Words of Radiance

“If you’re going to learn to do this,” Tyn said, “you have to be comfortable in situations like that. You can’t be embarrassed when you pose as someone else. The more outrageous the attempt, the straighter you have to play it. The only way to get better is to practice—and in front of people who very well might catch you.”

“I suppose,” Shallan said.

“Those boots are too big for you,” Tyn noted. “Though I did love the look on his face when you asked for them. ‘No apologize. Boots!’”

“I really need some boots,” Shallan said. “I’m tired of walking around on rock barefoot or in slippers. A little padding, and these will fit.” She held them up. They were

rather large. “Er, maybe.” She looked backward. “I hope he’ll be all right without them. What if he has to fight bandits on his way back?”

Tyn rolled her eyes. “We’re going to have to talk about that kindheartedness of yours sometime, kid.”

“It’s not a bad thing to be nice.”

“You’re training to be a con artist,” Tyn said. “For now, let’s get back to the caravan. I want to talk you through the finer points of a Horneater accent. With that red hair of yours, you’ll probably find more chances to use it than you would others.”

29. Rule of Blood

Artform for colors beyond our ken;

For its grand songs we yearn.We must attract creationspren;These songs suffice ’til we learn.From the Listener Song of Revision, 279th stanza

Torol Sadeas closed his eyes and rested Oathbringer on his shoulder, breathing in the sweet, moldy scent of Parshendi blood. The Thrill of battle surged within him, a blessed and beautiful strength.

His own blood pumped so loudly in his ears he almost couldn’t hear the battlefield shouts and groans of pain. For a moment, he reveled only in the delicious glow of the Thrill, the heady euphoria at having spent an hour engaged in the only thing that brought true joy anymore: contending for his life, and taking those of enemies lesser than himself.

It faded. As always, the Thrill was fleeting once battle itself ended. It had grown less and less sweet during these raids on the Parshendi, likely because he knew deep inside that this contest was pointless. It did not stretch him, did not carry him further toward his ultimate goals of conquest. Slaughtering crem-covered savages in a Heralds-forsaken land had truly lost its savor.

He sighed, lowering his Blade, opening his eyes. Amaram approached across the battlefield, stepping over corpses of men and Parshendi. His Shardplate was bloodied purple up to the elbows, and he carried a glimmering gemheart in one gauntleted hand. He kicked aside a Parshendi corpse and joined Sadeas, his own honor guard fanning out to join those of his highprince. Sadeas spared a moment of annoyance for how efficiently they moved, particularly when compared to his own men.

Amaram pulled off his helm and hefted the gemheart, tossing it up and catching it. “Your maneuver here today failed, you realize?”

“Failed?” Sadeas said, lifting his faceplate. Nearby, his soldiers slaughtered a pocket of fifty Parshendi who hadn’t managed to get off the plateau when the rest retreated. “I think this went quite nicely.”

Amaram pointed. A stain had appeared on the plateaus to the west, toward the warcamps. The banners indicated that Hatham and Roion, the two highprinces who were supposed to have gone on this plateau run, had arrived together—they used bridges like Dalinar’s, slow plodding things it had been easy to outrun. One of the advantages of the bridge crews Sadeas preferred was that they needed very little training to function. If Dalinar had thought to slow him down with his stunt of trading Oathbringer for Sadeas’s bridgemen, he had been proven a fool.

“We needed to get out here,” Amaram said, “seize the gemheart, and return before the others arrived. Then you could have claimed that you didn’t realize you weren’t in the rotation today. The arrival of both other armies removes that shred of deniability.”

“You mistake me,” Sadeas said. “You assume I still care about deniability.” The last Parshendi died with enraged screams; Sadeas felt proud of that. Others said Parshendi warriors on the field never surrendered, but he’d seen them try it once, long ago, in the first year of the war. They’d laid down their weapons. He’d slaughtered them all personally, with Shardhammer and Plate, beneath the eyes of their retreating companions watching from a nearby plateau.

Never again had any Parshendi denied him or his men their right to finish a battle the proper way. Sadeas waved for the vanguard to gather and escort him back to the warcamps while the rest of the army licked its wounds. Amaram joined him, crossing a bridge and passing idling bridgemen who lay on the ground and slept while better men died.