Moash glanced over his shoulder toward the Fused hanging in the night sky behind the palace. This murder seemed a thing that they dared not do themselves. Why? What did they fear?
Moash held the knife aloft toward them, but there were no cheers. Nothing accompanied the act but a few muttered words from people trying to sleep. These broken slaves were the only other witnesses to this moment.
The final death of Jezrien. Yaezir. Jezerezeh’Elin, king of Heralds. A figure known in myth and lore as the greatest human who had ever lived.
* * *
Lopen leaped behind a rock, then grinned, spotting the little spren in the shape of a leaf tucked there. “Found you, naco.”
Rua transformed into the shape of a petulant young boy, maybe nine or ten years old. Rua was his name, but “naco” was—of course—what Lopen called him.
Rua zipped into the air as a ribbon of light. Bridge Four stood near some tents at the bottom of Thaylen City, in the Low Ward, right in the shadow of the walls. Here, a massive surgeons’ station was caring for the wounded.
“Lopen!” Teft called. “Stop being crazy and get over here to help.”
“I’m not crazy,” Lopen yelled back. “Sure, I’m the least crazy of this whole lot! And you all know it!”
Teft sighed, then waved to Peet and Leyten. Together, they carefully Lashed a large platform—easily twenty feet square—into the air. It was filled with recuperating wounded. The three bridgemen flew with it toward the upper part of the city.
Rua zipped onto Lopen’s shoulder and formed into the shape of a young man, then thrust a hand toward the bridgemen and tried the gesture that Lopen had taught him.
“Nice,” Lopen said. “But wrong finger. Nope! Not that one either. Naco, that’s your foot.”
The spren turned the gesture toward Lopen.
“That’s it,” Lopen said. “You can thank me, naco, for inspiring this great advance in your learning. People—and little things made out of nothing too, sure—are often inspired near the Lopen.”
He turned and strolled into a tent of wounded, the far wall of which was tied right onto a nice, shiny bronze portion of wall. Lopen hoped the Thaylens would appreciate how nice it was. Who had a metal wall? Lopen would put one on his palace when he built it. Thaylens were strange though. What else could you say about a people who liked it so far south, in the cold? The local language was practically chattering teeth.
This tent of wounded was filled with the people who had been deemed too healthy to deserve Renarin’s or Lift’s healing, but still needed a surgeon’s care. They weren’t dying, sure, right now. Maybe later. But everyone was dying maybe later, so it was probably all right to ignore them for someone whose guts got misplaced.
The moans and whimpers indicated that they found not dying immediately to be a small comfort. The ardents did what they could, but most of the real surgeons were set up higher in the city. Taravangian’s forces had finally decided to join the battle, now that all the easy stuff—like dying, which really didn’t take much skill—was through.
Lopen fetched his pack, then passed Dru—who was folding freshly boiled bandages. Even after all these centuries, sure, they did what the Heralds had told them. Boiling stuff killed rotspren.
Lopen patted Dru on the shoulder. The slender Alethi man looked up and nodded toward Lopen, showing reddened eyes. Loving a soldier was not easy, and now that Kaladin had returned from Alethkar alone …
Lopen moved on, and eventually settled down beside a wounded man in a cot. Thaylen, with drooping eyebrows and a bandage around his head. He stared straight ahead, not blinking.
“Want to see a trick?” Lopen asked the soldier.
The man shrugged.
Lopen lifted his foot up and put the boot on the man’s cot. The laces had come undone, and Lopen—one hand behind his back—deftly grabbed the strings and looped them around his hand, twisted them, then pulled them tight, using his other foot to hold one end. He wound up with an excellent knot with a nice bow. It was even symmetrical. Maybe he could get an ardent to write a poem about it.
The soldier gave no reaction. Lopen settled back, pulling over his pack, which clinked softly. “Don’t look like that. It’s not the end of the world.”
The soldier cocked his head.
“Well, sure. Technically it might be. But for the end of the world, it’s not so bad, right? I figured that when everything ended, we’d sink into a noxious bath of pus and doom, breathing in agony as the air around us—sure—became molten, and we screamed a final burning scream, relishing the memories of the last time a woman loved us.” Lopen tapped the man’s cot. “Don’t know about you, moolie, but my lungs aren’t burning. The air doesn’t seem very molten. Considering how bad this could have gone, you’ve got a lot to be thankful for. Remember that.”
“I…” The man blinked.
“I meant, remember those exact words. That’s the phrase to tell the woman you’re seeing. Helps a ton.” He fished in his pack and pulled out a bottle of Thaylen lavis beer he’d salvaged. Rua stopped zipping around the top of the tent long enough to float down and inspect it.
“Want to see a trick?” Lopen asked.
“A … another?” the man asked.
“Normally, I’d pop the cap off with one of my fingernails. I have great Herdazian ones, extra hard. You have weaker ones like most people. So here’s the trick.”
Lopen rolled up his trouser leg with one hand. He pressed the bottle—top first—to his leg and then, with a quick flick, twisted off the cap. He raised the bottle toward the man.
The man reached for it with the bandaged stump of his right arm, which ended above the elbow. He looked at it, grimaced, then reached with the left hand instead.
“If you need any jokes,” Lopen said, “I’ve got a few I can’t use anymore.”
The soldier drank quietly, eyes flicking to the front of the tent, where Kaladin had entered, glowing softly, speaking with some of the surgeons. Knowing Kaladin, he was probably telling them how to do their jobs.
“You’re one of them,” the soldier said. “Radiant.”
“Sure,” Lopen said. “But not really one of them. I’m trying to figure out the next step.”
“Next step?”
“I’ve got the flying,” Lopen said, “and the spren. But I don’t know if I’m good at saving people yet.”
The man looked at his drink. “I … think you might be doing just fine.”
“That’s a beer, not a person. Don’t get those mixed up. Very embarrassing, but I won’t tell.”
“How…” the man said. “How does one join up? They say … they say it heals you.…”
“Sure, it heals everything except what’s in the rockbud on the end of your neck. Which is great for me. I’m the only sane one in this group. That might be a problem.”
“Why?”
“They say you have to be broken,” Lopen said, glancing toward his spren, who made a few loops of excitement, then shot off to hide again. Lopen would need to go looking for the little guy—he did enjoy the game. “You know that tall woman, the king’s sister? The chortana with the glare that could break a Shardblade? She says that the power has to get into your soul somehow. So I’ve been trying to cry a lot, and moan about my life being so terrible, but I think the Stormfather knows I’m lying. Hard to act sad when you’re the Lopen.”