Rhythm of War (9781429952040)

by Sanderson, Brandon

  The landscape was different from what he knew. More trees, less grass, and strange fields of shrubs with interlocking branches that created vast snarls. Despite that, the signs he saw in this village were all too familiar. A bit of cloth trapped in the hardened crem beside the roadway. Burnt-out buildings, torched either out of a sadistic amusement, or to deny beds and stormshutters to the army that had moved in next. Those fires had been fed by homes with too many possessions left behind.

  Engineers had continued to shore up the eastern stormwall, where a natural windbreak created a cleft. Normally this shoring process would have taken weeks. Today Shardbearers cut out stone blocks, which Windrunners made light enough to push into position with ease. The ever-present Azish functionaries were supervising.

  Dalinar turned toward the Windrunner camp, troubled. Jasnah’s stunt had overshadowed their conversation about monarchs and monarchies—but now that he dwelled on it, he found it as disturbing as the duel. The way Jasnah had talked … She had seemed proud of the idea that she might be Alethkar’s last queen. She intended to see Alethkar left with some version of a neutered monarchy, like in Thaylenah or Azir.

  How would the country function without a proper monarch? The Alethi weren’t like these persnickety Azish. The Alethi liked real leaders, soldiers who were accustomed to making decisions. A country was like an army. Someone strong needed to be in charge. And barring that, someone decisive needed to be in charge.

  The thoughts persisted as he neared the Windrunner camp and smelled something delicious on the air. The Windrunners continued a tradition begun in the bridge crews: a large communal stew available to anyone. Dalinar had originally tried to regulate the thing. However, while he usually found the Windrunners agreeable to proper military decorum, they had absolutely refused to follow proper quartermaster requisition and mess requirements for their evening stews.

  Eventually Dalinar had done what any good commander did when faced by such persistent mass insubordination: He backed down. When good men disobeyed, it was time to look at your orders.

  Today he found the Windrunners visited by an unusual number of Thaylens. The stews tended to attract whichever soldiers felt most out of place, and Dalinar suspected the Thaylens were feeling that way, being so far from the oceans. Companylord Sigzil was taking a turn at storytelling. Renarin was there too in his Bridge Four uniform, watching Sigzil with rapt attention. Regardless of war or storm, the boy tried to find his way to this fire every evening.

  Dalinar approached, and only then did he realize the stir he was causing. Soldiers nudged one another, and someone ran to get him a stool. Sigzil paused in his story, saluting smartly.

  They think I’ve come to approve of the tradition, Dalinar realized. They seemed to have been waiting for it, judging by how eagerly one of the Windrunner squires brought him a bowl. Dalinar accepted the food and took a bite, then nodded approvingly. That inspired applause. After that, there was nothing to do but settle down and keep eating, indicating that the rest of them could go on with their ritual.

  When he glanced over at his son, Renarin was smiling. A reserved grin; you rarely saw teeth from Renarin. However, the lad didn’t have his box out, the one he often used to occupy his hands. He was relaxed here among these people.

  “That was good of you, Father,” Renarin whispered, moving closer. “They’ve been waiting for you to stop by.”

  “It’s good stew,” Dalinar noted.

  “Secret Horneater recipe,” Renarin said. “Apparently it has only two lines of instructions. ‘Take everything you have, and put him in pot. Don’t let anyone airsick touch seasonings.’” Renarin said it fondly, but he hadn’t finished his bowl. He seemed distracted. Though … he always seemed distracted. “I assume you’re here to talk about … what I told you? The episode?”

  Dalinar nodded.

  Renarin tapped his spoon against the side of his bowl, a rhythmic click. He stared at the cookfire flamespren. “Does it strike you as cruel of fate, Father? My blood sickness gets healed, so I can finally be a soldier like I always wanted. But that same healing has given me another kind of fit. More dangerous than the other by far.”

  “What did you see this time?”

  “I’m not sure I should say. I know I told you to come talk to me, but … I vacillate. The things I see, they’re of him, right? I think he shows me what he wants. That’s why I saw you becoming his champion.” He glanced down at his bowl. “Glys isn’t convinced the visions are bad. He says we’re something new, and he doesn’t think the visions are specifically from Odium—though perhaps his desires taint what we see.”

  “Any information—even if you suspect your enemy is feeding it to you—is useful, son. More wars are lost to lack of information than are lost to lack of courage.”

  Renarin set his bowl beside his seat. It was easy to fall into the habit of underestimating Renarin. He always moved in this deliberate, careful way. It made him seem fragile.

  Don’t forget, part of Dalinar thought. When you were broken on the floor, consumed by your past, this boy held you. Don’t forget who was strong, when you—the Blackthorn—were weak.

  The youth stood up, then gestured for Dalinar to follow. They left the circle of firelight, waving farewell to the others. Lopen called out, asking Renarin to “look into the future and find out if I beat Huio at cards tomorrow.” It seemed a little crass to Dalinar, bringing up his son’s strange disorder, but Renarin took it with a chuckle.

  The sky had grown dim, though the sun wasn’t fully set yet. These western lands were warmer than Dalinar liked—particularly at night. They didn’t cool off as was proper.

  The Windrunner camp was near the edge of the village, so they strolled out into the wilderness near some snarls of bushes and a few tall trees—with broad canopies—that had grown out of the center, perhaps somehow using the bushes for extra strength. This area was relatively quiet, and soon the two of them were alone.

  “Renarin?” Dalinar asked. “Are you going to tell me what you saw?”

  His son slowed. His eyes caught the light of the now-distant campfire. “Yes,” he said. “But I want to get it right, Father. So I need to summon it again.”

  “You can summon it?” Dalinar said. “I thought it came upon you unexpectedly.”

  “It did,” Renarin said. “And it will again. But right now, it simply is.” He turned forward and stepped into the darkness.

  * * *

  As Renarin stepped forward, the ground beneath his feet became dark glass, spreading from the heel of his boot. It cracked in a web of lines, a purposeful pattern, black on black.

  Glys, who preferred to hide within Renarin, grew excited. He’d captured this vision as it came, so they could study it. Renarin wasn’t quite so enthusiastic. It would be so much easier if he were like other Radiants.

  Stained glass spread out around him, engulfing the landscape, a phantom light shimmering and glowing from behind in the darkness. As he walked, each of his footsteps made the ground pulse red, light shining up through the cracks. His father wouldn’t be able to see what he did. But hopefully Renarin could describe it properly.

  “I see you in this vision,” Renarin said to his father. “You’re in a lot of them. In this one you stand tall, formed as if from stained glass, and you wear Shardplate. Stark white Shardplate, though you are pierced with a black arrow.”

  “Do you know what it means?” Dalinar said, a shadow barely visible from behind the glass window depicting him.

  “I think it might be a symbol of you, who you were, who you become. The more important part is the enemy. He makes up the bulk of this image. A window of yellow-white light breaking into smaller and smaller pieces, into infinity.

  “He is like the sun, Father. He controls and dominates everything—and although your figure raises a sword high, it’s facing the wrong direction. You’re fighting and you’re fighting, but not him. I think I understand the meaning: you want a deal, you want a contest of champions, but you’re g
oing to keep fighting, and fighting, and fighting distractions. Because why would the enemy agree to a contest that he can theoretically lose?”

  “He already agreed,” Dalinar said.

  “Were terms set?” Renarin asked. “A date picked? I don’t know if this vision is what he wants us to see. But either way … I don’t think he’s worried enough to agree to terms. He can wait, keep you fighting, keep us fighting. Forever. He can make this war so it never ends.”

  Dalinar stepped forward, passing through the stained glass that represented him—though he wouldn’t know he had done so.

  It seemed to Renarin as if his father never aged. Even in his earliest memories, Renarin remembered him looking like this—so powerful, so unchanging, so strong. Some of that was from the things his mother had told Renarin, building an image in his head of the perfect Alethi officer.

  It was a tragedy that she hadn’t lived to see Dalinar become the man she’d imagined him to be. A shame that Odium had seen her killed. That was the way Renarin had to present it to himself. Better to turn his pain against the enemy than to lose his father along with his mother.

  “I have stared Odium in the eyes,” Dalinar said. “I have faced him. He expected me to break. By refusing, I’ve upended his plans. It means he can be defeated—and equally important, it means he doesn’t know everything or see everything.”

  “Yes,” Renarin said, walking across broken glass to look up at the enormous depiction of Odium. “I don’t think he’s omnipresent, Father. Well, part of him is everywhere, but he can’t access that information—any more than the Stormfather knows everything the wind touches. I think … Odium might see like I do. Not events, or the world itself, but possibilities.

  “This war is dangerous for us, Father. In the past, the Heralds would organize our forces, fight with us for a time—but would then return to lock away the souls of the Fused in Damnation, preventing their rebirths. That way, each Fused we killed was an actual casualty. But the Oathpact is broken now, and the Fused cannot be locked away.”

  “Yes…” Dalinar said, moving to stand beside Renarin. “I’ve been thinking about this myself. Trying to determine if there was a way to restore the Oathpact, or to somehow otherwise make the enemy fear. This is new ground, for both us and Odium. There must be something about this new reality that unnerves him. Is there anything else you see?”

  See the blackness that will be, Renarin? Glys said.

  “Friction between the two of you,” Renarin said, pointing up at the stained glass. “And a blackness interfering, marring the beauty of the window. Like a sickness infecting both of you, at the edges.”

  “Curious,” Dalinar said, looking where Renarin had pointed, though he’d see only empty air. “I wonder if we’ll ever know what that represents.”

  “Oh, that one’s easy, Father,” Renarin said. “That’s me.”

  “Renarin, I don’t think you should see yourself as—”

  “You needn’t try to protect my ego, Father. When Glys and I bonded, we became … something new. We see the future. At first I was confused at my place—but I’ve come to understand. What I see interferes with Odium’s ability. Because I can see possibilities of the future, my knowledge changes what I will do. Therefore, his ability to see my future is obscured. Anyone close to me is difficult for him to read.”

  “I find that comforting,” Dalinar said, putting his arm around Renarin’s shoulders. “Whatever you are, son, it’s a blessing. You might be a different kind of Radiant, but you’re Radiant all the same. You shouldn’t feel you need to hide this or your spren.”

  Renarin ducked his head, embarrassed. His father knew not to touch him too quickly, too unexpectedly, so it wasn’t the arm around his shoulders. It was just that … well, Dalinar was so accustomed to being able to do whatever he wanted. He had written a storming book.

  Renarin held no illusions that he would be similarly accepted. He and his father might be of similar rank, from the same family, but Renarin had never been able to navigate society like Dalinar did. True, his father at times “navigated” society like a chull marching through a crowd, but people got out of the way all the same.

  Not for Renarin. The people of both Alethkar and Azir had thousands of years training them to fear and condemn anyone who claimed to be able to see the future. They weren’t going to put that aside easily, and particularly not for Renarin.

  We will be careful, Glys thought. We will be safe.

  We will try, Renarin thought to him.

  Out loud, he merely said, “Thank you. It means a lot to me that you believe that, Father.”

  You will ask him? Glys said. So my siblings can be?

  “Glys wants me to note,” Renarin said, “that there are others like him. Other spren that Sja-anat has touched, changed, made into … whatever it is we are.”

  “What she does is not right. Corrupting spren?”

  “If I’m a blessing, Father, how can we reject the others? How can we condemn the one who made them? Sja-anat isn’t human, and doesn’t think like one, but I believe she is trying to find a path toward peace between singers and humans. In her own way.”

  “Still … I’ve felt the touch of one of the Unmade, Renarin.”

  And by one, you judge the others? Renarin didn’t say it though. People too often said things as soon as they popped into their heads. Instead he waited.

  “How many corrupted spren are we talking about?” Dalinar finally asked.

  “Only a handful,” Renarin said. “She won’t change intelligent spren without their consent.”

  “Well, that’s valuable to know. I’ll consider it. Are you … in contact with her?”

  “Not in months. Glys is worried at how silent she’s become, though he thinks she is somewhere near right now.”

  She creates in us a faction loved by neither men nor Odium, Glys agreed. No home. No allies. She might be destroyed by either. We will need more. Like you and like me. Together.

  Around Renarin, the stained glass windows began to crumble. It took Stormlight and effort by Glys to re-create them—and he was plainly getting tired. Gradually, Renarin’s world became normal.

  “Let me know if she contacts you,” Dalinar said. “And if any of these episodes come upon you, bring them to me. I know a little of what it is like, son. You aren’t as alone as you probably think.”

  He knows you, Glys said, thrilled by the idea. He does and will.

  Renarin supposed that maybe he did. How unusual, and how comforting. Renarin—tense at first—leaned against his father, then accepted the offered strength as he watched the future become dust around him.

  We need more, Glys said. We need more like us, who will be. Who?

  I can think of one, Renarin said, who would be a perfect choice.…

  We must not let our desires for a specific result cloud our perceptions.

  —From Rhythm of War, page 6 undertext

  With Stormlight, Kaladin had been able to investigate his little hideout, finding it slightly larger than he’d pictured. A stone shelf along one wall gave him a place to put Teft. He’d washed the man, then dressed him in the loose robe, with bedpan in place. One of the sacks Kaladin had taken from the monastery—stuffed with clothing—made a makeshift pillow. He’d need to find blankets, but for now his friend seemed as comfortable as Kaladin could make him.

  Teft was still willing to take water, sucking it from the large metal syringe Kaladin brought back. Indeed, Teft lapped up the contents eagerly. He seemed so close to coming awake, Kaladin expected him to start cursing at any moment, demanding to know where his uniform had gone.

  Syl watched, uncharacteristically solemn. “What will we do if he dies?” she asked softly.

  “Don’t think about that,” Kaladin said.

  “What if I can’t help thinking about it?”

  “Find something to distract you.”

  She sat on the stone shelf, hands in her lap. “Is that how you stand it? Knowing everyone is going
to die? You just … don’t think about it?”

  “Basically,” Kaladin said, refilling his syringe from the wooden water jug, then putting the tip into Teft’s mouth and slowly emptying it. “Everyone dies eventually.”

  “I won’t,” she said. “Spren are immortal, even if you kill them. Someday I’ll have to watch you die.”

  “What brought this on?” Kaladin asked. “This isn’t like you.”

  “Yup. Right. Of course. Not like me.” She plastered a smile on her face. “Sorry.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way, Syl,” Kaladin said. “You don’t have to pretend.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I’ve used enough fake smiles to not be fooled by one. You were doing this earlier too, before the problems in the tower started. What happened?”

  She looked down. “I’ve … been remembering what it was like when Relador, my old knight, died. How it made me sleep for so many years, straight through the Recreance. I keep wondering, will that happen to me again?”

  “Do you feel a darkness?” Kaladin asked. “A whisper that everything will always turn out for the worst? And at the same time a crippling—and baffling—impulse pushing you to give up and do nothing to change it?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Nothing like that. Just a worry in the back of my mind that I keep circling around to. Like … I have a present I want to open, and I get excited for a little while—only to remember I already opened it and there was nothing inside.”

  “Sounds like how I used to feel when I remembered Tien was dead,” Kaladin said. “I’d get used to living life as normal, feeling good—only to be reminded by seeing a rock in the rain, or by seeing a wooden carving like the ones he used to do. Then my whole day would come crashing down.”

  “Like that! But it doesn’t crash my day down. Just makes me settle back and think and wish I could see him again. It still hurts. Is something wrong with me?”