Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson

  “Shove them off edge of plateau,” Rock said. “Those who fly, we let in.”

  “Any serious suggestions?” Kaladin asked.

  “Let me run them through some formations,” Teft said.

  “A good idea,” Kaladin said. “Storms, I wish we knew how the Radiants used to handle expansion. Were there recruitment drives, or did they just wait until someone attracted a spren?”

  “That wouldn’t make them a squire though,” Teft said, rubbing his chin. “But a full Radiant, right?”

  “A valid point,” Sigzil said. “We have no proof that we squires are a step toward becoming full Radiants. We might always be your support team—and in that case, it’s not individual skill that matters, but your decision. Maybe that of your spren. You choose them, they serve under you, and then they start drawing in Stormlight.”

  “Yeah,” Skar said, uncomfortable.

  They all glanced at him.

  “The first of you that says something placating,” Skar said, “gets a fist in the face. Or the stomach, if I can’t reach your storming stupid Horneater face.”

  “Ha!” Rock said. “You could hit my face, Skar. I have seen you jump very high. Almost, you seem as tall as regular person when you do that.”

  “Teft,” Kaladin said, “go ahead and run those potential recruits through formations. And tell the rest of the men to watch the sky; I’m worried about more raids on the caravans.” He shook his head. “Something about those raids doesn’t add up. The warcamps’ parshmen, by all reports, have marched to Alethkar. But why would those Fused keep harrying us? They won’t have the troops to take advantage of any supply problems they cause.”

  Skar shared a glance with Sigzil, who shrugged. Kaladin talked like this sometimes, differently from the rest of them. He’d trained them in formations and the spear, and they could proudly call themselves soldiers. But they’d only actually fought a few times. What did they know of things like strategy and battlefield tactics?

  They broke, Teft jogging off to drill the potential recruits. Kaladin set Bridge Four to studying their flying. They practiced landings, and then did sprints in the air, zipping back and forth in formation, getting used to changing directions quickly. It was a little distracting, seeing those glowing lines of light shoot through the sky.

  Skar attended Kaladin as he observed the recruits doing formations. The lighteyes didn’t voice a single complaint about being filed into ranks with darkeyes. Kaladin and Teft … well, all of them really … had a tendency to act as if every lighteyed man was in some way regal. But there were far, far more of them who did normal jobs—though granted, they got paid better for those jobs than a darkeyed man did.

  Kaladin watched, then glanced at the Bridge Four men in the sky. “I wonder, Skar,” he said. “How important are formations going to be for us, going forward? Can we devise new ones to use in flying? Everything changes when your enemy can attack from all sides.…”

  After about an hour, Skar went for water, and enjoyed some good-natured ribbing from the others, who landed to grab something to drink. He didn’t mind. What you had to watch out for was when Bridge Four didn’t torment you.

  The others took off a short time later, and Skar watched them go, launching into the sky. He took a long draught of Rock’s current refreshment—he called it tea, but it tasted like boiled grain—and found himself feeling useless. Were these people, these new recruits, going to start glowing and take his place in Bridge Four? Would he be shuffled off to other duties, while someone else laughed with the crew and got ribbed for their height?

  Storm it, he thought, tossing aside his cup. I hate feeling sorry for myself. He hadn’t sulked when the Blackcaps had turned him down, and he wouldn’t sulk now.

  He was fishing in his pocket for gemstones, determined to practice some more, when he spotted Lyn sitting on a rock nearby, watching the recruits run formations. She was slouching, and he read frustration in her posture. Well, he knew that feeling.

  Skar shouldered his spear and sauntered over. The four other scout women had gone to the water station; Rock let out a bellowing laugh at what one of them said.

  “Not joining in?” Skar asked, nodding toward the new recruits marching past.

  “I don’t know formations, Skar. I’ve never done drills—never even held a storming spear. I ran messages and scouted the Plains.” She sighed. “I didn’t pick it up fast enough, did I? He’s gone and gotten some new people to test, since I failed.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Skar said, sitting beside her on the large rock. “You’re not being forced out. Kaladin just wants to have as many potential recruits as possible.”

  She shook her head. “Everyone knows that we’re in a new world now—a world where rank and eye color don’t matter. Something glorious.” She looked up at the sky, and the men training there. “I want to be part of it, Skar. So badly.”

  “Yeah.”

  She looked at him, and probably saw it in his eyes. That same emotion. “Storms. I hadn’t even thought, Skar. Must be worse for you.”

  He shrugged and reached into his pouch, taking out an emerald as big as his thumb. It shone fiercely, even in the bright daylight. “You ever hear about the first time Captain Stormblessed drew in Light?”

  “He told us. That day, after he knew he could do it because Teft told him. And—”

  “Not that day.”

  “You mean while he was healing,” she said. “After the highstorm where he was strung up.”

  “Not that day either,” Skar said, holding up the gemstone. Through it, he saw men running formations, and imagined them carrying a bridge. “I was there, second row. Bridge run. Bad one. We were charging the plateau, and a lot of Parshendi had set up. They dropped most of the first row, all but Kaladin.

  “That exposed me, right beside him, second row. In those days, you didn’t have good odds, running near the front. The Parshendi wanted to take down our bridge, and they focused their shots on us. On me. I knew I was dead. I knew it. I saw the arrows coming, and I breathed a last prayer, hoping the next life wouldn’t be quite so bad.

  “Then … then the arrows moved, Lyn. They storming swerved toward Kaladin.” He turned the emerald over, and shook his head. “There’s a special Lashing you can do, which makes things curve in the air. Kaladin painted the wood above his hands with Stormlight and drew the arrows toward him, instead of me. That’s the first time I can say I knew something special was happening.” He lowered the gemstone and pressed it into her hand. “Back then, Kaladin did it without even knowing what he was doing. Maybe we’re just trying too hard, you know?”

  “But it doesn’t make sense! They say you have to suck it in. What does that even mean?”

  “No idea,” Skar said. “They each describe it differently, and it’s breaking my brain trying to figure it out. They talk about a sharp intake of breath—only, not really for breathing.”

  “Which is perfectly clear.”

  “Tell me about it,” Skar said, tapping the gemstone in her palm. “It worked best for Kaladin when he didn’t stress. It was harder when he focused on making it happen.”

  “So I’m supposed to accidently but deliberately breathe something in without breathing, but not try too hard at it?”

  “Doesn’t it just make you want to string the lot of them up in the storms? But their advice is all we got. So…”

  She looked at the stone, then held it close to her face—that didn’t seem to be important, but what could it hurt—and breathed in. Nothing happened, so she tried again. And again. For a solid ten minutes.

  “I don’t know, Skar,” she finally said, lowering the stone. “I keep thinking, maybe I don’t belong here. If you haven’t noticed, none of the women have managed this. I kind of forced my way among you all, and nobody asked—”

  “Stop,” he said, taking the emerald and holding it before her again. “Stop right there. You want to be a Windrunner?”

  “More than anything,” she whispered.
r />   “Why?”

  “Because I want to soar.”

  “Not good enough. Kaladin, he wasn’t thinking about being left out, or how great it would be to fly. He was thinking about saving the rest of us. Saving me. Why do you want to be in the Windrunners?”

  “Because I want to help! I want to do something other than stand around, waiting for the enemy to come to us!”

  “Well, you have a chance, Lyn. A chance nobody has had for ages, a chance in millions. Either you seize it, and in so doing decide you’re worthy, or you leave and give up.” He pressed the gemstone back down into her hand. “But if you leave, you don’t get to complain. As long as you keep trying, there’s a chance. When you give up? That’s when the dream dies.”

  She met his eyes, closed her fist around the gemstone, and breathed in with a sharp, distinct breath.

  Then started glowing.

  She yelped in surprise and opened her hand to find the gemstone within dun. She looked at him in awe. “What did you do?”

  “Nothing,” Skar said. Which was the problem. Still, he found he couldn’t be jealous. Maybe this was his lot, helping others become Radiants. A trainer, a facilitator?

  Teft saw Lyn glowing, then dashed over and started cursing—but they were “good” Teft curses. He grabbed her by the arm and towed her toward Kaladin.

  Skar took in a long, satisfied breath. Well, that was two he’d helped so far, counting Rock. He … he could live with that, couldn’t he?

  He strolled over to the drink station and got another cup. “What is this foul stuff, Rock?” he asked. “You didn’t mistake the washing water for tea, did you?”

  “Is old Horneater recipe,” he said. “Has proud tradition.”

  “Like skipping?”

  “Like formal war dance,” he said. “And hitting annoying bridgemen on head for not showing proper respect.”

  Skar turned around and leaned one hand on the table, watching Lyn’s enthusiasm as her squad of scouts ran up to her. He felt good about what he’d done—strangely good. Excited, even.

  “I think I’m going to have to get used to smelly Horneaters, Rock,” Skar said. “I’m thinking of joining your support team.”

  “You think I will let you anywhere near cook pot?”

  “I might not ever learn to fly.” He squished the part of him that whimpered at that. “I need to come to terms with the fact. So, I’ll have to find another way to help out.”

  “Ha. And the fact that you are glowing with Stormlight right now is not at all consideration in decision?”

  Skar froze. Then he focused on his hand, right in front of his face, holding a cup. Tiny wisps of Stormlight curled off it. He dropped the cup with a cry, digging from his pocket a couple of dun chips. He’d given his practice gemstone to Lyn.

  He looked up at Rock, then grinned stupidly.

  “I suppose,” Rock said, “I can maybe have you wash dishes. Though you do keep throwing my cups on ground. Is not proper respect at all…”

  He trailed off as Skar left him, running for the others and whooping with excitement.

  Indeed, we admire his initiative. Perhaps if you had approached the correct one of us with your plea, it would have found favorable audience.

  I am Talenel’Elin, Herald of War. The time of the Return, the Desolation, is near at hand. We must prepare. You will have forgotten much, following the destruction of the times past.

  Kalak will teach you to cast bronze, if you have forgotten this. We will Soulcast blocks of metal directly for you. I wish we could teach you steel, but casting is so much easier than forging, and you must have something we can produce quickly. Your stone tools will not serve against what is to come.

  Vedel can train your surgeons, and Jezrien will teach you leadership. So much is lost between Returns. I will train your soldiers. We should have time. Ishar keeps talking about a way to keep information from being lost following Desolations. And you have discovered something unexpected. We will use that. Surgebinders to act as guardians … Knights …

  The coming days will be difficult, but with training, humanity will survive. You must bring me to your leaders. The other Heralds should join us soon.

  I think I am late, this time. I think … I fear, oh God, that I have failed. No. This is not right, is it? How long has it been? Where am I? I … am Talenel’Elin, Herald of War. The time of the Return, the Desolation, is near at hand.…

  Jasnah trembled as she read the madman’s words. She turned over the sheet, and found the next one covered in similar ideas, repeated over and over.

  This couldn’t be a coincidence, and the words were too specific. The abandoned Herald had come to Kholinar—and had been dismissed as a madman.

  She leaned back in her seat and Ivory—full-sized, like a human—stepped over to the table. Hands clasped behind his back, he wore his usual stiff formal suit. The spren’s coloring was jet black, both clothing and features, though something prismatic swirled on his skin. It was as if pure black marble had been coated in oil that glistened with hidden color. He rubbed his chin, reading the words.

  Jasnah had rejected the nice rooms with balconies on the rim of Urithiru; those had such an obvious entrance for assassins or spies. Her small room at the center of Dalinar’s section was far more secure. She had stuffed the ventilation openings with cloth. The airflow from the hallway outside was adequate for this room, and she wanted to make sure nobody could overhear her by listening through the shafts.

  In the corner of her room, three spanreeds worked tirelessly. She had rented them at great expense, until she could acquire new ones of her own. They were paired with reeds in Tashikk that had been delivered to one of the finest—and most trustworthy—information centers in the princedom. There, miles and miles away, a scribe was carefully rewriting each page of her notes, which she had originally sent to them to keep safe.

  “This speaker, Jasnah,” Ivory said, tapping the sheet she’d just read. Ivory had a clipped, no-nonsense voice. “This one who said these words. This person is a Herald. Our suspicions are true. The Heralds are, and the fallen one still is.”

  “We need to find him,” Jasnah said.

  “We must search Shadesmar,” Ivory said. “In this world, men can hide easily—but their souls shine out to us on the other side.”

  “Unless someone knows how to hide them.”

  Ivory looked toward the growing stack of notes in the corner; one of the pens had finished writing. Jasnah rose to change the paper; Shallan had rescued one of her trunks of notes, but two others had gone down with the sinking ship. Fortunately, Jasnah had sent off these backup copies.

  Or did it matter? This sheet, encrypted by her cipher, contained lines and lines of information connecting the parshmen to the Voidbringers. Once, she’d slaved over each of these passages, teasing them from history. Now their contents were common knowledge. In one moment, all of her expertise had been wiped away.

  “We’ve lost so much time,” she said.

  “Yes. We must catch what we have lost, Jasnah. We must.”

  “The enemy?” Jasnah asked.

  “He stirs. He angers.” Ivory shook his head, kneeling beside her as she changed the sheets of paper. “We are naught before him, Jasnah. He would destroy my kind and yours.”

  The spanreed finished, and another started writing out the first lines of her memoirs, which she’d worked on intermittently throughout her life. She’d thrown aside a dozen different attempts, and as she read this latest one, she found herself disliking it as well.

  “What do you think of Shallan?” she asked Ivory, shaking her head. “The person she’s become.”

  Ivory frowned, lips drawing tight. His sharply chiseled features, too angular to be human, were like those of a roughed-out statue the sculptor had neglected to finish.

  “She … is troubling,” he said.

  “That much hasn’t changed.”

  “She is not stable.”

  “Ivory, you think all humans are unstable
.”

  “Not you,” he said, lifting his chin. “You are like a spren. You think by facts. You change not on simple whims. You are as you are.”

  She gave him a flat stare.

  “Mostly,” he added. “Mostly. But it is, Jasnah. Compared to other humans, you are practically a stone!”

  She sighed, standing up and brushing past him, returning to her writing desk. The Herald’s ravings glared at her. She settled down, feeling tired.

  “Jasnah?” Ivory asked. “Am I … in error?”

  “I am not so much a stone as you think, Ivory. Sometimes I wish I were.”

  “These words trouble you,” he said, stepping up to her again and resting his jet-black fingers on the paper. “Why? You have read many troubling things.”

  Jasnah settled back, listening to the three spanreeds scratching paper, writing out notes that—she feared—would mostly be irrelevant. Something stirred deep within her. Glimmers of memory from a dark room, screaming her voice ragged. A childhood illness nobody else seemed to remember, for all it had done to her.

  It had taught her that people she loved could still hurt her.

  “Have you ever wondered how it would feel to lose your sanity, Ivory?”

  Ivory nodded. “I have wondered this. How could I not? Considering what the ancient fathers are.”

  “You call me logical,” Jasnah whispered. “It’s untrue, as I let my passions rule me as much as many. In my times of peace, however, my mind has always been the one thing I could rely upon.”

  Except once.

  She shook her head, picking up the paper again. “I fear losing that, Ivory. It terrifies me. How would it have felt, to be these Heralds? To suffer your mind slowly becoming untrustworthy? Are they too far gone to know? Or are there lucid moments, where they strain and sort through memories … trying frantically to decide which are reliable and which are fabrications…”

  She shivered.