One of the Fused nudged the other, then pointed at Shallan, whom they’d just noticed. Neither appeared worried that she’d open the Oathgate—which was a bad sign. What did they know about the device that Adolin’s team did not?
The Fused turned from Shallan and continued a conversation in a language Adolin couldn’t understand. One pointed at each illusion in turn, then thrust with his spear. The other shook her head, and Adolin could almost interpret her answer. We tried stabbing each one. They keep mixing about, so it’s hard to keep track.
Instead, the female took out a knife and cut her hand, then flung it toward the illusions. Orange blood fell through the illusions, leaving no stain, but splattered against Adolin’s cheek. Adolin felt his heart flutter, and he tried to covertly wipe the blood off, but the female gestured toward him with a satisfied grin. The male saluted her with a finger to his head, then lowered his lance and flew straight toward Adolin.
Damnation.
Adolin scrambled away, passing through an illusion of Captain Notum and causing it to diffuse. It formed back together, then blew apart a second later as the Fused soared through it, lance pointed at Adolin’s back.
Adolin spun and flung his harpoon up to block, deflecting the lance, but the Fused still smashed into him, tossing him backward. Adolin hit the stone bridge hard, smacking his head, seeing stars.
Vision swimming, he reached for his harpoon, but the Fused slapped the weapon away with the butt of his lance. The creature then alighted softly on the bridge, billowing robes settling.
Adolin yanked out his belt knife, then forced himself to his feet, unsteady. The Fused lowered its lance to a two-handed, underarm grip, then waited.
Knife against spear. Adolin breathed in and out, worried about the other Fused—who had gone for Shallan. He tried to dredge up Zahel’s lessons, remembering days on the practice yard running this exact exchange. Jakamav had refused the training, laughing at the idea that a Shardbearer would ever fight knife to spear.
Adolin flipped the knife to grip it point down, then held it forward so he could deflect the spear thrusts. Zahel whispered to him. Wait until the enemy thrusts with the spear, deflect it or dodge it, then grab the spear with your left hand. Pull yourself close enough to ram the knife into the enemy’s neck.
Right. He could do that.
He’d “died” seven times out of ten doing it against Zahel, of course.
Winds bless you anyway, you old axehound, he thought. Adolin stepped in, testing, and waited for the thrust. When it came, Adolin shoved the lance’s point aside with his knife, then grabbed at—
The enemy floated backward in an unnatural motion, too fast—no ordinary human could have moved in such a way. Adolin stumbled, trying to reassess. The Fused idly brought the lance back around, then fluidly rammed it right through Adolin’s stomach.
Adolin gasped at the sharp spike of pain, doubling over, feeling blood on his hands. The Fused seemed almost bored as he yanked the lance out, the tip glistening red with Adolin’s blood, then dropped the weapon. The creature landed and instead unsheathed a wicked-looking sword. He advanced, slapped away Adolin’s weak attempt at a parry, and raised the sword to strike.
Someone leaped onto the Fused from behind.
A figure in tattered clothing, a scrabbling, angry woman with brown vines instead of skin and scratched-out eyes. Adolin gaped as his deadeye raked long nails across the Fused’s face, causing him to stumble backward, humming of all things. He rammed his sword into the spren’s chest, but it didn’t faze her in the least. She just let out a screech like the one she’d made at Adolin when he’d tried to summon his Blade, and kept attacking.
Adolin shook himself. Flee, idiot!
Holding his wounded gut—each step causing a shock of pain—he lurched across the bridge toward Shallan.
* * *
Employing subterfuge will not deceive us or weaken our resolve, Lightweaver, the guardians said. For indeed, this is not a matter of decision, but one of nature. The path remains closed.
Shallan let the illusion melt around her, then slumped down, exhausted. She’d tried pleading, cajoling, yelling, and even Lightweaving. It was no use. She had failed. Her illusions on the bridge were wavering and vanishing, their Stormlight running out.
Through them shot a Fused trailing dark energy, lance leveled directly toward Shallan. She dove to the side, barely getting out of the way. The creature passed in a whoosh, then slowed and turned for another pass.
Shallan leaped to her feet first. “Pattern!” she yelled, sweeping her hands forward by instinct, trying to summon the Blade. A part of her was impressed that was her reaction. Adolin would be proud.
It didn’t work, of course. Pattern shouted in apology from the bridge, panicked. And yet in that moment—facing the enemy bearing down, its lance pointed at her heart—Shallan felt something. Pattern, or something like him, just beyond her mental reach. On the other side, and if she could just tug on it, feed it …
She screamed as Stormlight flowed through her, raging in her veins, reaching toward something in her pocket.
A wall appeared in front of her.
Shallan gasped. A sickening smack from the other side of the wall indicated that the Fused had collided with it.
A wall. A storming wall of worked stones, broken at the sides. Shallan looked down and found that her pocket—she was still wearing Veil’s white trousers—was connected to the strange wall.
What on Roshar? She pulled out her small knife and sawed the pocket free, then stumbled back. In the center of the wall was a small bead, melded into the stone.
That’s the bead I used to cross the sea down below, Shallan thought. What she’d done felt like Soulcasting, yet different.
Pattern ran up to her, humming as he left the bridge. Where were Adolin and Syl?
“I took the soul of the wall,” Shallan said, “and then made its physical form appear on this side.”
“Mmm. I think these beads are more minds than souls, but you did manifest it here. Very nice. Though your touch is unpracticed. Mmm. It will not stay for long.”
The edges were already starting to unravel to smoke. A scraping sound on the other side indicated that the Fused had not been defeated, merely stunned. Shallan turned from it and scrambled over the bridge, away from the towering sentinels. She passed some of her illusions and recovered a little of their Stormlight. Now, where was—
Adolin. Bleeding!
Shallan dashed over and grabbed him by the arm, trying to keep him upright as he stumbled.
“It’s just a little cut,” he said. Blood seeped out between his fingers, which were pressed to his gut, right below the navel. The back of his uniform was bloody too.
“Just a little cut? Adolin! You—”
“No time,” he said, leaning against her. He nodded toward the Fused she’d fought, who rose into the air over Shallan’s wall. “The other one is back behind me somewhere. Could be on us at any moment.”
“Kaladin,” Shallan said. “Where—”
“Mmm…” Pattern said, pointing. “He ran out of Stormlight and fell into the beads over that way.”
Great.
“Take a deep breath,” Shallan said to Adolin, then pulled him off the bridge with her and leaped for the beads.
* * *
Lift became awesome.
Her powers manifested as the ability to slide across objects without truly touching them. She could become really, really slick—which was handy, because soldiers tried to snatch her as she rounded the Alethi army. They grabbed at her unbuttoned overshirt, her arm, her hair. They couldn’t hold her. She just slid away. It was like they were trying to grab hold of a song.
She burst from their ranks and fell to her knees, which she’d slicked up real good. That meant she kept going, sliding on her knees away from the men with the glowing red eyes. Wyndle—who she knew by now was almost certainly not a Voidbringer—was a little snaking line of green beside her. He looked like a fast-growi
ng vine, jutting with small crystals here and there.
“Oh, I don’t like this,” he said.
“You don’t like nothin’.”
“Now, that is not true, mistress. I liked that nice town we passed back in Azir.”
“The one that was deserted?”
“So peaceful.”
There, Lift thought, picking out a real Voidbringer—the type that looked like parshmen, only big and scary. This one was a woman, and moved across the rock smoothly, like she was awesome too.
“I’ve always wondered,” Lift said. “Do you suppose they got those marble colorings on all their parts?”
“Mistress? Does it matter?”
“Maybe not now,” Lift admitted, glancing at the red storm. She kept her legs slick, but her hands not slick, which let her paddle and steer herself. Going about on your knees didn’t look as deevy as standing up—but when she tried being awesome while standing, she usually ended up crashed against a rock with her butt in the air.
That Fused did seem to be carrying something large in one hand. Like a big gemstone. Lift paddled in that direction—which was taking her dangerously close to that parshman army and their ships. Still, she got up pretty close before the Voidbringer woman turned and noticed.
Lift slid to a halt, letting her Stormlight run out. Her stomach growled, so she took a bite of some jerky she’d found in her guard’s pocket.
The Voidbringer said something in a singsong voice, hefting the enormous ruby—it didn’t have any Stormlight, which was good, since one that big would have been bright. Like, redder and brighter than Gawx’s face when Lift told him about how babies was made. He should know stuff like that already. He’d been a starvin’ thief! Hadn’t he known any whores or anything?
Anyway … how to get that ruby? The Voidbringer spoke again, and while Lift couldn’t figure out the words, she couldn’t help feeling that the Voidbringer sounded amused. The woman pushed off with one foot, then slid on the other, easy as if she were standing on oil. She coasted for a second, then looked over her shoulder and grinned before kicking off and sliding to the left, casually moving with a grace that made Lift seem super stupid.
“Well starve me,” Lift said. “She’s more awesome than I am.”
“Do you have to use that term?” Wyndle asked. “Yes, she appears to be able to access the Surge of—”
“Shut it,” Lift said. “Can you follow her?”
“I might leave you behind.”
“I’ll keep up.” Maybe. “You follow her. I’ll follow you.”
Wyndle sighed but obeyed, streaking off after the Voidbringer. Lift followed, paddling on her knees, feeling like a pig trying to imitate a professional dancer.
* * *
“You must choose, Szeth-son-Neturo,” Nin said. “The Skybreakers will swear to the Dawnsingers and their law. And you? Will you join us?”
Wind rippled Szeth’s clothing. All those years ago, he’d been correct. The Voidbringers had returned.
Now … now he was to simply accept their rule?
“I don’t trust myself, aboshi,” Szeth whispered. “I cannot see the right any longer. My own decisions are not trustworthy.”
“Yes,” Nin said, nodding, hands clasped behind his back. “Our minds are fallible. This is why we must pick something external to follow. Only in strict adherence to a code can we approximate justice.”
Szeth inspected the battlefield far below.
When are we going to actually fight someone? asked the sword on his back. You sure do like to talk. Even more than Vasher, and he could go on and on and on.…
“Aboshi,” Szeth said. “When I say the Third Ideal, can I choose a person as the thing I obey? Instead of the law?”
“Yes. Some of the Skybreakers have chosen to follow me, and I suspect that will make the transition to obeying the Dawnsingers easier for them. I would not suggest it. I feel that … I am … am getting worse.…”
A man in blue barred the way into the city below. He confronted … something else. A force that Szeth could just barely sense. A hidden fire.
“You followed men before,” Nin continued. “They caused your pain, Szeth-son-Neturo. Your agony is because you did not follow something unchanging and pure. You picked men instead of an ideal.”
“Or,” Szeth said, “perhaps I was simply forced to follow the wrong men.”
* * *
Kaladin thrashed in the beads, suffocating, coughing. He wasn’t that deep, but which way … which way was out? Which way was out?
Frantic, he tried to swim toward the surface, but the beads didn’t move like water, and he couldn’t propel himself. Beads slipped into his mouth, pushed at his skin. Pulled at him like an invisible hand. Trying to drag him farther and farther into the depths.
Away from the light. Away from the wind.
His fingers brushed something warm and soft among the beads. He thrashed, trying to find it again, and a hand seized his arm. He brought his other arm around and grabbed hold of a thin wrist. Another hand took him by the front of the coat, pulling him away from the darkness, and he stumbled, finding purchase on the bottom of the sea.
Lungs burning, he followed, step by step, eventually bursting from the beads to find Syl pulling him by the front of the coat. She led him up the bank, where he collapsed in a heap, spitting out spheres and wheezing. The Fused he’d been fighting landed on the Oathgate platform near the two they’d left behind.
As Kaladin was recovering his breath, beads nearby pulled back, revealing Shallan, Adolin, and Pattern crossing the seafloor through some kind of passage she’d made. A hallway in the depths? She was growing in her ability to manipulate the beads.
Adolin was wounded. Kaladin gritted his teeth, forcing himself to his feet and stumbling over to help Shallan get the prince up onto the shore. The prince lay on his back, cursing softly, holding his gut with bloodied hands.
“Let me see it,” Kaladin said, prying Adolin’s fingers out of the way.
“The blood—” Shallan started.
“The blood is the least of his worries,” Kaladin said, prodding at the wound. “He’s not going to bleed out from a gut wound anytime soon, but sepsis is another story. And if internal organs got cut…”
“Leave me,” Adolin said, coughing.
“Leave you to go where?” Kaladin said, moving his fingers in the wound. Storms. The intestines were cut. “I’m out of Stormlight.”
Shallan’s glow faded. “That was the last of what I had.”
Syl gripped Kaladin’s shoulder, looking toward the Fused, who launched up and flew toward them, lances held high. Pattern hummed softly. Nervously.
“What do we do then?” Shallan asked.
No … Kaladin thought.
“Give me your knife,” Adolin said, trying to sit up.
It can’t be the end.
“Adolin, no. Rest. Maybe we can surrender.”
I can’t fail him!
Kaladin looked over his shoulder toward Syl, who held him lightly by the arm.
She nodded. “The Words, Kaladin.”
* * *
Amaram’s soldiers parted around Dalinar, flooding into the city. They ignored him—and unfortunately, he had to ignore them.
“So, child…” Odium nodded toward the city, and took Dalinar by the shoulder. “You did something marvelous in forging that coalition. You should feel proud. I’m certainly proud.”
How could Dalinar fight this thing, who thought of every possibility, who planned for every outcome? How could he face something so vast, so incredible? Touching it, Dalinar could sense it stretching into infinity. Permeating the land, the people, the sky and the stone.
He would break, go insane, if he tried to comprehend this being. And somehow he had to defeat it?
Convince him that he can lose, the Almighty had said in vision. Appoint a champion. He will take that chance.… This is the best advice I can give you.
Honor had been slain resisting this thing.
&nb
sp; Dalinar licked his lips. “A test of champions,” he said to Odium. “I demand that we clash over this world.”
“For what purpose?” Odium asked.
“Killing us won’t free you, will it?” Dalinar said. “You could rule us or destroy us, but either way, you’d still be trapped here.”
Nearby, one of the thunderclasts climbed over the wall and entered the city. The other stayed behind, stomping around near the rearguard of the army.
“A contest,” Dalinar said to Odium. “Your freedom if you win, our lives if humans win.”
“Be careful what you request, Dalinar Kholin. As Bondsmith, you can offer this deal. But is this truly what you wish of me?”
“I…”
Was it?
* * *
Wyndle followed the Voidbringer, and Lift followed him. They slipped back among the men of the human army. The front ranks were pouring into the city, but the opening wasn’t big enough for them to all go at once. Most waited out here for their turn, cursing and grumbling at the delay.
They took swipes at Lift as she tried to follow the trail of vines Wyndle left. Being little helped her avoid them, fortunately. She liked being little. Little people could squeeze into places others couldn’t, and could go unnoticed. She wasn’t supposed to get any older; the Nightwatcher had promised her she wouldn’t.
The Nightwatcher had lied. Just like a starvin’ human would have. Lift shook her head and slipped between the legs of a soldier. Being little was nice, but it was hard not to feel like every man was a mountain towering overhead. They smashed weapons about her, speaking guttural Alethi curses.
I can’t do this on my knees, she thought as a sword chopped close to her shirt. I have to be like her. I have to be free.
Lift zipped over the side of a small rise in the rock, and managed to land on her feet. She ran for a moment, then slicked the bottoms of her feet and went into a slide.
The Voidbringer woman passed ahead. She didn’t slip and fall, but performed this strange walking motion—one that let her control her smooth glide.
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