Adolin barely had time to shout as the assassin—moving at blinding speed—spun and cut the blade from the hilt of Roion’s sword. Szeth’s hand shot out and slammed against Roion’s chest.
Roion shot into the air, trailing a wisp of Stormlight. He screamed as the sky swallowed him.
He lasted longer than his men. The assassin swept between them, deftly avoiding spears, moving with uncanny grace. A dozen soldiers fell in an instant, eyes burning.
Adolin jumped over one of the bodies as it collapsed. Storms. He could still hear Roion screaming up above somewhere.
Adolin thrust at the assassin, but the creature twisted and slapped the Shardblade away. The assassin was grinning. He didn’t speak, though Stormlight leaked between his teeth.
Adolin tried Smokestance, attacking with a quick sequence of jabs. The assassin silently battered them away, unfazed. Adolin focused, dueling the best he could, but he was a child before this thing.
Roion, still screaming, plummeted from the sky and hit nearby with a sickening wet crunch. A quick glance at his corpse told Adolin that the highprince would never rise again.
Adolin cursed and lunged for the assassin, but a fluttering tarp—brushed by the assassin in passing—leaped toward Adolin. The monster could command inanimate objects! Adolin sliced through the tarp and then jumped forward to swing for the assassin.
He found nothing to fight.
Duck.
He threw himself to the ground as something passed over his head, the assassin flying through the air. Szeth’s hissing Shardblade missed Adolin’s head by inches.
Adolin rolled and came to his knees, puffing.
How… What could he do… ?
You can’t beat it, Adolin thought. Nothing can beat it.
The assassin landed lightly. Adolin climbed back to his feet, and found himself in company. A dozen of the bridgemen formed up around him. Skar, at their head, looked to Adolin and nodded. Good men. They’d seen Roion’s fall, and still they joined him. Adolin hefted his Shardblade and noticed that a short distance away, his father had managed to regain his feet. Another small group of bridgemen moved in around him, and he allowed it. He and Adolin had dueled and lost. Their only chance now was a mad rush.
Nearby, shouts arose. General Khal and a large strike force of soldiers, judging by the banner approaching. There wasn’t time. The assassin stood on the wet plateau between Dalinar’s small troop and Adolin’s, head bowed. Fallen blue lanterns gave light. The sky had gone as black as night, except when broken by that red lightning.
Charge and mob a Shardbearer. Hope for a lucky blow. It was the only way. Adolin nodded to Dalinar. His father nodded back, grim. He knew. He knew there was no beating this thing.
Lead them, Adolin.
Unite them.
Adolin screamed, charging forward, sword out, men running with him. Dalinar advanced too, more slowly, one arm across his chest. Storms, the man could barely walk.
Szeth snapped his head up, face devoid of all emotion. As they arrived, he leaped, shooting into the air.
Adolin’s eyes followed him up. Surely they hadn’t chased him off…
The assassin twisted in the air, then crashed back down to the ground, glowing like a comet. Adolin barely parried a blow from the Blade; the force of it was incredible. It tossed him backward. The assassin spun, and a pair of bridgemen fell with burning eyes. Others lost spearheads as they tried to stab at him.
The assassin ripped free from the press of bodies, trailing blood from a couple of wounds. Those wounds closed as Adolin watched, the blood stopping. It was as Kaladin had said. With a horrible sinking feeling, Adolin realized just how little a chance they’d ever had.
The assassin dashed for Dalinar, who brought up the rear of the attack. The aging soldier raised his Blade, as if in respect, then thrust once.
An attack. That was the way to go.
“Father…” Adolin whispered.
The assassin parried the thrust, then placed his hand against Dalinar’s chest.
The highprince, suddenly glowing, lurched up into the dark sky. He didn’t scream.
The plateau fell silent. Some bridgemen propped up wounded fellows. Others turned toward the assassin, pulling into a spear formation, looking frantic.
The assassin lowered his Blade, then started to walk away.
“Bastard!” Adolin spat, dashing after him. “Bastard!” He could barely see for the tears.
The assassin stopped, then leveled his weapon toward Adolin.
Adolin stumbled to a halt. Storms, his head hurt.
“It is finished,” the assassin whispered. “I am done.” He turned from Adolin and continued to walk away.
Like Damnation itself, you are! Adolin raised his Shardblade overhead.
The assassin spun and slapped the weapon so hard with his own Blade that Adolin distinctly heard something snap in his wrist. His Blade tumbled from his fingers, vanishing. The assassin’s hand slapped out, knuckles striking Adolin in the chest, and he gasped, his breath suddenly gone from his throat.
Stunned, he sank to his knees.
“I suppose,” the assassin snarled, “I can kill one more, on my own time.” Then he grinned, a terrible smile with teeth clenched, eyes wide. As if he were in enormous pain.
Gasping, Adolin awaited the blow. He looked toward the sky. Father, I’m sorry. I…
I…
What was that?
He blinked as he made out something glowing in the air, drifting down, like a leaf. A figure. A man.
Dalinar.
The highprince fell slowly, as if he were no more weighty than a cloud. White Light streamed from his body in glowing wisps. Nearby bridgemen murmured, soldiers shouted, pointing.
Adolin blinked, certain he was delusional. But no, that was Dalinar. Like… one of the Heralds themselves, coming down from the Tranquiline Halls.
The assassin looked, then stumbled back, mouth open in horror. “No… No!”
And then, like a falling star, a blazing fireball of light and motion shot down in front of Dalinar. It crashed into the ground, sending out a ring of Stormlight like white smoke. At the center, a figure in blue crouched with one hand on the stones, the other clutching a glowing Shardblade.
His eyes afire with a light that somehow made the assassin’s seem dull by comparison, he wore the uniform of a bridgeman, and bore the glyphs of slavery on his forehead.
The expanding ring of smoky light faded, save for a large glyph—a swordlike shape—which remained for a brief moment before puffing away.
“You sent him to the sky to die, assassin,” Kaladin said, Stormlight puffing from his lips, “but the sky and the winds are mine. I claim them, as I now claim your life.”
86. Patterns of Light
One is almost certainly a traitor to the others.
From the Diagram, Book of the 2nd Desk Drawer: paragraph 27
Kaladin let the Stormlight evaporate before him. He was running low—his frantic flight across the Plains had drained him. How shocked he had been when the flare of light rising into the darkening sky above a lit plateau had turned out to be Dalinar himself. Lashed to the sky by Szeth.
Kaladin had caught him quickly and sent him back to the ground with a careful Lashing of his own. Ahead, Szeth stumbled away from the princeling, holding out his sword wardingly toward Kaladin, eyes wide and lips trembling. Szeth looked horrified.