Chapter 85

In the end, it is my lies that do me in. Another lesson I fail to learn time and time again. I recognize this flaw. I hope it does not someday destroy me.

A dolin came awake in a shiver of cold ice. He gasped, his eyes snapping open, his muscles going tense and rigid. His vision was cloudy from tears, and he remembered …

Falling.

The thunderclast.

Darkness.

Sounds in his ears, foreign at first, but then … then voices he knew.

“The leg!” That was May.

“I can’t … I can’t do more!” A girl. The Truthwatcher. What was her name? Rahel? Yes … that was it …

She was crying.

Adolin blinked away tears and found himself lying, still half in his Plate, by the broken remnants of the thunderclast’s hip—which they’d apparently been forced to cut open using Neziham’s Shardblade to pull him free.

Adolin was alive, but he saw something his mind refused to accept.

“Adolin?” May said, taking him by the face. “Bless the Almighty. Adolin, can you hear me?”

“My … leg …” Adolin said.

His right leg ended in a stump, below the knee.

“I tried!” Rahel said, crying. “I … I can’t … I …”

“The thunderclast pinned you,” May said, her voice calm. The calm that all officers were trained for at times of great emotion. “The Plate shattered, and your leg was mashed to basically nothing. But you’re alive, Adolin.”

He blinked, numb.

“Adolin,” May said. “Rahel healed your other wounds, which were severe. When we return to Urithiru, a more experienced Radiant can give you your leg back.”

Right. Of course they could. Adolin pushed through the shock. “The city?”

“Fighting on all fronts around the dome,” she said. “Archers had to flee as Heavenly Ones took the balcony. The dome is basically lost, and worse, one side was blasted completely open. Kushkam was holding that gap. But … Notum said he hadn’t seen the commandant in some time, and his men were in shambles. I think they may have dropped the firebombs inside the dome, but first dozens of Fused broke out into the city through the gap.”

In the distance, shouting. Fighting.

“Get this Plate off me,” Adolin said, pushing himself up on one elbow. “It’s useless in this shape. We have to go help.”

“Adolin, your leg—”

“I’m our most experienced field commander,” he said, waving for assistance hauling him to his feet. “I must give orders if Kushkam has fallen. And the rest of us are needed to fight!”

May looked to the others—the ten or so men left from Adolin’s assault on the thunderclast. Including stalwart Hmask, who finally—ignoring everyone else—helped Adolin pry free the breastplate, then climb to his feet.

To his foot.

Together, they started toward the breach in the dome. Adolin relied on Hmask and another soldier to basically carry him with one arm around each. They hurried as best they could, but he knew—deep down—this city was lost. It had been lost the moment those Fused had arrived.

Storms. Just like Kholinar. Anxietyspren trailed him in the shape of twisting black crosses. There was nothing he could do.

Colot had been leading the defense against conventional singers who had broken out of the other side of the dome. Only some ragged remnants were available to face the Fused. These groups flowed together as they reached the medical quarter.

There they found an unlikely group of reinforcements: the imperial honor guard and Yanagawn himself, dressed for battle. He stood there, sword in hand, staring at …

At death.

Adolin and his group lurched to a stop in front of a field of corpses. Hundreds of them, mostly singers, covered the plaza between the broken hole in the dome and the medical building.

Dozens of Fused dead?

Why was it so quiet here? Adolin squeezed Hmask’s shoulder, and they lurched forward, limping among the bodies. Yanagawn hurried over, his fine cape stained with singer blood from the bodies below. It was difficult to even find a place to step.

“Adolin!” Yanagawn said.

“Excellency,” Adolin said, dazed, “did you do this?”

“We found them like this!” he said. “I … I know I shouldn’t have come, but Kushkam called up every available soldier. My honor guard wouldn’t leave me, so …” His sword drooped in his fingers. “I didn’t arrive in time for … whatever this is …”

They continued picking through the field, where Yanagawn’s soldiers used an old battlefield tactic of searching for painspren, which would indicate someone alive. One cried out and pushed aside a body swarming with them, where he found Kushkam. “He’s still breathing!”

Rahel ran to help, her gemstone bearer hurrying behind with a sack of Stormlight. Adolin, Hmask, and Yanagawn picked their way toward the breach in the dome. He could feel a lingering heat radiating from that hole, but that hadn’t reached these Fused outside. He counted eight separate varieties here—dead, tens of them. Their gemhearts crushed, their chests having been either ripped open or smashed. Storms. What could do something like this to the enemy’s most elite fighters? This many could have brought down Shardbearers, Radiants. Yet he saw the bodies of neither.

A ribbon of light announced Notum. “Adolin,” he said. “Firebombs were deployed in the dome. Those conventional enemy forces who weren’t caught in the flames were forced to retreat back through the Oathgate. We have a chance to …” He trailed off, looking around. “How did you kill this many Fused ?”

“I didn’t,” Adolin whispered, pointing. They reached the culmination of the carnage, a part of the silent battlefield nearest the broken gap in the dome. Inside, though the fires had gone out, flamespren danced on the stones, enjoying the heat.

He could see through the gap to the darkened center, where singers—who could withstand more heat than humans—were reemerging. They’d fill the dome before his forces could go in and face them. Still, Kushkam’s firebombs had prevented complete disaster, forcing an important enemy retreat. They’d used most of the oil in the city, but it had worked.

The Fused who escaped before the flames should have been able to take the city anyway. But in this spot, right by the hole, enemy corpses were heaped into a kind of pinnacle. Adolin could imagine enemy after enemy throwing themselves at this location—he’d seen this kind of display before with common troops trying to pull down a Shardbearer.

Adolin had to stumble and crawl to climb that pile of corpses. At the top, they found two bodies. Unarmored.

Taln, the Herald, knelt here with his head back, speared with a dozen lances, which propped up his corpse—his hand still holding the crushed skull of a dead Fused. In death, he was covered in blood, his face tipped toward the sky and his mouth open as if in a shout. Leaning against him from behind, nestled among the bodies as if looking for a place to rest, was Ash, a bloodied and chipped sword in her lap.

She was smiling. Bleeding from a good two dozen hits, she looked at Adolin, who knelt at the edge of the little crater at the top of the pile of corpses.

“This time,” she whispered, “I won’t let him go alone.”

She closed her eyes and fell still.

Adolin gaped, awespren bursting around him in blue, as Colot arrived nearby—at last—with real reinforcements. He set them to guard the breach in the dome, though they had to stand back a little before the heat.

Common singers flooded the dome inside. And with them he saw Abidi the Heavenly One. He and his troops seemed shaken, and didn’t engage Colot’s reinforcements at the gap. The fire that had burned many—their corpses still inside—would have them frightened.

Adolin sat back, trying very hard to ignore both the corpses and the way his leg fell impossibly, no foot or calf to brace it. Exhausted, drained, Adolin let himself close his eyes and breathe out a sigh.

They’d paid a terrible price, but the city would last another day.

Dalinar was at a parley.

Two armies, one human and one singer, were arrayed here to display their might—but Dalinar could tell they didn’t mean to do battle. The postures of the soldiers to his sides were, ironically, too aggressive. Their stances were more like poses, their weapons displayed prominently, particularly their Shards. Plus, there were too few anticipationspren.

A smaller group of people—including the Windrunner they’d followed via Connection—was meeting in a small, open-sided pavilion between the armies. Discussing terms of surrender perhaps? Or negotiating a treaty?

Beside him, Navani dropped the spear that had appeared in her hand as they’d joined this vision. She lifted Gav, and a few people glanced at him, muttering about the odd spren.

“There’s going to be a fight soon,” Navani said. “Those ones in the center are deciding terms for the battle. We should get away from the front lines.”

“Actually,” Dalinar said, “this is a parley for peace.”

“Really?” she said, looking down the line of soldiers. “How can you tell?”

“Instinct,” he said. “I’m going to put us into that group at the center. All right?”

“Do it.”

He thought about how many times he’d been in similar meetings, which made a faint line of light Connect him to those having the discussions. With that, he changed the perspective for him, Navani, and Gav; they appeared with the parley group, inside the pavilion. Yes … people didn’t negotiate battlefield rules with refreshments on hand. But terms of peace?

The table they stood around also supported this conclusion. It was covered in maps that had been drawn on, scribbled out, circled, annotated. Several humans—both men and women—were in the process of writing on those maps currently, though the writers all seemed to be this era’s version of ardents. At least they wore the familiar grey robes—though these bore odd embroidery—even if the hairstyles weren’t what Dalinar expected.

The Windrunner—looking closer, Dalinar now thought maybe he was Riran like Evi—stepped up to the table. He had more lines on his face now, and appeared much as Dalinar remembered him from the Feverstone Keep vision. He felt excited as he realized how close they were. He turned and scanned the room, noting Radiants of several orders, including—at the back, watching—Melishi, plus the Heralds Kalak and Nale.

Across the table from the humans were what should have been an impossibility: Regal singers, in a variety of imposing forms, their eyes glowing faintly red in the canopied shade. This was the False Desolation, when the singers had gained forms of power without the intervention of Odium. Though many thought it just a story, this brutal, bloody war had ended with the “Voidbringers” becoming simple parshmen.

Dalinar glanced at Navani, who frowned back at him. If this was one of the most terrible times in history … why were they all chatting in a pavilion? Were they about to witness the last breakdown of talks? Perhaps he’d been too quick to assume there wouldn’t be a battle today.

“Look,” the Windrunner—Navani had said his name was Garith—said. “We cannot promise you that land! As I told you, we don’t yet have an agreement from the kings who rule there.”

Dalinar eyed the maps, trying to judge the locations. It seemed … they were near Iri. Is that where the singers live between Desolations? Surely they couldn’t all fit in one kingdom, not if they had the strength of numbers to assault the entire world …

“You could fight the kings of those regions,” said a direform Regal at the front of the enemy contingent. Femalen, with a pattern of black and red that was made up of large patches of each color. She had wickedly barbed carapace and an intense stare. “Conquer the region, then expel the humans there.”

“I’m not going to fight my own people,” Garith said.

“They’re not your people.”

“All humans are my people. I’m Radiant.”

“Our god will not accept a treaty,” the direform said, “ without this land. Our people are tired of being herded into the mountains and unfertile regions. We must have more farmland.” Behind her, the others hummed to a sharp rhythm, indicating their agreement.

Garith sat down at the table, causing the three ardents to stop writing. The Radiant—who didn’t wear his armor, but instead a simple tunic—put his hands to his head, sighing. “Do you want to return to the killing? You said your god was willing to listen and negotiate.”

“For this land,” another one said from behind.

“You have all of Moladetia,” Garith said, waving to the maps. “It includes swaths of farmland, with perfect hills, around Eila. Isn’t that enough?”

“No,” the singer said. “Our people in Silnaka cannot continue to survive in the highlands. We need not one singer kingdom, but three. Why are we confined to mountains and one stretch of land? We must thrive.”

“It’s always been enough before …” Garith said.

The singers just hummed to that, drawing angerspren. Finally, the direform at the front spoke. “We are done for today.” She withdrew with the others, leaving the pavilion. The enemy army beyond started to retreat, moving in warpairs, as the listeners had once done—something he hadn’t seen in previous eras.

Smaller numbers than modern militaries, Dalinar noted. Judging by counts on the map … He’d always had a hunch that the numbers in old battle reports, written by ancient scholars, were inflated. He couldn’t imagine hundreds of thousands of troops meeting on a battlefield in the days before modern logistics.

After the singers had withdrawn, Radiants began to pull seats over to the table. Notably, Melishi—the Bondsmith—continued to watch from the rear. Did he know he stood with two Heralds, or did Nale and Kalak use aliases at this time?

Navani and Gav waited quietly. Dalinar, however, pulled a seat over to the table himself. He didn’t have time for quiet observation—according to his clock, he had barely over two days until his meeting with Odium. He had to find the answers to what had happened to Honor, and he was close.

“Garith,” said a female Radiant with the colorings of an Edgedancer on her clothing, “it might be time to give this up. They won’t agree.”

“They will, ” Garith said. “They’re willing to talk. We merely have to find the right path. Please. Give me more time.” He put one hand on the table.

Dalinar leaned forward. He’d been in meetings like this, trying to persuade everyone to follow a course he knew was right. He was used to resistance. Complications. Yet here, one Radiant, then another, then a third put their hands out on top of Garith’s.

“You’ve held us together,” one of them said. “I didn’t believe you could, but you did it.”

“We lost the tower, but we remained a people,” the Edgedancer said. “The Radiants support you.”

Dalinar hesitantly put his hand on top of the others. “They have their god though,” he said, trying to work it into the conversation. “The aggression she inspires worries me.”

“Agreed,” said an Azish Stoneward as they pulled their hands back. “But there is dissension among the singers because of it. That group that split off … we’ve been tracking them. They have abandoned all forms. They’d rather go without than bow to Mishram and the Unmade.”

“They make a mistake,” Garith said. “She’s more reasonable than Odium ever was.”

“You don’t know that,” the Edgedancer replied. “It’s been thousands of years since anyone fought Odium.”

Garith looked like he wanted to say something, but didn’t. Storms. He was hiding something. Was he … was he meeting with the Unmade? In secret?

Was he a traitor?

“I’d feel better,” Dalinar said tentatively, “if I knew more of what to expect from our side. Regarding our god.”

“Yes, well,” Garith said. “Honor won’t meet with anyone other than Melishi. So unless he’ll give us the gift of a little guidance for once …”

All eyes turned toward the Bondsmith. The man met the stares with a level one of his own. “Honor does not interfere any longer. Our doings are ours alone.”

“But you have spoken to him,” Garith said.

“He does not interfere,” Melishi said, his arms folded.

Garith sighed, looking back to the others sitting at the table. Ardents were quietly rolling up maps, but otherwise there was silence. Except for a gentle wind.

Are you there? Dalinar thought. Ancient god? Are you still watching?

He got … a feeling, but no words. The ancient gods—the Wind, the Stone, the Night—had less power in this time. They found it difficult to speak.

“We are close to lasting peace,” Garith said, blue fronds of sincerityspren unfolding around him. “I promise you, we’re closer to a treaty than we seem.”

“They will betray it,” Melishi said. “They are the Voidbringers, destroyers.”

“And what are we ?” Garith snapped. “We’re all Voidbringers. Every time we pick up a spear or a Blade and slaughter someone over this cursed land, we become Voidbringers. Singer or human, it’s the same. That’s the Void, Melishi.”

“Watchers at the rim,” the Stoneward said. “Someone must fight.”

“Yes,” Garith said, standing. “But we mustn’t love it so much we abandon other options. This treaty will work. It … it must … Just give me time.”

“You have it,” the Edgedancer said. “But we can’t keep at this forever.”

Garith nodded, and the meeting began to disperse. Dalinar watched Garith walk from the pavilion, where he was joined by a small group of other Windrunners. He glanced back at the pavilion, then took to the sky with his attendants.

Follow … the Wind said.

Storms. He didn’t have the powers to follow with Windrunning, but he had to find out what they were up to.

“Does anyone else worry about where he goes?” Dalinar asked the others.

“He’s always been like that,” the Edgedancer said. “But he’s led us well, Naze. You have to admit that.”

They began to break down the pavilion, and he saw Navani taking some of the notes from the ardents and scanning them. Dalinar felt a building sense of foreboding.

It was coming. The Recreance was here.

He jumped as someone stepped up beside him. Melishi.

“Tonight is the night,” Melishi said. “We know where he’ll be. I hope it won’t break the others when they realize Garith is a traitor.”

“Tonight,” Dalinar said. “Where?”

“About an hour’s walk from the keep,” Melishi said. “Same place as last time, though we were too late. Tonight we’ll go early and watch. Your warnings in the past have been useful, Naze, but this must be done. Otherwise, Garith will destroy us all. Are you in?”

“Yes,” Dalinar whispered, and a line of light burst into existence tying him to Melishi. He pulled on the line of light, and the setting warped around him. In seconds he was lying prone on the stone ground, with Navani, Gav, Melishi, and several others—including Kalak.

It was night, first moon, and they hid in a hollow in the ground, near some trees, their bodies camouflaged beneath branches and fallen leaves. The landscape here was made up of many towering rock formations, reminding him of the place where the Heralds had abandoned their Blades. Perhaps this was the same region—with rocks like buildings, forming many canyons, small trees lining a stream that ran past behind Dalinar.

The lofty rock formations in front of him—thirty or forty feet tall—surrounded a kind of natural glade or clearing. He didn’t like this spot; he saw too many places for people to get around you, sneak up without being seen. But perhaps it was a good space for a clandestine meeting, with shadows cast by moonlight.

He took Navani’s hand and mouthed “Sorry” to her in apology for doing this so brashly. She nodded, and took Gav by the hand. He seemed to be doing well, his head cocked as if he were listening to something. Storms, it couldn’t actually be Elhokar, could it?

Lights in the sky. Windrunners, glowing with Stormlight, landed together on the ground ahead, among the rocks. Dalinar leaned forward, and got a glare from Melishi, so he settled back again, not disturbing their cover.

Garith paced the stone, looking worried. Storms, that posture … that concern. This was a man working hard to hold too many things together, to keep the threads from unraveling, to keep a people united.

I’ve known that feeling, Dalinar thought idly. I’ve been that man. But why meet with the enemy to—

A moment later, Dalinar had shifted places. Quick as an eyeblink, he was in Garith’s place in the vision.

Damnation. He’d empathized too strongly with the man’s plight, and had accidentally activated his powers. Panicked, he looked around, trying to spot Navani—but the place where she and the others lay was well hidden. All he saw was a blanket of fallen leaves. Next to him, the other Windrunners shifted, one glancing at the moon, checking the time.

“Garith,” one said, “are you sure about this?”

Before Dalinar could reply, the sound of footsteps on stone drew their attention. A group of three singers emerged from the shadows. So, Garith was meeting with them in secret, and Melishi wanted proof of this, perhaps? Dalinar narrowed his eyes, but tried not to be aggressive or out of character. Garith, whose place he had taken, had arranged this. Dalinar needed to play along.

The direform femalen from the meeting stalked up to Garith, her figure—like those of all direforms—covered in sharp barbs of carapace. While the other Windrunners backed away, Dalinar stood his ground. She came right up to him, standing a few inches taller than he was. She studied him, and her expression softened—her humming changing to a comforting rhythm.

Then she bent forward, took Dalinar’s head in her hands, and kissed him.