Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive #4) - Brandon Sanderson Page 0,346

shortcut had completely circumvented the blockade. Hopefully that would confuse the soldiers as they tried to track him. Kaladin moved to sneak out the door, but the woodworker caught him by the arm.

“Radiant,” he said. “How? How do you still fight?”

“The same way you do,” Kaladin said. “One day at a time, always taking the next step.” He took the man’s wrist with his hand. “Don’t get yourself killed. But also don’t give up hope.”

The man nodded.

“Hide,” Kaladin said. “They’ll come searching for me.”

He pulled free and joined Syl. After about ten minutes of jogging, he heard shouting to his right, but nobody came running—and he realized where they thought he was heading: to a set of stairs that led directly toward the larger stairwell, which in turn led to the basement. They thought he was trying to rescue the queen, or maybe reach the crystal pillar.

Their error let him follow some back pathways without meeting any patrols, until he finally drew near the atrium. He’d managed to cross the entire floor, but he was now so deeply embedded within the tower that he was essentially surrounded.

The light led him around to the northern side of the tower, through some residential hallways, with lights under the doors. Rooms near the atrium and its grand window were popular—here, people could still see sunlight, but the atrium was generally warmer than the perimeter, with easy access to lifts.

The area was unnaturally silent, perhaps under curfew. He was used to the atrium region being alive with the sound of people talking all hours of the day, the lifts clanking faintly as they moved. Tonight it was hushed. He crept along the tower spren’s path, wondering when he’d find resistance. Surely someone would have put together what he was doing. Surely they would …

He stopped in the hallway as he saw bright light ahead. He could have sworn he’d reached the furthermost edge of the tower, the place near the enormous glass window that looked out to the east. There shouldn’t be any more rooms here, but ahead and to his right, moonlight spilled through an opening.

He inched up to find the area strewn with rubble. A secret door in the wall had been broken open; when he peeked through, he saw a short tunnel that ended at open air. This was the eastern wall of the tower, the flat side of Urithiru. The secret tunnel here was old, not newly cut, and had been created open to the air of the mountains.

The Pursuer was here, standing with another Fused and inspecting a strange device at the end of the short tunnel, right where it ended and opened to the air. A glowing sapphire, easily as large as a chasmfiend’s gemheart, had been set into a built-in stand rising from the floor. The entire mechanism was covered over in crem, so it had been here a while, and the Fused had needed to break off a crem crust to reach the gemstone.

The implication struck Kaladin immediately. As the Sibling had hinted, a node to defend the tower had been placed where it could draw in Stormlight naturally from the storms, when they reached this high. The unfamiliar Fused was a tall femalen with a topknot of red-orange hair. She wore practical battle gear, leather and cloth, and stood with her hands clasped behind her back as she inspected the sapphire.

The other was, as he’d noted earlier, the Pursuer. A hulking mountain of chitin and dark brown cloth, with eyes glowing a deep red. All of the spheres had been removed from the lanterns in the hallway behind Kaladin, so the only light came from the sapphire.

“See?” the femalen said in Alethi as they spotted Kaladin. “I told you he’d come. I keep my promises, Pursuer. He’s yours.”

The red eyes focused on Kaladin, then went dark as a ribbon of crimson light burst from the center of the Pursuer’s mass. The body—a discarded husk—collapsed to the floor. Kaladin raised his spear, gauging where the Pursuer would land. He thrust on instinct, hoping to catch the Fused as he materialized.

This time, however, the Pursuer’s ribbon jogged and looped a few times, disorienting Kaladin. He thrust again, missing the mark as the Pursuer coalesced to the side of Kaladin’s spear. The creature lunged for Kaladin, who danced backward into the darkened hallway outside the tunnel.

The creature stepped into the broken doorway. So, Kaladin infused his spear and tossed it at the Pursuer—who reflexively caught it. That stuck