Oathbringer

  Lift tried to do the same. She trusted in her awesomeness—her Stormlight—to sustain her as she held her breath. Men cursed around her, but sounds slid off Lift as she coated herself in Light.

  The wind itself couldn’t touch her. She’d been here before. She’d held for a beautiful moment between crashes, sliding on bare feet, moving free, untouched. Like she was gliding between worlds. She could do it. She could—

  Something crashed to the ground nearby, crushing several soldiers, throwing Lift off balance and sending her into a heap. She slid to a stop and rolled over, looking up at one of the huge stone monsters. The skeletal thing raised a spiked hand and slammed it down.

  Lift threw herself out of the way, but the shaking from the impact sent her sprawling again. Soldiers nearby didn’t seem to care that their fellows had been crushed. Eyes glowing, they scrambled for her, as if it were a contest to see who could kill her first.

  Her only choice was to dodge toward the stone monster. Maybe she could get so close that it—

  The creature pounded again, mashing three soldiers, but also slamming into Lift. The blow snapped her legs in the blink of an eye, then crushed her lower half, sending her into a screaming fit of pain. Eyes watering, she curled up on the ground.

  Heal. Heal.

  Just had to weather the pain. Just had to …

  Stones ground against one another overhead. She blinked away tears, looking up at the creature raising its spike high in the sky, toward the sun, which was slipping behind the clouds of the deadly storm.

  “Mistress!” Wyndle said. His vines climbed over her, as if trying to cradle her. “Oh, mistress. Summon me as a sword!”

  The pain in her legs started to fade. Too slowly. She was growing hungry again, her Stormlight running low. She summoned Wyndle as a rod, twisting against the pain and holding him toward the monster, her eyes watering with the effort.

  An explosion of light appeared overhead, a ball of expanding Radiance. Something dropped from the middle of it, trailing smoke both black and white. Glowing like a star.

  “Mother!” Wyndle said. “What is—”

  As the monster raised its fist to strike Lift, the spear of light hit the creature in the head and cut straight through. It divided the enormous thing in two, sending out an explosion of black smoke. The halves of the monster fell to the sides, crashing into the stone, then burned away, evaporating into blackness.

  Soldiers cursed and coughed, backing up as something resolved in the center of the tempest. A figure in the smoke, glowing white and holding a jet-black Shardblade that seemed to feed on the smoke, sucking it in, then letting it pour down beneath itself as a liquid blackness.

  White and black. A man with a shaved head, eyes glowing a light grey, Stormlight rising from him. He straightened and strode through the smoke, leaving an afterimage behind. Lift had seen this man before. The Assassin in White. Murderer.

  And apparently savior.

  He stopped beside her. “The Blackthorn assigned you a task?”

  “Uh … yeah,” Lift said, wiggling her toes, which seemed to be working again. “There’s a Voidbringer who stole a large ruby. I’m supposed to get it back.”

  “Then stand,” the assassin said, raising his strange Shardblade toward the enemy soldiers. “Our master has given us a task. We shall see it completed.”

  * * *

  Navani scrambled across the top of the wall, alone except for crushed corpses.

  Dalinar, don’t you dare become a martyr, she thought, reaching the stairwell. She pulled open the door at the top and started down the dark steps. What was he thinking? Facing an entire army on his own? He wasn’t a young man in his prime, outfitted in Shardplate!

  She fumbled for a sphere in her safepouch, then eventually undid the clasp on her arm fabrial instead, using its light to guide her down the steps and into the room at the base. Where had Fen and—

  A hand grabbed her, pulling her to the side and slamming her against the wall. Fen and Kmakl lay here, gagged, bound tightly. A pair of men in forest green, eyes glowing red, held knives to them. A third one, wearing the knots of a captain, pressed Navani against the wall.

  “What a handsome reward you’ll earn me,” the man hissed at Navani. “Two queens. Brightlord Amaram will enjoy this gift. That almost makes up for not being able to kill you personally, as justice for what your husband did to Brightlord Sadeas.”

  * * *

  Ash stumbled to a stop before a brazier. It bore delicate metalwork around the rim, a finer piece than one expected to find in such a common location.

  This improvised camp was where the Alethi troops had bivouacked while repairing the city; it clogged multiple streets and squares of the Low Ward. The unlit brazier that had stopped Ash was in front of a tent, and had perhaps been used for warmth on cold Thaylen nights. Ten figures ringed the bowl. Her fingers itched. She couldn’t move on, no matter how desperate her task, until she’d done it.

  She seized the bowl and turned it until she found the woman depicting her, marked by the iconography of the brush and the mask, symbols of creativity. Pure absurdity. She pulled out her knife and sawed at the metal until she’d managed to scratch out the face.

  Good enough. Good enough.

  She dropped the brazier. Keep going. What that man, Mraize, had told her had better be true. If he had lied …

  The large tent near the wall was completely unguarded, though soldiers had run past her a short time ago, eyes glowing with the light of corrupted Investiture. Odium has learned to possess men. A dark, dangerous day. He’d always been able to tempt them to fight for him, but sending spren to bond with them? Terrible.

  And how had he managed to start a storm of his own?

  Well, this land was finally doomed. And Ash … Ash couldn’t find it inside herself to care any longer. She pushed into the tent, forcibly keeping herself from looking at the rug in case it bore depictions of the Heralds.

  There she found him, sitting alone in the dim light, staring ahead sightlessly. Dark skin, even darker than hers, and a muscled physique. A king, for all the fact that he’d never worn a crown. He was the one of the ten who was never supposed to have borne their burden.

  And he’d borne it the longest anyway.

  “Taln,” she whispered.

  * * *

  Renarin Kholin knew he wasn’t actually a Knight Radiant. Glys had once been a different kind of spren, but something had changed him, corrupted him. Glys didn’t remember that very well; it had happened before they had formed their bond.

  Now, neither knew what they’d become. Renarin could feel the spren trembling inside him, hiding and whispering about the danger. Jasnah had found them.

  Renarin had seen that coming.

  He knelt in the ancient temple of Pailiah, and to his eyes it was full of colors. A thousand panes of stained glass sprouted on the walls, combining and melting together, creating a panorama. He saw himself coming to Thaylen City earlier in the day. He saw Dalinar talking to the monarchs, and then he saw them turning against him.

  She will hurt us! She will hurt us!

  “I know, Glys,” he whispered, turning toward a specific section of stained glass. This showed Renarin kneeling on the floor of the temple. In the sequence of stained glass panels, Jasnah approached him from behind, sword raised.

  And then … she struck him down.

  Renarin couldn’t control what he saw or when he saw it. He had learned to read so he could understand the numbers and words that appeared under some of the images. They had shown him when the Everstorm would come. They had shown him how to find the hidden compartments in Urithiru. Now they showed his death.

  The future. Renarin could see what was forbidden.

  He wrenched his eyes away from the glass pane showing himself and Jasnah, turning toward one even worse. In it, his father knelt before a god of gold and white.

  “No, Father,” Renarin whispered. “Please. Not that. Don’t do it.…”

  He will no
t be resisted, Glys said. My sorrow, Renarin. I will give you my sorrow.

  * * *

  A pair of gloryspren swung down from the skies, golden spheres. They floated and spun around Dalinar, brilliant like drops of sunlight.

  “Yes,” Dalinar said. “This is what I wish.”

  “You wish a contest of champions?” Odium repeated. “This is your true desire, not forced upon you? You were not beguiled or tricked in any way?”

  “A contest of champions. For the fate of Roshar.”

  “Very well,” Odium said, then sighed softly. “I agree.”

  “That easily?”

  “Oh, I assure you. This won’t be easy.” Odium raised his eyebrows in an open, inviting way. A concerned expression. “I have chosen my champion already. I’ve been preparing him for a long, long time.”

  “Amaram.”

  “Him? A passionate man, yes, but hardly suited to this task. No, I need someone who dominates a battlefield like the sun dominates the sky.”

  The Thrill suddenly returned to Dalinar. The red mist—which had been fading—roared back to life. Images filled his mind. Memories of his youth spent fighting.

  “I need someone stronger than Amaram,” Odium whispered.

  “No.”

  “A man who will win no matter the cost.”

  The Thrill overwhelmed Dalinar, choking him.

  “A man who has served me all his life. A man I trust. I believe I warned you that I knew you’d make the right decision. And now here we are.”

  “No.”

  “Take a deep breath, my friend,” Odium whispered. “I’m afraid that this will hurt.”

  These Voidbringers know no songs. They cannot hear Roshar, and where they go, they bring silence. They look soft, with no shell, but they are hard. They have but one heart, and it cannot ever live.

  —From the Eila Stele

  “No,” Dalinar whispered again, voice ragged as the Thrill thrummed inside of him. “No. You are wrong.”

  Odium gripped Dalinar’s shoulder. “What does she say?”

  She?

  He heard Evi crying. Screaming. Begging for her life as the flames took her.

  “Don’t blame yourself,” Odium said as Dalinar winced. “I made you kill her, Dalinar. I caused all of this. Do you remember? I can help. Here.”

  Memories flooded Dalinar’s mind, a devastating onslaught of images. He lived them all in detail, somehow squeezed into a moment, the Thrill raging inside of him.

  He saw himself stab a poor soldier in the back. A young man trying to crawl to safety, crying for his mother …

  “I was with you then,” Odium said.

  He killed a far better man than himself, a highlord who had held Teleb’s loyalty. Dalinar knocked him to the ground, then slammed a poleaxe into his chest.

  “I was with you then.”

  Dalinar fought atop a strange rock formation, facing another man who knew the Thrill. Dalinar dropped him to the ground with burning eyes, and called it a mercy.

  “I was with you then.”

  He raged at Gavilar, anger and lust rising as twin emotions. He broke a man in a tavern, frustrated that he’d been held back from enjoying the fight. He fought on the borders of Jah Keved, laughing, corpses littering the ground. He remembered every moment of the carnage. He felt each death like a spike driven into his soul. He began to weep for the destruction.

  “It’s what you needed to do, Dalinar,” Odium said. “You made a better kingdom!”

  “So … much … pain.”

  “Blame me, Dalinar. It wasn’t you! You saw red when you did those things! It was my fault. Accept that. You don’t have to hurt.”

  Dalinar blinked, meeting Odium’s eyes.

  “Let me have the pain, Dalinar,” Odium said. “Give it to me, and never feel guilty again.”

  “No.” Dalinar hugged The Way of Kings close. “No. I can’t.”

  “Oh, Dalinar. What does she say?”

  No …

  “Have you forgotten? Here, let me help.”

  And he was back in that day. The day he killed Evi.

  * * *

  Szeth found purpose in wielding the sword.

  It screamed at him to destroy evil, even if evil was obviously a concept that the sword itself could not understand. Its vision was occluded, like Szeth’s own. A metaphor.

  How was a twisted soul like his to decide who should die? Impossible. And so he put his trust in someone else, someone whose light peeked through the shadow.

  Dalinar Kholin. Knight Radiant. He would know.

  This choice was not perfect. But … Stones Unhallowed … it was the best he could manage. It brought him some small measure of peace as he swept through the enemy army.

  The sword screamed at him. DESTROY!

  Anyone he so much as nicked popped into black smoke. Szeth laid waste to the red-eyed soldiers, who kept coming, showing no fear. Screaming, as if they thirsted for death.

  It was a drink that Szeth was all too good at serving.

  He wielded Stormlight in one hand, Lashing any men who drew too close, sending them flipping into the air or crashing backward into their fellows. With the other hand he swept the sword through their ranks. He moved on nimble feet, his own body Lashed upward just enough to lighten him. Skybreakers didn’t have access to all of the Lashings, but the most useful—and most deadly—were still his.

  Remember the gemstone.

  A phantom sense called to him, a desire to continue killing, to revel in the butchery. Szeth rejected it, sick. He had never enjoyed this. He could never enjoy this.

  The Voidbringer with the gemstone had slipped away, moving on too-swift feet. Szeth pointed the sword—a piece of him terrified by how quickly it was chewing through his own Stormlight—and Lashed himself to follow. He plowed through soldiers, men bursting into smoke, seeking that one individual.

  The Voidbringer turned at the last moment, dancing away from his sword. Szeth Lashed himself downward, then spun in a sweeping arc, towing black smoke—almost liquid—behind his sword as he destroyed men in a grand circle.

  EVIL! the sword cried.

  Szeth leaped for the Voidbringer woman, but she dropped to the ground and slid on the stone as if it were greased. His sword swung over her head, and she pushed herself backward toward him, sliding right past his legs. There, she swept gracefully to her feet and seized the sheath off Szeth’s back, where he’d tied it for safekeeping.

  It broke free. When Szeth turned to attack, she blocked the sword with its own sheath. How had she done that? Was there something about the silvery metal that Szeth didn’t know?

  She blocked his next few attacks, then ducked away from his attempts to Lash her.

  The sword was growing frustrated. DESTROY, DESTROY, DESTROY! Black veins began to grow around Szeth’s hand, creeping toward his upper arm.

  He struck again, but she simply slipped away, moving across the ground as if natural laws had no purchase on her. Other soldiers piled in, and the pain started up Szeth’s arm as he worked death among them.

  * * *

  Jasnah stopped one pace behind Renarin. She could hear his whispers clearly now. “Father. Oh, Father…” The young man whipped his head in one direction, then another, seeing things that weren’t there.

  “He sees not what is, but what is to come,” Ivory said. “Odium’s power, Jasnah.”

  * * *

  “Taln,” Ash whispered, kneeling before him. “Oh, Taln…”

  The Herald stared forward with dark eyes. “I am Talenel’Elin, Herald of War. The time of the Return, the Desolation, is near at hand.…”

  “Taln?” Ash took his hand. “It’s me. It’s Ash.”

  “We must prepare. You will have forgotten much.…”

  “Please, Taln.”

  “Kalak will teach you to cast bronze.…”

  He just continued on, repeating the same words over and over and over.

  * * *

  Kaladin fell to his knees on the
cold obsidian of Shadesmar.

  Fused descended around them, six figures in brilliant, flapping clothing.

  He had a single slim hope. Each Ideal he’d spoken had resulted in an outpouring of power and strength. He licked his lips and tried whispering it. “I … I will…”

  He thought of friends lost. Malop. Jaks. Beld and Pedin.

  Say it, storm you!

  “I…”

  Rod and Mart. Bridgemen he’d failed. And before them, slaves he’d tried to save. Goshel. Nalma, caught in a trap like a beast.

  A windspren appeared near him, like a line of light. Then another.

  A single hope.

  The Words. Say the Words!

  * * *

  “Oh, Mother! Oh, Cultivation!” Wyndle cried as they watched the assassin murder his way across the field. “What have we done?”

  “We’ve pointed him away from us,” Lift said as she perched on a boulder, her eyes wide. “You’d rather he was close by?”

  Wyndle continued to whimper, and Lift kinda understood. That was a lot of killing that the assassin did. Red-eyed men who seemed to have no light left in them, true, but … storms.

  She’d lost track of the woman with the gemstone, but at least the army seemed to be flowing away from Szeth, leaving him fewer people to kill. He stumbled, slowing, then dropped to his knees.

  “Uh-oh.” Lift summoned Wyndle as a rod in case the assassin lost his starvin’ mind—what was left of it—and attacked her. She slipped off the rock, then ran over.

  He held the strange Shardblade before himself. It continued to leak black liquid that vaporized as it streamed toward the ground. His hand had gone all black.

  “I…” Szeth said. “I have lost the sheath.…”

  “Drop the sword!”

  “I … can’t.…” Szeth said, teeth gritted. “It holds to me, feasting upon my … my Stormlight. It will soon consume me.”

  Stormsstormsstormsstorms. “Right. Right. Ummmmm…” Lift looked around. The army was flooding into the city. The second stone monster was stomping across the Ancient Ward, stepping on buildings. Dalinar Kholin still stood before the gap. Maybe … maybe he could help?

  “Come on,” Lift said.