knees, breathing in deep gasps.
Teofil gestured for Navani to retreat, and she moved to the mouth of the corridor. She didn’t retreat farther than that, so Teofil stoically walked over and handed her some wax and pointed at his ears. Then he fell into position, sword out, with one group of soldiers.
A controlled retreat was difficult enough, but what they were trying here—a fake rout leading to an ambush—was even trickier. You had to bait the enemy into thinking you were fleeing, and that involved turning your backs on them. A trickle of human soldiers soon came running into the room, and their panic seemed real to Navani. It probably was. The line between a feint and a true collapse of morale was thin as a sheet of paper.
The trickle of soldiers became a flood. Fleeing men, chased by flashes of light and thunder that made Navani hastily stuff her ears with the wax. She spared a moment of grief for the slowest of the fleeing soldiers, who sold this ruse with their lives, dying in a bright flash of lightning.
The chasing Regals soon charged into the room: wicked-looking singers with pointed carapace and glowing red eyes. Teofil waited longer than Navani would have to give the order to loose—he wanted as many Regals in the room as possible. The pause was long enough that the first of the enemies had time to stop, then raise arms crackling with electric energy.
Navani braced herself as they released flashes of light toward the waiting soldiers. Those flashes, however, struck the carefully placed metal pillars, which drew the lightning like tall trees might in an open field.
Teofil gave the order with a raised piece of red cloth—though Navani barely saw it, as she was blinking blinded eyes. Crossbows loosed in wave after deadly wave, cutting down the Regals—who didn’t have the same power to heal themselves that the Fused possessed.
“Hoist those lightning rods!” Teofil shouted, his voice sounding muted to her ears. “Move, men! Stay away from blood on the ground. We push for the basement!”
As quickly as that, the “rout” reversed, and human troops piled into the hallway to chase the remaining Regals. Teofil left her with a salute. He set out on a near-impossible task: to push down a long stairwell into the basement, harried by Regals and Fused. If Navani wasn’t able to get to him after he reached the pillar, he was to destroy the construction of garnets that suppressed Radiant powers. The Sibling indicated this would be effective at restoring the Radiants.
In the meantime, Navani’s job was to activate the Sibling’s fail-safe. She hurried to collect her scribes, hoping they wouldn’t balk too much at climbing over the corpses.
* * *
Kaladin ducked into a room, carrying an armful of blankets. He didn’t recognize the young family inside—father, mother, two toddlers—so they had to be refugees who had fled to Hearthstone.
The young family had done much to make this small, windowless room their own. Both walls were covered in Herdazian sand paintings, and the floor was painted in a large and intricate glyph.
Kaladin didn’t like the way they cringed as he entered, the children whimpering. If you don’t want people to cringe when they see you, he thought, act less like a ruffian and more like a surgeon. He never had possessed his father’s gentle grace, that unassuming way that wasn’t weak, but also rarely seemed threatening.
“Sorry,” Kaladin said, shutting the door behind him. “I know you were expecting my father. You wanted blankets?”
“Yes,” the wife said, rising and taking them from him. “Thank you. It cold.”
“I know,” Kaladin said. “Something’s wrong with the tower, so heating fabrials aren’t working.”
The man said something in Herdazian. Syl, sitting on Kaladin’s shoulder, whispered the interpretation—but the woman translated right afterward anyway.
“Dark ones in the corridors,” the woman said. “They … are staying?”
“We don’t know yet,” Kaladin said. “For now, it’s best to remain in your rooms. Here, I brought water and some rations. Soulcast, I’m afraid. We’ll send someone around tomorrow to gather chamber pots, if it comes to that.”
He slung his pack onto his shoulder after getting out the food and water. Then he slipped back out into the corridor. He had three more rooms to visit before meeting up with his father. “What time is it?” he asked Syl.
“Late,” she said. “A few hours to dawn.”
Kaladin had been working to deliver blankets and water for a good hour or so. He knew that fighting was still going on far