Rhythm of War (9781429952040)

by Sanderson, Brandon

  I could have ended up in there, Kaladin thought. The patients surrendered to the ardents, those were the ones who came from homes and cities where people cared enough to try something, even if it was the wrong thing. There was a chance that if he hadn’t gone to war, he’d have found his way to one of those dark, terrible rooms.

  A low rumble shook him out of his reverie. Was that thunder outside? He stood up and glanced out the window. Dark clouds blanketed the horizon. The Everstorm. Right, he’d heard there would be one today. Up here it was easy to lose track.

  Oroden dashed forward, smashing through the blocks. Kaladin smiled, then heard the outer door of the clinic open and shut. Teft marched into the room a moment later. “Kal, he ain’t at his quarters, and they say he ain’t come in for days.”

  “What?” Kaladin asked. “When was the last time anyone saw him?”

  “Three days ago.”

  Three days?

  “Who is this?” Lirin asked.

  “Friend of ours,” Teft said. “Named Dabbid.”

  “The nonverbal?” Lirin asked. “Badly battle shocked?”

  “I thought maybe he’d do well meeting with the men I’m treating,” Kaladin said.

  “Maybe,” Lirin said, “you shouldn’t have left someone that troubled without supervision.”

  “He does fine on his own,” Kaladin said. “He’s not an invalid. He just doesn’t talk.” Or … well, that might be understating it.

  “Let’s check with Rlain,” Teft said. “Dabbid goes to help in the fields sometimes.”

  Kaladin had been delighted to find that Rlain had chosen to remain at the tower instead of going with the army. He thought his work in the fields was more useful than running water and things for the Windrunners, and Kaladin honestly couldn’t blame him. Being with your friends, watching them fly, but not being able to do so yourself … that had to be even worse than what Kaladin had been experiencing lately.

  I should have gone to him more, Kaladin thought. Been a better friend. He thought he finally understood what Rlain must be feeling.

  He stood up and nodded to Teft, who was again rubbing his forehead.

  “You all right?” Kaladin asked.

  “Fine,” Teft said.

  “Cravings?” Kaladin guessed.

  Teft shrugged. “Thought I’d gotten past the headaches a few months ago. Guess they’re back.”

  * * *

  Venli smashed the human soldier’s skull against the stone wall, and the bone cracked with a sickening sound—like a wooden shell breaking. In a flash of red lightning from one of the stormforms, she saw the soldier’s eyes cross, dilating. But he clung to her, his knife scraping her carapace, so—driven by the Rhythm of Panic—she slammed his head against the ground.

  This time he fell still. She crouched above him, breathing heavily, then suddenly felt as if she couldn’t breathe. She gasped, hoarse, and pulled her hands away. For a moment, the only sound she could hear was her rhythm.

  The dying man twitched on the ground. She barely felt where he’d cut her along the side of her head. Within her, Timbre thrummed the Rhythm of the Lost.

  I didn’t mean to … Venli thought. I …

  Sound suddenly returned to Venli. She started, looking around. In the heat of the moment, her own struggle had consumed all of her attention. Now, the intense fighting at the mouth of the cavern overwhelmed her. She cringed, trying to make sense of it all.

  “The spanreed!” someone shouted to the Rhythm of Command. “Don’t let them—”

  Raboniel suddenly dashed through the center of the frenetic scramble. The others were all limbs and shadows, but she was somehow haloed by the crimson light of the Everstorm behind. Raboniel stepped directly into a spear strike—though when the weapon rammed into her, it immediately transformed to dust.

  She sidestepped the soldier and approached a human woman at the side of the cavern. The woman was fumbling with a glowing ruby. Raboniel’s thin blade—shorter than a sword, but narrow and pointed like a spike—rammed up through the human woman’s chin. Raboniel yanked her blade free, then turned back toward the soldier, who had pulled out his side knife. She breathed out toward him, and something black left her lips—something that sent the man stumbling away, clawing at his face.

  Raboniel plucked the spanreed from the dead woman’s hands, then casually wiped her blade on a handkerchief. She saw Venli kneeling nearby. “Your first kill, child?” the Fused asked to Ridicule.

  “Y … yes, Ancient One.”

  “I thought your kind fought the humans for years on the Shattered Plains.”

  “I was a scholar, Ancient One. I did not go into battle.”

  “Do not let them bring you to the ground,” Raboniel said. “As a Regal—even in envoyform—you are stronger than most humans; use that. And carry a knife, for Ado’s sake.”

  “I … Yes, Ancient One. I didn’t see him coming at me, I mean … I thought…”

  That she could remain aloof, as she’d always done with the listeners. Even during the battle at Narak, where they’d lost so many, she hadn’t been directly involved in the fighting. She hadn’t lost her mind to the spren that inhabited her; she’d told herself it was because she was so strong. In truth, she had already been selfish and ambitious.

  Timbre pulsed comfortingly, but Venli couldn’t accept the sentiment. She bore the humans no love—they had murdered thousands of her people. But Venli herself had doomed many listeners.

  She didn’t want to kill anyone. Not anymore. She climbed to her feet, shaken. Nearby, the last few human soldiers were subdued and killed as the Everstorm crashed outside, pouring red light in through the mouth of the cavern. Venli turned away from the deaths, then felt embarrassed. What had she expected, in coming on this mission? What did she hope to accomplish here? Make contact with the Radiants while actively invading their base? Look for allies as a massacre occurred?

  No. Neither. She was just trying to stay dry during the storm. Raboniel got out a Stormlight sphere as a group of their Deepest One scouts finally emerged from the rock, sliding up out of the floor like spirits.

  “How?” Raboniel asked. “You said you’d cleared the guards at this entrance.”

  “We did,” a scout said to Agony. “This was a patrol that came to check on them, it seems. We did not hear them on the stones until it was too late.”

  “We assumed they were all up higher,” another said. “We are sorry.”

  “Sorrow is meaningless,” Raboniel said. “And bad assumptions are the last failing of many dead. We will not have another chance at this. Ever. Make certain the rest of the way is clear.”

  They hummed again to Agony, then melted into the rock floor of the cavern. The soldiers formed up, and Raboniel strode inward, not waiting to see if anyone followed.

  The group left the rumbling sound of the storm behind and started upward. Though they’d begun midway up through the caverns at an entrance in a highland valley, it would take hours to reach the tower itself. Tense hours, hoping that there wouldn’t be any more mistakes or missed human patrols. Hoping that silence from the dead wouldn’t be noticed.

  Venli walked, disquieted, uncertain which was worse: the feeling of primal terror that had stabbed her when she’d heard the human behind her, or the haunting feeling of watching the light fade from his eyes.

  You have not felt what I have. You have not known what I have. You rejected that chance—and wisely, I think.

  Accompanied by several of her scholars and an entire host of soldiers, Navani arrived at the scene of the explosion. It was less damaging than she’d feared when reading that initial spanreed report: only two dead, and the explosion had destroyed the contents of only a single room in the tower.

  It was still deeply troubling. The two dead were Nem and Talnah, the lensmakers, astronomers, and gemstone experts. The destroyed room was their shared laboratory. Thousands of broams’ worth of equipment ruined. And one invaluable sphere.

  Szeth’s sphere. The
Voidlight one that Gavilar had considered most important out of all his strange spheres. As Navani stood in the hallway outside the destroyed room—smelling smoke, hearing the weeping of the cleaning woman who had first rushed to help at the sound of the detonation—she had a sinking feeling.

  She had caused this somehow by asking those two women to study the sphere. Now she’d likely lost it and the lives of two expert scholars. Storms. What had happened?

  The guards wanted a scholar to inspect the room for other possible dangers before letting Navani enter. She probably could have ordered them aside, but they were just doing their best to keep her safe. So she let Rushu go in first. Navani doubted that anything dangerous could have survived what seemed to be complete destruction—but then again, she’d never known a fabrial or sphere to explode.

  Rushu slipped out a short time later and nodded for her to enter. Navani stepped in, her shoes grinding against broken glass as she surveyed the wreckage. Smoldering wood marked the remnants of tables. The bodies were under several bloody sheets. Not two sheets: five. For two corpses. Storms.

  Navani picked through carefully, avoiding larger bits of broken glass. The smoke was nearly overpowering. Civilized people used spheres for light, and she rarely kept a hearth burning these days. Smoke was a dangerous scent.

  If anything was salvageable in the mess, Navani didn’t spot it. And of course there was no sign of the strange sphere.

  Rushu stepped up beside Navani. “I … had dinner scheduled with Talnah later this week…” she whispered. “We were … were going to talk about weather readings.…”

  Navani steeled herself. “I need you to do something for me, Rushu,” she said. “Catalogue everything in this room. Don’t let the soldiers move a single bit of glass. Remove the bodies, see them properly cared for, but otherwise leave this room pristine. Then go through every inch of it. Save every scrap of paper. Every broken lens or cracked beaker.”

  “If you wish, Brightness,” Rushu said. “But … if I might ask … why? What do you hope to find?”

  “Have you ever known a fabrial accident to cause an explosion like this?” Navani asked.

  Rushu pursed her lips and thought for a moment. “No.”

  “I have some details on what they might have been working on. I’ll explain them to you later. For now, secure this area. And Rushu, please don’t get distracted.”

  The ardent glanced again toward the shrouded corpses. “I doubt that will be a problem this time, Brightness.”

  Navani nodded and moved out, walking toward where the prisoner was being kept—the voiceless man who had delivered the ruby. She also sent for a few Radiants to see if they could identify him for certain. She didn’t know if this explosion was tied to the mysterious communications she’d been getting—but things had certainly been off about the tower lately. And she had grown tired of wanting answers.

  * * *

  By the time the second hour had passed—judged by the Rhythm of Peace—Venli’s legs were aching, her breathing ragged from the hike. As a Radiant, she could have used Stormlight to strengthen her. But that would have been far too dangerous.

  She would have to be satisfied with the strength her Regal form gave her. Certainly she was better off than an average singer would have been. The rest of the force, however—in stormform—was stronger than she was, and Raboniel kept an aggressive pace.

  Each moment became excruciating, and Venli focused only on taking the next step. Yet Raboniel kept pushing. No breaks. No rests. Onward, ever upward.

  Timbre thrummed inside her, helping with a comforting rhythm. Venli used that to keep herself moving, putting one leaden foot in front of the other. After what seemed like an eternity, light shimmered in the tunnel ahead. She tried to smother the spark of hope that gave her. The last twenty times, the light had been only a sphere lantern set into an intersection, placed by the humans to help navigate.

  Raboniel called a halt. Venli leaned against the side of the tunnel, breathing deeply but as softly as she could. And the wall … the wall was straighter than the ones below. This was of worked stone. And shadows moved in the light ahead.

  They were here. Finally. The tunnel had come up beneath the city of Urithiru, and would now emerge into the basement chambers. Squinting, Venli made out the source of light—a large wooden door up ahead, glowing at the edges. And … there were lumps on the ground. Guards who had been killed silently by the Deepest Ones.

  Other than the light around the door, the only illumination came from the red-ember eyes of the people around her. The sign that a person’s soul had been mingled with that of a Voidspren. Her own eyes glowed as well, lying on her behalf. She had a Voidspren too; Timbre simply held it captive.

  Some of the nearby eyes sank, then vanished as the Deepest Ones slid into the stone. The rest of them waited in agonizing silence. This was the point where their invasion was most likely to be thwarted. Deepest Ones worked well as surprise troops, but—from planning meetings she’d attended—she knew they didn’t have the skill or strength to challenge Radiants in direct battle. So if Radiants could be gathered to defend the crystalline heart of the tower, they could rebuff this attack.

  Venli waited, tense, sweat from the climb dripping down her cheeks and from her chin.

  The door ahead rattled. Then opened.

  A Deepest One scout stood beyond. As soon as Raboniel started moving, Venli shoved forward, staying at the front of the crowd as they passed into the basement chamber.

  It was a horrific scene. The bodies on the ground included a few soldiers, but were mostly human scholars—women in dresses or priests in their robes. A couple were still alive, held to the ground by arms that reached up out of the stone. Most of those who were dead had been away from the walls, and it seemed Deepest Ones had dropped from the ceiling to grapple them. It had all been accomplished without a single human crying out.

  Venli shuddered, imagining being pulled to the floor while other arms reached up to grab your mouth and neck. The living humans struggled with wide eyes. Some of those phantom hands had long knifelike carapace fingernails. One at a time, they slit the throats of the captives.

  Venli looked away, sick to her stomach. She had to walk through blood to follow Raboniel toward the center of the room—and the monolith of crystal that stood here. The wide pillar was made of a thousand different gems. Other than the tunnel they had emerged from, only one exit led from this circular chamber: a larger, well-lit corridor with tile murals on the walls and ceiling.

  “I hope your slumber is peaceful, Sibling,” Raboniel said, resting a hand upon the imposing pillar. “You shall not awake, at least not as yourself.”

  Voidlight—glowing violet on black—surged along Raboniel’s arm. She’d said she would need time to accomplish her task: corrupting the pillar and fully activating the tower’s defenses, but in a way that muted Radiants, not Fused.

  Please, Venli thought to the Rhythm of the Lost, let it happen without more killing.

  * * *

  “Can’t believe how dead this place is,” Teft said as they passed through the winehouse.

  “I’d guess a lot of the patrons were soldiers,” Kaladin said, gesturing toward Adolin’s corner booth. It felt strange to visit without him and Shallan. In fact, it felt strange to be going out anywhere without those two.

  Kaladin tried to remember the last time he’d gone out for fun without Adolin forcing him. Skar’s wedding? Yes, Lyn had made him go right before their breakup. That had been the last time he’d gone out with Bridge Four.

  Blood of my fathers, he thought, sliding into the booth. I really have been withdrawing from them. From everyone. Except Adolin, who wouldn’t stand for it. Half the reason Kaladin had begun courting Lyn was due to Adolin and Syl conspiring against him. Storming man. Storming spren. Bless them both. Though the relationship hadn’t worked out, he could now see that they’d both grown because of it.

  Teft went to fetch drinks. Orange for both of them. As Kaladin se
ttled into the seat, he noted some of the scratched-in sketches Shallan had done with a knife on the tabletop. One was a rather unflattering picture of him in oversized boots.

  When Teft returned, Kaladin eagerly took a long drink from his mug.

  Teft just stared at his. “What happens if I get some red?”

  “Tonight? Probably nothing. But you’ll get it next time.”

  “And then I’ll get some violet,” Teft said. “Then something clear. Then…” He sighed, then took a sip of the orange. “This is storming unfair, you realize.”

  Kaladin held out his cup. Teft clicked his against it.

  “To unfairness,” Kaladin said.

  “Storming straight,” Teft said, then downed his entire mug at once in an impressive display.

  Syl darted in a short time later. The place wasn’t busy, but there were some people about. Relaxing into their seats, complaining jovial complaints, laughing ornery laughs, all of it lubricated by a little alcohol.

  That stopped when Rlain stepped in behind Syl. Kaladin winced at how obvious it was. The people of the tower knew about Rlain—he was nearly as famous as Kaladin—but … well, Kaladin heard what they said about him. The “savage” that Dalinar had somehow “tamed.”

  Many treated Rlain like some dark unknown quantity that should be locked away. Others, ostensibly more charitable, spoke of Rlain as some noble warrior, a mystical representative of a lost people. Both groups shared a similar problem. They saw only their own strange ideal of what he should be. A controversy, a curiosity, or a symbol. Not who he was.

  Though Rlain seemed not to notice the way the winehouse grew quiet, Kaladin knew that was a front. The listener always noticed. Still, he crossed the room with a ready smile—he often exaggerated his facial expressions around humans, to try to put them at ease.

  “Teft,” he said, taking a seat. He looked to Kaladin. “Sir.”