Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive 4)

She spat out a feather as Stormlight healed the cuts to her face. Well, at least that part of her abilities was still working. She hopped down and scooped up the wounded red-feathered chicken. It gave her a timid bite on the arm, and she glared at it.

“You ain’t in any position to complain,” she said, then tried to heal it. She pressed her Light into the body, and it resisted. The healing didn’t work either. Damnation.

The chicken calmed as she hurried into the room beyond, where a young lighteyed man had been walking to the balcony to see what the fuss was.

“Sorry,” Lift said. “Important Radiant business.” As he leaped back, startled, she snatched a limafruit off his table, then hurried out into the hallway beyond.

Let’s see … fifth floor …

She found her way to one of the ventilation openings, and Wyndle made a ladder for her to climb up—the red chicken under her arm complaining softly about the treatment. Inside, safely around a few corners, she put the chicken on the floor, then pressed her hand to it again.

She pushed harder. When she’d tried to become awesome earlier, nothing had happened. But when she’d tried to heal, she’d felt something different—a resistance. So this time she pushed it, growling softly until … it worked. Stormlight left her, and the chicken’s wing healed. Her powers didn’t regrow the lost feathers, but in a moment the thing had rolled over and was picking at the bare skin on its side with a tentative beak. Finally, it looked at her and released a confused squawk.

“It’s kind of what I do,” she said, and shrugged. “I’m ’posed to listen too. Damnation take me if I can figure out how that applies to chickens though.”

The chicken squawked. She tried to summon her awesomeness, but that power didn’t merely resist. It seemed to not exist. As she tried again, she heard something odd. People shouting?

“Wyndle?” she asked.

He moved away as a vine. People could sometimes notice the remnants of those vines when they disintegrated, but he himself was invisible.

The chicken began walking away down the tunnel. It had a funny stride, like it was indignant about being forced to use its feet.

Lift hurried forward and blocked it off. “Where do you think you’re going?”

It squawked insistently, then squeezed past her.

“At least wait for Wyndle,” she said, blocking it off again. It let out a more threatening squawk, but soon Wyndle returned.

“Radiants are dropping unconscious!” he said. “Oh, mistress. This seems very bad!”

The chicken, uncaring, pushed past her and continued along the tunnel. Together she and Wyndle followed, the spren growing increasingly worried—particularly after the bird fluttered down into a corridor, then stared at the ground and chirped in an annoyed way.

It turned toward her, plaintive.

“You need to go down lower,” she said, “but you don’t know how? What are you following?”

It squawked.

“Mistress,” Wyndle said, “chickens are not intelligent. Talking to one would make me question your intelligence, if I hadn’t seen you talk to cremlings sometimes.”

“Never can tell if one of those is reporting back to someone or not,” she muttered, then climbed down and picked up the chicken. It seemed to have trouble flying without all its feathers, so she carried it as they used the stairs to descend several levels, following the chicken’s body language. It would stretch out its head, then cock it, looking at the floor with one eye. When they got to the second level, it leveled out its head, staring insistently along a corridor, and made a kind of hooting noise.

Something distant rumbled from one of the corridors behind them. Lift spun, and Wyndle whimpered.

“That was thunder,” she said. “There are stormforms in the tower.”

“Oh, mistress!” Wyndle cried. “We should do something! Like hide! Or run away and then hide!”

Instead she followed the chicken’s gaze. She was supposed to listen. It was one of her stormin’ oaths, or something. She hurried through a side passage as the chicken started to squawk louder.

“Mistress?” Wyndle said. “Why are we…”

He trailed off as they stumbled across the corpse.

It was an old Alethi man in robes. He’d been killed with some kind of knife wound to the chest, and lay—his eyes open—on the ground. Blood on his lips.

She turned away. She never had gotten used to this sort of thing.

The chicken let out an angry screech, fluttering out of her hands to the man. Then—in perhaps the most heart-wrenching thing she’d ever seen—it began to nuzzle the corpse and chirp softly. It climbed into the crook of his dead arm and pushed its head against his side, chirping again, more worried this time.

“I’m sorry,” Lift said, squatting down. “How did you know he was here?”

It chirped.

“You could feel him, couldn’t you?” she asked. “Or … you could feel where he’d been. You’re no ordinary chicken. Are you a Voidbringer chicken?”

“Why,” Wyndle said, “do you insist on using that word? It’s horribly inaccurate.”

“Shut it, Voidbringer,” she muttered at him. She reached over and carefully picked up the chicken, who had begun to let out pained chirps almost like words. Eerily similar to them, in fact.

“Who was he?” she asked. “Wyndle, do you recognize him?”

“I believe I’ve seen him before. A minor Alethi functionary, though his eyes are different now. Curious. Look at his fingers—tan skin with bands of lighter skin. He was wearing jewelry once.”

Yes … thinking about it, she thought she recognized him. One of the old people in the tower. Retired, once an important official in the palace. She’d gone and talked to him because nobody paid attention to old people. They smelled.

“Robbed,” she said. Back-alley killings still happened in this tower, though the Kholins tried to make the place safe. “I’ll remember you. I promise. I—”

Something moved in the darkness nearby. A kind of scraping sound, like … feathers. Lift went alert and stood, holding out a sphere for light. It had come from farther down the corridor, where her light didn’t reach.

Something flowed from that darkness. A man, tall with scarred features. He wore an Alethi uniform, but she swore she’d never seen him before. She would recognize a man this dangerous. Those eyes seemed to be part of the darkness—deep in shadow as he stepped into the light.

On his shoulder sat the green chicken from before, its wicked claws gripping a patch of leather affixed to the uniform.

“Little Radiant,” the man said. “I’ll admit, I’ve always wanted an excuse to hunt you.”

She clutched her red chicken and started running.

The man behind her laughed. As if he’d been given the grandest of gifts.

Taravangian’s solitude was painful today. As was increasingly common, he wasn’t particularly smart.

Smart Taravangian hated company. Smart Taravangian forgot the point of being around other people. Smart Taravangian was terrifying, but he would gladly have been that version of himself today. He would have welcomed the emotional anesthesia.