Tukari.
The strange group of humans was now far enough away that he could barely make them out in the dim Shadesmar landscape. They had indeed turned southward.
“Why would they chase us all this way,” Adolin said, “then give up now?”
“Maybe they weren’t chasing us. They could have simply been going this direction anyway; that would explain why they were always careful to stay away from us and not catch up.”
A valid point—in fact, if the humans hadn’t seemed so unusual to him upon their first meeting, Adolin probably would have assumed this all along. He hadn’t thought it odd that Notum was traveling this same way. Why should he have worried so much about these humans?
There is something odd about them, he thought. The way they hovered so close, the way they watched us …
Adolin studied them through the spyglass, though at this distance he could make out little more than the shadows of figures carrying torches. “Well, they do appear to be leaving,” he said to Felt, handing back the spyglass. “Keep watch while we eat, just in case.”
Adolin was halfway back to the front of the column when the truth struck him.
* * *
Veil closed the top of the trunk with the communication cube, then locked it. She couldn’t always rely on the spy to return the cube in a different orientation after moving it, so—using a trick she’d learned from Tyn long ago—she’d started dusting it with a faint bit of powder.
It hadn’t been disturbed all this trip, so far as she could tell. She needed to find a way to use it as bait, leaving it alone in a tempting way. Pondering that, she walked over and took a bowl of mush from Ishnah. Veil braced herself to eat the terrible Soulcast stuff. She should force Radiant to take over for meals. Soldiers were accustomed to eating terrible rations in the field, right? Radiant would see it as an honor to eat this slop. It would build character, and—
Adolin dashed past.
Radiant dropped the cup and leaped to her feet. That was the posture of a man running toward a fight. She took off after him, reflexively trying to summon her Shardblade—which of course didn’t work. Not here in Shadesmar.
Adolin scrambled up to the top of the outcropping where Felt was still watching their rear. Radiant started climbing, and was joined by two of Adolin’s other soldiers. The rest of the Radiants and agents—even Zu the Stoneward, who always seemed so eager and excitable—just stood looking back with confused expressions.
At the top of the outcropping, she found Adolin peering through a spyglass, tense and alert.
“What?” Radiant asked.
“They weren’t following us,” he said. “Leave a spren or two to watch the camp, then bring everyone else after me! Be ready for a fight.”
With that, he leaped off the outcropping. His boots slapped stone below—storms, he did remember he wasn’t in Shardplate, didn’t he? Adolin took off running toward the distant Tukari caravan, hand on the sheathed sword at his belt, holding it in place.
Radiant stood stunned. Was Adolin going to walk all the way to—
The sound of cracking stone thundered from behind. Radiant jumped, searching the nearby formations for some kind of avalanche. Only then did she realize it was the sound of hooves striking obsidian at high speed as Gallant galloped past. A panicked Maya clung to his mane with a two-fisted grip—but his supplies appeared to have been unloaded.
Barely breaking stride, Adolin grabbed the dangling reins as Gallant pulled up beside him. Adolin did an odd running hop, then hoisted himself into the saddle behind Maya, a maneuver that a part of Radiant’s brain refused to believe was possible.
“Rusts,” Felt said, lowering his spyglass. “How did the beast know? Did anyone hear Highprince Adolin whistle for it?”
The other soldiers shook their heads.
“Let’s move!” Radiant said. “Get the packhorses and send outriders to follow him. I’ll have Pattern watch our things. Everyone else get ready to march!”
She had them all going in what she considered an impressively short amount of time. Three soldiers on horses went chasing after Adolin, but they were far slower than the Ryshadium. Something that large shouldn’t be so fast.
She marched double-time beside Godeke and Zu, and they outpaced the Stump and some of the spren. However, while Radiant’s training with Adolin over the last twelve months meant she wasn’t soft, she also hadn’t done any forced marches.
She’d come to rely on Stormlight. With it, she could have run at a full dash