Lunamor stepped back as the bridgemen left their stations and came rushing over. “Give him your gemstones!” Kaladin called. “He’s going to need a lot! Pile them up!”

Bridgemen scrambled to give Hobber their emeralds, and he drew in more and more Stormlight. Then the light suddenly dampened. “I can feel them again!” Hobber cried. “I can feel my toes!”

He tentatively reached out for support. Drehy under one arm, Peet under the other, Hobber slipped off his stool and stood up. He grinned with a gap-toothed expression, and almost fell over—his legs obviously weren’t very strong. Drehy and Peet righted him, but he forced them back, to let him stand precariously on his own.

The men of Bridge Four waited only briefly before pressing in with cries of excitement. Joyspren swirled around the group, like a sweeping gust of blue leaves. Amid them, Lopen shoved in close and made the Bridge Four salute.

It seemed to mean something special, coming from him. Two arms. One of the first times Lopen had been able to make the salute. Hobber saluted back, grinning like a boy who’d just hit his first center shot with the bow.

Kaladin stepped up beside Lunamor, Sylphrena on his shoulder. “It will work, Rock. This will protect them.”

Lunamor nodded, then by habit checked toward the west as he’d been doing all day. This time he spotted something.

It looked like a plume of smoke.

* * *

Kaladin flew to check it out. Lunamor, along with the rest of them, followed along on the ground, carrying their mobile bridge.

Lunamor ran at the center front of the bridge. It smelled of memories. The wood, the stain used to seal it. The sounds of several dozen men grunting and breathing in the enclosed spaces. The slapping of feet on plateau. Mixed exhaustion and terror. An assault. Arrows flying. Men dying.

Lunamor had known what might happen when he chose to come down from the Peaks with Kef’ha. No nuatoma from the Peaks had ever yet won a Shardblade or Shardplate from the Alethi or Vedens they challenged. Still, Kef’ha had determined the cost was worth the risk. At worst he had thought he would end up dead, and his family would become servants to a wealthy lowlander.

They hadn’t anticipated the cruelty of Torol Sadeas, who had murdered Kef’ha without a proper duel, killed many of Lunamor’s family who resisted, and seized his property.

Lunamor roared, charging forward, and his skin started to glow with the power of the Stormlight from his pouch and the spheres he had collected before leaving. He seemed to be carrying the bridge all on his own, towing the others.

Skar called out a marching song, and Bridge Four thundered the words. Bridge Four had grown strong enough to carry the bridge long distances without difficulty, but this day put those previous runs to shame. They ran at a sprint the entire distance, vibrant with Stormlight, Lunamor calling the commands as Kaladin or Teft had once done. When they reached a chasm, they practically tossed the bridge across. When they picked it up on the other side, it seemed light as a reed.

It felt like they’d barely started going before they neared the source of the smoke: a beleaguered caravan crossing the plains. Lunamor threw his weight against the bridge’s outer support rods, pushing it across the chasm, then he charged over. Others followed. Dabbid and Lopen unhooked shields and spears from the side of the bridge and tossed one to each bridgeman as they passed. They fell into squads, and the men who normally followed Teft fell in behind Lunamor, though he had—of course—refused the spear Lopen tried to toss him.

Many of the caravan wagons had been transporting lumber from the forests outside the warcamps, though some were piled high with furniture. Dalinar Kholin spoke of repopulating his warcamp, but the two highprinces who remained behind had been encroaching on the land—quietly, like eels. For now, it was best to scavenge what they could and bring it to Urithiru.

The caravan had been using Dalinar’s large, wheeled bridges to cross chasms. Lunamor passed one of these, lying on its side, broken. Three of the large lumber wagons near it had been set afire, making the air acrid with smoke.

Kaladin floated overhead, holding his brilliant Shardspear. Lunamor squinted through the smoke in the direction Kaladin was looking, and made out figures streaking away through the sky.

“Voidbringer attack,” Drehy muttered. “We should have guessed they’d start raiding our caravans.”

Lunamor didn’t care at the moment. He pushed his way through weary caravan guards and frightened merchants hiding under wagons. There were bodies everywhere; the Voidbringers had killed dozens. Lunamor searched through the mess, trembling. Was that red hair on a corpse? No, that was blood soaking a headscarf. And that …

That other body wasn’t human—it had marbled skin. A brilliant white arrow stuck from its back, fletched with goose feathers. An Unkalaki arrow.

Lunamor looked to the right, where someone had piled up furniture in a heap, almost like a fortification. A head poked up over the top, a stout woman with a round face and a deep red braid. She stood up tall and raised a bow toward Lunamor. Other faces peeked out from behind the furniture. Two youths, a boy and a girl, both around sixteen. Younger faces from there. Six in total.

Lunamor dashed toward them and found himself blubbering, tears streaming down his cheeks as he crawled up the outside of their improvised fortification.

His family, at long last, had arrived at the Shattered Plains.

* * *

“This is Song,” Lunamor said, pulling the woman close, one arm around her shoulders. “Is best woman in all the Peaks. Ha! We made snow forts as childs, and hers was always best. I should have known to find her in castle, even if it was made of old chairs!”

“Snow?” Lopen asked. “How do you make forts out of snow? I’ve heard all about this stuff—it’s like frost, right?”

“Airsick lowlander.” Lunamor shook his head, moving to the twins. He put one hand on each of their shoulders. “Boy is Gift. Girl is Cord. Ha! When I left, Gift was short like Skar. Now he is nearly my height!”

He struggled to keep the pain from his voice. It had been almost a year. So long. Originally, his intent had been to bring them as soon as possible, but then everything had gone wrong. Sadeas, the bridge crews …

“Next son is Rock, but not same kind of Rock as me. This is … um … smaller Rock. Third son is Star. Second daughter is Kuma’tiki—is kind of shell, you do not have him here. Last daughter is another Song. Beautiful Song.” He stooped down beside her, smiling. She was only four, and she shied away from him. She didn’t remember her father. It broke his heart.

Song—Tuaka’li’na’calmi’nor—put her hand on his back. Nearby, Kaladin introduced Bridge Four, but only Gift and Cord had been taught lowlander languages, and Cord spoke only Veden. Gift managed a passable greeting in Alethi.

Little Song sought her mother’s legs. Lunamor blinked away tears, though they were not completely sad tears. His family was here. His first saved wages had paid for the message, sent by spanreed to the Peaks message station. That station was still a week’s travel from his home, and from there, traveling down from the slopes and crossing Alethkar took months.

Around them the caravan was finally limping into motion. This was the first chance Lunamor had found to introduce his family, as Bridge Four had spent the last half hour trying to help the wounded. Then, Renarin had arrived with Adolin and two companies of troops—and for all Renarin’s worries about not being useful, his healing had saved several lives.

Tags: Brandon Sanderson The Stormlight Archive Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net