Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

Damnation!

Kaladin Lashed himself to the side, streaking through the air to engage one of the Fused who had started hovering near Dalinar. She struck toward Kaladin—but that only let him change Syl to a Blade midswing, and cut her long spear in half. She hummed an angry song and floated backward, sliding her sword from its sheath. Below, Dalinar was a mere shadow against the shifting crimson cloud. Faces emerged within, screaming with rage, fury, bloodlust—like the billowing front of a thunderhead.

Being near the mist made Kaladin feel nauseous. Fortunately, the enemy didn’t seem eager to enter it either. They hovered outside, watching Dalinar. A few had ducked in closer, but Kaladin had managed to drive them back.

He pressed his advantage against his current foe, using Syl as a spear. The Fused was nimble, but Kaladin was flush with Stormlight. The field below was still littered with a fortune in glowing spheres.

After he got in close with a strike—cutting the Fused’s robes—she zipped away to join a group that was focusing on Szeth. Hopefully the assassin could stay ahead of them.

Now, where had Amaram gotten to.… Kaladin glanced over his shoulder, then yelped and Lashed himself backward, Stormlight puffing before him. A thick black arrow shot right through that, dispersing the Light.

Amaram stood near his horse, where he’d unhooked a massive Shardbow that used arrows as thick as a spear’s haft. Amaram raised it to loose again, and a line of crystals jutted out along his arm, cracking his Shardplate. Storms, what was happening to that man?

Kaladin zipped out of the way of the arrow. He could heal from a hit like that, but it would distract him—potentially let some of the Fused seize him. All the Stormlight in the world wouldn’t save him if they simply bound him, then hacked at him until he stopped healing.

Amaram launched another arrow, and Kaladin blocked it with Syl, who became a shield in his grip. Then, Kaladin Lashed himself into a dive, summoning Syl as a lance. He swooped down on Amaram, who hooked his Shardbow back onto the horse’s saddle and dodged to the side, moving with incredible speed.

Amaram grabbed the Syllance as Kaladin dove past, flinging Kaladin to the side. Kaladin was forced to dismiss Syl and slow himself, spinning and sliding across the ground until his Lashing ran out and he settled down.

Teeth gritted, Kaladin summoned Syl as a short spear, then rushed Amaram—determined to bring the highlord down before the Fused returned to attack Dalinar.

* * *

The Thrill was happy to see Dalinar.

He had imagined it as some evil force, malignant and insidious, like Odium or Sadeas. How wrong he was.

Dalinar walked through the mist, and each step was a battle he relived. Wars from his youth, to secure Alethkar. Wars during his middle years, to preserve his reputation—and to sate his lust for the fight. And … he saw times when the Thrill withdrew. Like when Dalinar had held Adolin for the first time. Or when he’d grinned with Elhokar atop a rocky spire on the Shattered Plains.

The Thrill regarded these events with a sad sense of abandonment and confusion. The Thrill didn’t hate. Though some spren could make decisions, others were like animals—primal, driven by a single overpowering directive. Live. Burn. Laugh.

Or in this case, fight.

* * *

Jasnah existed halfway in the Cognitive Realm, which made everything a blurry maze of shadows, floating souls of light, and beads of glass. A thousand varieties of spren churned and climbed over one another in Shadesmar’s ocean. Most did not manifest in the physical world.

She willed steps to Soulcast beneath her feet. Individual axi of air lined up and packed next to each other, then Soulcast into stone—though in spite of the realms being linked, this was difficult. Air was amorphous, even in concept. People thought of it as the sky, or a breath, or a gust of wind, or a storm, or just “the air.” It liked to be free, difficult to define.

Yet, with a firm command and a concept of what she wanted, Jasnah made steps form beneath her feet. She reached the top of the wall and found her mother there with Queen Fen and some soldiers. They had made a command station at one of the old guard posts. Soldiers huddled outside with pikes pointed toward two Fused in the sky.

Bother. Jasnah strode along the wall, taking in the melee of illusions and men outside. Shallan stood at the back; most of the spheres around her had been drained already. She was burning through Stormlight at a terrible rate.

“Bad?” she asked Ivory.

“It is,” he said from her collar. “It is.”

“Mother,” Jasnah called, approaching where Fen and Navani stood by the guard post. “You need to rally the troops within the city and clear the enemy inside.”

“We’re working on it,” Navani said. “But— Jasnah! In the air—”

Jasnah raised an absent hand without looking, forming a wall of black pitch. A Fused crashed through it, and Jasnah Soulcast a flick of fire, sending the thing screaming and flailing, burning with a terrible smoke.

Jasnah Soulcast the rest of the pitch on the wall to smoke, then continued forward. “We must take advantage of Radiant Shallan’s distraction and cleanse Thaylen City. Otherwise, when the assault comes from outside once more, our attention will be divided.”

“From outside?” Fen said. “But we have the wall fixed, and— Storms! Brightness!”

Jasnah stepped aside without looking as the second Fused swooped down—the reactions of spren in Shadesmar allowed her to judge where it was. She turned and swung her hand at the creature. Ivory formed and sliced through the Fused’s head as it passed, sending it curling about itself—eyes burning—and tumbling along the wall top.

“The enemy,” Jasnah said, “will not be stopped by a wall, and Brightness Shallan has feasted upon almost all of the spheres Uncle Dalinar recharged. My Stormlight is nearly gone. We have to be ready to hold this position through conventional means once the power is gone.”

“Surely there aren’t enough enemy troops to…” Fen’s consort said, but trailed off as Jasnah pointed with Ivory—who obligingly formed again—toward the waiting parshman armies. Neither the hovering red haze nor the breaking lightning of the storm was enough to drown out the red glows beginning to appear in the parshmen’s eyes.

“We must be ready to hold this wall as long as it takes for troops to arrive from Urithiru,” Jasnah said. “Where is Renarin? Wasn’t he to deal with that thunderclast?”

“One of my soldiers reported seeing him,” Fen said. “He had been slowed by the crowds. Prince Adolin expressed an intention to go help.”

“Excellent. I will trust that task to my cousins, and instead see what I can do to keep my ward from getting herself killed.”

* * *

Szeth wove and dodged between the attacks of five enemy Fused, carrying the large dun ruby in his left hand, the sheathed black sword in his right. He tried to approach Dalinar in the red mist, but the enemy cut him off, and he was forced to turn east.

He skimmed the now-repaired wall and crossed over the city, eventually soaring past the monster of stone. It flung several soldiers into the air, and for a moment they soared with Szeth.

Szeth Lashed himself downward, diving for the city streets. Behind him, Fused broke around the monster and swarmed after. He shot through a doorway and into a small home—and heard a thump above as a soldier’s body fell onto the roof—then crashed out the back door and Lashed himself upward, narrowly avoiding the next building.