Rhythm of War (9781429952040)

by Sanderson, Brandon

  “Maybe we should have tried to reach the crystal pillar room,” Rlain said. “And escaped through the tunnels beneath, as Venli suggested.”

  “No,” Leshwi said. “Those tunnels are blocked. Our best hope was to escape out the front entrance of the tower, and perhaps cross the mountains. Unfortunately, judging by those rhythms, these who come aren’t being sent by Raboniel. Odium wants me to know. I will be tortured like the Heralds once I return to Braize.” She saluted Rlain. “So first, we fight.”

  Rlain nodded, then gripped his spear. “We fight,” he said, then turned to Venli, who had stepped up by his side. “Are there any other spren like the one who bonded you? Would some want other willing singers? Someone like me?”

  “Yes,” Venli said to Mourning, “but I sent them away. The Fused would have seen them, hunted them.” She paused, then her rhythm changed to Confusion. “And Timbre says … she says you’re spoken for?”

  “What?” he said. “By that honorspren who said he’d take me? I turned him down. I…”

  The room went dark.

  Then it shone as crystals grew out from his feet like … like stained glass windows, covering the floor. They showed a figure rising in blue-glowing Shardplate, and a tower coming alight.

  Keep fighting, a voice said in his head. Salvation will be, Rlain, listener. Bridger of Minds. I have been sent to you by my mother, at the request of Renarin, Son of Thorns. I have watched you and seen your worthiness.

  Speak the Words, and do not despair.

  * * *

  Sigzil blocked Ishar’s attack using his Shardblade. The other Windrunners swarmed forward to protect Dalinar. Szeth, however, stumbled away. The sight of that Honorblade had plainly upset him.

  The watching Tukari soldiers started to close their circle, but Ishar ordered them back. Then he danced away from Sigzil, shouting at Dalinar. “Fight me, champion! Face me alone!”

  “I brought no weapon, Ishar,” Dalinar said. “The time for the contest of champions has not yet come.”

  Ishar fought brilliantly as the other Windrunners tried to gang up on him. He was a blur with a flashing Blade, parrying, dodging, skepping his Blade—making it vanish for a brief moment to pass through a weapon trying to block it. The Windrunners had only recently started practicing the technique; Ishar performed the complex move with the grace of long familiarity.

  He is a duelist, Dalinar thought. Storms, and a good one.

  What did you expect? the Stormfather rumbled in his mind. He defended mankind for millennia. The Heralds were not all warriors when they began, but all were by the end. Existing for three thousand years in a state of near-constant war changes men. Among the Heralds, Ishar was average in skill.

  Ishar faced all five Windrunners at once, and it seemed easy for him. He blocked one, then another, stepping away as a third tried to spear down from above, then swept around with his Blade, slicing the heads off two non-Shard spears.

  Sigzil’s Shardblade became a long dueling sword designed for lunges. He struck when Ishar’s back was turned, but the Herald casually twisted and caught the Blade with one finger—touching it along the unsharpened side—and guided it past him. Sigzil stumbled as he drew too close, and Ishar lifted that same hand and slammed it against Sigzil’s chest, sending him sprawling backward to the stones.

  Ishar then turned and raised his Shardblade in one hand to deflect one of Lyn’s strikes. Leyten came in, trying to flank, but he looked clumsy compared to the old Herald. Fortunately for the five, Ishar merely defended himself.

  Despite earnestly trying, none could land a blow. It was as if … as if they were trying to hit where Ishar was, while he was able to move in anticipation of where they would be.

  He is average among them? Dalinar asked. Then … who was the best?

  Taln.

  The one who sits in my camp? Dalinar thought. Unable to do more than mumble?

  Yes, the Stormfather said. There was no dispute. But take care; Ishar’s skill as a duelist is a lesser danger. He has recovered his Honorblade. He is a Bondsmith unchained.

  Ishar suddenly dashed forward, rushing into one of Sigzil’s attacks. The old man ducked the strike, then came up and touched Sigzil on the chest. When Ishar’s hand withdrew, he trailed a line of Stormlight behind him. He touched his hand to the ground, and Sigzil stumbled, gasping as his glow started to fade. Ishar had apparently tethered Sigzil to the stones with some kind of glowing rope that drained the Stormlight out and into the ground.

  The other four followed, almost faster than Dalinar could track. One after another, tethered to the stone. Not bound, not frozen, but their Light draining away—and all of them stumbled, slowing, as if their lives were being drained with it.

  Dalinar glanced at Szeth, but the Shin man had fallen to his knees, wide eyed. Storms. Dalinar should have known better than to depend on the assassin as a bodyguard. Navani had warned him; Szeth was nearly as unstable as the Heralds.

  Dalinar didn’t want to see what happened when his troops ran out of Stormlight. He braced himself and thrust his hands between realms, then slammed them together as closed fists, knuckles meeting. In this, he united the three realms, opening a flash of power that washed away all color and infused the Radiants with Light.

  Within the well of Light, Dalinar was nearly blinded—figures were mere lines, all shadows banished. Ishar, however, was distinct. Pale, eyes wide, whitened clothing rippling. He dropped his Blade and it turned to mist. Transfixed, he stepped toward Dalinar.

  “How?” Ishar asked. The word sounded clear, an incongruity against the soundless rush of power surrounding them. “You … you open Honor’s path.…”

  “I have bonded the Stormfather,” Dalinar said. “I need you, Ishar. I don’t need the legend, the Herald of Mysteries. I need the man Ash says you once were. A man willing to risk his life, his work, and his very soul to save mankind.”

  Ishar strode closer. Holding the portal open was difficult, but Dalinar kept his hands pressed together. For the moment only he and Ishar existed here, in this place painted white. Ishar stopped a step or two from Dalinar. Yes, seeing another Bondsmith had shaken him.

  I can reach him, Dalinar thought.

  “I need a teacher,” Dalinar said. “I don’t know my true capabilities. Odium controls Urithiru, but I think with your help we could restore the Radiants there. Please.”

  “I see,” Ishar said softly. He met Dalinar’s eyes. “So. The enemy has corrupted the Stormfather too. I had hoped…”

  He shook his head, then reached out and pressed his hand to Dalinar’s chest. With the strain of keeping the perpendicularity open, Dalinar wasn’t able to move away in time. He tried to drop the perpendicularity, but when he pulled his hands apart, it remained open—power roaring through.

  Ishar touched his hand to his own chest, creating a line of light between him and Dalinar. “I will take this bond to the Stormfather. I will bear it myself. I sense … something odd in you. A Connection to Odium. He sees you as … as the one who will fight against him. This cannot be right. I will take that Connection as well.”

  Dalinar gasped, falling to his knees as something was torn from him—it felt as if his very soul was being ripped out. The Stormfather screamed: a terrifying, agonized sound, like lightning that warped and broke.

  No, Dalinar thought. No. Please …

  A shadow appeared on the field of whiteness. A shape—the shape of a black sword. This single line of darkness swiped through the line connecting Dalinar to Ishar.

  The white cord exploded and frayed, trailing wisps of darkness. Ishar was cast away, hitting the stone. The perpendicularity remained open, but its light dimmed to reveal Szeth standing between Dalinar and Ishar, brandishing his strange black Shardblade. His illusion melted off like paint in the rain, breaking into Light—which was sucked into the sword and consumed.

  “Where,” Szeth said to Ishar, his voice quiet, “did you get that Blade you bear?”

  The Herald seemed not to have
heard him. He was staring at Szeth’s sword as it dripped black liquid smoke. Around it, the white light of the perpendicularity warped and was consumed, like water down a drain.

  Szeth spun and stabbed the sword into the heart of the perpendicularity. The Stormfather shouted in anger as the perpendicularity collapsed, folding in upon itself.

  In a flash, the world was full of color again. All five Windrunners lay on the ground, but they were stirring. Ishar scrambled to his feet before Szeth—who stood with one arm wreathed in black tendrils, gripping the sword that dripped nightmares and bled destruction.

  “Answer me!” Szeth screamed. “Did you kill the man who held that Blade before you?”

  “Of course not, foolish man,” Ishar said, summoning his Blade. “The Shin serve the Heralds. They held my sword for me. They returned it when I revealed myself.”

  Dalinar wiped his brow, pulling himself to his feet. He felt numb, but at the same time … warm. Relieved. Whatever the Herald had begun, he had not been able to finish.

  Are you all right? he asked the Stormfather.

  Yes. He tried to steal our bond. It should not be possible, but Honor no longer lives to enforce his laws.…

  The perpendicularity. Did Szeth … destroy it?

  Don’t be foolish, the Stormfather said. No creation of mortal hands could destroy the power of a Shard of Adonalsium. He merely collapsed it. You could summon it again.

  Dalinar was not convinced that the thing Szeth bore was a simple “creation of mortal hands.” But he said nothing as he forced himself to check on the Windrunners, whose Connections to the ground had vanished. Leyten had found his feet first and was helping Sigzil, who sat on the ground with a hand to his head.

  “I think your worries about this meeting were well advised,” Dalinar said, kneeling beside the Azish man. “Can you get us into the air?”

  “Damnation,” Sigzil whispered. “I feel like I spent last night drinking Horneater white.” He burst alight with Stormlight, drawing it from the pouch at his belt. “Storms. The Light isn’t washing away the pain.”

  “Yeah,” Lyn said. The other three Windrunners were sitting up. “My head is pounding like a Parshendi drum, sir, but we should be able to Lash.”

  Dalinar glanced at Szeth, who was alight with Stormlight—though it was being drawn at a ferocious rate into his weapon. “My people,” Szeth shouted, “were not going to return your weapons to you. We kept your secrets, but you lie if you say my father gave you that Blade!”

  “Your father was barely a man when I found him,” Ishar said. “The Shin had accepted the Unmade. Tried to make gods of them. I saved them. And your father did give me this Blade. He thanked me for letting him die.”

  Szeth screamed, charging Ishar—who raised his Blade to casually block him, as he had with the Windrunners. However, the meeting of the two Blades caused a burst of power, and the shock wave sent both men sprawling backward.

  Ishar hit hard, dropping his Blade—and Dalinar was in position to see the length of the Honorblade as it hit and bounced, then came to a rest half stuck into the ground. There was a chip in its unearthly steel where it had met the black sword.

  Dalinar, in all his life, had never seen a Shardblade marred in such a way, let alone one of the Honorblades.

  Ishar looked up at Szeth, dazed, then grabbed his Blade and shouted an order. His soldiers—who had watched all this in silence—broke their circle, moving into a formation. Sigzil put his hand on Dalinar’s shoulder, infusing him, preparing to Lash him.

  “Wait,” Dalinar said as Ishar stood and slammed his fists together. A perpendicularity opened, as it had before, releasing a powerful explosion of light.

  Impossible … the Stormfather said in Dalinar’s mind. I didn’t feel it happen. How does he do this?

  You’re the one who warned me he was dangerous, Dalinar thought. Who knows what he’s capable of?

  Across the stone field, Szeth sheathed his sword just before it began feasting on his soul. Dalinar pointed Leyten that way. “Grab him. Get into the air. We’re leaving. Sigzil, Lash me.”

  “Right, sir.”

  “Dalinar. Dalinar Kholin.”

  That … that was Ishar’s voice.

  “I can see clearly,” the voice said from within the perpendicularity. “I do not know why. Has a Bondsmith been sworn? We have a Connection, all of us.… Nevertheless, I feel my sanity slipping. My mind is broken, and I do not know if it can be healed.

  “Perhaps you can restore me for a short time after an Ideal is spoken near me. Everyone sees a little more clearly when a Radiant touches the Spiritual Realm. For now, listen well. I have the answer, a way to fix the problems that beset us. Come to me in Shinovar. I can reset the Oathpact, though I must be sane to do it. I must … have help … to…”

  The voice stumbled, as if warping.

  “… to defeat you, champion of Odium! We will clash again, and I am ready for your wiles this time! You will not defeat me when next we meet, though you bear a corrupted Honorblade that bleeds black smoke! I am ALMIGHTY.”

  Dalinar lurched, rising into the air as the Lashing took effect. The Windrunners darted up after him, including Leyten, who grabbed Szeth. As they left the column of light, Dalinar could see Ishar’s soldiers stepping into the perpendicularity.

  A short time later it vanished. The Herald, his men, and the Honorblade were gone. Transported into Shadesmar.

  * * *

  Together, Navani and the Sibling could create Light.

  Light that drove the monster Moash back along the corridor, holding his arm before his eyes. Light that drove the knife from Navani’s side as it healed her wound. Light that brought fabrials to life, Light that sang with the tones of Honor and Cultivation in tandem.

  But her spren … The Sibling was so weak.

  Navani grasped the pillar, pouring her power into it, but there was so much chaos muddying the system, like crem in a cistern of pure water. The Voidlight Raboniel had injected.

  Navani couldn’t destroy it, but maybe she could vent it somehow. She saw the tower now as an entity, with lines of garnet very like veins and arteries. And she inhabited that entity. It became her body. She saw thousands of closed doors the scouts had missed in mapping the tower. She saw brilliant mechanisms for controlling pressure, heat—

  No, stay focused.

  I think we need to vent the Voidlight, Navani said to the Sibling.

  I … the Sibling said. How?

  I can sing the proper tone, Navani said. We fill the system with as much Towerlight as will fit, then we stop and vibrate these systems here, here, and here with the anti-Voidlight tone.

  I suppose, the Sibling said. But how can we create the vibration?

  There’s a plate on Raboniel’s desk. I’ll have my scholars play that. I’ll need a model to sing it, but with that, I should be able to transfer the vibration through the system. That should force the enemy’s corruption out through these broken gemstones in the pump mechanism. What do you think?

  … Yes? the Sibling said softly. I think … yes, that might work.

  With that done, we will need to restart the tower’s protections, Navani said. These are complex fabrials … made of the essence of spren. Of your essence?

  Yes, the Sibling said, their voice growing stronger. But they are complicated, and took many years of—

  Pressure fabrial here, Navani said, inspecting it with her mind. Ah, I see. A network of attractors to bring in air and create a bubble of pressure. Quite ingenious.

  Yes!

  And the heating fabrials … not important now … but you’ve made housings for them out of metals—you manifested physically as metal and crystal, like Shardblades manifest from smaller spren.

  YES!

  As she began working, Navani noticed an oddity. What was that moving through the tower? Highmarshal Kaladin? Flying quickly, his powers restored, wrapped in spren as armor. He had achieved his Fourth Ideal.

  And he was going the wrong directi
on.

  She could easily see his mistake. He’d decided the best way to protect the tower was to come here, to the pillar, and rescue Navani. But no, he was needed elsewhere.

  She drew his attention with flashing lights on the wall.

  Sibling? Kaladin’s voice soon sounded through the system as he touched the crystal vein.

  Yes and no, Highmarshal, Navani said. The pillar is secure. Get to the Breakaway market. Tell the enemies you find there that they’d best retreat quickly.

  He obeyed immediately, changing the direction of his flight.

  Navani, full of incredible awareness, got to work.

  * * *

  Dalinar persuaded the Windrunners to linger in the sky above Ishar’s camp, rather than flying immediately back to the Emuli warcamp.

  He worried about them though. The Radiants drooped like soldiers who had completed a full-day, double-time march. Ordinarily Stormlight would have perked them up, but they complained of headaches their powers couldn’t heal.

  The effects shouldn’t be permanent, the Stormfather said. But I cannot say for certain. Ishar Connected them to the ground. Essentially, their powers saw the stones as part of their body—and so tried to fill the ground with Stormlight as it fills their veins.

  I can barely make sense of what you said, Dalinar replied, hanging in the sky far above Ishar’s camp. How are such things possible?

  The powers of a Bondsmith are the powers of creation, the Stormfather said. The powers of gods, including the ability to link souls. Always before, Honor was here to guard this power, to limit it. It seems that Ishar knows how to make full use of his new freedom.

  The Stormfather paused, then rumbled more softly. I never liked him. Though I was only a wind then—and not completely conscious—I remember him. Ishar was ambitious even before madness took him. He cannot bear sole blame for the destruction of Ashyn, humankind’s first home, but he was the one Odium first tricked into experimenting with the Surges.

  You don’t particularly like anyone, Dalinar noted.

  Not true. There was a human who made me laugh once, long ago. I was somewhat fond of him.