eagerness for blood. Her eagerness to kill. The Thrill. He did not feel it himself. He sensed it in her.
Around him, Parshendi fled or fought in pockets as his men harried them. He passed a Parshendi, forced to the ground by soldiers, being gutted in the rain as he tried to crawl away. Water and blood splashed on the plateau, frantic yells sounding amid the thunder.
Thunder. Distant thunder from the west. Adolin glanced in that direction, and nearly lost his concentration. He could see it building, wind and rain spinning in a gigantic pillar, flashing red.
Eshonai swung for him, and Adolin turned back, blocking the blow with his forearm. That section of his Plate was getting weak, the cracks leaking Stormlight. He stepped into the blow and swung his own Blade, one-handed, into Eshonai’s side. He was rewarded by a grunt. She didn’t fold, though. She didn’t even step back. She raised her Blade and smashed it down against his forearm yet again.
The Plate there exploded in a flash of light and molten metal. Storms. Adolin was forced to pull the arm back and release the gauntlet—now too heavy, without the connecting Plate to help it—letting it drop off his hand. The wind that blew against his exposed skin was startlingly powerful.
A little more, Adolin thought, not backing away despite the lost section of Plate. He grabbed his Shardblade in two hands—one metal, the other flesh—and battered forward with a series of strikes. He transitioned out of Windstance. No sweeping majesty for him. He needed the frantic fury of Flamestance. Not just for the power, but because of what he needed to convey to Eshonai.
Eshonai growled, forced backward. “Your day has ended, destroyer,” she said inside her helm. “Today, your brutality turns against you. Today, extinction turns from us to you.”
A little more.
Adolin pressed her with a burst of swordplay, then he flagged, presenting her with an opening. She took it immediately, swinging for his helm, which leaked from an earlier blow. Yes, she was fully caught up in the Thrill. That lent her energy and strength, but it drove her to recklessness. To ignore her surroundings.
Adolin took the hit to the head and stumbled. Eshonai laughed with glee and moved to swing again.
Adolin lunged forward and slammed his shoulder and head into her chest. His helm exploded from the force of it, but his gambit succeeded.
Eshonai had not noticed how close they were to the chasm.
His shove threw her over the plateau’s edge. He felt Eshonai’s panic, heard her shout, as she was dropped into the open blackness.
Unfortunately, the exploding helm left Adolin momentarily blinded. He stumbled, and when he put a foot down, it landed only on empty air. He lurched, then fell toward the void of the chasm.
For a timeless moment, all he felt was panic and fright, a frozen eternity before he realized he wasn’t falling. His vision cleared, and he looked down into the maw before him, rain falling in curtains all around. Then he looked back over his shoulder.
To where two bridgemen had grabbed hold of the steel link skirt of his Plate and were struggling to hold him back from the brink. Grunting, they clung to the slick metal, holding tight with feet thrust against stones to keep from being pulled off with him.
Other soldiers materialized, rushing to help. Hands grabbed Adolin around the waist and shoulders, and together they hauled him back from the brink of the void—to the point that he was able to get his balance again and stumble away from the chasm.
Soldiers cheered, and Adolin let out an exhausted laugh. He turned to the bridgemen, Skar and Drehy. “I guess,” Adolin said, “I don’t need to wonder if you two can keep up with me or not.”
“This was nothing,” Skar said.
“Yeah,” Drehy added. “Lifting fat lighteyes is easy. You should try a bridge sometime.”
Adolin grinned, then wiped water from his face with his exposed hand. “See if you can find a chunk of my helm or forearm piece. Regrowing the armor will go faster if we’ve got a seed. Collect my gauntlet too, if you would.”
The two nodded. That red lightning in the sky was building, and that spinning column of dark rain was expanding, growing outward. That . . . that did not seem like a good sign.
He needed a better grasp on what was happening in the rest of the army. He jogged across the bridge to the central plateau. Where was his father? What was happening