Words of Radiance (Stormlight Archive, The)

by Sanderson, Brandon

  To where two bridgemen had grabbed hold of the steel link skirt of his Plate and were struggling to hold him back from the brink. Grunting, they clung to the slick metal, holding tight with feet thrust against stones to keep from being pulled off with him.

  Other soldiers materialized, rushing to help. Hands grabbed Adolin around the waist and shoulders, and together they hauled him back from the brink of the void—to the point that he was able to get his balance again and stumble away from the chasm.

  Soldiers cheered, and Adolin let out an exhausted laugh. He turned to the bridgemen, Skar and Drehy. “I guess,” Adolin said, “I don’t need to wonder if you two can keep up with me or not.”

  “This was nothing,” Skar said.

  “Yeah,” Drehy added. “Lifting fat lighteyes is easy. You should try a bridge sometime.”

  Adolin grinned, then wiped water from his face with his exposed hand. “See if you can find a chunk of my helm or forearm piece. Regrowing the armor will go faster if we’ve got a seed. Collect my gauntlet too, if you would.”

  The two nodded. That red lightning in the sky was building, and that spinning column of dark rain was expanding, growing outward. That . . . that did not seem like a good sign.

  He needed a better grasp on what was happening in the rest of the army. He jogged across the bridge to the central plateau. Where was his father? What was happening on Aladar’s and Roion’s fronts? Had Shallan returned from her expedition?

  Everything seemed chaotic here on the central plateau. The rising winds tore at tents, and some of them had collapsed. People ran this way and that. Adolin spotted a figure in a thick cloak, striding purposefully through the rain. That person looked like he knew what he was doing. Adolin caught his arm as he passed.

  “Where’s my father?” he asked. “What orders are you delivering?”

  The hood of the cloak fell down and the man turned to regard Adolin with eyes that were slightly too large, too rounded. A bald head. Filmy, loose clothing beneath the cloak.

  The Assassin in White.

  * * *

  Moash stepped forward, but did not summon his Shardblade.

  Kaladin struck with his spear, but it was futile. He’d used what strength he had to merely remain upright. His spear glanced off Moash’s helm, and the former bridgeman slapped a fist down on the weapon, shattering the wood.

  Kaladin lurched to a stop, but Moash wasn’t done. He stepped forward and slammed an armored fist into Kaladin’s gut.

  Kaladin gasped, folding as things broke inside of him. Ribs snapped like twigs before that impossibly strong fist. Kaladin coughed, spraying blood across Moash’s armor, then groaned as his friend stepped back, removing his fist.

  Kaladin collapsed to the cold stone floor, everything shaking. His eyes felt like they’d pop from his face, and he curled around his broken chest, trembling.

  “Storms.” Moash’s voice was distant. “That was a harder blow than I intended.”

  “You did what you had to.” Graves.

  Oh . . . Stormfather . . . the pain . . .

  “Now what?” Moash.

  “We end this. Kill the king with a Shardblade. It will still look like the assassin, hopefully. Those blood trails are frustrating. They might make people ask questions. Here, let me cut down these boards, so it looks like he came in through the wall, like last time.”

  Cold air. Rain.

  Yelling? Very distant? He knew that voice. . . .

  “Syl?” Kaladin whispered, blood on his lips. “Syl?”

  Nothing.

  “I ran until . . . until I couldn’t any longer,” Kaladin whispered. “End of . . . the race.”

  Life before death.

  “I will do it.” Graves. “I will bear this burden.”

  “It is my right!” Moash said.

  He blinked, eyes resting on the king’s unconscious body just beside him. Still breathing.

  I will protect those who cannot protect themselves.

  It made sense, now, why he’d had to make this choice. Kaladin rolled to his knees. Graves and Moash were arguing.

  “I have to protect him,” Kaladin whispered.

  Why?

  “If I protect . . .” He coughed. “If I protect . . . only the people I like, it means that I don’t care about doing what is right.” If he did that, he only cared about what was convenient for himself.

  That wasn’t protecting. That was selfishness.

  Straining, agonized, Kaladin raised one foot. The good foot. Coughing blood, he shoved himself upward and stumbled to his feet between Elhokar and the assassins. Fingers trembling, he felt at his belt, and—after two tries—got his side knife out. He squeezed out tears of pain, and through blurry vision, saw the two Shardbearers looking at him.

  Moash slowly raised his faceplate, revealing a stunned expression. “Stormfather . . . Kal, how are you standing?”

  It made sense now.

  That was why he’d come back. It was about Tien, it was about Dalinar, and it was about what was right—but most of all, it was about protecting people.

  This was the man he wanted to be.

  Kaladin moved one foot back, touching his heel to the king, forming a battle stance. Then raised his hand before him, knife out. His hand shook like a roof rattling from thunder. He met Moash’s eyes.

  Strength before weakness.

  “You. Will. Not. Have. Him.”

  “Finish this, Moash,” Graves said.

  “Storms,” Moash said. “There’s no need. Look at him. He can’t fight back.”

  Kaladin felt exhausted. At least he’d stood up.

  It was the end. The journey had come and gone.

  Shouting. Kaladin heard it now, as if it were closer.

  He is mine! a feminine voice said. I claim him.

  HE BETRAYED HIS OATH.

  “He has seen too much,” Graves said to Moash. “If he lives this day, he’ll betray us. You know my words are true, Moash. Kill him.”

  The knife slipped from Kaladin’s fingers, clanging to the ground. He was too weak to hold it. His arm flopped back to his side, and he stared down at the knife, dazed.

  I don’t care.

  HE WILL KILL YOU.

  “I’m sorry, Kal,” Moash said, stepping forward. “I should have made it quick at the start.”

  The Words, Kaladin. That was Syl’s voice. You have to speak the Words!

  I FORBID THIS.

  YOUR WILL MATTERS NOT! Syl shouted. YOU CANNOT HOLD ME BACK IF HE SPEAKS THE WORDS! THE WORDS, KALADIN! SAY THEM!

  “I will protect even those I hate,” Kaladin whispered through bloody lips. “So long as it is right.”

  A Shardblade appeared in Moash’s hands.

  A distant rumbling. Thunder.

  THE WORDS ARE ACCEPTED, the Stormfather said reluctantly.

  “Kaladin!” Syl’s voice. “Stretch forth thy hand!” She zipped around him, suddenly visible as a ribbon of light.

  “I can’t . . .” Kaladin said, drained.

  “Stretch forth thy hand!”

  He reached out a trembling hand. Moash hesitated.

  Wind blew in the opening in the wall, and Syl’s ribbon of light became mist, a form she often took. Silver mist, which grew larger, coalesced before Kaladin, extending into his hand.

  Glowing, brilliant, a Shardblade emerged from the mist, vivid blue light shining from swirling patterns along its length.

  Kaladin gasped a deep breath as if coming fully awake for the first time. The entire hallway went black as the Stormlight in every lamp down the length of the hall winked out.

  For a moment, they stood in darkness.

  Then Kaladin exploded with Light.

  It erupted from his body, making him shine like a blazing white sun in the darkness. Moash backed away, face pale in the white brilliance, throwing up a hand to shade his eyes.

  Pain evaporated like mist on a hot day. Kaladin’s grip firmed upon the glowing Shardblade, a weapon beside which those of Graves and M
oash looked dull. One after another, shutters burst open up and down the hallway, wind screaming into the corridor. Behind Kaladin, frost crystalized on the ground, growing backward away from him. A glyph formed in the frost, almost in the shape of wings.

  Graves screamed, falling in his haste to get away. Moash backed up, staring at Kaladin.

  “The Knights Radiant,” Kaladin said softly, “have returned.”

  “Too late!” Graves shouted.

  Kaladin frowned, then glanced at the king.

  “The Diagram spoke of this,” Graves said, scuttling back along the corridor. “We missed it. We missed it completely! We focused on making certain you were separated from Dalinar, and not on what our actions might push you to become!”

  Moash looked from Graves back at Kaladin. Then he ran, Plate clinking as he turned and dashed down the corridor and disappeared.

  Kaladin, Syl’s voice spoke in his head. Something is still very wrong. I feel it on the winds.

  Graves laughed like a madman.

  “Separating me,” Kaladin whispered. “From Dalinar? Why would they care?”

  He turned, looking eastward.

  Oh no . . .

  But who is the wanderer, the wild piece, the one who makes no sense? I glimpse at his implications, and the world opens to me. I shy back. Impossible. Is it?

  —From the Diagram, West Wall Psalm of Wonders: paragraph 8 (Note by Adrotagia: Could this refer to Mraize?)

  “She didn’t say if she could even open the pathway?” Dalinar asked as he stalked toward the command tent. Rain pummeled the ground around him, so dense that it was no longer possible to distinguish separate windblown sheets in the glare of Navani’s fabrial floodlights. It was long past when he should have found cover.

  “No, Brightlord,” said Peet, the bridgeman. “But she was insistent that we couldn’t face what was coming at us. Two highstorms.”

  “How could there be two?” Navani asked. She wore a stout cloak but was soaked clear through anyway, her umbrella having blown away long ago. Roion walked on Dalinar’s other side, his beard and mustache limp with water.

  “I don’t know, Brightness,” Peet said. “But that’s what she said. A highstorm and something else. She called it an Everstorm. She expects they’re going to collide right here.”

  Dalinar considered, frowning. The command tent was just ahead. Inside, he’d talk to his field commanders, and—

  The command tent shuddered, then ripped free in a burst of wind. Trailing ropes and spikes, it blew right past Dalinar, almost close enough to touch. Dalinar cursed as the light of a dozen lanterns—once contained in the tent—spilled onto the plateau. Scribes and soldiers scrambled, trying to grab maps and sheets of paper as rain and wind claimed them.

  “Storm it!” Dalinar said, turning his back to the powerful wind. “I need an update!”

  “Sir!” Commander Cael, head of the field command, jogged over, his wife—Apara—following. Cael’s clothing was mostly dry, though that was quickly changing. “Aladar has won his plateau! Apara was just composing you a message.”

  “Really?” Almighty bless that man. He’d done it.

  “Yes, sir,” Cael said. He had to shout against the wind and rain. “Highprince Aladar said the singing Parshendi went right down, letting him slaughter them. The rest broke and fled. Even with Roion’s plateau fallen, we’ve won the day!”

  “Doesn’t feel like it,” Dalinar shouted back. Just minutes ago, the rainfall had been light. The situation was degrading quickly. “Send orders immediately to Aladar, my son, and General Khal. There’s a plateau just to the southeast, perfectly round. I want all of our forces to move there to brace for an oncoming storm.”

  “Yes, sir!” Cael said with a salute, fist to coat. With the other hand, however, he pointed over Dalinar’s shoulder. “Sir, have you seen that?”

  He turned, looking back toward the west. Red light flashed, lightning coursing down in repeated blasts. The sky itself seemed to spasm as something built there, swirling in an enormous storm cell that was rapidly expanding outward.

  “Almighty above . . .” Navani whispered.

  Nearby another tent shook, its stakes coming undone. “Leave the tents, Cael,” Dalinar said. “Get everyone moving. Now. Navani, go to Brightness Shallan. Help her if you can.”

  The officer leaped away and began shouting orders. Navani went with him, vanishing into the night, and a squad of soldiers chased after her to provide protection.

  “And me, Dalinar?” Roion asked.

  “We’ll need you to take command of your men and lead them to safety,” Dalinar said. “If such a thing can be found.”

  That tent nearby shook again. Dalinar frowned. It didn’t seem to be moving along with the wind. And was that . . . shouting?

  Adolin crashed through the tent’s fabric and skidded along the stones on his back, his armor leaking Light.

  “Adolin!” Dalinar shouted, dashing to his son.

  The young man was missing several segments of his armor. He looked up with gritted teeth, blood streaming from his nose. He said something, but it was lost to the wind. No helm, no left vambrace, the breastplate cracked just short of shattering, his right leg exposed. Who could have done such a thing to a Shardbearer?

  Dalinar knew the answer immediately. He cradled Adolin, but looked up past the collapsed tent. It whipped in the storm and tore away as a man strode past it, glowing with spinning trails of Stormlight. Those foreign features, clothing all of white plastered to his body by the rain, a bowed, hairless head, shadows hiding eyes that glowed with Stormlight.

  Gavilar’s murderer. Szeth, the Assassin in White.

  * * *

  Shallan worked through the inscriptions on the wall of the round chamber, frantically searching for some way to make the Oathgate function.

  This had to work. It had to.

  “This is all in the Dawnchant,” Inadara said. “I can’t make sense of any of it.”

  The Knights Radiant are the key.

  Shouldn’t Renarin’s sword have been enough? “What’s the pattern?” she whispered.

  “Mmm . . .” Pattern said. “Perhaps you cannot see it because you are too close? Like the Shattered Plains?”

  Shallan hesitated, then stood and walked to the center of the room, where the depictions of the Knights Radiant and their kingdoms met at a central point.

  “Brightlord Renarin?” Inadara asked. “Is something wrong?” The young prince had fallen to his knees and was huddled next to the wall.

  “I can see it,” Renarin answered feverishly, his voice echoing in the chamber. Ardents who had been studying part of the murals looked up at him. “I can see the future itself. Why? Why, Almighty? Why have you cursed me so?” He screamed a pleading cry, then stood and cracked something against the wall. A rock? Where had he gotten it? He gripped the thing in a gauntleted hand and began to write.

  Shocked, Shallan took a step toward him. A sequence of numbers?

  All zeros.

  “It’s come,” Renarin whispered. “It’s come, it’s come, it’s come. We’re dead. We’re dead. We’re dead. . . .”

  * * *

  Dalinar knelt beneath a fracturing sky, holding his son. Rainwater washed the blood from Adolin’s face, and the boy blinked, dazed from his thrashing.

  “Father . . .” Adolin said.

  The assassin stepped forward quietly, with no apparent urgency. The man seemed to glide through the rain.

  “When you take the princedom, son,” Dalinar said, “don’t let them corrupt you. Don’t play their games. Lead. Don’t follow.”

  “Father!” Adolin said, his eyes focusing.

  Dalinar stood up. Adolin lurched over onto all fours and tried to get to his feet, but the assassin had broken one of Adolin’s greaves, which made it almost impossible to rise. The boy slipped back into the pooling water.

  “You’ve been taught well, Adolin,” Dalinar said, eyes on that assassin. “You’re a better man than I am. I was alwa
ys a tyrant who had to learn to be something else. But you, you’ve been a good man from the start. Lead them, Adolin. Unite them.”

  “Father!”

  Dalinar walked away from Adolin. Nearby, scribes and attendants, captains and enlisted men all shouted and scrambled, trying to find order in the chaos of the storm. They followed Dalinar’s order to evacuate, and most had yet to notice the figure in white.

  The assassin stopped ten paces from Dalinar. Roion, pale-faced and stammering, backed away from the two of them and began shouting. “Assassin! Assassin!”

  The rainfall was actually letting up a little. That didn’t bring Dalinar much hope; not with that red lightning on the horizon. Was that . . . a stormwall building at the front of the new storm? His efforts to disrupt the Parshendi had fallen short.

  The Shin man didn’t strike. He stood opposite Dalinar, motionless, expressionless, water dripping down his face. Unnaturally calm.

  Dalinar was far taller and broader. This small man in white, with his pale skin, seemed almost a youth, a stripling by comparison.

  Behind him, Roion’s cries were lost in the confusion. However, Bridge Four did run up to surround Dalinar, spears in hand. Dalinar waved them back. “There’s nothing you can do here, lads,” Dalinar said. “Let me face him.”

  Ten heartbeats.

  “Why?” Dalinar asked the assassin, who still stood there in the rain. “Why kill my brother? Did they explain the reasoning behind your orders?”

  “I am Szeth-son-son-Vallano,” the man said. Harshly. “Truthless of Shinovar. I do as my masters demand, and I do not ask for explanations.”

  Dalinar revised his assessment. This man was not calm. He seemed that way, but when he spoke, he did it through clenched teeth, his eyes open too wide.

  He’s mad, Dalinar thought. Storms.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Dalinar said. “If it’s about pay . . .”

  “What I am owed,” the assassin shouted, rainwater spraying from his face and Stormlight rising from his lips, “will come to me eventually! Every bit of it. I will drown in it, stonewalker!”

  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.