he does something to prove me one of the ten fools. It happened when Elhokar was in danger too. It’s like… my father only acts like that when he really cares about something.” “You imply that he doesn’t really care about the war, Adolin dear,” Danlan said. “No,” Adolin said. “Just that the lives of Elhokar and Sadeas might be more important than killing Parshendi.” The others took that for an explanation, moving on toward other topics. But Adolin found himself circling the thought. He felt unsettled lately. Being wrong about Sadeas was one cause; the chance that they might actually be able to prove the visions right or wrong was another. Adolin felt trapped. He’d pushed his father to confront his own sanity, and now—by what their last conversation had established—he had all but agreed to accept his father’s decision to step down if the visions proved false. Everyone hates being wrong, Adolin thought. Except my father said he’d rather be wrong, if it would be better for Alethkar. Adolin doubted many lighteyes would rather be proven mad than right. “Perhaps,” Eshava was saying. “But that doesn’t change all of his foolish restrictions. I wish he would step down.” Adolin started. “What? What was that?” Eshava glanced at him. “Nothing. Just seeing if you were attending the conversation, Adolin.” “No,” Adolin said. “Tell me what you were saying.” She shrugged, looking at Toral. Toral leaned
forward. “You don’t think the warcamps are ignoring what happens to your father during highstorms, Adolin. Word is that he should abdicate because of it.” “That would be foolish,” Adolin said firmly. “Considering how much success he’s showing in battle.” “Stepping down would be far too much of an overreaction,” Danlan agreed. “Though, Adolin, I do wish you could get your father to relax all of these foolish restrictions our camp is under. You and the other Kholin men would be able to truly join society again.” “I’ve tried,” he said, checking the position of the sun. “Trust me. And, unfortunately, I have a duel to prepare for. If you’ll excuse me.” “Some more of Sadeas’s sycophants?” Jakamav asked. “No,” Danlan said, smiling. “It’s Brightlord Resi. There’ve been some vocal provocations from Thanadal, and this might serve to shut his mouth.” She looked at Adolin fondly. “I’ll meet you there.” “Thanks,” he said, rising, doing up the buttons on his coat. He kissed Danlan’s freehand, waved to the others, and trotted out onto the street. That was something of an abrupt departure for me, he thought. Will they see how uncomfortable the discussion made me? Probably not. They didn’t know him as Renarin did. Adolin liked to be familiar with a large number of people, but not terribly close with any of them. He didn’t even know Danlan that well yet. He would make his relationship with her last, though. He was tired of Renarin teasing him for jumping in and out of courtships. Danlan was very pretty; it seemed the courtship could work. He passed through the Outer Market, Toral’s words weighing on him. Adolin didn’t want to become highprince. He wasn’t ready. He liked dueling and chatting with his friends. Leading the army was one thing—but as highprince, he’d have to think of other things. Such as the future of the war on the Shattered Plains, or protecting and advising the king. That shouldn’t have to be our problem, he thought. But it was as his father always said. If they didn’t do it, who would? The Outer Market was far more disorganized than the markets inside Dalinar’s warcamp. Here, the ramshackle buildings—mostly built of stone blocks quarried from nearby—had grown up without any specific plan. A large number of the merchants were Thaylen, with their typical caps, vests, and long, wagging eyebrows. The busy market was one of the few places where soldiers from all ten warcamps mingled. In fact, that had become one of the main functions of the place; it was neutral ground where men and women from different warcamps could meet. It also provided a market that wasn’t heavily regulated, though Dalinar had stepped in to provide some rules once the marketplace had begun to show signs of lawlessness. Adolin nodded to a passing group of Kholin soldiers in blue, who saluted him. They were on patrol, halberds held at their shoulders, helms gleaming. Dalinar’s troops patrolled this place, and his scribes watched over it. All at his own cost. His father didn’t like the layout
of the Outer Market or its lack of walls. He said that a raid could be catastrophic to it, that it violated the spirit of the Codes. But it had been years since the Parshendi had raided the Alethi side of the Plains. And if they did decide to strike at the warcamps, the scouts and guards would give ample warning. So what was the point of the Codes? Adolin’s father acted as if they were vitally important. Always be in uniform, always be armed, always stay sober. Be ever vigilant while under threat of attack. But there was no threat of attack. As he walked through the market, Adolin looked—really looked—for the first time and tried to see what it was his father was doing. He could pick out Dalinar’s officers easily. They wore their uniforms, as commanded. Blue coats and trousers with silver buttons, knots on the shoulders for rank. Officers who weren’t from Dalinar’s camp wore all kinds of clothing. It was difficult to pick them out from the merchants and other wealthy civilians. But that doesn’t matter, Adolin told himself again. Because we’re not going to be attacked. He frowned, passing a group of lighteyes lounging outside another winehouse. Much as he’d just been doing. Their clothing—indeed, their postures and mannerisms—made them look like they cared only about their revelry. Adolin found himself annoyed. There was a war going on. Almost every day, soldiers died. They did so while lighteyes drank and chatted. Maybe the Codes weren’t just about protecting against the Parshendi. Maybe they were about something more—about giving the men commanders they could respect and rely on. About treating war with the gravity it deserved. Maybe it was about not turning a war zone into a festival. The common men had to remain on watch, vigilant. Therefore, Adolin and Dalinar did the same. Adolin hesitated in the street. Nobody cursed at him or called for him to move—they could see his rank. They just went around him. I think I see now, he thought. Why had it taken him so long? Disturbed, he hurried on his way toward the day’s match. “‘I walked from Abamabar to Urithiru,’” Dalinar said, quoting from memory. “‘In this, the metaphor and experience are one, inseparable to me like my mind and memory. One contains the other, and though I can explain one to you, the other is only for me.’” Sadeas—sitting beside him—raised an eyebrow. Elhokar sat on Dalinar’s other side, wearing his Shardplate. He’d taken to that more and more, sure that assassins were thirsting for his life. Together, they watched the men dueling down below, at the bottom of a small crater that Elhokar had designated the warcamps’ dueling arena. The rocky shelves running around the inside of the ten-foot-tall wall made excellent seating platforms. Adolin’s duel hadn’t started yet, and the men who fought right now were lighteyes, but not Shardbearers. Their dull-edged dueling swords were crusted with a white, chalklike substance. When one achieved a hit on the other’s padded armor, it would leave a visible
mark. “So, wait,” Sadeas said to him. “This man who wrote the book…” “Nohadon is his holy name. Others call him Bajerden, though we’re not certain whether that was actually his real name or not.” “He decided to walk from where to where?” “Abamabar to Urithiru,” Dalinar said. “I think it must have been a great distance, from the way the story is told.” “Wasn’t he a king?” “Yes.” “But why—” “It’s confusing,” Dalinar said. “But listen. You’ll see.” He cleared his throat and continued. “‘I strode this insightful distance on my own, and forbade attendants. I had no steed beyond my well-worn sandals, no companion beside a stout staff to offer conversation with its beats against the stone. My mouth was to be my purse; I stuffed it not with gems, but with song. When singing for sustenance failed me, my arms worked well for cleaning a floor or hogpen, and often earned me a satisfactory reward. “‘Those dear to me took fright for my safety and, perhaps, my sanity. Kings, they explained, do not walk like beggars for hundreds of miles. My response was that if a beggar could manage the feat, then why not a king? Did they think me less capable than a beggar? “‘Sometimes I think that I am. The beggar knows much that the king can only guess. And yet who draws up the codes for begging ordinances? Often I wonder what my experience in life—my easy life following the Desolation, and my current level of comfort—has given me of any true experience to use in making laws. If we had to rely on what we knew, kings would only be of use in creating laws regarding the proper heating of tea and cushioning of thrones.’” Sadeas frowned at this. In front of them, the two swordsmen continued their duel; Elhokar watched keenly. He loved duels. Bringing in sand to coat the floor of this arena had been one of his first acts at the Shattered Plains. “‘Regardless,’” Dalinar said, still quoting from The Way of Kings, “‘I made the trip and—as the astute reader has already concluded—survived it. The stories of its excitements will stain a different page in this narrative, for first I must explain my purpose in walking this strange path. Though I was quite willing to let my family think me insane, I would not leave the same as my cognomen upon the winds of history. “‘My family traveled to Urithiru via the direct method, and had been awaiting me for weeks when I arrived. I was not recognized at the gate, for my mane had grown quite robust without a razor to tame it. Once I revealed myself, I was carried away, primped, fed, worried over, and scolded in precisely that order. Only after all of this was through was I finally asked the purpose of my excursion. Couldn’t I have just taken the simple, easy, and common route to the holy city?’” “Exactly,” Sadeas interjected. “He could at the very least have ridden a horse!” “‘For my answer,’” Dalinar quoted,
“‘I removed my sandals and proffered my callused feet. They were comfortable upon the table beside my half-consumed tray of grapes. At this point, the expressions of my companions proclaimed that they thought me daft, and so I explained by relating the stories of my trip. One after another, like stacked sacks of tallew, stored for the winter season. I would make flatbread of them soon, then stuff it between these pages. “‘Yes, I could have traveled quickly. But all men have the same ultimate destination. Whether we find our end in a hallowed sepulcher or a pauper’s ditch, all save the Heralds themselves must dine with the Nightwatcher. “‘And so, does the destination matter? Or is it the path we take? I declare that no accomplishment has substance nearly as great as the road used to achieve it. We are not creatures of destinations. It is the journey that shapes us. Our callused feet, our backs strong from carrying the weight of our travels, our eyes open with the fresh delight of experiences lived. “‘In the end, I must proclaim that no good can be achieved of false means. For the substance of our existence is not in the achievement, but in the method. The Monarch must understand this; he must not become so focused on what he wishes to accomplish that he diverts his gaze from the path he must take to arrive there.’” Dalinar sat back. The rock beneath them had been cushioned and augmented with wooden armrests and back supports. The duel ended with one of the lighteyes—wearing green, as he was subject to Sadeas—scoring a hit on the breastplate of the other, leaving a long white mark. Elhokar clapped his approval, gauntleted hands clanking, and both duelists bowed. The winner’s victory would be recorded by the women sitting in the judging seats. They also held the books of dueling code, and would adjudicate disputes or infractions. “That is the end of your story, I presume,” Sadeas said, as the next two duelists walked out onto the sand. “It is,” Dalinar said. “And you have that entire passage memorized?” “I likely got a few of the words wrong.” “Knowing you, that means you might have forgotten a single ‘an’ or ‘the.’” Dalinar frowned. “Oh, don’t be so stiff, old friend,” Sadeas said. “That was a compliment. Of sorts.” “What did you think of the story?” Dalinar asked as the dueling resumed. “It was ridiculous,” Sadeas said frankly, waving for a servant to bring him some wine. Yellow, as it was yet morning. “He walked all that distance just to make the point that kings should consider the consequences of their commands?” “It wasn’t just to prove the point,” Dalinar said. “I thought that myself, but I’ve begun to see. He walked because he wanted to experience the things his people did. He used it as a metaphor, but I think he really wanted to know what it was like to walk that far.” Sadeas took a sip of his wine, then squinted up at the sun. “Couldn’t we
get an awning or something set up out here?” “I like the sun,” Elhokar said. “I spend too much time locked away in those caves we call buildings.” Sadeas glanced at Dalinar, rolling his eyes. “Much of The Way of Kings is organized like that passage I quoted you,” Dalinar said. “A metaphor from Nohadon’s life—a real event turned into an example. He calls them the forty parables.” “Are they all so ridiculous?” “I think this one is beautiful,” Dalinar said softly. “I don’t doubt that you do. You always have loved sentimental stories.” He raised a hand. “That was also intended to be a compliment.” “Of sorts?” “Exactly. Dalinar, my friend, you always have been emotional. It makes you genuine. It can also get in the way of levelheaded thinking—but so long as it continues to prompt you to save my life, I think I can live with it.” He scratched his chin. “I suppose, by definition, I would have to, wouldn’t I?” “I guess.” “The other highprinces think you are self-righteous. Surely you can see why.” “I…” What could he say? “I don’t mean to be.” “Well, you do provoke them. Take, for example, the way you refuse to rise to their arguments or insults.” “Protesting simply draws attention to the issue,” Dalinar said. “The finest defense of character is correct action. Acquaint yourself with virtue, and you can expect proper treatment from those around you.” “You see, there,” Sadeas said. “Who talks like that?” “Dalinar does,” Elhokar said, though he was still watching the dueling. “My father used to.” “Precisely,” Sadeas said. “Dalinar, friend, the others simply cannot accept that the things you say are serious. They assume it must be an act.” “And you? What do you think of me?” “I can see the truth.” “Which is?” “That you are a self-righteous prude,” Sadeas said lightly. “But you come by it honestly.” “I’m certain you mean that to be a compliment too.” “Actually, this time I’m just trying to annoy you.” Sadeas raised his cup of wine to Dalinar. To the side, Elhokar grinned. “Sadeas. That was quite nearly clever. Shall I have to name you the new Wit?” “What happened to the old one?” Sadeas’s voice was curious, even eager, as if hoping to hear that tragedy had befallen Wit. Elhokar’s grin became a scowl. “He vanished.” “Is that so? How disappointing.” “Bah.” Elhokar waved a gauntleted hand. “He does this on occasion. He’ll return eventually. Unreliable as Damnation itself, that one. If he didn’t make me laugh so, I’d have replaced him seasons ago.” They fell silent, and the dueling continued. A few other lighteyes—both women and men—watched, seated on the benchlike ridges. Dalinar noted with discomfort that Navani had arrived, and was chatting with a group of women, including Adolin’s latest infatuation, the auburn-haired scribe. Dalinar’s eyes lingered on Navani, drinking in her violet dress, her mature beauty. She’d recorded his most recent visions without complaint, and seemed to have forgiven him for throwing her out of his rooms so sharply. She never mocked him,
never acted skeptical. He appreciated that. Should he thank her, or would she see that as an invitation? He averted his gaze from her, but found that he couldn’t watch the dueling swordsmen without catching sight of her in the corner of his eye. So, instead, he glanced up into the sky, squinting against the afternoon sun. The sounds of metal hitting metal came from below. Behind him, several large snails clung to the rock, waiting for highstorm water. He had so many questions, so many uncertainties. He listened to The Way of Kings and worked to discover what Gavilar’s last words had meant. As if, somehow, they held the key to both his madness and the nature of the visions. But the truth was that he didn’t know anything, and he couldn’t rely on his own decisions. That was unhinging him, bit by bit, point by point. Clouds seemed less frequent here, in these windswept plains. Just the blazing sun broken by the furious highstorms. The rest of Roshar was influenced by the storms—but here in the East, the feral, untamed highstorms ruled supreme. Could any mortal king hope to claim these lands? There were legends of them being inhabited, of there being more than just unclaimed hills, desolate plains, and overgrown forests. Natanatan, the Granite Kingdom. “Ah,” Sadeas said, sounding as if he’d tasted something bitter. “Did he have to come?” Dalinar lowered his head and followed Sadeas’s gaze. Highprince Vamah had arrived to watch the dueling, retinue in tow. Though most of them wore his traditional brown and grey colorings, the highprince himself wore a long grey coat that had slashes cut across it to reveal the bright red and orange silk underneath, matched by the ruffles peeking out of the cuffs and collar. “I thought you had a fondness for Vamah,” Elhokar said. “I tolerate him,” Sadeas replied. “But his fashion sense is absolutely repulsive. Red and orange? Not even a burnt orange, but a blatant, eye-breaking orange. And the rent style hasn’t been fashionable for ages. Ah, wonderful, he’s sitting directly across from us. I shall be forced to stare at him for the rest of the session.” “You shouldn’t judge people so harshly based on how they look,” Dalinar said. “Dalinar,” Sadeas said flatly, “we are highprinces. We represent Alethkar. Many around the world view us as a center of culture and influence. Should I not, therefore, have the right to encourage a properpresentation to the world?” “A proper presentation, yes,” Dalinar said. “It is right for us to be fit and neat.” It would be nice if your soldiers, for instance, kept their uniforms clean. “Fit, neat, and fashionable,” Sadeas corrected. “And me?” Dalinar asked, looking down at his simple uniform. “Would you have me dress in those ruffles and bright colors?” “You?” Sadeas asked. “You’re completely hopeless.” He raised a hand to forestall objection. “No, I am unfair. That uniform has a certain… timeless quality to it. The military suit, by virtue of its utility, will never be completely out of fashion. It’s a
safe choice—steady. In a way, you avoid the issue of fashion by not playing the game.” He nodded to Vamah. “Vamah tries to play, but does so very poorly. And that is unforgivable.” “I still say you place too much importance on those silks and scarves,” Dalinar said. “We are soldiers at war, not courtiers at a ball.” “The Shattered Plains are quickly becoming a destination for foreign dignitaries. It is important to present ourselves properly.” He raised a finger to Dalinar. “If I am to accept your moral superiority, my friend, then perhaps it is time for you to accept my sense of fashion. One might note that you judge people by their clothing even more than I do.” Dalinar fell silent. That comment stung in its truthfulness. Still, if dignitaries were going to meet with the highprinces on the Shattered Plains, was it too much to ask for them to find an efficient group of warcamps led by men who at least looked like generals? Dalinar settled back to watch the match end. By his count, it was time for Adolin’s bout. The two lighteyes who had been fighting bowed to the king, then withdrew into a tent on the side of the dueling grounds. A moment later, Adolin stepped out onto the sand, wearing his deep blue Shardplate. He carried his helm under his arm, his blond-and-black hair a stylish mess. He raised a gauntleted hand to Dalinar and bowed his head to the king, then put on his helm. The man who walked out behind him wore Shardplate painted yellow. Brightlord Resi was the only full Shardbearer in Highprince Thanadal’s army—though their warcamp had three men who carried only the Blade or the Plate. Thanadal himself had neither. It wasn’t uncommon for a highprince to rely on his finest warriors as Shardbearers; it made sound sense, particularly if you were the sort of general who preferred to stay behind the lines and direct tactics. In Thanadal’s own princedom, the tradition for centuries had been to appoint the holder of Resi’s Shards as something known as the Royal Defender. Thanadal had recently been vocal about Dalinar’s faults, and so Adolin— in a moderately subtle move—had challenged the highprince’s star Shardbearer to a friendly bout. Few duels were for Shards; in this case, losing wouldn’t cost either man anything other than statistics in the rankings. The match drew an unusual amount of attention, and the small arena filled over the next quarter hour while the duelists stretched and prepared. More than one woman set up a board to sketch or write impressions of the bout. Thanadal himself didn’t attend. The bout began as the highjudge in attendance, Lady Istow, called for the combatants to summon their Blades. Elhokar leaned forward again, intent, as Resi and Adolin circled one another on the sand, Shardblades materializing. Dalinar found himself leaning forward as well, though he did feel a stab of shame. According to the Codes, most duels should be avoided when Alethkar was at war. There was a fine line between sparring
for practice and dueling another man for an insult, potentially leaving important officers wounded. Resi stood in Stonestance, his Shardblade held before him in two hands, point toward the sky, arms all the way extended. Adolin used Windstance, turned sideways slightly, hands before him and elbows bent, Shardblade pointing back over his head. They circled. The winner would be the first one who completely shattered a section of the other’s Plate. That wasn’t too dangerous; weakened Plate could usually still rebuff a blow, even if it shattered in the process. Resi attacked first, taking a hopping leap forward and striking by whipping his Shardblade back over his head, then down to his right in a powerful blow. Stonestance focused on that type of attack, delivering the most possible momentum and strength behind each strike. Dalinar found it unwieldy—you didn’t need that much power behind a Shardblade on the battlefield, though it was helpful against other Shardbearers. Adolin jumped back out of the way, Shardplate-enhanced legs giving him a nimbleness that defied the fact that he was wearing over a hundred stoneweights of thick armor. Resi’s attack—though well-executed—left him open, and Adolin made a careful strike at his opponent’s left vambrace, cracking the forearm plate. Resi attacked again, and Adolin again danced out of the way, then scored a hit on his opponent’s left thigh. Some poets described combat as a dance. Dalinar rarely felt that way about regular combat. Two men fighting with sword and shield would go at one another in a furious rush, slamming their weapons down again and again, tying to get around their opponent’s shield. Less a dance, and more like wrestling with weapons. Fighting with Shardblades, though, that could be like a dance. The large weapons took a great deal of skill to swing properly, and Plate was resilient, so exchanges were generally drawn out. The fights were filled with grand motions, wide sweeps. There was a fluidity to fighting with a Shardblade. A grace. “He’s quite good, you know,” Elhokar said. Adolin made a hit on Resi’s helm, prompting a round of applause from those watching. “Better than my father was. Better than even you, Uncle.” “He works very hard,” Dalinar said. “He truly loves it. Not the war, not the fighting. The dueling.” “He could be champion, if he wished it.” Adolin did wish it, Dalinar knew. But he had refused bouts that would put him within reach of the title. Dalinar suspected that Adolin did it to hold, somewhat, to the Codes. Dueling championships and tournaments were things for those rare times between wars. It could be argued that protecting one’s family honor, however, was for all times. Either way, Adolin didn’t duel for ranking, and that made other Shardbearers underestimate him. They were quick to accept duels with him, and some non-Shardbearers challenged him. By tradition, the king’s own Shardplate and Blade were available for a large fee to those who both had his favor and the wish to duel a Shardbearer. Dalinar shivered at the thought of someone else wearing his Plate
or holding Oathbringer. It was unnatural. And yet, the lending of the king’s Blade and Plate—or before the kingship had been restored, the lending of a highprince’s Blade and Plate—was a strong tradition. Even Gavilar had not broken it, though he had complained about it in private. Adolin dodged another blow, but he had begun to move into Windstance’s offensive forms. Resi wasn’t ready for this—though he managed to hit Adolin once on the right pauldron, the blow was a glancing one. Adolin advanced, Blade sweeping in a fluid pattern. Resi backed away, falling into a parrying posture—Stonestance was one of the few to rely on those. Adolin batted his opponent’s Blade away, knocking it out of stance. Resi reset, but Adolin knocked it away again. Resi grew sloppier and sloppier getting back into stance and Adolin began to strike, hitting him on one side, then on the other. Small, quick blows, meant to unnerve. They worked. Resi bellowed and threw himself into one of Stonestance’s characteristic overhand blows. Adolin handled it perfectly, dropping his Blade to one hand, raising his left arm and taking the blow on his unharmed vambrace. It cracked badly, but the move allowed Adolin to bring his own Blade to the side and strike Resi’s cracked left cuisse. The thigh plate shattered with the sound of ripping metal, pieces blasting away, trailing smoke, glowing like molten steel. Resi stumbled back; his left leg could no longer bear the weight of the Shardplate. The match was over. More important duels might go for two or three broken plates, but that grew dangerous. The highjudge stood, calling an end. Resi stumbled away, ripping off his helm. His curses were audible. Adolin saluted his enemy, tapping the blunt edge of his Blade to his forehead, then dismissing the Blade. He bowed to the king. Other men sometimes went into the crowd to brag or accept accolades, but Adolin retreated to the preparation tent. “Talented indeed,” Elhokar said. “And such a… proper lad,” Sadeas said, sipping his drink. “Yes,” Dalinar said. “At times, I wish there were peace, simply so that Adolin could dedicate himself to his dueling.” Sadeas sighed. “More talk of abandoning the war, Dalinar?” “That’s not what I meant.” “You keep complaining that you’ve given up that argument, Uncle,” Elhokar said, turning to regard him. “Yet you continue to dance around it, speaking longingly of peace. People in the camps call you coward.” Sadeas snorted. “He’s no coward, Your Majesty. I can attest to that.” “Why, then?” Elhokar asked. “These rumors have grown far beyond what is reasonable,” Dalinar said. “And yet, you do not answer my questions,” Elhokar said. “If you could make the decision, Uncle, would you have us leave the Shattered Plains? Are you a coward?” Dalinar hesitated. Unite them, that voice had told him. It is your task, and I give it to you. Am I a coward? he wondered. Nohadon challenged him, in the book, to examine himself. To never become so certain or high that he wasn’t willing to seek truth. Elhokar’s
question hadn’t been about his visions. And yet, Dalinar had the distinct impression that he was being a coward, at least in relation to his desire to abdicate. If he left because of what was happening to him, that would be taking the easy path. I can’t leave, he realized. No matter what happens. I have to see this through. Even if he was mad. Or, an increasingly worrisome thought, even if the visions were real, but their origins suspect. I have to stay. But I also have to plan, to make sure I don’t tow my house down. Such a careful line to walk. Nothing clear, everything clouded. He’d been ready to run because he liked to make clear decisions. Well, nothing was clear about what was happening to him. It seemed that in making the decision to remain highprince, he placed one important cornerstone into rebuilding the foundation of who he was. He would not abdicate. And that was that. “Dalinar?” Elhokar asked. “Are you… well?” Dalinar blinked, realizing that he had stopped paying attention to the king and Sadeas. Staring off into space like that wouldn’t help his reputation. He turned to the king. “You want to know the truth,” he said. “Yes, if I could make the order, I would bring all ten warcamps and return to Alethkar.” Despite what others said, that was not cowardly. No, he’d just confronted cowardice inside of him, and he knew what it was. This was something different. The king looked shocked. “I would leave,” Dalinar said firmly. “But not because I wish to flee or because I fear battle. It would be because I fear for Alethkar’s stability; leaving this war would help secure our homeland and the loyalty of the highprinces. I would send more envoys and scholars to find out why the Parshendi killed Gavilar. We gave up on that too easily. I still wonder if the assassination was initiated by miscreants or rebels among their own people. “I’d discover what their culture is—and yes, they do have one. If rebels weren’t the cause of the assassination, I’d keep asking until I learned why they did it. I’d demand repayment—perhaps their own king, delivered to us for execution in turn—in exchange for granting them peace. As for the gemhearts, I’d speak with my scientists and discover a better method of holding this territory. Perhaps with mass homesteading of the area, securing all of the Unclaimed Hills, we could truly expand our borders and claim the Shattered Plains. I wouldn’t abandon vengeance, Your Majesty, but I would approach it—and our war here—more thoughtfully. Right now, we know too little to be effective.” Elhokar looked surprised. He nodded. “I… Uncle, that actually makes sense. Why didn’t you explain it before?” Dalinar blinked. Just several weeks ago, Elhokar had been indignant when Dalinar had merely mentioned the idea of turning back. What had changed? I don’t give the boy enough credit, he realized. “I have had trouble explaining my own thoughts recently, Your Majesty.” “Your Majesty!” Sadeas said. “Surely you wouldn’t actually
consider—” “This latest attempt on my life has me unsettled, Sadeas. Tell me. Have you made any progress in determining who put the weakened gems in my Plate?” “Not yet, Your Majesty.” “They’re trying to kill me,” Elhokar said softly, huddling down in his armor. “They’ll see me dead, like my father. Sometimes I do wonder if we’re chasing after the ten fools here. The assassin in white—he was Shin.” “The Parshendi took responsibility for sending him,” Sadeas said. “Yes,” Elhokar replied. “And yet they are savages, and easily manipulated. It would be a perfect distraction, pinning the blame on a group of parshmen. We go to war for years and years, never noticing the real villains, working quietly in my own camp. They watch me. Always. Waiting. I see their faces in mirrors. Symbols, twisted, inhuman…” Dalinar glanced at Sadeas, and the two shared a disturbed look. Was Elhokar’s paranoia growing worse, or had it always been hidden? He saw phantom cabals in every shadow, and now—with the attempt on his life— he had proof to feed those worries. “Retreating from the Shattered Plains could be a good idea,” Dalinar said carefully. “But not if it is to begin another war with someone else. We must stabilize and unify our people.” Elhokar sighed. “Chasing the assassin is only an idle thought right now. Perhaps we won’t need it. I hear that your eff orts with Sadeas have been fruitful.” “They have indeed, Your Majesty,” Sadeas said, sounding proud—perhaps a little smug. “Though Dalinar still insists on using his own, slow bridges. Sometimes, my forces are nearly wiped out before he arrives. This would work better if Dalinar would use modern bridge tactics.” “The waste of life…” Dalinar said. “Is acceptable,” Sadeas said. “They’re mostly slaves, Dalinar. It’s an honor for them to have a chance to participate in some small way.” I doubt they see it in that light. “I wish you’d at least try my way,” Sadeas continued. “What we’ve been doing so far has worked, but I worry that the Parshendi will continue to send two armies against us. I don’t relish the idea of fighting both on my own before you arrive.” Dalinar hesitated. That would be a problem. But to give up the siege bridges? “Well, why not a compromise?” Elhokar said. “Next plateau assault, Uncle, you let Sadeas’s bridgemen help you for the initial march to the contested plateau. Sadeas has plenty of extra bridge crews he could lend you. He could still rush on ahead with a smaller army, but you’d follow more quickly than you have been, using his bridge crews.” “That would be the same as using my own bridge crews,” Dalinar said. “Not necessarily,” Elhokar said. “You’ve said that the Parshendi can rarely set up and fire on you once Sadeas engages them. Sadeas’s men can start the assault as usual, and you can join once he’s secured a foothold for you.” “Yes…” Sadeas said, thoughtful. “The bridgemen you use will be safe, and you won’t be costing any additional lives. But
you’ll arrive at the plateau to help me twice as quickly.” “What if you can’t distract the Parshendi well enough?” Dalinar asked. “What if they still set up archers to fire on my bridgemen when I cross?” “Then we’ll retreat,” Sadeas said with a sigh. “And we’ll call it a failed experiment. But at least we’ll have tried. This is how you get ahead, old friend. You try new things.” Dalinar scratched his chin in thought. “Oh, go on, Dalinar,” Elhokar said. “He took your suggestion to attack together. Try it once his way.” “Very well,” Dalinar said. “We will see how it works.” “Excellent,” Elhokar said, standing. “And now, I believe I’ll go congratulate your son. That bout was exciting!” Dalinar hadn’t found it particularly exciting—Adolin’s opponent hadn’t ever held the upper hand. But that was the best kind of battle. Dalinar didn’t buy the arguments about a ‘good’ fight being a close one. When you won, it was always better to win quickly and with extreme advantage. Dalinar and Sadeas stood in respect as the king descended the stairlike stone outcroppings toward the sandy floor below. Dalinar then turned to Sadeas. “I should be leaving. Send me a clerk to detail the plateaus you feel we could try this maneuver on. Next time one of them is up for assault, I’ll march my army to your staging area and we’ll leave together. You and the smaller, quicker group can go on ahead, and we’ll catch up once you’re in position.” Sadeas nodded. Dalinar turned to climb up the steps toward the ramp out. “Dalinar,” Sadeas called after him. Dalinar looked back at the other highprince. Sadeas’s scarf fluttered in a gust of wind, his arms folded, the metallic golden embroidery glistening. “Send me one of your clerks as well. With a copy of that book of Gavilar’s. It may amuse me to hear its other stories.” Dalinar smiled. “I will do so, Sadeas.” Kaladin glared at the three glowing topaz spheres on the ground in front of him. The barrack was dark, empty save for Teft and himself. Lopen leaned in the sunlit doorway, watching with a casual air. Outside, Rock called out commands to the other bridgemen. Kaladin had them working on battle formations. Nothing overt. It would be construed as practice for bridge carrying, but he was actually training them to obey orders and rearrange themselves efficiently. The three little spheres—only chips—lit the stone ground around themselves in little tan rings. Kaladin focused on them, holding his breath, willing the light into him. Nothing happened. He tried harder, staring into their depths. Nothing happened. He picked one up, cupping it in his palm, raising it so that he could see the light and nothing else. He could pick out the details of the storm, the shifting, spinning vortex of light. He commanded it, willed it, begged it. Nothing happened. He groaned, lying back on the rock, staring at the ceiling. “Maybe you don’t want it badly enough,” Teft said. “I want it as badly as I know how.
It won’t budge, Teft.” Teft grunted and picked up one of the spheres. “Maybe we’re wrong about me,” Kaladin said. It seemed poetically appropriate that the moment he accepted this strange, frightening part of himself, he couldn’t make it work. “It could have been a trick of the sunlight.” “A trick of the sunlight,” Teft said flatly. “Sticking a bag to the barrel was a trick of the light.” “All right. Then maybe it was some odd fluke, something that happened just that once.” “And when you were wounded,” Teft said, “and whenever on a bridge run you needed an extra burst of strength or endurance.” Kaladin let out a frustrated sigh and tapped his head back lightly against the rock floor a few times. “Well, if I’m one of these Radiants you keep talking about, why can’t I do anything?” “I figure,” the grizzled bridgeman said, rolling the sphere in his fingers, “that you’re like a baby, making his legs work. At first it just kind of happens. Slowly, he figures how to make them move on purpose. You just need practice.” “I’ve spent a week staring at spheres, Teft. How much practice can it take?” “Well, more than you’ve had, obviously.” Kaladin rolled his eyes and sat back up. “Why am I listening to you? You’ve admitted that you don’t know any more than I do.” “I don’t know anything about using the Stormlight,” Teft said, scowling. “But I know what should happen.” “According to stories that contradict one another. You’ve told me that the Radiants could fly and walk on walls.” Teft nodded. “They sure could. And make stone melt by looking at it. And move great distances in a single heartbeat. And command the sunlight. And—” “And why,” Kaladin said, “would they need to both walk on walls and fly? If they can fly, why would they bother running up walls?” Teft said nothing. “And why bother with either one,” Kaladin added, “if they can just ‘move great distances in a heartbeat’?” “I’m not sure,” Teft admitted. “We can’t trust the stories or legends,” Kaladin said. He glanced at Syl, who had landed beside one of the spheres, staring at it with childlike interest. “Who knows what is true and what has been fabricated? The only thing we know for certain is this.” He plucked up one of the spheres and held it up in two fingers. “The Radiant sitting in this room is very, very tired of the color brown.” Teft grunted. “You’re not a Radiant, lad.” “Weren’t we just talking about—” “Oh, you can infuse,” Teft said. “You can drink in the Stormlight and command it. But being a Radiant was more than that. It was their way of life, the things they did. The Immortal Words.” “The what?” Teft rolled his sphere between his fingers again, holding it up and staring into its depths. “Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination. That was their motto, and was the First Ideal of the Immortal Words. There were four others.” Kaladin raised an eyebrow. “Which
were?” “I don’t actually know,” Teft said. “But the Immortal Words—these Ideals—guided everything they did. The four later Ideals were said to be different for every order of Radiants. But the First Ideal was the same for each of the ten: Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination.” He hesitated. “Or so I was told.” “Yes, well, that seems a little obvious to me,” Kaladin said. “Life comes before death. Just like day comes before night, or one comes before two. Obvious.” “You’re not taking this seriously. Maybe that’s why the Stormlight refuses you.” Kaladin stood and stretched. “I’m sorry, Teft. I’m just tired.” “Life before death,” Teft said, wagging a finger at Kaladin. “The Radiant seeks to defend life, always. He never kills unnecessarily, and never risks his own life for frivolous reasons. Living is harder than dying. The Radiant’s duty is to live. “Strength before weakness. All men are weak at some time in their lives. The Radiant protects those who are weak, and uses his strength for others. Strength does not make one capable of rule; it makes one capable of service.” Teft picked up spheres, putting them in his pouch. He held the last one for a second, then tucked it away too. “Journey before destination. There are always several ways to achieve a goal. Failure is preferable to winning through unjust means. Protecting ten innocents is not worth killing one. In the end, all men die. How you lived will be far more important to the Almighty than what you accomplished.” “The Almighty? So the knights were tied to religion?” “Isn’t everything? There was some old king who came up with all this. Had his wife write it in a book or something. My mother read it. The Radiants based the Ideals on what was written there.” Kaladin shrugged, moving over to begin sorting through the pile of bridgemen’s leather vests. Ostensibly, he and Teft were here checking those over for tears or broken straps. After a few moments, Teft joined him. “Do you actually believe that?” Kaladin asked, lifting up a vest, tugging on its straps. “That anyone would follow those vows, particularly a bunch of lighteyes?” “They weren’t just lighteyes. They were Radiants.” “They were people,” Kaladin said. “Men in power always pretend things like virtue, or divine guidance, some kind of mandate to ‘protect’ the rest of us. If we believe that the Almighty put them where they are, it’s easier for us to swallow what they do to us.” Teft turned a vest over. It was beginning to tear beneath the left shoulder pad. “I never used to believe. And then… then I saw you infusing Light, and I began to wonder.” “Stories and legends, Teft,” Kaladin said. “We want to believe that there were better men once. That makes us think it could be that way again. But people don’t change. They are corrupt now. They were corrupt then.” “Maybe,” Teft said. “My parents believed in all of it. The Immortal Words, the Ideals, the Knights Radiant, the Almighty. Even
old Vorinism. In fact, especially old Vorinism.” “That led to the Hierocracy. The devotaries and the ardents shouldn’t hold land or property. It’s too dangerous.” Teft snorted. “Why? You think they’d be worse at being in charge than the lighteyes?” “Well, you’ve probably got a point there.” Kaladin frowned. He’d spent so long assuming the Almighty had abandoned him, or even cursed him, that it was difficult to accept that maybe—as Syl had said—he’d instead been blessed. Yes, he’d been preserved, and he supposed he should be grateful for that. But what could be worse than being granted great power, yet still being too weak to save those he loved? Further speculation was interrupted as Lopen stood up straight in the doorway, gesturing covertly to Kaladin and Teft. Fortunately, there wasn’t anything to hide anymore. In fact, there hadn’t ever been anything to hide, other than Kaladin sitting on the floor and staring at the spheres like an idiot. He set aside the vest and walked to the entrance. Hashal’s palanquin was being carried directly toward Kaladin’s barrack, her tall, oft-silent husband walking alongside. The sash at his neck was violet, as was the embroidery on the cuffs of his short, vestlike jacket. Gaz still hadn’t reappeared. It had been a week now, and no sign of him. Hashal and her husband—along with their lighteyed attendants—did what he’d once done, and they rebuffed any questions about the bridge sergeant. “Storm it,” Teft said, stepping up beside Kaladin. “Those two make my skin itch, same way it does when I know someone’s got a knife and is standing behind me.” Rock had the bridgemen lined up and waiting quietly, as if for inspection. Kaladin walked out to join them, Teft and Lopen following behind. The bearers set the palanquin down in front of Kaladin. Open-sided with only a small canopy on the top, it was little more than an armchair on a platform. Many of the lighteyed women used them in the warcamps. Kaladin reluctantly gave Hashal a proper bow, prompting the other bridgemen to do so as well. Now was not the time to be beaten for insubordination. “You have such a well-trained band, bridgeleader,” she said, idly scratching her cheek with a ruby-red nail, her elbow on her armrest. “So… efficient at bridge runs.” “Thank you, Brightness Hashal,” Kaladin said, trying—but failing—to keep the stiff ness and hostility from his voice. “May I ask? Gaz hasn’t been seen for some days now. Is he well?” “No.” Kaladin waited for further reply, but she didn’t give one. “My husband has made a decision. Your men are so good at bridge runs that you are a model to the other crews. As such, you will be on bridge duty every day from now on.” Kaladin felt a chill. “And scavenging duty?” “Oh, there will still be time for that. You need to take torches down anyway, and plateau runs never happen at night. So your men will sleep during the day—always on call—and will work the chasms at night. A much better use
of your time.” “Every bridge run,” Kaladin said. “You’re going to make us go on every one.” “Yes,” she said idly, tapping for her bearers to raise her. “Your team is just too good. It must be used. You’ll start full-time bridge duty tomorrow. Consider it an… honor.” Kaladin inhaled sharply to keep himself from saying what he thought of her “honor.” He couldn’t bring himself to bow as she retreated, but she didn’t seem to care. Rock and the men started muttering. Every bridge run. She’d just doubled the rate at which they’d be killed. Kaladin’s team wouldn’t last another few weeks. They were already so low on members that losing one or two men on an assault would cause them to flounder. The Parshendi would focus on them then, cutting them down. “Kelek’s breath!” Teft said. “She’ll see us dead!” “It’s not fair,” Lopen added. “We’re bridgemen,” Kaladin said, looking at them. “What made you think that any kind of ‘fairness’ applied to us?” “She hasn’t killed us fast enough for Sadeas,” Moash said. “You know that soldiers have been beaten for coming to look for you, to see the man who survived the highstorm? He hasn’t forgotten about you, Kaladin.” Teft was still swearing. He pulled Kaladin aside, Lopen following, but the others remained talking among themselves. “Damnation!” Teft said softly. “They like to pretend to be evenhanded with the bridge crews. Makes ’em seem fair. Looks like they gave up on that. Bastards.” “What do we do, gancho?” Lopen asked. “We go to the chasms,” Kaladin said. “Just like we’re scheduled to. Then make sure we get some extra sleep tonight, as we’re apparently going to be staying up all night tomorrow.” “The men will hate going into the chasms at night, lad,” Teft said. “I know.” “But we’re not ready for… what we need to do,” Teft said, looking to make sure nobody could hear. It was only him, Kaladin, and Lopen. “It will be another few weeks at least.” “I know.” “We won’t last another few weeks!” Teft said. “With Sadeas and Kholin working together, runs happen nearly every day. Just one bad run—one time with the Parshendi drawing bead on us—and it will all be over. We’ll be wiped out.” “I know!” Kaladin said, frustrated, taking a deep breath and forming fists to keep himself from exploding. “Gancho!” Lopen said. “What?” Kaladin snapped. “It’s happening again.” Kaladin froze, then looked down at his arms. Sure enough, he caught a hint of luminescent smoke rising from his skin. It was extremely faint—he didn’t have many gemstones near him—but it was there. The wisps faded quickly. Hopefully the other bridgemen hadn’t seen. “Damnation. What did I do?” “I don’t know,” Teft said. “Is it because you were angry at Hashal?” “I was angry before.” “You breathed it in,” Syl said eagerly, whipping around him in the air, a ribbon of light. “What?” “I saw it.” She twisted herself around. “You were mad, you drew in a breath, and the Light… it came too.” Kaladin glanced at Teft,
but of course the older bridgeman hadn’t heard. “Gather the men,” Kaladin said. “We’re going down to our chasm duty.” “And what about what has happened?” Teft said. “Kaladin, we can’t go on that many bridge runs. We’ll be cut to pieces.” “I’m doing something about it today. Gather the men. Syl, I need something from you.” “What?” She landed in front of him and formed into a young woman. “Go find us a place where some Parshendi corpses have fallen.” “I thought you were going to do spear practice today.” “That’s what the men will be doing,” Kaladin said. “I’ll get them organized first. After that, I have a different task.” Kaladin clapped a quick signal, and the bridgemen made a decent arrowhead formation. They carried the spears they’d stashed in the chasm, secured in a large sack filled with stones and stuck in a crevice. He clapped his hands again, and they rearranged into a double-line wall formation. He clapped again, and they formed into a ring with one man standing behind every two as a quick step-in reserve. The walls of the chasm dripped with water, and the bridgemen splashed through puddles. They were good. Better than they had any right to be, better—for their level of training—than any team he’d worked with. But Teft was right. They still wouldn’t last long in a fight. A few more weeks and he’d have them practiced enough with thrusts and shielding one another that they’d begin to be dangerous. Until then, they were just bridgemen who could move in fancy patterns. They needed more time. Kaladin had to buy them some. “Teft,” Kaladin said. “Take over.” The older bridgeman gave one of those cross-armed salutes. “Syl,” Kaladin said to the spren, “let’s go see these bodies.” “They’re close. Come on.” She zipped off down the chasm, a glowing ribbon. Kaladin started after her. “Sir,” Teft called. Kaladin hesitated. When had Teft started calling him “sir”? Odd, how right that felt. “Yes?” “You want an escort?” Teft stood at the head of the gathered bridgemen, who were looking more and more like soldiers, with their leather vests and spears held in practiced grips. Kaladin shook his head. “I’ll be fine.” “Chasmfiends…” “The lighteyes have killed any who prowl this close to our side. Besides, if I did run into one, what difference would two or three extra men make?” Teft grimaced behind his short, greying beard, but offered no further objection. Kaladin continued to follow Syl. In his pouch, he carried the rest of the spheres they’d discovered on bodies while scavenging. They made a habit of keeping some of each discovery and sticking them to bridges, and with Syl helping at scavenging, they now found more than they used to. He had a small fortune in his pouch. That Stormlight—he hoped— would serve him well today. He got out a sapphire mark for light, avoiding pools of water strewn with bones. A skull protruded from one, wavy green moss growing across the scalp like hair, lifespren bobbing above. Perhaps it should
have felt eerie to walk through these darkened slots alone, but they didn’t bother Kaladin. This was a sacred place, the sarcophagus of the lowly, the burial cavern of bridgemen and spearmen who died upon lighteyed edicts, spilling blood down the sides of these ragged walls. This place wasn’t eerie; it was holy. He was actually glad to be alone with his silence and the remains of those who had died. These men hadn’t cared about the squabbles of those born with lighter eyes than they. These men had cared about their families or—at the very least—their sphere pouches. How many of them were trapped in this foreign land, these endless plateaus, too poor to escape back to Alethkar? Hundreds died each week, winning gems for men who were already rich, winning vengeance for a king long dead. Kaladin passed another skull, missing its lower jaw, the crown split by an axe’s blow. The bones seemed to watch him, curious, the blue Stormlight in his hand giving a haunted cast to the uneven ground and walls. The devotaries taught that when men died, the most valiant among them—the ones who fulfilled their Callings best—would rise to help reclaim heaven. Each man would do as he had done in life. Spearmen to fight, farmers to work spiritual farms, lighteyes to lead. The ardents were careful to point out that excellence in any Calling would bring power. A farmer would be able to wave his hand and create great fields of spiritual crops. A spearman would be a great warrior, able to cause thunder with his shield and lightning with his spear. But what of the bridgemen? Would the Almighty demand that all of these fallen rise and continue their drudgery? Would Dunny and the others run bridges in the afterlife? No ardents came to them to test their abilities or grant them Elevations. Perhaps the bridgemen wouldn’t be needed in the War for Heaven. Only the very most skilled went there anyway. Others would simply slumber until the Tranquiline Halls were reclaimed. So do I believe again now? He climbed over a boulder wedged in the chasm. Just like that? He wasn’t sure. But it didn’t matter. He would do the best he could for his bridgemen. If there was a Calling in that, so be it. Of course, if he did escape with his team, Sadeas would replace them with others who would die in their stead. I have to worry about what I can do, he told himself. Those other bridgemen aren’t my responsibility. Teft talked about the Radiants, about ideals and stories. Why couldn’t men actually be like that? Why did they have to rely on dreams and fabrications for inspiration? If you flee… you leave all the other bridgemen to be slaughtered, a voice whispered within him. There has to be something you can do for them. No! he fought back. If I worry about that, I won’t be able to save Bridge Four. If I find a way out, we’re going. If you leave, the voice seemed to
say, then who will fight for them? Nobody cares. Nobody…. What was it his father had said all those years ago? He did what he felt was right because someone had to start. Someone had to take the first step. Kaladin’s hand felt warm. He stopped in the chasm, closing his eyes. You couldn’t feel any heat from a sphere, usually, but the one in his hand seemed warm. And then—feeling completely natural about it—Kaladin breathed in deeply. The sphere grew cold and a wave of heat shot up his arm. He opened his eyes. The sphere in his hand was dun and his fingers were crispy with frost. Light rose from him like smoke from a fire, white, pure. He raised a hand and felt alive with energy. He had no need to breathe— in fact, he held the breath in, trapping the Stormlight. Syl zipped back down the corridor toward him. She twisted around him, then came to rest in the air, taking the form of a woman. “You did it. What happened?” Kaladin shook his head, holding his breath. Something was surging within him, like… Like a storm. Raging inside his veins, a tempest sweeping about inside his chest cavity. It made him want to run, jump, yell. It almost made him want to burst. He felt as if he could walk on air. Or walls. Yes! he thought. He broke into a run, leaping at the side of the chasm. He hit feetfirst. Then bounced off and slammed back into the ground. He was so stunned that he cried out, and he felt the storm within dampen as breath escaped. He lay on his back as Stormlight rose from him more quickly now that he was breathing. He lay there as the last of it burned away. Syl landed on his chest. “Kaladin? What was that?” “Me being an idiot,” he replied, sitting up and feeling an ache in his back and a sharp pain in his elbow where he’d hit the ground. “Teft said that the Radiants were able to walk on walls, and I felt so alive….” Syl walked on air, stepping as if down a set of stairs. “I don’t think you’re ready for that yet. Don’t be so risky. If you die, I go stupid again, you know.” “I’ll try to keep that in mind,” Kaladin said, climbing to his feet. “Maybe I’ll remove dying from my list of tasks to do this week.” She snorted, zipping into the air, becoming a ribbon again. “Come on, hurry up.” She shot off down the chasm. Kaladin collected the dun sphere, then dug into the pouch for another one to provide light. Had he drained them all? No. The others still glowed strongly. He selected a ruby mark, then hurried after Syl. She led him to a narrow chasm that contained a small group of fresh Parshendi corpses. “This is morbid, Kaladin,” Syl noted, standing above the bodies. “I know. Do you know where Lopen went?” “I sent him scavenging nearby, fetching the things you asked
him for.” “Bring him, please.” Syl sighed, but zipped away. She always got testy when he made her appear to someone other than him. Kaladin knelt down. Parshendi all looked so similar. That same square face, those blocky—almost rocklike—features. Some had the beards with bits of gemstone tied in them. Those glowed, but not brightly. Cut gemstones held Stormlight better. Why was that? Rumors in camp claimed that the Parshendi took the wounded humans away and ate them. Rumors also said they left their dead, not caring for the fallen, never building them proper pyres. But that last part was false. They did care about their dead. They all seemed to have the same sensibility that Shen did; he threw a fit every time one of the bridgemen so much as touched a Parshendi corpse. I’d better be right about this, Kaladin thought grimly, slipping a knife off one of the Parshendi bodies. It was beautifully ornamented and forged, the steel lined with glyphs Kaladin didn’t recognize. He began to cut at the strange breastplate armor that grew from the corpse’s chest. Kaladin quickly determined that Parshendi physiology was very different from human physiology. Small blue ligaments held the breastplate to the skin underneath. It was attached all the way across. He continued working. There wasn’t much blood; it had pooled at the corpse’s back or leaked away. His knife wasn’t a surgeon’s tool, but it did the job just fine. By the time Syl returned with Lopen, Kaladin had gotten the breastplate free and had moved on to the carapace helm. It was harder to remove; it had grown into the skull in places, and he had to saw with the serrated section of the blade. “Ho, gancho,” Lopen said, a sack slung over his shoulder. “You don’t like them at all, do you?” Kaladin stood, wiping his hands on the Parshendi man’s skirt. “Did you find what I asked for?” “Sure did,” Lopen said, letting down the sack and digging into it. He pulled out an armored leather vest and cap, the type that spearmen used. Then he took out some thin leather straps and a medium-sized wooden spearman’s shield. Finally came a series of deep red bones. Parshendi bones. At the very bottom of the sack was the rope, the one Lopen had bought and tossed into the chasm, then stashed down below. “You haven’t lost your wits, have you?” Lopen asked, eyeing the bones. “Because if you have, I’ve got a cousin who makes this drink for people who’ve lost their wits, and it might make you better, sure.” “If I’d lost my wits,” Kaladin said, walking over to a pool of still water to wash off the carapace helm, “would I say that I had?” “I don’t know,” Lopen said, leaning back. “Maybe. Guess it doesn’t matter if you’re crazy or not.” “You’d follow a crazy man into battle?” “Sure,” Lopen said. “If you’re crazy, you’re a good type, and I like you. Not a killing-people-in-their-sleep type of crazy.” He smiled. “Besides. We all follow crazies all
the time. Do it every day with lighteyes.” Kaladin chuckled. “So what’s this all for?” Kaladin didn’t answer. He brought the breastplate over to the leather vest, then tied it onto the front with some of the leather straps. He did the same with the cap and the helm, though he eventually had to saw some grooves into the helm with his knife to make it stay. Once done, Kaladin used the last straps to tie the bones together and attach them to the front of the round wooden shield. The bones rattled as he lifted the shield, but he decided it was good enough. He took shield, cap, and breastplate and put them all into Lopen’s sack. They barely fit. “All right,” he said, standing up. “Syl, lead us to the short chasm.” They’d spent some time investigating, finding the best place to launch arrows into the bottom of permanent bridges. One bridge in particular was close to Sadeas’s warcamp—so they often traversed it on the way out on a bridge run—and spanned a particularly shallow chasm. Only about forty feet deep, rather than the usual hundred or more. She nodded, then zipped away, leading them there. Kaladin and Lopen followed. Teft had orders to lead the others back and meet Kaladin at the base of the ladder, but Kaladin and Lopen should be far ahead of them. He spent the hike listening with half an ear as Lopen talked about his extended family. The more Kaladin thought about what he was planning, the more brazen it seemed. Perhaps Lopen was right to question his sanity. But Kaladin had tried being rational. He’d tried being careful. That had failed; now there wasn’t any more time for logic or care. Hashal obviously intended Bridge Four to be exterminated. When clever, careful plans failed, it was time to try something desperate. Lopen cut off suddenly. Kaladin hesitated. The Herdazian man had grown pale-faced and frozen in place. What was… Scraping. Kaladin froze as well, a panic rising in him. One of the side corridors echoed with a deep grinding sound. Kaladin turned slowly, just in time to catch sight of something large—no, something enormous— moving down the distant chasm. Shadows in the dim light, the sound of chitinous legs scratching on rock. Kaladin held his breath, sweating, but the beast didn’t come in their direction. The scraping grew softer, then eventually faded. He and Lopen stood immobile for a long time after the last sound had vanished. Finally, Lopen spoke. “Guess the nearby ones aren’t all dead, eh, gancho?” “Yeah,” Kaladin said. He jumped suddenly as Syl zipped back to find them. He unconsciously sucked in Stormlight as he did so, and when she alighted in the air, she found him sheepishly glowing. “What is going on?” she demanded, hands on hips. “Chasmfiend,” Kaladin said. “Really?” She sounded excited. “We should chase after it!” “What?” “Sure,” she said. “You could fight it, I’ll bet.” “Syl…” Her eyes were twinkling with amusement. Just a joke. “Come on.” She zipped away. He and Lopen stepped
more softly now. Eventually Syl landed on the side of the chasm, standing there as if in mockery of when Kaladin had tried to walk up the wall. Kaladin looked up at the shadow of a wooden bridge forty feet above. This was the shallowest chasm they’d been able to find; they tended to get deeper and deeper the farther eastward you went. More and more, he was certain that trying to escape to the east was impossible. It was too far, and surviving the highstorm floods was too difficult a challenge. The original plan—fighting or bribing the guards, then running—was the best one. But they needed to live long enough to try that. The bridge above offered an opportunity, if Kaladin could reach it. He hefted his small bag of spheres and his slung sack full of armor and bones over his shoulder. He’d originally intended to have Rock shoot an arrow with a rope tied to it over the bridge, then back down into the chasm. With some men holding one end, another could have climbed up and tied the sack to the bridge’s underside. But that would risk letting an arrow shoot out of the chasm where scouts could see. They were said to be very keen-eyed, as the armies depended on them to spot chasmfiends making chrysalises. Kaladin thought he had a better way than the arrow. Maybe. “We need rocks,” he said. “Fist-size ones. A lot of them.” Lopen shrugged and began searching about. Kaladin joined him, fishing them out of puddles and pulling them from crevasses. There was no shortage of stones in the chasms. In a short time, he had a large pile of rocks in a sack. He took the pouch of spheres in his hand and tried to think the same way he had earlier, when he’d drawn in the Stormlight. This is our last chance. “Life before death,” he whispered. “Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.” The First Ideal of the Knights Radiant. He breathed in deeply, and a thick jolt of power shot up his arm. His muscles burned with energy, with the desire to move. The tempest spread within, pushing at his skin, causing his blood to pump in a powerful rhythm. He opened his eyes. Glowing smoke rose around him. He was able to contain much of the Light, holding it in by holding his breath. It’s like a storm inside me. It felt as if it would rip him apart. He set the sack with the armor on the ground, but wound the rope around his arm and tied the sack of rocks to his belt. He took out a single fist-size stone and hefted it, feeling its storm-smoothed sides. This had better work…. He infused the stone with Stormlight, frost crystallizing on his arm. He wasn’t sure how he did it, but it felt natural, like pouring liquid into a cup. Light seemed to pool underneath the skin of his hand, then transfer to the rock—as if he were painting it with a vibrant, glowing liquid. He
pressed the stone to the rock wall. It fixed in place, leaking Stormlight, clinging so strongly that he couldn’t pry it free. He tested his weight on it, and it held. He placed another one a little lower, then another a little higher. Then, wishing he had someone to burn him a prayer for success, he started climbing. He tried not to think about what he was doing. Climbing on rocks stuck to the wall by… what? Light? Spren? He kept on going. It was a lot like climbing the stone formations back near Hearthstone with Tien, except that he could make handholds exactly where he wanted. Should have found some rock dust to cover my hands, he thought, pulling himself up, then taking another stone from his sack and sticking it into place. Syl walked along beside him, her casual stroll seeming to mock the difficulty of his climb. As he shifted his weight to another rock, he heard an ominous click from below. He risked a glance downward. The first of his rocks had fallen free. The ones near it were leaking Stormlight only faintly now. The rocks led up toward him like a set of burning footprints. The storm inside him had quieted, though it still blew and raged inside his veins, thrilling and distracting at the same time. What would happen if he ran out of Light before he reached the top? The next rock fell free. The one beside it followed a few seconds later. Lopen stood on the other side of the chasm bottom, leaning against the wall, interested but relaxed. Keep moving! Kaladin thought, annoyed at himself for getting distracted. He turned back to his work. Just as his arms were beginning to burn from the climb, he reached the underside of the bridge. He reached out as two more of his stones fell free. The clatter of each one was louder now, as they fell a much larger distance. Steadying himself on the bottom of the bridge with one hand, feet still pushing against the highest rocks, he looped the end of the rope around a wooden bridge support. He pulled it around and threaded it through again to make a makeshift knot. He left plenty of extra rope on the short end. He let the rest of the rope slide free of his shoulder and drop to the floor below. “Lopen,” he called. Light steamed from his mouth as he spoke. “Pull it tight.” The Herdazian did so, and Kaladin held to his end, making the knot firm. Then he took hold of the long section of rope and let himself swing free, dangling from the bottom of the bridge. The knot held. Kaladin relaxed. He was still steaming light, and—save for the call to Lopen—he’d been holding his breath for a good quarter hour. That could be handy, he thought, though his lungs were starting to burn, so he started to breathe normally. The Light didn’t leave him altogether, though it escaped faster. “All right,” Kaladin said to Lopen. “Tie the other
sack to the bottom of the rope.” The rope wiggled, and a few moments later Lopen called up that it was done. Kaladin gripped the rope with his legs to hold himself in place, then used his hands to pull up the length underneath, hoisting up the sack full of armor. Using the rope on the short end of the knot, he slipped his pouch of dun spheres into the sack with the armor, then tied it into place underneath the bridge where—he hoped—Lopen and Dabbid would be able to get to it from above. He looked down. The ground looked so much more distant than it would have from the bridge above. From this slightly different perspective, everything changed. He didn’t get vertigo from the height. Instead, he felt a little surge of excitement. Something about him had always liked being up high. It felt natural. It was being below—trapped in holes and unable to see the world— that was depressing. He considered his next move. “What?” Syl asked, stepping up to him, standing on air. “If I leave the rope here, someone might spot it while crossing the bridge.” “So cut it free.” He looked at her, raising an eyebrow. “While dangling from it?” “You’ll be fine.” “That’s a forty-foot drop! I’d break bones at the very least.” “No,” Syl said. “I feel right about this, Kaladin. You’ll be fine. Trust me.” “Trust you? Syl, you’ve said yourself that your memory is fractured!” “You insulted me the other week,” she said, folding her arms. “I think you owe me an apology.” “I’m supposed to apologize by cutting a rope and dropping forty feet?” “No, you apologize by trusting me. I told you. I feel right about this.” He sighed, looking down again. His Stormlight was running out. What else could he do? Leaving the rope would be foolish. Could he tie it in another knot, one he could shake free once at the bottom? If that type of knot existed, he didn’t know how to tie it. He clenched his teeth. Then, as the last of his rocks fell off and clattered to the ground, he took a deep breath and pulled out the Parshendi knife he’d taken earlier. He moved swiftly, before he had a chance to reconsider, and sliced the rope free. He dropped in a rush, one hand still holding the sliced rope, stomach lurching with the jarring distress of falling. The bridge shot away as if rising, and Kaladin’s panicked mind immediately sent his eyes downward. This wasn’t beautiful. This was terrifying. It was horrible. He was going to die! He— It’s all right. His emotions calmed in a heartbeat. Somehow, he knew what to do. He twisted in the air, dropping the rope and hitting the ground with both feet down. He came to a crouch, resting one hand on the stone, a jolt of coldness shooting through him. His remaining Stormlight came out in a single burst, flung from his body in a luminescent smoke ring that crashed against the ground before spreading out,
vanishing. He stood up straight. Lopen gaped. Kaladin felt an ache in his legs from hitting, but it was like that of having leaped four or five feet. “Like ten crashes of thunder on the mounts, gancho!” Lopen exclaimed. “That was incredible!” “Thank you,” Kaladin said. He raised a hand to his head, glancing at the rocks scattered about the base of the wall, then looking up at the armor tied securely up above. “I told you,” Syl said, landing on his shoulder. She sounded triumphant. “Lopen,” Kaladin said. “You think you can get that bundle of armor during the next bridge run?” “Sure,” Lopen said. “Nobody will see. They ignore us Herdies, they ignore bridgemen, and they especially ignore cripples. To them, I’m so invisible I should be walking through walls.” Kaladin nodded. “Get it. Hide it. Give it to me right before the final plateau assault.” “They aren’t going to like you going into a bridge run armored, gancho,” Lopen said. “I don’t think this will be any different from what you tried before.” “We’ll see,” Kaladin said. “Just do it.” “That is why, Father,” Adolin said, “you absolutely cannot abdicate to me, no matter what we discover with the visions.” “Is that so?” Dalinar asked, smiling to himself. “Yes.” “Very well, you’ve convinced me.” Adolin stopped dead in the hallway. The two of them were on their way to Dalinar’s chambers. Dalinar turned and looked back at the younger man. “Really?” Adolin asked. “I mean, I actually won an argument with you?” “Yes,” Dalinar said. “Your points are valid.” He didn’t add that he’d come to the decision on his own. “No matter what, I will stay. I can’t leave this fight now.” Adolin smiled broadly. “But,” Dalinar said, raising a finger. “I have a requirement. I will draft an order—notarized by the highest of my scribes and witnessed by Elhokar— that gives you the right to depose me, should I grow too mentally unstable. We won’t let the other camps know of it, but I will not risk letting myself grow so crazy that it’s impossible to remove me.” “All right,” Adolin said, walking up to Dalinar. They were alone in the hallway. “I can accept that. Assuming you don’t tell Sadeas about it. I still don’t trust him.” “I’m not asking you to trust him,” Dalinar said pushing the door open to his chambers. “You just need to believe that he is capable of changing. Sadeas was once a friend, and I think he can be again.” The cool stones of the Soulcast chamber seemed to hold the chill of the spring weather. It continued to refuse to slip into summer, but at least it hadn’t slid into winter either. Elthebar promised that it would not do so—but, then, the stormwarden’s promises were always filled with caveats. The Almighty’s will was mysterious, and the signs couldn’t always be trusted. He accepted stormwardens now, though when they’d first grown popular, he’d rejected their aid. No man should try to know the future, nor lay claim to it, for
it belonged only to the Almighty himself. And Dalinar wondered how stormwardens could do their research without reading. They claimed they didn’t, but he’d seen their books filled with glyphs. Glyphs. They weren’t meant to be used in books; they were pictures. A man who had never seen one before could still understand what one meant, based on its shape. That made interpreting glyphs different from reading. Stormwardens did a lot of things that made people uncomfortable. Unfortunately, they were just so useful. Knowing when a highstorm might strike, well, that was just too tempting an advantage. Even though stormwardens were frequently wrong, they were more often right. Renarin knelt beside the hearth, inspecting the fabrial that had been installed there to warm the room. Navani had already arrived. She sat at Dalinar’s elevated writing desk, scribbling a letter; she waved a distracted greeting with her reed as Dalinar entered. She wore the fabrial he had seen her displaying at the feast a few weeks back; the multilegged contraption was attached to her shoulder, gripping the cloth of her violet dress. “I don’t know, Father,” Adolin said, closing the door. Apparently he was still thinking about Sadeas. “I don’t care if he’s listening to The Way of Kings. He’s just doing it to make you look less closely at the plateau assaults so that his clerks can arrange his cut of the gemhearts more favorably. He’s manipulating you.” Dalinar shrugged. “Gemhearts are secondary, son. If I can reforge an alliance with him, then it’s worth nearly any cost. In a way, I’m the one manipulating him.” Adolin sighed. “Very well. But I’m still going to keep a hand on my money pouch when he’s near.” “Just try not to insult him,” Dalinar said. “Oh, and something else. I would like you to take extra care with the King’s Guard. If there are soldiers we know for certain are loyal to me, put those in charge of guarding Elhokar’s rooms. His words about a conspiracy have me worried.” “Surely you don’t give them credence,” Adolin said. “Something odd did happen with his armor. This whole mess stinks like cremslime. Perhaps it will turn out to be nothing. For now, humor me.” “I have to note,” Navani said, “that I didn’t much care for Sadeas back when you, he, and Gavilar were friends.” She finished her letter with a flourish. “He’s not behind the attacks on the king,” Dalinar said. “How can you be certain?” Navani asked. “Because it’s not his way,” Dalinar said. “Sadeas never wanted the title of king. Being highprince gives him plenty of power, but leaves him with someone to take the blame for large-scale mistakes.” Dalinar shook his head. “He never tried to seize the throne from Gavilar, and he’s even better positioned with Elhokar.” “Because my son’s a weakling,” Navani said. It wasn’t an accusation. “He’s not weak,” Dalinar said, “He’s inexperienced. But yes, that does make the situation ideal for Sadeas. He’s telling the truth—he asked to be Highprince of Information because he wants very badly to
find out who is trying to kill Elhokar.” “Mashala,” Renarin said, using the formal term for aunt. “That fabrial on your shoulder, what does it do?” Navani looked down at the device with a sly smile. Dalinar could see she’d been hoping one of them would ask. Dalinar sat down; the highstorm would be coming soon. “Oh, this? It’s a type of painrial. Here, let me show you.” She reached up with her safehand, pushing a clip that released the clawlike legs. She held it up. “Do you have any aches, dear? A stubbed toe, perhaps, or a scrape?” Renarin shook his head. “I pulled a muscle in my hand during dueling practice earlier,” Adolin said. “It’s not bad, but it does ache.” “Come over here,” Navani said. Dalinar smiled fondly—Navani was always at her most genuine when playing with new fabrials. It was one of the few times when one got to see her without any pretense. This wasn’t Navani the king’s mother or Navani the political schemer. This was Navani the excited engineer. “The artifabrian community is doing some amazing things,” Navani said as Adolin proffered his hand. “I’m particularly proud of this little device, as I had a hand in its construction.” She clipped it onto Adolin’s hand, wrapping the clawlike legs around the palm and locking them into place. Adolin raised his hand, turning it around. “The pain is gone.” “But you can still feel, correct?” Navani said in a self-satisfied way. Adolin prodded his palm with the fingers of his other hand. “The hand isn’t numb at all.” Renarin watched with keen interest, bespectacled eyes curious, intense. If only the lad could be persuaded to become an ardent. He could be an engineer then, if he wanted. And yet he refused. His reasons always seemed like poor excuses to Dalinar. “It’s kind of bulky,” Dalinar noted. “Well, it’s just an early model,” Navani said defensively. “I was working backward from one of those dreadful creations of Longshadow’s, and I didn’t have the luxury of refining the shape. I think it has a lot of potential. Imagine a few of these on a battlefield to dull the pain of wounded soldiers. Imagine it in the hands of a surgeon, who wouldn’t have to worry about his patients’ pain while working on them.” Adolin nodded. Dalinar had to admit, it did sound like a useful device. Navani smiled. “This is a special time to be alive; we’re learning all kinds of things about fabrials. This, for instance, is a diminishing fabrial— it decreases something, in this case pain. It doesn’t actually make the wound any better, but it might be a step in that direction. Either way, it’s a completely different type from paired fabrials like the spanreeds. If you could see the plans we have for the future…” “Like what?” Adolin asked. “You’ll find out eventually,” Navani said, smiling mysteriously. She removed the fabrial from Adolin’s hand. “Shardblades?” Adolin sounded excited. “Well, no,” Navani said. “The design and workings of Shardblades and Plate are completely different from everything
we’ve discovered. The closest anyone has are those shields in Jah Keved. But as far as I can tell, they use a completely different design principle from regular Shardplate. The ancients must have had a wondrous grasp of engineering.” “No,” Dalinar said. “I’ve seen them, Navani. They’re… well, they’re ancient. Their technology is primitive.” “And the Dawncities?” Navani asked skeptically. “The fabrials?” Dalinar shook his head. “I’ve seen neither. There are Shardblades in the visions, but they seem so out of place. Perhaps they were given directly by the Heralds, as the legends say.” “Perhaps,” Navani said. “Why don’t—” She vanished. Dalinar blinked. He hadn’t heard the highstorm approaching. He was now in a large, open room with pillars running along the sides. The enormous pillars looked sculpted of soft sandstone, with unornamented, granular sides. The ceiling was far above, carved from the rock in geometric patterns that looked faintly familiar. Circles connected by lines, spreading outward from one another… “I don’t know what to do, old friend,” a voice said from the side. Dalinar turned to see a youthful man in regal white and gold robes, walking with his hands clasped before him, hidden by voluminous sleeves. He had dark hair pulled back in a braid and a short beard that came to a point. Gold threads were woven into his hair and came together on his forehead to form a golden symbol. The symbol of the Knights Radiant. “They say that each time it is the same,” the man said. “We are never ready for the Desolations. We should be getting better at resisting, but each time we step closer to destruction instead.” He turned to Dalinar, as if expecting a response. Dalinar glanced down. He too wore ornamental robes, though not as lavish. Where was he? What time? He needed to find clues for Navani to record and for Jasnah to use in proving—or disproving—these dreams. “I don’t know what to say either,” Dalinar responded. If he wanted information, he needed to act more natural than he had in previous visions. The regal man sighed. “I had hoped you would have wisdom to share with me, Karm.” They continued walking toward the side of the room, approaching a place where the wall split into a massive balcony with a stone railing. It looked out upon an evening sky; the setting sun stained the air a dirty, sultry red. “Our own natures destroy us,” the regal man said, voice soft, though his face was angry. “Alakavish was a Surgebinder. He should have known better. And yet, the Nahel bond gave him no more wisdom than a regular man. Alas, not all spren are as discerning as honorspren.” “I agree,” Dalinar said. The other man looked relieved. “I worried that you would find my claims too forward. Your own Surgebinders were… But, no, we should not look backward.” What’s a Surgebinder? Dalinar wanted to scream the question out, but there was no way. Not without sounding completely out of place. Perhaps… “What do you think should be done with these Surgebinders?”
Dalinar asked carefully. “I don’t know if we can force them to do anything.” Their footsteps echoed in the empty room. Were there no guards, no attendants? “Their power… well, Alakavish proves the allure that Surgebinders have for the common people. If only there were a way to encourage them….” The man stopped, turning to Dalinar. “They need to be better, old friend. We all do. The responsibility of what we’ve been given—whether it be the crown or the Nahel bond—needs to make us better.” He seemed to expect something from Dalinar. But what? “I can read your disagreement in your face,” the regal man said. “It’s all right, Karm. I realize that my thoughts on this subject are unconventional. Perhaps the rest of you are right, perhaps our abilities are proof of a divine election. But if this is true, should we not be more wary of how we act?” Dalinar frowned. That sounded familiar to him. The regal man sighed, walking to the balcony lip. Dalinar joined him, stepping outside. The perspective finally allowed him to look down on the landscape below. Thousands of corpses confronted him. Dalinar gasped. Dead filled the streets of the city outside, a city that Dalinar vaguely recognized. Kholinar, he thought. My homeland. He stood with the regal man at the top of a low tower, three stories high—a keep of some sort, constructed of stone. It seemed to sit where the palace would someday be. The city was unmistakable, with its peaked stone formations rising like enormous fins into the air. The windblades, they were called. But they were less weathered than he was accustomed to, and the city around them was very different. Built of blocky stone structures, many of which had been knocked down. The destruction spread far, lining the sides of primitive streets. Had the city been hit by an earthquake? No, those corpses had fallen in battle. Dalinar could smell the stench of blood, viscera, smoke. The bodies lay strewn about, many near the low wall that surrounded the keep. The wall was broken in places, smashed. And there were rocks of strange shape mixed about the corpses. Stones cut like… Blood of my fathers, Dalinar thought, gripping the stone railing, leading forward. Those aren’t stones. They’re creatures. Massive creatures, easily five or six times the size of a person, their skin dull and grey like granite. They had long limbs and skeletal bodies, the forelegs—or were they arms?—set into wide shoulders. The faces were lean, narrow. Arrowlike. “What happened here?” Dalinar asked despite himself. “It’s terrible!” “I ask myself this same thing. How could we let this occur? The Desolations are well named. I’ve heard initial counts. Eleven years of war, and nine out of ten people I once ruled are dead. Do we even have kingdoms to lead any longer? Sur is gone, I’m sure of it. Tarma, Eiliz, they won’t likely survive. Too many of their people have fallen.” Dalinar had never heard of those places. The man made a fist, pounding it softly against the railing.
Burning stations had been set up in the distance; they had begun cremating the corpses. “The others want to blame Alakavish. And true, if he hadn’t brought us to war before the Desolation, we might not have been broken this badly. But Alakavish was a symptom of a greater disease. When the Heralds next return, what will they find? A people who have forgotten them yet again? A world torn by war and squabbling? If we continue as we have, then perhaps we deserve to lose.” Dalinar felt a chill. He had thought that this vision must come after his previous one, but prior visions hadn’t been chronological. He hadn’t seen any Knights Radiant yet, but that might not be because they had disbanded. Perhaps they didn’t exist yet. And perhaps there was a reason this man’s words sounded so familiar. Could it be? Could he really be standing beside the very man whose words Dalinar had listened to time and time again? “There is honor in loss,” Dalinar said carefully, using words repeated several times in The Way of Kings. “If that loss brings learning.” The man smiled. “Using my own sayings against me again, Karm?” Dalinar felt himself grow short of breath. The man himself. Nohadon. The great king. He was real. Or he had been real. This man was younger than Dalinar had imagined him, but that humble, yet regal bearing… yes, it was right. “I’m thinking of giving up my throne,” Nohadon said softly. “No!” Dalinar stepped toward him. “You mustn’t.” “I cannot lead them,” the man said. “Not if this is what my leadership brings them to.” “Nohadon.” The man turned to him, frowning. “What?” Dalinar paused. Could he be wrong about this man’s identity? But no. The name Nohadon was more of a title. Many famous people in history had been given holy names by the Church, before it was disbanded. Even Bajerden wasn’t likely to be his real name; that was lost in time. “It is nothing,” Dalinar said. “You cannot give up your throne. The people need a leader.” “They have leaders,” Nohadon said. “There are princes, kings, Soulcasters, Surgebinders. We never lack men and women who wish to lead.” “True,” Dalinar said, “but we do lack ones who are good at it.” Nohadon leaned over the railing. He stared at the fallen, an expression of deep grief—and trouble—on his face. It was so strange to see the man like this. He was so young. Dalinar had never imagined such insecurity, such torment, in him. “I know that feeling,” Dalinar said softly. “The uncertainty, the shame, the confusion.” “You can read me too well, old friend.” “I know those emotions because I’ve felt them. I… I never assumed that you would feel them too.” “Then I correct myself. Perhaps you don’t know me well enough.” Dalinar fell silent. “So what do I do?” Nohadon asked. “You’re asking me?” “You’re my advisor, aren’t you? Well, I should like some advice.” “I… You can’t give up your throne.” “And what should I do with it?” Nohadon
turned and walked along the long balcony. It seemed to run around this entire level. Dalinar joined him, passing places where the stone was ripped, the railing broken away. “I haven’t faith in people any longer, old friend,” Nohadon said. “Put two men together, and they will find something to argue about. Gather them into groups, and one group will find reason to oppress or attack another. Now this. How do I protect them? How do I stop this from happening again?” “You dictate a book,” Dalinar said eagerly. “A grand book to give people hope, to explain your philosophy on leadership and how lives should be lived!” “A book? Me. Write a book?” “Why not?” “Because it’s a fantastically stupid idea.” Dalinar’s jaw dropped. “The world as we know it has quite nearly been destroyed,” Nohadon said. “Barely a family exists that hasn’t lost half its members! Our best men are corpses on that field, and we haven’t food to last more than two or three months at best. And I’m to spend my time writing a book? Who would scribe it for me? All of my wordsmen were slaughtered when Yelignar broke into the chancery. You’re the only man of letters I know of who’s still alive.” A man of letters? This was an odd time. “I could write it, then.” “With one arm? Have you learned to write left-handed, then?” Dalinar looked down. He had both of his arms, though apparently the man Nohadon saw was missing his right. “No, we need to rebuild,” Nohadon said. “I just wish there were a way to convince the kings—the ones still alive—not to seek advantage over one another.” Nohadon tapped the balcony. “So this is my decision. Step down, or do what is needed. This isn’t a time for writing. It’s a time for action. And then, unfortunately, a time for the sword.” The sword? Dalinar thought. From you, Nohadon? It wouldn’t happen. This man would become a great philosopher; he would teach peace and reverence for others, and would not force men to do as he wished. He would guide them to acting with honor. Nohadon turned to Dalinar. “I apologize, Karm. I should not dismiss your suggestions right after asking for them. I’m on edge, as I imagine that we all are. At times, it seems to me that to be human is to want that which we cannot have. For some, this is power. For me, it is peace.” Nohadon turned, walking back down the balcony. Though his pace was slow, his posture indicated that he wished to be alone. Dalinar let him go. “He goes on to become one of the most influential writers Roshar has ever known,” Dalinar said. There was silence, save for the calls of the people working below, gathering the corpses. “I know you’re there,” Dalinar said. Silence. “What does he decide?” Dalinar asked. “Did he unite them, as he wanted?” The voice that often spoke in his visions did not come. Dalinar received no answer to his questions. He sighed, turning to
look out over the fields of dead. “You are right about one thing, at least, Nohadon. To be human is to want that which we cannot have.” The landscape darkened, the sun setting. That darkness enveloped him, and he closed his eyes. When he opened them, he was back in his rooms, standing with his hands on the back of a chair. He turned to Adolin and Renarin, who stood nearby, anxious, prepared to grab him if he got violent. “Well,” Dalinar said, “that was meaningless. I learned nothing. Blast! I’m doing a poor job of—” “Dalinar,” Navani said curtly, still scribbling with a reed at her paper. “The last thing you said before the vision ended. What was it?” Dalinar frowned. “The last…” “Yes,” Navani said, urgent. “The very last words you spoke.” “I was quoting the man I’d been speaking with. ‘To be human is to want that which we cannot have.’ Why?” She ignored him, writing furiously. Once done, she slid off the high-legged chair, hurrying to his bookshelf. “Do you have a copy of… Yes, I thought you might. These are Jasnah’s books, aren’t they?” “Yes,” Dalinar said. “She wanted them cared for until she returned.” Navani pulled a volume off the shelf. “Corvana’s Analectics.” She set the volume on the writing desk and leafed through the pages. Dalinar joined her, though—of course—he couldn’t make sense of the page. “What does it matter?” “Here,” Navani said. She looked up at Dalinar. “When you go into these visions of yours, you know that you speak.” “Gibberish. Yes, my sons have told me.” “Anak malah kaf, del makian habin yah,” Navani said. “Sound familiar?” Dalinar shook his head, baffled. “It sounds a lot like what father was saying,” Renarin said. “When he was in the vision.” “Not ‘a lot like’ Renarin,” Navani said, looking smug. “It’s exactly the same phrase. That is the last thing you said before coming out of your trance. I wrote down everything—as best I could—that you babbled today.” “For what purpose?” Dalinar asked. “Because,” Navani said “I thought it might be helpful. And it was. The same phrase is in the Analectics, almost exactly.” “What?” Dalinar asked, incredulous. “How?” “It’s a line from a song,” Navani said. “A chant by the Vanrial, an order of artists who live on the slopes of the Silent Mount in Jah Keved. Year after year, century after century, they’ve sung these same words—songs they claim were written in the Dawnchant by the Heralds themselves. They have the words of those songs, written in an ancient script. But the meanings have been lost. They’re just sounds, now. Some scholars believe that the script—and the songs themselves—may indeed be in the Dawnchant.” “And I…” Dalinar said. “You just spoke a line from one of them,” Navani said. “Beyond that, if the phrase you just gave me is correct, you translated it. This could prove the Vanrial Hypothesis! One sentence isn’t much, but it could give us the key to translating the entire script. It has been itching at me for a
while, listening to these visions. I thought the things you were saying had too much order to be gibberish.” She looked at Dalinar, smiling deeply. “Dalinar, you might just have cracked one of the most perplexing—and ancient— mysteries of all time.” “Wait,” Adolin said. “What are you saying?” “What I’m saying, nephew,” Navani said, looking directly at him, “is that we have your proof.” “But,” Adolin said. “I mean, he could have heard that one phrase…” “And extrapolated an entire language from it?” Navani said, holding up a sheet full of writings. “This is not gibberish, but it’s no language that people now speak. I suspect it is what it seems, the Dawnchant. So unless you can think of another way your father learned to speak a dead language, Adolin, the visions are most certainly real.” The room fell silent. Navani herself looked stunned by what she had said. She shook it off quickly. “Now, Dalinar,” she said, “I want you to describe this vision as accurately as possible. I need the exact words you spoke, if you can recall them. Every bit we gather will help my scholars sort through this….” “How can you be so sure it was him, Dalinar?” Navani asked softly. Dalinar shook his head. “I just am. That was Nohadon.” It had been several hours since the end of the vision. Navani had left her writing table to sit in a more comfortable chair near Dalinar. Renarin sat across from him, accompanying them for propriety’s sake. Adolin had left to get the highstorm damage report. The lad had seemed very disturbed by the discovery that the visions were real. “But the man you saw never spoke his name,” Navani said. “It was him, Navani.” Dalinar stared toward the wall over Renarin’s head, looking at the smooth brown Soulcast rock. “There was an aura of command about him, the weight of great responsibilities. A regality.” “It could have been some other king,” she said. “After all, he discarded your suggestion that he write a book.” “It just wasn’t the time for him to write it yet. So much death… He was cast down by some great loss. Stormfather! Nine out of ten people dead in war. Can you imagine such a thing?” “The Desolations,” Navani said. Unite the people…. The True Desolation comes…. “Do you know of any references to the Desolations?” Dalinar asked. “Not the tales ardents tell. Historical references?” Navani held a cup of warmed violet wine in her hand, beads of condensation on the rim of the glass. “Yes, but I am the wrong one to ask. Jasnah is the historian.” “I think I saw the aftermath of one. I… I may have seen corpses of Voidbringers. Could that give us more proof?” “Nothing nearly as good as the linguistics.” Navani took a sip of her wine. “The Desolations are matters of ancient lore. It could be argued that you imagined what you expected to see. But those words—if we can translate them, nobody will be able to dispute that you are seeing something real.”
Her writing board lay on the low table between them, reed and ink set carefully across the paper. “You intend to tell others?” Dalinar asked. “Of my visions?” “How else will we explain what is happening to you?” Dalinar hesitated. How could he explain? On one hand, it was relieving to know that he was not mad. But what if some force were trying to mislead him with these visions, using images of Nohadon and the Radiants because he would find them trustworthy? The Knights Radiant fell, Dalinar reminded himself. They abandoned us. Some of the other orders may have turned against us, as the legends say. There was an unsettling edge to all of that. He had another stone in rebuilding the foundation of who he was, but the most important point still remained undecided. Did he trust his visions or not? He couldn’t go back to believing them unquestioningly, not now that Adolin’s challenges had raised real worries in his head. Until he knew their source, he felt he shouldn’t spread knowledge of them. “Dalinar,” Navani said, leaning forward. “The warcamps speak of your episodes. Even the wives of your officers are uncomfortable. They think you fear the storms, or that you have some disease of the mind. This will vindicate you.” “How? By making me into some kind of mystic? Many will think that the breeze of these visions blows too close to prophecy.” “You see the past, Father,” Renarin said. “That is not forbidden. And if the Almighty sends them, then how could men question?” “Adolin and I both spoke with ardents,” Dalinar replied. “They said it was very unlikely that this would come from the Almighty. If we do decide the visions are to be trusted, many will disagree with me.” Navani settled back, sipping her wine, safehand lying across her lap. “Dalinar, your sons told me that you once sought the Old Magic. Why? What did you ask of the Nightwatcher, and what curse did she give you in return?” “I told them that shame is my own,” Dalinar said. “And I will not share it.” The room fell silent. The flurries of rain following the highstorm had ceased falling on the roof. “It might be important,” Navani finally said. “It was long ago. Long before the visions began. I don’t think it’s related.” “But it could be.” “Yes,” he admitted. Would that day never stop haunting him? Was not losing all memory of his wife enough? What did Renarin think? Would he condemn his father for such an egregious sin? Dalinar forced himself to look up and meet his son’s bespectacled eyes. Curiously, Renarin didn’t seem bothered. Just thoughtful. “I’m sorry you had to discover my shame,” Dalinar said, looking to Navani. She waved indifferently. “Soliciting the Old Magic is offensive to the devotaries, but their punishments for the act are never severe. I assume that you didn’t have to do much to be cleansed.” “The ardents asked for spheres to give the poor,” Dalinar said. “And I had to commission a series of prayers.
None of that removed the effects or my sense of guilt.” “I think you’d be surprised at how many devout lighteyes turn to the Old Magic at one point in their lives or another. The ones who can make their way to the Valley, at least. But I do wonder if this is related.” “Aunt,” Renarin said, turning to her. “I have recently asked for a number of readings about the Old Magic. I agree with his assessment. This does not feel like the work of the Nightwatcher. She gives curses in exchange for granting small desires. Always one curse and one desire. Father, I assume you know what both of those things are?” “Yes,” he said. “I know exactly what my curse was, and it does not relate to this.” “Then it is unlikely that the Old Magic is to blame.” “Yes,” Dalinar said. “But your aunt is right to question. The truth is, we don’t have any proof that this came from the Almighty either. Something wants me to know of the Desolations and the Knights Radiant. Perhaps we should start asking ourselves why that is.” “What were the Desolations, Aunt?” Renarin asked. “The ardents talk of the Voidbringers. Of mankind, and the Radiants, and of fighting. But what were they really? Do we know anything specific?” “There are folklorists among your father’s clerks who would serve you better in this matter.” “Perhaps,” Dalinar added, “but I’m not sure which of them I can trust.” Navani paused. “Fair enough. Well, from what I understand, there are no primary accounts remaining. This was long, long ago. I do recall that the myth of Parasaphi and Nadris mentions the Desolations.” “Parasaphi,” Renarin said. “She’s the one who searched out the seedstones.” “Yes,” Navani replied. “In order to repopulate her fallen people, she climbed the peaks of Dara—the myth changes, listing different modern mountain ranges as the true peaks of Dara—to find stones touched by the Heralds themselves. She brought them to Nadris on his deathbed and harvested his seed to bring life to the stones. They hatched forth ten children, which she used to found a new nation. Marnah, I believe it was called.” “Origin of the Makabaki,” Renarin said. “Mother told me that story when I was a child.” Dalinar shook his head. “Born from rocks?” The old stories rarely made much sense to him, although the devotaries had canonized many of them. “The story mentions the Desolations at the beginning,” Navani said. “Giving them credit for having wiped out Parasaphi’s people.” “But what were they?” “Wars.” Navani took a sip of wine. “The Voidbringers came again and again, trying to force mankind off Roshar and into Damnation. Just as they once forced mankind—and the Heralds—out of the Tranquiline Halls.” “When were the Knights Radiant founded?” Dalinar asked. Navani shrugged. “I don’t know. Perhaps they were some military group from a specific kingdom, or perhaps they were originally a mercenary band. That would make it easy to see how they could eventually become tyrants.” “My visions don’t imply that they were
tyrants,” he said. “Perhaps that is the true purpose of the visions. To make me believe lies about the Radiants. Making me trust them, perhaps trying to lead me to mimic their downfall and betrayal.” “I don’t know,” Navani said, sounding skeptical. “I don’t think you’ve seen anything untrue about the Radiants. The legends tend to agree that the Radiants weren’t always so bad. As much as the legends agree on anything, at least.” Dalinar stood and took her nearly empty cup, then walked over to the serving table and refilled it. Discovering that he was not mad should have helped clear things up, but instead left him more disturbed. What if the Voidbringers were behind the visions? Some stories he heard said that they could possess the bodies of men and make them do evil. Or, if they were from the Almighty, what was their purpose? “I need to think on all of this,” he said. “It has been a long day. Please, if I could be left to my own thoughts now.” Renarin rose and bowed his head in respect before heading to the door. Navani rose more slowly, sleek dress rustling as she set her cup on the table, then walked over to fetch her pain-drinking fabrial. Renarin left, and Dalinar walked to the doorway, waiting as Navani approached. He didn’t intend to let her trap him alone again. He looked out the doorway. His soldiers were there, and he could see them. Good. “Aren’t you pleased at all?” Navani asked, lingering beside the doorway near him, one hand on the frame. “Pleased?” “You aren’t going mad.” “And we don’t know if I’m being manipulated or not,” he said. “In a way, we have more questions now than we had before.” “The visions are a blessing,” Navani said, laying her freehand on his arm. “I feel it, Dalinar. Don’t you see how wonderful this is?” Dalinar met her eyes, light violet, beautiful. She was so thoughtful, so clever. How he wished he could trust her completely. She has shown me nothing but honor, he thought. Never speaking a word to anyone else of my intention to abdicate. She hasn’t so much as tried to use my visions against me. He felt ashamed that he’d once worried that she might. She was a wonderful woman, Navani Kholin. A wonderful, amazing, dangerous woman. “I see more worries,” he said. “And more danger.” “But Dalinar, you’re having experiences scholars, historians, and folklorists could only dream about! I envy you, although you claim to have seen no fabrials of note.” “The ancients didn’t have fabrials, Navani. I’m certain of it.” “And that changes everything we thought we understood about them.” “I suppose.” “Stonefalls, Dalinar,” she said, sighing. “Does nothing bring you to passion any longer?” Dalinar took a deep breath. “Too many things, Navani. My insides feel like a mass of eels, emotions squirming over one another. The truth of these visions is unsettling.” “It’s exciting,” she corrected. “Did you mean what you said earlier? About trusting me?” “I said that?” “You said
you didn’t trust your clerks, and you asked me to record the visions. There’s an implication in that.” Her hand was still on his arm. She reached out with her safehand and closed the door to the hallway. He almost stopped her, but he hesitated. Why? The door clicked closed. They were alone. And she was so beautiful. Those clever, excitable eyes, alight with passion. “Navani,” Dalinar said, forcing down his desire. “You’re doing it again.” Why did he let her? “Yes, I am,” she said. “I’m a stubborn woman, Dalinar.” There didn’t seem to be any playfulness in her tone. “This is not proper. My brother…” He reached for the door to open it again. “Your brother,” Navani spat, expression flashing with anger. “Why must everyone always focus on him? Everyone always worries so much about the man who died! He’s not here, Dalinar. He’s gone. I miss him. But not half as much as you do, it appears.” “I honor his memory,” Dalinar said stiffly, hesitating, hand on the door’s latch. “That’s fine! I’m happy you do. But it’s been six years, and all anyone can see me as is the wife of a dead man. The other women, they humor me with idle gossip, but they won’t let me into their political circles. They think I’m a relic. You wanted to know why I came back so quickly?” “I—” “I returned,” she said, “because I have no home. I’m expected to sit out of important events because my husband is dead! Lounge around, pampered but ignored. I make them uncomfortable. The queen, the other women at court.” “I’m sorry,” Dalinar said. “But I don’t—” She raised her freehand, tapping him on the chest. “I won’t take it from you, Dalinar. We were friends before I even met Gavilar! You still know me as me, not some shadow of a dynasty that crumbled years ago. Don’t you?” She looked at him, pleading. Blood of my fathers, Dalinar thought with shock. She’s crying. Two small tears. He had rarely seen her so sincere. And so he kissed her. It was a mistake. He knew it was. He grabbed her anyway, pulling her into a rough, tight embrace and pressing his mouth to hers, unable to contain himself. She melted against him. He tasted the salt of her tears as they ran down to her lips and met his. It lasted long. Too long. Wonderfully long. His mind screamed at him, like a prisoner chained in a cell and forced to watch something horrible. But a part of him had wanted this for decades—decades spent watching his brother court, marry, and then hold the only woman that the young Dalinar had ever wanted. He’d told himself he would never allow this. He had denied himself feelings for Navani the moment Gavilar had won her hand. Dalinar had stepped aside. But the taste of her—the smell of her, the warmth of her pressed against him—was too sweet. Like a blossoming perfume, it washed away the guilt. For a moment, that touch banished everything.
He couldn’t remember his fear at the visions, his worry about Sadeas, his shame at past mistakes. He could only think of her. Beautiful, insightful, delicate yet strong at once. He clung to her, something he could hold onto as the rest of the world churned around him. Eventually, he broke the kiss. She looked up at him, dazed. Passion-spren, like tiny flakes of crystalline snow, floated down in the air around them. Guilt flooded him again. He tried gently to push her away, but she clung to him, holding on tight. “Navani,” he said. “Hush.” She pressed her head against his chest. “We can’t—” “Hush,” she said, more insistently. He sighed, but let himself hold her. “Something is going wrong in this world, Dalinar,” Navani said softly. “The king of Jah Keved was assassinated. I heard it just today. He was killed by a Shin Shardbearer in white clothing.” “Stormfather!” Dalinar said. “Something’s going on,” she said. “Something bigger than our war here, something bigger than Gavilar. Have you heard of the twisted things men say when they die? Most ignore it, but surgeons are talking. And stormwardens whisper that the highstorms are growing more powerful.” “I have heard,” he said, finding it difficult to get the words out, intoxicated by her as he was. “My daughter seeks something,” Navani said. “She frightens me sometimes. She’s so intense. I honestly believe she’s the most intelligent person I’ve ever known. And the things she searches for… Dalinar, she believes that something very dangerous is near.” The sun approaches the horizon. The Everstorm comes. The True Desolation. The Night of Sorrows…. “I need you,” Navani said. “I’ve known it for years, though I feared it would destroy you with guilt, so I fled. But I couldn’t stay away. Not with the way they treat me. Not with what is happening to the world. I’m terrified, Dalinar, and I need you. Gavilar was not the man everyone thought him to be. I was fond of him, but he—” “Please,” Dalinar said, “don’t speak ill of him.” “Very well.” Blood of my fathers! He couldn’t get her scent out of his head. He felt paralyzed, holding to her like a man clinging to a stone in the stormwinds. She looked up at him. “Well, let it be said—then—that I was fond of Gavilar. But I’m more than fond of you. And I’m tired of waiting.” He closed his eyes. “How can this work?” “We’ll find a way.” “We’ll be denounced.” “The warcamps already ignore me,” Navani said, “and they spread rumors and lies about you. What more can they do to us?” “They’ll find something. As of yet, the devotaries do not condemn me.” “Gavilar is dead,” Navani said, resting her head back against his chest. “I was never unfaithful while he lived, though the Stormfather knows I had ample reason. The devotaries can say what they wish, but The Arguments do not forbid our union. Tradition is not the same as doctrine, and I will not hold myself back for fear of offending.” Dalinar
took a deep breath, then forced himself to open his arms and pull back. “If you had hoped to soothe my worries for the day, then this didn’t help.” She folded her arms. He could still feel where her safehand had touched him on the back. A tender touch, reserved for a family member. “I’m not here to soothe you, Dalinar. Quite the opposite.” “Please. I do need time to think.” “I won’t let you put me away. I won’t ignore that this happened. I won’t—” “Navani,” he gently cut her off, “I will not abandon you. I promise.” She eyed him, then a wry smile crept onto her face. “Very well. But you began something today.” “I began it?” he asked, amused, elated, confused, worried, and ashamed at the same time. “The kiss was yours, Dalinar,” she said idly, pulling open the door and entering his antechamber. “You seduced me to it.” “What? Seduced?” She glanced back at him. “Dalinar, I’ve never been more open and honest in my life.” “I know,” Dalinar said, smiling. “That was the seductive part.” He closed the door softly, then let out a sigh. Blood of my fathers, he thought, why can’t these things ever be simple? And yet, in direct contrast with his thoughts, he felt as if the entire world had somehow become more right for having gone wrong. “You think one of those will save us?” Moash asked, scowling as he looked at the prayer tied about Kaladin’s upper right arm. Kaladin glanced to the side. He stood at parade rest as Sadeas’s soldiers crossed their bridge. The chilly spring air felt good, now that he’d started working. The sky was bright, cloudless, and the stormwardens promised that no highstorm was near. The prayer tied on his arms was simple. Three glyphs: wind, protection, beloved. A prayer to Jezerezeh—the Stormfather—to protect loved ones and friends. It was the straightforward type his mother had preferred. For all her subtlety and wryness, whenever she’d knitted or written a prayer, it had been simple and heartfelt. Wearing it reminded him of her. “I can’t believe you paid good money for that,” Moash said. “If there are Heralds watching, they don’t pay any mind to bridgemen.” “I’ve been feeling nostalgic lately, I guess.” The prayer was probably meaningless, but he’d had reason to start thinking more about religion lately. The life of a slave made it difficult for many to believe that anyone, or anything, was watching. Yet many bridgemen had grown more religious during their captivity. Two groups, opposite reactions. Did that mean some were stupid and others were callous, or something else entirely? “They’re going to see us dead, you know,” Drehy said from behind. “This is it.” The bridgemen were exhausted. Kaladin and his team had been forced to work the chasms all night. Hashal had put strict requirements on them, demanding an increased amount of salvage. In order to meet the quota, they’d forgone training to scavenge. And then today they’d been awakened for a morning chasm assault after only three hours
of sleep. They were drooping as they stood in line, and they hadn’t even reached the contested plateau yet. “Let it come,” Skar said quietly from the other side of the line. “They want us dead? Well, I’m not going to back down. We’ll show them what courage is. They can hide behind our bridges while we charge.” “That’s no victory,” Moash said. “I say we attack the soldiers. Right now.” “Our own troops?” Sigzil said, turning his dark-skinned head and looking down the line of men. “Sure,” Moash said, eyes still forward. “They’re going to kill us anyway. Let’s take a few of them with us. Damnation, why not charge Sadeas? His guard won’t expect it. I’ll bet we could knock down a few and grab their spears, then be on to killing lighteyes before they cut us down.” A couple of bridgemen murmured their assent as the soldiers continued to cross. “No,” Kaladin said. “It wouldn’t accomplish anything. They’d have us dead before we could so much as inconvenience Sadeas.” Moash spat. “And this will accomplish something? Damnation, Kaladin, I feel like I’m already dangling from the noose!” “I have a plan,” Kaladin said. He waited for the objections. His other plans hadn’t worked. No one offered a complaint. “Well then,” Moash said. “What is it?” “You’ll see today,” Kaladin said. “If it works, it will buy us time. If it fails, I’ll be dead.” He turned to look down the line of faces. “In that case, Teft has orders to lead you on an escape attempt tonight. You’re not ready, but at least you’ll have a chance.” That was far better than attacking Sadeas as he crossed. Kaladin’s men nodded, and Moash seemed content. As contrary as he’d been originally, he had grown equally loyal. He was hotheaded, but he was also the best with the spear. Sadeas approached, riding his roan stallion, wearing his red Shardplate, helm on but visor up. By chance, he crossed on Kaladin’s bridge, though—as always—he had twenty to choose from. Sadeas didn’t give Bridge Four so much as a glance. “Break and cross,” Kaladin ordered after Sadeas was over. The bridgemen crossed their bridge, and Kaladin gave the orders for them to pull it behind them, then lift. It felt heavier than it ever had before. The bridgemen broke into a trot, rounding the army column and hustling to reach the next chasm. In the distance behind, a second army—one in blue—was following them, crossing using some of Sadeas’s other bridge crews. It looked like Dalinar Kholin had given up his bulky mechanical bridges, and was now using Sadeas’s own bridge crews to cross. So much for his “honor” and not sacrificing bridgeman lives. In his pouch, Kaladin carried a large number of infused spheres, obtained from the moneychangers in exchange for a greater quantity of dun spheres. He hated taking that loss, but he needed the Stormlight. They reached the next chasm quickly. It would be the next-to-last one, according to the word he’d gotten from Matal, Hashal’s husband. The soldiers began
checking their armor, stretching, anticipationspren rising in the air like small streamers. The bridgemen set their bridge and stepped back. Kaladin noted Lopen and silent Dabbid approaching with their stretcher, waterskins and bandages inside. Lopen had hitched the stretcher to a hook at his waist, making up for his missing arm. The two moved among the members of Bridge Four, giving them water. As he passed Kaladin, Lopen nodded toward the large bulge at the stretcher’s center. The armor. “When do you want it?” Lopen asked softly, lowering the litter, then handing Kaladin a waterskin. “Right before we run the assault,” Kaladin replied. “You did well, Lopen.” Lopen winked. “A one-armed Herdazian is still twice as useful as a no-brained Alethi. Plus, so long as I’ve got one hand, I can still do this.” He covertly made a rude gesture toward the marching soldiers. Kaladin smiled, but was growing too nervous to feel mirth. It had been a long time since he’d gotten jitters going into a battle. He thought Tukks had beaten that out of him years ago. “Hey,” a sudden voice called, “I need some of that.” Kaladin spun to see a soldier walking over. He was exactly the type of man Kaladin had known to avoid back in Amaram’s army. Darkeyed but of modest rank, he was naturally large, and had probably gotten promoted by sheer virtue of size. His armor was well maintained but the uniform beneath was stained and wrinkled, and he kept the sleeves rolled up, exposing hairy arms. At first, Kaladin assumed that the man had seen Lopen’s gesture. But the man didn’t seem mad. He shoved Kaladin aside, then pulled the waterskin away from Lopen. Nearby, the soldiers waiting to cross had noticed. Their own water crews were much slower, and more than a few of the waiting men eyed Lopen and his waterskins. It would set a terrible precedent to let the soldiers take their water—but that was a tiny problem compared with the greater one. If those soldiers swarmed around the litter to get water, they’d discover the sack full of armor. Kaladin moved quickly, snatching the waterskin from the soldier’s hand. “You have your own water crews.” The soldier looked at Kaladin, as if completely unable to believe that a bridgeman was standing up to him. He scowled darkly, lowering his spear to his side, its butt against the ground. “I don’t want to wait.” “How unfortunate,” Kaladin said, stepping right up to the man, meeting him eye to eye. Silently, he cursed the idiot. If it turned into a scuffle… The soldier hesitated, even more astonished to see such an aggressive threat from a bridgeman. Kaladin wasn’t as thick-armed as this man, but he was a finger or two taller. The soldier’s uncertainty showed in his face. Just back down, Kaladin thought. But no. Backing down from a bridgeman while his squad was watching? The man made a fist, knuckles cracking. Within seconds, the entire bridge crew was there. The soldier blinked as Bridge Four formed around Kaladin in an
aggressive inverted wedge pattern, moving naturally—smoothly—as Kaladin had trained them. Each one made fists, giving the soldier ample chance to see that the heavy lifting had trained these men to a physical level beyond that of the average soldier. The man glanced back at his squad, as if looking for support. “Do you want to spark a fight now, friend?” Kaladin asked softly. “If you hurt the bridgemen, I wonder who Sadeas will make run this bridge.” The man glanced back at Kaladin, was silent for a moment, then scowled, cursed, and stalked away. “Probably full of crem anyway,” he muttered, rejoining his team. The members of Bridge Four relaxed, though they received more than a few appreciative looks from the other soldiers in line. For once, there was something other than scowls. Hopefully they wouldn’t realize that a squad of bridgemen had quickly and accurately made a battle formation commonly used in spear fighting. Kaladin waved for his men to stand down, nodding his thanks. They fell back, and Kaladin tossed the recovered waterskin back to Lopen. The shorter man smirked wryly. “I’ll keep a tighter grip on these things from now on, gancho.” He eyed the soldier who had tried to take the water. “What?” Kaladin asked. “Well, I’ve got a cousin in the water crews, you see,” Lopen said. “And I’m thinking that he might owe me a favor on account of this one time I helped his sister’s friend escape a guy looking for her….” “You do have a lot of cousins.” “Never enough. You bother one of us, you bother us all. That’s something you strawheads never seem to get. No offense or anything, gancho.” Kaladin raised an eyebrow. “Don’t make trouble for the soldier. Not today.” I’ll make enough of that myself here soon. Lopen sighed, but nodded. “All right. For you.” He held up a waterskin. “You sure you don’t want any?” Kaladin didn’t; his stomach was too unsettled. But he made himself take the waterskin back and drink a few mouthfuls. Before long, the time came to cross and pull the bridge up for the last run. The assault. Sadeas’s soldiers were forming ranks, lighteyes riding back and forth, calling orders. Matal waved Kaladin’s crew forward. Dalinar Kholin’s army had fallen behind, coming more slowly because of his larger numbers. Kaladin took his place at the very front of his bridge. Ahead, the Parshendi were lined up with bows on the edge of their plateau, staring down the oncoming assault. Were they singing already? Kaladin thought he could hear their voices. Moash was on Kaladin’s right, Rock on his left. Only three on the deathline, because of how shorthanded they were. He’d put Shen in the very back, so he wouldn’t see what Kaladin was about to do. “I’m going to duck out from underneath once we start moving,” Kaladin told them. “Rock, you take over. Keep them running.” “Very well,” Rock said. “It will be hard to carry without you. We have so few men, and we are very weak.” “You’ll manage. You’ll
have to.” Kaladin couldn’t see Rock’s face, not positioned under the bridge as they were, but his voice sounded troubled. “This thing you will try, is dangerous?” “Perhaps.” “Can I help?” “I’m afraid not, my friend. But it strengthens me to hear you ask.” Rock didn’t get a chance to reply. Matal yelled for the bridge crews to go. Arrows shot overhead to distract the Parshendi. Bridge Four broke into a run. And Kaladin ducked down and dashed out in front of them. Lopen was waiting to the side, and he tossed Kaladin the sack of armor. Matal screamed at Kaladin in a panic, but the bridge crews were already in motion. Kaladin focused on his goal, protecting Bridge Four, and sucked in sharply. Stormlight flooded him from the pouch at his waist, but he didn’t draw too much. Just enough to give him a jolt of energy. Syl zipped in front of him, a ripple in the air, nearly invisible. Kaladin whipped the tie off the sack, pulling out the vest and throwing it awkwardly over his head. He ignored the ties at the side, getting on the helm as he leaped over a small rock formation. The shield came last, clattering with red Parshendi bones in a crisscross pattern on the front. Even while donning the armor, Kaladin easily stayed far ahead of the heavily laden bridge crews. His Stormlight-infused legs were quick and sure. The Parshendi archers directly ahead of him abruptly stopped singing. Several of them lowered their bows, and though it was too distant to make out their faces, he could sense their outrage. Kaladin had expected this. He’d hoped for it. The Parshendi left their dead. Not because they were uncaring, but because they found it a terrible offense to move them. Merely touching the dead seemed a sin. If that was the case, a man desecrating corpses and wearing them into battle would be far, far worse. As Kaladin grew closer, a different song started among the Parshendi archers. A quick, violent song, more chant than melody. Those who had lowered their bows raised them. And they tried with everything they had to kill him. Arrows flew at him. Dozens of them. They weren’t fired in careful waves. They flew individually, rapidly, wildly, each archer loosing at Kaladin as quickly as he could. A swarm of death bore down on him. Pulse racing, Kaladin ducked to the left, leaping off a small outcropping. Arrows sliced the air around him, dangerously close. But while infused with the Stormlight, his muscles reacted quickly. He dodged between arrows, then turned in the other direction, moving erratically. Behind, Bridge Four came into range, and not a single arrow was fired at them. Other bridge crews were ignored as well, many of the archers focusing on Kaladin. The arrows came more swiftly, spraying around him, bouncing off his shield. One sliced open his arm as it shot past; another snapped against his helm, nearly knocking it free. The arm wound leaked Light, not blood, and to Kaladin’s amazement it slowly
began to seal up, frost crystallizing on his skin and Stormlight draining from him. He drew in more, infusing himself to the cusp of glowing visibly. He ducked, he dodged, he jumped, he ran. His battle-trained reflexes delighted in the newfound speed, and he used the shield to knock arrows out of the air. It was as if his body had longed for this ability, as if it had been born to take advantage of the Stormlight. During the earlier part of his life, he had lived sluggish and impotent. Now he was healed. Not acting beyond his capacities—no, finally reaching them. A flock of arrows sought his blood, but Kaladin spun between them, taking another slice on the arm but deflecting the others with shield or breastplate. The flight came, and he brought his shield up, worried that he was going to be too slow. However, the arrows changed course, arcing toward his shield, slamming into it. Drawn to it. I’m pulling them to it! He remembered dozens of bridge runs, with arrows slamming into the wood near where his hands had clung to the support bars. Always just missing him. How long have I been doing this? Kaladin thought. How many arrows did I draw to the bridge, pulling them away from me? He didn’t have time to think about that. He kept moving, dodging. He felt arrows whish through the air, heard them zip, felt the splinters as they hit stone or shield and broke. He’d hoped that he would distract some of the Parshendi from firing on his men, but he’d had no idea how strong a reaction he’d get. Part of him exulted in the thrill of ducking, dodging, and blocking the hail of arrows. He started to slow, however. He tried to suck in Stormlight, but none came. His spheres were drained. He panicked, still dodging, but then the arrowfalls began to slacken. With a start, Kaladin realized that the bridge crews had parted around him, leaving a space for him to keep dodging while they passed him and set their burdens. Bridge Four was in place, cavalry charging across to attack the archers. Despite that, some of the Parshendi continued to fire on Kaladin, enraged. The soldiers cut these Parshendi down easily, sweeping the ground of them and making room for Sadeas’s foot soldiers. Kaladin lowered his shield. It bristled with arrows. He barely had time to take a fresh breath of air as the bridgemen reached him, calling out with joy, nearly tackling him in their excitement. “You fool!” Moash said. “You storming fool! What was that? What were you thinking?” “Was incredible,” Rock said. “You should be dead!” Sigzil said, though his normally stern face was split by a smile. “Stormfather,” Moash added, pulling an arrow from Kaladin’s vest at the shoulder. “Look at these.” Kaladin looked down, shocked to find a dozen arrow holes in the sides of his vest and shirt where he’d narrowly avoided being hit. Three arrows stuck from the leather. “Stormblessed,” Skar said. “That’s all there is too
it.” Kaladin shrugged off their praise, his heart still pounding. He was numb. Amazed that he’d survived, cold from the Stormlight he’d consumed, exhausted as if he’d run a rigorous obstacle course. He looked to Teft, raising an eyebrow, nodding toward the pouch at his waist. Teft shook his head. He’d watched; the Stormlight rising from Kaladin hadn’t been visible to those observing, not in the light of day. Still, the way Kaladin had dodged would have looked incredible, even without the obvious light. If there had been stories about him before, they would grow greatly following this. He turned to look at the passing troops. As he did, he realized something. He still had to deal with Matal. “Fall into line, men,” he said. They obeyed reluctantly, falling into place around him in a double rank. Ahead, Matal stood beside their bridge. He looked concerned, as well he should. Sadeas was riding up. Kaladin steeled himself, remembering how his previous victory—when they’d run with the bridge on its side—had been turned on its head. He hesitated, then hurried over toward the bridge where Sadeas was going to ride past Matal. Kaladin’s men followed. Kaladin arrived as Matal bowed to Sadeas, who wore his glorious red Shardplate. Kaladin and the bridgemen bowed as well. “Avarak Matal,” Sadeas said. He nodded toward Kaladin. “This man looks familiar.” “He is the one from before, Brightlord,” Matal said, nervous. “The one who…” “Ah yes,” Sadeas said. “The ‘miracle.’ And you sent him forward as a decoy like that? One would think that you would be hesitant to dare such measures.” “I take full responsibility, Brightlord,” Matal said, putting the best face on it. Sadeas regarded the battlefield. “Well, luckily for you, it worked. I suppose I’ll have to promote you now.” He shook his head. “Those savages practically ignored the assault force. All twenty bridges set, most with nary a casualty. It seems like a waste, somehow. Consider yourself commended. Most remarkable, the way that boy dodged…” He kicked his horse into motion, leaving Matal and the bridgemen behind. It was the most backhanded promotion Kaladin had ever heard, but that would do. Kaladin smiled broadly as Matal turned to him, eyes enraged. “You—” Matal sputtered. “You could have gotten me executed!” “Instead I got you promoted,” Kaladin said, Bridge Four forming around him. “I should see you strung up anyway.” “It’s been tried,” Kaladin said. “Didn’t work. Besides, you know that from now on Sadeas is going to expect me to be out there distracting the archers. Good luck getting any other bridgeman to try that.” Matal’s face grew red. He turned and stalked away to check on the other bridge crews. The two nearest—Bridge Seven and Bridge Eighteen—stood looking toward Kaladin and his team. All twenty bridges had been set? Hardly any casualties? Stormfather, Kaladin thought. How many archers were firing at me? “You did it, Kaladin!” Moash exclaimed. “You found the secret. We need to make this work. Expand it.” “I’ll bet I could dodge those arrows, if that were all I
was doing,” Skar said. “With enough armor…” “We should have more than one,” Moash agreed. “Five or so, running around drawing the Parshendi attacks.” “The bones,” Rock said, folding his arms. “This is what made it work. The Parshendi were so mad that they ignored bridge crew. If all five wear the bones of Parshendi…” That made Kaladin consider something. He looked back, searching through the bridgemen. Where was Shen? There. He was sitting on the rocks, distant, staring forward. Kaladin approached with the others. The parshman looked up at him, face a mask of pain, tears streaking his cheeks. He looked at Kaladin and shuddered visibly, turning away, closing his eyes. “He sat down like that the moment he saw what you’d done, lad,” Teft said, rubbing his chin. “Might not be good for bridge runs anymore.” Kaladin pulled the carapacetied helm off his head, then ran his fingers through his hair. The carapace stuck to his clothing stank faintly, even though he’d washed it off down below. “We’ll see,” Kaladin said, feeling a twist of guilt. Not nearly enough to overshadow the victory of protecting his men, but enough to dampen it, at least. “For now, there are still many bridge crews that got fired upon. You know what to do.” The men nodded, trotting off to search for the wounded. Kaladin set one man to watch over Shen—he wasn’t sure what else to do with the parshman—and tried not to show his exhaustion as he put his sweaty, carapace-covered cap and vest in Lopen’s litter. He knelt down to go through his medical equipment, in case it was needed, and found that his hand was shaking and quivering. He pressed it down against the ground to still it, breathing in and out. Cold, clammy skin, he thought. Nausea. Weakness. He was in shock. “You all right, lad?” Teft asked, kneeling down beside Kaladin. He still wore a bandage on his arm from the wound he’d taken a few bridge runs back, but it wasn’t enough to stop him from carrying. Not when there were too few as it was. “I’ll be fine,” Kaladin said, taking out a waterskin, holding it in a quivering hand. He could barely get the top off. “You don’t look—” “I’ll be fine,” Kaladin said again, drinking, then lowering the water. “What’s important is that the men are safe.” “You going to do this every time. Whenever we go to battle?” “Whatever keeps them safe.” “You’re not immortal, Kaladin,” Teft said softly. “The Radiants, they could be killed, just like any man. Sooner or later, one of those arrows will find your neck instead of your shoulder.” “The Stormlight heals.” “The Stormlight helps your body heal. That’s different, I’m thinking.” Teft laid a hand on Kaladin’s shoulder. “We can’t lose you, lad. The men need you.” “I’m not going to avoid putting myself in danger, Teft. And I’m not going to leave the men to face a storm of arrows if I can do something about it.” “Well,” Teft said, “you are going to let
a few of us go out there with you. The bridge can manage with twenty-five, if it has to. That leaves us a few extra, just like Rock said. And I’ll bet some of those wounded from the other crews we saved are well enough to begin helping carry. They won’t dare send them back to their own crews, not so long as Bridge Four is doing what you did today, and helping the whole assault work.” “I…” Kaladin trailed off. He could imagine Dallet doing something like this. He’d always said that as sergeant, part of his job was to keep Kaladin alive. “All right.” Teft nodded, rising. “You were a spearman, Teft,” Kaladin said. “Don’t try to deny it. How did you end up here, in these bridge crews?” “It’s where I belong.” Teft turned away to supervise the search for wounded. Kaladin sat down, then lay back, waiting for the shock to wear off. To the south, the other army—flying the blue of Dalinar Kholin—had arrived. They crossed to an adjacent plateau. Kaladin closed his eyes to recover. Eventually, he heard something and opened his eyes. Syl sat cross-legged on his chest. Behind her, Dalinar Kholin’s army had begun an assault onto the battlefield, and they managed to do so without getting fired on. Sadeas had the Parshendi cut off. “That was amazing,” Kaladin said to Syl. “What I did with the arrows.” “Still think you’re cursed?” “No. I know I’m not.” He looked up at the overcast sky. “But that means the failures were all just me. I let Tien die, I failed my spearmen, the slaves I tried to rescue, Tarah…” He hadn’t thought of her in some time. His failure with her had been different from the others, but a failure it was nonetheless. “If there’s no curse or bad luck, no god above being angry at me—I have to live with knowing that with a little more eff ort—a little more practice or skill—I could have saved them.” Syl frowned more deeply. “Kaladin, you need to get over this. Those things aren’t your fault.” “That’s what my father always used to say.” He smiled faintly. “‘Overcome your guilt, Kaladin. Care, but not too much. Take responsibility, but don’t blame yourself.’ Protect, save, help—but know when to give up. They’re such precarious ledges to walk. How do I do it?” “I don’t know. I don’t know any of this, Kaladin. But you’re ripping yourself apart. Inside and out.” Kaladin stared at the sky above. “It was wondrous. I was a storm, Syl. The Parshendi couldn’t touch me. The arrows were nothing.” “You’re too new to this. You pushed yourself too hard.” “‘Save them,’” Kaladin whispered. “‘Do the impossible, Kaladin. But don’t push yourself too hard. But also don’t feel guilty if you fail.’ Precarious ledges, Syl. So narrow…” Some of his men returned with a wounded man, a square-faced Thaylen fellow with an arrow in the shoulder. Kaladin went to work. His hands were still shaking slightly, but not nearly as badly as they had been.
The bridgemen clustered around, watching. He’d started training Rock, Drehy, and Skar already, but with all of them watching, Kaladin found himself explaining. “If you put pressure here, you can slow the blood flow. This isn’t too dangerous a wound, though it probably doesn’t feel too good…”—the patient grimaced his agreement—“…and the real problem will come from infection. Wash the wound to make sure there aren’t any slivers of wood or bits of metal left, then sew it. The muscles and skin of the shoulder here are going to get worked, so you need a strong thread to hold the wound together. Now…” “Kaladin,” Lopen said, sounding worried. “Wha?” Kaladin said, distracted, still working. “Kaladin!” Lopen had called him by his name, rather than saying gancho. Kaladin stood up, turning to see the short Herdazian man standing at the back of the crowd, pointing at the chasm. The battle had moved farther north, but a group of Parshendi had punched through Sadeas’s line. They had bows. Kaladin watched, stunned, as the group of Parshendi fell into formation and nocked. Fifty arrows, all pointed at Kaladin’s crew. The Parshendi didn’t seem to care that they were exposing themselves to attack from behind. They seemed focused on only one thing. Destroying Kaladin and his men. Kaladin screamed the alarm, but he felt so sluggish, so tired. The bridgemen around him turned as the archers drew. Sadeas’s men normally defended the chasm to keep Parshendi from pushing over the bridges and cutting off their escape. But this time, noticing that the archers weren’t trying to drop the bridges, the soldiers didn’t hasten to stop them. They left the bridgemen to die, instead cutting off the Parshendi route to the bridges themselves. Kaladin’s men were exposed. Perfect targets. No, Kaladin thought. No! It can’t happen like this. Not after— A force crashed into the Parshendi line. A single figure in slate-grey armor, wielding a sword as long as many men were tall. The Shardbearer swept through the distracted archers with urgency, slicing into their ranks. Arrows flew toward Kaladin’s team, but they were loosed too early, aimed poorly. A few came close as the bridgemen ducked for cover, but nobody was hit. Parshendi fell before the sweeping Blade of the Shardbearer, some toppling into the chasm, others scrambling back. The rest died with burned-out eyes. In seconds, the squad of fifty archers had been reduced to corpses. The Shardbearer’s honor guard caught up with him. He turned, armor seeming to glow as he raised his Blade in a salute of respect toward the bridgemen. Then he charged off in another direction. “That was him,” Drehy said, standing up. “Dalinar Kholin. The king’s uncle!” “He saved us!” Lopen said. “Bah.” Moash dusted himself off. “He just saw a group of undefended archers and took the chance to strike. Lighteyes don’t care about us. Right, Kaladin?” Kaladin stared at the place where the archers had stood. In one moment, he could have lost it all. “Kaladin?” Moash said. “You’re right,” Kaladin found himself saying. “Just an opportunity taken.”
Except, why raise the Blade toward Kaladin? “From now on,” Kaladin said, “we pull back farther after the soldiers cross. They used to ignore us after the battle began, but they won’t any longer. What I did today—what we’re all going to be doing soon—will make them mighty angry. Angry enough to be stupid, but also angry enough to see us dead. For now, Leyten, Narm, find good scouting points and watch the field. I want to know if any Parshendi make moves toward that chasm. I’ll get this man bandaged and we’ll pull back.” The two scouts ran off, and Kaladin turned back to the man with the wounded shoulder. Moash knelt beside him. “An assault against a prepared foe without any bridges lost, a Shardbearer coincidentally coming to our rescue, Sadeas himself complimenting us. You almost make me think I should get one of those armbands.” Kaladin glanced down at the prayer. It was stained with blood from a slice on his arm that the vanishing Stormlight hadn’t quite been able to heal. “Wait to see if we escape.” Kaladin finished his stitching. “That’s the real test.” “You see?” Leyten turned the piece of carapace over in his hands. “If we carve it up at the edge, it encourages a blade—or in this case an arrow—to deflect away from the face. Wouldn’t want to spoil that pretty grin of yours.” Kaladin smiled, taking back the piece of armor. Leyten had carved it expertly, putting in holes for leather straps to affix it to the jerkin. The chasm was cold and dark at night. With the sky hidden, it felt like a cavern. Only the occasional sparkle of a star high above revealed otherwise. “How soon can you have them done?” he asked Leyten. “All five? By the end of the night, likely. The real trick was discovering how to work it.” He knocked on the carapace with the back of his knuckles. “Amazing stuff. Nearly as hard as steel, but half the weight. Hard to cut or break. But if you drill, it shapes easily.” “Good,” Kaladin said. “Because I don’t want five sets. I want one for each man in the crew.” Leyten raised an eyebrow. “If they’re going to start letting us wear armor,” Kaladin said, “everyone gets a suit. Except Shen, of course.” Matal had agreed to let them leave him behind on the bridge runs; he wouldn’t even look at Kaladin now. Leyten nodded. “All right, then. Better get me some help, though.” “You can use the wounded men. We’ll cart out as much carapace as we can find.” His success had translated to an easier time for Bridge Four. Kaladin had pled that his men needed time to find carapace, and Hashal—not knowing any better—had reduced the scavenging quota. She was already pretending—quite smoothly—that the armor had been her idea the entire time, and was ignoring the question of where it had come from in the first place. When she met Kaladin’s eyes, however, he saw worry. What else would he try? So far, she
hadn’t dared remove him. Not while he brought her so much praise from Sadeas. “How did an apprentice armorer end up as a bridgeman anyway?” Kaladin asked as Leyten settled back down to work. He was a thick-armed man, stout and oval-faced with light hair. “Craftsmen don’t usually get thrown away.” Leyten shrugged. “When a piece of armor breaks and a lighteyes takes an arrow in the shoulder, someone has to take the blame. I’m convinced my master keeps an extra apprentice especially for those kinds of situation.” “Well, his loss is our good fortune. You’re going to keep us alive.” “I’ll do my best, sir.” He smiled. “Can’t do much worse on the armor than you did yourself, though. It’s amazing that breastplate didn’t fall off halfway through!” Kaladin patted the bridgeman on the shoulder, then left him to his work, surrounded by a small ring of topaz chips; Kaladin had gotten permission to bring them, explaining his men needed light to work on the armor. Nearby, Lopen, Rock, and Dabbid were returning with another load of salvage. Syl zipped ahead, leading them. Kaladin walked down the chasm, a garnet sphere looped in a small leather carrier at his belt for light. The chasm branched here, making a large triangular intersection—a perfect place for spear training. Wide enough to give the men room to practice, yet far enough from any permanent bridges that scouts weren’t likely to hear echoes. Kaladin gave the initial instructions each day, then let Teft lead the practice. The men worked by sphere light, small piles of diamond chips at the corners of the intersection, barely enough to see by. Never thought I’d envy those days practicing beneath the hot sun back in Amaram’s army, he thought. He walked up to gap-toothed Hobber and corrected his stance, then showed him how to set his weight behind his spear thrusts. The bridgemen were progressing quickly, and the fundamentals were proving their merit. Some were training with the spear and the shield, practicing stances where they held lighter spears up beside the head with the shield raised. The most skilled were Skar and Moash. In fact, Moash was surprisingly good. Kaladin walked to the side, watching the hawk-faced man. He was focused, eyes intense, jaw set. He moved in attack after attack, the dozen spheres giving him an equal number of shadows. Kaladin remembered feeling such dedication. He’d spent a year like that, after Tien’s death, driving himself to exhaustion each day. Determined to get better. Determined never to let another person die because of his lack of skill. He’d become the best in his squad, then the best in his company. Some said he’d been the best spearmen in Amaram’s army. What would have happened to him, if Tarah hadn’t coaxed him out of his single-minded dedication? Would he have burned himself out, as she’d claimed? “Moash,” Kaladin called. Moash paused, turning toward Kaladin. He didn’t fall out of stance. Kaladin waved him to approach, and Moash reluctantly trotted over. Lopen had left a few waterskins for them,
hanging by their cords from a cluster of haspers. Kaladin pulled a skin free, tossing it to Moash. The other man took a drink, then wiped his mouth. “You’re getting good,” Kaladin said. “You’re probably the best we have.” “Thanks,” Moash said. “I’ve noticed you keep training when Teft lets the other men take breaks. Dedication is good, but don’t work yourself ragged. I want you to be one of the decoys.” Moash smiled broadly. Each of the men had volunteered to be one of the four who would join Kaladin distracting the Parshendi. It was amazing. Months ago, Moash—along with the others—had eagerly placed the new or the weak at the front of the bridge to catch arrows. Now, to a man, they volunteered for the most dangerous jobs. Do you realize what you could have in these men, Sadeas? Kaladin thought. If you weren’t so busy thinking of how to get them killed? “So what is it for you?” Kaladin said, nodding toward the dim practice ground. “Why do you work so hard? What is it you hunt?” “Vengeance,” the other man said, face somber. Kaladin nodded. “I lost someone once. Because I wasn’t good enough with the spear. I nearly killed myself practicing.” “Who was it?” “My brother.” Moash nodded. The other bridgemen, Moash included, seemed to regard Kaladin’s “mysterious” past with reverence. “I’m glad I trained,” Kaladin said. “And I’m glad you’re dedicated. But you have to be careful. If I’d gotten myself killed by working so hard, it wouldn’t have meant anything.” “Sure. But there’s a difference between us, Kaladin.” Kaladin raised an eyebrow. “You wanted to be able to save someone. Me, I want to kill somebody.” “Who?” Moash hesitated, then shook his head. “Maybe I’ll say, someday.” He reached out, grabbing Kaladin on the shoulder. “I’d surrendered my plans, but you’ve returned them to me. I’ll guard you with my life, Kaladin. I swear it to you, by the blood of my fathers.” Kaladin met Moash’s intense eyes and nodded. “All right, then. Go help Hobber and Yake. They’re still off on their thrusts.” Moash jogged off to do as told. He didn’t call Kaladin “sir,” and didn’t seem to regard him with the same unspoken reverence as the others. That made Kaladin more comfortable with him. Kaladin spent the next hour helping the men, one by one. Most of them were overeager, throwing themselves into their attacks. Kaladin explained the importance of control and precision, which won more fights than chaotic enthusiasm. They took it in, listening. More and more, they reminded him of his old spear squad. That set him thinking. He remembered how he had felt when originally proposing the escape plan to the men. He’d been looking for something to do—a way to fight, no matter how risky. A chance. Things had changed. He now had a team he was proud of, friends he had come to love, and a possibility—perhaps—for stability. If they could get the dodging and armor right, they might be reasonably safe. Maybe even as safe as
his old spear squad had been. Was running still the best option? “That is a worried face,” a rumbling voice noted. Kaladin turned as Rock walked up and leaned against the wall near him, folding powerful forearms. “Is the face of a leader, say I. Always troubled.” Rock raised a bushy red eyebrow. “Sadeas will never let us go, particularly not now that we’re so prominent.” Alethi lighteyes considered it reprehensible for a man to let slaves escape; it made him seem impotent. Capturing those who ran away was essential to save face. “You said this thing before,” Rock said. “We will fight the men he sends after us, will seek Kharbranth, where there are no slaves. From there, the Peaks, to my people who will welcome us as heroes!” “We might beat the first group, if he’s foolish and sends only a few dozen men. But after that he’ll send more. And what of our wounded? Do we leave them here to die? Or do we take them with us and go that much more slowly?” Rock nodded slowly. “You are saying that we need a plan.” “Yes,” Kaladin said. “I guess that’s what I’m saying. Either that, or we stay here… as bridgemen.” “Ha!” Rock seemed to take it as a joke. “Despite new armor, we would die soon. We make ourselves targets!” Kaladin hesitated. Rock was right. The bridgemen would be used, day in and day out. Even if Kaladin slowed the death toll to two or three men a month—once, he would have considered that impossible, but now it seemed within reach—Bridge Four as it was currently composed would be gone within a year. “I will talk with Sigzil about this thing,” Rock said, rubbing his chin between the sides of his beard. “We will think. There must be a way to escape this trap, a way to disappear. A false trail? A distraction? Perhaps we can convince Sadeas that we have died during bridge run.” “How would we do that?” “Don’t know,” Rock said. “But we will think.” He nodded to Kaladin and sauntered off toward Sigzil. The Azish man was practicing with the others. Kaladin had tried speaking to him about Hoid, but Sigzil—typically closemouthed—hadn’t wanted to discuss it. “Hey, Kaladin!” Skar called. He was part of an advanced group that was going through Teft’s very carefully supervised sparring. “Come spar with us. Show these rock-brained fools how it’s really done.” The others began calling for him as well. Kaladin waved them down, shaking his head. Teft trotted over, a heavy spear on one shoulder. “Lad,” he said quietly, “I think it would be good for their morale if you showed them a thing or two yourself.” “I’ve already given them instruction.” “With a spear you knocked the head off of. Going very slowly, with lots of talk. They need to see it, lad. See you.” “We’ve been through this, Teft.” “Well, so we have.” Kaladin smiled. Teft was careful not to look angry or belligerent—he looked as if he were having a normal conversation with
Kaladin. “You’ve been a sergeant before, haven’t you?” “Never mind that. Come on, just show them a few simple routines.” “No, Teft,” Kaladin said, more seriously. Teft eyed him. “You going to refuse to fight on the battlefield, just like that Horneater?” “It’s not like that.” “Well what is it like?” Kaladin reached for an explanation. “I’ll fight when the time comes. But if I let myself get back into it now, I’ll be too eager. I’ll push to attack now. I’ll have trouble waiting until the men are ready. Trust me, Teft.” Teft studied him. “You’re scared of it, lad.” “What? No. I—” “I can see it,” Teft said. “And I’ve seen it before. Last time you fought for someone, you failed, eh? So now you hesitate to take it up again.” Kaladin paused. “Yes,” he admitted. But it was more than that. When he fought again, he would have to become that man from long ago, the man who had been called Stormblessed. The man with confidence and strength. He wasn’t certain he could be that man any longer. That was what scared him. Once he held that spear again, there would be no turning back. “Well.” Teft rubbed his chin. “When the time comes, I hope you’re ready. Because this lot will need you.” Kaladin nodded and Teft hurried back to the others, giving some kind of explanation to mollify them. “I couldn’t decide if you were interested or not,” Navani said softly to Dalinar as they slowly walked around the grounds of Elhokar’s raised field palace. “Half the time, you seemed like a flirt—offering hints at courtship, then backing away. The other half of the time, I was certain I had misread you. And Gavilar was so forthcoming. He always did prefer to seize what he wished.” Dalinar nodded thoughtfully. He wore his blue uniform, while Navani was in a subdued maroon dress with a thick hem. Elhokar’s gardeners had begun to cultivate the plant life here. To their right, a twisting length of yellow shalebark rose to waist height, like a railing. The stonelike plant was overgrown by small bunches of haspers with pearly shells slowly opening and closing as they breathed. They looked like tiny mouths, silently speaking in rhythm with one another. Dalinar and Navani’s pathway took a leisurely course up the hillside. Dalinar strolled with hands clasped behind his back. His honor guard and Navani’s clerks followed behind. A few of them looked perplexed at the amount of time Dalinar and Navani were spending with one another. How many of them suspected the truth? All? Part? None? Did it matter? “I didn’t mean to confuse you, all those years ago,” he said, voice soft to keep it from prying ears. “I had intended to court you, but Gavilar expressed a preference for you. So I eventually felt I had to step aside.” “Just like that?” Navani asked. She sounded offended. “He didn’t realize that I was interested. He thought that by introducing you to him, I was indicating that he should court you. That
was often how our relationship worked; I would discover people Gavilar should know, then bring them to him. I didn’t realize until too late what I had done in giving you to him.” “‘Giving’ me? Is there a slave’s brand on my forehead of which I’ve been unaware?” “I did not mean—” “Oh hush,” Navani said, her voice suddenly fond. Dalinar stifled a sigh; though Navani had matured since their youth, her moods always had changed as quickly as the seasons. In truth, that was part of her allure. “Did you often step aside for him?” Navani asked. “Always.” “Didn’t that grow tiresome?” “I didn’t think about it much,” Dalinar said. “When I did… yes, I was frustrated. But it was Gavilar. You know how he was. That force of will, that air of natural entitlement. It always seemed to surprise him when someone denied him or when the world itself didn’t do as he wished. He didn’t force me to defer—it was simply how life was.” Navani nodded in understanding. “Regardless,” Dalinar said, “I apologize for confusing you. I… well, I had difficulty letting go. I fear that—on occasion—I let too much of my true feelings slip out.” “Well, I suppose I can forgive that,” she said. “Though you did spend the next two de cades making certain I thought you hated me.” “I did nothing of the sort!” “Oh? And how else was I to interpret your coldness? The way you would often leave the room when I arrived?” “Containing myself,” Dalinar said. “I had made my decision.” “Well, it looked a lot like hatred,” Navani said. “Though I did wonder several times what you were hiding behind those stony eyes of yours. Of course, then Shshshsh came along.” As always, when the name of his wife was spoken, it came to him as the sound of softly rushing air, then slipped from his mind immediately. He could not hear, or remember, the name. “She changed everything,” Navani said. “You truly seemed to love her.” “I did,” Dalinar said. Surely he had loved her. Hadn’t he? He could remember nothing. “What was she like?” He quickly added, “I mean, in your opinion. How did you see her?” “Everyone loved Shshshsh,” Navani said. “I tried hard to hate her, but in the end, I could only be mildly jealous.” “You? Jealous of her? Whatever for?” “Because,” Navani said. “She fit you so well, never making inappropriate comments, never bullying those around her, always so calm.” Navani smiled. “Thinking back, I really should have been able to hate her. But she was just so nice. Though she wasn’t very… well…” “What?” Dalinar asked. “Clever,” Navani said. She blushed, which was rare for her. “I’m sorry, Dalinar, but she just wasn’t. She wasn’t a fool, but… well… not everyone can be cunning. Perhaps that was part of her charm.” She seemed to think that Dalinar would be offended. “It’s all right,” he said. “Were you surprised that I married her?” “Who could be surprised? As I said, she was perfect for you.” “Because
we were matched intellectually?” Dalinar said dryly. “Hardly. But you were matched in temperament. For a time, after I got over trying to hate her, I thought that the four of us could be quite close. But you were so stiff toward me.” “I could not allow any further… lapses to make you think that I was still interested.” He said the last part awkwardly. After all, wasn’t that what he was doing now? Lapsing? Navani eyed him. “There you go again.” “What?” “Feeling guilty. Dalinar, you are a wonderful, honorable man—but you really are quite prone to self-indulgence.” Guilt? As self-indulgence? “I never considered it that way before.” She smiled deeply. “What?” he asked. “You really are genuine, aren’t you, Dalinar?” “I try to be,” he said. He glanced over his shoulder. “Though the nature of our relationship continues to perpetuate a kind of lie.” “We’ve lied to nobody. Let them think, or guess, what they wish.” “I suppose you are right.” “I usually am.” She fell silent for a moment. “Do you regret what we have—” “No,” Dalinar said sharply, the strength of his objection surprising him. Navani just smiled. “No,” Dalinar continued, more gently. “I do not regret this, Navani. I don’t know how to proceed, but I am not going to let go.” Navani hesitated beside a growth of tiny, fist-size rockbuds with their vines out like long green tongues. They were grouped almost like a bouquet, growing on a large oval stone placed beside the pathway. “I suppose it’s too much to ask for you to not feel guilty,” Navani said. “Can’t you let yourself bend, just a little?” “I’m not certain if I can. Particularly not now. Explaining why would be difficult.” “Could you try to? For me?” “I… Well, I’m a man of extremes, Navani. I discovered that when I was a youth. I’ve learned, repeatedly, that the only way to control those extremes is to dedicate my life to something. First it was Gavilar. Now it’s the Codes and the teachings of Nohadon. They’re the means by which I bind myself. Like the enclosure of a fire, meant to contain and control it.” He took a deep breath. “I’m a weak man, Navani. I really am. If I give myself a few feet of leeway, I burst through all of my prohibitions. The momentum of following the Codes these years after Gavilar’s death is what keeps me strong. If I let a few cracks into that armor, I might return to the man I once was. A man I never want to be again.” A man who had contemplated murdering his own brother for the throne—and for the woman who had married that brother. But he couldn’t explain that, didn’t dare let Navani know what his desire for her had once almost driven him to do. On that day, Dalinar had sworn that he would never hold the throne himself. That was one of his restraints. Could he explain how she, without trying, pried at those restraints? How it was difficult to reconcile his
long-fermenting love for her with his guilt at finally taking for himself what he’d long ago given up for his brother? “You are not a weak man, Dalinar,” Navani said. “I am. But weakness can imitate strength if bound properly, just as cowardice can imitate heroism if given nowhere to flee.” “But there’s nothing in Gavilar’s book that prohibits us. It’s just tradition that—” “It feels wrong,” Dalinar said. “But please, don’t worry; I do enough worrying for both of us. I will find a way to make this work; I just ask your understanding. It will take time. When I display frustration, it is not with you, but with the situation.” “I suppose I can accept that. Assuming you can live with the rumors. They’re starting already.” “They won’t be the first rumors to plague me,” he said. “I’m starting to worry less about them and more about Elhokar. How will we explain to him?” “I doubt he’ll notice,” Navani said, snorting softly, resuming her walk. He followed. “He’s so fixated on the Parshendi and, occasionally, the idea that someone in camp is trying to kill him.” “This might feed into that,” Dalinar said. “He could read a number of conspiracies out of the two of us entering a relationship.” “Well, he—” Horns began sounding loudly from below. Dalinar and Navani stopped to listen and identify the call. “Stormfather,” Dalinar said. “That’s the Tower itself where a chasmfiend has been seen. It’s one of the plateaus Sadeas has been watching.” Dalinar felt a surge of excitement. “Highprinces have failed every time to win a gemheart there. It will be a major victory if he and I can do it together.” Navani looked troubled. “You’re right about him, Dalinar. We do need him for our cause. But keep him at arm’s length.” “Wish me the wind’s favor.” He reached toward her, but then stopped himself. What was he going to do? Embrace her here, in public? That would set off the rumors like fire across a pool of oil. He wasn’t ready for that yet. Instead, he bowed to her, then hastened off to answer the call and collect his Shardplate. It wasn’t until he was halfway down the path that he paused to consider Navani’s choice of words. She had said “We need him” for “our cause.” What was their cause? He doubted that Navani knew either. But she had already started to think of them as together in their eff orts. And, he realized, so did he. The horns called, such a pure and beautiful sound to signify the imminence of battle. It caused a frenzy in the lumberyard. The orders had come down. The Tower was to be assaulted again—the very place where Bridge Four had failed, the place where Kaladin had caused a disaster. Largest of the plateaus. Most coveted. Bridgemen ran this way and that for their vests. Carpenters and apprentices rushed out of the way. Matal shouted orders; an actual run was the only time he did that without Hashal. Bridgeleaders, showing a modicum of leadership,
bellowed for their teams to line up. A wind whipped the air, blowing wood chips and bits of dried grass into the sky. Men yelled, bells rang. And into this chaos strode Bridge Four, Kaladin at their head. Despite the urgency, soldiers stopped, bridgemen gaped, carpenters and apprentices stilled. Thirty-five men marched in rusty orange carapace armor, expertly crafted by Leyten to fit onto leather jerkins and caps. They’d cut off arm guards and shin guards to complement the breastplates. The helms were built from several different headpieces, and had been ornamented—at Leyten’s insistence—with ridges and cuts, like tiny horns or the edges of a crab’s shell. The breastplates and guards were ornamented as well, cut into toothlike patterns, each one reminiscent of a saw blade. Earless Jaks had bought blue and white paint and drawn designs across the orange armor. Each member of Bridge Four carried a large wooden shield strapped— tightly now—with red Parshendi bones. Ribs, for the most part, shaped in spiral patterns. Some of the men had tied finger bones to the centers so they would rattle, and others had attached protruding sharp ribs to the sides of their helms, giving them the look of fangs or mandibles. The onlookers watched with amazement. It wasn’t the first time they’d seen this armor, but this would be the first run where every man of Bridge Four had it. All together, it made an impressive sight. Ten days, with six bridge runs, had allowed Kaladin and his team to perfect their method. Five men to be decoys with five more in the front holding shields and using only one arm to support the bridge. Their numbers were augmented by the wounded they’d saved from other crews, now strong enough to help carry. So far—despite six bridge runs—there hadn’t been a single fatality. The other bridgemen were whispering about a miracle. Kaladin didn’t know about that. He just made certain to keep a full pouch of infused spheres with him at all times. Most of the Parshendi archers seemed to focus on him. Somehow, they could tell that he was the center of all this. They reached their bridge and formed up, shields strapped to rods on the sides to await use. As they hefted their bridge, a spontaneous round of cheering rose up from the other crews. “That’s new,” Teft said from Kaladin’s left. “Guess they finally realized what we are,” Kaladin said. “And what’s that?” Kaladin settled the bridge onto his shoulders. “We’re their champions. Bridge forward!” They broke into a trot, leading the way down from the staging yard, ushered by cheers. My father is not insane, Adolin thought, alive with energy and excitement as his armorers strapped on his Shardplate. Adolin had stewed over Navani’s revelation for days. He’d been wrong in such a horrible way. Dalinar Kholin wasn’t growing weak. He wasn’t getting senile. He wasn’t a coward. Dalinar had been right, and Adolin had been wrong. After much soul searching, Adolin had come to a decision. He was glad that he’d been wrong. He grinned,
flexing the fingers of his Plated hand as the armorers moved to his other side. He didn’t know what the visions meant, or what the implications of those visions would be. His father was some kind of prophet, and that was daunting to consider. But for now, it was enough that Dalinar was not insane. It was time to trust him. Stormfather knew, Dalinar had earned that right from his sons. The armorers finished with Adolin’s Shardplate. As they stepped away, Adolin hurried out of the armoring room into the sunlight, adjusting to the combined strength, speed, and weight of the Shardplate. Niter and five other members of the Cobalt Guard hastened up, one bringing Sureblood to him. Adolin took the reins, but led the Ryshadium at first, wanting more time to adapt to his Plate. They soon entered the staging area. Dalinar’s father, in his Shardplate, was conferring with Teleb and Ilamar. He seemed to tower over them as he pointed eastward. Already, companies of soldiers were moving out onto the lip of the Plains. Adolin strode up to his father, eager. In the near distance, he noticed a figure riding down along the eastern rim of the warcamps. The figure wore gleaming red Shardplate. “Father?” Adolin said, pointing. “What’s he doing here? Shouldn’t he be waiting for us to ride to his camp?” Dalinar looked up. He waved for a groom to bring Gallant, and the two of them mounted. They rode down to intercept Sadeas, trailed by a dozen members of the Cobalt Guard. Did Sadeas want to call off the assault? Was he worried about failing against the Tower again? Once they drew close, Dalinar pulled up. “You should be moving, Sadeas. Speed will be important, if we’re to get to the plateau before the Parshendi take the gemheart and go.” The highprince nodded. “Agreed, in part. But we need to confer first. Dalinar, this is the Tower we’re assaulting!” He seemed eager. “Yes, and?” “Damnation, man!” Sadeas said. “You’re the one who told me we needed to find a way to trap a large force of Parshendi on a plateau. The Tower is perfect. They always bring a large force there, and two sides are inaccessible.” Adolin found himself nodding. “Yes,” he said. “Father, he’s right. If we can box them in and hit them hard…” The Parshendi normally fled when they took large losses. That was one of the things extending the war so long. “It could mean a turning point in the war,” Sadeas said, eyes alight. “My scribes estimate that they have no more than twenty or thirty thousand troops left. The Parshendi will commit ten thousand here—they always do. But if we can corner and kill all of them, we could nearly destroy their ability to wage war on these Plains.” “It’ll work, Father,” Adolin said eagerly. “This could be what we’ve been waiting for—what you’ve been waiting for. A way to turn the war, a way to deal enough damage to the Parshendi that they can’t afford to keep fighting!” “We need
troops, Dalinar,” Sadeas said. “Lots of them. How many men could you field, at maximum?” “On short notice?” Dalinar said. “Eight thousand, perhaps.” “It will have to do,” Sadeas said. “I’ve managed to mobilize about seven thousand. We’ll bring them all. Get your eight thousand to my camp, and we’ll take every one of my bridge crews and march together. The Parshendi will get there first—it’s inevitable with a plateau that close to their side—but if we can be fast enough, we can corner them on the plateau. Then we’ll show them what a real Alethi army is capable of!” “I won’t risk lives on your bridges, Sadeas,” Dalinar said. “I don’t know that I can agree to a completely joint assault.” “Bah,” Sadeas said. “I’ve got a new way of using bridgemen, one that doesn’t use nearly as many lives. Their casualties have dropped to almost nothing.” “Really?” Dalinar said. “Is it because of those bridgemen with armor? What made you change?” Sadeas shrugged. “Perhaps you’re getting through to me. Regardless, we need to go now. Together. With as many troops as they’ll have, I can’t risk engaging them and waiting for you to catch up. I want to go together and assault as closely together as we can manage. If you’re still worried about the bridgemen, I can attack first and gain a foothold, then let you cross without risking bridgeman lives.” Dalinar looked thoughtful. Come on, Father, Adolin thought. You’ve been waiting for a chance to hit the Parshendi hard. This is it! “Very well,” Dalinar said. “Adolin, send messengers to mobilize the Fourth through Eighth Divisions. Prepare the men to march. Let’s end this war.” Several hours later, Dalinar stood with Sadeas on a rock formation overlooking the Tower itself. It had been a hard, long march. This was a distant plateau, as far eastward as they had ever struck. Plateaus beyond this point were impossible to take. The Parshendi could arrive so quickly that they had the gemheart out before the Alethi arrived. Sometimes that happened with the Tower as well. Dalinar searched. “I see it,” he said, pointing. “They don’t have the gemheart out yet!” A ring of Parshendi were pounding on the chrysalis. Its shell was like thick stone, however. It was still holding. “You should be glad you’re using my bridges, old friend.” Sadeas shaded his face with a gauntleted hand. “Those chasms might be too wide for a Shardbearer to jump.” Dalinar nodded. The Tower was enormous; even its huge size on the maps didn’t do it justice. Unlike other plateaus, it wasn’t level—instead, it was shaped like an enormous wedge that dipped toward the west, pointing a large cliff face in the stormward direction. It was too steep—and the chasms too wide—to approach from the east or south. Only three adjacent plateaus could provide staging areas for assaults, all along the western or northwestern side. The chasms between these plateaus were unusually large, almost too wide for the bridges to span. On the nearby staging plateaus, thousands upon thousands of soldiers in
blue or red were gathered, one color per plateau. Combined, they made for a larger force than Dalinar had ever seen brought against the Parshendi. The Parshendi numbers were as large as anticipated. There were at least ten thousand of them lining up. This would be a full-scale battle, the kind Dalinar had been hoping for, the kind that would let them pit a huge number of Alethi against a large Parshendi force. This could be it. The turning point in the war. Win this day, and everything would change. Dalinar shaded his eyes as well, helm under his arm. He noted with satisfaction that Sadeas’s scouting crews were crossing to adjacent plateaus where they could watch for Parshendi reinforcements. Just because the Parshendi had brought so many at first didn’t mean that there were no other Parshendi forces waiting to flank them. Dalinar and Sadeas wouldn’t be taken by surprise again. “Come with me,” Sadeas said. “Let us assault them together! A single grand wave of attack, across forty bridges!” Dalinar looked down at the bridge crews; many of their members were lying exhausted on the plateau. Awaiting—likely dreading—their next task. Very few of them wore the armor Sadeas had spoken of. Hundreds of them would be slaughtered in the assault if they attacked together. But was that any different from what Dalinar did, asking his men to charge into battle to seize the plateau? Weren’t they all part of the same army? The cracks. He couldn’t let them get wider. If he was going to be with Navani, he had to prove to himself he could remain firm in the other areas. “No,” he said. “I will attack, but only after you’ve made a landing point for my bridge crews. Even that is more than I should allow. Never force your men to do as you yourself would not.” “You do charge the Parshendi!” “I’d never do it carrying one of those bridges,” Dalinar said. “I’m sorry, old friend. It’s not a judgment of you. It is what I must do.” Sadeas shook his head, pulling on his helmet. “Well, it will have to do. We still planning on dining together tonight to discuss strategy?” “I assume so. Unless Elhokar has a fit for both of us missing his feast.” Sadeas snorted. “He’s going to have to grow accustomed to it. Six years of feasting every night is growing tedious. Besides, I doubt he’ll feel anything but elation after we win this day and leave the Parshendi down a full third of their soldiers. See you on the battlefield.” Dalinar nodded and Sadeas jumped off the rock formation, dropping down to the surface below and joining his officers. Dalinar lingered, looking over at the Tower. It was not only larger than most plateaus, it was rougher, covered with lumpish rock formations of hardened crem. The patterns were rolling and smooth, yet very uneven—like a field full of short walls covered by a blanket of snow. The southeastern tip of the plateau rose to a point overlooking the Plains. The two
plateaus they’d use were on the middle of the west side; Sadeas would take the northern one and Dalinar would assault from one just below it, once Sadeas had cleared a landing for him. We need to push the Parshendi to the southeast, Dalinar thought, rubbing his chin, corner them there. Everything hinged on that. The chrysalis was up near the top, so the Parshendi were already situated in a good position for Dalinar and Sadeas to push them back against the cliff edge. The Parshendi would probably allow this, as it would give them the high ground. If a second Parshendi army came, it would be separated from the others. The Alethi could focus on the Parshendi trapped atop the Tower while holding a defensive formation against the new arrivals. It would work. He felt himself growing excited. He hopped down to a shorter outcropping, then walked down a few steplike clefts to reach the plateau floor, where his officers waited. He then rounded the rock formation, investigating Adolin’s progress. The young man stood in his Shardplate, directing the companies as they crossed Sadeas’s mobile bridges onto the southern staging plateau. In the near distance, Sadeas’s men were forming up for the assault. That group of armored bridgemen stood out, preparing at the front center of the formation of bridge crews. Why were they allowed armor? Why not the others as well? It looked like Parshendi carapace. Dalinar shook his head. The assault began, bridge crews running out ahead of Sadeas’s army, approaching the Tower first. “Where would you like to make our assault, Father?” Adolin asked, summoning his Shardblade and resting it on his pauldron, sharp side up. “There,” Dalinar said, pointing to a spot on their staging plateau. “Get the men ready.” Adolin nodded, shouting the orders. In the distance, bridgemen began to die. Heralds guide your paths, you poor men, Dalinar thought. As well as my own. Kaladin danced with the wind. Arrows streamed around him, passing close, nearly kissing him with their painted scragglebark fletching. He had to let them get close, had to make the Parshendi feel they were near to killing him. Despite four other bridgemen drawing their attention, despite the other men of Bridge Four behind armored with the skeletons of fallen Parshendi, most of the archers focused on Kaladin. He was a symbol. A living banner to destroy. Kaladin spun between arrows, slapping them away with his shield. A storm raged inside him, as if his blood had been sucked away and replaced with stormwinds. It made his fingertips tingle with energy. Ahead, the Parshendi sang their angry, chanting song. The song for one who blasphemed against their dead. Kaladin stayed at the front of the decoys, letting the arrows fall close. Daring them. Taunting them. Demanding they kill him until the arrows stopped falling and the wind stilled. Kaladin came to rest, breath held to contain the storm within. The Parshendi reluctantly fell back before Sadeas’s force. An enormous force, as far as plateau assaults went. Thousands of men and thirty-two bridges.
Despite Kaladin’s distraction, five bridges had been dropped, the men carrying them slaughtered. None of the soldiers rushing across the chasm had made any specific eff ort to attack the archers firing on Kaladin, but the weight of numbers had forced them away. A few gave Kaladin loathing gazes, making an odd gesture by cupping a hand to the right ear and pointing at him before finally retreating. Kaladin released his breath, Stormlight pulsing away from him. He had to walk a very fine line, drawing in enough Stormlight to stay alive, but not so much that it was visible to the watching soldiers. The Tower rose ahead of him, a slab of stone that dipped toward the west. The chasm was so wide that he’d worried the men would drop the bridge into the chasm as they tried to place it. On the other side, Sadeas had arrayed his forces in a cupping shape, pushing the Parshendi back away, trying to give Dalinar an opening. Perhaps attacking this way served to protect Dalinar’s pristine image. He wouldn’t make bridgemen die. Not directly, at least. Never mind that he stood on the backs of the men who had fallen to get Sadeas across. Their corpses were his true bridge. “Kaladin!” a voice called from behind. Kaladin spun. One of his men was wounded. Storm it! he thought, dashing up to Bridge Four. There was enough Stormlight still pulsing in his veins to stave off exhaustion. He’d grown complacent. Six bridge runs without a casualty. He should have realized it couldn’t last. He pushed through the collected bridgemen to find Skar on the ground, holding his foot, red blood seeping between his fingers. “Arrow in the foot,” Skar said through gritted teeth. “In the storming foot! Who gets hit in the foot?” “Kaladin!” Moash’s voice said, urgent. The bridgemen split as Moash brought Teft in, an arrow sprouting from his shoulder between carapace breastplate and arm. “Storm it!” Kaladin said, helping Moash set Teft down. The older bridgeman looked dazed. The arrow had dug deep into the muscle. “Somebody get pressure on Skar’s foot and wrap it until I can look at it. Teft, can you hear me?” “I’m sorry, lad,” Teft mumbled, eyes glassy. “I’m…” “You’re all right,” Kaladin said, hurriedly taking some bandages from Lopen, then nodding grimly. Lopen would heat a knife for cauterizing. “Who else?” “Everyone else is accounted for,” Drehy said. “Teft was trying to hide his wound. He must have taken it when we were shoving the bridge across.” Kaladin pressed gauze against the wound, then gestured for Lopen to hurry with the heated knife. “I want our scouts watching. Make sure the Parshendi don’t try a stunt like they did a few weeks back! If they jump across that plateau to get at Bridge Four, we’re dead.” “Is all right,” Rock said, shading his eyes. “Sadeas is keeping his men in this area. No Parshendi will get through.” The knife came, and Kaladin held it hesitantly, a curl of smoke rising from its length. Teft had
lost too much blood; there was no risking a sewing. But with the twist of the knife, Kaladin risked some bad scarring. That could leave the aging bridgeman with a stiff ness that would hurt his ability to wield a spear. Reluctantly, Kaladin pressed the knife into the wound, the flesh hissing and blood drying to black crisps. Painspren wiggled out of the ground, sinewy and orange. In a surgery, you could sew. But on the field, this was often the only way. “I’m sorry, Teft.” He shook his head as he continued to work. Men began to scream. Arrows hit wood and flesh, sounding like distant woodsmen swinging axes. Dalinar waited beside his men, watching Sadeas’s soldiers fight. He had better give us an opening, he thought. I’m starting to hunger for this plateau. Fortunately, Sadeas quickly gained his footing on the Tower and sent a flanking force over to carve out a section of land for Dalinar. They didn’t get entirely into place before Dalinar started moving. “One of you bridges, come with me!” he bellowed, barreling to the forefront. He was followed by one of the eight bridge teams Sadeas had lent him. Dalinar needed to get onto that plateau. The Parshendi had noticed what was happening and had begun to put pressure on the small company in green and white that Sadeas had sent to defend his entry area. “Bridge crew, there!” Dalinar said, pointing. The bridgemen hustled into place, looking relieved that they wouldn’t be asked to place their bridge under fire of arrows. As soon as they got it into position, Dalinar charged across, the Cobalt Guard following. Just ahead, Sadeas’s men broke. Dalinar bellowed, closing his gauntleted hands around Oathbringer’s hilt as the sword formed from mist. He crashed into the surging Parshendi line with a wide, two-handed sweep that dropped four men. The Parshendi began to chant in their strange language, singing their war song. Dalinar kicked a corpse aside and began to attack in earnest, frantically defending the foothold Sadeas’s men had gained him. Within minutes, his soldiers surged around him. With the Cobalt Guard watching his back, Dalinar waded into the battle, breaking enemy ranks as only a Shardbearer could. He tore pockets through the Parshendi front lines, like a fish leaping from a stream, cutting back and forth, keeping his enemies disorganized. Corpses with burned eyes and slashed clothing made a trail behind him. More and more Alethi troops filled in the holes. Adolin crashed through a group of Parshendi nearby, his own squad of Cobalt Guardsmen a safe distance behind. He brought his whole army across—he needed to ascend quickly, pinning the Parshendi back so they couldn’t escape. Sadeas was to watch the northern and western edges of the Tower. The rhythm of the battle sang to Dalinar. The Parshendi chanting, the soldiers grunting and yelling, the Shardblade in his hands and the surging power of the Plate. The Thrill rose within him. Since the nausea didn’t strike him, he carefully let the Blackthorn free, and felt the joy of
dominating a battlefield and the disappointment at lacking a worthy foe. Where were the Parshendi Shardbearers? He had seen that one in battle weeks ago. Why had he not reappeared? Would they commit so many men to the Tower without sending a Shardbearer? Something heavy hit his armor, banging off it, causing a small puff of Stormlight to escape between the joints along his upper arm. Dalinar cursed, raising an arm to protect his face while scanning the near distance. There, he thought, picking out a nearby rock formation where a group of Parshendi stood swinging enormous rock slings with two hands. The head-size stones crashed into Parshendi and Alethi alike, though Dalinar was obviously the target. He growled as another one hit, smashing against his forearm, sending a soft jolt through the Shardplate. The blow was strong enough to send a small array of cracks through his right vambrace. Dalinar growled and threw himself into a Plate-enhanced run. The Thrill surged more strongly through him, and he rammed his shoulder into a group of Parshendi, scattering them, then spun with his Blade and cut down those too slow to get out of his way. He dodged to the side as a hail of stones fell where he’d been standing, then leaped onto a low boulder. He took two steps and jumped for the ledge where the rock-throwers were standing. He grabbed its edge with one hand, holding his Blade with the other. The men atop the small ridge stumbled back, but Dalinar heaved himself up just high enough to swing. Oathbringer cut at their legs, and four men tumbled to the ground, feet dead. Dalinar dropped the Blade—it vanished—and used both hands to heave himself onto the ridge. He landed in a crouch, Plate clanking. Several of the remaining Parshendi tried to swing their slings, but Dalinar grabbed a pair of head-size stones from a pile—easily palming them in his gauntleted hands—and flung them at the Parshendi. The stones hit with enough force to toss the slingmen off the formation, crushing their chests. Dalinar smiled, then began throwing more stones. As the last Parshendi fell off the ledge, Dalinar spun, summoning Oathbringer and looking over the battlefield. A spear wall of blue and reflective steel struggled against black and red Parshendi. Dalinar’s men did well, pressing the Parshendi up to the southeast, where they would be trapped. Adolin led this eff ort, Shardplate gleaming. Breathing deeply from the Thrill now, Dalinar held his Shardblade up above his head, reflecting sunlight. Below, his men cheered, sending up calls that rose above the Parshendi war chant. Gloryspren sprouted around him. Stormfather, but it felt good to be winning again. He threw himself off the rock formation, for once not taking the slow and careful way down. He fell amid a group of Parshendi, crashing to the stones, blue Stormlight rising from his armor. He spun, slaying, remembering years spent fighting alongside Gavilar. Winning, conquering. He and Gavilar had created something during those years. A solidified, cohesive nation out of something fractured. Like master
potters reconstructing a fine ceramic that had been dropped. With a roar, Dalinar cut through the line of Parshendi, to where the Cobalt Guard was fighting to catch up to him. “We press them!” he bellowed. “Pass the word! All companies up the side of the Tower!” Soldiers raised spears and runners went to deliver his orders. Dalinar spun and charged into the Parshendi, pushing himself—and his army— forward. To the north, Sadeas’s forces were stalled. Well, Dalinar’s force would do the work for him. If Dalinar could spear forward here, he could slice the Parshendi in half, then crush the northern side against Sadeas and the southern side against the cliff edge. His army surged forward behind him, and the Thrill bubbled within. It was power. Strength greater than Shardplate. Vitality greater than youth. Skill greater than a lifetime of practice. A fever of power. Parshendi after Parshendi fell before his Blade. He couldn’t cut their flesh, yet he sheared through their ranks. The momentum of their attacks often carried their corpses stumbling past him even as their eyes burned. The Parshendi started to break, running away or falling back. He grinned behind his near-translucent visor. This was life. This was control. Gavilar had been the leader, the momentum, and the essence of their conquest. But Dalinar had been the warrior. Their opponents had surrendered to Gavilar’s rule, but the Blackthorn—he was the man who had scattered them, the one who had dueled their leaders and slain their best Shardbearers. Dalinar screamed at the Parshendi, and their entire line bent, then shattered. The Alethi surged forward, cheering. Dalinar joined his men, charging at their forefront to run down the fleeing Parshendi warpairs as they fled to the north or south, trying to join larger groups who held there. He reached a pair. One turned to hold him off with a hammer, but Dalinar cut him down in passing, then grabbed the other Parshendi and threw him down with a twist of the arm. Grinning, Dalinar raised his Blade high over his head, looming over the soldier. The Parshendi rolled awkwardly, holding his arm, no doubt shattered as he was thrown down. He looked up at Dalinar, terrified, fearspren appearing around him. He was only a youth. Dalinar froze, Blade held above his head, muscles taut. Those eyes… that face… Parshendi might not be human, but their features—their expressions—were the same. Save for the marbled skin and the strange growths of carapace armor, this boy could have been a groom in Dalinar’s stable. What did he see above him? A faceless monster in impervious armor? What was this youth’s story? He would only have been a boy when Gavilar had been assassinated. Dalinar stumbled backward, the Thrill vanishing. One of the Cobalt Guardsmen passed by, casually ramming a sword into the Parshendi boy’s neck. Dalinar raised a hand, but it was over too quickly for him to stop. The soldier didn’t notice Dalinar’s gesture. Dalinar lowered his hand. His men were rushing around him, rolling over the fleeing Parshendi. The majority of
the Parshendi still fought, resisting Sadeas on one side and Dalinar’s force on the other. The eastern plateau edge was just a short distance to Dalinar’s right—he had come up against the Parshendi force like a spear, slicing it through the center, splitting it off to the north and south. Around him lay the dead. Many of them had fallen face-down, taken in the back by spears or arrows from Dalinar’s forces. Some Parshendi were still alive, though dying. They hummed or whispered to themselves a strange, haunting song. The one they sang as they waited to die. Their whispered songs rose like the curses of spirits on Soul’s March. Dalinar had always found the death song the most beautiful of all he had heard from the Parshendi. It seemed to cut through the grunts, clangs, and screams of the nearby battle. As always, each Parshendi’s song was in perfect time with that of his fellows. It was as if they could all hear the same melody somewhere far away, singing along through sputtering, bloodied lips, with rasping breath. The Codes, Dalinar thought, turning toward his fighting men. Never ask of your men a sacrifice you wouldn’t make yourself. Never make them fight in conditions you would refuse to fight in yourself. Never ask a man to perform an act you wouldn’t soil your own hands doing. He felt sick. This wasn’t beautiful. This wasn’t glorious. This wasn’t strength, power, or life. This was revolting, repellent, and ghastly. But they killed Gavilar! he thought, searching for a way to overcome the sickness he suddenly felt. Unite them…. Roshar had been united, once. Had that included the Parshendi? You don’t know if you can trust the visions or not, he told himself, his honor guard forming up behind him. They could be from the Nightwatcher or the Voidbringers. Or something else entirely. In that moment, the objections felt weak. What had the visions wanted him to do? Bring peace to Alethkar, unite his people, act with justice and honor. Could he not judge the visions based on those results? He raised his Shardblade to his shoulder, walking solemnly among the fallen toward the northern line, where the Parshendi were trapped between his men and Sadeas’s. His sickness grew stronger. What was happening to him? “Father!” Adolin’s shout was frantic. Dalinar turned toward his son, who was running to him. The young man’s Plate was sprayed with Parshendi blood, but as always his Blade gleamed. “What do we do?” Adolin asked, panting. “About what?” Dalinar asked. Adolin turned, pointing to the west—toward the plateau south of the one from which Dalinar’s army had begun their assault over an hour ago. There, leaping across the wide chasm, was an enormous second army of Parshendi. Dalinar slammed his visor up, fresh air washing across his sweaty face. He stepped forward. He’d anticipated this possibility, but someone should have given warning. Where were the scouts? What was— He felt a chill. Shaking, he scrambled toward one of the smooth, bulging formations of rock that were plentiful on
the Tower. “Father?” Adolin said, running after him. Dalinar climbed, seeking the top of the formation, dropping his Shardblade. He crested the rise and stood looking northward over his troops and the Parshendi. Northward, toward Sadeas. Adolin climbed up beside him, gauntleted hand slapping up his visor. “Oh no…” he whispered. Sadeas’s army was retreating across the chasm to the northern staging plateau. Half of it was across already. The eight groups of bridgemen he’d lent Dalinar had pulled back and were gone. Sadeas was abandoning Dalinar and his troops, leaving them surrounded on three sides by Parshendi, alone on the Shattered Plains. And he was taking all of his bridges with him. Kaladin wearily unwrapped Skar’s wound to inspect his stitches and change the bandage. The arrow had hit on the right side of the ankle, deflecting off the knob of the fibula and scraping down through the muscles on the side of the foot. “You were very lucky, Skar,” Kaladin said, putting on the new bandage. “You’ll walk on this again, assuming you do not put weight on it until it’s healed. We’ll have some of the men carry you back to camp.” Behind them, the screaming, pounding, pulsing battle raged on. The fighting was distant now, focused on the eastern edge of the plateau. To Kaladin’s right, Teft drank as Lopen poured water into his mouth. The older man scowled, taking the waterskin from Lopen with his good hand. “I’m not an invalid,” he snapped. He’d gotten over his initial dizziness, though he was weak. Kaladin sat back, feeling drained. When Stormlight faded away, it left him exhausted. That should pass soon; it had been over an hour since the initial assault. He carried a few more infused spheres in his pouch; he forced himself to resist the urge to suck in their Light. He stood up, meaning to gather some men to carry Moash and Teft toward the far side of the plateau, just in case the battle went poorly and they had to retreat. That wasn’t likely; the Alethi soldiers had been doing well the last time he’d checked. He scanned the battlefield again. What he saw made him freeze. Sadeas was retreating. At first, it seemed so impossible that Kaladin couldn’t accept it. Was Sadeas bringing his men around to attack in another direction? But no, the rear guard was already across the bridges, and Sadeas’s banner was approaching. Was the highprince wounded? “Drehy, Leyten, grab Skar. Rock and Peet, you take Teft. Hustle to the western side of the plateau in preparation to flee. The rest of you, get into bridge positions.” The men, only now noticing what was going on, responded with anxiety. “Moash, you’re with me,” Kaladin said, hastening toward their bridge. Moash hurried up beside Kaladin. “What’s going on?” “Sadeas is pulling out,” Kaladin said, watching the tide of Sadeas’s men in green slide away from the Parshendi lines like wax melting. “There’s no reason to. The battle’s barely begun, and his forces were winning. I can only think that Sadeas must
have been wounded.” “Why would they withdraw the entire army for that?” Moash said. “You don’t think he is…” “His banner still flies,” Kaladin said. “So he’s probably not dead. Unless they left it up to keep the men from panicking.” He and Moash reached the side of the bridge. Behind, the rest of the crew hastened to form a line. Matal was on the other side of the chasm, speaking with the commander of the rear guard. After a quick exchange, Matal crossed and began to run down the line of bridge crews, calling for them to prepare to carry. He glanced at Kaladin’s team, but saw they were already ready, and so hurried on. To Kaladin’s right, on the adjacent plateau—the one where Dalinar had launched his assault—the eight lent bridge crews pulled away from the battlefield, crossing over to Kaladin’s plateau. A lighteyed officer Kaladin didn’t recognize was giving them orders. Beyond them, farther to the southwest, a new Parshendi force had arrived, and was pouring onto the Tower. Sadeas rode up to the chasm. The paint on his Shardplate gleamed in the sun; it didn’t bear a single scratch. In fact, his entire honor guard was unharmed. Though they had gone over to the Tower, they had disengaged the enemy and come back. Why? And then Kaladin saw it. Dalinar Kholin’s force, fighting on the upper middle slope of the wedge, was now surrounded. This new Parshendi force was flooding into sections that Sadeas had held, supposedly protecting Dalinar’s retreat. “They’re abandoning him!” Kaladin said. “This was a trap. A setup. Sadeas is leaving Highprince Kholin—and all of his soldiers—to die.” Kaladin scrambled around the end of the bridge, pushing through the soldiers who were coming off it. Moash cursed and followed. Kaladin wasn’t certain why he elbowed his way up to the next bridge— bridge ten—where Sadeas was crossing. Perhaps he needed to see for certain that Sadeas wasn’t wounded. Perhaps he was still stunned. This was treachery on a grand scale, terrible enough that it made Amaram’s betrayal of Kaladin seem almost trivial. Sadeas trotted his horse across the bridge, the wood clattering. He was accompanied by two lighteyed men in regular armor, and all three had their helms under their arms, as if they were on parade. The honor guard stopped Kaladin, looking hostile. He was still close enough to see that Sadeas was, indeed, completely unharmed. He was also close enough to study Sadeas’s proud face as he turned his horse and looked back at the Tower. The second Parshendi army swarmed Kholin’s army, trapping them. Even without that, Kholin had no bridges. He could not retreat. “I told you, old friend,” Sadeas said, voice soft but distinct, overlapping the distant screams. “I said that honor of yours would get you killed someday.” He shook his head. Then he turned his horse, trotting it away from the battlefield. Dalinar cut down a Parshendi warpair. There was always another to replace it. He set his jaw, falling into Windstance and taking the defensive, holding his
little rise in the hillside and acting as a rock over which the oncoming Parshendi wave would have to break. Sadeas had planned this retreat well. His men hadn’t been having trouble; they’d been ordered to fight in a way that they could easily disengage. And he had a full forty bridges to retreat across. Together, that made his abandonment of Dalinar happen quickly, by the scale of battles. Though Dalinar had immediately ordered his men to push forward, hoping to catch Sadeas while the bridges were still set, he hadn’t been nearly quick enough. Sadeas’s bridges were pulling away, the entirety of his army now across. Adolin fought nearby. They were two tired men in Plate facing an entire army. Their armor had accumulated a frightening number of cracks. None were critical yet, but they did leak precious Stormlight. Wisps of it rose like the songs of dying Parshendi. “I warned you not to trust him!” Adolin bellowed as he fought, cutting down a pair of Parshendi, then taking a wave of arrows from a team of archers who had set up nearby. The arrows sprayed against Adolin’s armor, scratching the paint. One caught in a crack, widening it. “I told you,” Adolin continued to yell, lowering his arm from his face and slicing into the next pair of Parshendi just before they landed their hammers on him. “I said he was an eel!” “I know!” Dalinar yelled back. “We walked right into this,” Adolin continued, shouting as if he hadn’t heard Dalinar. “We let him take away our bridges. We let him get us onto the plateau before the second wave of Parshendi arrived. We let him control the scouts. We even suggested the attack pattern that would leave us surrounded if he didn’t support us!” “I know.” Dalinar’s heart twisted inside of him. Sadeas was carrying out a premeditated, carefully planned, and very thorough betrayal. Sadeas hadn’t been overwhelmed, hadn’t retreated for safety—though that was undoubtedly what he would claim when he got back to camp. A disaster, he’d say. Parshendi everywhere. Attacking together had upset the balance, and—unfortunately—he’d been forced to pull out and leave his friend. Oh, perhaps some of Sadeas’s men would talk, tell the truth, and other highprinces would undoubtedly know what really happened. But nobody would challenge Sadeas openly. Not after such a decisive and powerful maneuver. The people in the warcamps would go along with it. The other highprinces were too displeased with Dalinar to raise a fuss. The only one who might speak up was Elhokar, and Sadeas had his ear. It wrenched Dalinar’s heart. Had it all been an act? Could he really have misjudged Sadeas so completely? What of the investigation clearing Dalinar? What of their plans and reminiscences? All lies? I saved your life, Sadeas. Dalinar watched Sadeas’s banner retreat across the staging plateau. Among that distant group, a rider who wore crimson Shardplate turned and looked back. Sadeas, watching Dalinar fighting for his life. That figure paused for a moment, then turned around and rode on. The Parshendi
were surrounding the forward position where Dalinar and Adolin fought just ahead of the army. They were overwhelming his guard. He jumped down and slew another pair of enemies, but earned another blow to his forearm in the process. The Parshendi swarmed around him, and Dalinar’s guard began to buckle. “Pull away!” he yelled at Adolin, then began to back toward the army proper. The youth cursed, but did as ordered. Dalinar and Adolin retreated back behind the front line of defense. Dalinar pulled off his cracked helm, panting. He’d been fighting nonstop long enough to get winded, despite his Shardplate. He let one of the guardsmen hand him a waterskin, and Adolin did the same. Dalinar squirted the warm water into his mouth and across his face. It had the metallic taste of stormwater. Adolin lowered his waterskin, swishing the water in his mouth. He met Dalinar’s eyes, his face haunted and grim. He knew. Just as Dalinar did. Just as the men likely did. There would be no surviving this battle. The Parshendi left no survivors. Dalinar braced himself, waiting for further accusations from Adolin. The boy had been right all along. And whatever the visions were, they had misled Dalinar in at least one respect. Trusting Sadeas had brought them to doom. Men died just a short distance away, screaming and cursing. Dalinar longed to fight, but he needed to rest himself. Losing a Shardbearer because of fatigue would not serve his men. “Well?” Dalinar demanded of Adolin. “Say it. I have led us to destruction.” “I—” “This is my fault,” Dalinar said. “I should never have risked our house for those foolish dreams.” “No,” Adolin said. He sounded surprised at himself for saying it. “No, Father. It’s not your fault.” Dalinar stared at his son. That was not what he’d expected to hear. “What would you have done differently?” Adolin asked. “Would you stop trying to make something better of Alethkar? Would you become like Sadeas and the others? No. I wouldn’t have you become that man, Father, regardless of what it would gain us. I wish to the Heralds that we hadn’t let Sadeas trick us into this, but I will not blame you for his deceit.” Adolin reached over, gripping Dalinar’s Plate-covered arm. “You are right to follow the Codes. You were right to try to unite Alethkar. And I was a fool for fighting you on it every step along the path. Perhaps if I hadn’t spent so much time distracting you, we would have seen this day coming.” Dalinar blinked, dumbfounded. This was Adolin speaking those words? What had changed in the boy? And why did he speak these words now, at the dawn of Dalinar’s greatest failure? And yet, as the words hung in the air, Dalinar felt his guilt evaporating, blown away by the screams of the dying. It was a selfish emotion. Would he have had himself change? Yes, he could have been more cautious. He could have been warier of Sadeas. But would he have given up on the Codes?
Would he have become the same pitiless killer he’d been as a youth? No. Did it matter that the visions had been wrong about Sadeas? Was he ashamed of the man that they, and the readings from the book, had made him become? The final piece fell into place inside of him, the final cornerstone, and he found that he was no longer worried. The confusion was gone. He knew what to do, at long last. No more questions. No more uncertainty. He reached up, gripping Adolin’s arm. “Thank you.” Adolin nodded curtly. He was still angry, Dalinar could see, but he chose to follow Dalinar—and part of following a leader was supporting him even when the battle turned against him. Then they released one another and Dalinar turned to the soldiers around them. “It is time for us to fight,” he said, voice growing louder. “And we do so not because we seek the glory of men, but because the other options are worse. We follow the Codes not because they bring gain, but because we loathe the people we would otherwise become. We stand here on this battlefield alone because of who we are.” The members of the Cobalt Guard standing in a ring began to turn, one at a time, looking toward him. Beyond them, reserve soldiers—lighteyed and dark—gathered closer, eyes terrified, but faces resolute. “Death is the end of all men!” Dalinar bellowed. “What is the measure of him once he is gone? The wealth he accumulated and left for his heirs to squabble over? The glory he obtained, only to be passed on to those who slew him? The lofty positions he held through happenstance? “No. We fight here because we understand. The end is the same. It is the path that separates men. When we taste that end, we will do so with our heads held high, eyes to the sun.” He held out a hand, summoning Oathbringer. “I am not ashamed of what I have become,” he shouted, and found it to be true. It felt so strange to be free of guilt. “Other men may debase themselves to destroy me. Let them have their glory. For I will retain mine!” The Shardblade formed, dropping into his hand. The men did not cheer, but they did stand taller, straight-backed. A little of the terror retreated. Adolin shoved his helm on, his own Blade appearing in his hand, coated in condensation. He nodded. Together they charged back into the battle. And so I die, Dalinar thought, crashing into the Parshendi ranks. There he found peace. An unexpected emotion on the field of battle, but all the more welcome for that. He did, however, discover one regret: He was leaving poor Renarin as Kholin highprince, in over his head and surrounded by enemies grown fat on the flesh of his father and brother. I never did deliver that Shardplate I promised him, Dalinar thought. He will have to make his way without it. Honor of our ancestors protect you, son. Stay strong—and learn wisdom more quickly than
your father did. Farewell. Bridge Four lagged behind the rest of the army. With two wounded and four men needed to carry them, the bridge weighed them down. Fortunately, Sadeas had brought nearly every bridge crew on this run, including eight to lend to Dalinar. That meant the army didn’t need to wait for Kaladin’s team in order to cross. Exhaustion saturated Kaladin, and the bridge on his shoulders seemed made of stone. He hadn’t felt so tired since his first days as a bridgeman. Syl hovered in front of him, watching with concern as he marched at the head of his men, sweat drenching the sides of his face, struggling over the uneven ground of the plateau. Ahead, the last of Sadeas’s army was bunched along the chasm, crossing. The staging plateau was nearly empty. The sheer awful audacity of what Sadeas had done twisted at Kaladin’s insides. He thought what had been done to him had been horrible. But here, Sadeas callously condemned thousands of men, lighteyed and dark. Supposed allies. That betrayal seemed to weigh as heavy on Kaladin as the bridge itself. It pressed on him, made him gasp for breath. Was there no hope for men? They killed those they should have loved. What good was it to fight, what good was it to win, if there was no difference between ally and enemy? What was victory? Meaningless. What did the deaths of Kaladin’s friends and colleagues mean? Nothing. The entire world was a pustule, sickeningly green and infested with corruption. Numb, Kaladin and the others reached the chasm, though they were too late to help with the transfer. The men he’d sent ahead were there, Teft looking grim, Skar leaning on a spear to support his wounded leg. A small group of dead spearmen lay nearby. Sadeas’s soldiers retrieved their wounded, when possible, but some died as they were helped along. They’d abandoned some of those here; Sadeas was obviously in a hurry to leave the scene. The dead had been left with their equipment. Skar had probably gotten his crutch there. Some poor bridge crew would have to cross all the way back here at a later date to salvage from these, and from Dalinar’s fallen. They set their bridge down, and Kaladin wiped his brow. “Don’t place the bridge across the chasm,” he told the men. “We’ll wait until the last of the soldiers have crossed, then carry it over on one of the other bridges.” Matal eyed Kaladin and his team, but didn’t order them to set their bridge. He realized that by the time they got it into position, they’d have to pull it up again. “Isn’t that a sight?” Moash said, stepping up beside Kaladin, looking back. Kaladin turned. The Tower rose behind them, sloped in their direction. Kholin’s army was a circle of blue, trapped in the middle of the slope after trying to push down and get to Sadeas before he left. The Parshendi were a dark swarm with specks of red from their marbled skins. They pressed at
the Alethi ring, compressing it. “Such a shame,” Drehy said from beside their bridge, sitting on its lip. “Makes me sick.” Other bridgemen nodded, and Kaladin was surprised to see the concern in their faces. Rock and Teft joined Kaladin and Moash, all wearing their Parshendi-carapace armor. He was glad they’d left Shen back in the camp. He’d have been catatonic at the sight of it all. Teft cradled his wounded arm. Rock raised a hand to shade his eyes and shook his head, looking eastward. “Is a shame. A shame to Sadeas. A shame to us.” “Bridge Four,” Matal called. “Come on!” Matal was waving for them to cross Bridge Six’s bridge and leave the staging plateau. An idea came to Kaladin suddenly. A fantastic idea, like a blooming rockbud in his mind. “We’ll follow with our own bridge, Matal,” Kaladin called. “We only just got to the chasm. We need to sit for a few minutes.” “Cross now!” Matal yelled. “We’ll just fall further behind!” Kaladin retorted. “You want to explain to Sadeas why he has to hold the entire army for one miserable bridge crew? We’ve got our bridge. Let my men rest. We’ll catch up to you later.” “And if those savages come after you?” Matal demanded. Kaladin shrugged. Matal blinked, then seemed to realize how badly he wanted that to happen. “Suit yourself,” he called, rushing across bridge six as the other bridges were pulled up. In seconds, Kaladin’s team was alone beside the chasm, the army retreating westward. Kaladin smiled broadly. “I can’t believe it, after all that worrying… Men, we’re free!” The others turned to him, confused. “We’ll follow in a short while,” Kaladin said eagerly, “and Matal will assume we’re coming. We fall farther and farther behind the army, until we’re out of sight. Then we’ll turn north, use the bridge to cross the Plains. We can escape northward, and everyone will just assume the Parshendi caught us and slaughtered us!” The other bridgemen regarded him with wide eyes. “Supplies,” Teft said. “We have these spheres,” Kaladin said, pulling out his pouch. “A wealth of them, right here. We can take the armor and weapons from the dead over there and use those to defend ourselves from bandits. It will be hard, but we won’t be chased!” The men were starting to grow excited. However, something gave Kaladin pause. What of the wounded bridgemen back in the camp? “I’ll have to stay behind,” Kaladin said. “What?” Moash demanded. “Someone will need to,” Kaladin said. “For the good of our wounded in camp. We can’t abandon them. And if I stay behind, I can support the story. Wound me and leave me on one of the plateaus. Sadeas is sure to send scavengers back. I’ll tell them my crew was hunted down in retribution for desecrating the Parshendi corpses, our bridge tossed into the chasm. They’ll believe it; they’ve seen how the Parshendi hate us.” The crew was all standing now, shooting glances at one another. Uncomfortable glances. “We’re not leaving without you,” Sigzil said.
Many of the others nodded. “I’ll follow,” Kaladin said. “We can’t leave those men behind.” “Kaladin, lad—” Teft began. “We can talk about me later,” Kaladin interrupted. “Maybe I’ll go with you, then sneak back into camp later to rescue the wounded. For now, go salvage from those bodies.” They hesitated. “It’s an order, men!” They moved, offering no further complaint, rushing to pilfer from the corpses Sadeas had abandoned. That left Kaladin alone beside the bridge. He was still unsettled. It wasn’t just the wounded back in camp. What was it, then? This was a fantastic opportunity. The type he’d have practically killed to get during his years as a slave. The chance to vanish, presumed dead? The bridgemen wouldn’t have to fight. They were free. Why, then, was he so anxious? Kaladin turned to survey his men, and was shocked to see someone standing beside him. A woman of translucent white light. It was Syl, as he’d never seen her before, the size of a regular person, hands clasped in front of her, hair and dress streaming to the side in the wind. He’d had no idea she could make herself so large. She stared eastward, her expression horrified, eyes wide and sorrowful. It was the face of a child watching a brutal murder that stole her innocence. Kaladin turned and slowly looked in the direction she was staring. Toward the Tower. Toward Dalinar Kholin’s desperate army. The sight of them twisted his heart. They fought so hopelessly. Surrounded. Abandoned. Left alone to die. We have a bridge, Kaladin realized. If we could get it set… Most of the Parshendi were focused on the Alethi army, with only a token reserve force down at the base near the chasm. It was a small enough group that perhaps the bridgemen could contain them. But no. That was idiocy. There were thousands of Parshendi soldiers blocking Kholin’s path to the chasm. And how would the bridgemen set their bridge, with no archers to support them? Several of the bridgemen returned from their quick scavenge. Rock joined Kaladin, staring eastward, expression becoming grim. “This thing is terrible,” he said. “Can we not do something to help?” Kaladin shook his head. “It would be suicide, Rock. We’d have to run a full assault without an army to support us.” “Couldn’t we just go back a little of the way?” Skar asked. “Wait to see if Kholin can cut his way down to us? If he does, then we could set our bridge.” “No,” Kaladin said. “If we stayed out of range, Kholin would assume us to be scouts left by Sadeas. We’ll have to charge the chasm. Otherwise he’d never come down to meet us.” That made the bridgemen pale. “Besides,” Kaladin added. “If we did somehow save some of those men, they’d talk, and Sadeas would know we still live. He’d hunt us down and kill us. By going back, we’d throw away our chance at freedom.” The other bridgemen nodded at that. The rest had gathered, carrying weapons. It was time to
go. Kaladin tried to squelch the feeling of despair inside him. This Dalinar Kholin was probably just like the others. Like Roshone, like Sadeas, like any number of other lighteyes. Pretending virtue but corrupted inside. But he has thousands of darkeyed soldiers with him, a part of him thought. Men who don’t deserve this terrible fate. Men like my old spear crew. “We owe them nothing,” Kaladin whispered. He thought could see Dalinar Kholin’s banner, flying blue at the front of his army. “You got them into this, Kholin. I won’t let my men die for you.” He turned his back on the Tower. Syl still stood beside him, facing eastward. It made his very soul twist in knots to see that look of despair on her face. “Are windspren attracted to wind,” she asked softly, “or do they make it?” “I don’t know,” Kaladin said. “Does it matter?” “Perhaps not. You see, I’ve remembered what kind of spren I am.” “Is this the time for it, Syl?” “I bind things, Kaladin,” she said, turning and meeting his eyes. “I am honorspren. Spirit of oaths. Of promises. And of nobility.” Kaladin could faintly hear the sounds of the battle. Or was that just his mind, searching for something he knew to be there? Could he hear the men dying? Could he see the soldiers running away, scattering, leaving their warlord alone? Everyone else fleeing. Kaladin kneeling over Dallet’s body. A green-and-burgundy banner, flying alone on the field. “I’ve been here before!” Kaladin bellowed, turning back toward that blue banner. Dalinar always fought at the front. “What happened last time?” Kaladin yelled. “I’ve learned! I won’t be a fool again!” It seemed to crush him. Sadeas’s betrayal, his exhaustion, the deaths of so many. He was there again for a moment, kneeling in Amaram’s mobile headquarters, watching the last of his friends being slaughtered, too weak and hurt to save them. He raised a trembling hand to his head, feeling the brand there, wet with his sweat. “I owe you nothing, Kholin.” And his father’s voice seemed to whisper a reply. Somebody has to start, son. Somebody has to step forward and do what is right, because it is right. If nobody starts, then others cannot follow. Dalinar had come to help Kaladin’s men, attacking those archers and saving Bridge Four. The lighteyes don’t care about life, Lirin had said. So I must. So we must. So you must…. Life before death. I’ve failed so often. I’ve been knocked to the ground and trod upon. Strength before weakness. This would be death I’d lead my friends to… Journey before destination.…death, and what is right. “We have to go back,” Kaladin said softly. “Storm it, we have to go back.” He turned to the members of Bridge Four. One by one, they nodded. Men who had been the dregs of the army just months before—men who had once cared for nothing but their own skins—took deep breaths, tossed away thoughts for their own safety, and nodded. They would follow him. Kaladin looked up and
sucked in a deep breath. Stormlight rushed into him like a wave, as if he’d put his lips up to a highstorm and drawn it into himself. “Bridge up!” he commanded. The members of Bridge Four cheered their agreement, grabbing their bridge and hoisting it high. Kaladin pulled on a shield, grabbing the straps in his hand. Then he turned, raising it high. With a shout, he led his men in a charge back toward that abandoned blue banner. Dalinar’s Plate leaked Stormlight from dozens of small breaks; no major piece had escaped. Light rose above him like steam from a cauldron, lingering as Stormlight did, slowly diffusing. The sun beat down upon him, baking him as he fought. He was so tired. It hadn’t been long since Sadeas’s betrayal, not as time was counted in battles. But Dalinar had pushed himself hard, staying at the very front, fighting side by side with Adolin. His Plate had lost much Stormlight. It was growing heavier, and lent him less power with each swing. Soon it would weigh him down, slowing him so the Parshendi could swarm over him. He’d killed many of them. So many. A frightening number, and he did it without the Thrill. He was hollow inside. Better that than pleasure. He hadn’t killed nearly enough of them. They focused on Dalinar and Adolin; with Shardbearers on the front line, any breach would soon be patched by a man in gleaming armor and a deadly Blade. The Parshendi had to bring him and Adolin down first. They knew it. Dalinar knew it. Adolin knew it. Stories spoke of battlefields where the Shardbearers were the last ones standing, pulled down by their enemies after long, heroic fights. Completely unrealistic. If you killed the Shardbearers first, you could take their Blades and turn them against the enemy. He swung again, muscles lagging with fatigue. Dying first. It was a good place to be. Ask nothing of them you wouldn’t do yourself…. Dalinar stumbled on the rocks, his Shardplate feeling as heavy as regular armor. He could be satisfied with the way he’d handled his own life. But his men… he had failed them. Thinking of the way he had stupidly led then into a trap, that sickened him. And then there was Navani. Of all the times to finally begin courting her, Dalinar thought. Six years wasted. A lifetime wasted. And now she’ll have to grieve again. That thought made him raise his arms and steady his feet on the stone. He fought off the Parshendi. Struggling on. For her. He would not let himself fall while he still had strength. Nearby, Adolin’s armor leaked as well. The youth was extending himself more and more to protect his father. There had been no discussion of trying, perhaps, to leap the chasms and flee. With chasms so wide, the chances were slim—but beyond that, they would not abandon their men to die. He and Adolin had lived by the Codes. They would die by the Codes. Dalinar swung again, staying at Adolin’s side, fighting
in that just-out-of-reach tandem way of two Shardbearers. Sweat streamed down his face inside his helm, and he shot a final glance toward the disappearing army. It was just barely visible on the horizon. Dalinar’s current position gave him a good view down to the west. Let that man be cursed for… For… Blood of my fathers, what is that? A small force was moving across the western plateau, running toward the Tower. A solitary bridge crew, carrying their bridge. “It can’t be,” Dalinar said, stepping back from the fighting, letting the Cobalt Guard—what was left of them—rush in to defend him. Distrusting his eyes, he pushed his visor up. The rest of Sadeas’s army was gone, but this single bridge crew remained. Why? “Adolin!” he bellowed, pointing with his Shardblade, a surge of hope flooding his limbs. The young man turned, tracing Dalinar’s gesture. Adolin froze. “Impossible!” he yelled. “What kind of trap is that?” “A foolish one, if it is a trap. We are already dead.” “But why would he send one back? What purpose?” “Does it matter?” They hesitated for a moment amid the battle. Both knew the answer. “Assault formations!” Dalinar yelled, turning back to his troops. Stormfather, there were so few of them left. Less than half of his original eight thousand. “Form up,” Adolin called. “Get ready to move! We’re going to punch through them, men. Gather everything you’ve got. We’ve got one chance!” A slim one, Dalinar thought, pulling his visor down. We’ll have to cut through the rest of the Parshendi army. Even if they reached the bottom, they’d probably find the crew dead, their bridge cast into the chasm. The Parshendi archers were already forming up; there were more than a hundred of them. It would be a slaughter. But it was a hope. A tiny, precious hope. If his army was going to fall, it would do so while trying to seize that hope. Raising his Shardblade high, feeling a surge of strength and determination, Dalinar charged forward at the head of his men. For the second time in one day, Kaladin ran toward an armed Parshendi position, shield before him, wearing armor cut from the corpse of a fallen enemy. Perhaps he should have felt revolted at what he’d done in creating his armor. But it was no worse than what the Parshendi had done in killing Dunny, Maps, and that nameless man who had shown Kaladin kindness on his first day as a bridgemen. Kaladin still wore that man’s sandals. Us and them, he thought. That was the only way a soldier could think of it. For today, Dalinar Kholin and his men were part of the “us.” A group of Parshendi had seen the bridgemen approaching and was setting up with bows. Fortunately, it appeared that Dalinar had seen Kaladin’s band as well, for the army in blue was beginning to cut its way toward rescue. It wasn’t going to work. There were too many Parshendi, and Dalinar’s men would be tired. It was another disaster. But for once,
Kaladin charged into it with eyes wide open. This is my choice, he thought as the Parshendi archers formed up. It’s not some angry god watching me, not some spren playing tricks, not some twist of fate. It’s me. I chose to follow Tien. I chose to charge the Shardbearer and save Amaram. I chose to escape the slave pits. And now, I choose to try to rescue these men, though I know I will probably fail. The Parshendi loosed their arrows, and Kaladin felt an exaltation. Tiredness evaporated, fatigue fled. He wasn’t fighting for Sadeas. He wasn’t working to line someone’s pockets. He was fighting to protect. The arrows zipped at him and he swung his shield in an arc, spraying them away. Others came, shooting this way and that, seeking his flesh. He stayed just ahead of them, leaping as they shot for his thighs, turning as they shot for his shoulders, raising his shield when they shot for his face. It wasn’t easy, and more than a few arrows got close to him, scoring his breastplate or shin guards. But none hit. He was doing it. He was— Something was wrong. He spun between two arrows, confused. “Kaladin!” Syl said, hovering nearby, back to her smaller form. “There!” She pointed toward the other staging plateau, the one nearby that Dalinar had used for his assault. A large contingent of Parshendi had jumped across to that plateau and were kneeling down, raising bows. Pointed not at him, but right at Bridge Four’s unshielded flank. “No!” Kaladin screamed, Stormlight escaping from his mouth in a cloud. He turned and ran back across the rocky plateau toward the bridge crew. Arrows launched at him from behind. One took his backplate square on, but skidded aside. Another hit his helm. He leaped over a rocky rift, dashing with all the speed his Stormlight could lend him. The Parshendi at the side were drawing. There were at least fifty of them. He was going to be too late. He was going to— “Bridge Four!” he bellowed. “Side carry right!” They hadn’t practiced that maneuver in weeks, but their training was manifest as they obeyed without question, dropping the bridge to their side just as the archers loosed. The flight of arrows hit the bridge’s deck, bristling across the wood. Kaladin let out a relieved breath, reaching the bridge team, who had slowed to carry the bridge on the side. “Kaladin!” Rock said, pointing. Kaladin spun. The archers behind, on the Tower, were drawing for a large volley. The bridge crew was exposed. The archers loosed. He yelled again, screaming out, Stormlight infusing the air around him as he threw every bit of it he had into his shield. The scream echoed in his ears; the Stormlight burst from him, his clothing freezing and cracking. Arrows darkened the sky. Something hit him, an extended impact that tossed him backward into the bridgemen. He struck hard, grunting as the force continued to push upon him. The bridge ground to a halt, the men stopping. All fell
still. Kaladin blinked, feeling completely drained. His body hurt, his arms tingled, his back ached. There was a sharp pain in his wrist. He groaned, opening his eyes, stumbling as Rock’s hands caught him from behind. A muted thump. The bridge being set down. Idiots! Kaladin thought. Don’t set it down…. Retreat…. The bridgemen crowded around him as he slipped to the ground, overwhelmed by having expended too much Stormlight. He blinked at what he held before him, attached to his bleeding arm. His shield was covered in arrows, dozens of them, some splitting the others. The bones crossing the shield’s front had shattered; the wood was in splinters. Some of the arrows had gone through and hit his forearm. That was the pain. Over a hundred arrows. An entire volley. Pulled into a single shield. “By the Brightcaller’s rays,” Drehy said softly. “What… what was…” “It was like a fountain of light,” Moash said, kneeling beside Kaladin. “Like the sun itself burst from you, Kaladin.” “The Parshendi…” Kaladin croaked, and let go of the shield. The straps were broken, and as he struggled to stand, the shield all but disintegrated, falling to pieces, scattering dozens of broken arrows at his feet. A few remained stuck in his arm, but he ignored the pain, looking across at the Parshendi. The groups of archers on both plateaus froze in stunned postures. The ones in front began to call to one another in a language Kaladin didn’t understand. “Neshua Kadal!” They stood up. And then they fled. “What?” Kaladin said. “I don’t know,” Teft said, cradling his own wounded arm. “But we’re getting you to safety. Blast this arm. Lopen!” The shorter man brought Dabbid, and they ushered Kaladin away to a more secure location toward the center of the plateau. He held his arm, numb, his exhaustion so deep that he could barely think. “Bridge up!” Moash called. “We’ve still got a job to do!” The rest of the bridgemen grimly ran back to their bridge, hoisting it up. On the Tower, Dalinar’s force was fighting its way through the Parshendi toward the possible safety of the bridge crew. They must be taking such heavy losses… Kaladin thought numbly. He stumbled and fell to the ground; Teft and Lopen pulled Kaladin into a sheltered hollow, joining Skar and Dabbid. Skar’s foot bandage reddened with seeping blood, the spear he’d been using as a staff resting beside him. Thought I told him… to stay off that foot…. “We need spheres,” Teft said. “Skar?” “He asked for them this morning,” the lean man said. “Gave him everything I had. I think most of the men did the same.” Teft cursed softly, pulling the remaining arrows from Kaladin’s arm, then wrapping it with bandages. “Is he going to be all right?” Skar asked. “I don’t know,” Teft said. “I don’t know anything. Kelek! I’m an idiot. Kaladin. Lad, can you hear me?” “It’s… just shock…” Kaladin said. “You’re looking strange, gancho,” Lopen said nervously. “White.” “Your skin is ashen, lad,” Teft said. “It looks like you
did something to yourself back there. I don’t know… I…” He cursed again, smacking his hand against the stone. “I should have listened. Idiot!” They’d laid him on his side, and he could barely see the Tower. New groups of Parshendi—ones who hadn’t seen Kaladin’s display—were making for the chasm, bearing weapons. Bridge Four arrived and set down their bridge. They unstrapped their shields and hurriedly retrieved spears from the sacks of salvage tied at the bridge’s side. Then the men went to their positions pushing at the sides, preparing to slide the bridge across the gap. The Parshendi teams didn’t have bows. They formed up to wait, weapons out. There were easily three times as many as there were bridgemen, and more were coming. “We’ve got to go help,” Skar said to Lopen and Teft. The other two nodded, and all three—two wounded and one missing an arm—climbed to their feet. Kaladin tried to do likewise, but he fell back down, legs too weak to hold him. “Stay, lad,” Teft said, smiling. “We’ll handle it just fine.” They gathered some spears from a stock Lopen had put in his litter, then hobbled out to join the bridge crew. Even Dabbid joined them. He hadn’t spoken since being wounded on that first bridge run, so long ago. Kaladin crawled up to the lip of the depression, watching them. Syl landed on the stone beside him. “Storming fools,” Kaladin muttered. “Shouldn’t have followed me. Proud of them anyway.” “Kaladin…” Syl said. “Is there anything you can do?” He was so storming tired. “Something to make me stronger?” She shook her head. A short distance ahead, the bridgemen began to push. The bridge’s wood scraped loudly as it crossed the rocks, moving out over the chasm toward the waiting Parshendi. They began singing that harsh battle song, the one they did whenever they saw Kaladin in his armor. The Parshendi looked eager, angry, deadly. They wanted blood. They would cut into the bridgemen and rip them apart, then drop the bridge— and their corpses—into the void beneath. It’s happening again, Kaladin thought, dazed and overwhelmed. He found himself curling up, drained and shaken. I can’t get to them. They’ll die. Right before me. Tukks. Dead. Nelda. Dead. Goshel. Dead. Dallet. Cenn. Maps. Dunny. Dead. Dead. Dead… Tien. Dead. Lying huddled in a hollow in the rock. The sounds of battle ringing in the distance. Death surrounding him. In a moment, he was there again, on that most horrible of days. Kaladin stumbled through the cursing, screaming, fighting chaos of war, clinging to his spear. He’d dropped his shield. He needed to find a shield somewhere. Shouldn’t he have a shield? It was his third real battle. He’d been in Amaram’s army only a few months, but already Hearthstone seemed a world away. He reached a hollow of rock and crouched down, pushing his back to it, breathing in and out, fingers slick on the spear’s shaft. He was shaking. He’d never realized how idyllic his life had been. Away from war. Away from death.
Away from those screams, the cacophony of metal on metal, metal on wood, metal on flesh. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block it out. No, he thought. Open your eyes. Don’t let them find you and kill you that easily. He forced his eyes open, then turned and peeked out over the battlefield. It was a complete mess. They fought on a large hillside, thousands of men on either side, intermixing and killing. How could anyone keep track of anything in this insanity? Amaram’s army—Kaladin’s army—was trying to hold the hilltop. Another army, also Alethi, was trying to take it from them. That was all Kaladin knew. The enemy seemed more numerous than his own army. He’ll be safe, Kaladin thought. He will be! But he had trouble convincing himself. Tien’s stint as a messenger boy hadn’t lasted long. Recruitment was down, he’d been told, and every hand that could hold a spear was needed. Tien and the other older messenger boys had been organized into several squads of deep reserves. Dalar said those wouldn’t ever be used. Probably. Unless the army was in serious danger. Did being surrounded atop a steep hill, their lines in chaos, constitute serious danger? Get to the top, he thought, looking up the incline. Amaram’s banner still flew up there. Their soldiers must be holding. All Kaladin could see was a churning mess of men in orange and the occasional bit of forest green. Kaladin took off at a run up the side of the hill. He didn’t turn as men shouted at him, didn’t check to see which side they were from. Patches of grass pulled down in front of him. He stumbled over a few corpses, dashed around a couple of scraggly stumpweight trees, and avoided places where men were fighting. There, he thought, noting a group of spearmen ahead, standing in a line, watching warily. Green. Amaram’s colors. Kaladin scrambled up to them, and the soldiers let him pass. “Which squad are you from, soldier?” said a stocky lighteyed man with the knots of a low captain. “Dead, sir,” Kaladin forced out. “All dead. We were in Brightlord Tashlin’s company, and—” “Bah,” the man said, turning to a runner. “Third report we’ve had that Tashlin is down. Somebody warn Amaram. East side is weakening by degrees.” He looked to Kaladin. “You, off to the reserves for reassignment.” “Yes, sir,” Kaladin said, numb. He glanced down the way he’d come. The incline was littered with corpses, many of them in green. Even as he watched, a group of three stragglers rushing for the top was intercepted and slaughtered. None of the men at the top moved to help them. Kaladin could have fallen just as easily, within yards of safety. He knew that it was probably important, strategically, that these soldiers in the line maintain their positions. But it seemed so heartless. Find Tien, he thought, trotting off toward the reserves field on the north side of the wide hilltop. Here, however, he found only more chaos. Groups of dazed men, bloodied,

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