Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive 2)

“It’s the Weeping,” Shallan said, looking to Pattern, who dimpled the wall just beside the steel disc. “No highstorms.”

“One is coming anyway. Shallan, they’re going to hit together. Two storms coming, one from each direction. They will crash into each other right here.”

“I don’t suppose they’ll just, you know, cancel each other out?”

“They will feed each other,” Pattern said. “It will be like two waves hitting with their peaks coinciding… it will create a storm like none the world has ever seen. Stone will shatter, plateaus themselves might collapse. It’s going to be bad. Very, very bad.”

Shallan looked to Inadara, who had walked up beside her. “Thoughts?”

“I don’t know what to think, Brightness,” Inadara said. “You were right about this place. I… I no longer trust myself to judge what is correct and what is false.”

“We need to move the armies to this plateau,” Shallan said. “Even if they defeat the Parshendi, they’re doomed unless we can make this portal work.”

“It doesn’t look like a portal at all,” Inadara said. “What will it do? Open a doorway in the wall?”

“I don’t know,” Shallan said, looking to Renarin. “Summon your Shardblade.”

He did so, wincing as it appeared. Shallan pointed at the slot like a keyhole in the wall—acting on a hunch. “See if you can scratch that metal with your Blade. Be very careful. We don’t want to ruin the Oathgate, in case I’m wrong.”

Renarin stepped up and carefully—using his hand to pinch the weapon from above—placed the tip of the blade on the metal around the keyhole. He grunted as the Blade wouldn’t cut. He tried a little harder, and the metal resisted the Blade.

“Made of the same stuff!” Shallan said, growing excited. “And that slot is shaped like it might fit a Blade. Try sliding the weapon in, very slowly.”

He did so, and as the point moved into the hole, the entire shape of the keyhole shifted, the metal flowing to match the shape of Renarin’s Shardblade. It was working! He got the weapon placed, and they turned around, looking over the chamber. Nothing appeared to have changed.

“Did that do anything?” Renarin asked.

“It has to have,” Shallan said. They’d unlocked a door, perhaps. But how to turn the equivalent of the doorknob?

“We need Highlady Navani to help,” Shallan said. “More importantly, we need to bring everyone here. Go, soldiers, bridgemen! Run and tell Dalinar to gather his armies on this plateau. Tell him that if he doesn’t, they are doomed. The rest of you scholars, we’re going to put our heads together and figure out how this storming thing works.”

* * *

Adolin danced through the storm, trading blows with Eshonai. She was good, though she didn’t use stances he recognized. She dodged back and forth, feeling him out with her Blade, bursting through the storm like a crackling thunderbolt.

Adolin kept after her, sweeping with his Shardblade, forcing her away. A duel. He could win a duel. Even in the middle of a storm, even against a monster, this was something he could do. He backed her away across the battlefield, closer to where his armies had crossed the chasm to join this battle.

She was difficult to maneuver. He had only met this Eshonai twice, but he felt he knew her through the way she fought. He sensed her eagerness for blood. Her eagerness to kill. The Thrill. He did not feel it himself. He sensed it in her.

Around him, Parshendi fled or fought in pockets as his men harried them. He passed a Parshendi, forced to the ground by soldiers, being gutted in the rain as he tried to crawl away. Water and blood splashed on the plateau, frantic yells sounding amid the thunder.

Thunder. Distant thunder from the west. Adolin glanced in that direction, and nearly lost his concentration. He could see it building, wind and rain spinning in a gigantic pillar, flashing red.

Eshonai swung for him, and Adolin turned back, blocking the blow with his forearm. That section of his Plate was getting weak, the cracks leaking Stormlight. He stepped into the blow and swung his own Blade, one-handed, into Eshonai’s side. He was rewarded by a grunt. She didn’t fold, though. She didn’t even step back. She raised her Blade and smashed it down against his forearm yet again.

The Plate there exploded in a flash of light and molten metal. Storms. Adolin was forced to pull the arm back and release the gauntlet—now too heavy, without the connecting Plate to help it—letting it drop off his hand. The wind that blew against his exposed skin was startlingly powerful.

A little more, Adolin thought, not backing away despite the lost section of Plate. He grabbed his Shardblade in two hands—one metal, the other flesh—and battered forward with a series of strikes. He transitioned out of Windstance. No sweeping majesty for him. He needed the frantic fury of Flamestance. Not just for the power, but because of what he needed to convey to Eshonai.

Eshonai growled, forced backward. “Your day has ended, destroyer,” she said inside her helm. “Today, your brutality turns against you. Today, extinction turns from us to you.”

A little more.

Adolin pressed her with a burst of swordplay, then he flagged, presenting her with an opening. She took it immediately, swinging for his helm, which leaked from an earlier blow. Yes, she was fully caught up in the Thrill. That lent her energy and strength, but it drove her to recklessness. To ignore her surroundings.

Adolin took the hit to the head and stumbled. Eshonai laughed with glee and moved to swing again.

Adolin lunged forward and slammed his shoulder and head into her chest. His helm exploded from the force of it, but his gambit succeeded.

Eshonai had not noticed how close they were to the chasm.

His shove threw her over the plateau’s edge. He felt Eshonai’s panic, heard her shout, as she was dropped into the open blackness.

Unfortunately, the exploding helm left Adolin momentarily blinded. He stumbled, and when he put a foot down, it landed only on empty air. He lurched, then fell toward the void of the chasm.

For a timeless moment, all he felt was panic and fright, a frozen eternity before he realized he wasn’t falling. His vision cleared, and he looked down into the maw before him, rain falling in curtains all around. Then he looked back over his shoulder.

To where two bridgemen had grabbed hold of the steel link skirt of his Plate and were struggling to hold him back from the brink. Grunting, they clung to the slick metal, holding tight with feet thrust against stones to keep from being pulled off with him.

Other soldiers materialized, rushing to help. Hands grabbed Adolin around the waist and shoulders, and together they hauled him back from the brink of the void—to the point that he was able to get his balance again and stumble away from the chasm.

Soldiers cheered, and Adolin let out an exhausted laugh. He turned to the bridgemen, Skar and Drehy. “I guess,” Adolin said, “I don’t need to wonder if you two can keep up with me or not.”

“This was nothing,” Skar said.

“Yeah,” Drehy added. “Lifting fat lighteyes is easy. You should try a bridge sometime.”

Adolin grinned, then wiped water from his face with his exposed hand. “See if you can find a chunk of my helm or forearm piece. Regrowing the armor will go faster if we’ve got a seed. Collect my gauntlet too, if you would.”