Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive #3)

“Probably,” Kaladin said. “If I Lashed myself southward as fast as I can go.”

“Go, then,” Dalinar said. “Take someone with you to test flying another person in front of a storm, if you want, but get to Thaylen City. Queen Fen is willing to join us, and I want that Oathgate active. The world has been turning before our very noses, Captain. Gods and Heralds have been warring, and we were too focused on our petty problems to even notice.”

“I’ll go next highstorm,” Kaladin said, then sent Dalinar soaring up into the air.





This is all we will say at this time. If you wish more, seek these waters in person and overcome the tests we have created.

Only in this will you earn our respect.

The parshmen of Moash’s new sledge crew didn’t like him. That didn’t bother him. Lately, he didn’t much like himself.

He didn’t expect or need their admiration. He knew what it felt like to be beaten down, despised. When you’d been treated as they had, you didn’t trust someone like Moash. You asked yourself what he was trying to get from you.

After a few days of pulling their sledge, the landscape began to change. The open plains became cultivated hills. They passed great sweeping wards—artificial stone ridges built by planting sturdy wooden barricades to collect crem during storms. The crem would harden, slowly building up a mound on the stormward side. After a few years, you raised the top of the barricade.

They took generations to grow to useful sizes, but here—around the oldest, most populated centers of Alethkar—they were common. They looked like frozen waves of stone, stiff and straight on the western side, sloping and smooth on the other side. In their shadows, vast orchards spread in rows, most of the trees cultivated to grow no more than the height of a man.

The western edge of those orchards was ragged with broken trees. Barriers would need to be erected to the west as well, now.

He expected the Fused to burn the orchards, but they didn’t. During a water break, Moash studied one of them—a tall woman who hovered a dozen feet in the air, toes pointed downward. Her face was more angular than those of the parshmen. She resembled a spren the way she hung there, an impression accented by her flowing clothing.

Moash leaned back against his sledge and took a pull on his waterskin. Nearby, an overseer watched him and the parshmen of his crew. She was new; a replacement for the one he’d punched. A few more of the Fused passed on horses, trotting the beasts with obvious familiarity.

That variety doesn’t fly, he thought. They can raise the dark light around themselves, but it doesn’t give them Lashings. Something else. He glanced back at the one nearest him, the one hovering. But that type almost never walks. It’s the same kind that captured me.

Kaladin wouldn’t have been able to stay aloft as long as these did. He’d run out of Stormlight.

She’s studying those orchards, Moash thought. She looks impressed.

She turned in the air and soared off, long clothing rippling behind her. Those overlong robes would have been impractical for anyone else, but for a creature who almost always flew, the effect was mesmerizing.

“This isn’t what it was supposed to be like,” Moash said.

Nearby, one of the parshmen of his crew grunted. “Tell me about it, human.”

Moash glanced at the man, who had settled down in the shade of their lumber-laden sledge. The parshman was tall, with rough hands, mostly dark skin marbled with lines of red. The others had called him “Sah,” a simple Alethi darkeyes name.

Moash nodded his chin toward the Voidbringers. “They were supposed to sweep in relentlessly, destroying everything in their path. They are literally incarnations of destruction.”



“And?” Sah asked.

“And that one,” Moash said, pointing toward the flying Voidbringer, “is pleased to find these orchards here. They only burned a few towns. They seem intent on keeping Revolar, working it.” Moash shook his head. “This was supposed to be an apocalypse, but you don’t farm an apocalypse.”

Sah grunted again. He didn’t seem to know any more about this than Moash did, but why should he? He’d grown up in a rural community in Alethkar. Everything he knew about history and religion, he’d have heard filtered through the human perspective.

“You shouldn’t speak so casually about the Fused, human,” Sah said, standing up. “They’re dangerous.”

“Don’t know about that,” Moash said as two more passed overhead. “The one I killed went down easy enough, though I don’t think she was expecting me to be able to fight back.”

He handed his waterskin to the overseer as she came around for them; then he glanced at Sah, who was staring at him, slack-jawed.

Probably shouldn’t have mentioned killing one of their gods, Moash thought, walking to his place in line—last, closest to the sledge, so he stared at a sweaty parshman back all day.

They started up again, and Moash expected another long day’s work. These orchards meant Kholinar itself was a little over a day’s hike away at an easy pace. He figured the Voidbringers would push them hard to reach the capital by nightfall.

He was surprised, then, when the army diverged from the direct route. They wove between some hillsides until they reached a town, one of the many suburbs of Kholinar. He couldn’t recall the name. The tavern had been nice, and welcoming to caravaneers.

Clearly there were other Voidbringer armies moving through Alethkar, because they’d obviously seized this city days—if not weeks—ago. Parshmen patrolled it, and the only humans he saw were already working the fields.

Once the army arrived, the Voidbringers surprised Moash again by selecting some of the wagon-pullers and setting them free. They were the weaklings, the ones who had fared worst on the road. The overseers sent them trudging toward Kholinar, which was still too far off to see.

They’re trying to burden the city with refugees, Moash thought. Ones that aren’t fit to work or fight anymore.

The main bulk of the army moved into the large storm bunkers in this suburb. They wouldn’t attack the city immediately. The Voidbringers would rest their armies, prepare, and besiege.

In his youth, he’d wondered why there weren’t any suburbs closer than a day’s walk from Kholinar. In fact, there was nothing between its walls and here, only empty flats—even the hills there had been mined down centuries ago. The purpose was clear to him now. If you wanted to lay siege to Kholinar, this was the closest you could put your army. You couldn’t camp in the city’s shadow; you’d be swept away by the first storm.

In the town, the supply sledges were split, some sent down one street—which looked hauntingly empty to him—while his went down another. They actually passed the tavern he’d preferred, the Fallen Tower; he could see the glyph etched into the leeward stone.