Words of Radiance

Bluth had to be reminded again to give her a hand up into the wagon. Tag ushered the parshmen into their wagon, cursing at them for moving so slowly, then climbed into his seat and took up the tail position.

The first moon began to rise, making it lighter than Shallan would have liked. It seemed to her that each crunching footstep of the chulls was as loud as a highstorm’s thunder. They brushed the plants she’d named crustspines, with their branches like tubes of sandstone. Those cracked and shook.

Progress was not quick—chulls never were. As they moved, she picked out lights on a hillside, frighteningly close. Campfires not a ten-minute walk away. A shifting of winds brought the sound of distant voices, of metal on metal, perhaps men sparring.

Tvlakv turned the wagons eastward. Shallan frowned in the night. “Why this way?” she whispered.

“Remember that gully we saw?” Bluth whispered. “Putting it between us and them, in case they hear and come looking.”

Shallan nodded. “What can we do if they catch us?”

“It won’t be good.”

“Couldn’t we bribe our way past them?”

“Deserters ain’t like common bandits,” Bluth said. “These men, they’ve given up everything. Oaths. Families. When you desert, it breaks you. It leaves you willing to do anything, because you’ve already given away everything you could have cared about losing.”

“Wow,” Shallan said, looking over her shoulder.

“I… Yeah, you spend your whole life with a decision like that, you do. You wish any honor were left for you, but know you’ve already given it away.”

He fell silent, and Shallan was too nervous to prod him further. She continued watching those lights on the hillside as the wagons—blessedly—rolled farther and farther into the night, eventually escaping into the darkness.

16. Swordmaster

Nimbleform has a delicate touch.

Gave the gods this form to many,
Tho’ once defied, by the gods they were crushed.
This form craves precision and plenty.

From the Listener Song of Listing, 27th stanza

“You know,” Moash said from Kaladin’s side, “I always thought this place would be…”

“Bigger?” Drehy offered in his lightly accented voice.

“Better,” Moash said, looking around the practice grounds. “It looks just like where darkeyed soldiers practice.”

These sparring grounds were reserved for Dalinar’s lighteyes. In the center, the large open courtyard was filled with a thick layer of sand. A raised wooden walkway ran around the perimeter, stretching between the sand and the narrow surrounding building, which was just one room deep. That narrow building wrapped around the courtyard except at the front, which had a wall with an archway for the entrance, and had a wide roof that extended, giving shade to the wooden walkway. Lighteyed officers stood chatting in the shade or watching men sparring in the sunlight of the yard, and ardents moved this way and that, delivering weapons or drinks.

It was a common layout for training grounds. Kaladin had been in several buildings like this. Mostly back when he’d first been training in Amaram’s army.

Kaladin set his jaw, resting his fingers on the archway leading into the training grounds. It had been seven days since Amaram’s arrival in the warcamps. Seven days of dealing with the fact that Amaram and Dalinar were friends.

He’d decided to be storming happy about Amaram’s arrival. After all, it meant that Kaladin would be able to find a chance to finally stick a spear in that man.

No, he thought, entering the training grounds, not a spear. A knife. I want to be up close to him, face-to-face, so I can watch him panic as he dies. I want to feel that knife going in.

Kaladin waved to his men and entered through the archway, forcing himself to focus on his surroundings instead of Amaram. That archway was good stone, quarried nearby, built into a structure with the traditional eastward reinforcement. Judging by the modest crem deposits, these walls hadn’t been here long. It was another sign that Dalinar was starting to think of the warcamps as permanent—he was taking down simple, temporary buildings and replacing them with sturdy structures.

“I don’t know what you expected,” Drehy said to Moash as he inspected the grounds. “How would you make sparring grounds different for the lighteyes? Use diamond dust instead of sand?”

“Ouch,” Kaladin said.

“I don’t know how,” Moash said. “It’s just that they make such a big deal of it. No darkeyes on the ‘special’ sparring grounds. I don’t see what makes them special.”

“That’s because you don’t think like lighteyes,” Kaladin said. “This place is special for one simple reason.”

“Why’s that?” Moash asked.