Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive 2)

“If it’s a large caravan,” Tag said, rubbing his brow with a thick finger, “they’ll have guards. Good protection.” He looked southward.

“Yes,” Tvlakv said. “But we could also be placing ourselves between two enemies. Danger on all sides…”

“Those behind will catch us, Tvlakv,” Shallan said.

“I—”

“A man hunting game will return with a mink if there are no telm to be found,” she said. “Those deserters have to kill to survive out here. Didn’t you say there was probably going to be a highstorm tonight?”

“Yes,” Tvlakv said, reluctant. “Two hours after sunset, if the list I bought is correct.”

“I don’t know how bandits normally weather the storms,” Shallan said, “but they’ve obviously committed to chasing us down. I’d bet they plan to use the wagons as shelter after killing us. They’re not going to let us go.”

“Perhaps,” Tvlakv said. “Yes, perhaps. But Brightness, if we see that second column of smoke ahead, so might the deserters…”

“Yeah,” Tag said, nodding, as if he’d only just realized it. “We cut east. The killers might go after the group ahead.”

“We let them attack someone else instead of us?” Shallan said, folding her arms.

“What else would you expect us to do, Brightness?” Tvlakv said, exasperated. “We are small cremlings, you see. Our only choice is to keep away from larger creatures and hope for them to hunt one another.”

Shallan narrowed her eyes, inspecting that small column of smoke ahead. Was it her eyes, or was it growing thicker? She looked backward. Actually, the columns looked to be about the same size.

They won’t hunt prey their own size, Shallan thought. They left the army, ran away. They’re cowards.

Nearby, she could see Bluth looking backward as well, watching that smoke with an expression she couldn’t read. Disgust? Longing? Fear? No spren to give her a clue.

Cowards, she thought again, or just men disillusioned? Rocks who started rolling down a hillside, only to start going so quickly they don’t know how to stop?

It didn’t matter. Those rocks would crush Shallan and the others, if given the chance. Cutting eastward wouldn’t work. The deserters would take the easy kill—slow-moving wagons—instead of the potentially harder kill straight ahead.

“We make for the second column of smoke,” Shallan said, sitting down.

Tvlakv looked at her. “You don’t get to—” He broke off as she met his eyes.

“You…” Tvlakv said, licking his lips. “You won’t get… to the Shattered Plains as quickly, Brightness, if we get tied up with a larger caravan, you see. It could be bad.”

“I will deal with that if the problem arises, tradesman Tvlakv.”

“Those ahead will keep moving,” Tvlakv warned. “We may arrive at that camp and find them gone.”

“In which case,” Shallan said, “they will either be moving toward the Shattered Plains or coming this way, along the corridor toward the port cities. We will intersect them eventually one way or another.”

Tvlakv sighed, then nodded, calling to Tag to hurry.

Shallan sat down, feeling a thrill. Bluth returned and took his seat, then shoved a few wizened roots in her direction. Lunch, apparently. Shortly, the wagons began rolling northward, Shallan’s wagon falling into place third in line this time.

Shallan settled into her seat for the trip—they were hours away from that second group, even if they did manage to catch up to it. To keep from worrying, she finished her sketches of the landscape. She then turned to idle sketches, simply letting her pencil go where it willed.

She drew skyeels dancing in the air. She drew the docks of Kharbranth. She did a sketch of Yalb, though the face felt off to her, and she didn’t quite capture the mischievous spark in his eyes. Perhaps the errors related to how sad she became, thinking of what had probably happened to him.

She flipped the page and started a random sketch, whatever came into her mind. Her pencil moved into a depiction of an elegant woman in a stately gown. Loose but sleek below the waist, tight across the chest and stomach. Long, open sleeves, one hiding the safehand, the other cut at the elbow exposing the forearm and draping down below.

A bold, poised woman. In control. Still drawing unconsciously, Shallan added her own face to the elegant woman’s head.

She hesitated, pencil hovering above the image. That wasn’t her. Was it? Could it be?

She stared at that image as the wagon bumped over rocks and plants. She flipped to the next page and started another drawing. A ball gown, a woman at court, surrounded by the elite of Alethkar as she imagined them. Tall, strong. The woman belonged among them.

Shallan added her face to the figure.

She flipped the page and did another one. And then another.

The last one was a sketch of her standing at the edge of the Shattered Plains as she imagined them. Looking eastward, toward the secrets that Jasnah had sought.

Shallan flipped the page and drew again. A picture of Jasnah on the ship, seated at her desk, papers and books sprawled around her. It wasn’t the setting that mattered, but the face. That worried, terrified face. Exhausted, pushed to her limits.

Shallan got this one right. The first drawing since the disaster that captured perfectly what she’d seen. Jasnah’s burden.

“Stop the wagon,” Shallan said, not looking up.

Bluth glanced at her. She resisted the urge to say it again. He didn’t, unfortunately, obey immediately.

“Why?” he demanded.

Shallan looked up. The smoke column was still distant, but she’d been right, it was growing thicker. The group ahead had stopped and built a sizable fire for the midday meal. Judging by that smoke, they were a much larger group than the one behind.

“I’m going to get into the back,” Shallan said. “I need to look something up. You can continue when I’m settled, but please stop and call to me once we’re near to the group ahead.”

He sighed, but stopped the chull with a few whacks on the shell. Shallan climbed down, then took the knobweed and notebook, moved to the back of the wagon. Once she was in, Bluth started up again immediately, shouting back to Tvlakv, who had demanded to know the meaning of the delay.

With the walls up her wagon was shaded and private, particularly with it being last in line so nobody could look in the back door at her. Unfortunately, riding in the back wasn’t as comfortable as riding in the front. Those tiny rockbuds caused a surprising amount of jarring and jolting.

Jasnah’s trunk was tied in place near the front wall. She opened the lid—letting the spheres inside provide dusky illumination—then settled back on her improvised cushion, a pile of the cloths Jasnah had used to wrap her books. The blanket she used at night—as Tvlakv had been unable to produce one for her—was the velvet lining she had ripped out of the trunk.

Settling back, she unwrapped her feet to apply the new knobweed. They were scabbed over and much improved from their condition just a day before. “Pattern?”

He vibrated from somewhere nearby. She’d asked him to remain in the back so as to not alarm Tvlakv and the guards.

“My feet are healing,” she said. “Did you do this?”