Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

“When?”

“Soon, maybe? I’m new to guessing this. I doubt anyone is expecting it. Everything has been thrown off; the charts will all be wrong until people can make new ones.”

Kaladin hissed slowly through his teeth.

Ahead, his team approached a large group of parshmen. Judging by the way they’d been organized into large lines, this was some kind of processing station for new arrivals. Indeed, Khen’s band of a hundred was shuffled into one of the lines to wait.

Ahead of them, a parshman in full carapace armor—like a Parshendi—strolled down the line, holding a writing board. Syl pulled farther into Kaladin’s hair as the Parshendi man stepped up to Khen’s group.

“What towns, work camps, or armies do you all come from?” His voice had a strange cadence, similar to the Parshendi Kaladin had heard on the Shattered Plains. Some of those in Khen’s group had hints of it, but nothing this strong.

The scribe parshman wrote down the list of towns Khen gave him, then noted their spears. “You’ve been busy. I’ll recommend you for special training. Send your captive to the pens; I’ll write down a description here, and once you’re settled, you can put him to work.”

“He…” Khen said, looking at Kaladin. “He is not our captive.” She seemed begrudging. “He was one of the humans’ slaves, like us. He wishes to join and fight.”

The parshman looked up in the air at nothing.

“Yixli is speaking for you,” Sah whispered to Kaladin. “She sounds impressed.”

“Well,” the scribe said, “it’s not unheard of, but you’ll have to get permission from one of the Fused to label him free.”

“One of the what?” Khen asked.

The parshman with the writing board pointed toward his left. Kaladin had to step out of the line, along with several of the others, to see a tall parshwoman with long hair. There was carapace covering her cheeks, running back along the cheekbones and into her hair. The skin on her arms prickled with ridges, as if there were carapace under the skin as well. Her eyes glowed red.

Kaladin’s breath caught. Bridge Four had described these creatures to him, the strange Parshendi they’d fought during their push toward the center of the Shattered Plains. These were the beings who had summoned the Everstorm.

This one focused directly on Kaladin. There was something oppressive about her red gaze.

Kaladin heard a clap of thunder in the far distance. Around him, many of the parshmen turned toward it and began to mutter. Highstorm.

In that moment, Kaladin made his decision. He’d stayed with Sah and the others as long as he dared. He’d learned what he could. The storm presented a chance.

It’s time to go.

The tall, dangerous creature with the red eyes—the Fused, they had called her—began walking toward Khen’s group. Kaladin couldn’t know if she recognized him as a Radiant, but he had no intention of waiting until she arrived. He’d been planning; the old slave’s instincts had already decided upon the easiest way out.

It was on Khen’s belt.

Kaladin sucked in the Stormlight, right from her pouch. He burst alight with its power, then grabbed the pouch—he’d need those gemstones—and yanked it free, the leather strap snapping.

“Get your people to shelter,” Kaladin said to the surprised Khen. “A highstorm is close. Thank you for your kindness. No matter what you are told, know this: I do not wish to be your enemy.”

The Fused began to scream with an angry voice. Kaladin met Sah’s betrayed expression, then launched himself into the air.

Freedom.

Kaladin’s skin shivered with joy. Storms, how he’d missed this. The wind, the openness above, even the lurch in his stomach as gravity let go. Syl spun around him as a ribbon of light, creating a spiral of glowing lines. Gloryspren burst up about Kaladin’s head.

Syl took on the form of a person just so she could glower at the little bobbing balls of light. “Mine,” she said, swatting one of them aside.

About five or six hundred feet up, Kaladin changed to a half Lashing, so he slowed and hovered in the sky. Beneath, that red-eyed parshwoman was gesturing and screaming, though Kaladin couldn’t hear her. Storms. He hoped this wouldn’t mean trouble for Sah and the others.

He had an excellent view of the city—the streets filled with figures, now making for shelter in buildings. Other groups rushed to the city from all directions. Even after spending so much time with them, his first reaction was one of discomfort. So many parshmen together in one place? It was unnatural.

This impression bothered him now as it never would have before.

He eyed the stormwall, which he could see approaching in the far distance. He still had time before it arrived.

He’d have to fly up above the storm to avoid being caught in its winds. But then what?

“Urithiru is out there somewhere, to the west,” Kaladin said. “Can you guide us there?”

“How would I do that?”

“You’ve been there before.”

“So have you.”

“You’re a force of nature, Syl,” Kaladin said. “You can feel the storms. Don’t you have some kind of … location sense?”

“You’re the one from this realm,” she said, batting away another gloryspren and hanging in the air beside him, folding her arms. “Besides, I’m less a force of nature and more one of the raw powers of creation transformed by collective human imagination into a personification of one of their ideals.” She grinned at him.

“Where did you come up with that?”

“Dunno. Maybe I heard it somewhere once. Or maybe I’m just smart.”

“We’ll have to make for the Shattered Plains, then,” Kaladin said. “We can strike out for one of the larger cities in southern Alethkar, swap gemstones there, and hopefully have enough to hop over to the warcamps.”

That decided, he tied his gemstone pouch to his belt, then glanced down and tried to make a final estimate of troop numbers and parshman fortifications. It felt odd to not worry about the storm, but he’d just move up over it once it arrived.

From up here, Kaladin could see the great trenches cut into the stones to divert away floodwaters after a storm. Though most of the parshmen had fled for shelter, some remained below, craning necks and staring up at him. He read betrayal in their postures, though he couldn’t even tell if these were members of Khen’s group or not.

“What?” Syl asked, alighting on his shoulder.

“I can’t help but feel a kinship to them, Syl.”

“They conquered the city. They’re Voidbringers.”

“No, they’re people. And they’re angry, with good reason.” A gust of wind blew across him, making him drift to the side. “I know that feeling. It burns in you, worms inside your brain until you forget everything but the injustice done to you. It’s how I felt about Elhokar. Sometimes a world of rational explanations can become meaningless in the face of that all-consuming desire to get what you deserve.”

“You changed your mind about Elhokar, Kaladin. You saw what was right.”

“Did I? Did I find what was right, or did I just finally agree to see things the way you wanted?”

“Killing Elhokar was wrong.”