Rhythm of War (9781429952040)

by Brandon Sanderson

  “Tien,” Kaladin said. “Why did you do it? You should have stayed safe.”

  Tien turned to him, then smiled. “They would have been alone. They needed someone to help them feel brave.”

  “They were slaughtered,” Kaladin said. “So were you.”

  “So it was good someone was there, to help them not feel so alone as it happened.”

  “You were terrified. I saw your eyes.”

  “Of course I was.” Tien looked at him as the charge began, and the enemy advanced up the hillside. “Who wouldn’t be afraid? Doesn’t change that I needed to be here. For them.”

  Kaladin remembered getting stabbed on this battlefield … killing a man. Then being forced to watch Tien die. He cringed, anticipating that death, but all went dark. The forest, the tent, the figures all vanished.

  Except for Tien.

  Kaladin fell to his knees. Then Tien, poor little Tien, wrapped his arms around Kaladin and held him. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “I’m here. To help you feel brave.”

  “I’m not the child you see,” Kaladin whispered.

  “I know who you are, Kal.”

  Kaladin looked up at his brother. Who somehow, in that moment, was full grown. And Kaladin was a child, clinging to him. Holding to him as the tears started to fall, as he let himself weep at Teft’s death.

  “This is wrong,” Kaladin said. “I’m supposed to hold you. Protect you.”

  “And you did. As I helped you.” He pulled Kaladin tight. “Why do we fight, Kal? Why do we keep going?”

  “I don’t know,” Kaladin whispered. “I’ve forgotten.”

  “It’s so we can be with each other.”

  “They all die, Tien. Everyone dies.”

  “So they do, don’t they?”

  “That means it doesn’t matter,” Kaladin said. “None of it matters.”

  “See, that’s the wrong way of looking at it.” Tien held him tighter. “Since we all go to the same place in the end, the moments we spent with each other are the only things that do matter. The times we helped each other.”

  Kaladin trembled.

  “Look at it, Kal,” Tien said softly. “See the colors. If you think letting Teft die is a failure—but all the times you supported him are meaningless—then no wonder it always hurts. Instead, if you think of how lucky you both were to be able to help each other when you were together, well, it looks a lot nicer, doesn’t it?”

  “I’m not strong enough,” Kaladin whispered.

  “You’re strong enough for me.”

  “I’m not good enough.”

  “You’re good enough for me.”

  “I wasn’t there.”

  Tien smiled. “You are here for me, Kal. You’re here for all of us.”

  “And…” Kaladin said, tears on his cheeks, “if I fail again?”

  “You can’t. So long as you understand.” He pulled Kaladin tight. Kaladin rested his head against Tien’s chest, blotting his tears with the cloth of his shirt. “Teft believes in you. The enemy thinks he’s won. But I want to see his face when he realizes the truth. Don’t you? It’s going to be delightful.”

  Kaladin found himself smiling.

  “If he kills us,” Tien said, “he’s simply dropped us off at a place we were going anyway. We shouldn’t hasten it, and it is sad. But see, he can’t take our moments, our Connection, Kaladin. And those are things that really matter.”

  Kaladin closed his eyes, letting himself enjoy this moment. “Is it real?” he finally asked. “Are you real? Or is this something made by the Stormfather, or Wit, or someone else?”

  Tien smiled, then pressed something into Kaladin’s hand. A small wooden horse. “Try to keep track of him this time, Kal. I worked hard on that.”

  Then Kaladin dropped suddenly, the wooden horse evaporating in his hand as he fell.

  He searched around in the endless blackness. “Syl?” he called.

  A pinprick of light, weaving around him. But that wasn’t her.

  “SYL!”

  Another pinprick. And another.

  But those weren’t her. That was. He reached into the darkness and seized her hand, pulling her to him. She grabbed him, physical in this place and his own size.

  She held to him, and shook as she spoke. “I’ve forgotten the Words. I’m supposed to help you, but I can’t. I…”

  “You are helping,” Kaladin said, “by being here.” He closed his eyes, feeling the storm as they broke through the moment between and entered the real world.

  “Besides,” he whispered, “I know the Words.”

  Say them, Tien whispered.

  “I have always known these Words.”

  Say it, lad! Do it!

  “I accept it, Stormfather! I accept that there will be those I cannot protect!”

  The storm rumbled, and he felt warmth surrounding him, Light infusing him. He heard Syl gasp, and a familiar voice, not the Stormfather’s.

  THESE WORDS ARE ACCEPTED.

  “We couldn’t save Teft, Syl,” Kaladin whispered. “We couldn’t save Tien. But we can save my father.”

  And when he opened his eyes, the sky exploded with a thousand pure lights.

  For ones so tarnished, they are somehow bright.

  —Musings of El, on the first of the Final Ten Days

  Leshwi fell to her knees before Venli, not flying, not hovering. On her knees. Venli knelt as well, as Leshwi still held to her face—but the grip softened.

  A cool, beautiful light flooded in through the window behind. Like a frozen lightning bolt, brighter than any sphere. Bright as the sun.

  “What have you done, Venli?” Leshwi said. “What have you done?”

  “I … I swore the First Ideal of the Radiants,” Venli said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry…” Leshwi said. A joyspren burst around her, beautiful, like a blue storm. “Sorry? Venli, they’ve come back to us! They’ve forgiven us.”

  What?

  “Please,” Leshwi said to Longing, “ask your spren. Do they know of an honorspren named Riah? She was my friend once. Precious to me.”

  Leshwi … had friends? Among the spren?

  Storms. Leshwi had lived before the war, when men and singers had been allies. Honor had been the god of the Dawnsingers.

  Timbre pulsed.

  “She … doesn’t know Riah,” Venli said. “But she doesn’t know a lot of honorspren. She … doesn’t think any of the old ones survived the human betrayal.”

  Leshwi nodded, humming softly to … to one of the old rhythms.

  “My spren though,” Venli said. “She … has friends, who are willing to maybe try again. With us.”

  “My soul is too long owned by someone else for that,” Leshwi said.

  Venli glanced toward the fighting. The sudden light hadn’t halted them. If anything, it had made the Pursuer’s soldiers more determined as they attacked. They seemed to enjoy the company of the angerspren and painspren. Some of the humans had wrestled away weapons, but most of them fought unarmed, trying desperately to keep the Radiants safe.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Venli whispered. “I keep wavering between two worlds. I’m too weak, mistress.”

  Leshwi rose into the air, then ripped her side sword from its sheath. “It’s all right, Voice. I know the answer.”

  She flew directly into the fight and began pulling away the soldiers, shouting for them to halt. When they didn’t, Leshwi started swinging. And in seconds her troops had joined her, as singer fought singer.

  * * *

  “Sibling,” Navani whispered, clinging to the pillar. “What is happening? Why do you make that rhythm?”

  Navani? The voice that responded was soft as a baby’s breath on her skin. Almost imperceptible. I hear this rhythm. I hear it in the darkness. Why?

  “Where is it coming from?”

  There.

  Navani was given an impression, a vision that overlaid her senses. A place in the tower … the atrium, dark from a storm blo
wing outside? Down here, deep within the basement, she hadn’t realized one was going on.

  Fighting. People were fighting, struggling, dying. Navani squinted at the vision. Her pain was fading—though a part of her felt that was a bad sign. But she could see … a Fused, flying a foot off the ground, fighting beside someone infused with Voidlight. A Regal? And those were humans with them, standing together. Side by side.

  “What are they doing?” Navani asked.

  Fighting other singers. I think. It’s so dark. Why do they fight each other?

  “What’s in that room they defend?” Navani whispered.

  That is where they put the fallen Radiants.

  “Emulsifier,” Navani whispered.

  What?

  “A joined purpose. Humans and singers. Honor and Odium. They’re fighting to protect the helpless, Sibling.”

  The vision faded, but before it did, Navani spotted Rlain—the singer who worked with Bridge Four.

  “He’s there,” Navani said, then found herself coughing. Each convulsion made the pain flare up again. “Sibling, he’s there!”

  Too far, they whispered. Too late …

  Outside in the hallway, Moash hacked at Raboniel’s left arm—making it fall limp. She clawed at him with her remaining arm, hissing, as the hand with the dagger dropped its weapon and dangled uselessly.

  “Take me,” Navani whispered to the Sibling. “Bond me.”

  No, the Sibling said, voice faint.

  “Why?”

  You aren’t worthy, Navani.

  * * *

  Rlain heard the shouting long before they reached the atrium. The guards holding him attuned Anxiety and hurried him and Dabbid faster, though Rlain remained optimistic. That noise had to be from Kaladin’s fight with the Pursuer.

  Rlain was, therefore, utterly shocked when they walked into the atrium to find a full-on civil war. Singers fought against singers, and a group of humans stood side by side with one of the forces.

  Rlain’s guards went running—perhaps to find some kind of authority figure to sort out this nonsense—leaving him and Dabbid. But the fray ended quickly, and the side with the humans won. Few of the singers seemed to want to fight Fused, and so the troops fled, leaving the dead behind them.

  “What?” Dabbid asked softly, the two of them hanging back in one of the side corridors where some human civilians—brave enough to watch, but not skilled enough to join—clustered.

  Rlain made a quick assessment, then attuned the Rhythm of Hope. Five of the Heavenly Ones—and about twenty Regals under their command—had turned upon the soldiers of the Pursuer. The other Heavenly Ones seemed to have refused to join either side, and had retreated up higher into the atrium.

  That was Leshwi, hovering near the front of the side that had won—holding a sword coated in orange singer blood. She seemed to be in charge.

  A good number of people, both human and singer, were down and bleeding. It was a mess. “They need field surgeons,” Rlain said. “Come on.”

  He and Dabbid raced in and—as Kaladin had trained them—started a quick triage. People began helping, and in minutes Rlain had them all binding wounds for both singers and humans, regardless of which side they’d fought on.

  Lirin had supplies in the infirmary, fortunately—and when Dabbid returned with them, he brought Hesina, who seemed rattled by the fighting. It was a few minutes before Rlain got an explanation. Lirin had been taken? Kaladin had given chase?

  Rlain attuned the Lost. No wonder Hesina looked like she’d been through a storm. Still, she seemed eager to have something to do, and took over leading the triage.

  That let Rlain step away for a breather and wipe his hands. Some humans who had seen it all gave him scattered explanations. The Pursuer had ordered the slaughter of helpless Radiants, and both humans and singers had resisted his army. Before Rlain could go demand answers from Venli, several gruff human men approached him. He recognized them from the sessions Kaladin had been doing, helping them with trauma. They’d been forced to pick up weapons again, the poor cremlings.

  “Yes?” Rlain asked.

  They led him to a body placed reverently beside the wall, the eyes burned out. Teft.

  Rlain fell to his knees as Dabbid joined him, letting out a quiet whimper, anguishspren surrounding them. They knelt together, heads bowed. Rlain sang the Song of the Fallen, a song for a dead hero. It seemed the plan hadn’t gone off too well for them either.

  “Lift?” he asked.

  “She’s in the infirmary,” Dabbid whispered. “Unconscious. Legs dead from a Blade. Looks like someone hit her hard on the head. She … is bleeding. I tried to give her Stormlight. Nothing happened.”

  Rlain attuned Mourning. Lift could heal others, but—like with Kaladin and Teft—her internal healing wasn’t working. So much for waking the Radiants. He bowed his head for Teft, then left him there. Let the dead rest. It was their way, and he wished to be able to give the man a proper sky burial. Teft had been a good person. One of the best.

  Behind him, other matters drew Rlain’s attention. The humans and singers were already squabbling.

  “You need to submit,” Leshwi was saying, hovering above them in her imperious Fused way. “I will explain to Raboniel that the soldiers were uncontrolled and didn’t obey my orders.”

  “And you think she’ll let us walk?” one of the human women shouted. “We need to get out of here right now.”

  “If I let you go,” Leshwi said, “it will seem that I am in rebellion. We can contain this if you submit.”

  “You’re not in rebellion?” one of the men demanded. “What was that then?”

  “We ain’t obeying one of you again,” another bellowed. “Ever!”

  Shouts from both sides rose as singers ordered the people not to argue with one of the Fused. Rlain turned from one group to the other, then attuned Determination and wiped the makeup from his tattoo. He strode out between the groups. Field medicine wasn’t the only thing Bridge Four had taught.

  “Listen up!” he shouted to Confidence. “All of you!”

  Remarkably, they fell silent. Rlain did his best Teft impersonation as he turned to the humans. “You all, you know me. I’m Bridge Four. I know you don’t like me, but are you willing to trust me?”

  The humans grumbled, but most of them nodded, prompted by Noril. Rlain turned toward the singers. “You all,” he barked to Confidence, “absolutely committed treason. You acted against Odium’s wishes, and he will seek retribution for that. You’re as good as dead—and you Fused, you’re in for an eternity of torture. Fortunately, you have two people here who can guide you—listeners from a people who escaped his control. So if you want to survive, you’re going to listen to me.”

  Leshwi folded her arms. But then muttered, “Fine.” The other Heavenly Ones seemed willing to follow her lead.

  Venli rushed over, and she was infused with the deep violet light of Voidlight. Far more so than an ordinary Regal. She glowed more, in fact, than a Fused.

  “What are you?” Rlain demanded.

  “A Radiant,” she said to Consolation. “Kind of. I can use Voidlight to power my abilities, so they work in the tower.”

  “Figures,” Rlain grumbled. “Kelek’s breath … I wait years, then you of all people grab a spren first.” Maybe that was too much Teft. “Anyway, it explains how you got Lift out. We need to get moving. Odium won’t stand for a rebellion among his own. So you singers are going to come with us. We’re going to grab the Radiants and we’re going to carry them out onto the plateau, where we’ll escape via the Oathgates to the Shattered Plains.”

  “That puts us in the humans’ power,” Leshwi said.

  “I’ll get you out of it,” Rlain said. “After we’re all safe. Understood? Gather up our wounded, grab those Radiants, and let’s get going. Before Raboniel knows there was a rebellion, I want all involved parties—human and singer—out of this tower. Go!”

  They started moving, trusting that he knew what he was sa
ying. Which … he wasn’t certain he did. Transporting a bunch of unconscious people would be slow, and there was a highstorm outside.

  “Rlain,” Venli said to Awe. “You gave orders to a Fused.”

  He shrugged. “It’s all about an air of authority.”

  “It’s more than that,” she said. “How?”

  “I had good teachers,” Rlain said, though he was a little surprised himself. He was a spy, used to staying back, letting others lead while he watched. Today, though, there hadn’t been anyone else. And having been rejected by both sides, he figured he was an outsider—and therefore as close to a neutral party as there could be in this conflict.

  Everyone worked together to move the unconscious Radiants and the wounded. Even Leshwi and the five other Heavenly Ones each carried a wounded soldier. Rlain spent the time checking the balconies up above. The dozens of Heavenly Ones who hadn’t joined the battle had now vanished. Carrying word to Raboniel, undoubtedly. Or marshaling their personal forces to stop this rebellion.

  Once everyone was together, Rlain waved for them to follow as he started the hike out. Venli hurried up beside him.

  “How are we going to work the Oathgate?” she whispered.

  “I know the mechanism,” Rlain said. “I assume we can use your Blade to figure it out.”

  Venli hurried at his side as they entered a corridor. “My Blade?”

  “You told me you cut Lift out of her cell with a Shardblade. I wondered why they let you have one instead of giving it to a Fused, but now I can piece it together. Yours is a living Radiant Blade—which can work the Oathgates. I guess your Voidlight lets you summon it?”

  Venli hummed to Anxiety. “I don’t have a Blade, Rlain.”

  “But—”

  “I was lying! I used my powers to get her out. Timbre says I’m a long way from earning my own Blade!”

  Damnation. “We’ll figure something out,” he said. “Right now, we need to keep moving.”

  Radiant.