Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson
A moment later, the traitor stepped out, carrying a large red light in his hand. The King’s Drop, shining brightly enough despite its black wrapping cloth. Rysn caught a glimpse of Vstim collapsed on the floor inside the vault, holding his side.
The traitor kicked the door closed—locking the old merchant away. He glanced toward her.
And a crossbow bolt hit him.
“Thief in the vault!” Fladm’s voice said. “Alarm!”
Rysn pulled herself to a row of gemstone racks. Behind her, the thief took a second crossbow bolt, but didn’t seem to notice. How …
The thief stepped over and picked up poor Tlik’s crossbow. Footsteps and calls indicated that several guards from the lower level had heard Fladm, and were coming up the steps. The thief fired the crossbow once down a nearby row, and a shout of pain from Fladm indicated it had connected. Another guardsman arrived a second later and attacked the thief with his sword.
He should have run for help! Rysn thought as she huddled by the shelf. The thief took a cut along the face from the sword, then set his prize down and caught the guard’s arm. The two struggled, and Rysn watched the cut on the thief’s face reknit.
He was healing? Could … could this man be a Knight Radiant?
Rysn’s eyes flicked toward the large ruby the thief had set down. Four more guards joined the fight, obviously assuming they could subdue one man on their own.
Sit back. Let them handle it.
Chiri-Chiri suddenly darted past, ignoring the combatants and making for the glowing gemstone. Rysn lunged forward—well, more flopped forward—to grab at the larkin, but missed. Chiri-Chiri landed on the cloth containing the enormous ruby.
Nearby, the thief stabbed one of the guards. Rysn winced at the awful sight of their struggle, lit by the ruby, then crawled forward—dragging her legs—and snatched the gemstone.
Chiri-Chiri clicked at her in annoyance as Rysn dragged the ruby with her around the corner. Another guard screamed. They were dropping quickly.
Have to do something. Can’t just sit here, can I?
Rysn clutched the gemstone and looked down the row between shelves. An impossible distance, hundreds of feet, to the corridor and the exit. The door was locked, but she could call through the communication slot for help.
But why? If five guards couldn’t handle the thief, what could one crippled woman do?
My babsk is locked in the queen’s vault. Bleeding.
She looked down the long row again, then used the cord Vstim had given her to tie the ruby’s cloth closed around it, and attached it to her ankle so she wouldn’t have to carry it. Then she started pulling herself along the shelves. Chiri-Chiri rode behind on the ruby, and its light dimmed. Everyone else was struggling for their lives, but the little larkin was feasting.
Rysn made faster progress than she had expected to, though soon her arms began to ache. Behind, the fighting stilled, the last guard’s shout cutting off.
Rysn redoubled her efforts, pulling herself along toward the exit, reaching the alcove where they’d left her chair. Here, she found blood.
Fladm lay at the threshold of the entry corridor, a bolt in him, his own crossbow on the floor beside him. Rysn collapsed a couple of feet from him, muscles burning. Spheres on his belt illuminated her chair and the steps down to the lower vault level. No more help would be coming from down there.
Past Fladm’s body, the corridor led to the door out. “Help!” she shouted. “Thief!”
She thought she heard voices on the other side, through the communication slot. But … it would take the guards outside time to get it open, as they didn’t know all three codes. Maybe that was good. The thief couldn’t get out until they opened it, right?
Of course, that meant she was trapped inside with him while Vstim bled.…
The silence from behind haunted her. Rysn heaved herself to Fladm’s corpse and took his crossbow and bolts, then pulled herself toward the steps. She turned over, putting the enormous ruby beside her, and pushed up so that she was seated against the wall.
She waited, sweating, struggling to point the unwieldy weapon into the darkness of the vault. Footsteps sounded somewhere inside, coming closer. Trembling, she swung the crossbow back and forth, searching for motion. Only then did she notice that the crossbow wasn’t loaded.
She gasped, then hastily pulled out a bolt. She looked from it to the crossbow, helpless. You were supposed to cock the weapon by stepping into a stirrup on the front, then pulling it upward. Easy to do, if you could step in the first place.
A figure emerged from the darkness. The bald guard, his clothing ripped, a sword dripping blood in his shadowed hand.
Rysn lowered the crossbow. What did it matter? Did she think she could fight? That man could just heal anyway.
She was alone.
Helpless.
Live or die. Did she care?
I …
Yes. Yes, I care! I want to sail my own ship!
A sudden blur darted out of the darkness and flew around the thief. Chiri-Chiri moved with blinding speed, hovering about the man, drawing his attention.
Rysn frantically placed the crossbow bolt, then took the captain’s cord off the ruby’s sack and tied one end to the stirrup at the front of the crossbow. She tied the other end to the back of her heavy wooden chair. That done, she spared a glance for Chiri-Chiri, then hesitated.
The larkin was feeding off the thief. A line of light streamed from him, but it was a strange dark violet light. Chiri-Chiri flew about, drawing it from the man, whose face melted away, revealing marbled skin underneath.
A parshman? Wearing some kind of disguise?
No, a Voidbringer. He growled and said something in an unfamiliar language, batting at Chiri-Chiri, who buzzed away into the darkness.
Rysn gripped the crossbow tightly with one hand, then with the other she shoved her chair down the long stairway.
It fell in a clatter, the rope playing out after it. Rysn grabbed on to the crossbow with the other hand. The cord pulled taut as the chair jerked to a stop partway down the steps, and she yanked back on the crossbow at the same time, hanging on for all she was worth.
Click.
She cut the rope free with her belt knife. The thief lunged for her, and she twisted—screaming—and pulled the firing lever on the crossbow. She didn’t know how to aim properly, but the thief obligingly loomed over her.
The crossbow bolt hit him right in the chin.
He dropped and, blessedly, fell still. Whatever power had been healing him was gone, consumed by Chiri-Chiri.
The larkin buzzed over and landed on her stomach, clicking happily.
“Thank you,” Rysn whispered, sweat streaming down the sides of her face. “Thank you, thank you.” She hesitated. “Are you … bigger?”
Chiri-Chiri clicked happily.
Vstim. I need the second set of keys.
And … that ruby, the King’s Drop. The Voidbringers had been trying to steal it. Why?
Rysn tossed aside the crossbow, then pulled herself toward the vault door.
Teft could function.
You learned how to do that. How to cling to the normal parts of your life so that people wouldn’t be too worried. So that you wouldn’t be too undependable.
He stumbled sometimes. That eroded trust, to the point where it was hard to keep telling himself that he could handle it. He knew, deep down, that he’d end up alone again. The men of Bridge Four would tire of digging him out of trouble.
But for now, Teft functioned. He nodded to Malata, who was working the Oathgate, then led his men across the platform and down the ramp toward Urithiru. They were a subdued group. Few grasped the meaning of what they’d learned, but they all sensed that something had changed.
Made perfect sense to Teft. It couldn’t be easy, now, could it. Not in his storming life.
A winding path through corridors and a stairwell led them back toward their barracks. As they walked, a woman appeared in the hallway besid
You have Words to speak, Teft, she said in his mind.
“Storm you,” he muttered.
You have started on this path. When will you tell the others the oaths you have sworn?
“I didn’t—”
She turned away from him suddenly, becoming alert, looking down the corridor toward the Bridge Four barracks.
“What?” Teft stopped. “Something wrong?”
Something is very wrong. Run quickly, Teft!
He charged out in front of the men, causing them to shout after him. He scrambled to the door into their barracks and threw it open.
The scent of blood immediately assaulted him. The Bridge Four common room was in shambles, and blood stained the floor. Teft shouted, rushing through the room to find three corpses near the back. He dropped his spear and fell to his knees beside Rock, Bisig, and Eth.
Still breathing, Teft thought, feeling at Rock’s neck. Still breathing. Remember Kaladin’s training, you fool.
“Check the others!” he shouted as more bridgemen joined him. He pulled off his coat and used it on Rock’s wounds; the Horneater was sliced up good, a half dozen cuts that looked like they’d come from a knife.
“Bisig’s alive,” Peet called. “Though … storms, that’s a Shardblade wound!”
“Eth…” Lopen said, kneeling beside the third body. “Storms…”
Teft hesitated. Eth had been the one carrying the Honorblade today. Dead.
They came for the Blade, he realized.
Huio—who was better at field medicine than Teft—took over ministering to Rock. Blood on his hands, Teft stumbled back.
“We need Renarin,” Peet said. “It’s Rock’s best chance!”
“But where did he go?” Lyn said. “He was at the meeting, but left.” She looked toward Laran, one of the other former messengers—fastest among them. “Run for the guard post! They should have a spanreed to contact the Oathgate!”
Laran dashed out of the room. Nearby, Bisig groaned. His eyes fluttered open. His entire arm was grey, and his uniform had been sliced through.
“Bisig!” Peet asked. “Storms, what happened!”
“Thought … thought it was one of us,” Bisig muttered. “I didn’t really look—until he attacked.” He leaned back, groaning, closing his eyes. “He had on a bridgeman coat.”
“Stormfather!” Leyten said. “Did you see the face?”
Bisig nodded. “Nobody I recognize. A short man, Alethi. Bridge Four coat, lieutenant’s knots on the shoulder…”
Lopen, nearby, frowned, then glanced toward Teft.
A Bridge Four officer’s coat, worn as a disguise. Teft’s coat, which he’d sold weeks ago in the market. To get a few spheres.
He stumbled back as they hovered around Rock and Bisig, then fled through a falling patch of shamespren into the hallway outside.
FIVE AND A HALF YEARS AGO
Dalinar came to himself, gasping, in the cabin of a stormwagon. Heart pounding, he spun about, kicking aside empty bottles and lifting his fists. Outside, the riddens of a storm washed the walls with rain.
What in the Almighty’s tenth name had that been? One moment, he’d been lying in his bunk. The next, he had been … Well, he didn’t rightly remember. What was the drink doing to him now?
Someone rapped on his door.
“Yes?” Dalinar said, his voice hoarse.
“The caravan is preparing to leave, Brightlord.”
“Already? The rain hasn’t even stopped yet.”
“I think they’re, um, eager to be rid of us, sir.”
Dalinar pushed open the door. Felt stood outside, a lithe man with long, drooping mustaches and pale skin. Had to have some Shin blood in him, judging by those eyes.
Though Dalinar hadn’t expressly said what he intended to do out here in Hexi, his soldiers seemed to understand. Dalinar wasn’t sure whether he should be proud of their loyalty, or scandalized by how easily they accepted his intention to visit the Nightwatcher. Of course, one of them—Felt himself—had been this way before.
Outside, the caravan workers hitched up their chulls. They’d agreed to drop him off here, along their path, but refused to take him farther toward the Valley.
“Can you get us the rest of the way?” Dalinar asked.
“Sure,” Felt said. “We’re less than a day off.”
“Then tell the good caravan master that we will take our wagons and split from him here. Pay him what he asked, Felt, and then some on top.”
“If you say so, Brightlord. Seems that having a Shardbearer along with him should be payment enough.”
“Explain that, in part, we’re buying his silence.”
Dalinar waited until the rain had mostly stopped, then threw on his coat and stepped out to join Felt, walking at the front of the wagons. He didn’t feel like being cooped up any longer.
He’d expected this land to look like the Alethi plains. After all, the windswept flatlands of Hexi were not unlike those of his homeland. Yet strangely, there wasn’t a rockbud in sight. The ground was covered in wrinkles, like frozen ripples in a pond, perhaps two or three inches deep. They were crusty on the stormward side, covered with lichen. On the leeward side, grass spread on the ground, flattened.
The sparse trees here were scrawny, hunched-over things with thistle leaves. Their branches bent so far leeward, they almost touched the ground. It was like one of the Heralds had strolled through this place and bent everything sideways. The nearby mountainsides were bare, blasted and scoured raw.
“Not far now, sir,” Felt said. The short man barely came up to the middle of Dalinar’s chest.
“When you came before,” Dalinar said. “What … what did you see?”
“To be frank, sir, nothing. She didn’t come to me. Doesn’t visit everyone, you see.” He clapped his hands, then breathed on them. It had been winter, lately. “You’ll want to go in right after dark. Alone, sir. She avoids groups.”
“Any idea why she didn’t visit you?”
“Well, best I could figure, she doesn’t like foreigners.”
“I might have trouble too.”
“You’re a little less foreign, sir.”
Up ahead, a group of small dark creatures burst from behind a tree and shot into the air, clumped together. Dalinar gaped at their speed and agility. “Chickens?” he said. Little black ones, each the size of a man’s fist.
Felt chuckled. “Yes, wild chickens range this far east. Can’t see what they’d be doing on this side of the mountains though.”
The chickens eventually picked another bent-over tree and settled in its branches.
“Sir,” Felt said. “Forgive me for asking, but you sure you want to do this? You’ll be in her power, in there. And you don’t get to pick the cost.”
Dalinar said nothing, feet crunching on fans of weeds that trembled and rattled when he touched them. There was so much emptiness here in Hexi. In Alethkar, you couldn’t go more than a day or two without running into a farming village. They hiked for a good three hours, during which Dalinar felt both an anxiety to be finished and—at the same time—a reluctance to progress. He had enjoyed his recent sense of purpose. Simultaneously, his decision had given him excuses. If he was going to the Nightwatcher anyway, then why fight the drink?
He’d spent much of the trip intoxicated. Now, with the alcohol running out, the voices of the dead seemed to chase him. They were worst when he tried to sleep, and he felt a dull ache behind his eyes from poor rest.
“Sir?” Felt eventually asked. “Look there.” He pointed to a thin strip of green painting the windswept mountainside.
As they continued, Dalinar got a better view. The mountains split into a valley here, and since the opening pointed to the northeast, foothills shielded the interior from highstorms.
So plant life had exploded inside. Vines, ferns, flowers, and grasses grew together in a wall of und
It all piled atop itself, reeds and branches sticking out in all directions, ferns so overgrown with vines that they drooped beneath the weight. It reminded Dalinar of a battlefield. A grand tapestry, depicting people locked in mortal combat, each one struggling for advantage.
“How does one enter?” Dalinar asked. “How do you pass through that?”
“There are some trails,” Felt said. “If you look hard enough. Shall we camp here, sir? You can scout out a path tomorrow, and make your final decision?”
He nodded, and they set up at the edge of the breach, close enough he could smell the humidity inside. They set up the wagons as a barrier between two trees, and the men soon had tents assembled. They were quick to get a fire going. There was a … feeling to the place. Like you could hear all of those plants growing. The valley shivered and cracked. When wind blew out, it was hot and muggy.
The sun set behind the mountains, plunging them into darkness. Soon after, Dalinar started inward. He couldn’t wait another day. The sound of it lured him. The vines rustling, moving as tiny animals scampered between them. Leaves curling. The men didn’t call after him; they understood his decision.
He stepped into the musty, damp valley, vines brushing his head. He could barely see in the darkness, but Felt had been right—trails revealed themselves as vines and branches bent away from him, allowing Dalinar entrance with the same reluctance as guards allowing an unfamiliar man into the presence of their king.
He had hoped for the Thrill to aid him here. This was a challenge, was it not? He felt nothing, not even a hint.
He trudged through the darkness, and suddenly felt stupid. What was he doing here? Chasing a pagan superstition while the rest of the highprinces gathered to punish Gavilar’s killers? He should be at the Shattered Plains. That was where he’d change himself, where he would go back to the man he’d been before. He wanted to escape the drink? He just needed to summon Oathbringer and find someone to fight.