Words of Radiance

by Brandon Sanderson

  Szeth put his hand to the side, Shardblade appearing. Then, with a curt, deprecatory motion—like he was merely trimming a bit of gristle from his meat—he strode forward and swung at Dalinar.

  Dalinar caught the Blade with his own, which appeared in his hand as he raised it.

  The assassin spared a glance for Dalinar’s weapon, then smiled, lips drawn thin, showing only a hint of teeth. That eager smile matched with haunted eyes was one of the most evil things Dalinar had ever seen.

  “Thank you,” the assassin said, “for extending my agony by not dying easily.” He stepped back and burst afire with white light.

  He came at Dalinar again, inhumanly quick.

  * * *

  Adolin cursed, shaking out of his daze. Storms, his head hurt. He’d smacked it something good when the assassin tossed him to the ground.

  Father was fighting Szeth. Bless the man for listening to reason and bonding that madman’s Blade. Adolin gritted his teeth and struggled to get to his feet, something that was difficult with a broken greave. Though the rain was letting up, the sky remained dark. To the west, lightning plunged downward like red waterfalls, almost constant.

  At the same time, wind gusted from the east. Something was building out there too, from the Origin. This was very bad.

  Those things Father said to me . . .

  Adolin stumbled, almost falling to the ground, but hands appeared to assist him. He glanced to the side to find those two bridgemen from before, Skar and Drehy, helping him to his feet.

  “You two,” Adolin said, “are getting a storming raise. Help me get this armor off.” He frantically began removing sections of armor. The entire suit was so battered it was nearly useless.

  Metal clanged nearby as Dalinar fought. If he could hold a little longer, Adolin would be able to help. He would not let that creature get the better of him again. Not again!

  He spared a glance for what Dalinar was doing, and froze, hands on the straps for his breastplate.

  His father . . . his father moved beautifully.

  * * *

  Dalinar did not fight for his life. His life hadn’t been his own for years.

  He fought for Gavilar. He fought as he wished he had all those years ago, for the chance he had missed. In that moment between storms—when the rain stilled and the winds drew in their breaths to blow—he danced with the slayer of kings, and somehow held his own.

  The assassin moved like a shadow. His step seemed too quick to be human. When he jumped, he soared into the air. He swung his Shardblade like flashes of lightning, and would occasionally stretch forward with his other hand, as if to grab Dalinar.

  Recalling their previous encounter, Dalinar recognized that as the more dangerous of Szeth’s weapons. Each time, Dalinar managed to bring his Blade around and force the assassin away. The man attacked from different directions, but Dalinar didn’t think. Thoughts could get jumbled, the mind disoriented.

  His instincts knew what to do.

  Duck when Szeth leaped over Dalinar’s head. Step backward, avoiding a strike that should have severed his spine. Lash out, forcing the assassin away. Three quick steps backward, sword up wardingly, strike for the assassin’s palm as it tried to touch him.

  It worked. For this brief time, he fought this creature. Bridge Four remained back, as he’d commanded. They’d only have interfered.

  He survived.

  But he did not win.

  Finally, Dalinar twisted away from a strike but was unable to move quickly enough. The assassin rounded on him and thrust a fist into his side.

  Dalinar’s ribs cracked. He grunted, stumbling, almost falling. He swung his Blade toward Szeth, warding the man back, but it didn’t matter. The damage was done. He sank to his knees, barely able to remain upright for the pain.

  In that instant he knew a truth he should always have known.

  If I’d been there, on that night, awake instead of drunk and asleep . . . Gavilar would still have died.

  I couldn’t have beaten this creature. I can’t do it now, and I couldn’t have done it then.

  I couldn’t have saved him.

  It brought peace, and Dalinar finally set down that boulder, the one he’d been carrying for over six years.

  The assassin stalked toward him, glowing with terrible Stormlight, but a figure lunged for him from behind.

  Dalinar expected it to be Adolin, perhaps one of the bridgemen.

  Instead, it was Roion.

  * * *

  Adolin tossed aside the last bit of armor and went running for his father. He wasn’t too late. Dalinar knelt before the assassin, defeated, but not dead.

  Adolin shouted, drawing close, and an unexpected figure leapt out of the wreckage of a tent. Highprince Roion—incongruously holding a side sword and leading a small force of soldiers—rushed the assassin.

  Rats had a better chance fighting a chasmfiend.

  Adolin barely had time to shout as the assassin—moving at blinding speed—spun and cut the blade from the hilt of Roion’s sword. Szeth’s hand shot out and slammed against Roion’s chest.

  Roion shot into the air, trailing a wisp of Stormlight. He screamed as the sky swallowed him.

  He lasted longer than his men. The assassin swept between them, deftly avoiding spears, moving with uncanny grace. A dozen soldiers fell in an instant, eyes burning.

  Adolin jumped over one of the bodies as it collapsed. Storms. He could still hear Roion screaming up above somewhere.

  Adolin thrust at the assassin, but the creature twisted and slapped the Shardblade away. The assassin was grinning. He didn’t speak, though Stormlight leaked between his teeth.

  Adolin tried Smokestance, attacking with a quick sequence of jabs. The assassin silently battered them away, unfazed. Adolin focused, dueling the best he could, but he was a child before this thing.

  Roion, still screaming, plummeted from the sky and hit nearby with a sickening wet crunch. A quick glance at his corpse told Adolin that the highprince would never rise again.

  Adolin cursed and lunged for the assassin, but a fluttering tarp—brushed by the assassin in passing—leaped toward Adolin. The monster could command inanimate objects! Adolin sliced through the tarp and then jumped forward to swing for the assassin.

  He found nothing to fight.

  Duck.

  He threw himself to the ground as something passed over his head, the assassin flying through the air. Szeth’s hissing Shardblade missed Adolin’s head by inches.

  Adolin rolled and came to his knees, puffing.

  How . . . What could he do . . . ?

  You can’t beat it, Adolin thought. Nothing can beat it.

  The assassin landed lightly. Adolin climbed back to his feet, and found himself in company. A dozen of the bridgemen formed up around him. Skar, at their head, looked to Adolin and nodded. Good men. They’d seen Roion’s fall, and still they joined him. Adolin hefted his Shardblade and noticed that a short distance away, his father had managed to regain his feet. Another small group of bridgemen moved in around him, and he allowed it. He and Adolin had dueled and lost. Their only chance now was a mad rush.

  Nearby, shouts arose. General Khal and a large strike force of soldiers, judging by the banner approaching. There wasn’t time. The assassin stood on the wet plateau between Dalinar’s small troop and Adolin’s, head bowed. Fallen blue lanterns gave light. The sky had gone as black as night, except when broken by that red lightning.

  Charge and mob a Shardbearer. Hope for a lucky blow. It was the only way. Adolin nodded to Dalinar. His father nodded back, grim. He knew. He knew there was no beating this thing.

  Lead them, Adolin.

  Unite them.

  Adolin screamed, charging forward, sword out, men running with him. Dalinar advanced too, more slowly, one arm across his chest. Storms, the man could barely walk.

  Szeth snapped his head up, face devoid of all emotion. As they arrived, he leaped, shooting into the air.

  Adolin’s eyes f
ollowed him up. Surely they hadn’t chased him off . . .

  The assassin twisted in the air, then crashed back down to the ground, glowing like a comet. Adolin barely parried a blow from the Blade; the force of it was incredible. It tossed him backward. The assassin spun, and a pair of bridgemen fell with burning eyes. Others lost spearheads as they tried to stab at him.

  The assassin ripped free from the press of bodies, trailing blood from a couple of wounds. Those wounds closed as Adolin watched, the blood stopping. It was as Kaladin had said. With a horrible sinking feeling, Adolin realized just how little a chance they’d ever had.

  The assassin dashed for Dalinar, who brought up the rear of the attack. The aging soldier raised his Blade, as if in respect, then thrust once.

  An attack. That was the way to go.

  “Father . . .” Adolin whispered.

  The assassin parried the thrust, then placed his hand against Dalinar’s chest.

  The highprince, suddenly glowing, lurched up into the dark sky. He didn’t scream.

  The plateau fell silent. Some bridgemen propped up wounded fellows. Others turned toward the assassin, pulling into a spear formation, looking frantic.

  The assassin lowered his Blade, then started to walk away.

  “Bastard!” Adolin spat, dashing after him. “Bastard!” He could barely see for the tears.

  The assassin stopped, then leveled his weapon toward Adolin.

  Adolin stumbled to a halt. Storms, his head hurt.

  “It is finished,” the assassin whispered. “I am done.” He turned from Adolin and continued to walk away.

  Like Damnation itself, you are! Adolin raised his Shardblade overhead.

  The assassin spun and slapped the weapon so hard with his own Blade that Adolin distinctly heard something snap in his wrist. His Blade tumbled from his fingers, vanishing. The assassin’s hand slapped out, knuckles striking Adolin in the chest, and he gasped, his breath suddenly gone from his throat.

  Stunned, he sank to his knees.

  “I suppose,” the assassin snarled, “I can kill one more, on my own time.” Then he grinned, a terrible smile with teeth clenched, eyes wide. As if he were in enormous pain.

  Gasping, Adolin awaited the blow. He looked toward the sky. Father, I’m sorry. I . . .

  I . . .

  What was that?

  He blinked as he made out something glowing in the air, drifting down, like a leaf. A figure. A man.

  Dalinar.

  The highprince fell slowly, as if he were no more weighty than a cloud. White Light streamed from his body in glowing wisps. Nearby bridgemen murmured, soldiers shouted, pointing.

  Adolin blinked, certain he was delusional. But no, that was Dalinar. Like . . . one of the Heralds themselves, coming down from the Tranquiline Halls.

  The assassin looked, then stumbled back, mouth open in horror. “No . . . No!”

  And then, like a falling star, a blazing fireball of light and motion shot down in front of Dalinar. It crashed into the ground, sending out a ring of Stormlight like white smoke. At the center, a figure in blue crouched with one hand on the stones, the other clutching a glowing Shardblade.

  His eyes afire with a light that somehow made the assassin’s seem dull by comparison, he wore the uniform of a bridgeman, and bore the glyphs of slavery on his forehead.

  The expanding ring of smoky light faded, save for a large glyph—a swordlike shape—which remained for a brief moment before puffing away.

  “You sent him to the sky to die, assassin,” Kaladin said, Stormlight puffing from his lips, “but the sky and the winds are mine. I claim them, as I now claim your life.”

  One is almost certainly a traitor to the others.

  —From the Diagram, Book of the 2nd Desk Drawer: paragraph 27

  Kaladin let the Stormlight evaporate before him. He was running low—his frantic flight across the Plains had drained him. How shocked he had been when the flare of light rising into the darkening sky above a lit plateau had turned out to be Dalinar himself. Lashed to the sky by Szeth.

  Kaladin had caught him quickly and sent him back to the ground with a careful Lashing of his own. Ahead, Szeth stumbled away from the princeling, holding out his sword wardingly toward Kaladin, eyes wide and lips trembling. Szeth looked horrified.

  Good.

  Dalinar finally landed on the plateau with a soft step, and Kaladin’s Lashing ran out.

  “Seek shelter,” Kaladin said, the tempest in his veins dampening further. “I flew over a storm on my way here . . . a big one. Coming from the west.”

  “We’re in the process of withdrawing.”

  “Hurry,” Kaladin said. “I will deal with our friend.”

  “Kaladin?”

  Kaladin turned, glancing at the highprince, who stood tall, despite cradling one arm against his chest. Dalinar met his eyes. “You are what I’ve been looking for.”

  “Yes. Finally.”

  Kaladin turned and strode toward the assassin. He passed Bridge Four in a tight formation, and the men—at a barked command from Teft—threw something down before Kaladin. Blue lanterns, lit by oversized gems that had lasted the Weeping.

  Bless them. Stormlight streamed up as he passed, filling him. With a sinking feeling, however, he noticed two corpses with burned-out eyes at their feet. Pedin and Mart. Eth clutched his brother’s body, weeping. Other bridgemen had lost limbs.

  Kaladin snarled. No more. He would lose no further men to this monster.

  “You ready?” he whispered.

  Of course, Syl said in his head. I’m not the one we’ve been waiting on.

  Burning with Stormlight, enraged and alight, Kaladin launched himself at the assassin and met him Blade against Blade.

  * * *

  “We’re dead . . .” Renarin muttered.

  “Someone shut him up,” Shallan snapped. “Gag him if you have to.” She pointedly turned around, ignoring the raving prince. She still stood in the center of the muraled chamber. The pattern. What was the pattern?

  A circular room. A thing on one side that adapted to fit different Shardblades. Depictions of Knights on the floor, glowing with Stormlight, pointing at a tower city, just as the myths described. Ten lamps on the walls. The lock hung over what she thought was a depiction of Natanatan, the kingdom of the Shattered Plains. It—

  Ten lamps. With gems in them. Latticework of metal enclosing each one.

  Shallan blinked, a shock running through her.

  “It’s a fabrial.”

  * * *

  The assassin hurtled into the air. Captain Kaladin flew upward, chasing him, trailing Light.

  “Status of the retreat!” Dalinar bellowed, crossing the plateau, his ribs smarting like nothing else, his wound from before little better. Storms. That one had faded as he fought, but now it ached something fierce. “Someone get me information!”

  Scribes and ardents appeared from the nearby wreckage of tents. Shouts rose from around the plateau. The wind started to pick up—their period of reprieve, the short calm, was over. They needed to escape these plateaus. Now.

  Dalinar reached Adolin and helped the young man to his feet. He looked quite a bit worse for wear, bruised, battered, dizzy. He flexed his right hand and winced in pain, then gingerly let it relax.

  “Damnation,” Adolin said. “That bridgeboy is really one of them? The Knights Radiant?”

  “Yes.”

  Oddly, Adolin smiled, seeming satisfied. “Ha! I knew there was something wrong with that man.”

  “Go,” Dalinar said, pushing Adolin along. “We need to get the army to move two plateaus over, that direction, where Shallan waits. Get over there and organize what you can.” He looked westward as the wind whipped up further, with bursts of rain. “Time is short.”

  Adolin shouted for the bridgemen to join him, which they did, helping their wounded—though they were unfortunately forced to leave their dead. Several of them carried Adolin’s Shardplate as well, which was apparently spent.
>
  Dalinar limped eastward across the plateau as fast as he could manage in his condition, searching for . . .

  Yes. The place where he’d left Gallant. The horse snorted, shaking a wet mane. “Bless you, old friend,” Dalinar said, reaching the Ryshadium. Through the thunder and the chaos, the horse had not fled.

  Dalinar moved much more easily once in the saddle, and eventually found Roion’s army pouring southward toward Shallan’s plateau, in organized ranks. He allowed himself a sigh of relief at their orderly march; the majority of the army had already crossed to the southern plateau, only one away from Shallan’s round one. That was wonderful. He couldn’t remember where Captain Khal had been sent, but with Roion himself fallen, Dalinar had assumed he’d left this army in chaos.

  “Dalinar!” a voice called.

  He turned to find the utterly incongruous sight of Sebarial and his mistress sitting beneath a canopy, eating dried sellafruit off a plate held by an awkward-looking soldier.

  Sebarial raised a cup of wine toward Dalinar. “Hope you don’t mind,” Sebarial said. “We liberated your stores. They were blowing past at the time, headed for certain doom.”

  Dalinar stared at them. Palona even had a novel out and was reading.

  “You did this?” Dalinar asked, nodding toward Roion’s army.

  “They were making a racket,” Sebarial said. “Wandering around, shouting at one another, weeping and wailing. Very poetic. Figured someone should get them moving. My army is already off on that other plateau. It’s getting rather cramped there, you realize.”

  Palona flipped the page in her novel, barely paying attention.

  “Have you seen Aladar?” Dalinar asked.

  Sebarial gestured with his wine. “He should be about finished crossing as well. You’ll find him that direction. Downwind, happily.”

  “Don’t dally,” Dalinar said. “You remain here, and you’re a dead man.”

  “Like Roion?” Sebarial asked.

  “Unfortunately.”

  “So it is true,” Sebarial said, standing up, brushing off his trousers—which were somehow still dry. “Who am I going to make fun of now?” He shook his head sadly.