Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive 2)

No sign of her, though he did see several large tarps laid on the ground here—expansive squares of black cloth. She’d been at work. He called a question to an engineer, and she pointed, so Dalinar rode along the chasm in that direction. He passed a succession of other tarps that had been arranged on the stone.

Across the chasm to his left, men died with shouts and screams. He saw firsthand how terribly Roion’s battle was progressing. The danger was manifest in broken groups of men flying beleaguered banners, split into vulnerable small bunches by red-eyed enemies. The Alethi would fight on, but with their line fragmenting, their prospects were grim.

Dalinar remembered fighting like that himself two months ago, surrounded by a sea of enemies, without hope for salvation. Dalinar pushed his horse faster, and soon spotted Navani. She stood beneath an umbrella directing a group of workers with another large tarp.

“Navani!” Dalinar shouted, pulling his horse to a slippery stop across the tarp from her. “I need a miracle!”

“Working on it,” she shouted back.

“No time for working. Execute your plan. Now.”

He was too distant to see her glare, but he felt it. Fortunately, she waved workers away from her current tarp and began shouting orders to her engineers. The women ran up to the chasm, where a line of rocks was arrayed. They were attached to ropes, Dalinar thought, though he wasn’t sure how this process worked. Navani shouted instructions.

Too much time, Dalinar thought, anxious, watching across the chasm. Had they recovered Teleb’s Shards? He couldn’t spare grief for the man, not now. They needed those Shards.

Behind Dalinar, soldiers gathered. Roion’s archers, finest in the warcamps, had been useless in this rain. The engineers backed up at a barked order from Navani, and the workers shoved the line of some forty rocks into the chasm.

As the rocks fell, tarps jumped fifty feet into the air, pulled at the front corners and centers. In an instant, a long line of improvised pavilions flanked the chasm.

“Move!” Dalinar said, urging his horse between two of the pavilions. “Archers forward!”

Men dashed into the protected areas under the tarps, some muttering at the lack of any visible poles holding them in the air. Navani had pulled up only the fronts, so the tarps slanted backward, away from the chasm. The rain streamed down in that direction. They also had sides, like tents, so only the open faces were toward Roion’s battlefront.

Dalinar swung from the horse and handed the reins to a worker. He jogged under one of the pavilions to where archers were forming ranks. Navani entered, carrying a large sack over her shoulder. She opened it to reveal a large glowing garnet suspended within a delicate wire lacework fabrial.

She fiddled with it for a moment, then stepped back.

“We really should have had more time to test this,” she warned to Dalinar, folding her arms. “Attractors are new inventions. I’m still half afraid this thing will suck the blood out of anyone who touches it.”

It didn’t. Instead, water quickly started to pool around the thing. Storms, it worked! The fabrial was pulling moisture from the air. Roion’s archers removed bowstrings from protected pockets, bending bows and stringing them at the orders of their lieutenants. Many of the men here were lighteyes—archery was seen as an acceptable Calling for a lighteyed man of modest means. Not everyone could be an officer.

The archers began loosing waves of arrows across the chasm into the Parshendi who had surrounded Roion’s forces. “Good,” Dalinar said, watching the arrows fly. “Very good.”

“The rain and wind are still going to make aiming the arrows difficult,” Navani said. “And I don’t know how well the fabrials will work; with the front of the pavilions open, humidity is going to flood in constantly. We might run out of Stormlight after just a short time.”

“It’s enough,” Dalinar said. The arrows made an almost immediate difference, drawing Parshendi attention away from the beleaguered men. It wasn’t a maneuver to try unless you were desperate—the risk of hitting allies was great—but Roion’s archers proved deserving of their reputation.

He pulled Navani close with one arm. “You did well.” Then he called for his horse—his horse, not that wild messenger beast—as he charged out of the pavilion. Those archers would give him an opening. Hopefully it wasn’t too late for Roion.

* * *

No! Kaladin thought, rounding the couch to the king’s side. Was he dead? There was no obvious wound.

The king shifted, then groaned in a lazy way and sat upright. Kaladin let out a deep breath. An empty wine bottle rested on the end table, and Kaladin could smell the spilled wine now that he was closer.

“Bridgeman?” Elhokar’s speech was slurred. “Have you come to gloat over me?”

“Storms, Elhokar,” Kaladin said. “How much have you had?”

“They all… they all talk about me,” Elhokar said, flopping down on the couch. “My own guards… every one. Bad king, they say. Everyone hates him, they say.”

Kaladin felt a chill. “They wanted you to drink, Elhokar. Makes their job easier.”

“Huh?”

Storms. The man was barely conscious.

“Come on,” Kaladin said. “Assassins are coming for you. We’re getting out of here.”

“Assassins?” Elhokar leapt to his feet, then wobbled. “He wears white. I knew he’d come… but then… he only cared about Dalinar… Not even the assassin thinks I’m worthy of the throne…”

Kaladin managed to get under Elhokar’s arm, holding his spear for support with one hand. The king slumped against him, and Kaladin’s leg cried out. “Please, Your Majesty,” Kaladin said, almost collapsing, “I need you to try to walk.”

“Assassins probably want you, bridgeman,” the king muttered. “You’re more a leader than I am. I wish… wish you’d teach me…”

Thankfully, Elhokar then did support himself to an extent. It was a struggle to walk the two of them to the doorway, where the guard’s body still lay—

Body? Where was the other one?

Kaladin twisted out of the king’s grip as a blur with a knife lunged at him. By instinct, Kaladin snapped his spear haft back—bringing his hands up near to the head for a close-quarters fight—then thrust. The spearhead sank in deep into Cleft-chin’s stomach. The man grunted.

But he hadn’t been lunging for Kaladin.

He’d plunged his knife into the king’s side.

Cleft-chin flopped to the floor, falling off Kaladin’s spear and dropping his knife. Elhokar reached—a stunned expression on his face—to his side. The hand came away bloody. “I’m dead,” Elhokar whispered, regarding the blood.

In that moment, Kaladin’s pain and weakness seemed to fade. The moment of panic was a moment of strength, and he used it to rip at Elhokar’s clothing while kneeling on his good leg. The knife had glanced off a rib. The king was bleeding heavily, but it was a very survivable wound, with medical attention.

“Keep pressure on that,” Kaladin said, pushing a cut section of the king’s shirt against the wound, then placing the king’s hand over it. “We need to get out of the palace. Find safety somewhere.” The dueling grounds, maybe? The ardents could be relied upon, and they could fight too. But would that be too obvious?