Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

For a moment he could give that all up to the firemoss.

Unfortunately, there was something broken in Teft. Long ago he’d gone to the moss at the urgings of other men in his squad in Sadeas’s army. They could rub the stuff and get some benefit, like a man chewed ridgebark when on guard duty to stay awake. A little firemoss, a little relaxation, and then they moved on with their lives.

Teft didn’t work that way. Burdens shoved aside, he could have gotten up and gone back to the bridgemen. He could have started his day.

But storms, a few more minutes sounded so nice. He kept going. He went through three bowls before a garish light made him blink. He pulled his face off the table where—to his shame—he’d drooled a puddle. How long had it been, and what was that terrible, awful light?

“Here he is,” Kaladin’s voice said as Teft blinked. A figure knelt beside the table. “Oh, Teft…”

“He owes us for three bowls,” said the den’s keeper. “One garnet broam.”

“Be glad,” an accented voice growled, “we do not rip off pieces of your body and pay you with those.”

Storms. Rock was here too? Teft groaned, turning away. “Don’t see me,” he croaked. “Don’t…”

“Our establishment is perfectly legal, Horneater,” the den keeper said. “If you assault us, be assured we will bring the guard and they will defend us.”

“Here’s your blood money, you eel,” Kaladin said, pushing the light toward them. “Rock, can you get him?”

Large hands took Teft, surprisingly gentle with their touch. He was crying. Kelek …

“Where’s your coat, Teft?” Kaladin asked from the darkness.

“I sold it,” Teft admitted, squeezing his eyes shut against the shamespren that drifted down around him, in the shape of flower petals. “I sold my own storming coat.”

Kaladin fell silent, and Teft let Rock carry him from the den. Halfway back, he finally managed to scrounge up enough dignity to complain about Rock’s breath and make them let him walk on his own feet—with a little support under the arms.

* * *

Teft envied better men than he. They didn’t have the itch, the one that went so deep that it stung his soul. It was persistent, always with him, and couldn’t ever be scratched. Despite how hard he tried.

Kaladin and Rock set him up in one of the barrack rooms, private, wrapped in blankets and with a bowl of Rock’s stew in his hands. Teft made the proper noises, the ones they expected. Apologies, promises he would tell them if he was feeling the need again. Promises that he’d let them help him. Though he couldn’t eat the stew, not yet. It would be another day before he could keep anything down.

Storms, but they were good men. Better friends than he deserved. They were all growing into something grand, while Teft … Teft just stayed on the ground, looking up.

They left him to get some rest. He stared at the stew, smelling the familiar scent, not daring to eat it. He’d go back to work before the day was out, training bridgemen from the other crews. He could function. He could go for days, pretending that he was normal. Storms, he’d balanced everything in Sadeas’s army for years before taking one step too far, missing duty one too many times, and landing himself in the bridge crews as punishment.

Those months running bridges had been the only time in his adult life when he hadn’t been dominated by the moss. But even back then, when he’d been able to afford a little alcohol, he’d known that eventually he’d find his way back. The liquor wasn’t ever enough.

Even as he braced himself to go to work for the day, one nagging thought overshadowed his mind. A shameful thought.

I’m not going to get any more moss for a while, am I?

That sinister knowledge hurt him more than anything. He was going to have to go a few excruciating days feeling like half a man. Days when he couldn’t feel anything but his own self-loathing, days living with the shame, the memories, the glances of other bridgemen.

Days without any storming help whatsoever.

That terrified him.

Cephandrius, bearer of the First Gem,

You must know better than to approach us by relying upon presumption of past relationship.

Inside the increasingly familiar vision, Dalinar carefully nocked an arrow, then released, sending a black-fletched missile into the back of the wildman. The man’s screech was lost in the cacophony of battle. Ahead, men fought frantically as they were pushed backward toward the edge of a cliff.

Dalinar methodically nocked a second arrow, then loosed. This arrow hit as well, lodging in a man’s shoulder. The man dropped his axe midswing, causing him to miss the young, dark-skinned youth lying on the ground. The boy was barely into his teens; the awkwardness hadn’t left him yet, and he had limbs that seemed too long, a face that was too round, too childlike. Dalinar might have let him run messages, but not hold a spear.

The lad’s age hadn’t prevented him from being named Prime Aqasix Yanagawn the First, ruler of Azir, emperor of greater Makabak.

Dalinar had perched on some rocks, bow in hand. While he didn’t intend to repeat his mistake of letting Queen Fen manage all on her own in a vision, he also didn’t want Yanagawn to slip through it without challenge or stress. There was a reason that the Almighty had often put Dalinar in danger in these visions. He’d needed a visceral understanding of what was at stake.

He felled another enemy who got close to the boy. The shots weren’t difficult from his vantage near the fight; he had some training with the bow—though his archery in recent years had been with so-called Shardbows, fabrial bows crafted with such a heavy draw weight that only a man in Shardplate could use them.

It was strange, experiencing this battle for the third time. Though each repetition played out slightly differently, there were certain familiar details. The scents of smoke and moldy, inhuman blood. The way that man below fell after losing an arm, screaming the same half-prayer, half-condemnation of the Almighty.

With Dalinar’s bowmanship, the band of defenders lasted against the enemy until that Radiant climbed up over the edge of the cliff, glowing in Shardplate. Emperor Yanagawn sat down as the other soldiers rallied around the Radiant and pushed the enemy backward.

Dalinar lowered his bow, reading the terror in the youth’s trembling figure. Other men spoke of getting the shakes when a fight was over—the horror of it catching up with them.

The emperor finally stumbled to his feet, using the spear like a staff. He didn’t notice Dalinar, didn’t even question why some of the bodies around him had arrows in them. This boy was no soldier, though Dalinar hadn’t expected him to be one. From his experience, Azish generals were too pragmatic to want the throne. It involved too much pandering to bureaucrats and, apparently, dictating essays.

The youth started down a path away from the cliff, and Dalinar followed. Aharietiam. The people who lived through this had thought it the end of the world. Surely they assumed they’d soon return to the Tranquiline Halls. How would they respond to the information that—after four millennia—mankind still hadn’t been allowed back into heaven?

The boy stopped at the bottom of the twisting path, which led into the valley between rock formations. He watched wounded men limp by, supported by friends. Moans and shouts rose in the air. Dalinar intended to step up and start explaining about these visions, but the boy strode out to walk beside some wounded men, chatting with them.