Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson
It is also possible that the Skybreakers knew someone in Amaram’s army was close to bonding a spren, but I believe it likelier that the attack on Amaram was simply a strike against the Sons of Honor. From our spying upon the Skybreakers, we have records showing the only member of Amaram’s army to have bonded a spren was long since eliminated.
The bridgeman was not, so far as we understand, known to them. If he had been, he would certainly have been killed during his months as a slave.
It ended there. Shallan sat in her room, lit only by the faintest sphere. Helaran, a Skybreaker? And King Gavilar, working with Amaram to bring back the Desolations?
Pattern buzzed with concern on her skirts and moved up onto the page, reading the letter. She whispered the words again to herself, to memorize them, for she knew she couldn’t keep this letter. It was too dangerous.
“Secrets,” Pattern said. “There are lies in this letter.”
So many questions. Who else had been there on the night Gavilar had died, as the letter hinted? And what about this reference to another Surgebinder in Amaram’s army? “He’s dangling tidbits in front of me,” Shallan said. “Like a man on the docks who has a trained kurl that will dance and wave its arms for fish.”
“But … we want those tidbits, don’t we?”
“That’s why it works.” Storm it.
She couldn’t deal with this at the moment. She took a Memory of the page. It wasn’t a particularly efficient method in regards to text, but it would work in a pinch. Then she stuffed the letter in a basin of water and washed off the ink, before shredding it and wadding it into a ball.
From there, she changed into her coat, trousers, and hat, and snuck from the rooms as Veil.
* * *
Veil found Vathah and some of his men playing at pieces in their barracks common room. Though this was for Sebarial’s soldiers, she saw men in blue uniforms as well—Dalinar had ordered his men to spend time with the soldiers of his allies, to help foster a sense of comradery.
Veil’s entrance drew glances, but not stares. Women were allowed in such common rooms, though few came. Little sounded less appealing to a woman being courted than, “Hey, let’s go sit in the barracks common room and watch men grunt and scratch themselves.”
She sauntered over to where Vathah and his men had set up at a round wooden table. Furniture was finally trickling down to the ordinary men; Shallan even had a bed now. Veil settled down in a seat and leaned back, tipping the chair so it clicked against the stone wall. This large common room reminded her of a wine cellar. Dark, unadorned, and filled with a variety of unusual stenches.
“Veil,” Vathah said, nodding to her. Four of them were playing at this table: Vathah, one-eyed Gaz, lanky Red, and Shob. The latter wore a glyphward wrapped around one arm and sniffled periodically.
Veil leaned her head back. “I seriously need something to drink.”
“I’ve got an extra mug or two on my ration,” Red said cheerfully.
Veil eyed him to see if he was hitting on her again. He was smiling, but otherwise didn’t seem to be making a pass. “Right kind of you, Red,” Veil said, digging out a few chips and tossing them to him. He tossed over his requisition chit, a little piece of metal with his number stamped on it.
A short time later she was back in her place, nursing some lavis beer.
“Tough day?” Vathah said, lining up his pieces. The small stone bricks were about the size of a thumb, and the men each had ten of them that they arranged facedown. The betting started soon after. Apparently, Vathah was the mink for this round.
“Yeah,” she replied. “Shallan’s been an even bigger pain than usual.”
The men grunted.
“It’s like she can’t decide who she is, you know?” Veil continued. “One moment she’s cracking jokes like she’s sitting in a knitting circle with old ladies—the next she’s staring at you with that hollow gaze. The one that makes you think her soul has gone vacant…”
“She’s a strange one, our mistress,” Vathah agreed.
“Makes you want to do things,” Gaz said with a grunt. “Things you never thought you’d do.”
“Yeah,” Glurv said from the next table over. “I got a medal. Me. For helping find that mess hiding in the basement. Old Kholin himself sent it down for me.” The overweight soldier shook his head, bemused—but he was wearing the medal. Pinned right to his collar.
“It was fun,” Gaz admitted. “Going out carousing, but feeling like we were doing something. That’s what she promised us, you know? Making a difference again.”
“The difference I want to make,” Vathah said, “is filling my pouch with your spheres. You men betting or not?”
The four players all tossed in some spheres. Pieces was one of those games that the Vorin church grudgingly allowed, as it involved no randomization. Dice, drawing from a deck of cards, even shuffling up the pieces—betting on such things was like trying to guess the future. And that was so deeply wrong, thinking of it made Veil’s skin crawl. She wasn’t even particularly religious, not like Shallan was.
People wouldn’t play games like those in the official barracks. Here, they played guessing games. Vathah had arranged nine of his pieces in a triangle shape; the tenth one he set to the side and flipped over as the seed. It, like the hidden nine, was marked with the symbol of one of the Alethi princedoms. In this case, the seed was Aladar’s symbol, in the form of a chull.
The goal was to arrange your ten pieces in a pattern identical to his, even though they were facedown. You’d guess which were which through a series of questions, peeks, and inferences. You could force the mink to reveal pieces just to you, or to everyone, based on certain other rules.
In the end, someone called and everyone flipped over their pieces. The one with the most matches to the mink’s pattern was declared winner, and claimed the pot. The mink got a percentage, based on certain factors, such as the number of turns it took before someone called.
“What do you think?” Gaz asked, as he tossed a few chips into the bowl at the center, buying the right to peek at one of Vathah’s tiles. “How long will Shallan go this time before she remembers we’re here?”
“Long time, I hope,” Shob said. “Oi think Oi might be comin’ down with somethin’.”
“So all is normal, Shob,” Red said.
“It’s big this time,” Shob said. “Oi think Oi might be turnin’ into a Voidbringer.”
“A Voidbringer,” Veil said flatly.
“Yeah, look at this rash.” He pulled back the glyphward, exposing his upper arm. Which looked perfectly normal.
Vathah snorted.
“Eh!” Shob said. “Oi’m likely to die, Sarge. You mark me, Oi’m likely to die.” He moved around a few of his tiles. “If Oi do, give my winnings to dem orphans.”
“Them orphans?” Red asked.
“You know, orphans.” Shob scratched his head. “There’s orphans, right? Somewhere? Orphans that need food? Give them mine after I die.”
“Shob,” Vathah said, “with the way justice plays out in this world, I can guarantee you’ll outlive the rest of us.”
“Ah, that’s nice,” Shob said. “Right nice, Sarge.”
The game progressed only a few rounds before Shob started flipping over his tiles.
“Already!” Gaz said. “Shob, you cremling. Don’t do it yet! I don’t even have two lines!”
“Too late,” Shob said.
Red and Gaz reluctantly started flipping their tiles.
“Sadeas,” Shallan said absently. “Bethab, Ruthar, Roion, Thanadal, Kholin, Sebarial, Vamah, Hatham. With Aladar as the seed.”
Vathah gaped at her, then flipped the tiles over, revealing them exactly as she’d said. “And you didn’t even get any peeks … Storms, woman. Remind me never to play pieces with you.”
“My brothers always said the same thing,” she said as he split the pot with Shob, who had gotten them all right but three.
“Another hand?” Gaz asked.
Everyone looked at his bowl of spheres, which was almost empty.
“I can get a loan,” he said quickly. “There’s some fellows in Dalinar’s guard who said—”
“Gaz,” Vathah said.
“But—”
“Seriously, Gaz.”
Gaz sighed. “Guess we can play for ends, then,” he said, and Shob eagerly got out some drops of glass shaped roughly like spheres, but without gemstones at the center. Fake money for gambling without stakes.
Veil was enjoying her mug of beer more than she’d expected. It was refreshing to sit here with these men and not have to worry about all Shallan’s problems. Couldn’t that girl just relax? Let it all blow past her?
Nearby some washwomen entered, calling that laundry pickup would be in a few minutes. Vathah and his men didn’t stir—though by Veil’s estimation, the very clothing they were wearing could use a good scrub.
Unfortunately, Veil couldn’t completely ignore Shallan’s problems. Mraize’s note proved how useful he could be, but she had to be careful. He obviously wanted a mole among the Knights Radiant. I need to turn this around on him. Learn what he knows. He’d told her what the Skybreakers and the Sons of Honor had been up to. But what about Mraize and his cohorts? What was their objective?
Storms, did she dare try to double-cross him? Did she really have the experience, or the training, to attempt something like that?
“Hey, Veil,” Vathah said as they prepped for another game. “What do you think? Has the brightness already forgotten about us again?”
Veil shook herself out of her thoughts. “Maybe. She doesn’t seem to know what to do with you lot.”
“She’s not the first,” Red said—he was the next mink, and carefully arranged his tiles in a specific order, facedown. “I mean, it’s not like we’re real soldiers.”
“Our crimes are forgiven,” Gaz said with a grunt, squinting his single eye at the seed tile that Red turned over. “But forgiven ain’t forgotten. No military will take us on, and I don’t blame them. I’m just glad those storming bridgemen haven’t strung me up by my toes.”
“Bridgemen?” Veil asked.
“He’s got a history with them,” Vathah noted.
“I used to be their storming sergeant,” Gaz said. “Did everything I could to get them to run those bridges faster. Nobody likes their sergeant though.”
“I’m sure you were the perfect sergeant,” Red said with a grin. “I’ll bet you really looked out for them, Gaz.”
“Shut your cremhole,” Gaz grumbled. “Though I do wonder. If I’d been a little less hard on them, do you think maybe I’d be out on that plateau right now, practicing like the lot of them do? Learning to fly…”
“You think you could be a Knight Radiant, Gaz?” Vathah said, chuckling.
“No. No, I guess I don’t.” He eyed Veil. “Veil, you tell the brightness. We ain’t good men. Good men, they’ll find something useful to do with their time. We, on the other hand, might do the opposite.”
“The opposite?” Zendid said from the next table over, where a few of the others continued to drink. “Opposite of useful? I think we’re already there, Gaz. And we’ve been there forever.”
“Not me,” Glurv said. “I’ve got a medal.”
“I mean,” Gaz said, “we might get into trouble. I liked being useful. Reminded me of back when I first joined up. You tell her, Veil. Tell her to give us something to do other than gambling and drinking. Because to be honest, I ain’t very good at either one.”
Veil nodded slowly. A washwoman idled by, messing with a sack of laundry. Veil tapped her finger on her cup. Then she stood and seized the washwoman by the dress and hauled her backward. The woman shouted, dropping her pile of clothing as she stumbled, nearly falling.
Veil shoved her hand into the woman’s hair, pushing away the wig of mottled brown and black. Underneath, the woman’s hair was pure Alethi black, and she wore ashes on her cheeks, as if she’d been doing hard labor.
“You!” Veil said. This was the woman from the tavern at All’s Alley. What had her name been? Ishnah?
Several nearby soldiers had leapt up with alarmed expressions at the woman’s outcry. Every one of those is a soldier from Dalinar’s army, Veil noted, suppressing a roll of her eyes. Kholin troops did have a habit of assuming that nobody could take care of themselves.
“Sit,” Veil said, pointing at the table. Red hastily pulled up another chair.
Ishnah settled herself, holding the wig to her chest. She blushed deeply, but maintained some measure of poise, meeting the eyes of Vathah and his men.
“You are getting to be an annoyance, woman,” Veil said, sitting.
“Why do you assume I’m here because of you?” Ishnah said. “You’re jumping to conclusions.”
“You showed an unhealthy fascination with my associates. Now I find you in disguise, eavesdropping on my conversations?”
Ishnah raised her chin. “Maybe I’m just trying to prove myself to you.”
“With a disguise I saw through the moment I glanced at you?”
“You didn’t catch me last time,” Ishnah said.
Last time?
“You talked about where to get Horneater lager,” Ishnah said. “Red insisted it was nasty. Gaz loves it.”
“Storms. How long have you been spying on me?”
“Not long,” Ishnah said quickly, in direct contradiction to what she’d just said. “But I can assure you, promise it, that I’ll be more valuable to you than these rancid buffoons. Please, at least let me try.”
“Buffoons?” Gaz said.
“Rancid?” Shob said. “Oh, that’s just moi boils, miss.”
“Walk with me,” Veil said, standing up. She strode away from the table.
Ishnah scrambled to her feet and followed. “I wasn’t really trying to spy on you. But how else was I—”
“Quiet,” Veil said. She stopped at the doorway to the barracks, far enough from her men that they couldn’t hear. She folded her arms, leaning against the wall by the door and looking back at them.
Shallan had trouble with follow-through. She had good intentions and grand plans, but she got diverted too easily by new problems, new adventures. Fortunately, Veil could pick up a few of those loose threads.
These men had proven that they were loyal, and they wanted to be useful. A woman could be given much less than that to work with.
“The disguise was well done,” she said to Ishnah. “Next time, rough up your freehand some more. The fingers gave you away; they aren’t the fingers of a laborer.”
Ishnah blushed, balling her freehand into a fist.
“Tell me what you can do, and why I should care,” Veil said. “You have two minutes.”
“I…” Ishnah took a deep breath. “I was trained as a spy for House Hamaradin. In Vamah’s court? I know information gathering, message coding, observation techniques, and how to search a room without revealing what I’ve done.”
“So? If you’re so useful, what happened?”
“Your people happened. The Ghostbloods. I’d heard of them, whispered of by Brightlady Hamaradin. She crossed them somehow, and then…” She shrugged. “She ended up dead, and everyone thought it might have been one of us who did it. I fled and ended up in the underground, working for a petty gang of thieves. But I could be so much more. Let me prove it to you.”
Veil crossed her arms. A spy. That could be useful. Truth was, Veil herself didn’t have much actual training—only what Tyn had showed her and what she’d learned on her own. If she was going to dance with the Ghostbloods, she’d need to be better. Right now, she didn’t even know what it was she didn’t know.
Could she get some of that from Ishnah? Somehow get some training without revealing that Veil wasn’t as skilled as she pretended to be?
An idea began to take form. She didn’t trust this woman, but then she didn’t need to. And if her former brightlady really had been killed by the Ghostbloods, perhaps there was a sec
“I have some important infiltrations planned,” Veil said. “Missions where I need to gather information of a sensitive nature.”
“I can help!” Ishnah said.
“What I really need is a support team, so I don’t have to go in alone.”
“I can find people for you! Experts.”
“I wouldn’t be able to trust them,” Veil said, shaking her head. “I need someone I know is loyal.”
“Who?”
Veil pointed at Vathah and his men.
Ishnah’s expression fell. “You want to turn those men into spies?”
“That, and I want you to prove to me what you can do by showing it to those men.” And hopefully I can pick up something too. “Don’t look so daunted. They don’t need to be true spies. They just need to know enough about my work to support me and keep watch.”
Ishnah raised her eyebrows skeptically, watching the men. Shob was, obligingly, picking his nose.
“That’s a little like saying you want me to teach hogs to talk—with promises it will be easy, as they only need to speak Alethi, not Veden or Herdazian.”
“This is the chance I’m offering, Ishnah. Take it, or agree to stay away from me.”
Ishnah sighed. “All right. We’ll see. Just don’t blame me if the pigs don’t end up talking.”
Regardless, this is not your concern. You turned your back on divinity. If Rayse becomes an issue, he will be dealt with.
And so will you.
Teft woke up. Unfortunately.
His first sensation was pain. Old, familiar pain. The throbbing behind his eyes, the raw biting needles of his burned fingers, the stiffness of a body that had outlived its usefulness. Kelek’s breath … had he ever been useful?
He rolled over, groaning. No coat, only a tight undershirt soiled from lying on the ground. He was in an alleyway between tents in the Breakaway market. The high ceiling vanished into the darkness. From just beyond the alleyway came the bright sounds of people chatting and haggling.