“New guys are coming along, gancho,” Lopen said, taking a bite of the paper-wrapped something he was eating. “Wearing their uniforms, talking like real men. Funny. It only took them a few days. Took us weeks.”
“It took the rest of the men weeks, but not you,” Kaladin said, shading his eyes from the sun and leaning on his spear. He was still on the lighteyes’ practice grounds, watching over Adolin and Renarin—the latter of whom was receiving his first instructions from Zahel the swordmaster. “You had a good attitude from the first day we found you, Lopen.”
“Well, life was pretty good, you know?”
“Pretty good? You’d just been assigned to carry siege bridges until you died on the plateaus.”
“Eh,” Lopen said, taking a bite of his food. It looked like a thick piece of flatbread wrapped around something goopy. He licked his lips, then handed it to Kaladin to free his single hand so he could dig in his pocket for a moment. “You have bad days. You have good days. Evens out eventually.”
“You’re a strange man, Lopen,” Kaladin said, inspecting the “food” Lopen had been eating. “What is this?”
“Chouta.”
“Chowder?”
“Cha-ou-ta. Herdazian food, gon. Good stuff. You can have a bite, if you want.”
It seemed to be chunks of undefinable meat slathered in some dark liquid, all wrapped in overly thick bread. “Disgusting,” Kaladin said, handing it back as Lopen gave him the thing he’d dug out of his pocket, a shell with glyphs written on both sides.
“Your loss,” Lopen said, taking another bite.
“You shouldn’t be walking around eating like that,” Kaladin noted. “It’s rude.”
“Nah, it’s convenient. See, it’s wrapped up good. You can walk about, get stuff done, eat at the same time . . .”
“Slovenly,” Kaladin said, inspecting the shell. It listed Sigzil’s tallies of how many troops they had, how much food Rock thought they’d need, and Teft’s assessments of how many of the former bridgemen were fit for training.
That last number was pretty high. If bridgemen lived, they got strong carrying bridges. As Kaladin had proven firsthand, that translated to their making fine soldiers, assuming they could be motivated.
On the reverse side of the shell, Sigzil had outlined a path for Kaladin to take on patrol outside the warcamps. He’d soon have enough of the greenvines ready to begin patrolling the region outside of the warcamps, as he’d told Dalinar he would do. Teft thought it would be good for Kaladin to go himself, as it would let the new men spend time with Kaladin.
“Highstorm tonight,” Lopen noted. “Sig says it will come two hours after sunset. He thought you’d want to make preparations.”
Kaladin nodded. Another chance for those mysterious numbers to appear—both times before, they’d come during storms. He’d make extra certain Dalinar and his family were being watched.
“Thanks for the report,” Kaladin said, tucking the shell into his pocket. “Send back and tell Sigzil his proposed route takes me too far from the warcamps. Have him draw up another one. Also, tell Teft I need a few more men to come here today and relieve Moash and Drehy. They’ve both been pulling too many hours lately. I’ll guard Dalinar tonight myself—suggest to the highprince it would be convenient if his entire family would be together for the highstorm.”
“If the winds will, gon,” Lopen said, finishing his last bite of chouta. He whistled then, looking in at the practice grounds. “That is something, isn’t it?”
Kaladin followed Lopen’s gaze. Adolin, having left his brother with Zahel, was now executing a training sequence with his Shardblade. Gracefully, he spun and twisted on the sands, sweeping his sword in broad, flowing patterns.
On a practiced Shardbearer, Plate never looked clumsy. Imposing, resplendent, it fit to the form of the wearer. Adolin’s reflected sunlight like a mirror as he made sweeps of the sword, moving from one posture to the next. Kaladin knew it was just a warm-up sequence, more impressive than functional. You’d never do something like this on the battlefield, though many of the individual postures and cuts represented practical movements.
Even knowing that, Kaladin had to shake off a feeling of awe. Shardbearers in Plate looked inhuman when they fought, more like Heralds than men.
He caught Syl sitting on the edge of the roof overhang near Adolin, watching the young man. She was too distant for Kaladin to make out her expression.
Adolin finished his warm-up in a move where he fell to one knee and slammed his Shardblade into the ground. It sank up to mid-blade, then vanished when he released it.
“I’ve seen him summon that weapon before,” Kaladin said.
“Yeah, gancho, on the battlefield, when we saved his sorry ass from Sadeas.”
“No, before that,” Kaladin said, remembering an incident with a whore in Sadeas’s camp. “He saved someone who was being bullied.”
“Huh,” Lopen said. “He can’t be too bad then, you know?”
“I suppose. Anyway, off with you. Make sure to send that replacement team.”
Lopen saluted, collecting Shen, who had been poking at practice swords along the side of the courtyard. Together, they jogged off on the errand.
Kaladin did his rounds, checking on Moash and the others before walking over to where Renarin sat—still armored—on the ground before his new master.
Zahel, the ardent with the ancient eyes, sat in a solemn posture that belied his ragged beard. “You will need to relearn how to fight, wearing that Plate. It changes the way a man steps, grips, moves.”
“I . . .” Renarin looked down. It was very odd to see a man wearing spectacles in the magnificent armor. “I will not need to relearn how to fight, master. I never learned in the first place.”
Zahel grunted. “That’s good. It means I don’t have to break down any old, bad habits.”
“Yes, master.”
“We’ll start you off easily, then,” Zahel said. “There are some steps at the corner over there. Climb up onto the roof of the dueling grounds. Then jump off.”
Renarin looked up sharply. “. . . Jump?”
“I’m old, son,” Zahel said. “Repeating myself makes me eat the wrong flower.”
Kaladin frowned, and Renarin cocked his head, then looked at Kaladin questioningly. Kaladin shrugged.
“Eat . . . what . . . ?” Renarin asked.
“It means I get angry,” Zahel snapped. “You people don’t have proper idioms for anything. Go!”
Renarin sprang to his feet, kicking up sand, and hustled away.
“Your helmet, son!” Zahel called.
Renarin stopped, then scrambled back and snatched his helmet off the ground, nearly slipping onto his face as he did so. He spun, off balance, and ran awkwardly toward the stairs. He nearly plowed into a pillar on the way.
Kaladin snorted softly.
“Oh,” Zahel said, “and you assume you’d do better your first time wearing Shardplate, bodyguard?”
“I doubt I’d forget my helmet,” Kaladin said, shouldering his spear and stretching. “If Dalinar Kholin intends to force the other highprinces into line, I think he’s going to need better Shardbearers than this. He should have picked someone else for that Plate.”
“Like you?”
“Storms no,” Kaladin said, perhaps too vehemently. “I’m a soldier, Zahel. I want nothing to do with Shards. The boy is likable enough, but I wouldn’t trust men to his command—let alone armor that could keep a much better soldier alive on the field—and that’s it.”
“He’ll surprise you,” Zahel replied. “I gave him the whole ‘I’m your master and you do what I say’ talk, and he actually listened.”
“Every soldier hears that on their first day,” Kaladin said. “Sometimes they listen. That the boy did is hardly noteworthy.”
“If you knew how many spoiled ten-year-old lighteyed brats came through here,” Zahel said, “you’d think it worth noting. I thought a nineteen-year-old like him would be insufferabl
e. And don’t call him a boy, boy. He’s probably close to your own age, and is the son of the most powerful human on this—”
He cut off as scraping from atop the building announced Renarin Kholin charging and throwing himself off into the air, boots grinding against the stone coping of the roof. He sailed a good ten or twelve feet out over the courtyard—practiced Shardbearers could do far better—before floundering like a dying skyeel and crashing down into the sand.
Zahel looked toward Kaladin, raising an eyebrow.
“What?” Kaladin asked.
“Enthusiasm, obedience, no fear of looking foolish,” Zahel said. “I can teach him how to fight, but those qualities are innate. This lad is going to do just fine.”
“Assuming he doesn’t fall on anyone,” Kaladin said.
Renarin climbed to his feet. He looked down, as if surprised that he hadn’t broken anything.
“Go up and do it again!” Zahel called to Renarin. “This time, fall headfirst!”
Renarin nodded, then turned and trotted off toward the stairwell.
“You want him to be confident in how the Plate protects him,” Kaladin said.
“Part of using Plate is knowing its limits,” Zahel said, turning back to Kaladin. “Plus, I just want him moving in it. Either way he’s listening, and that’s good. Teaching him is going to be a real pleasure. You, on the other hand, are another story.”
Kaladin raised his hand. “Thanks, but no.”
“You’d turn down an offer to train with a full weapons master?” Zahel asked. “I can count on one hand the number of darkeyes I’ve seen given that chance.”
“Yes, well, I’ve already done the ‘new recruit’ thing. Yelled at by sergeants, worked to the bone, marched for hours on end. Really, I’m fine.”
“This isn’t the same at all,” Zahel said, waving down one of the ardents walking past. The man was carrying a Shardblade with metal guards over the sharp edges, one of the ones the king provided for training use.
Zahel took the Shardblade from the ardent, holding it up.
Kaladin nodded his chin at it. “What’s that on the Blade?”
“Nobody’s sure,” Zahel said, swiping with the Blade. “Fit it to the edges of a Blade, and it will adapt to the shape of the weapon and make it safely blunt. Off the weapons, they break surprisingly easily. Useless in a fight on their own. Perfect for training, though.”
Kaladin grunted. Something created long ago, for use in training? Zahel inspected the Shardblade for a moment, then pointed it directly toward Kaladin.
Even with it blunted—even knowing the man wasn’t going to really attack him—Kaladin felt an immediate moment of panic. A Shardblade. This one had a slender, sleek form with a large crossguard. The flat sides of the blade were etched with the ten fundamental glyphs. It was a handspan wide and easily six feet long, yet Zahel held it with one hand and didn’t seem off balance.
“Niter,” Zahel said.
“What?” Kaladin asked, frowning.
“He was head of the Cobalt Guard before you,” Zahel said. “He was a good man, and a friend. He died keeping the men of the Kholin house alive. Now you’ve got the same Damnation job, and you’re going to have a tough time doing it half as well as he did.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with you waving a Shardblade at me.”
“Anyone who sends assassins after Dalinar or his sons is going to be powerful,” Zahel said. “They’ll have access to Shardbearers. That’s what you’re up against, son. You’re going to need far more training than a battlefield gives a spearman. Have you ever fought a man holding one of these?”
“Once or twice,” Kaladin said, relaxing against the nearby pillar.
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying,” Kaladin said, meeting Zahel’s eyes. “Ask Adolin what I pulled his father out of a few weeks back.”
Zahel lowered the sword. Behind him, Renarin dove face-first off the roof and crashed into the ground. He groaned inside his helm, rolling over. His helm leaked Light but he seemed otherwise unharmed.
“Well done, Prince Renarin,” Zahel called without looking. “Now do a few more jumps and see if you can land on your feet.”
Renarin rose and clinked off.
“All right then,” Zahel said, sweeping the Shardblade in the air. “Let’s see what you can do, kid. Convince me to leave you alone.”
Kaladin didn’t respond other than to heft his spear and settle into a defensive posture, one foot behind, one out front. He held his weapon with the butt forward instead of the point. Nearby, Adolin sparred with another one of the masters, who had the second King’s Blade and a suit of Plate.
How would this work? If Zahel scored a hit on Kaladin’s spear, would they pretend it had cut through?
The ardent approached in a rush, raising the Blade in a two-handed grip. The familiar calmness and focus of battle enveloped Kaladin. He did not draw in Stormlight. He needed to be certain not to come to rely on it too much.
Watch that Shardblade, Kaladin thought, stepping forward, trying to get inside the weapon’s reach. In fighting a Shardbearer, everything became about that Blade. The Blade that nothing could stop, the Blade that didn’t just kill the body—but severed the soul itself. The Blade—
Zahel dropped the Blade.
It hit the ground as Zahel got inside Kaladin’s reach. Kaladin had been too focused on the weapon, and though he tried to get his spear in position to strike, Zahel twisted and buried his fist into Kaladin’s stomach. The next punch—to the face—slammed Kaladin to the floor of the practice grounds.
Kaladin immediately rolled, ignoring the painspren wiggling in the sand. He found his feet as his vision swam. He grinned. “Nice move, that.”
Zahel was already turning back to Kaladin, Blade recovered. Kaladin scuttled backward on the sand, spear still forward, staying away. Zahel knew his way around a Blade. He didn’t fight like Adolin; fewer sweeping blows, more overhand chops. Quick and furious. He backed Kaladin around the side of the practice ground.
He’ll get tired keeping this up, Kaladin’s instincts said. Keep him moving.
After an almost complete circuit of the grounds, Zahel slowed his offense and instead rounded on Kaladin, watching for an opening. “You’d be in trouble if I had Plate,” Zahel said. “I’d be faster, wouldn’t tire.”
“You don’t have Plate.”
“And if someone comes for the king wearing it?”
“I’ll use a different tactic.”
Zahel grunted as Renarin crashed to the ground nearby. The prince almost kept his footing, but stumbled and fell to the side, skidding in the sand.
“Well, if this were a real assassination attempt,” Zahel said, “I’d be using different tactics too.”
He dashed toward Renarin.
Kaladin cursed, taking off after Zahel.
Immediately, the man reversed, skidding to a stop in the sand and spinning to swing at Kaladin with a powerful two-handed blow. The strike connected with Kaladin’s spear, sending a sharp crack echoing across the practice grounds. If the Blade hadn’t been guarded, it would have split the spear in two and perhaps grazed Kaladin’s chest.
A watching ardent tossed Kaladin half a spear. They’d been waiting for his spear to be “cut,” and wanted to replicate a real fight as much as possible. Nearby, Moash had arrived, looking concerned, but several ardents intercepted him and explained.
Kaladin looked back to Zahel.
“In a real fight,” the man said, “I might have chased down the prince by now.”
“In a real fight,” Kaladin said, “I might have stabbed you with half a spear when you thought me disarmed.”
“I wouldn’t have made that mistake.”
“Then we’ll have to assume I wouldn’t have made the mistake of letting you get to Renarin.”
Zahel grinned. It looked a dangerous expression on him. He stepped forward, and Kaladin understood. There would be no backing away and leading him off this
time. Kaladin wouldn’t have that option if he were protecting a member of Dalinar’s family. Instead, he had to try his best to pretend to kill this man.
That meant an attack.
A prolonged, close-quarters fight would favor Zahel, as Kaladin couldn’t parry a Shardblade. Kaladin’s best bet was to strike fast and hope to score an early hit. Kaladin barreled forward, then threw himself to his knees, skidding on the sands underneath Zahel’s strike. That would get him close, and—
Zahel kicked Kaladin in the face.
Vision swimming, Kaladin rammed his fake spear into Zahel’s leg. The man’s Shardblade came down a second later, stopping where Kaladin’s shoulder met his neck.
“You’re dead, son,” Zahel said.
“You’ve got a spear through the leg,” Kaladin said, puffing. “You aren’t chasing down Renarin like that. I win.”
“You’re still dead,” Zahel said with a grunt.
“My job is to stop you from killing Renarin. With what I just did, he escapes. Doesn’t matter if the bodyguard is dead.”
“And what if the assassin had a friend?” another voice asked from behind.
Kaladin twisted to see Adolin, in full Plate and standing with his Shardblade point stuck into the ground before him. He’d removed his helm, and held it in one hand, the other hand resting on the Blade’s crossguard.
“If there were two of them, bridgeboy?” Adolin asked with a smirk. “Could you fight two Shardbearers at once? If I wanted to kill Father or the king, I’d never send just one.”
Kaladin stood, rolling his shoulder in its socket. He met Adolin’s gaze. So condescending. So sure of himself. Arrogant bastard.
“All right,” Zahel said. “I’m sure he sees the point, Adolin. No need—”
Kaladin charged the princeling, and he thought he heard Adolin chuckling as he put on his helm.
Something boiled inside of Kaladin.
The nameless Shardbearer who had killed so many of his friends.
Sadeas, sitting regally in red armor.
Amaram, hands on a sword stained with blood.
Kaladin screamed as Adolin’s unguarded Shardblade came for him in one of the careful, sweeping strokes from Adolin’s practice session. Kaladin pulled himself up short, raising his half-spear and letting the Blade pass right before him. Then he slapped the back edge of the Shardblade with his spear, knocking Adolin’s grip to the side and fouling up the follow-through.
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