Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive 2)

He held himself back, matching her pace. Exasperating though she might be, he wasn’t going to abandon Adolin’s betrothed to be eaten by a chasmfiend.

They reached an intersection and chose a path at random. At the next intersection, he only paused long enough to check to see if they were being followed.

They were. Thumping from behind them, claws on stone. Scraping. He grabbed the girl’s satchel—he was already carrying her pack—as they ran down another corridor. Either Shallan was in excellent shape, or the panic got to her, because she didn’t even seem winded when they reached the next intersection.

No time for hesitation. He barreled down a pathway, ears full of the sound of grinding carapace. A sudden four-voiced trump echoed through the chasm, as loud as a thousand horns being blown. Shallan screamed, though Kaladin barely heard her over the horrible sound.

The chasm plants withdrew in large waves. In moments, the entire place went from fecund to barren, like the world preparing for a highstorm. They hit another intersection, and Shallan hesitated, looking back toward the sounds. She held her hands out, as if preparing to embrace the thing. Storming woman! He grabbed her and pulled her after him. They ran down two chasms without stopping.

It was still chasing, though he could only hear it. He had no idea how close it was, but it had their scent. Or their sound? He had no idea how they hunted.

Need a plan! Can’t just—

At the next intersection, Shallan turned the opposite way from the one he had picked. Kaladin cursed, pounding to a stop and running after her.

“This is no time,” he said, puffing, “to argue about—”

“Shut it,” she said. “Follow.”

She led them to an intersection, then another. Kaladin was feeling winded, his lungs protesting. Shallan stopped, then pointed and ran down a chasm. He followed, looking over his shoulder.

He could see only blackness. Moonlight was too distant, too choked, to illuminate these depths. They wouldn’t know if the beast was upon them until it entered the light of his spheres. But Stormfather, it sounded close.

Kaladin turned his attention back to his running. He nearly tripped over something on the ground. A corpse? He leaped it, catching up to Shallan. The hem of her dress was snarled and ripped from the running, her hair a mess, her face flushed. She led them down another corridor, then slowed to a stop, hand to the wall of the chasm, puffing.

Kaladin closed his eyes, breathing in and out. Can’t rest long. It will be coming. He felt as if he were going to collapse.

“Cover that light,” Shallan hissed.

He frowned at her, but did so. “We can’t rest long,” he hissed back.

“Quiet.”

The darkness was complete save for the thin light escaping between his fingers. The scraping seemed almost on top of them. Storms! Could he fight one of these monsters? Without Stormlight? Desperate, he tried to suck in the Light he held in his palm.

No Stormlight came, and he hadn’t seen Syl since the fall. The scraping continued. He prepared to run, but…

The sounds didn’t seem to be getting closer anymore. Kaladin frowned. The body he’d stumbled over, it had been one of the fallen from the fight earlier. Shallan had led them back to where they’d started.

And… to food for the beast.

He waited, tense, listening to his heartbeat thumping in his chest. Scraping echoed in the chasm. Oddly, some light flashed in the chasm behind. What was that?

“Stay here,” Shallan whispered.

Then, incredibly, she started to move toward the sounds. Still holding the spheres awkwardly with one hand, he reached out with the other and snatched her.

She turned back to him, then looked down. Inadvertently, he’d grabbed her by the safehand. He let go immediately.

“I have to see it,” Shallan whispered to him. “We’re so close.”

“Are you insane?”

“Probably.” She continued toward the beast.

Kaladin debated, cursing her in his mind. Finally, he put his spear down and dropped her pack and satchel over its spheres to muffle the light. Then he followed. What else could he do? Explain to Adolin? Yes, princeling. I let your betrothed wander off alone in the darkness to get eaten by a chasmfiend. No, I didn’t go with her. Yes, I’m a coward.

There was light ahead. It showed Shallan—her outline, at least—crouching beside a turn in the chasm, peeking around. Kaladin stepped up to her, crouching down and taking a look.

There it was.

The beast filled the chasm. Long and narrow, it wasn’t bulbous or bulky, like some small cremlings. It was sinuous, sleek, with that arrowlike face and sharp mandibles.

It was also wrong. Wrong in a way difficult to describe. Big creatures were supposed to be slow and docile, like chulls. Yet this enormous beast moved with ease, its legs up on the sides of the chasm, holding it so that its body barely touched the ground. It ate the corpse of a fallen soldier, grasping the body in smaller claws by its mouth, then ripping it in half with a gruesome bite.

That face was like something from a nightmare. Evil, powerful, almost intelligent.

“Those spren,” Shallan whispered, so soft he could barely hear. “I’ve seen those…”

They danced around the chasmfiend, and were the source of the light. They looked like small glowing arrows, and they surrounded the beast in schools, though occasionally one would drift away from the others and then vanish like a small plume of smoke rising into the air.

“Skyeels,” Shallan whispered. “They follow skyeels too. The chasmfiend likes corpses. Could its kind be carrion feeders by nature? No, those claws, they look like they’re meant for breaking shells. I suspect we’d find herds of wild chulls near where these things live naturally. But they come to the Shattered Plains to pupate, and here there’s very little food, which is why they attack men. Why has this one remained after pupating?”

The chasmfiend was almost done with its meal. Kaladin took her by the shoulder, and she allowed him—with obvious reluctance—to pull her away.

They returned to their things, gathered them up, and—as silently as possible—retreated farther into the darkness.

* * *

They walked for hours, going in a completely different direction from the one they’d taken before. Shallan allowed Kaladin to lead again, though she tried her best to keep track of the chasms. She’d need to draw it out to be certain of their location.

Images of the chasmfiend tumbled in her head. What a majestic animal! Her fingers practically itched to sketch it from the Memory she’d taken. The legs were larger than she’d imagined; not like a legger, with spindly little spinelike legs holding up a thick body. This creature had exuded power. Like the whitespine, only enormous and more alien.

They were far from it now. Hopefully that meant they were safe. The night was dragging on her, after she’d risen early to get moving on the expedition.

She covertly checked the spheres in her pouch. She’d drained them all dun in their flight. Bless the Almighty for the Stormlight—she would need to make a glyphward in thanks. Without the strength and endurance it lent, she’d never have been able to keep up with Kaladin longlegs.

Now, however, she was storming exhausted. As if the Light had inflated her capacity, but now left her deflated and worn out.

At the next intersection, Kaladin paused and looked her over.