Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive #3)

She blocked his next few attacks, then ducked away from his attempts to Lash her.

The sword was growing frustrated. DESTROY, DESTROY, DESTROY! Black veins began to grow around Szeth’s hand, creeping toward his upper arm.

He struck again, but she simply slipped away, moving across the ground as if natural laws had no purchase on her. Other soldiers piled in, and the pain started up Szeth’s arm as he worked death among them.

*

Jasnah stopped one pace behind Renarin. She could hear his whispers clearly now. “Father. Oh, Father…” The young man whipped his head in one direction, then another, seeing things that weren’t there.

“He sees not what is, but what is to come,” Ivory said. “Odium’s power, Jasnah.”

*

“Taln,” Ash whispered, kneeling before him. “Oh, Taln…”

The Herald stared forward with dark eyes. “I am Talenel’Elin, Herald of War. The time of the Return, the Desolation, is near at hand.…”

“Taln?” Ash took his hand. “It’s me. It’s Ash.”

“We must prepare. You will have forgotten much.…”

“Please, Taln.”

“Kalak will teach you to cast bronze.…”

He just continued on, repeating the same words over and over and over.

*

Kaladin fell to his knees on the cold obsidian of Shadesmar.

Fused descended around them, six figures in brilliant, flapping clothing.

He had a single slim hope. Each Ideal he’d spoken had resulted in an outpouring of power and strength. He licked his lips and tried whispering it. “I … I will…”

He thought of friends lost. Malop. Jaks. Beld and Pedin.

Say it, storm you!

“I…”

Rod and Mart. Bridgemen he’d failed. And before them, slaves he’d tried to save. Goshel. Nalma, caught in a trap like a beast.

A windspren appeared near him, like a line of light. Then another.

A single hope.

The Words. Say the Words!

*

“Oh, Mother! Oh, Cultivation!” Wyndle cried as they watched the assassin murder his way across the field. “What have we done?”

“We’ve pointed him away from us,” Lift said as she perched on a boulder, her eyes wide. “You’d rather he was close by?”

Wyndle continued to whimper, and Lift kinda understood. That was a lot of killing that the assassin did. Red-eyed men who seemed to have no light left in them, true, but … storms.

She’d lost track of the woman with the gemstone, but at least the army seemed to be flowing away from Szeth, leaving him fewer people to kill. He stumbled, slowing, then dropped to his knees.

“Uh-oh.” Lift summoned Wyndle as a rod in case the assassin lost his starvin’ mind—what was left of it—and attacked her. She slipped off the rock, then ran over.

He held the strange Shardblade before himself. It continued to leak black liquid that vaporized as it streamed toward the ground. His hand had gone all black.

“I…” Szeth said. “I have lost the sheath.…”

“Drop the sword!”

“I … can’t.…” Szeth said, teeth gritted. “It holds to me, feasting upon my … my Stormlight. It will soon consume me.”

Stormsstormsstormsstorms. “Right. Right. Ummmmm…” Lift looked around. The army was flooding into the city. The second stone monster was stomping across the Ancient Ward, stepping on buildings. Dalinar Kholin still stood before the gap. Maybe … maybe he could help?

“Come on,” Lift said.

*

“Kill the man,” said the captain holding Navani. He swept his hand toward old Kmakl, Fen’s consort. “We don’t need him.”

Fen screamed against her gag, but she was held tightly. Navani carefully wiggled her safehand fingers out of her sleeve, then touched her other arm and the fabrial there, flipping a latch. Small knobs extended from the front of the device, just above her wrist.

Kmakl struggled to stand. He seemed to want to face his death with dignity, but the other two soldiers didn’t give him that honor. They pushed him back against the wall, one pulling out a dagger.

Navani seized the arm of the man holding her, then pressed the knobs of her pain fabrial against his skin. He screamed and dropped, writhing in agony. One of the others turned toward her, and she pressed the painrial against his uplifted hand. She’d tested the device on herself, of course, so she knew what it felt like. A thousand needles being shoved into your skin, under your nails, into your eyes.

The second man wet himself as he dropped.

The last one managed to cut a gash in her arm before she sent him to the ground, spasming. Bother. She flipped the switch on the painrial, drawing away the agony of the cut. Then she took the knife and quickly cut Fen’s bonds. As the queen freed Kmakl, Navani bound her painless wound.

“These will recover soon,” Navani said. “We may need to dispatch them before that happens.”

Kmakl kicked the man who had almost slit his throat, then cracked the door into the city. A troop of men with glowing eyes rushed past. The entire area was overrun with them.

“These are the least of our trouble, it seems,” the aging man said, shutting the door.

“Back up to the wall, then,” Fen said. “We might be able to spot friendly troops from that vantage.”

Navani nodded, and Fen led the way up. At the top, they barred the door. There were bars on both sides; you wanted to be able to lock out enemies who had seized the wall, and also ones who had broken through the gates.

Navani surveyed their options. A quick glance revealed that the streets were indeed held by Amaram’s troops. Some groups of Thaylens held ground farther up, but they were falling quickly.

“By Kelek, storms, and Passions alike,” Kmakl said. “What is that?”

He’d noticed the red mist on the north side of the battlefield, with its horrific images forming and breaking apart. Shadows of soldiers dying, of skeletal features, of charging horses. It was a grand, intimidating sight.

But Dalinar … Dalinar drew her eyes. Standing alone, surrounded by enemy soldiers, and facing something she could just barely sense. Something vast. Something unimaginable.

Something angry.

*

Dalinar lived in two places.

He saw himself crossing a darkened landscape, dragging his Shardblade behind him. He was on the field at Thaylen City with Odium, but he was also in the past, approaching Rathalas. Urged on by the boiling red anger of the Thrill. He returned to the camp, to the surprise of his men, like a spren of death. Coated in blood, eyes glowing.

Glowing red.

He ordered the oil brought. He turned toward a city where Evi was imprisoned, where children slept, where innocent people hid and prayed and burned glyphwards and wept.

“Please…” Dalinar whispered in Thaylen City. “Don’t make me live it again.”

“Oh, Dalinar,” Odium said. “You will live it again and again until you let go. You can’t carry this burden. Please, give it to me. I drove you to do this. It wasn’t your fault.”

Dalinar pulled The Way of Kings close against his chest, clutching it, like a child with his blanket in the night. But a sudden flash of light blasted in front of him, accompanied by a deafening crack.