ostensibly, but really for any equipment or spheres.
“You think any of these might be alive?” Shallan asked, voice sounding small in the otherwise silent chasm.
“Well, we survived somehow.”
“How do you think that happened?” Shallan said, looking upward toward the gap far, far above.
“I saw some windspren just before we fell,” Kaladin said. “I’ve heard folktales of them protecting a person as he falls. Perhaps that’s what happened.”
Shallan went silent as he searched the bodies. “Yes,” she finally said. “That sounds logical.”
She seemed convinced. Good. So long as she didn’t start wondering about the stories told of “Kaladin Stormblessed.”
Nobody else was alive, but he verified for certain that neither Dalinar nor Adolin were among the corpses.
I was a fool not to spot that an assassination attempt was coming, Kaladin thought. Sadeas had tried hard to undermine Dalinar at the feast a few days back, with the revelation of the visions. It was a classic ploy. Discredit your enemy, then kill him, to make certain he didn’t become a martyr.
The corpses had little of value. A handful of spheres, some writing implements that Shallan greedily snatched up and stuffed into her satchel. No maps. Kaladin had no specific idea where they were. And with night imminent . . .
“What do we do?” Shallan asked softly, staring at the darkened realm, with its unexpected shadows, its gently moving frills, vines, polyplike staccatos, their tendrils out and wafting in the air.
Kaladin remembered his first times down in this place, which always felt too green, too muggy, too alien. Nearby, two skulls peeked out from beneath the moss, watching. Splashing sounded from a distant pool, which made Shallan spin wildly. Though the chasms were a home to Kaladin now, he did not deny that at times they were distinctly unnerving.
“It’s safer down here than it seems,” Kaladin said. “During my time in Sadeas’s army, I spent days upon days in the chasms, gathering salvage from the fallen. Just watch for rotspren.”
“And the chasmfiends?” Shallan asked, spinning to look in another direction as a cremling scuttled along the wall.
“I never saw one.” Which was true, though he had seen a shadow of one once, scraping its way down a distant chasm. Even thinking of that day gave him chills. “They aren’t as common as people claim. The real danger is highstorms. You see, if it rains, even far away from here—”
“Yes, flash flooding,” Shallan said. “Very dangerous in a slot canyon. I’ve read about them.”
“I’m sure that will be very helpful,” Kaladin said. “You mentioned some dead soldiers nearby?”
She pointed, and he strode in that direction. She followed, sticking close to his light. He found a few dead spearmen who had been shoved off the plateau above. The wounds were fresh. Just beyond them was a dead Parshendi, also fresh.
The Parshendi man had uncut gems in his beard. Kaladin touched one, hesitated, then tried to draw the Stormlight out. Nothing happened. He sighed, then bowed his head for the fallen, before finally pulling a spear from underneath one of the bodies and standing up. The light above had faded to a deep blue. Night.
“So, we wait?” Shallan asked.
“For what?” Kaladin asked, raising the spear to his shoulder.
“For them to come back . . .” She trailed off. “They’re not coming back for us, are they?”
“They’ll assume we’re dead. Storms, we should be dead. We’re too far out for a corpse-recovery operation, I’d guess. That’s doubly true since the Parshendi attacked.” He rubbed his chin. “I suppose we could wait for Dalinar’s major expedition. He was indicating he’d come this way, searching for the center. It’s only a few days away, right?”
Shallan paled. Well, she paled further. That light skin of hers was so strange. It and the red hair made her look like a very small Horneater. “Dalinar is planning to march just after the final highstorm before the Weeping. That storm is close. And it will involve lots, and lots, and lots of rain.”
“Bad idea, then.”
“You could say so.”
He’d tried to imagine what a highstorm would be like down here. He had seen the aftereffects when salvaging with Bridge Four. The twisted, broken corpses. The piles of refuse crushed against walls and into cracks. Boulders as tall as a man casually washed through chasms until they got wedged between two walls, sometimes fifty feet up in the air.
“When?” he asked. “When is that highstorm?”
She stared at him, then dug into her satchel, flipping through sheets of paper with her freehand while holding the satchel through