Oathbringer

  Amaram stepped up, chuckling softly. Kaladin raised Syl as a Shardblade, but shifted his grip, preparing for the moment when she’d become a thin spear he could ram right through that faceplate—

  Kaladin! Syl cried.

  Something hit Kaladin with the force of a falling boulder, flinging him to the side. His body broke, and the world spun.

  By instinct, Kaladin Lashed himself upward and forward, opposite the way he’d been flung. He slowed and released the Lashings right as his momentum ran out, touching down, then slid to a stop on the stone, pain fading from a healed shoulder and side.

  A brawny Fused—taller even than Amaram in his Plate—dropped a shattered club that he’d used on Kaladin. His carapace was the color of stone; he must have been crouching near that foundation, and Kaladin had taken him for merely another part of the stony field.

  As Kaladin watched, the creature’s brown carapace crusted up his arms, covering his face like a helm, growing to thick armor in a matter of moments. He raised his arms, and carapace spurs grew above and below the hands.

  Delightful.

  * * *

  Adolin heaved himself up over the rim of a broken rooftop onto a small alley between two buildings. He’d made it to the Loft Wards of the city, right above the Ancient Ward. Here, buildings were constructed practically atop one another in tiers.

  The building to his left had been completely flattened. Adolin crept across rubble. To his right, a main city thoroughfare led upward—toward the Royal Ward and the Oathgate—but was clogged with people fleeing from the enemy troops below. This was compounded by the local merchant guards and platoons of Thaylen military, who struggled against the tide.

  Moving on the streets was extremely slow—but Adolin had found one corridor that was empty. The thunderclast had crossed the Ancient Ward, kicking down buildings, then had stepped on roofs as it climbed up to the Loft Wards. This swath of destruction made almost a roadway. Adolin had managed to follow, using rubble like stairs.

  Now he was right in the thing’s shadow. The corpse of a Thaylen soldier drooped from a rooftop nearby, tangled in ropes. It hung there, eyebrows dangling to brush the ground. Adolin swept past, peeking out between buildings onto a larger street.

  A handful of Thaylens fought here, trying to bring the thunderclast down. The ropes had been a great idea, but the thing was obviously too strong to be tripped that way. In the street beyond Adolin, a soldier got in close and tried to hit the monster’s leg with a hammer. The weapon bounced off. That was old hardened cremstone. The plucky soldier ended up getting stomped.

  Adolin gritted his teeth, summoning his Shardblade. Without Plate, he’d be as squishy as anyone else. He had to be careful, tactical.

  “This is what you were designed for, isn’t it?” Adolin said softly as his Blade dropped into his hand. “It was for fighting things like that. Shardblades are impractically long for duels, and Plate is overkill even on the battlefield. But against a monster of stone…”

  He felt something. A stirring on the wind.

  “You want to fight it, don’t you?” Adolin asked. “It reminds you of when you were alive.”

  Something tickled his mind, very faint, like a sigh. A single word: Mayalaran. A … name?

  “Right, Maya,” Adolin said. “Let’s bring that thing down.”

  Adolin waited for it to turn toward the small group of defending soldiers, then he bolted out along the rubbled street, dashing straight for the thunderclast. He was barely as tall as its calf.

  Adolin didn’t use any of the sword stances—he just hacked as if he were attacking a wall, slicing right along the top of the thing’s ankle.

  A sudden bang sounded above, like two stones slamming against one another, as the thing cried out. A shock wave of air washed over Adolin and the monster turned, thrusting a hand down toward him. Adolin dodged to the side, but the monster’s palm smashed the ground with such force that Adolin’s boots left the ground momentarily. He dismissed Maya as he fell, then rolled.

  He came up puffing on one knee with his hand out, summoning Maya again. Storms, he was like a rat gnawing on the toes of a chull.

  The beast regarded him with eyespots like molten rock just beneath the surface. He’d heard the descriptions of these things from his father’s visions—but looking up at it, he was struck by the shape of its face and head.

  A chasmfiend, he thought. It looks like a chasmfiend. The head, at least. The body was vaguely like a thick human skeleton.

  “Prince Adolin!” one of the few living soldiers shouted. “It’s the son of the Blackthorn!”

  “Protect the prince! Distract the monster from the Shardbearer. It’s our only chance to—”

  Adolin lost the last part as the monster swept its hand across the ground. He barely dodged, then threw himself through the doorway of a low building. Inside, he leaped over a few bedding pallets, pushed into the next room, then attacked the brick wall with Maya, cutting in four quick strikes. He slammed his shoulder against the wall, breaking through the hole.

  As he did, he heard a whimper from behind.

  Adolin gritted his teeth. I could use one of those storming Radiants about now.

  He ducked back into the building and flipped over a table, finding a young boy huddled underneath. That was the only person Adolin saw in the building. He hauled the boy out right as the thunderclast smashed a fist down through the roof. Dust billowing after him, Adolin shoved the child into the arms of a soldier, then pointed both toward the street to the south. Adolin took off running east, around the side of the building. Maybe he could climb up to the next level of the Loft Wards and circle the creature.

  For all the troops’ calls to distract the thing, however, it obviously knew who to focus on. It stepped over the broken house and thrust a fist toward Adolin—who leaped through a window into another house, across a table, then out an open window on the other side.

  Crash.

  The building fell in behind him. The thing was doing damage to its own hands with the attacks, leaving the wrists and fingers scored with white scrapes. It didn’t seem to care—and why should it? It had ripped itself right from the ground to make this body.

  Adolin’s only advantage, other than his Blade, was his ability to react faster than the thing. It swung for the next building beyond him, trying to smash it before he got inside—but he was already doubling back. He ran underneath the monster’s swing, sliding on the chips and dust as the fist passed narrowly overhead.

  That put him in position to run between the thunderclast’s legs. He slashed at the ankle he’d already cut once, digging his Blade deep into the stone, then whipping it out the other side. Just like a chasmfiend, he thought. Legs first.

  When the thing stepped again, the ankle cracked with a sharp sound, then its foot broke free.

  Adolin braced himself for the pained thunderclap from above, but still winced at the shock wave. Unfortunately, the monster balanced easily on the stump of its leg. It was a little clumsier than before, but it was in no real danger of falling. The Thaylen soldiers had regrouped and gathered up their ropes, however, so maybe—

  A hand in Shardplate reached out of a building nearby, grabbed Adolin, and pulled him inside.

  * * *

  Dalinar held his hands out to the sides, enveloped by the Thrill. It returned every memory he hated about himself. War and conflict. Times when he’d shouted Evi into submission. Anger that had driven him to the brink of madness. His shame.

  Though he had once crawled before the Nightwatcher to beg for release, he no longer wished to forget. “I embrace you,” he said. “I accept what I was.”

  The Thrill colored his sight red, inflicting a deep longing for the fight, the conflict, the challenge. If he rejected it, he would drive the Thrill away.

  “Thank you,” Dalinar said, “for giving me strength when I needed it.”

  The Thrill thrummed with a pleased sound. It drew in closer to him, the faces of red mist grinning with excit
ement and glee. Charging horses screamed and died. Men laughed as they were cut down.

  Dalinar was once again walking on the stone toward the Rift, intent on murdering everyone inside. He felt the heat of anger. The yearning so powerful, it made him ache.

  “I was that man,” Dalinar said. “I understand you.”

  * * *

  Venli crept away from the battlefield. She left the humans to struggle against shadows in a mess of anger and lust. She walked deeper into the darkness beneath Odium’s storm, feeling strangely sick.

  The rhythms were going crazy inside her, merging and fighting. A fragment from Craving blended into Fury, into Ridicule.

  She passed Fused arguing about what to do, now that Odium had withdrawn. Did they send the parshmen in to fight? They couldn’t control the humans, consumed by one of the Unmade as they were.

  Rhythms piled over rhythms.

  Agony. Conceit. Destruction. Lost—

  There! Venli thought. Grab that!

  She attuned the Rhythm of the Lost. She clung to the solemn beat, desperate—a rhythm one attuned to remember those you missed. Those who had gone before.

  Timbre thrummed to the same rhythm. Why did that feel different from before? Timbre vibrated through Venli’s entire being.

  Lost. What had Venli lost?

  Venli missed being someone who cared about something other than power. Knowledge, favoritism, forms, wealth—it was all the same to her. Where had she gone wrong?

  Timbre pulsed. Venli dropped to her knees. Cold stone reflected lightning from above, red and garish.

  But her own eyes … she could see her own eyes in the polished wet rock.

  There wasn’t a hint of red in them.

  “Life…” she whispered.

  The king of the Alethi had reached out toward her. Dalinar Kholin, the man whose brother they’d killed. But he’d reached from the pillar of gloryspren all the same, and spoken to her.

  You can change.

  “Life before death.”

  You can become a better person.

  “Strength before … before weakness…”

  I did.

  “Jou—”

  Someone grabbed Venli roughly and spun her over, slamming her to the ground. A Fused with the form that grew carapace armor like Shardplate. He looked Venli up and down, and for a panicked moment she was sure he’d kill her.

  The Fused seized her pouch, the one that hid Timbre. She screamed and clawed at his hands, but he shoved her back, then ripped open the pouch.

  Then he turned it inside out.

  “I could have sworn…” he said in their language. He tossed the pouch aside. “You failed to obey the Word of Passion. You did not attack the enemy when commanded.”

  “I … I was frightened,” Venli said. “And weak.”

  “You cannot be weak in his service. You must choose who you will serve.”

  “I choose,” she said, then shouted, “I choose!”

  He nodded, evidently impressed by her Passion, then stalked back toward the battlefield.

  Venli climbed to her feet and made her way to one of the ships. She stumbled up the gangway—yet felt crisper, more awake, than she’d been in a long, long time.

  In her mind played the Rhythm of Joy. One of the old rhythms her people had learned long ago—after casting out their gods.

  Timbre pulsed from within her. Inside her gemheart.

  “I’m still wearing one of their forms,” Venli said. “There was a Voidspren in my gemheart. How?”

  Timbre pulsed to Resolve.

  “You’ve done what?” Venli hissed, stopping on the deck.

  Resolve again.

  “But how can you…” She trailed off, then hunched over, speaking more softly. “How can you keep a Voidspren captive?”

  Timbre pulsed to Victory within her. Venli rushed toward the ship’s cabin. A parshman tried to forbid her, but she glared him to submission, then took the ruby sphere from his lantern and went inside, slamming the door and locking it.

  She held up the sphere, and then—heart fluttering—she drank it in. Her skin started glowing with a soft white light.

  “Journey before destination.”

  * * *

  Adolin was confronted by a figure in glistening black Shardplate, a large hammer strapped to its back. The helm had stylized eyebrows like knives sweeping backward, and the Plate was skirted with a triangular pattern of interlocking scales. Cvaderln, he thought, remembering his lists of Thaylen Shards. It meant, roughly, “shell of Cva.”

  “Are you Tshadr?” Adolin guessed.

  “No, Hrdalm,” the Shardbearer said in a thick Thaylen accent. “Tshadr holds Court Square. I come, stop monster.”

  Adolin nodded. Outside, the thing sounded its angry call, confronting the remaining Thaylen troops.

  “We need to get out and help those men,” Adolin said. “Can you distract the monster? My Blade can cut, while you can take hits.”

  “Yes,” Hrdalm said. “Yes, good.”

  Adolin quickly helped Hrdalm get the hammer untied. Hrdalm hefted it, then pointed at the window. “Go there.”

  Adolin nodded, waiting by the window as Hrdalm charged out the doorway and went running straight for the thunderclast, shouting a Thaylen battle cry. When the thing turned toward Hrdalm, Adolin leaped out the window and charged around the other side.

  Two flying Fused swooped in behind Hrdalm, slamming spears into his back, tossing him forward. Plate ground against stone as he fell, face-first. Adolin ran for the thunderclast’s leg—but the creature ignored Hrdalm and fixated on Adolin. It crashed a palm down on the ground nearby, forcing Adolin to dance backward.

  Hrdalm stood up, but a Fused swooped down and kicked him over. The other landed on his chest and began pounding on his helm with a hammer, cracking it. As Hrdalm tried to grab her and throw her free, the other one swooped down and used a spear to pin the hand down. Damnation!

  “All right, Maya,” Adolin said. “We’ve practiced this.”

  He wound up, then hurled the Shardblade, which spun in a gleaming arc before slamming into the Fused on Hrdalm’s chest, piercing her straight through. Dark smoke trailed from her eyes as they burned away.

  Hrdalm sat up, sweeping away the other Fused with a Shard-enhanced punch. He turned toward the dead one, then looked back at Adolin with a posture that somehow expressed amazement.

  The thunderclast called, sending a wave of sound across the street, rattling chips of stone. Adolin swallowed, then started counting heartbeats as he dashed away. The monster crashed along the street behind—but Adolin soon pulled to a stop in front of a large section of rubble, which blocked the street. Storms, he’d run the wrong way.

  He shouted, spinning around. He hit a count of ten, and Maya returned to him.

  The thunderclast loomed overhead. It thrust its palm down, and Adolin managed to judge the shadow and dodge between two fingers. As its palm crashed to the ground, Adolin leaped, trying to avoid being knocked over. He grabbed a massive finger with his left arm, desperately holding Maya to the side in his right.

  As before, the thunderclast began to rub its palm across the ground, an attempt to grind Adolin to the stones. He hung from the finger, feet lifted a few inches off the ground. The sound was terrible, like Adolin was trapped in a rockslide.

  As soon as the thunderclast ended its sweep of the hand, Adolin dropped off, then raised Maya in a double-handed grip and chopped straight through the finger. The beast released a thunderclap of anger and pulled its hand back. The tip of an unbroken finger connected with Adolin and flung him backward.

  Pain.

  It hit him like a flash of lightning. He struck the ground and rolled, but the agony was so sharp, he barely noticed. As he came to a rest, he coughed and trembled, his body seizing up.

  Storms. Stormsstormsstorms … He squeezed his eyes shut against the pain. He’d … he’d gotten too accustomed to the invincibility of Plate. But his suit was back in Urithiru—or hopefully c
oming here soon on Gaval, his Plate standby.

  Adolin somehow crawled to his feet, each move causing a spear of agony from his chest. Broken rib? Well, at least his arms and legs were working.

  Move. That thing was still behind him.

  One.

  The roadway in front of him was piled with rubble from a broken building.

  Two.

  He limped to the right—toward the ledge down to the next tier of homes.

  Three. Four.

  The thunderclast trumped and followed, its steps shaking the ground.

  Five. Six.

  He could hear stone grinding just behind.

  He fell to his knees.

  Seven.

  Maya! he thought, truly desperate. Please!

  Blessedly, as he raised his hands, the Blade materialized. He slammed it into the rock wall—the edge pointed to the side, not down—then rolled off the ledge, holding on to the hilt. The thunderclast’s fist came down again, crashing to the rock. Adolin dangled from Maya’s hilt over the edge, a drop of some ten feet to the rooftop below.

  Adolin gritted his teeth—his elbow was hurting badly enough to make his eyes water. But, once the thunderclast had rubbed its hand to the side, Adolin grabbed the cliff edge with one hand and swept Maya out to the side, freeing her from the stone. He reached down and rammed her into the stone below, then let go and swung from this new handhold a moment before releasing the Blade and dropping the rest of the way to the rooftop.

  His leg screamed in pain. He collapsed to the rooftop, eyes watering. As he lay there in agony, he felt something—a faint panic on the wind. He forced himself to roll to the side, and a Fused swept past, its lance barely missing him.

  Need … a weapon …

  He started counting again and climbed, shakily, to his knees. But the thunderclast loomed on the tier overhead, then rammed its stump leg down into the center of the stone roof Adolin was on.

  Adolin fell in a jumble of broken stone and dust, then hit hard on the floor inside, chunks of rock clattering around him.