Rhythm of War (9781429952040) Read online

  Navani merely guided people smarter than she was. So maybe she didn’t deserve to grin like a child as she watched it work. She did anyway.

  Deciding upon a name had taken her months of deliberation. In the end, however, she’d taken inspiration from the bridges that had inspired her. In specific, the one that had—so many months ago—rescued Dalinar and Adolin from certain death, something she hoped this vessel would do for many others in similarly dire situations.

  And so, the world’s first air transport had been named the Fourth Bridge. With the permission of Highmarshal Kaladin’s old team, she’d embedded their old bridge in the center of the deck as a symbol.

  Navani stepped away from the ledge and walked to the command station. She heard Velat sigh in relief—the cartographer had tethered herself to the deck with a rope. Navani would have preferred to bring Isasik, but he was off on one of his mapping expeditions, this time to the eastern part of the Shattered Plains.

  Still, she had a full complement of scientists and engineers. White-bearded Falilar was reviewing schematics with Rushu while a host of assistants and scribes ran this way and that, checking structural integrity or measuring Stormlight levels in the gemstones. At this point, there wasn’t a whole lot for Navani to do other than stand around and look important. She smiled, recalling Dalinar saying something similar about battlefield generals once the plan was in motion.

  The Fourth Bridge set down, and the front doors of the bottom level opened to accept passengers. A dozen Edgedancers flowed out toward the town. Glowing with Stormlight, they moved with a strange gait—alternating pushing off with one foot while sliding on the other. They could glide across wood or stone as if it were ice, and gracefully leaped over stones.

  The last Edgedancer in the group—a lanky girl who seemed to have grown an entire foot in the last year—missed her jump though, and tripped over a large rock the others had dodged. Navani covered a smile. Being Radiant did not, unfortunately, make one immune to the awkwardness of puberty.

  The Edgedancers would usher the townspeople onto the transport and heal those who were wounded or sick. Windrunners darted through the sky to watch for potential problems.

  Rather than bother the engineers or soldiers, Navani drifted over to Kmakl, the Thaylen prince consort. Fen’s aging husband was a navy man, and Navani had thought he might enjoy joining them on the Fourth Bridge’s first mission. He gave her a respectful bow, his eyebrows and long mustaches drooping alongside his face.

  “You must think us very disorganized, Admiral,” Navani said to him in Thaylen. “No captain’s cabin and barely a handful of bolted-down desks for a command station.”

  “She is an odd ship, to be sure,” the elderly sailor replied. “But majestic in her own way. I was listening to your scholars talk, and they were guessing the ship made about five knots on average.”

  Navani nodded. This mission had begun as an extended endurance test—indeed, Navani hadn’t been on the voyage when it had begun. The Fourth Bridge had spent weeks flying out over the Steamwater Ocean, taking refuge from storms in laits and coastal coves. During that time, the ship’s only crew had been her engineers and a handful of sailors.

  Then the request had come from Kaladin. Would they like to try a more rigorous stress test by stealing an entire town out of Alethkar—rescuing an infamous Herdazian general in the process? Dalinar had made the decision, and the Fourth Bridge had changed course toward Alethkar.

  Windrunners had delivered the command staff—Navani included—and Radiants to the vessel earlier today.

  “Five knots,” Navani said. “Not particularly fast, compared to your best ships.”

  “Pardon, Brightness,” he said. “But this is essentially a giant barge—and for that five knots is impressive, even ignoring the fact that it is flying.” He shook his head. “This ship is faster than an army marching at double time—yet it brings your troops in fresh and provides its own mobile high ground for archery support.”

  Navani couldn’t refrain from beaming with pride. “There are still a lot of kinks to work out,” she said. “The fans on the rear barely increased speed. We’re going to need something better. The manpower involved is enormous.”

  “If you say so,” he said. The elderly man adopted a distant expression, turning and staring out toward the horizon.

  “Admiral?” Navani asked. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m simply imagining the end of an era. The livelihood I’ve known, the way of the oceans and the navy…”

  “We’ll continue to need navies,” Navani said. “This air transport is merely an additional tool.”

  “Perhaps, perhaps. But for a moment, imagine a fleet of ordinary ships suffering an attack from one of these up above. It wouldn’t need trained archers. The flying sailors could drop stones and sink a fleet in minutes.…” He glanced to her. “My dear, if these things become ubiquitous, it won’t only be navies that are rendered obsolete. I can’t decide if I’m glad to be old enough to wish my world a fond farewell, or if I envy the young lads who get to explore this new world.”

  Navani found herself at a loss for words. She wanted to offer encouragement, but the past that Kmakl regarded with such fondness was … well, like waves in water. Gone now, absorbed by the ocean of time. It was the future that excited her.

  Kmakl seemed to sense her hesitance, as he smiled. “Don’t mind the ramblings of a grouchy old sailor. Look, the Bondsmith wishes your attention. Go and guide us toward a new horizon, Brightness. That is where we’ll find success against these invaders.”

  She gave Kmakl a fond pat on the arm, then hastened off toward Dalinar. He stood near the front center of the deck, and Highmarshal Kaladin was striding toward him accompanied by a bespectacled man. This must be the Windrunner’s father—though it took some imagination on her part to see the resemblance. Kaladin was tall, and Lirin was short. The younger man had that unruly hair falling in a natural curl. Lirin, on the other hand, was balding, with the rest of his hair kept very short.

  However, as she stepped up beside Dalinar, she caught Lirin’s eyes—and the familial connection became more obvious. That same quiet intensity, that same faintly judgmental gaze that seemed to know too much about you. In that moment she saw two men with the same soul, for all their physical differences.

  “Sir,” Kaladin said to Dalinar. “My father, the surgeon.”

  Dalinar nodded his head. “Lirin Stormblessed. It is my honor.”

  “… Stormblessed?” Lirin asked. He didn’t bow, which Navani found undiplomatic, considering whom he was meeting.

  “I assumed you would take your son’s house name,” Dalinar said.

  Lirin glanced at his son, who evidently hadn’t told him about his elevation. But he said nothing more, instead turning to give her airship a proper nod of respect.

  “This is a magnificent creation,” Lirin said. “Do you think it could quickly deliver a mobile hospital, staffed with surgeons, to a battlefield? The lives that could be saved that way…”

  “An ingenious application,” Dalinar said. “Though Edgedancers generally do that job now.”

  “Oh. Right.” Lirin adjusted his spectacles, then finally seemed to find a little respect for Dalinar. “I appreciate what you’re doing here, Brightlord Kholin, but can you say how long my people will be trapped on this vehicle?”

  “It will be a several-week flight to reach the Shattered Plains,” Dalinar said. “But we’ll be delivering supplies, blankets, and other items of comfort during the trip. You’ll be performing an important function, helping us learn how to better equip these transports. Plus we’ll be denying the enemy an important population center and farming community.”

  Lirin nodded, thoughtful.

  “Why don’t you inspect the accommodations?” Dalinar offered. “The holds aren’t luxurious, but there’s space enough for hundreds.”

  Lirin accepted the dismissal—though he again didn’t bow or offer respect as he strode away.

  Ka
ladin hung back. “I apologize for my father, sir. He doesn’t deal well with surprises.”

  “It’s all right,” Dalinar said. “I can only imagine what these people have been through lately.”

  “It might not be over quite yet, sir. I was spotted while scouting earlier today. One of the Fused—a variety I’ve never seen before—came to Hearthstone hunting me. I ran him off, but I have no doubt we’ll soon encounter more resistance.”

  Dalinar tried to remain stoic, but Navani could see his disappointment in the downturn of his lips. “Very well,” he said. “I’d hoped the fog might cover us, but that was plainly too convenient. Go alert the other Windrunners, and I’ll send word for the Edgedancers to hasten the evacuation.”

  Kaladin nodded. “I’m running low on Light, sir.”

  Navani slipped her notebook from her pocket as Dalinar raised his hand and pressed it against Kaladin’s chest. There was a faint … warping to the air around them, and for a moment she thought she could see into Shadesmar. Another realm, filled with beads of glass and candle flames floating in place of people’s souls. She thought, for the briefest moment, she heard a tone in the distance. A pure note vibrating through her.

  It was gone in a moment, but she wrote her impressions anyway. Dalinar’s powers were related to the composition of Stormlight, the three realms, and—ultimately—the very nature of deity. There were secrets here to unlock.

  Kaladin’s Light was renewed, wisps of it steaming off his skin, visible even in daylight. The spheres he carried would be renewed as well. Somehow Dalinar reached between realms to touch the Almighty’s own power, an ability once reserved solely for storms and the things that lived in them.

  Appearing invigorated, the young Windrunner stepped across the deck. He knelt and rested his hand on the rectangular patch of wood that stood out from the rest—not newly cut, but dinged and marked from arrows. His old bridge had been embedded to be flush with the rest of the deck. The Bridge Four Windrunners all enacted this same wordless ritual when they left the airship. It took only a moment, then Kaladin launched into the air.

  Navani finished her notes, covering a smile as she found Dalinar reading over her shoulder. That was still a decidedly odd experience, for all that she tried to encourage him.

  “I’ve already let Jasnah make notes on what I do,” Dalinar said. “Yet each time, you pull out this notebook. What are you looking for, gemheart?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” she said. “Something is odd about the nature of Urithiru, and I think Bondsmiths might be related to the tower, at least from what we read about the old Radiants.” She flipped to another page and showed him some schematics she’d drawn. The tower city of Urithiru had an enormous gemstone construction at its heart—a crystal pillar, a fabrial unlike any she’d ever seen. She was increasingly certain the tower had once been powered by that pillar, as this flying ship was powered by the gemstones her engineers had embedded within the hull. But the tower was broken, barely functioning.

  “I tried infusing that pillar,” Dalinar said. “It didn’t work.” He could infuse Stormlight into ordinary spheres, but those tower gemstones had resisted.

  “We must be approaching the problem in the wrong way. I can’t help thinking if I knew more about Stormlight, the solution would be simple.”

  She shook her head. The Fourth Bridge was an extraordinary accomplishment, but she worried she was failing in a greater task. Urithiru was high in the mountains, where it was too cold to grow plants—yet the tower had numerous fields. People had not only survived up in that harsh environment, they had thrived.

  How? She knew the tower had once been occupied by a powerful spren named the Sibling. A spren on the level of the Nightwatcher or the Stormfather—and capable of making a Bondsmith. She had to assume the spren, or perhaps something about its relationship with a human, had allowed the tower to function. Unfortunately, the Sibling had died during the Recreance. She wasn’t certain what level of “dead” that meant. Was the Sibling dead like the souls of Shardblades that still walked around? Some spren she interviewed said the Sibling was “slumbering,” but they treated that as final.

  The answers weren’t clear, and that left Navani struggling to try to understand. She studied Dalinar and his bond with the Stormfather, hoping it would offer some further clue.

  “So,” an accented voice said from behind them, “the Alethi really have learned to fly. I should have believed the stories. Only your kind are stubborn enough to bully nature herself.”

  Navani started, though she was slower to respond than Dalinar, who spun—hand on his side sword—and immediately stepped between Navani and the strange voice. She had to peek around him to see the man who had spoken.

  He was a short fellow, missing a tooth, with a flat nose and a jovial expression. His worn cloak and ragged trousers marked him as a refugee. He stood next to Navani’s engineer station, where he’d picked up the map that charted the Fourth Bridge’s course.

  Velat, standing at the center of the desks, yelped when she saw him, then reached over to snatch the paper away.

  “Refugees are to gather belowdecks,” Navani said, pointing the way back to the steps.

  “Good for them,” the Herdazian man said. “Your flying boy says you’ve got a place for me here. Don’t know what I think of serving an Alethi. I’ve spent most of my life trying to stay away from them.” He eyed Dalinar. “You specifically, Blackthorn. No offense.”

  Ah, Navani thought. She’d heard that the Mink wasn’t what people expected. She revised her assessment, then glanced toward the Cobalt Guardsmen who were belatedly rushing up from the sides of the ship. They appeared chagrined, but Navani waved them off. She’d ask some pointed questions later about why they’d been so lax as to let this man sneak up the steps to the command station.

  “I find wisdom in men who knew to avoid the person I once was,” Dalinar said to the Mink. “But this is a new era, with new enemies. Our past squabbles are of no concern now.”

  “Squabbles?” the man asked. “So that’s the Alethi word for them. Yes, yes. My mastery of your language, you see, is lacking. I’d been mistakenly referring to your actions as ‘raping and burning my people.’”

  He pulled something from his pocket. Another of Velat’s maps. He glanced over his shoulder—to check that she wasn’t watching—then unrolled it and cocked his head, inspecting it.

  “What remains of my army is secluded in four separate hollows between here and Herdaz,” he said. “I have only a few hundred left. Use your flying machine to rescue them, and we’ll talk. Alethi bloodlust has cost me many loved ones over the years, but I’d be a fool not to admit the value in pointing it—like the proverbial sword’s blade—at someone else.”

  “It will be done,” Dalinar said.

  Navani didn’t miss that—despite claiming earlier that the Fourth Bridge was her ship—he agreed to fly it per the Mink’s request without so much as consulting her. She tried not to let things like that bother her. It wasn’t that her husband didn’t respect her—he’d proven on numerous occasions that he did. Dalinar Kholin was simply accustomed to being the most important—and generally most capable—person around. That led a man to surge forward like an advancing stormwall, making decisions as the need arose.

  Still, it irked her more than she’d ever admit out loud.

  The first of the real refugees began to arrive down below, herded gently by the Edgedancers. Navani focused on the problem at hand: making certain each person was settled and comfortable in the most economical and orderly way possible. She’d drawn up a plan. Unfortunately, the welcome was interrupted as Lyn—a Windrunner woman with long dark hair worn in a braid—slammed down onto the deck.

  “Incoming Fused, sir,” she reported to Dalinar. “Three full flights of them.”

  “Kaladin was right, then,” he said. “Hopefully we can drive them away. Storms help us if they decide to harry the ship all the way to the Shattered Plains.”

  That was Navan
i’s worst fear—that flying enemies would be able to strike at and even disable the transport. She had precautions in place to try to prevent that, and it looked like she’d get to witness their initial test firsthand.

  To draw Stormlight out of a gemstone, I use the Arnist Method. Several large empty gemstones are brought close to the infused one while the spren is inspecting it. Stormlight is slowly absorbed from a small gemstone by a very large gemstone of the same type—and several together can draw the Light out quickly. The method’s limitation is, of course, the fact that you need not merely acquire one gemstone for your fabrial, but several larger ones to withdraw the Stormlight.

  Other methods must exist, as proven by the extremely large gemstone fabrials created by the Vriztl Guild out of Thaylenah. If Her Majesty would please repeat my request to the guild, this secret is of vital importance to the war effort.

  —Lecture on fabrial mechanics presented by Navani Kholin to the coalition of monarchs, Urithiru, Jesevan, 1175

  When they awoke, Radiant immediately took charge and assessed the situation. She had a sack over her head, so nobody saw her disorientation, and she was careful not to move and warn her captors. Shallan had fortunately attached her Lightweaving in such a way that it would keep up their illusory face even while they were unconscious.

  Radiant didn’t appear to be bound, though she was being carried over someone’s shoulder. He smelled of chulls. Or maybe it was the sack.

  Her body had activated her powers, healed her, and let her wake sooner than she would have otherwise. Radiant didn’t like sneaking about or pretending, but she trusted that Veil and Shallan knew what they were doing. She instead did her part: judging the danger of the current situation.

  She seemed to be fine, though uncomfortable. Her head kept bouncing into the man’s back, pressing the sack against her face with each step. Deep down, she felt satisfaction from Veil. They’d nearly given up on this mission. It was nice to know that all their work hadn’t been in vain.