Syl looked disturbed. The cap and jacket she’d been wearing dissolved to mist, and she wrapped her arms around herself as if chilled by his comments.
Odium reigns….
“Syl,” he said, frowning, thinking back to his strange dream. “Have you ever heard of something called Odium? I don’t mean the feeling, I mean…a person, or something called by that name.”
Syl suddenly hissed. It was a feral, disturbing sound. She zipped off his shoulder, becoming a darting streak of light, and shot up underneath the eaves of the next building.
He blinked. “Syl?” he called, drawing the attention of a couple of passing washwomen. The spren did not reappear. Kaladin folded his arms. That word had set her off. Why?
A loud series of curses interrupted his thoughts. Kaladin spun as a man burst out of a handsome stone building across the street and shoved a half-naked woman out in front of him. The man had bright blue eyes, and his coat—carried over one arm—had red knots on the shoulder. A lighteyed officer, not very high-ranking. Perhaps seventh dahn.
The half-dressed woman fell to the ground. She held the loose front of the dress to her chest, crying, her long black hair down and tied with two red ribbons. The dress was that of a lighteyed woman, except that both sleeves were short, safehand exposed. A courtesan.
The officer continued to curse as he pulled on his coat. He didn’t do up the buttons. Instead, he stepped forward and kicked the whore in the belly. She gasped, painspren pulling from the ground and gathering around her. Nobody on the street paused, though most did hurry on their way, heads down.
Kaladin growled, jumping into the roadway, pushing his way past a group of soldiers. Then he stopped. Three men in blue stepped out of the crowd, moving purposefully between the fallen woman and the officer in red. Only one was lighteyed, judging by the knots on his shoulders. Golden knots. A high-ranking man indeed, second or third dahn. These obviously weren’t from Sadeas’s army, not with those well-pressed blue coats.
Sadeas’s officer hesitated. The officer in blue rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. The other two were holding fine halberds with gleaming half-moon heads.
A group of soldiers in red moved out of the crowd and began to surround those in blue. The air grew tense, and Kaladin realized that the street—bustling just moments ago—was quickly emptying. He stood practically alone, the only one watching the three men in blue, now surrounded by seven in red. The woman was still on the ground, sniffling. She huddled next to the blue garbed officer.
The man who had kicked her—a thick-browed brute with a mop of uncombed black hair—began to button up the right side of his coat. “You don’t belong here, friends. It seems you wandered into the wrong warcamp.”
“We have legitimate business,” said the officer in blue. He had light golden hair, speckled with Alethi black, and a handsome face. He held his hand before him as if wishing to shake hands with Sadeas’s officer. “Come now,” he said affably. “Whatever your problem with this woman, I’m sure it can be resolved without anger or violence.”
Kaladin moved back under the overhang where Syl had hidden.
“She’s a whore,” Sadeas’s man said.
“I can see that,” replied the man in blue. He kept his hand out.
The officer in red spat on it.
“I see,” said the blond man. He pulled his hand back, and twisting lines of mist gathered in the air, coalescing in his hands as he raised them to an offensive posture. A massive sword appeared, as long as a man is tall.
It dripped with water that condensed along its cold, glimmering length. It was beautiful, long and sinuous, its single edge rippled like an eel and curved up into a point. The back bore delicate ridges, like crystal formations.
Sadeas’s officer stumbled away and fell, his face pale. The soldiers in red scattered. The officer cursed at them—as vile a curse as Kaladin had ever heard—but none returned to help him. With a final glare, he scrambled up the steps back into the building.
The door slammed, leaving the roadway eerily silent. Kaladin was the only one on the street besides the soldiers in blue and the fallen courtesan. The Shardbearer gave Kaladin a glance, but obviously judged him no threat. He thrust his sword into the stones; the blade sank in easily and stood with its hilt toward the sky.
The young Shardbearer then gave his hand to the fallen whore. “What did you do to him, out of curiosity?”
Hesitantly, she took his hand and let him pull her to her feet. “He refused to pay, claiming his reputation made it a pleasure for me.” She grimaced. “He kicked me the first time after I made a comment about his ‘reputation.’ It apparently wasn’t what he thought he was known for.”
The brightlord chuckled. “I suggest you insist on being paid first from now on. We’ll escort you to the border. I advise against returning to Sadeas’s warcamp anytime soon.”
The woman nodded, holding the front of her dress to her chest. Her safehand was still exposed. Sleek, with tan skin, the fingers long and delicate. Kaladin found himself staring at it and blushing. She sidled up to the brightlord while his two comrades watched the sides of the streets, halberds ready. Even with her hair disheveled and her makeup smudged, she was quite pretty. “Thank you, Brightlord. Perhaps I could interest you? There would be no charge.”
The young brightlord raised an eyebrow. “Tempting,” he said, “but my father would kill me. He has this thing about the old ways.”
“A pity,” she said, pulling away from him, awkwardly covering her chest as she slipped her arm into its sleeve. She took out a glove for her safehand. “Your father is quite prudish, then?”
“You might say that.” He turned toward Kaladin. “Ho, bridgeboy.”
Bridgeboy? This lordling looked to be just a few years older than Kaladin himself.
“Run and give word to Brightlord Reral Makoram,” the Shardbearer said, flipping something across the street toward Kaladin. A sphere. It sparkled in the sunlight before Kaladin caught it. “He’s in the Sixth Battalion. Tell him that Adolin Kholin won’t make today’s meeting. I’ll send word to reschedule another time.”
Kaladin looked down at the sphere. An emerald chip. More than he normally earned in two weeks. He looked up; the young brightlord and his two men were already retreating, the whore following.
“You rushed to help her,” a voice said. He looked up as Syl floated down to rest on his shoulder. “That was very noble of you.”
“Those others got there first,” Kaladin said. And one of them a lighteyes, no less. What was in it for him?
“You still tried to help.”
“Foolishly,” Kaladin said. “What would I have done? Fought down a lighteyes? That would have drawn half the camp’s soldiers down on me, and the whore would just have been beaten more for causing such a fracas. She could have ended up dead for my efforts.” He fell silent. That sounded too much like what he’d been saying before.
He couldn’t give in to assuming he was cursed, or had bad luck, or whatever it was. Superstition never got a man anywhere. But he had to admit, the pattern was disturbing. If he acted as he always had before, how could he expect different results? He had to try something new. Change, somehow. This was going to take more thought.