Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive 4)

As soon as Kaladin landed, the singers released Waber and the others, then retreated through the broken hole in the stone wall. Five soldiers, Kaladin noted. Three with swords, two with spears.

The Fused carried one captive as he strode into the building; thin, with a gaunt face, the captive was bleeding from a slash along his stomach. Godeke the Edgedancer. His Stormlight had apparently run out. Storms send he was still alive. The Fused wanted to use him as bait, so the chances seemed good.

Kaladin strode toward the broken wall. “You want to fight me, Fused? Come on. Let’s have at it.”

The creature, shadowed inside the building, growled something in his own rhythmic language. One of the soldiers translated. “I will fight you inside where you cannot fly away, little Windrunner. Come, face me.”

I don’t like this, Syl said.

“Agreed,” Kaladin whispered. “Be ready to go get help.”

He Lashed himself upward slightly, enough to make him lighter on his feet, then inched into the burning building. This large room had once been the dining chamber, where Kaladin’s father had eaten with Roshone and talked of thieves and compromises. The ceiling was burned in patches, the fire consuming it from above. Flamespren danced along the wood with a frantic delight.

The hulking Fused stood directly ahead, two soldiers at each side. They moved forward to flank Kaladin. Where was the fifth soldier? There, near an overturned table, fiddling with something that glowed a deep violet-black. Voidlight? Wait … was that a fabrial? The light dimmed suddenly.

Kaladin’s powers vanished.

He felt it as a strange smothering sensation, as if something heavy had been placed on top of his mind. His full weight came upon him again, his Lashing canceled.

Syl gasped and her spear puffed away as she became a spren—and when Kaladin tried to resummon his Blade, nothing happened.

Immediately, Kaladin stepped backward to try to escape the range of the strange fabrial. But the soldiers quickly rushed to surround him, cutting off his retreat. Kaladin’s assumption that he could beat them easily had relied on his Shardspear and his powers.

Storms! Kaladin strained to create a Lashing. Stormlight still raged inside him, and kept him from needing to breathe the acrid smoke, but something was suppressing his other abilities.

The Fused laughed and spoke in Alethi. “Radiants! You rely too much on your powers. Without them, what are you? A peasant child with no real training in the art of warfare or—”

Kaladin slammed himself against the soldier to his right.

The sudden motion caused the singer to cry out and fall backward. Kaladin yanked the spear from the man’s hand, then—in a fluid motion—whipped it into a two-handed lunge, impaling a second soldier.

The two soldiers on his left recovered and leaped for him. Kaladin felt the wind encircle him as he spun between the two of them, catching one sword—aimed low—with the butt of his spear as he caught the second one—aimed high—right behind the spear’s head. Metal met wood with a familiar thunk, and Kaladin finished his spin, throwing off both weapons.

He gutted one man, then tripped him—sending him stumbling to the ground in front of his ally. These soldiers were trained well, but hadn’t seen much actual combat yet—as evidenced by how the remaining singer froze when he saw his friends dying.

Kaladin kept moving, almost without thought, spearing the fourth soldier in the neck. There, Kaladin thought as the expected ribbon of red light came darting toward him. He will go for my back again.

Kaladin dropped his spear, pulled a throwing knife off his belt, and turned. He rammed the knife into the air right before the Fused appeared—slamming the small blade into the creature’s neck, angled between two pieces of carapace.

The Fused let out an urk of shock and pain, his eyes wide.

Fire made wood snap overhead, and burning cinders dropped down as the enormous Fused toppled forward like a felled tree, the floorboards shaking with the impact. Blessedly, no red ribbon of light rose from him this time.

“That’s a relief,” Syl said, landing on Kaladin’s shoulder. “I guess if you catch him before he teleports, you really can kill him.”

“At least until the Everstorm rebirths him,” Kaladin said, checking the singers he’d killed. Other than the one dying slowly from the gut wound, he’d left only two alive—the one he’d shoved, and the fifth one, across the room, who had activated the fabrial.

The former had scrambled out the gaping hole in the wall to escape. The latter had left the fabrial and was inching to the side, his sword out, eyes wide.

The man was trying to reach Godeke—perhaps to use him as a hostage. In the fray, the wounded Edgedancer had fallen to the ground beside the husk after the Fused had teleported to Kaladin. Godeke was now moving—but not under his own power. A small, gangly figure had the Edgedancer by one leg and was slowly dragging him away from the fight. Kaladin hadn’t seen Lift sneak into the room—but then again, she often showed up where one did not expect her.

“Take him out the hole, Lift,” Kaladin said, stepping toward the last singer. “Are your powers suppressed too?”

“Yeah,” she said. “What’d they do to us?”

“I’m extremely curious about this too,” Syl said, zipping over to the device on the floor, a gemstone covered in metal pieces and resting on tripod legs. “That is a very strange fabrial.”

Kaladin pointed his spear at the last singer, who—hesitantly—dropped his sword and raised his hands. He had a jagged skin pattern of red and black.

“What is that fabrial?” Kaladin asked.

“I … I…” The soldier swallowed. “I don’t know. I was told to twist the gemstone at the base to activate it.”

“That’s Voidlight powering it,” Syl said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Kaladin glanced at the smoke pooling on the ceiling. “Lift?” he said.

“On it,” she said, scrambling over to the device while Kaladin kept the soldier guarded. A moment later, Kaladin’s powers returned. He sighed in relief, though that made Stormlight puff before him. Nearby, Godeke gasped, unconsciously breathing in Stormlight, and his wound started to heal.

Strengthened by the Light, Kaladin grabbed the soldier and lifted him up, infusing him enough to make him hang in the air. “I told you to leave the city,” Kaladin growled softly. “I’m memorizing your face, your pattern, your stench. If I see you again, ever, I will send you hurtling upward with so much Stormlight that you will have a long, long time to think during the fall back down. Understood?”

The singer nodded, humming a conciliatory sound. Kaladin shoved him, recovering his Stormlight and making the man fall to the ground. He scrambled away out the hole.

“There was another human in here,” Lift said. “An old lighteyed man in beggar’s clothing. I was watching from outside the building, and saw the man come in here with Godeke. A short time later, that Fused broke through the wall, carrying Godeke—but I didn’t spot the other man.”

Roshone. The former citylord had told Dalinar he was going to search the manor’s stormcellar to free imprisoned townspeople. Though he wasn’t proud of it, Kaladin hesitated—but when Syl looked at him, he gritted his teeth and nodded.