Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive #4) - Brandon Sanderson Page 0,281

so he trusted in Syl. She zipped ahead to an intersection, spun around in a circle a few times, then shot to the right. He kept pace with her, though he was feeling Teft’s weight more and more.

“Just a second,” he whispered to her at the next intersection, then rested against the wall—Teft still weighing heavily on his shoulders—and fished a chip from his pouch. The small topaz was barely enough to see by, but he needed it as the Stormlight he was holding finally gave out. And he didn’t have many spheres left.

He grunted under the weight of his friend, then pushed himself to stand up straight, clinging tightly to Teft with both hands while gripping the sphere between two fingers. He nodded to Syl, then continued after her, pleased that his strength was holding. He could manage Teft without Light. Despite Kaladin’s last few weeks spent as a surgeon, his body was still that of a soldier.

“We should go higher,” Syl said, floating alongside his head as a ribbon of light. “Can you manage?”

“Get us to floor ten at least,” Kaladin said.

“I’ll have to take us up stairwells as I see them. I don’t really know this section of the tower.…”

He let himself sink into an old familiar mindset as they continued. Teft’s weight across his shoulders wasn’t that different from carrying a bridge. It brought him back to those days. Running bridges. Eating stew.

Watching his friends die … feeling terror anew each day …

Those memories offered no comfort. But the rhythm of steps, carrying a burden, working his body on an extended march … it was at least familiar.

He followed Syl up one set of steps, then another. Then across another long tunnel, the strata here waving vigorously like ripples in a churning pond. Kaladin kept moving.

Until suddenly he came alert.

He couldn’t pinpoint what alarmed him, but he moved on instinct to immediately cover his sphere and duck into a side passage. He stepped into a nook and knelt to slide Teft off his shoulders. He pressed his hand against the unconscious man’s mouth to silence his mumbling.

Syl darted over a moment later. He could see her in the darkness, but she didn’t illuminate things around her. He shoved his other hand in his pocket, tightly holding the sphere so it couldn’t give off any betraying illumination.

“What?” Syl asked.

Kaladin shook his head. He didn’t know, but didn’t want to speak. He huddled there—hoping Teft wouldn’t mutter or shift too loudly—his own heartbeat thumping in his ears.

Then, faint red light crept into the hallway he’d left. Syl immediately zipped to hide her light behind Kaladin’s dark form.

The light approached, revealing a single ruby along with a pair of glowing red eyes. Those illuminated a terrible face. Pure black, with hints of marbled red under the eyes. Long dark hair, which appeared woven into his simple wrap of clothing. It was the creature Kaladin had fought in Hearthstone, the one he’d killed in the burning room of the mansion. Though the Fused had been reborn into a new body, Kaladin knew from the skin patterns that it was the same individual. Come for revenge.

The Fused didn’t seem to spot Kaladin hiding in the darkness, though he did pause at the intersection for an extended period of time. He moved on, thankfully, going deeper along the path Kaladin had been taking.

Storms … Kaladin had defeated the thing last time without any Stormlight, but he had done so by playing on its arrogance. Kaladin doubted it would let him get such an easy kill again.

Those singers in the clinic … one of them mentioned that a Fused was looking for me. They called him the Pursuer. This thing … it had come to the tower specifically to find Kaladin.

“Follow it,” he mouthed, turning to Syl, counting on her to understand his meaning. “I’ll find someplace more secluded to hide.”

She wove her line of light into a brief luminescent representation of a kejeh glyph—meaning “affirmative”—then zipped after the Pursuer. She couldn’t get too far from Kaladin anymore, but she should be able to follow for a while. Hopefully she could do so circumspectly, as some of the Fused could see spren.

Kaladin hauled Teft back up onto his shoulders, then struck out into the darkness, barely allowing himself any light. There was always something oppressive about being deep in the tower, feeling so far away from the sky and the wind—but it was worse in the darkness. He could all too easily imagine