Amaram stepped up, chuckling softly. Kaladin raised Syl as a Shardblade, but shifted his grip, preparing for the moment when she’d become a thin spear he could ram right through that faceplate—
Kaladin! Syl cried.
Something hit Kaladin with the force of a falling boulder, flinging him to the side. His body broke, and the world spun.
By instinct, Kaladin Lashed himself upward and forward, opposite the way he’d been flung. He slowed and released the Lashings right as his momentum ran out, touching down, then slid to a stop on the stone, pain fading from a healed shoulder and side.
A brawny Fused—taller even than Amaram in his Plate—dropped a shattered club that he’d used on Kaladin. His carapace was the color of stone; he must have been crouching near that foundation, and Kaladin had taken him for merely another part of the stony field.
As Kaladin watched, the creature’s brown carapace crusted up his arms, covering his face like a helm, growing to thick armor in a matter of moments. He raised his arms, and carapace spurs grew above and below the hands.
Delightful.
* * *
Adolin heaved himself up over the rim of a broken rooftop onto a small alley between two buildings. He’d made it to the Loft Wards of the city, right above the Ancient Ward. Here, buildings were constructed practically atop one another in tiers.
The building to his left had been completely flattened. Adolin crept across rubble. To his right, a main city thoroughfare led upward—toward the Royal Ward and the Oathgate—but was clogged with people fleeing from the enemy troops below. This was compounded by the local merchant guards and platoons of Thaylen military, who struggled against the tide.
Moving on the streets was extremely slow—but Adolin had found one corridor that was empty. The thunderclast had crossed the Ancient Ward, kicking down buildings, then had stepped on roofs as it climbed up to the Loft Wards. This swath of destruction made almost a roadway. Adolin had managed to follow, using rubble like stairs.
Now he was right in the thing’s shadow. The corpse of a Thaylen soldier drooped from a rooftop nearby, tangled in ropes. It hung there, eyebrows dangling to brush the ground. Adolin swept past, peeking out between buildings onto a larger street.
A handful of Thaylens fought here, trying to bring the thunderclast down. The ropes had been a great idea, but the thing was obviously too strong to be tripped that way. In the street beyond Adolin, a soldier got in close and tried to hit the monster’s leg with a hammer. The weapon bounced off. That was old hardened cremstone. The plucky soldier ended up getting stomped.
Adolin gritted his teeth, summoning his Shardblade. Without Plate, he’d be as squishy as anyone else. He had to be careful, tactical.
“This is what you were designed for, isn’t it?” Adolin said softly as his Blade dropped into his hand. “It was for fighting things like that. Shardblades are impractically long for duels, and Plate is overkill even on the battlefield. But against a monster of stone…”
He felt something. A stirring on the wind.
“You want to fight it, don’t you?” Adolin asked. “It reminds you of when you were alive.”
Something tickled his mind, very faint, like a sigh. A single word: Mayalaran. A … name?
“Right, Maya,” Adolin said. “Let’s bring that thing down.”
Adolin waited for it to turn toward the small group of defending soldiers, then he bolted out along the rubbled street, dashing straight for the thunderclast. He was barely as tall as its calf.
Adolin didn’t use any of the sword stances—he just hacked as if he were attacking a wall, slicing right along the top of the thing’s ankle.
A sudden bang sounded above, like two stones slamming against one another, as the thing cried out. A shock wave of air washed over Adolin and the monster turned, thrusting a hand down toward him. Adolin dodged to the side, but the monster’s palm smashed the ground with such force that Adolin’s boots left the ground momentarily. He dismissed Maya as he fell, then rolled.
He came up puffing on one knee with his hand out, summoning Maya again. Storms, he was like a rat gnawing on the toes of a chull.
The beast regarded him with eyespots like molten rock just beneath the surface. He’d heard the descriptions of these things from his father’s visions—but looking up at it, he was struck by the shape of its face and head.
A chasmfiend, he thought. It looks like a chasmfiend. The head, at least. The body was vaguely like a thick human skeleton.
“Prince Adolin!” one of the few living soldiers shouted. “It’s the son of the Blackthorn!”
“Protect the prince! Distract the monster from the Shardbearer. It’s our only chance to—”
Adolin lost the last part as the monster swept its hand across the ground. He barely dodged, then threw himself through the doorway of a low building. Inside, he leaped over a few bedding pallets, pushed into the next room, then attacked the brick wall with Maya, cutting in four quick strikes. He slammed his shoulder against the wall, breaking through the hole.
As he did, he heard a whimper from behind.
Adolin gritted his teeth. I could use one of those storming Radiants about now.
He ducked back into the building and flipped over a table, finding a young boy huddled underneath. That was the only person Adolin saw in the building. He hauled the boy out right as the thunderclast smashed a fist down through the roof. Dust billowing after him, Adolin shoved the child into the arms of a soldier, then pointed both toward the street to the south. Adolin took off running east, around the side of the building. Maybe he could climb up to the next level of the Loft Wards and circle the creature.
For all the troops’ calls to distract the thing, however, it obviously knew who to focus on. It stepped over the broken house and thrust a fist toward Adolin—who leaped through a window into another house, across a table, then out an open window on the other side.
Crash.
The building fell in behind him. The thing was doing damage to its own hands with the attacks, leaving the wrists and fingers scored with white scrapes. It didn’t seem to care—and why should it? It had ripped itself right from the ground to make this body.
Adolin’s only advantage, other than his Blade, was his ability to react faster than the thing. It swung for the next building beyond him, trying to smash it before he got inside—but he was already doubling back. He ran underneath the monster’s swing, sliding on the chips and dust as the fist passed narrowly overhead.
That put him in position to run between the thunderclast’s legs. He slashed at the ankle he’d already cut once, digging his Blade deep into the stone, then whipping it out the other side. Just like a chasmfiend, he thought. Legs first.
When the thing stepped again, the ankle cracked with a sharp sound, then its foot broke free.
Adolin braced himself for the pained thunderclap from above, but still winced at the shock wave. Unfortunately, the monster balanced easily on the stump of its leg. It was a little clumsier than before, but it was in no real danger of falling. The Thaylen soldiers had regrouped and gathered up their ropes, however, so maybe—
A hand in Shardplate reached out of a building nearby, grabbed Adolin, and pulled him inside.
* * *
Dalinar held his hands out to the sides, enveloped by the Thrill. It returned every memory he hated about himself. War and conflict. Times when he’d shouted Evi into submission. Anger that had driven him to the brink of madness. His shame.