Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive 4)

In the meantime, Navani’s job was to activate the Sibling’s fail-safe. She hurried to collect her scribes, hoping they wouldn’t balk too much at climbing over the corpses.

* * *

Kaladin ducked into a room, carrying an armful of blankets. He didn’t recognize the young family inside—father, mother, two toddlers—so they had to be refugees who had fled to Hearthstone.

The young family had done much to make this small, windowless room their own. Both walls were covered in Herdazian sand paintings, and the floor was painted in a large and intricate glyph.

Kaladin didn’t like the way they cringed as he entered, the children whimpering. If you don’t want people to cringe when they see you, he thought, act less like a ruffian and more like a surgeon. He never had possessed his father’s gentle grace, that unassuming way that wasn’t weak, but also rarely seemed threatening.

“Sorry,” Kaladin said, shutting the door behind him. “I know you were expecting my father. You wanted blankets?”

“Yes,” the wife said, rising and taking them from him. “Thank you. It cold.”

“I know,” Kaladin said. “Something’s wrong with the tower, so heating fabrials aren’t working.”

The man said something in Herdazian. Syl, sitting on Kaladin’s shoulder, whispered the interpretation—but the woman translated right afterward anyway.

“Dark ones in the corridors,” the woman said. “They … are staying?”

“We don’t know yet,” Kaladin said. “For now, it’s best to remain in your rooms. Here, I brought water and some rations. Soulcast, I’m afraid. We’ll send someone around tomorrow to gather chamber pots, if it comes to that.”

He slung his pack onto his shoulder after getting out the food and water. Then he slipped back out into the corridor. He had three more rooms to visit before meeting up with his father. “What time is it?” he asked Syl.

“Late,” she said. “A few hours to dawn.”

Kaladin had been working to deliver blankets and water for a good hour or so. He knew that fighting was still going on far below, that Navani was holding out. The enemy, however, had quickly secured this floor, leaving guards and pushing downward to press against the Alethi defenders.

So while the tower wasn’t yet lost, Kaladin’s floor felt quiet. Syl turned around and lifted into the air, shimmering and becoming formless like a cloud. “I keep seeing things, Kaladin. Streaks of red. Voidspren I think, patrolling the halls.”

“You can see them even if they’re invisible to humans, right?”

She nodded. “But they can see me too. My cognitive aspect.”

A part of him wanted to ask further. Why, for instance, could Rock always see her? Was he somehow part spren? Lift seemed to be able to do it too, though she wouldn’t speak about it. So was she part Horneater? The other Edgedancers didn’t have the ability.

The questions wouldn’t form on his lips. He was distracted, and honestly he was exhausted. He let the thoughts slip away as he moved to the next room on his list. These ones would probably be extra frightened, having not heard anything since—

“Kaladin,” Syl hissed.

He stopped immediately, then looked up, noting a stormform Regal walking down the hallway with a sphere lantern in one hand, a sword on his hip. “You there,” he said, speaking with a rhythm, but otherwise no hint of an accent. “Why are you out of your rooms?”

“I’m a surgeon,” Kaladin said. “I was told by one of the Fused that I could check on our people. I’m delivering food and water.”

The singer sized him up, then waved for him to open his pack and show what was inside. Kaladin obliged, and didn’t look toward Syl, who was doing her windspren act—flitting about and pretending she didn’t belong with a Radiant—just in case.

The singer inspected the rations, then studied Kaladin.

Looking at my arms, my chest, Kaladin thought. Wondering why a surgeon is built like a soldier. At least his brands were covered by his long hair.

“Return to your rooms,” the man said.

“The others will be frightened,” Kaladin said. “You could have hysterical people on your hands—chaos that would interfere with your troops.”

“And how often did you check on the parshmen of your village, when they were frightened?” the singer asked. “When they were forced into dark rooms, locked away and ignored? Did you spare any concern for them, surgeon?”

Kaladin bit off a response. This wasn’t the kind of taunt where the speaker wanted an answer. Instead he looked down.

The singer, in turn, stepped forward and snapped his hand at Kaladin to strike him. Kaladin moved without thinking, raising his hand to catch the singer’s wrist before it connected. He felt a small jolt of something when he touched the carapace-backed hand.

The singer grinned. “A surgeon, you say?”

“You’ve never heard of a battlefield medic?” Kaladin said. “I’ve trained with the men, so I can handle myself. But you can ask anyone in this town if I’m the surgeon’s son, and they’ll confirm it.”

The singer shoved at Kaladin’s hand, trying to throw him off balance, but Kaladin’s stance was solid. He met the red eyes, and saw the smile in them. The eagerness. This creature wanted a fight. Likely he was angry he’d been posted to something as boring as patrolling halls on what was to have been a daring and dangerous mission. He’d love nothing more than to have an excuse for a little excitement.

Kaladin’s grip tightened on the man’s hand. His heartbeat sped up, and he found himself reaching for the Stormlight at his belt. Draw in a breath, suck it in, end this farce. Enemies were invading the tower, and he was delivering blankets?

He held those red eyes with his own. He heard his heart thundering. Then he forced himself to look away and let the singer shove him into the wall, then trip him with a sweep to his legs. The creature loomed over him, and Kaladin kept his eyes down. You learned to do that, when you were a slave.

The creature snorted and stomped away without another word, leaving Kaladin. He felt tense, alert, like he often did before a battle—his fatigue washed away. He wanted to act.

Instead he continued on his way, delivering comfort to the people of Hearthstone.

In truth, it would be a combination of a Vessel’s craftiness and the power’s Intent that we should fear most.

Navani and her timid attendants soon left the broad hallway scattered with corpses and entered a series of corridors with darkened lanterns on the walls. The broken latches bespoke thieves with crowbars getting at the spheres inside. For some people, no nightmare was terrible enough—no war bloody enough—to discourage some creative personal enrichment.

The sounds of screams and echoes of thunder faded. Navani felt as if she were entering the mythical centerbeat—the heart of a highstorm spoken of by some poor wanderers trapped within its winds. A moment when for reasons inexplicable, the wind stopped and all became still.

She eventually reached the place where the Sibling had told her to go—a specific intersection among these twisting corridors. Though no part of the first level went completely unused, this area was among the least trafficked. The corridors here made a maze of frustrating design, and they used the small rooms for various storage dumps.