Words of Radiance

Maybe things were different out here in the stormlands. She pulled herself up the rocks. The Shattered Plains had grown increasingly rough as the armies traveled inward—now on their eighth day of the expedition—following Shallan’s map, created with the help of Rlain, the former bridgeman.

Shallan crested the rock formation and found the view that the scouts had described. Vathah and Gaz stomped up behind her, muttering about the cold. The heart of the Shattered Plains extended before Shallan. The inner plateaus, never explored by men.

“It’s here,” she said.

Gaz scratched at the socket beneath his eye patch. “Rocks?”

“Yes, guardsman Gaz,” Shallan said. “Rocks. Beautiful, wonderful rocks.”

In the distance, she saw shadows draped in a veil of misty rain. Seen together in a group like this, it was unmistakable. This was a city. A city covered over with centuries’ worth of crem, like children’s blocks dribbled with many coats of melted wax. To the innocent eye, it undoubtedly looked much like the rest of the Shattered Plains. But it was oh so much more.

It was proof. Even this formation Shallan stood upon had probably once been a building. Weathered on the stormward side, dribbled with crem down the leeward side to create the bulbous, uneven slope they had climbed.

“Brightness!”

She ignored the voices from down below, instead waving impatiently for the spyglass. Gaz handed it to her, and she raised it to inspect the plateaus ahead. Unfortunately, the thing had fogged up on one end. She tried to rub it clean, rain washing over her, but the fog was on the inside. Blasted device.

“Brightness?” Gaz asked. “Shouldn’t we, uh, listen to what they’re saying down below?”

“More twisted Parshendi spotted,” Shallan said, raising the spyglass again. Wouldn’t the designer of the thing have built it to be sealed on the inside, to prevent moisture from getting in?

Gaz and Vathah stepped back as several members of Bridge Four reached the top of the incline.

“Brightness,” one of the bridgemen said, “Highprince Dalinar has withdrawn the vanguard and ordered a secure perimeter on the plateau behind us.” He was a tall, handsome man whose arms seemed entirely too long for his body. Shallan looked with dissatisfaction at the inner plateaus.

“Brightness,” the bridgeman continued reluctantly, “he did say that if you wouldn’t come, he would send Adolin to… um… cart you back over his shoulder.”

“I would like to see him do that,” Shallan said. It did sound kind of romantic, the sort of thing you’d read of in a novel. “He’s that worried about the Parshendi?”

“Shen… er, Rlain… says we’re practically to their home plateau, Brightness. Too many of their patrols have been spotted. Please.”

“We need to get in there,” Shallan said, pointing. “That’s where the secrets are.”

“Brightness…”

“Very well,” she said, turning and hiking down the incline. She slipped, which did not help her dignity, but Vathah caught her arm before she tumbled onto her face.

Once down, they quickly crossed this smaller plateau, joining scouts who were jogging back toward the bulk of the army. Rlain claimed to know nothing himself of the Oathgate—or even really much about the city, which he called “Narak” instead of Stormseat. He said his people had only taken up permanent residence here following the Alethi invasion.

During the push inward, Dalinar’s soldiers had spotted an increasing number of Parshendi and had clashed with them in brief skirmishes. General Khal thought that the forays had been intended to draw the army off course, though how they would figure that, Shallan didn’t know—but she did know she was growing tired of feeling damp all the time. They had been out here nearly two weeks now, and some of the soldiers had begun to mutter that the army would need to return to the warcamps soon, or risk not getting back before the highstorms resumed.

Shallan stalked across the bridge and passed several lines of spearmen setting up behind short, wavelike ridges in the stone—likely the footings of old walls. She found Dalinar and the other highprinces in a tent set up at the center of camp. It was one of six identical tents, and it wasn’t immediately obvious which one held the four highprinces. A safety precaution of some sort, she assumed. As Shallan stepped in out of the rain, she intruded upon their conversation.

“The current plateau does have very favorable defensible positions,” Aladar said, gesturing toward a map set out on the travel table before them. “I prefer our chances against an assault here to moving deeper.”

“And if we move deeper,” Dalinar said with a grunt, “we’ll be in danger of getting split during an attack, half on one plateau, half on the other.”

“But do they even need to attack?” Roion said. “If I were them, I’d just form up out there as if to prepare for an attack—but then I wouldn’t. I’d stall, forcing my enemy to get stuck out here waiting for an attack until the highstorms returned!”

“He makes a valid point,” Aladar admitted.