Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive 2)

“Nonsense,” Kaladin said. “It didn’t manage to swallow me. Doesn’t count.” He held his hand out to her, as if for help getting to his feet.

“You want to try to keep going?”

“You expect me to just lie here in the chasm until the waters come?”

“No, but…” She looked up. The chasmfiend was big. Maybe twenty feet tall, as it lay on its side. “What if we climbed up that thing, then tried to scale up to the top of the plateau?” The farther westward they’d gone, the shallower the chasms had grown.

Kaladin looked up. “That’s still a good eighty feet of climbing, Shallan. And what would we do on the top of the plateau? The storm would blow us off.”

“We could at least try to find some kind of shelter…” she said. “Storms, it really is hopeless, isn’t it?”

Oddly, he cocked his head. “Probably.”

“Only ‘probably’?”

“Shelter… You have a Shardblade.”

“And?” she asked. “I can’t cut away a wall of water.”

“No, but you can cut stone.” He looked up, toward the wall of the chasm.

Shallan’s breath caught in her throat. “We can carve out a cubby! Like the scouts use.”

“High up the wall,” he said. “You can see the water line up there. If we can get above that…”

It still meant climbing. She wouldn’t have to go all the way to where the chasm got narrow at the top, but it wouldn’t be an easy climb, by any means. And she had very little time.

But it was a chance.

“You’re going to have to do it,” Kaladin said. “I might be able to stand, with help. But climbing while wielding a Shardblade…”

“Right,” Shallan said, standing up. She took a deep breath. “Right.”

She started by scaling the back of the chasmfiend. The smooth carapace made for slippery climbing, but she found footholds between plates. Once on its back, she looked up toward the water line. It seemed much higher than it had from below.

“Cut handholds,” Kaladin called.

Right. She kept forgetting about the Shardblade. She didn’t want to think about it…

No. No time for that now. She summoned the Blade and cut out a series of long strips of rock, sending chunks falling to bounce off the carapace. She tucked her hair behind her ear, working in the dim light to create a ladderlike series of handholds up the side of the wall.

She started climbing them. Standing on one and clinging to the highest one, she summoned the Blade again and tried to cut a step even higher, but the thing was just so blasted long.

Obligingly, it shrank in her hand to the size of a much shorter sword, really a big knife.

Thank you, she thought, then cut out the next line of rock.

Up she went, handhold after handhold. It was sweaty work, and she periodically had to climb back down and rest her hands from clinging. Eventually, she got about as high as she figured she could, just over the water line. She hung there awkwardly, then began hacking out sections of rock, trying to cut them so they wouldn’t tumble backward onto her head.

Falling stone made a beating sound on the dead chasmfiend’s armor. “You’re doing great!” Kaladin called up to her. “Keep at it!”

“When did you get so peppy?” she shouted.

“Ever since I assumed I was dead, then I suddenly wasn’t.”

“Then remind me to try to kill you once in a while,” she snapped. “If I succeed, it will make me feel better, and if I fail, it will make you feel better. Everyone wins!”

She heard him chuckling as she dug deeper into the stone. It was more difficult than she’d have imagined. Yes, the Blade cut the rock easily, but she kept cutting sections that just wouldn’t fall out. She had to chop them to pieces, then dismiss the Blade and grab chunks to pull them out.

After over an hour of frantic work, however, she managed to craft a semblance of a refuge. She didn’t get the cubby hollowed out as deeply as she wanted, but it would have to do. Drained, she crawled back down her improvised ladder one last time and flopped on the chasmfiend’s back amid the rubble. Her arms felt like she’d been lifting something heavy—and technically she probably had, since climbing meant lifting herself.

“Done?” Kaladin called up from the chasm floor.

“No,” Shallan said, “but close enough. I think we might fit.”

Kaladin was silent.

“You are coming up into the hole I just cut, Kaladin bridgeboy, chasmfiend-slayer and gloombringer.” She leaned over the side of the chasmfiend to look at him. “We are not having another stupid conversation about you dying in here while I bravely continue on. Understand?”

“I’m not sure if I can walk, Shallan,” Kaladin said with a sigh. “Let alone climb.”

“You’re going,” Shallan said, “if I have to carry you.”

He looked up, then grinned, face covered in dried violet ichor that he’d wiped away as best he could. “I’d like to see that.”

“Come on,” Shallan said, rising with some difficulty herself. Storms, she was tired. She used the Blade to hack a vine off the wall. It took two hits to get it free, amusingly. The first severed its soul. Then, dead, it could actually be cut by the sword.

The upper part withdrew, curling like a corkscrew to get height. She tossed down one side of the length she’d cut free. Kaladin took it with one hand, and—favoring his bad leg—carefully made his way up to the top of the chasmfiend. Once up, he flopped down beside her, sweat making trails through the grime on his face. He looked up at the ladder cut into the rock. “You’re really going to make me climb that.”

“Yes,” she said. “For perfectly selfish reasons.”

He looked to her.

“I’m not going to have your last sight in life be a view of me standing in half a filthy dress, covered in purple blood, my hair an utter mess. It’s undignified. On your feet, bridgeboy.”

In the distance, she heard a rumbling. Not good…

“Climb up,” he said.

“I’m not—”

“Climb up,” he said more firmly, “and lie down in the cubby, then reach your hand over the edge. Once I near the top, you can help me the last few feet.”

She fretted for a moment, then fetched her satchel and made the climb. Storms, those handholds were slick. Once up, she crawled into the shallow cubby and perched precariously, reaching down with one hand as she braced herself with the other. He looked up at her, then set his jaw and started climbing.

He mostly pulled himself with his hands, wounded leg dangling, the other one steadying him. Heavily muscled, his soldier’s arms slowly pulled him up slot by slot.

Below, water trickled down the chasm. Then it started to gush.

“Come on!” she said.

Wind howled through the chasms, a haunting, eerie sound that called through the many rifts. Like the moaning of spirits long dead. The high sound was accompanied by a low, rumbling roar.

All around, plants withdrew, vines twisting and pulling tight, rockbuds closing, frillblooms folding away. The chasm hid.

Kaladin grunted, sweating, his face tense with pain and exertion, his fingers trembling. He pulled himself up another rung, then reached his hand up toward hers.