The Way of Kings - By Brandon Sanderson Page 0,323

Old Magic and the Nightwatcher, things that could bring a man bad luck. I scoffed at them. But how long can I continue to ignore that possibility? What if all of these failures can be traced to something like that?”

Syl looked disturbed. The cap and jacket she’d been wearing dissolved to mist, and she wrapped her arms around herself as if chilled by his comments.

Odium reigns….

“Syl,” he said, frowning, thinking back to his strange dream. “Have you ever heard of something called Odium? I don’t mean the feeling, I mean…a person, or something called by that name.”

Syl suddenly hissed. It was a feral, disturbing sound. She zipped off his shoulder, becoming a darting streak of light, and shot up underneath the eaves of the next building.

He blinked. “Syl?” he called, drawing the attention of a couple of passing washwomen. The spren did not reappear. Kaladin folded his arms. That word had set her off. Why?

A loud series of curses interrupted his thoughts. Kaladin spun as a man burst out of a handsome stone building across the street and shoved a half-naked woman out in front of him. The man had bright blue eyes, and his coat—carried over one arm—had red knots on the shoulder. A lighteyed officer, not very high-ranking. Perhaps seventh dahn.

The half-dressed woman fell to the ground. She held the loose front of the dress to her chest, crying, her long black hair down and tied with two red ribbons. The dress was that of a lighteyed woman, except that both sleeves were short, safehand exposed. A courtesan.

The officer continued to curse as he pulled on his coat. He didn’t do up the buttons. Instead, he stepped forward and kicked the whore in the belly. She gasped, painspren pulling from the ground and gathering around her. Nobody on the street paused, though most did hurry on their way, heads down.

Kaladin growled, jumping into the roadway, pushing his way past a group of soldiers. Then he stopped. Three men in blue stepped out of the crowd, moving purposefully between the fallen woman and the officer in red. Only one was lighteyed, judging by the knots on his shoulders. Golden knots. A high-ranking man indeed, second or third dahn. These obviously weren’t from Sadeas’s army, not with those well-pressed blue coats.

Sadeas’s officer hesitated. The officer in blue rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. The other two were holding fine halberds with gleaming half-moon heads.

A group of soldiers in red moved out of the crowd and began to surround those in blue. The air grew tense, and Kaladin realized that the street—bustling just moments ago—was quickly emptying. He stood practically alone, the only one watching the three men in blue, now surrounded by seven in red. The woman was still on the ground, sniffling. She huddled next to the blue garbed officer.

The man who had kicked her—a thick-browed brute with a mop of uncombed black hair—began to button up the right side of his coat. “You don’t belong here, friends. It seems you wandered into the wrong warcamp.”

“We have legitimate business,” said the officer in blue. He had light golden hair, speckled with Alethi black, and a handsome face. He held his hand before him as if wishing to shake hands with Sadeas’s officer. “Come now,” he said affably. “Whatever your problem with this woman, I’m sure it can be resolved without anger or violence.”

Kaladin moved back under the overhang where Syl had hidden.

“She’s a whore,” Sadeas’s man said.

“I can see that,” replied the man in blue. He kept his hand out.

The officer in red spat on it.

“I see,” said the blond man. He pulled his hand back, and twisting lines of mist gathered in the air, coalescing in his hands as he raised them to an offensive posture. A massive sword appeared, as long as a man is tall.

It dripped with water that condensed along its cold, glimmering length. It was beautiful, long and sinuous, its single edge rippled like an eel and curved up into a point. The back bore delicate ridges, like crystal formations.

Sadeas’s officer stumbled away and fell, his face pale. The soldiers in red scattered. The officer cursed at them—as vile a curse as Kaladin had ever heard—but none returned to help him. With a final glare, he scrambled up the steps back into the building.

The door slammed, leaving the roadway eerily silent. Kaladin was the only one on the street besides the soldiers in blue and the fallen courtesan. The Shardbearer gave