to his feet and charging past the two bridgemen who nervously stood guard over him with spears. He started the process of summoning his Blade and ran toward the fighting up ahead. Only moments had passed, but already the Alethi lines were collapsing. Some infantry advanced in clusters while others had hunkered down, stunned and confused.
Another flash, accompanied by a cracking of the air. Lightning. Red lightning. It appeared in flashes from groups of Parshendi, then was gone in the blink of an eye. It left a bright afterimage—glowing, forked—that briefly obscured Adolin’s sight.
Ahead of him, men dropped, fried in their armor. Adolin shouted as he charged, bellowing for the men to hold their lines.
More cracks sounded, but the strikes didn’t seem well aimed. They’d sometimes flash backward or would follow strange paths, rarely going straight toward the Alethi. As he ran, he saw a blast come from a pair of Parshendi, but it arced immediately down into the ground.
The Parshendi stared downward, befuddled. It was as if the lightning worked . . . well, like lightning from the sky, not following any sort of predictable path.
“Charge them, you cremlings!” Adolin shouted, running through the middle of the soldiers. “Back into your lines! It’s just like advancing on archers! Keep your heads. Tighten up. If we break, we’re dead!”
He wasn’t certain how much of that they heard, but the image of him yelling, crashing into the line of Parshendi, did something. Shouts rose from officers, lines re-formed.
Lightning flashed right at Adolin.
The sound was incredible, and the light. He stood in place, blinded. When it faded, he found himself completely unharmed. He looked down at the armor, which was vibrating softly—a hum that rattled his skin in a strangely comforting way. Nearby, another crack of lightning left a small group of Parshendi, but it didn’t blind him. His helm—which as always was partially translucent from the inside—darkened in a jagged streak, perfectly overlaying the lightning.
Adolin grinned with clenched teeth, feeling a savage satisfaction as he pushed into the Parshendi and swung his Shardblade through their necks. By the old stories, the suit he wore had been created to fight these very monsters.
Though these Parshendi soldiers were sleeker and more ferocious-looking than the ones he’d previously fought, their eyes burned just as easily. Then they dropped dead and something wiggled out of their chests—small red spren, like tiny lightning, that zipped into the air and vanished.
“They can be killed!” one of the soldiers yelled nearby. “They can die!”
Others raised the call, passing it down the lines. Obvious though the revelation seemed, it bolstered his troops, and they surged forward.
They can die.
* * *
Shallan drew. Frantic.
A map in ink. Each line precise. The large sheet, crafted at her order, covered a wide board on the floor. It was the largest drawing she’d ever done; she’d filled it in, section by section, as they traveled.
She listened with half an ear to the other scholars in the tent. They were a distraction, but an important one.
Another line, rippled on the sides, forming a thin plateau. It was a copy of the one she’d drawn in seven other places on the map. The Plains were a fourfold radial pattern mirrored down the center of each quadrant, and so anything she drew in one quadrant she could repeat in the others, mirrored as appropriate. The eastern side was worn down, yes, so her map wouldn’t be accurate in that area—but for cohesion, she needed to finish those parts. So she could see the whole pattern.
“Scout reporting in,” a messenger woman said, bursting into the tent, letting in a gust of the wet wind. This unexpected wind . . . it almost felt like the wind before a highstorm.
“What is the report?” Inadara asked. The severe woman was supposed to be a great scholar. She reminded Shallan of her father’s ardents. In the corner of the room, Prince Renarin stood in his Shardplate, arms folded. He had orders to protect them all, should the Parshendi try to break onto the command plateau.
“The large center plateau is just as the parshman told us,” the scout said, breathless. “It’s only one plateau over, to the east.” Lyn was a solid-looking woman with long black hair and keen eyes. “It’s obviously inhabited, though there doesn’t seem to be anyone there right now.”
“And the plateaus surrounding it?” Inadara asked.
“Shim and Felt are scouting those,” Lyn said. “Felt should be back soon. I can do a rough drawing of what I saw of