And if I don’t help kill the king, won’t I be betraying justice and honor? The king had murdered—or as good as murdered—many people, some through indifference, others through incompetence. And storms, Dalinar wasn’t innocent either. If he’d been as noble as he pretended, wouldn’t he have seen Roshone imprisoned, rather than shipped off somewhere where he “couldn’t do any more harm”?
Kaladin walked over to the bridge, watching the men march across. Shallan Davar sat primly on a rock, continuing her sketches of the bridge mechanism. Adolin had climbed off his horse and handed it to some grooms for watering. He waved Kaladin over.
“Princeling?” Kaladin asked, stepping up.
“The assassin has been seen out here,” Adolin said. “On the Plains at night.”
“Yes. I heard the scout telling your father about it.”
“We need a plan. What if he attacks out here?”
“I hope he does.”
Adolin looked to him, frowning.
“From what I saw,” Kaladin said, “and from what I’ve learned about the assassin’s initial attack on the old king, he depends on confusion in his victims. He jumps off walls and onto ceilings; he sends men falling the wrong direction. Well, there aren’t any walls or ceilings out here.”
“So he can just full-on fly,” Adolin said with a grimace.
“Yes,” Kaladin said, pointing with a smile, “since we have, what is it, three hundred archers with us?”
Kaladin had used his abilities effectively against Parshendi arrows, and so perhaps archers wouldn’t be able to kill the assassin. But he imagined it would be hard for the man to fight with wave after wave of arrows flying at him.
Adolin nodded slowly. “I’ll talk to them, get them ready for the possibility.” He started walking toward the bridge, so Kaladin joined him. They passed Shallan, who was still absorbed in her sketching. She didn’t even notice Adolin waving at her. Lighteyed women and their diversions. Kaladin shook his head.
“Do you know anything about women, bridgeboy?” Adolin asked, looking over his shoulder and watching Shallan as the two of them crossed the bridge.
“Lighteyed women?” Kaladin asked. “Nothing. Thankfully.”
“People think I know a lot about women,” Adolin said. “The truth is, I know how to get them—how to make them laugh, how to make them interested. I don’t know how to keep them.” He hesitated. “I really want to keep this one.”
“So… tell her that, maybe?” Kaladin said, thinking back to Tarah, and the mistakes he’d made.
“Do such things work on darkeyed women?”
“You’re asking the wrong man,” Kaladin said. “I haven’t had much time for women lately. I was too busy trying to avoid being killed.”
Adolin seemed to be barely listening. “Perhaps I could say something like that to her… Seems too simple, and she’s anything but simple…” He turned back to Kaladin. “Anyway. Assassin in White. We need more of a plan than just telling the archers to be ready.”
“Do you have any ideas?” Kaladin said.
“You won’t have a Shardblade, but won’t need one, because of… you know.”
“I know?” Kaladin felt a spike of alarm.
“Yeah… you know.” Adolin glanced away and shrugged, as if trying to act nonchalant. “That thing.”
“What thing?”
“The thing… with the… um, stuff?”
He doesn’t know, Kaladin realized. He’s just fishing, trying to figure out why I can fight so well.
And he’s doing a really, really bad job of it.
Kaladin relaxed, and even found himself smiling at Adolin’s awkward attempt. It was nice to feel an emotion other than panic or worry. “I don’t think you have any idea what you’re talking about.”
Adolin scowled. “There’s something odd about you, bridgeboy,” he said. “Admit it.”
“I admit nothing.”
“You survived that fall with the assassin,” Adolin said. “And at first, I worried you were working with him. Now…”
“Now what?”
“Well, I’ve decided that whatever you are, you’re on my side.” Adolin sighed. “Anyway, the assassin. My instincts say the best plan is the one we used when fighting together in the arena. You distract him while I kill him.”
“That could work, though I worry that he’s not the type to let himself get distracted.”
“Neither was Relis,” Adolin said. “We’ll do it, bridgeboy. You and I. We’re going to bring that monster down.”
“We’ll need to be fast,” Kaladin said. “He’ll win a drawn-out fight. And Adolin, strike for the spine or the head. Don’t try a weakening blow first. Go right for the kill.”
Adolin frowned at him. “Why?”
“I saw something when the two of us fell together,” Kaladin said. “I cut him, but he healed the wound somehow.”
“I have a Blade. He won’t be able to heal from that… right?”
“Best to not find out. Strike to kill. Trust me.”
Adolin met his eyes. “Oddly, I do. Trust you, I mean. It’s a very strange sensation.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll try to hold myself back from going skipping across the plateau in joy.”
Adolin grinned. “I’d pay to see that.”
“Me skipping?”
“You happy,” Adolin said, laughing. “You’ve got a face like a storm! I half think you could frighten off a storm.”
Kaladin grunted.
Adolin laughed again, slapping him on the shoulder, then turned as Shallan finally crossed the bridge, her sketching apparently done. She looked to Adolin fondly, and as he reached out to take her hand, she rose up on her toes and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Adolin drew back, startled. Alethi were more reserved than that in public.
Shallan grinned at him. Then she turned and gasped, raising a hand to her mouth. Kaladin jumped, again, looking for danger—but Shallan just went dashing off to a nearby clump of rocks.
Adolin raised his hand to his cheek, then looked to Kaladin with a grin. “She probably saw an interesting bug.”
“No, it’s moss!” Shallan called back.
“Ah, of course,” Adolin said, strolling over, Kaladin following. “Moss. So exciting.”
“Hush, you,” Shallan said, wagging her pencil at him as she bent down, inspecting the rocks. “The moss grows in a strange pattern here. What could cause that?”
“Alcohol,” Adolin said.
She glanced at him.
He shrugged. “Makes me do crazy things.” He looked at Kaladin, who shook his head. “That was funny,” Adolin said. “It was a joke! Well, kind of.”
“Oh hush,” Shallan said. “This looks almost like the same pattern as a flowering rockbud, the kind common here on the Plains…” She started sketching.
Kaladin folded his arms. Then he sighed.
“What does that sigh mean?” Adolin asked him.
“Boredom,” Kaladin said, glancing back at the army, still crossing the bridge. With a force of three thousand—that was about half of Dalinar’s current army, following heavy recruitment—moving out here took time. On bridge runs, these crossings had felt so quick. Kaladin had always been exhausted, savoring the chance to rest. “I guess out here, it’s so barren that there’s not much to get excited about other than moss.”