Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive #3)

Finally! the sword said. All right, here’s what you have to do. Fight him and win, Szeth.

The criminal rushed him. Szeth caught the hand with the dagger, twisting to use the man’s own momentum to send him stumbling into the lake.

Recovering, the man turned toward Szeth, who was trying to read what he could from the man’s ragged, sorry appearance. Matted, shaggy hair. Reshi skin bearing many lesions. The poor fellow was so filthy, beggars and street urchins would find him distasteful company.

The convict passed his knife from one hand to the other, wary. Then he rushed Szeth again.

Szeth caught the man by the wrist once more and spun him around, the water splashing. Predictably, the man dropped his knife, which Szeth plucked from the water. He dodged the man’s grapple, and in a moment had one arm around the convict’s neck. Szeth raised the knife and—before he formed conscious thought—pressed the blade against the man’s chest, drawing blood.

He managed to pull back, preventing himself from killing the convict. Fool! He needed to question the man. Had his time as Truthless made him such an eager killer? Szeth lowered the knife, but that gave the man an opening to twist and pull them both down into the Purelake.

Szeth splashed into water warm as blood. The criminal landed on top and forced Szeth under the surface, slamming his hand against the stony bottom and making him drop the knife. The world became a distorted blur.

This isn’t winning, the sword said.

How ironic it would be to survive the murder of kings and Shardbearers only to die at the hands of a man with a crude knife. Szeth almost let it happen, but he knew fate was not finished with him yet.

He threw off the criminal, who was weak and scrawny. The man tried to grab the knife—which was clearly visible beneath the surface—while Szeth rolled the other direction to gain some distance. Unfortunately, the sword on his back got caught between the stones of the lake bottom, and that caused him to jerk back to the water. Szeth growled and—with a heave—ripped himself free, breaking the sword’s harness strap.

The weapon sank into the water. Szeth splashed to his feet, turning to face the winded, dirty convict.

The man glanced at the submerged, silver sword. His eyes glazed, then he grinned wickedly, dropped his knife, and dove for the sword.

Curious. Szeth stepped back as the convict came up looking gleeful, holding the weapon.

Szeth punched him across the face, his arm leaving a faint afterimage. He grabbed the sheathed sword, ripping it from the weaker man’s hands. Though the weapon often seemed too heavy for its size, it now felt light in his fingers. He stepped to the side and swung it—sheath and all—at his enemy.

The weapon struck the convict’s back with a sickening crunch. The poor man splashed down into the lake and fell still.

I suppose that will do, the sword said. Really, you should have just used me in the first place.

Szeth shook himself. Had he killed the fellow after all? Szeth knelt and pulled him up by his matted hair. The convict gasped, but his body didn’t move. Not dead, but paralyzed.

“Did someone work with you in your escape?” Szeth asked. “One of the local nobility, perhaps?”

“What?” the man sputtered. “Oh, Vun Makak. What have you done to me? I can’t feel my arms, my legs…”

“Did anyone from the outside help you?”

“No. Why … why would you ask?” The man sputtered. “Wait. Yes. Who do you want me to name? I’ll do whatever you say. Please.”

Szeth considered. Not working with the guards then, or the minister of the town. “How did you get out?”

“Oh, Nu Ralik…” the man said, crying. “We shouldn’t have killed the guard. I just wanted … wanted to see the sun again.…”

Szeth dropped the man back into the water. He stepped onto the shore and sat down on a rock, breathing deeply. Not long ago, he had danced with a Windrunner at the front of a storm. Today, he fought in shallow water against a half-starved man.

Oh, how he missed the sky.

That was cruel, the sword said. Leaving him to drown.

“Better than feeding him to a greatshell,” Szeth said. “That happens to criminals in this kingdom.”

Both are cruel, the sword said.

“You know of cruelty, sword-nimi?”

Vivenna used to tell me that cruelty is only for men, as is mercy. Only we can choose one or the other, and beasts cannot.

“You count yourself as a man?”

No. But sometimes she talked like she did. And after Shashara made me, she argued with Vasher, saying I could be a poet or a scholar. Like a man, right?

Shashara? That sounded like Shalash, the Eastern name for the Herald Shush-daughter-God. So perhaps this sword’s origin was with the Heralds.

Szeth rose and walked up the coast, back toward the town.

Aren’t you going to search for other criminals?

“I needed only one, sword-nimi, to test what has been told to me and to learn a few important facts.”

Like how smelly convicts are?

“That is indeed part of the secret.”

He passed the small town where the master Skybreakers waited, then hiked up the hillside to the prison. The dark block of a structure overlooked the Purelake, but the beautiful vantage was wasted; the place had barely any windows.

Inside, the smell was so foul, he had to breathe through his mouth. The body of a single guard had been left in a pool of blood between cells. Szeth almost tripped over it—there was no light in the place, save for a few sphere lamps in the guard post.

I see, he thought, kneeling beside the fallen man. Yes. This test was indeed a curious one.

Outside, he noted some of the squires returning to the town with corpses in tow, though none of the other hopefuls seemed to have found anyone. Szeth picked his way carefully down the rocky slope to the town, careful not to drag the sword. Whatever Nin’s reasons for entrusting him with the weapon, it was a holy object.

At the town, he approached the beefy nobleman, who was trying to make small talk with Master Ki—failing spectacularly. Nearby, other members of the town were debating the ethics of simply executing murderers, or holding them and risking this. Szeth inspected the dead convicts, and found them as dirty as the one he had fought, though two weren’t nearly as emaciated.

There was a prison economy, Szeth thought. Food went to those in power while others were starved.

“You,” Szeth said to the nobleman. “I found only one body above. Did you really have a single guard posted to watch all these prisoners?”

The nobleman sneered at him. “A Shin stonewalker? Who are you to question me? Go back to your stupid grass and dead trees, little man.”

“The prisoners were free to create their own hierarchy,” Szeth continued. “And nobody watched to see they didn’t make weapons, as I faced one with a knife. These men were mistreated, locked in darkness, not given enough food.”

“They were criminals. Murderers.”

“And what happened to the money you were sent to administrate this facility? It certainly didn’t go toward proper security.”