Chapter 39

I believe, sincerely, that the winds blowing in from the future indicate this will be the final confrontation of Honor and Odium.

S torms, but it felt good to put on his Plate again.

Adolin had missed it during the entire trip through Shadesmar. He had been forced to ride into a very difficult fight without it, the scar from which he’d carry despite the attention of a Radiant healer. Apparently Adolin had been thinking too much about the scar, making it permanent. Radiant powers were strange.

Actually, Maya thought, humans are strange.

He smiled. She’d explained how to isolate his thoughts for privacy, but he saw no reason to do so—and instead felt a little thrill. He knew that even some Radiant bonds didn’t allow the two to read one another’s minds; it was nice to have something that not all of them could do.

He stood on the cobbled ground before the large dome, getting a report from May Aladar as each piece of Shardplate was locked onto him. Sabatons, then greaves, cuisses, culet and faulds, skirt …

“I think we need a medical facility that’s closer,” May said. “I suggested those buildings along the east side of the square.” She pursed her lips. “We will have one healer to provide Regrowth.”

Surprised, Adolin glanced at her as the armorers locked the breastplate into place. “I didn’t think any Edgedancers could be spared.”

She stepped in closer and whispered, “My ward Rahel is a budding Radiant. She hasn’t wanted to tell people because it’s not Edgedancing, but the other one.”

“Truthwatcher,” he said.

“Yes. She has quietly gone to Radiant Precilia for training, so she knows how to heal. She’s never touched a weapon, and the prospect of fighting terrifies her, but she’s willing to help at the hospital.”

He nodded. “Give her my sincere thanks.” A single Radiant was an amazing resource. Rahel could stabilize the most dire of the wounded—leaving the rest to surgeons—and that would save a great number of lives.

“I will pass along your regards,” May said. “Brightness Navani wished to send you an Edgedancer, so I suggested this. Rahel is skilled, and it will give her experience on an actual battlefield. Regardless, there is a secondary reason to use that first line of buildings to the east as a hospital.”

“Which is?”

“Saferoom underneath,” May explained. “It used to be a smuggler’s cellar, and I was informed that it will be an emergency bolt-hole to hide the emperor. Having a hospital there will disguise why he might run for that specific building.”

Adolin nodded again, making a mental note to learn how to find and use the saferoom. He might need to stash his scribes there, if the dome fell. As he considered, he saw some distinctive figures approaching. Friends from earlier days.

Adolin grinned, tearing himself away from the armorers—who were working on his pauldrons—to meet the newcomers, slapping shoulders very carefully. “Gerenor, Isalor, Kappak. Storms, it’s good to see you. Thank you.”

Kappak—a man with short hair that had a tendency to stick up—laughed. “Adolin, you think I’d ship back to the Shattered Plains? We spent five years there! I’m bored of it.”

“Better to be wherever the Kholin is,” Gerenor said, with a wink. “That’s where the fun happens.”

“Let’s hope not too much fun,” Adolin said. “Thank you for volunteering. I want you each in charge of a battalion. Watch for messages and accept Colot’s word as my own, but if you feel you need to move—then move. I trust you.”

Instead of salutes, he got slaps on the back. The three broke off, each taking command of a block of over six hundred. Adolin jogged to the armorers, metal sparking on cobbles as he went. “Sorry, Geb,” he said to the current head armorer.

“Oh, we know there’s no containing you, Adolin,” the darkeyed man said with a laugh. “Just try not to go into battle without your gauntlets on!”

Colot smiled as Adolin’s pauldrons locked into place on his shoulders.

“What?” Adolin asked.

“Simply remembering what it’s like to serve with you, Brightlord.”

“Military discipline,” May said, holding her ledgers under one arm, “is a different beast entirely when Adolin Kholin is around.”

“You like it,” Adolin said, shoving one hand into a gauntlet, then grinning as he made a fist. Storms, that felt good.

“I do?” May asked.

“Gives you something to complain about.”

“I do not complain,” she said. “I make reports on the principles of efficiency and command structures.” She paused. “You realize your methods shouldn’t work, right?”

“Which part of my methods?” he asked, shoving his fist into the left gauntlet.

“Everyone—from the officers down to the spearmen—calls you by name. You fraternize with every rank, even going out to drink with your armorers. ”

“Geb knows the best places!” Adolin said.

“It’s a gift,” Geb added.

“It shouldn’t work,” May repeated.

“But it does.”

Adolin took his helmet from Dal—Geb’s assistant and son—with a nod of thanks. He turned back to May. “The men know I’m a mediocre officer,” he said, tucking the helmet under his arm. “But they also know I’m a storming good fighter. So it balances out. You should get your bow.”

May started. “What, really? ”

“Unless it violates principles of efficiency and command structures. Colot, I assume we’re short on good archers?”

“Afraid so,” Colot said. “We have some among the volunteers, as well as a few of my former colleagues, but most of this lot are heavy infantry. Armored like bricks, trained for city fighting or supporting a Shardbearer.”

“Well, gather our twenty best archers, then put them under May’s command.”

“ Command? ” May whispered.

“Unless you’d rather not,” he said. “But your father has named you his heir, and if you become highprincess, you’re going to need battlefield experience. Let’s give it a chance. Assuming you have something appropriate to wear for battle.”

All talk of efficiency went out the window as May threw her ledger to her eldest ward and dashed off in a flurry of motion. Adolin grinned, then waved Colot over.

“I saw Beamlin Dorset in the block,” he said softly. “If Beam is here, then Talig is too. They’re a matched pair—and both are handy with a bow. Both also served as Jasnah’s guards, and Beam’s sister is a Radiant. They’ll be comfortable taking orders from a woman, so make Beam May’s second, with Talig as head sergeant. Put them on the interior balcony with the Azish archers; I’ll signal when I need them.”

“It’ll be done, Adolin,” Colot said.

“Great, thanks,” Adolin said, then turned to the head ward. She had curls of light brown in her hair, bespeaking some foreign heritage. “It was Kaminah, wasn’t it?”

She nodded, and seemed surprised he remembered her name.

“Ever been an aide-de-camp before?”

“No, Brightlord.”

“You’ll figure it out,” he said. “Battlefield promotion.”

“I … Brightlord, are you sure?”

“If May trained you, Kaminah, you’ll do fantastically.” She brightened at the words. He pointed toward the dome. “You think you can figure out if the archers’ balcony inside will hold a Shardbearer’s weight?”

“I’m sure we can get an answer!” she said. “Gitora’s training as an engineer. I’ll send her.”

“Excellent,” Adolin said. “While she works on that, you write down orders to Colot and my battalionlords.” He gave her a moment to send Gitora, then she came back and scrambled to get out her ledger. She knelt and put it on her lap to write.

“We’re going to let the Azish do their thing,” he said, eyeing the ranks of glistening soldiers. “Tell my battalion- and companylords not —and I mean that quite fervently—to undermine Azish authority, but also tell them to keep watch. I want three companies from each battalion stationed out here, ready to move in at a moment’s notice and form a classic pike wall, with spear and shield in the front rank. Just two deep for now.

“Station them equidistantly around the outside, and have them wait on my word to rush in and form up. Gallant should stay with his grooms, but get me a type three Shardbearer support squad with orders to protect my rear if I go in. As always, if I fall, retrieving the Plate and Blade are of primary importance. Got that?”

“Got it, Brightlord!”

“Good,” Adolin said. “Let’s get to work. Those singers will arrive at any moment.”

They’re here, Maya said, her voice only faintly labored. I’m watching them on the other side. The Oathgate spren have become fully corrupted, and serve them now.

Huh. She could see into both realms? That might be handy.

Might be, she agreed. Awareness … is good, Adolin. I feel … better and better. I will say: it’s a pleasure watching you work. Feels so familiar.

“Work,” he said, pulling on his helmet. “I haven’t started working yet.”

Liar. You’ve already done the most important parts.

Well, maybe she was right. He took a deep breath, accustoming himself to wearing the helmet. It felt less stuffy than he remembered, and he felt energized to be suited up again. Each movement quicker, his grip like a vise and his bearing like a fortress.

“Miss me?” he whispered to the armor.

Actually, they did, Maya says. They hate waiting.

Adolin smiled. “Maya, if you don’t mind, tell me whatever you can see about the enemy movements.”

Adolin, she said, there are … a great number of them. I know we had reports … but it’s daunting.

“Any way you can get a count of Fused and Regals? The scouts couldn’t tell for certain.”

I’ll try.

When spren like Syl or Pattern were bonded, it pulled them into the Physical Realm completely. Maya was different, and their bond different. Which offered advantages—though he worried maybe he was stretching to find ways to soothe his ego. Because he knew, as he’d acknowledged many times, that this was the era of Radiants.

The Shardbearer was no longer the pinnacle of the battlefield. The young lighteyed man who could outduel almost anyone was no longer nearly as valuable as he’d once been—not when compared to someone who could literally fly or bend stone to their will. In less than two years, Adolin Kholin had become so much smaller than he’d once been.

Despite that, he didn’t chase Radiance. It wasn’t only because his father and aunt expected him to become Radiant … or so he told himself. He wasn’t that petty, was he?

Storms, he thought, marching with his small retinue of scribes and bodyguards to the steps up the outside of the dome. There he waited a moment. Storms, I just want to choose for myself. Without my father’s guidance, or his name, or his decisions for once. Is that so wrong?

You all right? Maya whispered.

I’m fine. He took another deep breath through the helm’s air slits. I’m fine. I can do this without him. My way.

Yeah, I don’t like that line of thought, Maya said to him. Kid, have you got issues. So maybe take it from someone else with issues. It’s fine to need help. I needed it from you. Still might.

Gitora—the younger scribe training as an engineer—came hurrying down the steps. She wore battlefield clothing. Not a havah, but silken trousers underneath a long, colorful tunic slit up the sides. “It will hold your weight, Brightlord,” she said, with a bow.

“Excellent,” he said. “You really do have an eye for engineering.”

“Um …” The girl, maybe fifteen, shifted from one foot to the other. “In fact, the Azish Shardbearer is already up there stomping around. So, less engineering, more simple observation. Though I did check that the balcony could hold you both, and the Azish here agree it will.”

Adolin grinned, waving for his group to follow as they marched up the wooden steps. At the top was a door to the inner balcony, which ran in a long wide loop around the dome. Slots let in light above, not backlighting the archers. Officers also gathered here, watching the dim, flat stone plateau below. The sole feature was the small control building at the center, which could hold perhaps thirty people.

All right, Maya said, I count maybe a hundred or so stormforms moving into position. About as many direforms. That might be the extent of their Regals.

There wasn’t a real equivalent to Regals in the human armies. They were less dangerous than the Fused, but possessed forms of power that made them fearsome fighters. Stormforms, for example, could release bursts of lightning—like the one that had killed a dear friend on the Shattered Plains. A lack he felt every time he went riding.

Are the Heavenly Ones still there? he asked Maya. Or did they fly off once the forces arrived?

Still there, Maya said. The Fused have controlled the nearby beads, turning them into solid ground. They’ve got a lot of Voidlight. I am swimming in the beads off to the side, watching. Looks like … they’re breaking some boats?

To make shields maybe, Adolin said. In a normal siege, you’d break down buildings in nearby villages for wood.

He stepped up to the railing, taking off his helm and putting it under his arm as Kaminah provided a spyglass for him. He used it to get a close-up view of what Kushkam’s soldiers were doing. The Azish military had done as Colot and Maya had initially suggested: gathering in a tight formation right around the central building. A thousand men, though the smallest ring at the center held only thirty or so, with some crossbowmen ready to release bolts into the building as soon as the enemy appeared. Anticipationspren waved around them, like red streamers moving in wind.

They had quickly placed some wooden slats against the bottom half of the doorways to the control building, which they were filling with water. It leaked, but there were enough buckets among the men to fill the thing—and a Soulcaster in an exceptionally ornate outfit stood nearby, face masked to hide their ailment, ready to Soulcast the water into bronze and maybe provide an obstruction to the enemy.

Adolin quickly relayed what Maya had found about numbers of Regals to his scribes, and a messenger girl passed it to Kushkam’s officers. Adolin sincerely hoped that he was wrong—that Kushkam and his forces could hold. He’d soon know, though for now he had to wait.

He hated this part.

His father spoke of the excitement before a battle, the anticipation. Adolin understood some of that. He’d felt the same thing many times on the Shattered Plains … but it had changed for him a while back. Maybe it was a year at war, maybe it was the capture of the Thrill. But he swore it had started long before—perhaps as far back as when he and his father had been betrayed by Sadeas, and left alone to die.

Since that day, Adolin had started to hate battle. He liked showing his skill, he liked wearing the Plate, but he’d begun to be nauseated by the butchery. It … it was silly, but he felt that the battlefield made a mockery of his dueling skills. He’d trained with the sword to better his life and test himself against others. Not to kill.

Fortunately for the army, this sense didn’t detract from his efficiency. He did, and would, slaughter—so he didn’t have a high horse to sit on. Hopefully his only horse was enjoying some grain and not tormenting his grooms.

Adolin, Maya said, something is happening.

First wave? he asked.

Kind of. Look.

Light flashed in a small ring around the command building. The Soulcast bronze vanished to the other realm, as Adolin had anticipated, where it could be shoved aside. Spren burst from the building, soaring through the air on ribbons of red light. A ripple of discomfort and nervous mutters ran through the Azish archers around him, but Adolin recognized this from other battlefields.

“They’re using Voidspren as scouts,” he said. “Kaminah, send a message to the commandant. The enemy will know exactly what terrain is waiting for them, and precisely where we’re positioned. Tell him that I suggest the Azish should pull back and form a wider ring with more troops.”

“Yes, Brightlord!” the scribe said, settling down with her spanreed to send word to the Azish scribe center—while also dispatching one of the other young women as a runner.

Only two minutes later some of the Voidspren returned to the control building and it flashed again—they were reporting back. No troops transferred in at the same moment, but the Soulcast bronze did not reappear. The enemy had removed it even more quickly than Adolin had expected.

The next part took a little time. Time for May to arrive in a uniform with the archery platoon he’d requested. Time for Adolin to mentally prepare himself to become a killer once more. Time for him to note Kushkam ignoring his suggestion, forces remaining in tight ranks around the control building.

Those Voidspren continued to hover around. Maybe someday Aunt Navani’s anti-Light would be a viable way to engage with enemy spren—but for now he ignored them. Chopping one in half with a Shardblade would send it to Shadesmar to recuperate, but there were dozens here, so that wouldn’t matter. He waited. Sweating. Feeling a strange, light ventilation blow through his armor, keeping him cool. Then it happened.

A third flash of light around the command building.

It began.