Chapter 56

I have kept my part of the bargain, and will not be budged. I have stayed upon my land, bringing blessings to the people of Nalthis—gifting them the power of gods, as I was so long denied. I do not repeat the mistakes of the past.

S igzil soared beneath a black-clouded sky with five of his squires. Thunder crashed above, accompanied by red flashes—like the cracked knuckles of a god preparing to come in for the kill.

They intercepted the squad of Heavenly Ones, forcing them to abandon the boulders they’d been carrying—which otherwise would have fallen on the defenders of Narak. A brutal clash followed, and it displayed none of the polite respect he’d come to expect from the shanay-im. Where once they’d paired off against Windrunners and fought aerial duels, now three ganged up on one of his squires, each exchange furious and brutal.

There had been deaths in previous clashes, but those had been rare. Not anymore. After one day, Sigzil had already lost eight Windrunners. Eight.

He Lashed himself straight toward the beleaguered squire, Rowalan, and engaged all three of his foes, Shardspear a silvery sweeping arc in the air. It reshaped into a glaive as he fought, matching those carried by the Azish Imperial Guard.

His attacks drove the enemy back. He was extra careful to keep an eye out for any daggers that warped the air. So far, none of the enemy carried those weapons that could kill spren—but scientists at Urithiru were working overtime to perfect the methodology, and he was certain the enemy was doing the same. With the fate of the world at stake, it wouldn’t be long before prototypes of those weapons came to this battlefield.

His foes surrounded him, cautious, watching. Two lunged—and with a grunt, Sigzil spun in the air, Lashing himself backward. Then, gathering his Stormlight, he performed a calculated Lashing upward, his weapon lengthening to a lance. As he’d guessed, the third of the shanay-im had tried to dive in while Sigzil was distracted.

Sigzil countered, using multiple Lashings and thrusting upward, his lance going straight through the Heavenly One’s chest and piercing the gemheart. The malen’s Lashings continued carrying him downward—his burning eyes forming twin trails of smoke—as Sigzil pulled his weapon free. Fused always looked surprised when he killed them, as if they couldn’t fully believe that a common man had bested their millennia of experience. Fortunately for Sigzil, most of those millennia had been spent torturing Heralds rather than fighting.

As rain started to fall, the remaining five shanay-im broke off and fled into the darkness. There was more to the reason he fought better here than he had before; Sigzil had yet to see any of their best fighters. In Hearthstone, Leshwi had almost killed him. Then she had let him go. He missed those Heavenly Ones, who had not only been more honorable, but more sane. It was almost as if maintaining a code throughout the centuries had kept them from deteriorating.

“Thoughts?” he asked.

“Calculating their speeds …” Vienta said. “They have built to Heavenly One stable cruising velocity. I believe they are retreating for real this time, rather than planning to double back.”

“My gut says the same.”

“Your gut?” she asked. “The same organ that tells you when to eat?”

“It’s a human thing,” he replied, with a smile.

“Nonsense,” she said. “Lots of animals have stomachs, not just humans, though I’ve never thought to count the number of species. Excellent fighting today, by the way.”

“Thanks,” he said, as the Heavenly Ones vanished away beneath the cover of lightning. They were frighteningly effective at killing, but their morale was weak. They preferred quick clashes that left the dead floating in the air.

Sigzil soared to join his squires, who were healing wounds from the quick skirmish. “Storms,” Fent said. “Companylord, you fight like … like the wind itself sometimes.”

“Stormblessed’s training,” another squire, Deti, whispered.

Sigzil shot them a glare. They knew what he thought of them mythicizing him and the other members of Bridge Four. The pair shut up immediately, saluting. For now, he sent them on patrol, then flew toward Narak to take battle reports. As he did, Leyten joined him.

“Your plan is working, Sig,” Leyten said, giving the salute of the day as proof of his identity. “Decisively attacking those heading for our core plateaus diverted others to Narak Four. They ended up concentrating their efforts there.”

Narak Four was the first of their intentional weak points, and Sigzil’s big mathematical gamble. Make the enemy waste resources taking ground that Sigzil’s people could afford to lose.

“Reports on the rest of our soldiers?” Sigzil asked.

“None dead, Sig,” Leyten said. “But …”

“What?”

“There still hasn’t been a shipment of Stormlight from Urithiru.” They locked eyes. Sigzil had been informed—and had in turn informed his command staff and generals—of Dalinar’s absence. He trusted the Bondsmith to do what had to be done, but storms … they’d been counting on Dalinar to offer a continually renewing supply of Stormlight.

Without that, Sigzil wasn’t certain they could hold this location, with or without his strategic plans.

“We’d be better off,” Leyten said, “if we were at full force, so we could rest our Windrunners more between bouts. What was Dalinar thinking, sending over half our Windrunners to ferry troops during a time like this?”

“He was keeping an oath, Leyten,” Sigzil said, landing on the boarded ground of the platform—built up with wood, to put a barrier between their feet and Deepest Ones who might be moving through the stone. The Deepest Ones could get through some other materials, but formerly living things like wood slowed them significantly. “You know how important that is.”

Leyten said nothing. Though normally of a cheerful disposition, the curly-haired man looked haggard today. He’d lost a squire earlier in the morning. Sigzil sent him off through the light rain, with a reminder that a highstorm was expected before too long. Then he started taking reports from the scribes who had splashed through puddles and rainspren to join him.

There were so many things to do when you were in charge. He’d barely touched any of his experiments since Kaladin’s retirement two months ago. Sigzil had imagined the freedom of being able to set his own schedule—to make room for things like his large-scale project to determine how quickly people lost Stormlight, depending on how many oaths they’d spoken.

It turned out he could advance such projects. He had the authority—well, when they weren’t mid-battle—to set up experiments, divert resources. It was everything he needed, except time to attend in person. Right now, Ka showed him enemy troop movements. They had brought some stormforms, who had nearly managed to set one of the gates ablaze during the fighting. The generals were considering having a Stoneward put up a wall to block the gate entirely, but Sigzil worried that would box them in too much. Narak Two was their Oathgate—and he wanted his troops to be able to retreat across those bridges to Urithiru, if needed.

Of course, those bridges—though made of stone—might not survive the fighting. He asked the generals to draw up alternative evacuation plans, then had them warn everyone—yet again—of the impending highstorm. Winds could get extremely dangerous when the two storms met, and the Everstorm appeared to be here to stay.

After that, he went to check on Narak Four—where the fighting had been most fierce—wondering idly about the Fused he’d just killed. He’d have gone back to Braize, and it would take time for him to be reborn. That process usually required days, maybe weeks. But with the Everstorm parked here …

It could probably happen within hours, maybe faster.

Storms. This was going to be a long five days. And he had no time for such worries as a group of Edgedancers returned, leaping the gaps between chasms using modified scouting poles, designed with greatly increased friction at their ends.

Another offensive of Fused, primarily Magnified Ones, was coming—looking like they were going to hit Narak Four, now that its gate had been weakened. It was playing out as he had hoped, but he would rather not lose the plateau too quickly. It wasn’t that he wanted to give up ground; only that when he was forced to, he wanted it to be ground they didn’t need.

So, Sigzil sounded the warning and took to the sky yet again, flying through an omnipresent darkness that was already starting to feel eternal.

Five Heavenly Ones, led by Venli’s former master, Leshwi, had left Urithiru with them. Now they sat alone around a small fire at the outskirts of the listener settlement. Venli and Jaxlim approached them, joined by Thude, one of the leaders of the listeners. The hulking warform malen had a pattern made more of large marbled patches than lines. He wore the same long coat he always had in the past, despite Bila’s mockery of it.

Strangely, Venli occasionally stepped on sand: an oddity of the washed-out flatland east of the Shattered Plains. Water flooded out this way, and it made ripples on the ground nearest the chasms—depositing crem there. Additionally, you ended up with these pockets of sand. Venli had never seen anything like it, although she’d been told some beaches had similar geology.

Leshwi stood up as Venli and the others approached. Over the last few days, the powers of the five Heavenly Ones had given out … something that shouldn’t have happened.

“Leshwi,” Thude said to Appreciation, with Venli translating into Alethi for the Fused, “we would speak with you. Would you walk with us a moment?”

Leshwi looked to each of them in turn. Her once fine attire of flowing robes and long trains had been cut away by force of necessity. Now she stood in clothing that, up top, was still regal—but below her knees it was covered in crem and stuck with sand. She didn’t have proper footwear, only an intricate wrap that started at her thighs and continued down around her feet.

She fell into step with them as they walked back among the community of listeners. One of the chasmfiends opened an eye and inspected Venli as she passed, but then returned to snoring. The alliance between chasmfiends and listeners was something Venli couldn’t get a straight answer about—the others were suspicious of her, and rightly so. Timbre had been speaking to the chasmfiends though, and claimed to be close to figuring it out.

“I suspect I know the meaning of this intervention,” Leshwi said. Her rhythm was one of Odium’s twisted ones, the Rhythm of Conceit. “If you insist, we will go on our way. Our presence here is dangerous to you and yours.”

Thude hummed to Anxiety. “That isn’t what we were going to suggest, Leshwi.”

“Isn’t it?” The tall Fused had an imperious way of speaking, even when she was obviously trying not to be domineering. “If my servants had attracted Odium’s ire, I would not have thought twice about casting them out. Yet here I am, essentially a servant to you—or at least a suffered visitor.” She stopped, gazing down at her feet in the sand. “I do not know my place anymore. I am … unaccustomed to walking.”

“Your Light ran out,” Venli said, excited. “It’s an oddity, correct?”

“Yes,” Leshwi whispered. “Normally, a Heavenly One can fly as long as she wants, without the Light ever running out, unless she uses it for Lashing something else. Mine running out means he’s coming for us.”

“Maybe,” Venli said. “Or maybe you’re not as attuned to his power as you once were. Radiants, as their oaths increase, can hold Stormlight better. And Fused?”

“We have no such gradations,” Leshwi said. “We are simply his. And always have been.”

“Until now,” Jaxlim said.

The four of them halted, surrounded by listeners going about their daily duties. It had been Jaxlim’s idea: to bring Leshwi among them to remind her of the people she’d come to join, and let her hear their peaceful rhythms.

“The old songs,” Thude said, “mention that we, in abandoning Odium and Ba-Ado-Mishram, broke their power over us. Our rejection meant they couldn’t touch us—and it meant Odium could not destroy us.”

“He’s forbidden from directly intervening against his enemies,” Venli said. “Something about his agreement with the other gods. If you want to join us, Leshwi, you have to do the same.”

“Give up the sky ?” Leshwi said to Agony.

“If that’s what it takes,” Jaxlim said to Peace, “then yes.”

Leshwi raised her eyes. “I don’t know if I’m capable,” she whispered. “I have seen thousands of years. I at times feel more spren than singer. Walking like this makes me wince with each step. I cannot change.”

“You already have, Leshwi,” Venli said.

“This is what it is to be a listener,” Jaxlim said. “To reject their conflict. We belong to no god save Roshar itself.”

“And the stones that make it …” Venli whispered.

“The stones,” Leshwi said softly. “Once, long ago, our ancestors worshipped the spren of the stones. By the time I was a young girl, my kind had turned to Odium, once spren and Honor abandoned us.” She hummed to another corrupted rhythm. “But it wasn’t ever that simple, was it? Some spren stood with humans, others stood apart, others still listened to us. It was a mess … It always has been.”

“Join us,” Venli said. “Truly.”

“Is it really possible though?” Leshwi asked. “For all your thoughts of isolation, you were manipulated to his ends as soon as he wanted you.” She glanced to them. “It is not the same for a Fused as it is for all of you. I am bound to Odium. I can perhaps reject him verbally—but he would retain a hold on me. He could make my existence miserable next time I die. It is a … difficult thing you ask.”

“It is,” Jaxlim said. And left it at that.

Venli wanted to push, but she trusted her mother’s wisdom. Leshwi nodded to them and hummed to Praise—not in acceptance of their demand, but in acknowledgment that they were trying to help. She walked off, and Venli didn’t know if she noticed that she’d used one of the old rhythms. Not one of Odium’s. Leshwi did that sometimes, as Venli had—off and on—during her days finding her way out.

If Venli had managed it, Leshwi could. For although Leshwi was Fused, a soul permanently bound to Odium’s service, Venli found it difficult to believe anyone could be farther gone than she had been herself.

“She will make the right choice,” Jaxlim said to Resolve.

“How do you know?” Thude asked.

“Because it’s her choice to make,” Venli said, grasping what her mother meant. “And so her choice is the right one. We will respect it.”

Jaxlim hummed to Praise, smiling. Venli … Venli nearly teared up at the compliment. She’d never felt like she was enough for her mother. She had spent years blaming Eshonai; how strange to realize that all Venli truly needed to do to win her mother’s praise was … well, be worthy of it.

“Come,” Thude said to her. “Your spren has been asking about the chasmfiends and how all of this came about. You’ve proven yourself true, by the bonds and spren you have brought to us. I have been given permission from the rest of the Five to explain how we did it.”

At last. Venli nodded, eager, humming to Excitement.

“We didn’t have a keeper of songs once Jaxlim fell ill,” Thude said to Embarrassment, “so I had to compose this one myself. I call it the Song of the Beasts, the story of our final decision to make peace with the creatures. I’m sorry if it’s uneven or amateur.”

“It’s wonderful,” Jaxlim said. “I love what you’ve done, Thude. Please. Share it with my daughter.”

So, Thude started singing.