Rhythm of War (9781429952040)

by Brandon Sanderson

  Still, at Navani’s urging, the last six months had involved a unique project. For years the Alethi had fought the Parshendi over gemhearts on the Shattered Plains. It had been a bloody affair built upon the corpses of bridgemen whose bodies—more than their tools—spanned the gaps between plateaus. It shocked Kaladin that so many involved in this slaughter had missed asking a specific and poignant question:

  Why had the Parshendi wanted gemstones?

  To the Alethi, gemstones were not merely wealth, but power. With a Soulcaster, emeralds meant food—highly portable sources of nutrition that could travel with an army. The Alethi military had used the advantage of mobile forces without long supply lines to ravage across Roshar during the reigns of a half dozen interchangeable kings.

  The Parshendi hadn’t possessed Soulcasters though. Rlain had confirmed this fact. And then he’d given humankind a gift.

  Kaladin walked down a set of stone steps to where a group of farmers worked a test field. The flat stone had been spread with seed paste—and that had grown rockbuds. Water was brought from a nearby pump, and Kaladin passed bearers lugging bucket after bucket to dump on the polyps and simulate a rainstorm.

  Their best farmers had explained it wouldn’t work. You could simulate the highstorm minerals the plants needed to form shells, but the cold air would stifle growth. Rlain had agreed this was true … unless you had an edge.

  Unless you grew the plants by the light of gemstones.

  The common field before Kaladin was adorned with a most uncommon sight: enormous emeralds harvested from the hearts of chasmfiends, ensconced within short iron lampposts that were in turn bolted to the stone ground. The emeralds were so large, and so full of Stormlight, that looking at one left spots on Kaladin’s vision, though it was in full daylight.

  Beside each lantern sat an ardent with a drum, softly banging a specific rhythm. This was the secret. People would have noticed if gemstone light made plants grow—but the mixture of the light and the music changed something. Lifespren—little green motes that bobbed in the air—spun around the drummers. The spren glowed brighter than usual, as if the Light of the gemstones was infusing them. And they’d move off to the plants, spinning around them.

  This drained the Light, like using a fabrial did. Indeed, the gemstones would periodically crack, as also happened to fabrials. Somehow, the mixture of spren, music, and Light created a kind of organic machine that sustained plants via Stormlight.

  Rlain, wearing his Bridge Four uniform, walked among the stations, checking the rhythms for accuracy. He usually wore warform these days, though he’d confessed to Kaladin that he disliked how it made him seem more like the invaders, with their wicked carapace armor. That made some humans distrust him. But workform made people treat him like a parshman. He hated that even more.

  Though to be honest, it was odd to see Rlain—with his black and red marbled skin—giving direction to Alethi. It was reminiscent of what was happening in Alethkar, with the invasion. Rlain didn’t like it when people made those kinds of comparisons, and Kaladin tried not to think that way.

  Regardless, Rlain seemed to have found purpose in this work. Enough purpose that Kaladin almost left him and continued on his previous task. But no—the days where Kaladin could directly look out for the men and women of Bridge Four were coming to an end. He wanted to see them cared for.

  He jogged through the field. While any one of these head-size rockbuds would have been considered too small to be worth much in Hearthstone, they were at least big enough that there would be grain inside. The technique was helping.

  “Rlain,” Kaladin called. “Rlain!”

  “Sir?” the listener asked, turning and smiling. He hummed a peppy tune as he jogged over. “How was the meeting?”

  Kaladin hesitated. Should he say it? Or wait? “It had some interesting developments. Promotions for Skar and Sigzil.” Kaladin scanned the field. “But someone can fill you in on that later. For now, these crops are looking good.”

  “The spren don’t come as readily for humans as they did for the listeners,” he said, surveying the field. “You cannot hear the rhythms. And I can’t get humans to sing the pure tones of Roshar. A few are getting closer though. I’m encouraged.” He shook his head. “Anyway, what was it you wanted, sir?”

  “I found you an honorspren.”

  Kaladin was accustomed to seeing an unreadable, stoic expression on Rlain’s marbled face. That melted away like sand before a storm as Rlain adopted a wide, face-splitting grin. He grabbed Kaladin by the shoulders, his eyes dancing—and when he hummed, the exultant rhythm to it almost made Kaladin feel he could sense something beyond. A sound as bombastic as sunlight, as joyful as a child’s laughter.

  “An honorspren?” Rlain said. “Who is willing to bond with a listener? Truly?”

  “Vratim’s old spren, Yunfah. He was delaying choosing someone new, so Syl and I gave him an ultimatum: Choose you or leave. This morning, he came to me and agreed to try to bond with you.”

  Rlain’s humming softened.

  “It was a gamble,” Kaladin said. “Since I didn’t want to drive him away. But we finally got him to agree. He’ll keep his word; but be careful. I get the sense he’ll take any chance he can to wiggle out of the deal.”

  Rlain squeezed Kaladin on the shoulder and nodded to him, a sign of obvious respect. Which made the next words he spoke so odd. “Thank you, sir. Please tell the spren he can seek elsewhere. I won’t be requiring his bond.”

  He let go, but Kaladin caught his arm.

  “Rlain?” Kaladin said. “What are you saying? Syl and I worked hard to find you a spren.”

  “I appreciate that, sir.”

  “I know you feel left out. I know how hard it is to see the others fly while you walk. This is your chance.”

  “Would you take a spren who was forced into the deal, Kaladin?” Rlain asked.

  “Considering the circumstances, I’d take what I could get.”

  “The circumstances…” Rlain said, holding up his hand, inspecting the pattern of his skin. “Did I ever tell you, sir, how I ended up in a bridge crew?”

  Kaladin shook his head slowly.

  “I answered a question,” Rlain said. “My owner was a mid-dahn lighteyes—nobody you’d know. An overseer among Sadeas’s quartermasters. He called out to his wife for help as he was trying to add figures in his head, and—not thinking—I gave him the answer.” Rlain hummed a soft rhythm, mocking in tone. “A stupid mistake. I’d been embedded among the Alethi for years, but I grew careless.

  “Over the next few days, my owner watched me. I thought I’d given myself away. But no … he didn’t suspect I was a spy. He just thought I was too smart. A clever parshman frightened him. So he offered me up to the bridge crews.” Rlain glanced back at Kaladin. “Wouldn’t want a parshman like that breeding, now would we? Who knows what kind of trouble they would make if they started thinking for themselves?”

  “I’m not trying to tell you that you shouldn’t think, Rlain,” Kaladin said. “I’m trying to help.”

  “I know you are, sir. But I have no interest in taking ‘what I can get.’ And I don’t think you should force a spren into a bond. It will make for a bad precedent, sir.” He hummed a different rhythm. “You all name me a squire, but I can’t draw Stormlight like the rest. There’s a wedge between me and the Stormfather, I think. Strange. I expected prejudice from humans, but not from him.… Anyway, I will wait for a spren who will bond me for who I am—and the honor I represent.” He gave Kaladin a Bridge Four salute, tapping his wrists together, then turned to continue teaching songs to farmers.

  Kaladin trailed away toward the washing grounds. He could see the man’s point, but to pass up this chance? Maybe the only way to get what Rlain wanted—respect from a spren—was to start with one who was skeptical. And Kaladin hadn’t forced Yunfah. Kaladin had given an order. Sometimes, soldiers had to serve in positions they didn’t want.

  Kaladin hated feeling he’d someh
ow done something shameful, despite his best intentions. Couldn’t Rlain accept the work he’d put into this effort, then do what he asked?

  Or maybe, another part of him thought, you could do what you promised him—and listen for once.

  Kaladin entered the washing field, passing lines of women standing at troughs as if in formation, warring with an unending horde of stained shirts and uniform coats. He trailed around the ancient pump, which bled water into the troughs, and through a rippling field of sheets hung on lines like pale white banners.

  He found Zahel at the edge of the plateau. This section of the field overlooked a steep drop-off. In the near distance, Kaladin could see Navani’s large construction hanging from the plateau—the device used to raise and lower the Fourth Bridge.

  It seemed like falling from here would leave one to fall for eternity. Though he knew the mountain must slope down there somewhere, clouds often obscured the drop. He preferred to think of Urithiru as if it were floating, separated from the rest of the world and the agonies it suffered.

  Here, at the outermost of the drying lines, Zahel was carefully hanging up a series of brightly colored scarves. Which lighteyes had pressed him into laundering those? They seemed the sort of frivolous neckpieces the more lavish among the elite used to accent their finery.

  In contrast to the fine silk, Zahel was like the pelt of some freshly killed mink. His breechtree cotton robe was old and worn, his beard untamed—like a patch of grass growing freely in a nook sheltered from the wind—and he wore a rope for a belt.

  Zahel was everything Kaladin’s instincts told him to avoid. One learned to evaluate soldiers by the way they kept their uniforms. A neatly pressed coat would not win you a battle—but the man who took care to polish his buttons was often also the man who could hold a formation with precision. Soldiers with scraggly beards and ripped clothing tended to be the type who spent their evenings in drink rather than caring for their equipment.

  During the years of the Sadeas/Dalinar divide in the warcamps, these distinctions had become so stark they’d practically been banners. In the face of that, the way Zahel kept himself seemed deliberate. The swordmaster was among the best duelists Kaladin had ever seen, and possessed a wisdom distinct from any other ardent’s or scholar’s. The only explanation was that Zahel dressed this way on purpose to give a misleading air. Zahel was a masterpiece painting intentionally hung in a splintered frame.

  Kaladin halted a respectful distance away. Zahel didn’t look at him, but the strange ardent always seemed to know when someone was approaching. He had a surreal awareness of his surroundings. Syl took off toward him, and Kaladin carefully watched Zahel’s reaction.

  He can see her, Kaladin decided as Zahel carefully hung another scarf. He arranged himself so he could watch Syl from the corner of his eye. Other than Rock and Cord, Kaladin had never met a person who could see invisible spren. Did Zahel have Horneater blood? The ability was rare even among Rock’s kind—though he had said that occasionally a distant Horneater relative was born with it.

  “Well?” Zahel finally asked. “Why have you come to bother me today, Stormblessed?”

  “I need some advice.”

  “Find something strong to drink,” Zahel said. “It can be better than Stormlight. Both will get you killed, but at least alcohol does it slowly.”

  Kaladin walked up beside Zahel. The fluttering scarves reminded him of a spren in flight. Syl, perhaps recognizing the same, turned to a similar shape.

  “I’m being forced into retirement,” Kaladin said softly.

  “Congratulations,” Zahel said. “Take the pension. Let all this become someone else’s problem.”

  “I’ve been told I can choose my place moving forward, so long as I’m not on the front lines. I thought…” He looked to Zahel, who smiled, wrinkles forming at the sides of his eyes. Odd, how the man’s skin could seem smooth as a child’s one moment, then furrow like a grandfather’s the next.

  “You think you belong among us?” Zahel said. “The worn-out soldiers of the world? The men with souls so thin, they shiver in a stiff breeze?”

  “That’s what I’ve become,” Kaladin said. “I know why most of them left the battlefield, Zahel. But not you. Why did you join the ardents?”

  “Because I learned that conflict would find men no matter how hard I tried,” he said. “I no longer wanted a part in trying to stop them.”

  “But you couldn’t give up the sword,” Kaladin said.

  “Oh, I gave it up. I let go. Best mistake I ever made.” He eyed Kaladin, sizing him up. “You didn’t answer my question. You think you belong among the swordmasters?”

  “Dalinar offered to let me train new Radiants,” Kaladin said. “I don’t think I could stand that—seeing them fly off to battle without me. But I thought maybe I could train regular soldiers again. That might not hurt as much.”

  “And you think you belong with us?”

  “I … Yes.”

  “Prove it,” Zahel said, snapping a few scarves off the line. “Land a strike on me.”

  “What? Here? Now?”

  Zahel carefully wound one of the scarves around his arm. He had no weapons that Kaladin could see, though that ragged tan robe might conceal a knife or two.

  “Hand-to-hand?” Kaladin asked.

  “No, use the sword,” Zahel said. “You want to join the swordmasters? Show me how you use one.”

  “I didn’t say…” Kaladin glanced toward the clothing line, where Syl sat in the shape of a young woman. She shrugged, so Kaladin summoned her as a Blade—long and thin, elegant. Not like the oversized slab of a sword Dalinar had once wielded.

  “Dull the edge, chull-brain,” Zahel said. “My soul might be worn thin, but I’d prefer it remain in one piece. No powers on your part either. I want to see you fight, not fly.”

  Kaladin dulled Syl’s Blade with a mental command. The edge fuzzed to mist, then re-formed unsharpened.

  “Um,” Kaladin said. “How do we start the—”

  Zahel whipped a sheet off the line and tossed it toward Kaladin. It billowed, fanning outward, and Kaladin stepped forward, using his sword to knock the cloth from the air. Zahel had vanished among the undulating rows of sheets.

  Carefully, Kaladin entered the rows. The cloths billowed outward in the wind, but then fluttered down, reminiscent of the plants he’d often passed in the chasms. Living things that moved and flowed with the unseen tides of the blowing wind.

  Zahel emerged from another row, pulling a sheet off and whipping it out. Kaladin grunted, stepping away as he swiped at the cloth. That was the man’s strategy, Kaladin realized. Keep Kaladin focused on the cloth.

  Kaladin ignored the sheet and lunged toward Zahel. He was proud of that strike; Adolin’s instruction with the sword seemed almost as natural to him now as his old spear training. The lunge missed, but the form was excellent.

  Zahel, moving with remarkable spryness, dodged back among the rows of sheets. Kaladin leaped after him, but again managed to lose his quarry. Kaladin turned about, searching the seemingly endless rows of fluttering white sheets. Like dancing flames, pure white.

  “Why do you fight, Kaladin Stormblessed?” Zahel’s phantom voice called from somewhere nearby.

  Kaladin spun, sword out. “I fight for Alethkar.”

  “Ha! You ask me to sponsor you as a swordmaster, then immediately lie to me?”

  “I didn’t ask…” Kaladin took a deep breath. “I wear Dalinar’s colors proudly.”

  “You fight for him, not because of him,” Zahel called. “Why do you fight?”

  Kaladin crept in the direction he thought the sound came from. “I fight to protect my men.”

  “Closer,” Zahel said. “But your men are now as safe as they could ever be. They can care for themselves. So why do you keep fighting?”

  “Maybe I don’t think they’re safe,” Kaladin said. “Maybe I…”

  “… don’t think they can care for themselves?” Zahel asked. “You and
old Dalinar. Hens from the same nest.”

  A face and figure formed in a nearby sheet, puffing toward Kaladin as if someone were walking through on the other side. He struck immediately, driving his sword through the sheet. It ripped—the point was still sharp enough for that—but didn’t strike anyone beyond.

  Syl momentarily became sharp—changing before he could ask—as he swiped to cut the sheet in two. It writhed in the wind, severed down the center.

  Zahel came in from Kaladin’s other side, and Kaladin barely turned in time, swinging his Blade. Zahel deflected the strike with his arm, which he’d wrapped with cloth. In his other hand he carried a long scarf that he whipped forward, catching Kaladin’s off hand and wrapping it with shocking tightness, like a coiling whip.

  Zahel pulled, yanking Kaladin off balance. Kaladin maintained his feet, barely, and lunged with a one-handed strike. Zahel again deflected the strike with his cloth-wrapped arm. That sort of tactic would never have worked against a real Shardblade, but it could be surprisingly effective against ordinary swords. New recruits were often surprised at how well a nice thick cloth could stop a blade.

  Zahel still had Kaladin’s off hand wrapped in the scarf, which he heaved, spinning Kaladin around. Damnation. Kaladin managed to maneuver his Blade and slice the cloth in half—Syl becoming sharp for a moment—then he leaped backward and tried to regain his footing.

  Zahel strode calmly to the side, whipping his scarf with a solid crack, then spinning it around like a mace. Kaladin didn’t see any Stormlight coming off the ardent, and he had no reason to believe the man could Surgebind … but the way the cloth had gripped Kaladin’s arm had been uncanny.

  Zahel stretched the scarf in his hands—it was longer than Kaladin had expected. “Do you believe in the Almighty, boy?”

  “Why does that matter?”

  “You ask why faith is relevant when you’re considering joining the ardents—to become a religious advisor?”

  “I want to be a teacher of the sword and spear,” Kaladin said. “What does that have to do with the Almighty?”