Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive 4)

Feeling a sense of growing dread, he set Teft down, counted his few spheres, and took out his scalpel once more. Right. He’d … he’d need to take a weapon from the first soldier he killed. A spear, hopefully. Something with reach if he was going to survive a fight in these corridors.

Syl landed on his shoulder and took the shape of a young woman, seated with her hands in her lap.

“We have to try to punch through,” Kaladin whispered. “There’s a chance they’ll send only a couple men this direction. We kill them, then slip out of the noose and run.”

She nodded.

It didn’t sound like a “couple men” though. And he was reasonably certain he caught a harsher, louder voice among them. The Pursuer was still tracking him, possibly by the faint marks of blood smeared on the walls or floor.

Kaladin pulled Teft into one of the rooms, then positioned himself in the doorway to wait. Not calm, but prepared. He gripped his scalpel in a reverse grip—a hacking grip—for ramming into the space between carapace and neck. Standing there, he felt the weight of it all pressing down on him. The darkness, both inside and out. The fatigue. The dread. Gloomspren like tattered pieces of cloth faded in, as if banners attached to the walls.

“Kaladin,” Syl said softly, “could we surrender?”

“That Fused isn’t here to take me captive, Syl,” he said.

“If you die I’ll be alone again.”

“We’ve slipped out of tighter problems than this.…” He trailed off as he glanced at her, sitting on his shoulder, seeming far smaller than usual. He couldn’t force the rest of the words out. He couldn’t lie.

Light began to illuminate the corridor, coming toward him.

Kaladin gripped his knife more tightly. A part of him seemed to have always known it would come to this. Alone in the darkness, standing with his back to the wall, facing overwhelming numbers. A glorious way to die, but Kaladin didn’t want glory. He’d given up on that foolish dream as a child.

“Kaladin!” Syl said. “What’s that? On the floor?”

A faint violet light had appeared in the crook of the rightmost corner. Almost invisible, even in the darkness. Frowning, Kaladin left his post by the door, inspecting the light. There was a garnet vein in the stone here, and a small portion of it was glowing. As he tried to figure out why, the glow moved—running along the crystal vein. He followed it to the doorway, then watched it cross the hallway to the room on the other side.

He hesitated only briefly before putting away his weapon and hauling Teft onto his shoulders once again. He stumbled across the hallway outside—and one of the approaching people said something in Azish. It sounded hesitant, as if they hadn’t caught more than a glimpse of him.

Storms. What was he doing? Chasing phantom lights, like starspren in the sky? In this small chamber, the light moved across the floor and up the wall, revealing what appeared to be a gemstone embedded deeply in the stone.

“A fabrial?” Syl said. “Infuse it!”

Kaladin breathed in some of his Stormlight, then glanced over his shoulder. Voices outside, and shadows. Rather than hold his Stormlight for that fight, however, he did as Syl told him—pressing the Light into the gemstone. He had maybe two or three chips’ worth left after that. He was practically defenseless.

The wall split down the center. He gaped as the stones moved, but with a silence that defied explanation. They cracked open just wide enough to admit a person. Carrying Teft, he entered a hidden corridor. Behind him, the doorway smoothly slid shut, and the light in the gemstone went out.

Kaladin held his breath as he heard voices in the room behind. Then he pressed his ear against the wall, listening. He couldn’t make out much—an argument that seemed to involve the Pursuer. Kaladin worried they had spotted the door closing, but he heard no scraping or pounding. They would spot the spren he’d drawn though, and would know he was close.

Kaladin needed to keep moving. The little violet light on the floor twinkled and moved, so he lugged Teft after it through another series of corridors. Eventually they reached a hidden stairwell that—blessedly—was undefended.

He climbed that, though each footfall was slower than the one before it and exhaustionspren hounded him. He kept moving somehow, as the light led him to the eleventh floor, and then into another dark room. The oppressive silence told him he’d reached a portion of the tower the enemy wasn’t searching. He wanted to collapse, but the light pulsed insistently on the wall—and Syl encouraged him to look.

Another embedded gemstone, barely visible. He used the last of his Stormlight to infuse it, and slipped through the door that opened. In absolute darkness, Kaladin set Teft down, feeling the door closing behind.

He didn’t have the strength to inspect his surroundings. He instead slid to the cold stone floor, trembling.

There, he finally let himself drift to sleep.

NINE YEARS AGO

Eshonai had been told that mapping the world removed its mystery. Some of the other listeners insisted the wilderness should be left uncharted—the domain of the spren and the greatshells—and that by trying to confine it to paper, she risked stealing its secrets.

She found this to be flat-out ridiculous. She attuned Awe as she entered the forest, the trees bobbing with lifespren, bright green balls with white spines poking out. Closer to the Shattered Plains, most everything was flat, grown over by only the occasional rockbud. Yet here, not so far away, plants thrived in abundance.

Her people made frequent trips to the forest to get lumber and mushrooms. However, they always took the exact same route. Up the river a day’s walk inward, gather there, then return. This time she’d insisted on leaving the party—much to their concern. She’d promised to meet them again at their normal camp, after scouting the outer perimeter of the forest all the way around.

After hiking around the trees for several days, she’d encountered the river on the other side. Now she could cut back through the heart of the forest and reach her family’s camp from that direction. She’d bear with her a new map that revealed exactly how large the forest was, at least on one side.

She started along the stream, attuned to Joy, accompanied by swimming riverspren. Everyone had been so worried about her being out in the storms alone. Well, she had been out in storms a dozen times in her life, and had survived with no trouble. Plus, she’d been able to move in among the trees for shelter.

Her family and friends were concerned nonetheless. They spent their lives living in a very small region, dreaming of the day they could conquer one of the ten ancient cities at the perimeter of the Shattered Plains. Such a small-minded goal. Why not strike out, see what else there was to the world?

But no. Only one possible goal existed: win one of the cities. Seek shelter behind crumbling walls, ignoring the barrier the woods provided. Eshonai considered it proof that nature was stronger than the creations of listeners. This forest had likely stood when the ancient cities had been new. Yet this forest still thrived, and those were ruins.

You couldn’t steal the secrets from something so strong just by exploring it. You could merely learn.

She settled down near a rock and unrolled her map, made from precious paper. Her mother was one of the few among all the families who knew the Song of Making Paper, and with her help, Eshonai had perfected the process. She used a pen and ink to sketch the path of the river as it entered the forest, then dabbed the ink until it was dry before rerolling the map.