Oathbringer

  He walked with his hands in the pockets of his Bridge Four coat, remembering the frigid air up above. He still felt chilled, even though down here it was muggy and warm.

  This was a nice town. Quaint. Little stone buildings, plants growing at the backs of every house. On his left, that meant cultivated rockbuds and bushes burst from around doors—but to his right, facing the storm, there were only blank stone walls. Not even a window.

  The plants smelled of civilization to him. A sort of civic perfume that you didn’t get out in the wilds. They barely quivered as he passed, though lifespren bobbed at his presence. The plants were accustomed to people on the streets.

  He finally stopped at a low fence surrounding pens holding the horses the Voidbringers had captured. The animals munched cut grass the parshmen had thrown to them.

  Such strange beasts. Hard to care for, expensive to keep. He turned from the horses and looked out over the fields toward Kholinar. She’d said he could leave. Join the refugees making for the capital. Defend the city.

  What is your passionate fury?

  Thousands of years being reborn. What would it be like? Thousands of years, and they’d never given up.

  Prove yourself …

  He turned and made his way back to the lumberyard, where the workers were packing up for the day. There was no storm projected tonight, and they wouldn’t have to secure everything, so they worked with a relaxed, almost jovial air. All save for his crew, who—as usual—gathered by themselves, ostracized.

  Moash seized a bundle of ladder rods off a pile. The workers there turned to object, but cut off when they saw who it was. He untied the bundle and, upon reaching the crew of unfortunate parshmen, tossed a length of wood to each one.

  Sah caught his and stood up, frowning. The others mimicked him.

  “I can train you with those,” Moash said.

  “Sticks?” Khen asked.

  “Spears,” Moash said. “I can teach you to be soldiers. We’ll probably die anyway. Storm it, we’ll probably never make it to the top of the walls. But it’s something.”

  The parshmen looked at one another, holding rods that could mimic spears.

  “I’ll do it,” Khen said.

  Slowly, the others nodded in agreement.

  I am the least equipped, of all, to aid you in this endeavor. I am finding that the powers I hold are in such conflict that the most simple of actions can be difficult.

  Rlain sat on the Shattered Plains alone and listened to the rhythms.

  Enslaved parshmen, deprived of true forms, weren’t able to hear the rhythms. During his years spent as a spy, he’d adopted dullform, which heard them weakly. It had been so hard to be apart from them.

  They weren’t quite true songs; they were beats with hints of tonality and harmony. He could attune one of several dozen to match his mood, or—conversely—to help alter his mood.

  His people had always assumed the humans were deaf to the rhythms, but he wasn’t convinced. Perhaps it was his imagination, but it seemed that sometimes they responded to certain rhythms. They’d look up at a moment of frenzied beats, eyes getting a far-off look. They’d grow agitated and shout in time, for a moment, to the Rhythm of Irritation, or whoop right on beat with the Rhythm of Joy.

  It comforted him to think that they might someday learn to hear the rhythms. Perhaps then he wouldn’t feel so alone.

  He currently attuned the Rhythm of the Lost, a quiet yet violent beat with sharp, separated notes. You attuned it to remember the fallen, and that felt the correct emotion as he sat here outside Narak, watching humans build a fortress from what used to be his home. They set a watchpost atop the central spire, where the Five had once met to discuss the future of his people. They turned homes into barracks.

  He was not offended—his own people had repurposed the ruins of Stormseat into Narak. No doubt these stately ruins would outlast the Alethi occupation, as they had the listeners. That knowledge did not prevent him from mourning. His people were gone, now. Yes, parshmen had awakened, but they were not listeners. No more than Alethi and Vedens were the same nationality, simply because most had similar skin tones.

  Rlain’s people were gone. They had fallen to Alethi swords or had been consumed by the Everstorm, transformed into incarnations of the old listener gods. He was, as far as he knew, the last.

  He sighed, pulling himself to his feet. He swung a spear to his shoulder, the spear they let him carry. He loved the men of Bridge Four, but he was an oddity, even to them: the parshman they allowed to be armed. The potential Voidbringer they had decided to trust, and wasn’t he just so lucky.

  He crossed the plateau to where a group of them trained under Teft’s watchful eye. They didn’t wave to him. They often seemed surprised to find him there, as if they’d forgotten he was around. But when Teft did notice him, the man’s smile was genuine. They were his friends. It was merely …

  How could Rlain be so fond of these men, yet at the same time want to slap them?

  When he and Skar had been the only two who couldn’t draw Stormlight, they’d encouraged Skar. They’d given him pep talks, told him to keep trying. They had believed in him. Rlain, though … well, who knew what would happen if he could use Stormlight? Might it be the first step in turning him into a monster?

  Never mind that he’d told them you had to open yourself to a form to adopt it. Never mind that he had the power to choose for himself. Though they never spoke it, he saw the truth in their reactions. As with Dabbid, they thought it best that Rlain remain without Stormlight.

  The parshman and the insane man. People you couldn’t trust as Windrunners.

  Five bridgemen launched into the air, Radiant and steaming with Light. Some of the crew trained while another group patrolled with Kaladin, checking on caravans. A third group—the ten other newcomers that had learned to draw in Stormlight—trained with Peet a few plateaus over. That group included Lyn and all four of the other scouts, along with four men from other bridge crews, and a single lighteyed officer. Colot, the archer captain.

  Lyn had slid into Bridge Four’s comradery easily, as had a couple of the bridgemen. Rlain tried not to feel jealous that they almost seemed more a part of the team than he did.

  Teft led the five in the air through a formation while the four others strolled toward Rock’s drink station. Rlain joined them, and Yake slapped him on the back, pointing toward the next plateau over, where the bulk of the hopefuls continued to train.

  “That group can barely hold a spear properly,” Yake said. “You ought to go show them how a real bridgeman does a kata, eh, Rlain?”

  “Kalak help them if they have to fight those shellheads,” Eth added, taking a drink from Rock. “Um, no offense, Rlain.”

  Rlain touched his head, where he had carapace armor—distinctively thick and strong, as he held warform—covering his skull. It had stretched out his Bridge Four tattoo, which had transferred to the carapace. He had protrusions on his arms and legs too, and people always wanted to feel those. They couldn’t believe they actually grew from his skin, and somehow thought it was appropriate to try to peek underneath.

  “Rlain,” Rock said. “Is okay to throw things at Eth. He has hard head too, almost like he has shell.”

  “It’s all right,” Rlain said, because that was what they expected him to say. He accidentally attuned Irritation, though, and the rhythm laced his words.

  To cover his embarrassment, he attuned Curiosity and tried Rock’s drink of the day. “This is good! What is in it?”

  “Ha! Is water I boiled cremlings in, before serving them last night.”

  Eth spurted out his mouthful of drink, then looked at the cup, aghast.

  “What?” Rock said. “You ate the cremlings easily!”

  “But this is … like their bathwater,” Eth complained.

  “Chilled,” Rock said, “with spices. Is good taste.”

  “Is bathwater,” Eth said, imitating Rock’s accent.

  Teft led the other four
in a streaking wave of light overhead. Rlain looked up, and found himself attuning Longing before he stomped it out. He attuned Peace instead. Peace, yes. He could be peaceful.

  “This isn’t working,” Drehy said. “We can’t storming patrol the entirety of the Shattered Plains. More caravans are going to get hit, like that one last night.”

  “The captain says it’s strange for those Voidbringers to keep raiding like this,” Eth said.

  “Tell that to the caravaneers from yesterday.”

  Yake shrugged. “They didn’t even burn much; we got there before the Voidbringers had time to do much more than frighten everyone. I’m with the captain. It’s strange.”

  “Maybe they’re testing our abilities,” Eth said. “Seeing what Bridge Four can really do.”

  They glanced at Rlain for confirmation.

  “Am … am I supposed to be able to answer?” he asked.

  “Well,” Eth said. “I mean … storms, Rlain. They’re your kinsmen. Surely you know something about them.”

  “You can guess, right?” Yake said.

  Rock’s daughter refilled his cup for him, and Rlain looked down at the clear liquid. Don’t blame them, he thought. They don’t know. They don’t understand.

  “Eth, Yake,” Rlain said carefully, “my people did everything we could to separate ourselves from those creatures. We went into hiding long ago, and swore we would never accept forms of power again.

  “I don’t know what changed. My people must have been tricked somehow. In any case, these Fused are as much my enemies as they are yours—more, even. And no, I can’t say what they will do. I spent my entire life trying to avoid thinking of them.”

  Teft’s group came crashing down to the plateau. For all his earlier difficulty, Skar had quickly taken to flight. His landing was the most graceful of the bunch. Hobber hit so hard he yelped.

  They jogged over to the watering station, where Rock’s eldest daughter and son began giving them drinks. Rlain felt sorry for the two; they barely spoke Alethi, though the son—oddly—was Vorin. Apparently, monks came from Jah Keved to preach the Almighty to the Horneaters, and Rock let his children follow any god they wanted. So it was that the pale-skinned young Horneater wore a glyphward tied to his arm and burned prayers to the Vorin Almighty instead of making offerings to the Horneater spren.

  Rlain sipped his drink and wished Renarin were here; the quiet, lighteyed man usually made a point of speaking with Rlain. The others jabbered excitedly, but didn’t think to include him. Parshmen were invisible to them—they’d been brought up that way.

  And yet, he loved them because they did try. When Skar bumped him—and was reminded that he was there—he blinked, then said, “Maybe we should ask Rlain.” The others immediately jumped in and said he didn’t want to talk about it, giving a kind of Alethi version of what he’d told them earlier.

  He belonged here as much as he did anywhere else. Bridge Four was his family, now that those from Narak were gone. Eshonai, Varanis, Thude …

  He attuned the Rhythm of the Lost and bowed his head. He had to believe that his friends in Bridge Four could feel a hint of the rhythms, for otherwise how would they know how to mourn with true pain of soul?

  Teft was getting ready to take the other squad into the air when a group of dots in the sky announced the arrival of Kaladin Stormblessed. He landed with his squad, including Lopen, who juggled an uncut gemstone the size of a man’s head. They must have found a chrysalis from a beast of the chasms.

  “No sign of Voidbringers today,” Leyten said, turning over one of Rock’s buckets and using it as a seat. “But storms … the Plains sure do seem smaller when you’re up there.”

  “Yeah,” Lopen said. “And bigger.”

  “Smaller and bigger?” Skar asked.

  “Smaller,” Leyten said, “because we can cross them so fast. I remember plateaus that felt like they took years to cross. We zip past those in an eyeblink.”

  “But then you get up high,” Lopen added, “and you realize how wide this place is—sure, how much of it we never even explored—and it just seems … big.”

  The others nodded, eager. You had to read their emotion in their expressions and the way they moved, not in their voices. Maybe that was why emotion spren came so often to humans, more often than to listeners. Without the rhythms, men needed help understanding one another.

  “Who’s on the next patrol?” Skar asked.

  “None for today,” Kaladin said. “I have a meeting with Dalinar. We’ll leave a squad in Narak, but…”

  Soon after he left through the Oathgate, everyone would slowly start to lose their powers. They’d be gone in an hour or two. Kaladin had to be relatively near—Sigzil had placed their maximum distance from him at around fifty miles, though their abilities started to fade somewhere around thirty miles.

  “Fine,” Skar said. “I was looking forward to drinking more of Rock’s cremling juice anyway.”

  “Cremling juice?” Sigzil said, drink halfway to his lips. Other than Rlain, Sigzil’s dark brown skin was the most different from the rest of the crew—though the bridgemen didn’t seem to care much about skin color. To them, only eyes mattered. Rlain had always found that strange, as among listeners, your skin patterns had at times been a matter of some import.

  “So…” Skar said. “Are we going to talk about Renarin?”

  The twenty-eight men shared looks, many settling down around the barrel of Rock’s drink as they once had around the cookfire. There were certainly a suspicious number of buckets to use as stools, as if Rock had planned for this. The Horneater himself leaned against the table he’d brought out for holding cups, a cleaning rag thrown over his shoulder.

  “What about him?” Kaladin asked, frowning and looking around at the group.

  “He’s been spending a lot of time with the scribes studying the tower city,” Natam said.

  “The other day,” Skar added, “he was talking about what he’s doing there. It sounded an awful lot like he was learning how to read.”

  The men shifted uncomfortably.

  “So?” Kaladin asked. “What’s the problem? Sigzil can read his own language. Storms, I can read glyphs.”

  “It’s not the same,” Skar said.

  “It’s feminine,” Drehy added.

  “Drehy,” Kaladin said, “you are literally courting a man.”

  “So?” Drehy said.

  “Yeah, what are you saying, Kal?” Skar snapped.

  “Nothing! I just thought Drehy might empathize.…”

  “That’s hardly fair,” Drehy said.

  “Yeah,” Lopen added. “Drehy likes other guys. That’s like … he wants to be even less around women than the rest of us. It’s the opposite of feminine. He is, you could say, extra manly.”

  “Yeah,” Drehy said.

  Kaladin rubbed his forehead, and Rlain empathized. It was sad that humans were so burdened by always being in mateform. They were always distracted by the emotions and passions of mating, and had not yet reached a place where they could put that aside.

  He felt embarrassed for them—they were simply too concerned about what a person should and shouldn’t be doing. It was because they didn’t have forms to change into. If Renarin wanted to be a scholar, let him be a scholar.

  “I’m sorry,” Kaladin said, holding out his hand to calm the men. “I wasn’t trying to insult Drehy. But storms, men. We know that things are changing. Look at the lot of us. We’re halfway to being lighteyes! We’ve already let five women into Bridge Four, and they’ll be fighting with spears. Expectations are being upended—and we’re the cause of it. So let’s give Renarin a little leeway, shall we?”

  Rlain nodded. Kaladin was a good man. For all his faults, he tried even more than the rest of them.

  “I have thing to say,” Rock added. “During last few weeks, how many of you have come to me, saying you feel you don’t fit in with Bridge Four now?”

  The plateau fell silent. Finally, Sigzil raised his ha
nd. Followed by Skar. And several others, including Hobber.

  “Hobber, you did not come to me,” Rock noted.

  “Oh. Yeah, but I felt like it, Rock.” He glanced down. “Everything’s changing. I don’t know if I can keep up.”

  “I still have nightmares,” Leyten said softly, “about what we saw in the bowels of Urithiru. Anyone else?”

  “I have trouble Alethi,” Huio said. “It makes me … embarrassing. Alone.”

  “I’m scared of heights,” Torfin added. “Flying up there is terrifying to me.”

  A few glanced at Teft.

  “What?” Teft demanded. “You expect this to be a feeling-sharing party because the storming Horneater gave you a sour eye? Storm off. It’s a miracle I’m not burning moss every moment of the day, having to deal with you lot.”

  Natam patted him on the shoulder.

  “And I will not fight,” Rock said. “I know some of you do not like this. He makes me feel different. Not only because I am only one with proper beard in crew.” He leaned forward. “Life is changing. We will all feel alone because of this, yes? Ha! Perhaps we can feel alone together.”

  They all seemed to find this comforting. Well, except Lopen, who had snuck away from the group and for some reason was lifting up rocks on the other side of the plateau and looking underneath them. Even among humans, he was a strange one.

  The men relaxed and started to chat. Though Hobber slapped Rlain on the back, it was the closest any of them came to asking how he felt. Was it childish of him to feel frustrated? They all thought they were alone, did they? Felt that they were outsiders? Did they know what it was like to be of an entirely different species? A species they were currently at war with—a species whose people had all been either murdered or corrupted?

  People in the tower watched him with outright hatred. His friends didn’t, but they sure did like to pat themselves on the back for that fact. We understand that you’re not like the others, Rlain. You can’t help what you look like.

  He attuned Annoyance and sat there until Kaladin sent the rest of them off to train the aspiring Windrunners. Kaladin spoke softly with Rock, then turned and paused, seeing Rlain sitting there on his bucket.