Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive, #4)

by Brandon Sanderson

“When you get like that,” Syl said, “let me know, all right? Maybe it will help to talk to me about it.” “Yeah. All right.” “And Kal?” she said. “Do the same for me.”

“Because, Dalinar, you’re going to lose. I’m sorry, my friend. It is unavoidable.” “You can’t know that.” “Yet I do.”

Dabbid returned it. Then, remarkably, said something, in a voice soft and gravelly. “Life. Before. Death.”

A single figure, almost invisible in the darkness, clinging to the outside of the tower on the eighth level. Kaladin Stormblessed.

“It’s the brand on … on the forehead of Kaladin Stormblessed.” Ah … “He gives them hope.”

“Pattern, have you lied to us?” His pattern wilted. “… Yes.”

Dabbid had become kind of a mascot for Bridge Four. One of the first men Kaladin had saved. Dabbid represented what had been done to them, and the fact that they’d survived it. Wounded, but still alive.

“It’s not such a terrible thing, to be too weak. Makes us need one another.

“Wit?” Kaladin finally said. “Do you … maybe have a story you could tell me?”

A little light, a little warmth, a little fire and he felt ready to walk out into the winds again. Yet he knew the darkness would return. It always did.

“It will,” Wit said, “but then it will get better. Then it will get worse again. Then better. This is life, and I will not lie by saying every day will be sunshine. But there will be sunshine again, and that is a very different thing to say. That is truth. I promise you, Kaladin: You will be warm again.”

“Become the knife.”

Once, Kaladin had pulled Dabbid out of Damnation itself. It felt good to return that act of heroism with a small one of his own.

Rhythm of War, they called it. Odium and Honor working together, if only for a short time.

“The tones were a terrible cacophony when combined, but somehow beautiful at the same time.” “Like the two of us?” Raboniel asked. “Like the two of us.”

Formless

rats

Smiling because, for how bad everything could be, some things were still good. He shifted as Phendorana poked him. He looked over and caught her grinning as well. “Fine,” he muttered. “You were storming right. You have always been right.” Teft was worth saving.

We sing rhythms of Pain so they may know rhythms of Peace.” “And will he ever let us sing to Peace?”

You’re pretending to be like me, Veil thought. But Wit is right. You deserve to be loved, Shallan. You do.

“You can bear it,” Veil whispered. She stepped forward, eye-to-eye with Shallan. “You can remember it. Our weakness doesn’t make us weak. Our weakness makes us strong. For we had to carry it all these years.”

Strength before weakness, Radiant said. Not a woman who had … who had … Be strong.

And then, like any other illusion that was no longer needed, Veil puffed away.

And she spoke. “We! CHOSE!”

“You knew what was going to happen when the Radiants broke their oaths,” Adolin said. “They didn’t murder you. You decided together.”

“Stren…” she whispered. “Stren. Be…” “Strength before weakness.”

Humans could sing the correct tones. Humans could hear the music of Roshar. Her ancestors might have been aliens to this world, but she was its child.

She had found Voidlight’s opposite tone.

“Today is the day we discovered a way to destroy Radiant spren. I will let you know the results of the test.”

But sir, do you know why I get up each day?” Lirin shook his head. “It’s hard sometimes,” Noril said, stirring. “Coming awake means leaving the nothingness, you know? Remembering the pain. But then I think, ‘Well, he gets up.’”

“He’s got the emptiness, bad as I do. I can see it in him. We all can. But he gets up anyway. We’re trapped in here, and we all want to do something to help. We can’t, but somehow he can. “And you know, I’ve listened to ardents talk. I’ve been poked and prodded. I’ve been stuck in the dark. None of that worked as well as knowing this one thing, sir. He still gets up. He still fights. So I figure … I figure I can too.”

“What will it be about then?” “Same thing it’s always about, Jasnah,” Wit said. “The hearts of men and women. Do you trust the hearts of those who fight on your side?”

Be safe. Please. My life’s light, my gemheart.

Beaten down, broken, surrounded by enemies, Kaladin continued to fight.

Then her shape fuzzed, and she was instantly in a uniform like his, colored Kholin blue.

Kaladin nodded, then turned and continued, shadowed by the hopes and prayers of hundreds. Shadowed by his own reputation. A man who would never cry in the night, huddled against the wall, terrified. A man he was determined to pretend to be. One last time.

“I am death itself, Defeated One,” Kaladin said. “And I’ve finally caught up to you.”

An incredible soldier, who seemed immortal and impervious, completely in control. And a Fused, who somehow looked small by comparison.

Teft, Windrunner, had hope.

Confident, and somehow still full of hope, Teft died.

“Run,” Kaladin told him. “Flee. I’ll chase you. I will never stop. I am eternal. I am the storm.”

“Flee!” Kaladin said. The creature fell silent, no humming, no speaking. “RUN FROM ME!” Kaladin demanded. He did, dripping blood and shoving his way past the singer soldiers. He’d retreated from previous battles, but this time they both knew it meant something different. This creature was no longer the Pursuer. He knew it. The singers knew it. And the humans watching behind knew it. They began to chant, gloryspren bursting in the air. Stormblessed. Stormblessed. Stormblessed.

“I can’t abandon the Sibling,” Navani said. “My honor won’t allow it.”

He’d depended on Kaladin. Like Tien. Like a hundred others. But he couldn’t save them. He couldn’t protect them.

Kaladin Stormblessed wasn’t dead. He’d never existed. Kaladin Stormblessed was a lie. He always had been.

This time, Adolin wasn’t there to pull him out of it. To force him to keep walking. This time, Kaladin was given exactly what he deserved. Nothing. And nothingness.

“Live … as long as I … and you can appreciate … anything … that still surprises you.… Go, Navani. Run … The war must … end.”

“I care,” Raboniel whispered. “I want … the singers to win. But your side … winning … is better than … than…” “Than the war continuing forever,” Navani said.

Leshwi looked up from her vigil, humming to Spite. Then, amazingly, she pulled out a knife and cut Lirin’s hands free.

“Your legacy is dead, Defeated One,” Leshwi said. “It died when you ran from him.”

Kaladin Stormblessed looked up and let loose a howl that seemed to vibrate with a hundred discordant rhythms. Venli attuned the Lost in return. The Pursuer stabbed, but Stormblessed grabbed his arm and turned, becoming a blur of motion. He somehow twisted around so he was behind the Pursuer, then found a knife somewhere on his person—moving with such speed that Venli had trouble tracking him. Stormblessed slammed the knife at the Pursuer’s neck, who barely ejected from the husk in time. He re-formed and tried to grab Stormblessed again. But there was no contest now. Kaladin moved like the wind, fast and flowing as he rammed his dagger through the Pursuer’s arm, causing him to shout in pain. A knife toward the face followed, and the Pursuer ejected yet again. No one chanted or shouted this time, but when Stormblessed turned around, Venli saw his face—and she immediately attuned the Terrors. His eyes were glowing like a Radiant’s, his face a mask of pain and anguish, but the eyes … she swore the light had a yellowish-red cast to it. Like … like …