Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

Kaladin touched Elhokar, and the king started to slow. Kaladin then moved down the line, slowing each in turn. He then swept them up so they were close enough to speak. His soldiers stopped and floated nearby.

“What’s wrong?” Dalinar asked, trying to ignore that he was hanging hundreds of feet in the sky.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Kaladin said, then pointed.

With the wind in his eyes, Dalinar had failed to spot the warcamps: ten craterlike circles arrayed along the northwestern edge of the Shattered Plains. From up here, it was obvious they had once been domes. The way their walls curved, like cupping fingers from underneath.

Two of the camps were still fully occupied, and Sebarial had set up forces to lay claim to the nearby forest. Dalinar’s own warcamp was less populated, but had a few platoons of soldiers and some workers.

“We arrived so quickly!” Navani said. Her hair was a wind-tousled mess, much of it having escaped her careful braid. Elhokar hadn’t fared much better—his hair sprayed out from his face like waxed Thaylen eyebrows. The two ardents, of course, were bald and didn’t have such worries.

“Quick indeed,” Elhokar said, redoing a few buttons of his uniform. “This is most promising for our mission.”

“Yeah,” Kaladin said. “I still want to test it more in front of a storm.” He took the king by the shoulder, and Elhokar started to drift downward.

Kaladin sent them each down in turn, and when his feet finally touched stone again, Dalinar heaved a sigh of relief. They were only one plateau over from the warcamp, where a soldier at a watchpost waved to them with eager, exaggerated movements. Within minutes, a troop of Kholin soldiers had surrounded them.

“Let’s get you inside the walls, Brightlord,” their captainlord said, hand on the pommel of his sword. “The shellheads are still active out here.”

“Have they attacked this close to the camps?” Elhokar asked, surprised.

“No, but that doesn’t mean they won’t, Your Majesty.”

Dalinar wasn’t so worried, but said nothing as the soldiers ushered him and the others into the warcamp where Brightness Jasalai—the tall, stately woman Dalinar had put in charge of the camp—met and accompanied them.

After spending so much time in the alien hallways of Urithiru, walking through this place—which had been Dalinar’s home for five years—was relaxing. Part of that was finding the warcamp mostly intact; it had weathered the Everstorm quite well. Most of the buildings were stone bunkers, and that western rim of the former dome had provided a solid windbreak.

“My only worry,” he told Jasalai after a short tour, “is about logistics. This is a long march from Narak and the Oathgate. I fear that by dividing our forces among Narak, here, and Urithiru, we’re increasing our vulnerability to an attack.”

“That is true, Brightlord,” the woman said. “I endeavor only to provide you with options.”

Unfortunately, they would probably need this place for farming operations, not to mention the lumber. Plateau runs for gemhearts couldn’t sustain the tower city’s population forever, particularly in the face of Shallan’s assessment that they had likely hunted chasmfiends near to extinction.

Dalinar glanced at Navani. She thought they should found a new kingdom here, on and around the Shattered Plains. Import farmers, retire older soldiers, start production here on a much larger scale than they’d ever tried before.

Others disagreed. There was a reason the Unclaimed Hills weren’t densely inhabited. It would be a harsh life here—rockbuds grew smaller, crops would be less productive. And founding a new kingdom during a Desolation? Better to protect what they had. Alethkar could probably feed Urithiru—but that depended on Kaladin and Elhokar recovering the capital.

Their tour ended with a meal at Dalinar’s bunker, in his former sitting room, which looked bare now that most of the furniture and rugs had been removed to Urithiru.

After the meal, he found himself standing by the window, feeling oddly out of place. He’d left this warcamp only ten weeks ago, but the place was at once deeply familiar and also no longer his.

Behind him, Navani and her scribe ate fruit as they chatted quietly over some sketches that Navani had done.

“Oh, but I think that the others need to experience that, Brightness!” the scribe said. “The flight was remarkable. How fast do you think we were going? I believe we might have attained a speed that no human has reached since the Recreance. Think about that, Navani! Surely we were faster than the fastest horse or ship.”

“Focus, Rushu,” Navani said. “My sketch.”

“I don’t think this math is right, Brightness. No, that sail will never stand.”

“It’s not meant to be completely accurate,” Navani said. “Just a concept. My question is, can it work?”

“We’ll need more reinforcement. Yes, more reinforcement for certain. And then the steering mechanism … definitely work to do there. This is clever though, Brightness. Falilar needs to see it; he will be able to say whether or not it can be built.”

Dalinar glanced away from the window, catching Navani’s eye. She smiled. She always claimed that she wasn’t a scholar, but a patron of scholars. She said her place was to encourage and guide the real scientists. Anyone who saw the light in her eyes as she took out another sheet and sketched her idea further knew she was being too modest.

She began another sketch, but then stopped and glanced to the side, where she’d set out a spanreed. The ruby was blinking.

Fen! Dalinar thought. The queen of Thaylenah had asked that, in this morning’s highstorm, Dalinar send her into the vision of Aharietiam, which she knew about from the published accounts of Dalinar’s visions. He’d reluctantly sent her alone, without supervision.

They’d been waiting for her to speak of the event, to say anything. In the morning, she hadn’t replied to their requests for a conversation.

Navani prepared the spanreed, then set it writing. It scribbled for only a brief moment.

“That was short,” Dalinar said, stepping toward her.

“Only one word,” Navani said. She looked up at him. “Yes.”

Dalinar heaved out a long breath. She was willing to visit Urithiru. Finally!

“Tell her we’ll send her a Radiant.” He left the window, watching as she replied. In her sketchpad, he caught sight of some kind of shiplike contraption, but with the sail on the bottom. What in the world?

Fen seemed content to leave the conversation there, and Navani returned to her discussion of engineering, so Dalinar slipped from the room. He passed through his bunker, which felt hollow. Like the rind of a fruit with the pulp scooped out. No servants scuttling back and forth, no soldiers. Kaladin and his men had gone off somewhere, and Kadash was probably at the camp monastery. He’d been keen to get there, and Dalinar had been gratified by his willingness to fly with Kaladin.

They hadn’t spoken much since their confrontation in the sparring room. Well, perhaps seeing the Windrunners’ power firsthand would improve Kadash’s opinion of the Radiants.

Dalinar was surprised—and secretly pleased—to find that no guards had been posted at the bunker’s back door. He slipped out alone and headed to the warcamp monastery. He wasn’t looking for Kadash; he had another purpose.