Dalinar felt his age as he jogged past the next row of buildings, still clutching The Way of Kings under his arm. He had barely any spheres on him, an oversight, but neither did he have Plate or Blade. This would be his first battle in many, many years without Shards. He’d insisted on stepping out of those boots, and would have to let Amaram and other Shardbearers command the field.
How was Amaram faring? Last Dalinar had seen, the highprince had been arranging his archers—but from this low in the city, Dalinar couldn’t see the troops outside.
A sudden feeling slammed into him.
It was focus and passion. An eager energy, a warmth, a promise of strength.
Glory.
Life.
To Dalinar, this thirst for the battle felt like the attentions of a lover you’d turned away long ago. The Thrill was here. His old, dear friend.
“No,” he whispered, sagging against a wall. The emotion struck him harder than the earthquake had. “No.”
The taste was so, so appealing. It whispered that he could save this city all on his own. Let the Thrill in, and the Blackthorn could return. He didn’t need Shards. He only needed this passion. Sweeter than any wine.
No.
He shoved the Thrill aside, scrambling to his feet. As he did, however, a shadow moved beyond the wall. A monster of stone, one of the beasts from his visions, standing some thirty feet tall—looming over the twenty-foot city wall. The thunderclast clasped its hands together, then swung them low, crashing them through the city wall, flinging out chunks of stone.
Dalinar leaped toward cover, but a falling boulder pounded into him, crushing him into a wall.
Blackness.
Falling.
Power.
He gasped, and Stormlight flooded into him—he shook awake to find his arm pinned by the boulder, rocks and dust falling on a rubble-strewn street before him. And … not just rubble. He coughed, realizing some of those lumps were bodies coated in dust, lying motionless.
He struggled to pull his arm from under the boulder. Nearby, the thunderclast kicked at the broken wall, opening a hole. Then it stepped through, footfalls shaking the ground, approaching the shelf that made up the front of the Ancient Ward.
A massive stone foot thumped to the ground by Dalinar. Storms! Dalinar hauled on his arm, heedless of the pain or the damage to his body, and finally got it free. The Stormlight healed him as he crawled away, ducking as the monster ripped the roof off a building at the front of the Ancient Ward and sent debris raining down.
The Gemstone Reserve? The monster cast the roof aside, and several Fused that he’d missed before—they were riding on its shoulders—slipped down into the building. Dalinar was torn between heading for the battlefield outside, and investigating whatever was going on here.
Any idea what they’re after? he asked the Stormfather.
No. This is odd behavior.
In a flash decision, Dalinar yanked his book out from under some rubble nearby, then went running back up the now-empty steps to the Ancient Ward, dangerously close to the thunderclast.
The monster released a sudden piercing roar, like a thunderclap. The shock wave almost knocked Dalinar off his feet again. In a fit of rage, the titanic creature attacked the Gemstone Reserve, ripping apart its walls and innards, tossing chunks backward. A million sparkling bits of glass caught the sunlight as they fell over the city, the wall, and beyond.
Spheres and gemstones, Dalinar realized. All the wealth of Thaylenah. Scattered like leaves.
The thing seemed increasingly angry as it pounded the area around the reserve. Dalinar put his back to a wall as two Fused darted past, led by what appeared to be a glowing yellow spren. These two Fused didn’t seem to be able to fly, but there was a startling grace to their motion. They slid along the stone street with no apparent effort, as if the ground were greased.
Dalinar gave chase, squeezing past a group of scribes huddled in the street, but before he could catch up, the Fused attacked one palanquin among the many trying to move through the crowds. They knocked it over, shoving aside the porters, and dug inside.
The Fused ignored Dalinar’s shouts. They soon streaked away—one tucking a large object under its arm. Dalinar drew in Stormlight from some fleeing merchants, then ran the rest of the distance to the palanquin. Amid the wreckage he found a young Thaylen woman alongside an elderly man who appeared to have been previously wounded, judging by the bandages.
Dalinar helped the dazed young woman to a sitting position. “What did they want?”
“Brightlord?” she said in Thaylen. She blinked, then seized his arm. “The King’s Drop … a ruby. They tried to steal it before, and now, now they’ve taken it!”
A ruby? A simple gemstone? The porters attended to the old man, who was barely conscious.
Dalinar looked over his shoulder at the retreating thunderclast. The enemy had ignored the wealth of the Gemstone Reserve. Why would they want a specific ruby? He was about to press for more details when something else drew his attention. From this higher vantage, he could see through the hole the thunderclast had broken in the wall.
Figures outside with glowing red eyes arrayed themselves on the battlefield—but they weren’t parshmen.
Those were Sadeas uniforms.
Jasnah moved into the temple, gripping her Shardblade, stepping on slippered feet. The red spren rising from Renarin—like a snowflake made of crystal and light—seemed to sense her and panicked, disappearing into Renarin with a puff.
A spren is, Ivory said. The wrong spren is.
Renarin Kholin was a liar. He was no Truthwatcher.
That is a spren of Odium, Ivory said. Corrupted spren. But … a human, bonded to one? This thing is not.
“It is,” Jasnah whispered. “Somehow.”
She was now close enough to hear Renarin whispering. “No … Not Father. No, please…”
Shallan wove Light.
A simple illusion, recalled from the pages of her sketchpad: some soldiers from the army, people from Urithiru, and some of the spren she’d sketched on her trip. Around twenty individuals in total.
“Taln’s nails,” Adolin said as Kaladin shot upward through the sky. “The bridgeboy is really into it.”
Kaladin drew away four of the Fused, but two remained behind. Shallan added an illusion of Azure to her group, then some of the Reachers she’d drawn. She hated using up so much Stormlight—what if she didn’t have enough left to get through the Oathgate?
“Good luck,” she whispered to Adolin. “Remember, I won’t be controlling these directly. They will make only rudimentary motions.”
“We’ll be fine.” Adolin glanced at Pattern, Syl, and the spren of his sword. “Right, guys?”
“Mmmm,” Pattern said. “I do not like being stabbed.”
“Wise words, friend. Wise words.” Adolin gave Shallan a kiss, then they took off running toward the bridge. Syl, Pattern, and the deadeye followed—as did the illusions, which were bound to Adolin.