[OB] Oathbringer Excerpts & Readings

[ZenBossanova]

We need a place where we can put excerpts and readings from the upcoming book. This is not exhaustive... Not yet anyway.   This is every revealed bit I have been able to find. If you know of any others, please post below! 

Kaladin Chapter (Returning Home)
Source: http://www.tor.com/2014/09/30/brandon-sanderson-stormlight-archive-book-3-first-chapter/
Video/Audio: none?

Spoiler

Kaladin trudged through a field of quiet rockbuds, fully aware that he was too late to prevent the disaster. The knowledge slowed him, pressing against his shoulders with an almost physical sensation, like the weight of a bridge he was forced to carry all on his own.

The land around him should have felt familiar. Instead, it seemed wild, overgrown, alien. After so long in the stormlands—those eastern lands that bore the brunt of the storms—he had almost forgotten the sights of a more fertile landscape. Rockbuds grew almost as big as barrels, with vines as thick as his wrist spilling out and lapping water from the pools on the stone. Grass spread in fields and came up to his waist, dappled with glowing lifespren. The grass was vibrant green and slow to pull down into its burrows as he approached.

Kaladin shook his head; the grass back near the Shattered Plains had barely grown as high as his ankle, and had mostly come in yellowish patches on the leeward side of hills. Almost anything could be hiding in these fields. All you’d have to do was crouch down and wait for the grass to sneak back up around you, and you’d have a perfect ambush point. How had he never noticed that during his youth? He’d run through fields like this, playing catch-me with his brother, trying to see who was quick enough to grab handfuls of grass before it hid.

Something caught his eye, and he turned toward it, startling a patch of grass around himself. Kaladin felt drained. Used up. Like a . . . a mighty storm that had lost its fury, and was now just a soft breeze. His dramatic flight had begun with more Stormlight than he had thought he could hold, and a wealth more tucked into his pockets and pack, in the form of gemstones. It ended with this, a limping, exhausted trudge through fields. Perhaps he could have flown all the way to northwestern Alethkar from the Shattered Plains if he’d been more practiced with his powers. As it was—despite bearing a king’s wealth in gemstones—he’d run out of Stormlight somewhere in Aladar’s princedom.

He’d traveled hundreds of miles in half a day. And it still hadn’t been enough. This last bit—not thirty miles to walk—had been excruciating. So slow! He would have passed this distance in an eyeblink before, but he’d been walking for two days. He felt like a man who had been winning a footrace, only to trip and break his legs a handspan from the finish line.

He neared the object he’d seen earlier, and the grass obligingly pulled back before him, revealing a broken wooden churn. For turning sow’s milk into butter. Kaladin rested fingers on the splintered wood; only the wealthy had access to enough milk for this sort of thing, and a churn would have been locked up tight before a storm. He glanced to the side at another chunk of wood peeking out over the tops of the grass, like the hand of a drowning man reaching toward the sky.

Syl zipped down as ribbon of light, passing his head and spinning around the length of wood. He could sense an inquisitiveness to her motions, even though she hadn’t manifested a face yet. Was he mistaken, or was their bond growing stronger? His ability to read her emotions, and she his, improving?

Perhaps it was just familiarity. “It’s the side of a roof,” Kaladin said. “The lip that hangs down on the leeward side of a building.” Probably a storage shed, judging by the debris he’d spotted in the field.

Alethkar wasn’t in the stormlands, but neither was it some soft-skinned, stormless western land. Buildings here were built low and squat, particularly outside of big, sheltered cities. They’d be pointed eastward, toward the storms, and windows would only be on the leeward—the westward—side. Like the grass and the trees, mankind bowed before the storms. The alternative was to be ripped apart, for the Stormfather did not suffer the insolent.

But, then, these objects—ripped free in winds, deposited miles from their origins—had not come free in a highstorm. Another more fell wind had done this deed: a storm that blew the wrong direction.

The mere thought of that a panic rise inside of him, a feeling like he got when watching a hail of arrows fall on himself and his men. The everstorm, as it was called, was so wrong, so unnatural—like a baby born with no face. Some things just should not be.

And, the most troubling part was that the storm itself was not the worst of their problems.

He stood and left the debris behind, continuing on his way. He had changed uniforms before leaving—taking the Oathgate to the Shattered Plains, then streaking into the sky and rushing in desperation toward Alethkar. His old uniform had been bloodied and tattered, though this one wasn’t much better. A spare, generic Kholin uniform, not even of the old Cobalt Guard. It felt wrong to not bear the symbol of Bridge Four. But, then, a lot of things felt wrong to him these days.

I swear I recognize this place, he thought to himself, cresting a hill. A river broke the landscape to his right, but it was a small, impermanent one—it would flow only following a storm. Still, trees sprouted along its banks, hungry for the extra water, and they marked the route. Yes . . . That would be Hobble’s Brook. So if he looked directly west . . .

Hand shading his eyes, he spotted them. Cultivated hills; they stuck out like the balding crowns of elderly men. No grass, no rockbuds. They’d soon be slathered with seed-crem, and lavis polyps would start growing. That hadn’t started yet, most likely. This was supposed to be the Weeping. Rain should be falling right now in a constant, gentle stream.

The everstorm that had blown through early in the morning had swept the clouds along with it, stopping the rain. As much as he despised the Weeping, he was not happy to see those rains go. They should have lasted another seven days, but the wrong-way storm had apparently disrupted them. Another unnatural effect.

Kaladin had been forced to weather the thing in a hollow of rock, cut with his Shardblade. Storms, it had been even more eerie than a highstorm.

He crested a hill, inspecting the landscape. As he did, Syl zipped up in front of him, a ribbon of light. “Your eyes are brown again,” she noted.

It took a few hours without touching Stormlight or summoning his Shardblade. Once he did either thing, his eyes would bleed to a glassy light blue, almost glowing. A few hours later, they’d fade again. Syl found the variation fascinating; Kaladin still hadn’t decided how he felt about it.

“We’re close,” Kaladin said, pointing. “Those fields belong to Hobbleken. We’re maybe two hours from Hearthstone.”

“Then you’ll be home!” Syl said, her ribbon of light spiraling and taking the shape of a young woman in a flowing havah, tight and buttoning above the waist, with safehand covered.

Kaladin grunted, continuing down the slope.

“Do you like the new dress?” Syl asked, wagging her covered safehand.

“Looks strange on you.”

“I’ll have you know I put a ton of thought into it,” Syl said with a huff. “I spent positively hours thinking of just how— Oh! What’s that?” She zipped away, turning into a little stormcloud that came to rest over a lurg clinging to a stone. She inspected the fist-size amphibian on one side, then the other, before squealing in joy and turning into a perfect imitation—only pale white-blue. This startled the thing away, and she giggled, zipping back toward Kaladin as a ribbon of light.

“What were we saying?” she asked, forming into a young woman and resting on his shoulder.

“Nothing important.”

“I’m sure I was scolding you,” Syl said, tapping his shoulder with her fingers in a pensive way. “Regardless, you’re home! Yay! Aren’t you excited?”

He shook his head. She didn’t see it—didn’t realize. Sometimes, for all her curiosity, she could be oblivious.

“But . . . it’s your home . . .” Syl said. She huddled down. “What’s wrong? Why are you feeling like this?”

“The everstorm, Syl,” Kaladin said. “We were supposed to beat it here.” He’d needed to beat it here.

Storms, why hadn’t he been faster? He’d spent much of the day before at a forced march, as fast as he could manage, not even stopping to sleep. Perhaps that was why he felt so drained, like even lifting his arm was a chore.

Being without Stormlight after holding so much was part of it too. He felt like a hogshide tube that had been squeezed and squeezed to get the last drops of antiseptic out, leaving only the husk. Was this what it would be like every time he used a lot of Stormlight, then ran dry?

The arrival of the everstorm in the morning had caused him to collapse, finally, and give in to his fatigue. That had been the ringing of the bell, the notice of failure.

He tried to avoid thinking of what he’d discover in Hearthstone. Surely, someone would have survived, right? The fury of the storm, and then the worse fury after? The murderous rampage of once-servants turned into monsters?

Oh, Stormfather. Why hadn’t he been faster?

He forced himself into a double march again, pack slung over his shoulder. The weight was still heavy, dreadfully so, but he found that he had to know. Had to see.

Someone had to witness what had happened to his home.

The rain started again about an hour out of Hearthstone, so at least the weather patterns hadn’t been completely ruined. Unfortunately, this meant he had to hike the rest of the way wet and accompanied by the constant patter of a light rainfall. Storms, but he hated the Weeping.

“It will be all right, Kaladin,” Syl promised from his shoulder. She’d created an umbrella for herself, and still wore the traditional dress, instead of her usual girlish skirt. “You’ll see.”

Her reassurance did little to budge his sense of dread. If anything, her optimism only highlighted his mood—like a piece of dung on a table surrounded by finery only made it look that much more nasty. It wouldn’t be “all right.” That was just not how his life went.

The sky had darkened by the time he finally crested the last lavis hill and looked down on Hearthstone. He braced himself for the destruction, but even still, it shocked him. Buildings without roofs. Debris strewn about. Some houses had even fallen. He couldn’t see the entire town from his vantage, not in the gloom of the Weeping, but the houses he could make out in the waning light were hollow and ruined.

He stood for a long time as night fell. He didn’t spot a glimmer of light in the town. The place was empty.

Dead.

A piece of him scrunched up inside, huddling into a corner, tired of being whipped so often. He’d embraced his power, he’d taken the path he should. Why hadn’t it been enough?

His eyes immediately sought out his parents’ home near the center of town. But no. Even if he’d been able to see it in the rainy evening gloom, he didn’t want to go there. Not yet. Instead, he rounded toward the northwestern side, where a hill led up to the citylord’s manor. He would start his search here; this was where the parshmen had been kept. When the transformation had come upon them, here was where they would have begun their rampage. He was pretty certain he could run across Roshone’s corpse and not be too heartbroken.

He passed the hollow buildings, accompanied only by the sound of rain in the darkness. He went to fish out a sphere for light, but of course he’d used up all of those. They were dun now, and wouldn’t be refreshed until the next highstorm—weeks away, assuming normal weather patterns. Not something one could assume any longer.

He shivered in the chill and walked a little further out from the city, not wanting to feel the holes of those gaping homes upon him like eyes. Though Hearthstone had once seemed enormous to him—it was a town of some hundred buildings, far larger than the numerous tiny villages surrounding it—there was really nothing remarkable about the place. It was one of dozens of towns like it in Alethkar. The larger towns like this, though still very rural, served as a kind of hub to the farming communities spreading out from it.

And, because of that, it was cursed with the presence of a lighteyed ruler of some import. Citylord Roshone, in this case. A man whose greedy ways had ruined far more than one life.

Moash . . . Kaladin thought. He’d have to face what his friend had done at some point. Now, the betrayal was too fresh, and other wounds would need nurturing first. More immediate wounds.

Kaladin climbed up to Roshone’s manor, a very familiar path. Once, he’d come up this way almost daily. Back when they’d had a different citylord. That life was surreal to remember. A past that almost didn’t belong to him any longer.

“Wow,” Syl said. “Gloomspren.”

Kaladin looked up and noted an unusual spren whipping around him. Long, grey, like a large, tattered streamer of cloth in the wind, it wound around him, fluttering as if in a phantom wind. He’d only seen its like once or twice before.

“Why are they so rare?” Kaladin asked, continuing his hike. The manor was just ahead. “People feel gloomy all the time.”

“Who knows?” Syl said. “Some spren are common. Some are uncommon.” She tapped his shoulder. “I’m pretty sure one of my relatives liked to hunt these things.”

“Hunt them?” Kaladin asked. “Like, try to spot them?”

“No. Like you hunt greatshells. Can’t remember her name . . . Anyway, the hunts were grand things. Quite the endeavor.” Syl cocked her head, oblivious to the fact that rain was falling through her form. “What an odd memory.”

“More seems to be coming back to you.”

“The longer I’m with you,” she said with a nod, “the more it happens. Assuming you don’t try to kill me again.” She gave him a sideways look.

“How often are you going to make me apologize for that?”

“How many times have I done it so far?”

“At least fifty.”

“Liar,” Syl said. “Can’t be more than twenty.” She looked at him expectantly.

“I’m sorry.” He sighed. He needed to be on with it. No more delaying.

Wait. Was that light up ahead?

Kaladin stopped on the path. It was light, coming from the manor house. It flickered unevenly. Candles? Someone, it appeared, had survived. That was good, but also worrisome. What if it was the parshmen—or whatever one called them now that they’d transformed? Voidbringers would probably do.

They could have slaughtered the people of the town, then set up here in the manor. He needed to be careful, though as he approached, he found that he didn’t want to be. He wanted to be reckless, angry, destructive. If he found the creatures that had taken his home from him . . .

It was supposed to have been safe. Far from Kaladin, far from his new life of pain and lost friends. “Be ready,” he mumbled to Syl. She was his Shardblade now, his weapon, like the spren companions of the Knights of old.

“He stepped off the pathway, which was kept free of grass or other plants, and crept through the night toward the lights. The manor was occupied. The light he’d spotted earlier shone from windows that had been shattered in the everstorm, which would have come upon the city not only from the wrong direction, but at a completely unexpected time. No Stormwarden could have predicted this. The shutters would not have been put on windows, and people wouldn’t have known to stay indoors.

The rain muted sound and made it difficult to spot much about the manor other than the broken porch, ruined windows, and shifting light. Someone, or something, was inside, though. Shadows moved in front of the lights. Kaladin reached the side of the building, heart thumping, then rounded toward the northern side. The servants’ entrance would be here, along with the quarters for the parshmen.

The rain muted sounds, making it difficult to pick out specifics, but he did hear an unusual amount of noise coming from inside the manor house. Thumping. Motion. Each sound put him further on edge.

It was now fully night, and he had to feel his way through the gardens up to the building’s side. Fortunately, he remembered this place well. He’d spent much of his youth up at the manor, playing with Laral, the old citylord’s daughter. The parshmen had been housed in a small construction at the side of the manor, built in its shadow, with a single open chamber with shelflike benches inside for sleeping. Kaladin reached it by touch and Syl zipped up in front of him, giving off some miniscule light—enough for him to make out a gaping hole in the side of the building.

Well, that wasn’t a good sign. Kaladin felt around it, rain patting his shoulders and head. The entire side of the building had been ripped out, and the inside was apparently empty. He left it, scouting through the gardens—full of chest-high ridges of cultivated shalebark—looking for some sign of what had happened.

Sounds from behind.

Kaladin spun with a curse as the back entrance of the manor opened. Too far from the parshmen quarters to seek cover there, he dove for a shalebark mound, but it was pitifully small. Light bathed him, cutting through the rain. A lantern.

Kaladin raised one hand—no use hiding—and stretched the other to the side, prepared to summon Syl. Then he hesitated. The person who had stepped from the manor was human, a guardsman in an old helm with spots of rust on it.

The man held up his lantern, pale in the face at having seen Kaladin. “Here now.” The guardsman fumbled with the mace on his belt. “Here now! You there!” He pulled free the weapon and held it out in a quivering hand. “What are you? Deserter? Come here into the light and let me see you.”

Kaladin stood up warily, still tense. Someone, at least, seemed to have survived the Voidbringer assault. Either that, or this was a group investigating the aftermath.

Still, it was the first hopeful sign he’d seen since arriving. He held his hands to the side—he was unarmed save for Syl—and let the guard bully him into the building.

 

Kaladin (and Tarah)

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlDHUCemF9U&ab_channel=MichaelMiller

 

Dalinar Flashback #1 (Battle)
Source: http://www.tor.com/2015/10/23/brandon-sanderson-reveals-a-dalinar-chapter-from-stormlight-archive-book-3/
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNJiQROElck

Spoiler

Rockbuds crunched like skulls beneath Dalinar’s boots as he charged across the burning field. His elites tromped behind him, a handpicked force of soldiers both lighteyed and dark. They weren’t an honor guard. Dalinar didn’t need guards. These were simply the men he considered competent enough not to embarrass him.

Around him, rockbuds smoldered. Moss—dried from the summer heat and long days between storms this time of year—flared up in waves, setting the rockbud shells themselves aflame. Dalinar charged through the smoke, trusting in his padded armor and thick boots to protect him. Flamespren, like tiny people made of fire, danced from one burning patch to the next.

The enemy—pressed by his armies from the north—had pulled back into this town just ahead. Dalinar had held himself back, with difficulty, from entering that initial clash. He’d known the real fighting would take place in the town.

He hadn’t expected the enemy to—in a desperate move—fire this plain, burning their own crops to block the southern approach. Well, no matter. The fires could go to Damnation for all Dalinar cared. He led his men in a charge, and though some were overwhelmed by the smoke or heat, most stayed with him. They’d crash into the enemy from the south, pressing them between his men and the main army.

Hammer and anvil. His favorite kind of tactic: the type that didn’t allow his enemies to get away from him.

As Dalinar burst from the smoky air, he found a few lines of spearmen hastily making ranks on the southern edge of the town. There were remnants of a wall, but that had been torn down in a contest a few years back. Dalinar had forgotten the town’s name, but the location was ideal. A large ridge to the east made a natural break from the storms and had allowed this place to sprawl, almost like a real city.

Dalinar screamed at the enemy soldiers, beating his sword—just a regular longsword—against his shield. He wore a sturdy breastplate and helm along with iron-lined boots. The spearmen ahead of him wavered as his elites roared from the smoke and flame, shouting a bloodthirsty cacophony.

A few of the spearmen dropped weapons and ran. Fearspren, gobs of violet goo, wriggled up en masse around the enemy rank. Dalinar grinned. He didn’t need Shards to intimidate.

He hit the spearmen like a boulder rolling through a grove of saplings, swinging his sword and sending limbs into the air. A good fight was about momentum. Don’t stop. Don’t think. Drive forward and convince your enemies that they’re as good as dead already. That way, they’ll fight you less as you send them to their pyres.

As he waded among them, the spearmen thrust spears frantically—less to try to kill him, more to try to push away this madman. Their ranks collapsed, and many of the men turned their flanks to Dalinar’s men, focused only on him.

Dalinar laughed, slamming aside a pair of spears with his shield, then disemboweling one man with a sword deep in the gut. The man dropped his spear in panic, trying to grab at his entrails, and his allies backed away at the horrific sight. So Dalinar came in swinging, catching the two off balance, killing them with a sword that bore their friend’s blood.

Dalinar’s elites decimated the now-broken line, and the real slaughter began. Dalinar pushed forward, keeping momentum, shearing through the ranks until he reached the back, breathing deeply and wiping ashen sweat from his face. A young spearman fell before him, crying, screaming for his mother as he crawled across the stony ground, trailing blood. Fearspren mixed with orange, sinewy painspren all around.

Dalinar shook his head, picking up a fallen spear and striding past the youth, slamming it down into the boy’s heart as he passed. Men often cried for parents as they died. Didn’t matter how old they were. He’d seen greybeards do it, same as kids like this one. He’s not much younger than I, Dalinar thought. Maybe seventeen. But then, Dalinar had never felt young, regardless of his age.

His elites filled in behind him, having carved the enemy line in two. Dalinar danced, shaking off his bloodied blade, feeling alert, excited, but not yet alive. Where was it?

Come on…

A larger group of soldiers hiked down the street toward him, led by several officers in white and red. Dalinar could see from the way they pulled up, alarmed, that they hadn’t expected their spearmen to fall so quickly.

Dalinar charged. His elites knew to watch, so he was followed by a force of fifty or sixty—the rest had to finish off the unfortunate spearman ranks. Fifty would do. The crowded confines of the town would mean Dalinar shouldn’t need more.

As he neared this newer force, he focused his attention on the one man riding a horse. The fellow wore plate armor obviously meant to re-create Shardplate, though it only of common steel. It lacked the beauty, the power, of true Plate. He still looked like he was the most important person around. Hopefully that would mean he was the best.

The man’s honor guard rushed to engage, and Dalinar felt something stir inside him. Like a thirst, a physical need.

Challenge. He needed a challenge, storm it!

He engaged the first member of the guard, attacking with a swift brutality. Fighting on the battlefield wasn’t like in the dueling arena; Dalinar didn’t dance around the fellow, testing his abilities. Out here, that sort of thing got you stabbed in the back by someone else. Instead, Dalinar slammed his sword down against the enemy, who raised his shield to block. Dalinar hit in a series of quick, powerful strokes, like a drummer pounding out a furious beat. Bam, bam, bam, bam!

The enemy soldier didn’t have an opportunity to mount a counterattack. He clutched his shield over his head, putting Dalinar squarely in control. Dalinar kept hitting as he raised his own shield before him and shoved it against the man, forcing him back until he stumbled. The man’s shield shifted, letting Dalinar’s sword come down at an angle and bite him in the upper arm.

The shield dropped completely. This man didn’t get a chance to cry for his mother.

Dalinar let his elites handle the others; the way was open to the brightlord. Not old enough to be the highprince. Some other important lighteyes? Or…didn’t Dalinar remember something about a son mentioned during Gavilar’s endless planning meetings? Well, this man certainly looked grand on that white mare, watching the battle from within his helm, cape streaming around him.

Dalinar pulled up, swiping his sword eagerly, breathing in and out. The foe raised his sword to his helm in a sign of challenge accepted.

Idiot.

Dalinar raised his shield arm and pointed, counting on at least one of his strikers to have lived and stayed with him. Indeed, Jenin stepped up, unhooked the short bow from his back and—as the brightlord shouted his surprise—shot the horse in the chest.

“Hate shooting horses,” Jenin grumbled as the beast reared in pain. “Like throwing a thousand broams into the storming ocean, Brightlord.”

“I’ll buy you two when we finish this,” Dalinar said as the brightlord fell backward, tumbling off his horse. Dalinar dodged forward around flashing hooves and snorts of pain, seeking out the fallen man. He was pleased to find the enemy rising.

Dalinar came in swinging. The brightlord managed to get his sword up, but Dalinar batted it away, then dropped his own shield completely and came in with a two-handed power swing, intending to knock the lighteyed soldier back down. Fortunately, the man was good enough to recover his stance and intercept the blow with his shield.

They probably heard the subsequent crack all the way in Kholinar. Indeed, it vibrated up Dalinar’s arms.

Momentum. Life was about momentum. Pick a direction and don’t let anything—man or storm—turn you aside. Dalinar battered at the brightlord, driving him backward, furious and persistent. The man withstood it admirably, and managed a surprise feint that caught Dalinar off guard. It let the man get in close to ram Dalinar with his shield.

Dalinar ducked the blow that followed, but the backhand hit him solidly on the side of the head, sending him stumbling. His helm twisted, metal bent by the blow biting into his scalp, drawing blood. He saw double, his vision swimming.

The brightlord, smartly, came in for the kill. Dalinar swung his blade up in a lurching, full-shouldered blow, slapping the brightlord’s weapon out of his hands.

In turn, the brightlord punched Dalinar in the face with a gauntlet—and Dalinar’s nose crunched.

Dalinar fell to his knees, his vision blurry, sword slipping from his fingers. His foe was breathing deeply, cursing between breaths, winded by the short—frantic—contest. He fished at his belt for a knife.

An emotion stirred inside of Dalinar. A fire that filled the pit within. It washed through him and awakened him, bringing clarity. The sounds of his elites fighting the brightlord’s honor guard faded, metal on metal becoming clinks, grunts becoming like a distant humming.

Dalinar grinned. Then the grin became a toothy smile. His vision returned as the brightlord—who had just retrieved his knife—looked up and started, stumbling back. He seemed horrified.

Dalinar roared, spitting blood and throwing himself at the enemy. The swing that came for him seemed pitiful and Dalinar ducked it, throwing his shoulder against his foe and shoving him backward. Something thrummed inside of Dalinar, the pulse of the battle, the rhythm of killing and dying.

The Thrill.

He knocked his opponent off balance, then reached for his sword. Dym, however, hollered his name and tossed him a polearm, with a hook on one side and a broad thin axe on the other. Dalinar seized it from the air and spun, ducking the brightlord’s swing. At the same time, he hooked the man around the ankle with the axehead, then yanked.

The brightlord fell in a clatter of steel. Before Dalinar could attack further, unfortunately, the honor guard became a bother. Two had managed to extricate themselves from Dalinar’s men, and came to the defense of their brightlord.

Dalinar caught their sword strikes on his polearm and twisted it around, backing away and slamming the axehead into one man’s side. Dalinar ripped it free and spun again—smashing the weapon down on the rising brightlord’s head and sending him to his knees—before coming back and barely catching the remaining guard’s sword on the haft of the polearm.

Dalinar pushed upward, holding the polearm in two hands, sweeping the guard’s blade into the air over his head. He stepped forward until he was face to face with the fellow. He could feel the man’s breath.

Dalinar spat blood from his shattered nose into the guard’s eyes, then kicked him in the stomach. He turned toward the brightlord, who had scrambled—again—to his feet and now was trying to flee. Dalinar growled, full of the Thrill, and swung the polearm in one hand, hooking the spike into the brightlord’s side, and yanked, dropping him a third time.

The brightlord rolled. He was greeted by the sight of Dalinar slamming his polearm down with two hands, driving the spike right through his breastplate and into his chest. It made a satisfying crunch, and Dalinar pulled it out bloodied.

The blow seemed a signal of sorts, and the honor guard and other soldiers finally broke before his elites. Dalinar grinned as he watched them go, gloryspren popping up around him like glowing, golden spheres. Damnation, it felt good to best a force larger than your own.

The Thrill, unfortunately, dwindled. He could never seem to hold on to it as long as he wanted. Nearby, the man he’d felled groaned softly. Dalinar stepped over, curious, kicking at the armored chest.

“Why…” the man said from within his helm. “Why us?”

“Don’t know,” Dalinar said, tossing the polearm back to Dym.

“You… You don’t know?” the dying man said.

“My brother chooses,” Dalinar said. “I just go where he points me.” He gestured toward the dying man, and Dym rammed a sword into the hole in the breastplate, finishing the job. The fellow had fought reasonably well; no need to extend his suffering.

Another soldier approached, handing Dalinar his sword. It had a chip in it the size of a thumb right in the blade. Looked like it had bent as well.

“You’re supposed to stick it into the squishy parts, Brightlord,” Dym said, “not pound it against the hard parts.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dalinar said, tossing the sword aside as one of his men selected a replacement from among the fallen of high enough rank to have one.

“You…all right, Brightlord?” Dym asked.

“Never been better,” Dalinar said, then sucked blood up through his broken nose. Hurt like Damnation itself.

His men formed up around him, and Dalinar led the way further down the street. Before too long, he could make out the bulk of the enemy still fighting up ahead, harried by his army.

He halted his men, contemplative.

Thakka, captain of the elites, turned to him. “Orders, sir?”

“Raid those buildings,” Dalinar said, pointing at a line of homes. “Let’s see how well they fight while they see us rounding up their families.”

“The men will want to loot,” Thakka said.

“What is there to loot in a hovel like this?” Dalinar said with a shrug. “Soggy hogshide and old rockbud bowls?” He pulled off his helm to wipe the blood from his face. “They can loot afterward. Right now I need hostages. There are civilians somewhere in this storming town. Find them.”

Thakka nodded, shouting the orders. Dalinar reached for some water. He’d need to meet up with Sadeas, and—

Something slammed into Dalinar’s shoulder. He caught only a brief sight of it, a black blur that hit with the force of a roundhouse kick. It threw him down, and pain flared up from his side.

“An arrow?” he said, blinking as he found himself lying on the ground. A storming arrow sprouted from his right shoulder, with a long, thick shaft. It had gone right through the chain.

“Brightlord!” Thakka said, kneeling, shielding Dalinar with his body. “Kelek! Brightlord, are you—”

“Who in Damnation shot that?” Dalinar demanded.

“Up there,” one of his men said, pointing at the ridge above the town.

“That’s got to be over three hundred yards,” Dalinar said, shoving Thakka aside and standing. “That can’t—”

He was watching, so he was able to jump out of the way of the next arrow, which dropped a mere foot from him, slamming against the stone ground. Dalinar stared at it, then started shouting. “Horses! Where are the storming horses!” Had the fires delayed them?

No, fortunately. A small group of soldiers had guided them more carefully across the fields, but had caught up by now. They came trotting forward as Dalinar’s order was passed, bringing all eleven horses. Dalinar had to dodge another arrow as he seized the reigns of Fullnight, his black gelding, and heaved himself up into the saddle.

He galloped back the way they’d come in, trailed by ten of his best men. There had to be a way up that slope… There! A rocky set of switchbacks, shallow enough that he didn’t mind running Fullnight up them. Dalinar was more worried that by the time he reached the top, his quarry would have escaped.

He eventually burst onto the top of the ridge; an arrow slammed into his left shoulder, going straight through the breastplate, and nearly throwing him from the saddle.

Damnation! He hung on somehow, clenching the reins in one hand, and leaned low, watching ahead as the archer—still a distant figure—stood upon a rocky knob and launched another arrow. And another. Storms, the fellow was quick!

Dalinar jerked Fullnight to one side, then the other, feeling the thrumming sense of the Thrill return, driving away the pain. Hooves made a clatter on stone as another arrow zipped past his face, dangerously close. Ahead, the archer finally seemed to grow alarmed, and leaped from his perch to flee.

Dalinar charged Fullnight over that knob a moment later, jumping the horse after the fleeing archer, who turned out to be a man in his twenties wearing rugged clothing. Dalinar had the option to run him down, but instead galloped Fullnight right past and kicked the archer in the back, sending him sprawling. Dalinar pulled up his horse, then turned it about to pass by the groaning archer, who lay in a heap amid spilled black arrows.

Dalinar’s men caught up as he climbed roughly from the saddle, an arrow sprouting from each shoulder. He seized the archer, who had finally struggled to his feet and was scrambling—dazed—for his belt knife.

Dalinar turned the fellow about, noting the blue tattoo on his cheek. The archer gasped and stared at Dalinar, covered in soot from the fires, his face a mask of blood from the nose and the cut scalp, stuck with not one but two arrows.

“You waited until my helm was off,” Dalinar demanded. “You are an assassin. You were set here specifically to watch for me.”

The man winced as Dalinar gripped him hard—an action that caused pain to flare up Dalinar’s side. The man nodded.

“Amazing,” Dalinar said, letting go of the fellow. “Show me that shot again. How far is that, Thakka? I’m right, aren’t I? Over three hundred yards?”

“Almost four,” Thakka said. “But with a height advantage.”

“Still,” Dalinar said, stepping up to the lip of the ridge. He looked back at the befuddled archer. “Well? Grab your bow!”

“My…bow,” the archer said.

“Are you deaf, man?” Dalinar snapped. “Get it!”

The archer regarded the ten armed elites on horseback, grim-faced and dangerous, before wisely deciding to obey. He picked up his bow and a few arrows, then stepped hesitantly over to Dalinar, giving one glance to the similar shafts that were stuck into him.

“Went right through my storming armor,” Dalinar muttered, shading his eyes. To his right, the armies clashed down below, and his main body of elites had come up to press at the flank. The rearguard had found some civilians and was shoving them into the street.

“Pick a corpse,” Dalinar said, pointing toward an empty square where a skirmish had happened. “Stick an arrow in one, if you can.”

The archer licked his lips, still seeming confused. Finally he took a spyglass off his belt and studied the area. “The one in blue, near the overturned cart.”

Dalinar squinted, then nodded. Nearby, Thakka had climbed off his horse and had slid out his sword, resting it on his shoulder. A not-so-subtle warning. The archer contemplated this, then drew his bow and launched a single black-fletched arrow. It flew true, sticking into the chosen corpse.

“Stormfather,” Dalinar said, lowering his hand. “Thakka, before today, I’d have bet you half the princedom that such a shot wasn’t possible.” He turned to the archer. “What’s your name, assassin?”

The man raised his chin, but didn’t reply.

“Well, either way, welcome to my elites,” Dalinar said. “Someone get the fellow a horse.”

“What?” the archer said. “I tried to kill you!”

“Yes, from a distance,” Dalinar said, letting one of his men help him up onto his horse. “Which shows remarkably good judgment, since the ones I get close to tend to end up very dead. I can make good use of someone with your skills.”

“We’re enemies!”

Dalinar nodded toward the town below, where the beleaguered enemy army was—at long last—surrendering. “Not anymore. Looks like we’re all allies now!”

 

Dalinar Flashback #2 (Dinner Party)
Video #1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMFx9hFkDzs
Video #2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4o-dWiwgqI
Transcript: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TgW20NgNsPnMe1nxCxMu7jib2Bf9dZGMjaYgZJfKnM8/edit

Spoiler

A candle flickered on the table, and Dalinar burned the end of his napkin in it, sending a small braid of pungent smoke into the air. Stupid decorative candles. What was the point? Looking pretty? Didn’t they use spheres because they were better than candles in the first place?

At a glare from Gavilar, Dalinar stopped burning his napkin and leaned back, nursing a mug of deep, violet wine. The kind you could smell across the room, potent and flavorful. A feast hall spread before him, dozens of tables set on the floor of the large stone room. The place was far too warm, and sweat prickled on Dalinar’s arms and forehead. Too many candles, maybe. Outside the feast hall a storm raged, like a madman locked away, impotent and ignored.

“But how do you deal with the highstorms, Brightlord?” Toh asked Gavilar. The tall, golden-haired westerner sat with them at the high table.

“Good planning keeps an army from needing to be out during a storm except in rare situations,” Gavilar explained. “Holdings in Alethkar are frequent. If a campaign takes longer than anticipated we can split the army and retreat back to a number of these towns for shelter.”

“And if you’re in the middle of a siege?” Toh asked.

“Sieges?” Gavilar laughed. “These are the stormlands, Brightlord Toh. What is there to besiege?”

“Surely there are cities with fortifications,” Toh said. “Your famed Kholinar has majestic walls, does it not?” The westerner had a thick accent and kept drawing out his “oh” and “ah” sounds. Seemed silly to Dalinar.

“You’re forgetting about soulcasters,” Gavilar said. “Long sieges are pointless. You can’t starve out an army, at least not its soldiers, while there are soulcasters and emeralds to make food. Important cities in Alethkar have stores against this thing. No, here we either break down the walls quickly, or we just seize the high ground above the city and win the battle that way.”

Toh nodded, seemingly fascinated. “Soulcasters,” he said. “We have not these things in Rira or Iri. Fascinating, fascinating. And so many shards here. Perhaps half the world’s wealth of blades and plates, all contained in Vorin nations. One wonders if the Heralds themselves favor you.”

Dalinar took a long pull on his wine. Outside the thunder shook their bunker. The highstorm was in full force now. Inside, however, the servants brought out slabs of pork and [animal] claws for the men, cooked in a savory broth. The women dined elsewhere, including, supposedly, Toh’s sister. Dalinar hadn’t met her yet. The western lighteyes had arrived barely an hour before the storm hit.

The hall was soon clogged with the sounds of people eating and chatting. Dalinar tore into his [animal] claws, cracking them with the bottom of his mug and biting out the meat.

This feast seemed too polite. Where was the music, the laughter, the women? Eating in separate rooms? Life had been different these last few years of conquest. More and more of Gavilar’s time was required by the administration of his kingdom, which was half as big as they wanted it to be, but still demanding.

Politics.

Gavilar and Sadeas didn’t make Dalinar play at it too often, but he still had to sit at feasts like this rather than dining with his men.

He sucked on a claw watching Gavilar talk to the foreigner. Storms, Gavilar actually looked regal with his beard combed like that, glowing gemstones on his fingers. He wore a uniform of the newer style, formal, rigid. Dalinar, instead, wore his skirt-like takama and an open overshirt that exposed his chest.

Sadeas held court with a group of lesser lighteyes at a table across the hall. Every one of that group had been carefully chosen as men with uncertain loyalties. Sadeas would talk, persuade, convince, and listen for signs of rebellion.

Dalinar finished the claws and turned toward his pork, a succulent slab of meat swimming in gravy. The food was better at this feast. He just wished he didn’t feel so useless here. Gavilar made alliances, Sadeas dealt with problems. Those two could treat a feast hall like a battlefield.

Dalinar shook his head, reaching to his side for his knife so he could cut his pork.

Damnation, he’d loaned it to Teleb, hadn’t he? He stared down at the pork, smelling its peppery sauce, and found his mouth watering. He reached to eat with his fingers, then thought to look up. Everyone else was eating primly with utensils, but the servers had forgotten to bring him a knife.

Damnation again.

He said back, wagging his mug for more wine. Nearby, Gavilar and that foreigner continued their chat.

“Your campaign here has been impressive, Brightlord Kholin,” Toh said. “One sees a glint of your ancestor in you, the great sunmaker himself.”

“Hopefully,” Gavilar noted, “my accomplishments won’t be as ephemeral as his.”

“Ephemeral! He reforged Alethkar, Brightlord.”

“Yet his empire didn’t even last a single generation past his death. What kind of legacy is that?”

The storm rumbled. Dalinar tried to catch a servant to request a dinner knife, but they were too busy, scuttling about seeing to the needs of demanding feast goers.

He sighed then stood, stretching, and walked to the door still holding his empty mug. Lost in thought, he threw aside the bar on the door, then shoved open the large wooden construction and stepped outside. A sheet of icy rain washed over his skin, and wind blasted him, strong enough that he stumbled. The highstorm was at its height, lightning smashing down like the vengeful attacks from the Heralds themselves.

Dalinar struck out into the storm, his overshirt whipping around him. Gavilar talked more and more about things like legacy, the kingdom, responsibility. What had happened to the fun of the fight? Of riding into battle laughing?

Thunder crashed and the periodic slices of lightning were barely enough to see by. Still, Dalinar knew his way around well enough. This was a highstorm way stop, a place built to house patrolling armies during storms. Gavilar and he had been positioned at this one for a good four months now, drawing tribute from nearby farms and menacing House [name] from just inside its quarters.

Dalinar selected one bunker in particular and pounded on the door. No response. So he summoned his shardblade, slid the tip through the crack, and sliced the bar inside. He pushed open the door to find a group of armed men with wide, terrified eyes standing in a line, weapons held in nervous grips.

“Teleb,” Dalinar said, “did I loan you my belt knife? My favorite one with the white spine ivory on the grip?”

The tall soldier who stood in the second rank of terrified men gaped at him. “Your knife, Brightlord?”

“I lost the storming thing somewhere,” Dalinar said. “I loaned it to you, didn’t I?”

“I gave it back, sir,” Teleb said. “You used it to pry that splinter out of your [muffled/saddle?], remember?”

“Damnation, you’re right. What did I do with that blasted thing?” Dalinar shook his head, leaving the doorway and striding back out into the storm.

Perhaps the reason he was so worried about Gavilar had more to do with himself than his brother. Four years at war and they’d already secured half the kingdom. Their progress was remarkable, yet these last months had been more about what happened off the battlefield than on it. Even their battles were so calculated these days. It all seemed to be leaving Dalinar behind, like the discarded shell of a cremling after its molting.

An explosive burst of wind drove him against the wall, and he stumbled then stepped backward, driven by instincts he couldn’t define. A large boulder slammed into the wall, then bounced free. Dalinar glanced and saw something glowing in the distance, a gargantuan figure that moved on spindly, luminous legs.

Dalinar stepped back up to the door of the feast hall, gave whatever it was a rude gesture, then pushed open the door, throwing down two servants who had been holding it closed. He strode back in, streaming with water, and hiked up to the high table where he flopped down, still holding his mug.

Wonderful. Now he was wet and he still couldn't eat his pork.

Everyone had gone silent. A sea of eyes stared at him.

“Brother?” Gavilar asked, the only sound in the room. “Is everything alright?”

“Lost my storming knife,” Dalinar said. “Thought I left it in the other bunker.” He raised his mug and took a loud, lazy slurp of rainwater.

“Excuse me, Lord Gavilar,” Toh stammered. “I find myself in need of refreshment.” The golden-haired westerner stood from his place, bowed, and retreated. His face seemed even paler than those folk normally were.

“What’s wrong with him?” Dalinar asked, scooting his chair closer to his brother.

“I assume,” Gavilar said, sounding amused, “that the people he knows don’t casually go for strolls in highstorms.”

“Ah,” Dalinar said, “this is a fortified war camp, with walls and bunkers. We needn’t be scared of a little wind.”

“Toh thinks differently, I assure you.”

“Why are you grinning?”

“Well, brother, you may have just proven in one moment a point that I’ve spent a half hour trying to make politically. Toh wonders if we’re strong enough to protect him.”

“Oohhngh. Is that what the conversation was about?”

“Obliquely, yes.”

“Eh. Glad I could help,” Dalinar said, sucking on the cloth. “What does it take to get one of those fancy servants to get me a storming knife?”

“They’re master servants, Dalinar,” his brother said, making a sign by raising his hand in a particular way. “The sign of need, remember?”

“No.”

“You really need to pay better attention,” Gavilar said. “We aren’t living in huts anymore.”

They’d never lived in huts. They were Kholin. He didn’t like that Gavilar was buying into the story the rest of the kingdom told. The one that claimed his branch of the family had until recently been ruffians from the backwaters of their own princedom.

A gaggle of servants in black and white flocked to Gavilar, and he requested a new dining knife for Dalinar. As the split to run the errand, the doors to the women’s feast hall opened and a figure slipped in.

Dalinar’s breath caught. Navani’s hair glowed with the tiny rubies she’d woven into it, a color matched by her pendant and bracelet. Her face a sultry tan, her hair jet Alethi black, her red lips smiled so knowing and clever, and her figure—a figure to make a man weak for desire.

His brother’s wife.

Dalinar steeled himself and raised his arm in a gesture kind of like the one Gavilar had made.

A serving man stepped up with a springy gait. “Brightlord,” he said. “I see to your desire, of course, though you may wish to know that the sign is off. If you’ll allow me to demonstrate—”

Dalinar made a rude gesture. “Is this one better?”

“Uh…”

“Wine,” Dalinar said, wagging his mug. “Violet. Enough to fill this three times at least.”

“And what vintage would you like, Brightlord?”

He eyed Navani. “Whichever one is closest.”

Navani slipped between tables, followed by the squatter form of Ialai Sadeas. Neither seemed to care that they were the only lighteyed women in the room. “What happened to the emissary?” Navani said as she arrived, sliding between Dalinar and Gavilar as a servant brought her a chair.

“Dalinar scared him off,” Gavilar said.

The scent of her perfume was heady. Dalinar scooted his chair to the side and set his face, firm. Don’t let her know how she made him feel warm, made him live like nothing else but the battle.

Ialai pulled a chair over for herself, and a servant finally brought Dalinar’s wine. He took a long, calming drink straight from the jug.

“We’ve been digging at the sister,” Ialai said, leaning in from Gavilar’s other side. “She’s a touch vapid.”

“A touch?” Navani asked.

“But I’m reasonably sure she’s being honest.”

“The brother seems the same,” Gavilar said, rubbing his chin and inspecting Toh, who had crossed the room toward the bar where a servant was bringing him drinks. “Innocent, wide-eyed. I think he’s honest.”

“He’s a sycophant,” Dalinar said with a grunt.

“He’s a man without a home,” Ialai said. “No loyalties, at the mercy of those who take him in, and he only has one piece he can play to secure his future.”

Shardplates. Taken from his homeland of Rira and brought east, taken as far as he could go from his kinsmen who were reportedly outraged to find such a precious heirloom stolen.

“He doesn’t have the armor with him,” Gavilar said. “He’s at least smart enough not to carry it. He’ll want assurances before giving it to us. Powerful assurances.”

“Look how he stares at Dalinar,” Navani said. “You impressed him.” She cocked her head. “Are you wet?”

Dalinar ran his hand through his hair. Storms, he hadn’t been embarrassed for a moment to look at the crowd in the room, but before her he found himself blushing.

Gavilar laughed. “He went for a stroll.”

“You are kidding,” Ialai said, scooting over as Sadeas tromped up to the high table. The bulbous-faced man settled down on the chair next to her. He dropped a plate on the table, piled with claws and a deep red sauce. Ialai attacked them immediately. She was one of the few women Dalinar knew who liked masculine food.

“What are we discussing?” Sadeas asked, waving away a master servant with a chair, then draping his arm over his wife’s shoulders.

“We are talking about getting Dalinar married,” Ialai said.

“What?” Dalinar almost choked on a mouthful of wine.

“That is the point of this, isn’t it?” Ialai said. “Toh and his sister. They’ll want more than just asylum. They’ll want to be part of things, inject their blood into the royal line, so to speak.”

Dalinar took another long drink.

“You could try water sometime, you know, Dalinar,” Sadeas said.

“I had some rainwater earlier. Everyone stared at me funny.”

Navani smiled at him.

There didn’t seem to be enough wine in the world to prepare him for that gaze behind the smile, so piercing, so measuring.

“This could be what we need,” Gavilar said. “It gives us the appearance of speaking for Alethkar. If people outside of the kingdom start coming to me for refuge and treaties, we might be able to sway the remaining highprinces. We might be able to unite this country, not through further war, but through sheer weight of legitimacy.”

A servant at long last dropped by with a knife. Dalinar took it eagerly, then frowned as the woman walked away.

“What?” Navani asked.

“This little thing?” Dalinar asked, pinching the dainty knife between two fingers and dangling it. “How am I supposed to eat a pork steak with this?”

“You attack it,” Ialai said, making a stabbing motion. “Pretend it’s some thick-necked guy who’s been insulting your biceps.”

“If someone insulted my biceps I wouldn’t attack them,” Dalinar said. “I’d refer them to a physician because obviously something is wrong with their vision.”

Navani laughed, a musical sound.

“Oh, Dalinar,” Sadeas said. “I don’t know if there’s another person on Roshar who could have said  that with a straight face.”

Dalinar grunted then tried to maneuver the little knife into cutting his steak. The meat was growing cold, but still delicious.

“What defeated Sunmaker?” Gavilar suddenly asked.

“Hm?” Ialai said.

“Sunmaker,” Gavilar replied, looking from Navani to Sadeas to Dalinar. “He united Alethkar. Why did he fail to create a lasting empire?”

“His kids were too greedy,” Dalinar said, sawing at the steak. “Or too weak, maybe.”

“No, that’s not it,” Navani said. “They might have united if the Sunmaker himself could have bothered to settle on an heir. It’s his fault.”

“He was off in the west,” Gavilar said. “Leading his army to further glory. Alethkar and Herdaz weren’t enough for him. He wanted the whole world.”

“So it was his ambition,” Sadeas said.

“No, his greed,” Gavilar said quietly. “What’s the point of conquering if you’re not going to ever just sit back and enjoy it? If you’re never going to be satisfied? Shubreth-son-Mashamalan, Sunmaker, even the Hierocracy. They all stretched further and further until they collapse. In all the history of mankind, has any conqueror decided they’d had enough? Has any man just said, you know, this is good, this is what I wanted, then gone home?”

“Right now,” Dalinar said, “what I want is to eat my storming steak.” He held up the little knife, which was bent at the middle.

Navani blinked. “How in the Almighty’s tenth name did you do that?”

“I dunno.”

Gavilar stared with that distant, far-off look in his eyes. “Why are we at war, brother?”

“This again?” Dalinar said. “Look, it’s not so complicated. Can’t you remember how it was back when we started?”

“Remind me.”

“Well,” Dalinar said, wagging his bent knife, “we looked at this place here, this kingdom, and we realized, hey, all these people have stuff. And we figured, hey, maybe we should have that stuff. So we took it.”

“Oh, Dalinar,” Sadeas said, chuckling. “You are a gem.”

“Don’t you ever think about what it meant though?” Gavilar asked. “A kingdom? something grander than yourself?”

“That’s foolishness, Gavilar. When people fight, it’s about their stuff. That’s it.”

“Maybe,” Gavilar said. “Maybe. There’s something I want you to listen to. The codes of war from the old days, back when Alethkar meant something.”

Dalinar nodded absently as the serving staff entered with teas and fruit to close the meal. One tried to take away his steak and he growled at her.

As she backed off, Dalinar caught sight of something. A woman peeking into the room from the other feast hall. She wore a delicate, f

ilmy dress of a pale yellow, matched by her blonde hair.

He leaned forward, curious. She was eighteen, maybe nineteen. She was tall, almost as tall as an Alethi, and small of chest. In fact, there was a certain sense of flimsiness to her, as if she were somehow less real than an Alethi. But that hair, it made her stand out like a candle’s glow in a dark room.

She scampered across the feast hall to her brother, who handed her a drink. She tried to take it with her left hand, which was tied inside a small pouch of yellow cloth. The dress didn’t have sleeves, strangely.

“She kept trying to dine with her safehand,” Navani said, eyebrow cocked.

Ialai leaned down the table toward Dalinar, speaking conspiratorially. “They go around half clothed out in the far west, youmall of chest. In fact, there was a certain sense of flimsiness to her, as if she were somehow less real than an Alethi. But that hair, it made her stand out like a candle’s glow in a dark room.

She scampered across the feast hall to her brother, who handed her a drink. She tried to take it with her left hand, which was tied inside a small pouch of yellow cloth. The dress didn’t have sleeves, strangely.

know. Rirans, Iriali, the Reshi. They aren’t as inhibited as these prim Alethi women. I’d bet she’s quite exotic in the bedroom.”

Dalinar grunted. Then he finally spotted a knife—in the hand behind the back of a server clearing Gavilar’s plates.

Dalinar kicked at his brother’s chair, breaking the leg off and sending Gavilar toppling to the ground. The assassin swung at the same moment, clipping Gavilar’s ear but otherwise missing. The wild swing hit the table, driving the knife into the wood.

Dalinar leapt to his feet, reaching over Gavilar and grabbing the assassin by the neck. He spun the would-be killer around and slammed him down on the ground with a satisfying crunch. Still in motion, Dalinar grabbed the knife from the table and slammed it into the assassin’s chest. Puffing, Dalinar stepped back and wiped the rainwater from his eyes.

Gavilar sprang to his feet, shardblade appearing in his hand. He looked down at the assassin, and then over at Dalinar.

Dalinar kicked at the assassin to be sure he was dead. Then he nodded to himself, righted his chair, and sat down. Then he leaned over and yanked the man’s knife from his chest. “Good blade.”

He washed it off in his wine, then cut off a piece of his steak and shoved it in his mouth. Finally, he thought. “Good pork,” he said around the bite. Across the room, Toh and his sister were staring at Dalinar with looks that mixed awe and horror.

Gavilar settled back down, waving away the guards who belatedly had rushed to help. Navani clutched his arm, obviously shaken by the attack. Again, everyone in the feast hall was gawking at the high table.

Dalinar cut his steak again, shoving another piece into his mouth. What? He wasn’t going to drink the wine he washed the blood into. He wasn’t a barbarian.

“I know I said I wanted you to be free to make your own choice in regard to a bride,” Gavilar said, leaning in, “but…”

“I’ll do it,” Dalinar said, eyes forward. Navani was lost to him. He just needed to storming accept that.

“Those two are timid and careful,” Navani noted. “It might take more time to persuade them.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Gavilar said, looking back at the corpse. “Dalinar is nothing if not persuasive.”

 

Note: Two more Dalinar flashbacks in "The Thrill" for those who have purchased "Unfettered 2"

http://www.17thshard.com/news/brandon-news/dalinar-flashbacks-in-unfettered-ii-and-stormlight-fan-film-r309/

 

Prologue: Eshonai
Audio (older, early draft): http://www.17thshard.com/forum/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=14217
Video (newer revision, but incomplete): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNHscNkg2Ws
Transcript (based on older audio): http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/57932-oathbringer-prologue-spoilers/?do=findComment&comment=533740

Spoiler

I don't usually write the first chapter before I get to the end of the book, but if I do write the first chapter I usually throw it away and write it again when I finish the book. Very very common for me. So this is one of the newest things I've written for Oathbringer, and therefore it's actually one of the least polished. For those who don't know the Stormlight Archive books, what I do with them is the prologues all happen on the same night. A night several years before the series actually begins, and each of the prologues is a different character's view on what happened that night. And each one kind of reveals a little more of the secrets and things that were going on. And so the first book showed us Szeth from that night, the second book showed us Jasnah. The third book is Eshonai on that night. She's the Parshendi.

Eshonai had always told her sister that she was certain that something wonderful lay over the next hill.

And then, one day, she crossed a knoll and had found humans.

Strange and wonderful creatures who spoke a guttural language with no discernible rhythm. The creatures created beauty all the same. They wore clothing more vibrant than the Listeners could create, more vibrant even than carapace, though they couldn’t grow their own armor, and were so terrified of storms that they hid inside tombs of rock, or wood, even while travelling.

Most remarkably, they had only one form.

It seemed at very first that these creatures, these Alethi, must have forgotten their forms as the Listeners had. That built instant kinship between them. That and the fact they seemed to have adopted another group of Listeners who had somehow lost their forms. They had begun taking care of those Listeners so the poor souls without songs could not hurt themselves.

Oh how innocent those first meetings had been. Eshonai looked at the drummers who gathered their instruments. She had never quite understood what her purpose was to be this night, when the Alethi and Listeners dined to celebrate their contract together. She was a scout, a hunter, but also their foremost expert of the Alethi. She wasn’t one of the Five, but neither was she lowly. She was important tonight, yet not so important she couldn’t be spared for some hands on labour.

She was glad at that. She hummed to the rhythm of awe as she helped them load the drums in the cart behind the chulls.  She had never wished for [authority?].  People with authority couldn’t go chasing the horizon. But if being an expert brought her to this wonderful place, then she would accept it. This wonderful, and terrible place.

She handed the drum to ?Hermo?(a name), feeling dwarfed by the palace structure. A hundred sounds from people working echoed in this cavernous unloading dock on the western side of the palace. It was so large it could accommodate their entire caravan. Two hundred Listeners unpacking here during their first arrival [and/it?] hadn’t filled the place. Indeed most of the Listeners couldn’t attend their feast upstairs, but the Alethi had seen to their ??? anyway, bring?ing mountains of food and drink up from down here.

So wonderful. This palace was what the buildings at the Shattered Plains must have looked like before being weathered by the storms. The sheer engineering prowess of this city, with its clustered buildings and enormous walls had made her revise, yet again, her understanding of these creatures they’d met.

She stepped out of the wagon, looking at the upper reaches of the building, humming to excitement. When she told Venli she was determined to map the world, she had imagined places of natural discovery. Canyons and hills, forests and lakes overgrown with life. And yet all along, this had been out there, waiting just beyond their reach.

And so had more Listeners. A population that was not merely some tribe like in the songs. An enormous, mind-numbing population of people like her own, but silent. And owned by the humans.

“They keep wanting to come help,” ???(a name) said to curiosity, noting where Eshonai had been looking. He shook his head, his beard sparkling with gemstones of ruby that matched the prominent red colors of his skin, which swirled only briefly with touches of black near his chin at the edge of his carapace. They reminded her of ???(a name)’s ???. ???(a name) handed her a drum.

“[Little?] rhythmless ones want to be near us. They sense that something was wrong with their minds, I tell you.”

Eshonai  ??? the drum and set it with the others. A group of parshmen, as they were called, clustered around the outside of their ring of workers. She hesitated, then dropped down and walked over to the parshmen.

“You aren’t needed,” she said to peace, hands out in the air. “We would prefer to handle our own drums.”

The ones without songs looked to her with dull eyes.

“Go,” she said pleading, waving toward the nearby festivities where parshendi? and human servants laughed together despite language barrier. Humans clapped alongside to Listeners singing the old songs.

“Enjoy yourselves. It’s a day for pleasure and parties.”

The parshmen did not move. They seemed to show no interest in this activity, though a few did look towards songs and cocked their heads. She sighed and returned to unloading drums.

“It won’t work,” ???(a name) said to skepticism, resting her arms across the drum. “They just can’t imagine what it’s like to live. They’re pieces of property, [to be both?] bought and sold.”

What to make of this idea? Slaves?

Klade, one of the Five, had gone to the slavers in the city and purchased a person to see if it was truly possible, and it had been depressingly easy. He had even bought parshmen. There had been Alethi there for sale. Apparently parshmen were expensive and were considered quality slaves. The Listeners had been told this, as if for some reason they were supposed to feel proud at that fact.

She hummed to curiosity and nodded to ???(a name), who smiled and hummed to peace. Everyone was used to Eshonai wandering off on little jobs. It wasn't that she was unreliable, well, maybe she was, but at least she was consistently unreliable.

She passed the parshmen and hummed a song to them, the song of hunts, enhanced to the rhythm of excitement. They just looked at her with hollow eyes. They wore slaveform, at least, that was the Listeners had decided to call it. Really, it wasn’t a form at all but a lack of one. They seemed like dullform, but dullforms could hear the rhythms, and these obviously could not. Eshonai herself wore workform instead of warform; the armour of warform could be handy in a hunt, but workform was more ?trained?. She liked the way she thought while in workform.

She wandered away from the parshmen, walking up the steps and entering the palace, trying to take in the ??? of beauty and sheer overwhelming wonder of the building. Beautiful and terrible. People who were bought and sold kept this place clean, but was that what [freed the?] humans to create great works like carvings on the buildings she passed, or the inlaid marble patterns on the floor?

She passed soldiers who wore their metal carapace. Humans hadn’t lost their forms. They only had one. Always in mateform and workform and warform all at once. They wore their emotion on their faces far more than Listeners. Now, Eshonai’s people would laugh and smile and cry, but not like these Alethi, who were perpetually held enslaved to their emotions. Perhaps that’s, where they had gotten the idea.

The lower levels of the palace had an open feel to them, broad hallways and boundaries lit by spheres containing carefully cut gemstones. The main lights sparkled, as opposed to the uncut stones her people tended to wear. Sparkling chandeliers hung above her, broken suns spraying light all around.

She trailed up the steps, holding to a hardwood banister, polished so often that it reflected her face. How interesting it was that Listeners, with their varied faces and skin, should be the ones who could have any form they wished, while the Alethi, who seemed so dull with their  [thin?]  skins, should be the ones so vibrant ??? [emotions?]. Perhaps the simple ways their bodies looked was another reason they sought to ornament everything, from their clothing to the pillars which held up their ceilings.

Could we do this? She thought, humming to irritation, if we had the right form for creating art?

Yet the floors of the palace were more like tunnels, narrow stone corridors, rooms like bunkers dug in a mountainside.

She made her way back to the feast hall, but with diversions, glancing through rooms, making a mental map in her head. She’d been told she could wander if she wished, the palace was open save for places with guards at the doors. So she decided to take it and learn what she could.

Another room of books in here.  A guest room with a bed and furniture in another. An indoor privy with running water, a marvel she still didn’t understand. She poked through a dozen rooms.  As long as she was back in time for music ??? the Five  [with a?]  plan. They were accustomed to her ways, just like everyone else. She was always wandering off, poking at things, peeking into doors…

And finding the king? Eshonai froze, looking into a large room with a big red rug and ??? ??? walls. So must information just lying around, casually ignored. That was the king himself, standing in front of a table pointing at something on it, surrounded by a group of five Alethi  [in?]  uniforms and long dresses, with one old man in robes.

Why wasn’t Gavilar at the feast? Why aren’t there guards at the door? Eshonai attuned to anxiety and pulled back, but not before one of the women inside prodded the King by the arm and pointed towards Eshonai. Anxiety pounding her head she pulled the door close, but a moment later a tall man in uniform stepped out.

“The king would like to see you,” the man said.

She spoke their language pretty well these days, but she pretended not to.

“Sir?” she cocked her head. “Words?”

“Don’t be coy,” the soldier said. “You’re one of the interpreters. Come in.”

Nervous, she let him lead her into the den.

“Thank you Meridas,” Gavilar said. He nodded to the others and they filed out, leaving Eshonai at the door attuning consolation and humming it lightly, even though the humans couldn’t understand what it meant.

“Eshonai,” the king said. “I have something to show you.”

He knew her name? She wasn’t aware that the king had been paying that close attention to them. She spent most of her time speaking to his scribes, trying and failing to explain the rhythms to them.

She stepped further into the room. It was a small warm room holding her arms tightly around her. She didn’t understand this man. It was more than his alien dead way of speaking, more than the fact that she couldn’t anticipate what emotions might be swirling there as warform and mateform protested inside of him. More than any human, this man baffled her. What did he want?

Why had he offered such a favourable treaty? At first it seemed like an accommodation between tribes. That was before she had come here and seen the city and watched its armies patrol the streets. Her people had once been like this, they knew that from the songs. They once had cities of their own and armies [and/in ???]. That, had been long ago.

They were a tribe of lost people, traitors who had abandoned their cause to be free. This man could crush them and take their Shards, the few weapons they passed down from ancient times.

Why did he smile at her like that? What was he hiding inside by not singing to the rhythms to calm her.

“Sit, Eshonai,” the king said. “Oh don’t be frightened ??? ?? scouts, I’ve been wanting to speak with you. Your mastery of our language is unique.”

She sat down on the seat before him. She could see what was on the table, some papers for him to study? He reached down and removed something from a small satchel at his feet. It glowed with red Stormlight, a construction of gemstones and metal crafted in a beautiful design.

“Do you know what this is?” He asked, gently, pushing it towards her.

“No, your majesty.”

“It’s what’s called a fabrial, a device powered by Stormlight that does something handy. This one makes warmth, just a smidge unfortunately, but my wife’s confident the scholars can create one that would heat an entire room. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? No more fires and hearths.”

It seemed lifeless to Eshonai, but she didn’t say so. She hummed to praise, so he wouldn’t keep telling her of this, and handed it back.

“Look closely,” King Gavilar said. “Look deep into it. Can you see what’s moving inside? That’s a spren. That’s how the device works.”

Captive, like in a gemheart, she thought, attuning awe. They built a device to mimic how they applied their forms. [They invested? so much of their limitations?].

“The chasmfiends aren’t your gods, are they?” he asked.

“What?” she asked, attuning to skepticism. “Why ask that?”

It was a strange turn in the conversation.

“Oh it’s just something I’ve been thinking about,” he said, taking back the fabrial.

“The others feel so superior because they think they have it figured out,” he chuckled. “They think you’re savages, but I know the truth. You’re not savages. You’re an [enclave?] of memories. A window into the past.”

He leaned forward, ruby light slipping between his fingers.

“I’m going to help you, Eshonai. You should know, I have discovered how to bring back your gods.”

“No,” she hummed to the rhythm of the terrors. “No!”

“My ancestors,” he said, holding up the fabrial, “They’re the ones who first learned how to do this.” Hold a spren inside a gemstone. With a very special gemstone you can even hold a god.”

“Your majesty,” she said, daring to ?????? He couldn’t feel the rhythms, she didn’t know. “Please, we don’t worship those god any longer. We left them, abandoned them.”

“Ah, but this is for your good, and for ours!” He stood up. “This life we live, a life without honor or victory, cannot persist.  Your gods brought ours, and without them, we have no power. This world is trapped, Eshonai, stuck in a state of dull lifeless transition.”

He looked up at the ceiling. “Unite them. I need a threat.  Only danger will unite them.”

“What?” she said to anxiety. “What are you saying?"

“The parshmen were like you once. We stopped their ability  [to enter the?]  transformation somehow by capturing a spren. A very ancient, very important spren.” He looked to her, his eyes alight. “I’ve seen how I can reverse it.  A new storm that will bring the Heralds out of hiding. A new war.”

“Insanity!” She rose to her feet. “Our gods tried to destroy you!”

“The old words must be spoken again.”

“You can’t…” she trailed off, noticing the map on the table for the first time. An extensive map, showing a land bound by ocean, an incredible drawing that put her own attempts at charting the lands around the Shattered Plains to shame. She stepped to the table and gaped, the rhythm of awe playing in her mind.

This was gorgeous. Even the grand chandeliers and carved walls were nothing by comparison. This was knowledge and beauty fused into one.

“I’m going to be pleased to hear that we are allies in seeking the return of your gods,” Galivar said. She could almost feel the rhythm of reprimand through his dead words.

“I know you’ve been saying you fear them, but why should you fear that which makes you live? My people need to be united and I need an empire that won’t simply turn into infighting once I am gone.”

“And so you seek for war?”

“I seek for an end to something that we apparently never finished. My people were radiant once and your people, the parshmen, were vibrant. Who is served by this drab world where my people fight each other and end in squabbles without light to guide them? And your people are as good as worthless.”

She looked back at the map. “Where… Where is the Shattered Plains? This portion here?”

“That is all Natanatan you gestured to, Eshonai. This little portion here is the Shattered Plains.” He pointed to a spot not much longer or larger than his thumbnail, when the entire map was as large as the table.

It gave her a sudden,  horrifying perspective. This was the world? She thought that traveling to Kholinar had crossed almost as far as the land could go!

She ??? legs weakened, and for some reason she attuned mourning. She dropped back into her seat, unable to stand.

Gavilar removed something from his pocket. A sphere? It was dark, yet somehow still dun, as if it had an aura of blackness, a phantom light that was not light at all, faintly violet, a sphere that seemed to stop the light around it.

He set it on the table before her.

“You can have that,” he said. “I have another. Take it, and remember what your people once were. Wake up, Eshonai. Your people are now little better than parshmen, and you can be so much more.”

He patted her on the shoulder and left out the door. She stared at the terrible light, and knew it for what it was in the songs. The forms of power had been associated with a dark light, a light from the king of gods. A terrible creature that the Listeners escaped. She seized the sphere on the table and left running.

When the drums were set up Eshonai insisted on joining them. It was the only outlet for her anxiety. She beat to the sound of the rhythm in her head, banging as hard as she could, trying with each beat to slap away the things the king had said and the things she had just done. The Five, leaders of the Listeners sat the high table, the remnants of the final course of the meal sitting uneaten.

They intend to bring back our gods, she had said. Close your eyes. Focus on the rhythms. He could do it, he knows so much. Furious beats pulsing in her soul. We have to do something! Klade’s slave was an assassin. She thought he purchased him on a whim, but Klade had claimed the voice speaking in the rhythms had led him to the man. They claimed it was a sign of what they would do, and that the creature had confided his skills [to them?] when pressed.

Long ago they had the courage to do something drastic. They adopted dullform to escape their gods. They sought freedom at any cost.  But then, that cost would be higher. She played drums, she felt the rhythms, she wept softly and didn’t look as the strange assassin wearing white clothing provided by Klade left the room. Just the peace in the music, like her mother always said. Seek the rhythms, seek the songs.

She resisted as the others pulled her away, she wept to leave those beats behind. Wept for her people, who could never face this danger if they had to, wept for the world who would be destroyed if they did not. Wept for the king, whom she had resigned to death. The drums cut off around her, and dying music echoed through the halls.

 

 

 

Eshonai #1.5 (attached to the end of the previous reading)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Stormlight_Archive/comments/5saeg6/oathbringer_prologue_read_by_brandon_at_signing/dde6khz/

 

Spoiler

 

When the drums were set up Eshonai insisted on joining them. It was the only outlet for her anxiety. She beat to the sound of the rhythm in her head, banging as hard as she could, trying to ??? slap away the things the king had said and the things she had just done. The Five, leaders of the Listeners sat the high table, the remnants of the final course of the meal sitting uneaten.

They intend to bring back our gods, she had said. ??? focus ?? he could do it, he knows so much, furious beats pulsing in her soul. We have to do something! Klade ??? slaves ??? assassin. She though he purchased him on a whim, but Klade had claimed the voice speaking in the rhythms had led him to the man. They claimed it was a sign of what they would do, and that the creature had invited ?? (they’re talking about Szeth here I believe)

Long ago they had the courage to do something drastic. They adopted dullform to escape their gods, ??? ???. But then, that cost would be higher. She played drums, she felt the rhythms, she wept softly and didn’t look as the strange assassin wearing white clothing provided by Klade left the room. Just ?seek? peace ?in? music, as her mother always said. Seek the rhythms, seek the songs.

She resisted as the others pulled her away, she wept to leave those beats behind. Wept for her people, who could never face this danger if they had to, wept for the world who would be destroyed if they did not. Wept for the king, who she had resigned to death. The drums cut off around her, dying as they echoed through the halls.

 

 

 

 

 

Eshonai #2 (Chasm)

 

Source: no source to reference. Read at your own risk. 

Spoiler

"Eshonai woke up. She felt her limbs trembling like leaves, her mind ensconced in a thick syrup. Each tremor brought enormous pain; the shattered remnants of Shadeplate clung to her in only a few small places. Yet somehow, she was alive. She had survived the storm and the flood."

 

Jasnah - this scene is legitimate, but may not be included in Oathbringer. 

Source: http://www.tor.com/2014/08/06/stormlight-archive-scene-after-words-of-radiance/

Spoiler

Jasnah Kholin opened her eyes and gasped, fingers rigid, clawing at the obsidian ground. A knife in her chest! She could feel it grinding on her bones as it slipped between two ribs, glancing off her sternum. She spasmed, rolling into a ball, quivering.

“Jasnah.”

No. She could not lay prone. She fought to her knees, but then found herself raking her fingers across the ground, trembling, heaving breaths in and out. Moving—even breathing—was perversely difficult, not because of pain or incapacity, but because of the overwhelming sense of tension. It made her shake, made her made her want to run, fight, do anything she could to not die.

She shouted, stumbling to her feet, and spun about, hand on her chest.

Wet blood. Her blood. A dress cut with a single knife hole.

“Jasnah.” A figure all in black. A landscape of obsidian ground reflecting a bizarre sky and a sun that did not change locations.

She darted her head from side to side, taking in everything but registering very little of it.

Storms. She could sense that knife again, sliding into her flesh. She felt that same helplessness, that same panic—emotions which had accompanied the knife’s fall. She remembered the darkness consuming her, her hearing fading, the end.

She closed her eyes and shivered, trying to banish the memories. Yet the effort of trying to do so only seemed to solidify them.

She knew that she would remember dying for as long as it took the darkness to claim her again.

“You did well,” Ivory said. “Well, Jasnah.”

“The knife,” she whispered, opening her eyes, angry at how her voice trembled, “the knife was unexpected.” She breathed in and out, trying to calm herself. That puffed out the last of her Stormlight, which she had drawn in at the last possible moment, then used like a lash to pull herself into this place. It had kept her alive, healed her.

Ivory said that while a person held enough Stormlight, only a crushing blow to the head itself would kill. She’d believed him, but storms that hadn’t made it any easier to lay there before the knife. Who would have expected them to stab her? Shouldn’t they have assumed that a blow to the head would be enough to—

Wait. Shallan!

“We have to go back,” Jasnah said, spinning. “Ivory, where is the junction?”

“It is not.”

She was able to locate the ship with ease. In Shadesmar, land and sea were reversed, so she stood on solid ground—but in the Physical Realm, Shallan and the sailors would still be in their ship. They manifest here as lights, similar to candle flames, and Jasnah thought of them as the representation of the person’s soul—despite Ivory telling her that was an extreme simplification.

They spotted the air around her, standing up on deck. That solitary flame would be Shallan herself. Many smaller lights darted beneath the ground—faintly visible through the obsidian. Fish and other sea life.

Nerves still taut, Jasnah searched around for the junction: a faint warping of the air that marked the place of her passage into Shadesmar. She could use it return to the ship, to…

One of the lights up above winked out.

Jasnah froze. “They’re being executed. Ivory! The junction.”

“A junction is not, Jasnah,” Ivory repeated. He stood with hands clasped behind his back, wearing a sharp—yet somehow alien—suit, all black. Here in Shadesmar, it was easier to distinguish the mother-of-pearl sheen to his skin, like the colors made by oil on water.

“Not?” Jasnah said, trying to parse his meaning. She’d missed his explanation the first time. Despite their years together, his language constructions still baffled her on occasion. “But there’s always a junction…”

“Only when a piece of you is there,” Ivory said. “Today, that is not. You are here, Jasnah. I am…sorry.”

“You brought me all the way into Shadesmar,” she asked. “Now?”

He bowed his head.

For years she’d been trying to get him to bring her into his world. Though she could peek into Shadesmar on her own—and even slip one foot in, so to speak—entering fully required Ivory’s help. How had it happened? The academic wanted to record her experiences and tease out the process, so that perhaps she could replicate it. She’d used Stormlight, hadn’t she? An outpouring of it, thrust into Shadesmar. A lash which had pulling her, like gravitation from a distant place, unseen…

Memories of what happened mixed with the terror of those last minutes. She shoved both emotions and memories aside. How could she help the people on the ship? Jasnah stepped up to the light, hovering before her, lifting a hand to cup one. Shallan, she assumed, though she could not be certain. Ivory said that there wasn’t always a direct correlation between objects their manifestation in Shadesmar.

She couldn’t touch the soul before her, not completely. Its natural power repelled her hand, as if she were trying to push two pieces of magnetized stone against one another.

A sudden screech broke Shadesmar’s silence.

Jasnah jumped, spinning. It sounded a trumping beast, only overlaid by the sounds of glass breaking. The terrible noise drove a shiver up her spine. It sounded like it had come from someplace nearby.

Ivory gasped. He leaped forward, grabbing Jasnah by the arm. “We must go.”

“What is that?” Jasnah asked.

“Grinder,” Ivory said. “You call them painspren.”

“Painspren are harmless.”

“On your side, harmless. Here, harmmore. Very harmmore. Come.” He yanked on her arm.

“Wait.”

The ship’s crew would die because of her. Storms! She had not thought that the Ghostbloods would be so bold. But what to do? She felt like a child here, newborn. Years of study had told her so little. Could she do anything to those souls above her? She couldn’t even distinguish which were the assassins and which were the crew.

The screech sounded again, coming closer. Jasnah looked up, growing tense. This place was so alien, with ridges and mountains of pure black obsidian, a landscape that was perpetually dim. Small beads of glass rolled about her feet—representations of inanimate objects in the physical realm.

Perhaps…

She fished among them, and these she could identify immediately by touch. Three plates from the galley, one bead each. A trunk holding clothing.

Several of her books.

Her hand hesitated. Oh storms, this was a disaster. Why hadn’t she prepared better? Her contingency plan in case of an assassination attempt had been to play dead, using faint amounts of stormlight from gems sewn into her hem to stay alive. But she’d foolishly expected assassins to appear in the night, strike her down, then flee. She’d not prepared for a mutiny, an assassination led by a member of the crew.

They would murder everyone on board.

“Jasnah!” Ivory said, sounding more desperate. “We must not be in this place! Emotions from the ship draw them!”

She dropped the spheres representing her books and ran her fingers through the other spheres, seeking… there. Ropes—the bonds tying the sailors as they were executed. She found a group of them and seized the spheres.

She drew in the last of her Stormlight, a few gemstones’ worth. So little.

The landscape reacted immediately. Beads on the ground nearby shivered and rolled toward her, seeking the stormlight. The calls of the painspren intensified. It was even closer now. Ivory breathed in sharply, and high above, several long ribbons of smoke descended out of the clouds and began to circle about her.

Stormlight was precious here. It was power, currency, even—perhaps—life. Without it, she’d be defenseless.

“Can I use this Light to return?” she asked him.

“Here?” He shook his head. “No. We must find a stable junction. Honor’s Perpendicularity, perhaps, though it is very distant. But Jasnah, the grinders will soon be!”

Jasnah gripped the beads in her hand.

“You,” she command, “will change.”

“I am a rope,” one of them said. “I am—”

“You will change.”

The ropes shivered, transforming—one by one—into smoke in the physical realm.

 

Interlude #1: Ardent Alista
Source: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/56954-2017-02-17-boskone-54-boston-ma/#comment-511614
Audio: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9fo0ba8ynPxLWpJYjQxVlZVRFk/view
Transcript: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/56954-2017-02-17-boskone-54-boston-ma/?page=4#comment-538486

Spoiler

The Yoksta Monastery was ordinarily a very quiet place. Nestled in the forest atop a hill on the western slopes of the Horneater Peaks, the place was a paradise that few even knew existed. The Peaks themselves blocked the brunt of the storms and usually the monastery felt only rain at the passing of a highstorm. Furious rain, yes, and with some thundering. But none of the terrible destruction one knew in most parts of the world. Alista had to remind herself every passing storm how lucky she was to be here. Ardents in the know often fought half their lives to be transferred here. Away from politics, storms[?], and other annoyances, at Yoksta you could just think. Usually.

“Are you looking at these numbers? Are your eyes for some reason disconnected from your brain?!”

“I saw the numbers. But I’m saying we can’t judge yet. Three instances are not enough.”

“Two data points make a coincidence. Three make a sequence. This is plenty. The Everstorm travels at a constant speed, unlike the highstorm.”

“You can’t possibly say that! One of your data points, so highly touted, is from the original passing of the storm, which happened as an uncommon event.”

Alista slammed her book closed and gathered up her materials. She burst from her reading nook and gave a glare to the two Ardents arguing in the hall outside. They were so involved in their shouting match they didn’t even respond to the glare, though it had been one of her best. Once she’d been able to silence this library with a simple word. Now, the entire place had gone insane.

She bustled from the library, entering a long hallway with sides open to the elements outside. Peaceful trees. Quiet brook. Humid air and mossy vines that popped and stretched as they moved, laying out for the evening. Well, yes, a large swath of trees out there had been flattened by the new storm. But that was no reason for everyone to get upset. The rest of the world could worry. Here, she was just supposed to be able to read.

She started to set her things out at a reading desk here near an open window. The humidity wasn’t good for books, but places where the storms were weak went hand in hand with fecundity. You just had to accept that. Hopefully those new fabrials to draw water from the air would—

“—telling you we have to move!” A voice echoed through the hallway. “Look, the storm is going to ravage these woods. Before long this slope will be barren and the storm will be hitting us full force. The building wasn’t built to withstand that kind of punishment!”

“But the new storm doesn’t have that strong a wind factor, Bedam[?]. It’s not going to blow down the trees. Have you looked at the measurements?”

“I’ve disputed those measurements.”

“But—“

Alista rubbed her temples. Her head was bald like the head of the other Ardents. Her parents still joked that she’d joined the Ardentia simply because she hated bothering with her hair. She tried earplugs, but could hear the arguing through them. So eventually she picked up her things again, and went storming through the monastery.

Maybe the basement. Using a sphere for light, she took the long steps down to the lower level. It wasn’t truly a basement—just another building constructed further down the slopes. The steps were even outside, down a forested slope. The inaccuracy of calling it a basement bothered her, but the term had been used for as long as anyone could remember.

Before arriving at the monastery, she’d had illusions about what it would be like to live among scholars. No bickering. No politicking. Well, she hadn’t found that to be true, but generally people did leave her alone. And so she was lucky to be here. She told herself that again as she entered the basement building. It was basically a zoo.

Dozens of people gathering information from spanreeds, talking to one another, buzzing about talk of this highprince or that king. She stopped in the doorway, took it all in for a moment, then turned on her heel and stalked back out. Now what?

She started up the steps toward the monastery proper, but lingered halfway there. It’s probably the only route to peace, she thought, looking out at the forest. Trying not to think about the dirt, the cremlings, and the fact that something might drip in her head, she strode off into the forest.

She didn’t want to go too far, as who knew what might be out there. She eventually chose a stump without too much moss on it, and settled down, book across her lap, her other materials tucked into her satchel. She could still hear Ardents arguing down below, but they were distant. She opened her book, intent on finally getting something done today. She read.

Wimma[?] sprung away from Brightlord Sterling[?]’s forward advances, tucking her safehand to her breast and lowering her gaze from his comely locks. Such affection as to delight the unsavory mind could surely not satisfy her for an extended period, as though his intentions had at one time been fanciful delights to entertain her leisurely hours, they now seemed to manifest as utter impudence and greatest faults of character.

“What?” Alista exclaimed, reading. “No, you silly girl! He’s finally pronounced his affection for you! Don’t you dare turn away now!”

How could she accept this wanton justification of her once single-minded desires? Should she not instead select the more prudent choice, as advocated by the undeviating will of her uncle. Brightlord Vatam[?] had an endowment of land upon the Highprince’s grace, and would have means to provide far beyond the satisfactions available to a simple officer, no matter how well regarded or what whims had graced his temperament, features, and gentle touch.

Alista gasped. “Brightlord Vatam?! You little whore! Have you forgotten about how he locked away your father?”

“Wimma,” Brightlord Sterling intoned, “it seems I have gravely misjudged your attentions. In this I find myself deposited deep within an embarrassment of folly. I shall be away to the Shattered Plains, and you shall not again suffer the torment of my presence.”

He bowed then, a true gentlemen’s bow, possessing of all the true refinement and deference[?]. It was a supplication beyond what even a monarch could demand, and in it Wimma ascertained the true nature of Brightlord Sterling’s regard. Simple, yet passionate. Respectful indeed. And a move that lent great context to his earlier advance, which now appeared all at once a righteous deviation in otherwise sure armor. A window of full nobility, rather than a model of avarice. As he lifted the door’s latch to forever make his exodus from her life, Wimma surged with unrivaled shame and longing, twisting together not unlike two threads winding in a loom to construct a grand tapestry of desire.

“Wait!” Wimma cried, “Dear Sterling, wait upon my words!”

“Storms right!” Alista muttered. She leaned closer to the book, flipping the page.

Decorum seemed a vain thing to her now, lost upon the sea that was her need to feel Sterling’s touch. She rushed to him, and upon his arm pressed her ensleeved hand, which then she lifted to caress his sturdy jaw.

It was warm out here in the forest. Practically sweltering. Alista put her hand to her lips, reading with wide eyes. Trembling.

Would that the window through that statuesque armor could still be located, and a similar wound within herself might be found to press against his own and offer passage deep within her soul. If only—

“Alista?” a voice asked.

“Yip!” she said, bolting upright, snapping the book closed, spinning toward the sound. “Oh, um, Ardent Gurv[?].”

The young Siln Ardent was a tall gangly and obnoxiously loud man at times. Except, apparently, when sneaking up on colleagues in the forest. He really should feel ashamed for that.

“What is it you were studying?” he asked.

“Important works,” Alista said. Then sat on the book. “Nothing to mind yourself with. What is it you want?”

“Uh…” He looked down at her satchel. “You were the last one to check out the transcriptions from Bedthel[?]’s collection on the Dawnchant? The old version? I just wanted to check your progress.”

Dawnchant, right. They’d been working on that before the storm came and everyone got distracted. Old Navani Kholin in Alethkar had somehow come up with a key for translations. Her story about visions was nonsense most likely—the Kholin family was known for opaque politics. But the key was authentic, letting them slowly work through what the old text had once said.

She started digging through her satchel. She came up with three musty codices and a sheaf of paper, the latter being the work she’d done so far. Annoyingly, he settled down on the ground beside her stump, taking the papers as she offered them. He laid his satchel across his lap and began reading.

“Incredible!” he said a few moments later. “You’ve made way more progress than I have.”

“Everyone else is too busy worrying about that storm.”

“Well, it is threatening to wipe out civilization as we know it.”

“An overreaction. Everyone always overreacts to every little gust of wind.”

“That’s easy for us to say, tucked away in the mountains like this.” He flipped through her pages. “What’s this section? Why take so much care about the origins of the pieces found? Fokuson[?] concluded that these books had all spread from a central location, and so there’s nothing to learn by where they ended up.”

“Fokuson was a bootlicker, not a scholar,” Alista said. “Look, there’s easy proof that the same writing system was once used all across Roshar. I have references to Makabakam, Sela Tales, Alethela. Not just the diaspora of text, but real evidence they wrote naturally in the Dawnchant.”

“Do you suppose they all spoke the same language?”

“Hardly. But Jasnah Kholin’s Relics[?] doesn’t claim that everyone spoke the same language. Only that they wrote it. It’s foolish to assume that everyone used the same language across hundreds of years and dozens of nations. It makes more sense that there was a codified written language, a language of early scholarship just like you’d find in many underscripts written in Alethi now even if the scribe was originally Veden.”

“Ah!” he said, “And then a Desolation hits...”

Alista nodded, showing him a page later in her sheaf of notes. “This in-between weird language is where people started using the Dawnchant script to phonetically transcribe their language. It didn’t work so well.” She flipped two more pages. “After the next Desolation we have the proto-Vorin alphabet emerging and Thaylen a century later. We’ve always wondered what happened to the Dawnchant. Well it seems clear now they lost the knowledge of writing in the Dawnchant because by the days of the Recreance it had already become a dead language for millennia. It was easy to forget because they weren’t speaking it, as they hadn’t been in generations.”

“Brilliant!” Gurv said. He wasn’t so bad, actually, for a Siln. “All of this,” he said, “because of a madman’s ravings.” He pulled a sheaf of his own paper out from his satchel. “We’ve been translating what we can. We’re getting close to really cracking this thing, I think. If what you’ve been doing here is correct, that’s because Khovat[?] isn’t true Dawnchant but a phonetic transcription from another ancient language.”

He glanced aside, then cocked his head. Was he looking at her…? Oh, no it was just the book, which she was still sitting on.

“An Accountability of Virtue,” he grunted. “Good book!”

“You’ve read it?”

“I have a fondness for Alethi epics,” he said absently, flipping through her pages. “She really should have picked Vatam though—Sterling was a flatterer in a cage.”

“Sterling is a noble and upright officer!” She narrowed her eyes. “And you are just trying to get a rise out of me, Ardent Gurv.”

“Maybe.” He flipped through her pages, studying a diagram she had made of various Dawnchant grammars. “I have a copy of the sequel.”

“There’s a sequel?!”

“About her sister.”

“The mousey one?”

“She is elevated to courtly attention, and has to choose between a strapping naval officer, a Thaylen banker, and the king’s Wit.”

“Three men?”

“Sequels always have to be bigger,” he said, then offered her the stack of pages back. “I’ll lend it to you.”

“For what?”

“For help in translating a particularly stubborn section of Dawnchant. I have a patron of mine who has a strict deadline upon its delivery.”

 

Interlude #2: Soulcaster Kaza
Source: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/58578-ad-astra/?page=4#comment-561711
Audio: https://soundcloud.com/user-254460900/ad-astra-reading-and-qa
Transcript: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/58578-ad-astra/?page=5#comment-563497

Spoiler

The ship, First Dreams, crashed through a wave prompting Kaza to cling tightly to the rigging. Her gloved hands already ached, and she was certain each new wave would toss her overboard. She refused to go down below. This was her destiny. She was not a thing to be carried from place to place. Not any longer. Besides, that dark sky--suddenly stormy even though the sailing had been easy up until an hour ago--was no more disconcerting than her visions.

Another wave sent water crashing across the deck. Sailors scrambled and screamed. Mostly hirelings out of steam, as no rational crew would make this trip. Captain Varsmeb stalked among them while Draws, the helmsmen, kept them on a steady heading. Into the storm. Straight. Into. The Storm.

Kaza held tight, feeling her age as her arms started to weaken. Icy water washed over her, pushing back the hood of her robe, exposing her face and its twisted nature. Most sailors weren’t paying attention, though her cry did bring Varsmeb’s attention. The only Thaylen on board, the captain didn’t much match her image of the people. Thaylens to her were portly little men in vests. Merchants with styled hair who haggled over every last sphere. Varsmeb however was tall as an Alethi, with hands wide enough to palm boulders and forearms large enough to lift them. Over the crashing waves he yelled, “Someone get that soulcaster down below deck!”

“No!” she shouted back at him. “I stay!”

“I didn’t pay a prince’s ransom to bring you,” he said stalking up to her, “only to lose you over the side.”

“I am not a thing to--”

“Captain!” a sailor shouted. “Captain!”

They both looked up as the ship peaked over the tip of a huge wave, then teetered before just kind of falling over the side.

Storms! Kaza’s stomach practically squeezed up into her throat, and she felt her fingers sliding on the ropes. Varsmeb seized her by the side of her robe, holding her tight as they plunged into the water beyond the wave. For a brief terrifying moment they seemed intombed in the chill water. As if the entire ship had sunk.

The wave passed and Kaza found herself in a sodden heap on the floor of the deck, held by the captain.

“Storming fool!” he said to her. “You’re my secret weapon. You drown yourself when you’re not in my pay, understand?”

She nodded limply and then realized with a shock she’d been able to hear him easily. The storm… was gone? Varsmeb stood up straight grinning broadly, his white eyebrows combed back along his long mane of dripping hair. All across the deck sailors who had survived climbed to their feet, dripping wet and staring at the sky. It maintained its overcast gloom, but the winds had fallen completely still. Varsmeb bellowed out a laugh, sweeping back his long curling hair, “What did I tell you men? That new storm came from Aimia. Now it is gone and escaped, leaving the riches of its homeland to be plundered.”

Everyone knew you didn’t linger long around Aimia, though everyone had a different explanation as to why. Some rumors told of a vengeful storm here. One that sought out and destroyed approaching ships. The strange wind they’d encountered, which didn’t match the timing of a highstorm, seemed to support that.

The captain started shouting orders, getting the men back into position. They hadn’t been sailing long, only a short distance out from Liafor, up the Shin coast, then westward toward this northern section of Aimia. They’d soon spotted the large main island, but had not visited it. Everyone knew that was barren and lifeless. The treasures were hidden on the island--supposedly lying in wait to enrich those brave enough approach through winds and treacherous straits.

She cared less for that. What were riches to her? She had come because of another rumor. One spoken only among her kind. Perhaps here, at last, she could find a cure for her condition. Even as she righted herself she felt in her pouch, seeking the comforting touch of her soulcaster. Hers--no matter what the rulers of Liafor claimed. Had they spent their youths caressing it, learning its secrets? Had they spent their middle years in service, stepping with each use closer and closer to oblivion? The common sailors gave Kaza’s face [...] refusing to look her in the eyes. She pulled her hood up, unaccustomed to the eyes of ordinary people. She’d entered the stage where her disfigurements were starkly obvious. Kaza was slowly becoming smoke.

Varsmeb took the helm himself, giving Draws a break. The lanky man stepped down from the poop deck, noticing her by the side of the ship. He grinned at her, which she found curious. She had never spoken to him, but now he sauntered over to her as if he intended to make small talk.

“So…” he said, “up on deck through that? You’ve got guts.”

She hesitated, considering this strange creature then lowered her hood. He didn’t flinch, even though her hair, ears, and now parts of her face were disintegrating. There was a hole in her cheek through which you could see her jaw and teeth. Lines of smoke ringed the hole. The flesh seemed to be burning away. Air passed through when she spoke, altering her voice, and she had to tip her head all the way back to drink anything. Even then some dribbled out. The process was slow. She had a few years left before the soulcasting killed her. [?] And intent on proving nothing was wrong.

“I can’t believe we got through that storm. You think it hunts ships like they say?” He was Liaforan like herself with deep brown skin and dark brown eyes. What did he want? She tried to remember the ordinary passions of human life which she’d begun to forget. Is it sex you want? No, you’re much younger than I am. Hmm… Curious. Are you frightened and wishing for comfort? He started to fidget, playing with the end of a tied off rope.

“Umm… So… I mean, the prince sent you right?”

Ah! So he knew that she was the prince’s cousin.

“You wish to connect yourself to royalty. Well, I came on my own.”

“Surely he let you go.”

“Of course he didn’t. If not for my safety and that of my device.” It was hers. She looked off across the too still ocean. “They locked me up each day. Gave me any comforts they assumed would keep me happy. They realized that at any moment I could literally make the walls and bonds turn to smoke.”

“Does it hurt?”

“It is blissful. I slowly connect to the device and through it to Roshar until one day it will take me fully into its embrace.” She lifted a hand and pulled her black glove off one finger at a time, revealing that it too was disintegrating. Five lines of darkness, one rising from the tip of each finger. She turned it, palm toward him. “I could show you. Feel my touch and you could know. One moment and then you will mingle with the air itself.”

He fled. Excellent.

The captain steered them toward a small island poking out from the placid ocean right where the captain’s map said it would be. It had dozens of names: the Rock of Secrets, the Void’s Playground. So melodramatic. She preferred the old name for the place: Akinah. Supposedly there had once been a grand city here. But who would put a city on an island you couldn’t approach? For jutting out of the ocean were such strange rock formations. They ringed the entire island. Each some forty feet tall, resembling spearheads.

As they drew closer the sea grew choppy again and she felt a bout of nausea. She liked that. It was a human feeling. She again felt for her soulcaster. The nausea mixed with a faint sense of hunger. Food was something she often forgot about these days. As her body needed less of it now. Chewing was annoying with the hole in her cheek. Still, she liked the scents from whatever the cook was stirring up below. Perhaps the meal would calm the men, who seemed agitated to approach the island.

Kaza moved to the front of the ship, near the captain.

“Now you earn your keep soulcaster,” he said. “And I’ll feel justified in calling you all the way out here.”

“I am not a thing to be used,” she said absently. “I am a person. Those spikes of stone. They were soulcast there.” The enormous stone spearheads were too even in a ring about the island. Judging by the currents ahead, some lurked beneath the waters as well, to rip the hulls of approaching vessels.

“Can you destroy them?” The captain asked her.

“No. They are much larger than you indicated.”

“But--”

“I can make a hole in them captain. It is much easier to soulcast an entire object, but I am no ordinary soulcaster. I have begun to see the dark sky and the second sun and the creatures that lurk hidden around the cities of men.”

He shivered visibly. Why should that have frightened him? She’d merely stated facts.

“We need you to transform the tips of a few under the waves,” he said. “And make a hole at least large enough for the dinghies to get through to the island beyond.”

“I will keep my word, but you must remember: I do not serve you. I am here for my own purposes.”

They weighed anchor as close to the spikes as they dared to get. They were even more daunting, and more obviously soulcast, from up close. Each would require several soulcasters in concert, she thought, standing at the crown of the boat as the men ate a hasty meal of stew. The cook was a woman. Reshi from the looks of her, with tattoos all over her face. She forced the captain to eat, claiming that if he went in hungry he’d be distracted. Even Kaza took some, though her tongue no longer tasted food. It all felt like the same mush to her, and she ate with a napkin pressed to her cheek.

The captain drew anticipationspren as he waited--ribbons that waved in the wind--and Kaza could see the beasts beyond, the creatures that accompanied the spren. The ship’s four dinghies were cramped with rowers and officers altogether, but they made space for her at the front. She pulled up her hood, which still hadn’t dried, and sat on her bench. What had the captain been planning to do if the storm hadn’t stopped? Would he seriously have tried to use her in a dinghy to remove the spearheads [?] in the middle of the tempest?

They reached the first of them, and Kaza carefully unwrapped her soulcaster. Releasing a flood of light. Three large gemstones connected by chains with loops for fingers. She pulled it on, with gemstones on the back of the palm. She sighed softly to feel the metal against her skin. Warm. Welcoming. A part of her.

She reached over the side into the chilled water and pressed her hand against the tip of a stone spear. Smooth from years in the ocean. Light from the gemstones lit the water, reflections dancing across her row. She closed her eyes and felt the familiar feeling of being drawn into another world. Of another will reinforcing her own. Something commanding and powerful, drawn by her request for aid. The stone did not wish to change. It was content with its long slumber in the ocean. But yes… Yes, it remembered. It had once been air until someone had locked it into this shape. She could not make it air again, her soulcaster only had one mode--not the full three. She did not know why.

“Smoke,” she whispered to the stone. “Freedom in the air, remember?” She tempted it. Picking at its memories of dancing free. “Yes, freedom.” She nearly gave in herself. How wonderful it would be to no longer fear. To soar into infinity on the air. To be free of mortal pains.

The tip of the stone burst into smoke, sending an explosion of bubbles up around the dinghy. Kaza was shocked back into the real world and a deep piece within her trembled. Terrified. She’d almost gone that time.

Smoke bubbles rattled the dinghy, which nearly upended. She should have warned them. Soldiers muttered, but in the next dinghy over the captain praised her. She removed two more spear tips beneath the waves before finally reaching the wall. Here the spearhead like formations had been grown so close together there was barely a hand between them. It took three tries to get the dinghy close enough. As soon as they got into position some turning of the waves would pull them back away again. Finally, the sailors managed to keep her steady.

She reached out with the soulcaster. Two of the three gems were almost out of stormlight, and glowed just faintly. But she should have enough. She pressed her hand against the spike, then convinced it to become smoke. It was easy this time. She felt the explosion of wind from the transformation. Her soul crying in delight at the smoke, thick and sweet. She breathed it in through the hole in her cheek while sailors coughed. She looked up at the smoke drifting away. How wonderful it would be… No. No.

The island proper loomed beyond that hole. Dark like its stones had been stained by the smoke itself. It had tall rock formations along its center, that looked almost like the walls of a city. The captains dinghy pulled up to her and the captain transferred to her boat. His began to row backward toward the ship.

“What?” she asked. “Why are the others heading back?”

“They claim to not be feeling well,” the captain said. Was he abnormally pale? “Cowards! They won’t have any of the prize then!”

“Gemstones lay just for the plucking here,” Draws added. “Generations of greatshells have died here, leaving their hearts. We’re going to be rich men!”

Well, as long as the secret was here she didn’t care. She settled into her place in the prow of the dinghy as the sailors guided the three small vessels through the gap. The Aimians had known about soulcasters. This is where you’d come to get the devices in the old days. You’d come to the ancient isle of Akinah. If there was some secret of how to avoid death by the device she loved, she would find it here.

Her stomach began acting up again as they rowed. Kaza endured it, though she felt as if she were slipping into another world. That wasn’t an ocean beneath her but deep black glass. And two suns in the sky--one that drew her soul toward it. Her shadow was stretched out the wrong direction.

Splash. She started. One of the sailors had slipped from his boat into the water. She gasped as another slumped to the side, oar falling from his fingers.

“Captain?” She turned to find him with drooping eyes. He slumped, then fell backward unconsious, knocking his head on the back seat of the boat. The other sailors weren’t doing any better. The two dinghies had begun to drift. Not a single sailor seemed to be conscious.

My destiny, Kaza thought. My choice. Not a thing to be carted from place to place and ordered to soulcast. Not a tool. A person.

She shoved aside an unconscious sailor and took the oars herself. It was difficult work. She was unaccustomed to physical labor, and her fingers had trouble gripping. They started to dissolve further. Perhaps a year or two was optimistic for her survival. Still she rode. She fought the waves until she at long last got close enough to hop out into the water and feel the rock beneath her feet. Her robes billowing up around her as she finally thought to check if Varsmeb was alive. None of the sailors in her dinghy were breathing, so she let the boat slip back along the waves. Alone, Kaza fought through the surf and finally on hands and knees crawled up onto the stones of the island. There she collapsed, drowsy. Why was she so sleepy?

She awoke to a small cremling scuttling across the rocks near her. It had a strange shape, with large wings and a head that made it look like an axehound. Its carapace shimmered with dozens of colors. Kaza could remember a time when she had collected cremlings, pinning them to boards and claiming she would become a natural historian. What had happened to that girl? She was transformed by necessity. Given a soulcaster which was always kept in the royal family. Given a charge, and a death sentence. She stirred and the cremling scrambled away. She coughed, then began to crawl towards those rock formations. That city. Dark city of stone. She could barely think as she passed it--a large uncut gemheart among the bleached white carapace leftovers of a dead greatshell. Varsmeb had been right.

She collapsed again near the perimeter of the rock formations. They looked like large, ornate buildings crusted with crem.

“Ah,” a voice said from behind her, “I should have guessed the drug would not affect you as quickly. You are barely human anymore.” Kaza rolled over and found someone approaching on quiet bare feet. The cook? Yes, that was her, with the tattooed face.

“You…,” Kaza croaked, “You poisoned us!”

“After many warnings not to come to this place,” the cook said. “It is rare I must guard it so aggressively. Men must not again discover this place.”

“The gemstones?” Kaza asked, growing more drowsy. “You protect them? Or is it... something else? Something… more.”

“I cannot speak,” the cook said. “Even to sate a dying demand. There are those who can pull secrets from your soul, and the cost would be the ends of worlds. Sleep now soulcaster. This is the most merciful end I can give.”

The cook began to hum. Pieces of her broke off, becoming cremlings. She crumbled into a pile of chittering little insects that moved out of her clothing, leaving them in a heap.

Hallucination? Kaza wondered as she drifted. She was dieing. Well, that was nothing new. The cremlings began to pick at her hand, taking off her soulcaster. No.

She had one last thing to do. With a defiant shout she pressed the rocky ground beneath her and demanded a change. When it became smoke she went with it. Her choice. Her destiny.

 

Adolin Flashback (Ryshadium)
This is an unverified third-hand account courtesy of @She Who Cannot Be Named , with additional concerns voiced by @maxal

Spoiler

He read exactly one page from Oathbringer.

The scents of horses reminded Adolin of his youth, sweat and manure and hay. Good scents, real scents. He'd spent many of these days before he was fully a man on campaign with his father during border skirmishes in Jah Keved.

Adolin had been afraif of the animals back then, though he never admitted it. They were so much faster, so much more intelligent than (Shells?). So alien. Creatures all covered in hair, which made him shiver to touch, with big, glassy eyes.

Those had'nt been even real horses. For all their pedigree breeding, the horses they (brought) on campaign they'd just been regular Shin Thoroughbreds.

Expansive, yes, but by definition therefore not priceless.

Not like the creature before him now.

Brandon: "Not going on here, too many spoilers." That was exactly one page, written in Krakau shortly before he came to Germany.

 

Other Stuff:
Brandon's last update on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Stormlight_Archive/comments/5zidxz/oathbringer_spoilers_stormlight_three_update_7/
Brandon's Latest update on Reddit: http://www.tor.com/2017/03/16/revealing-the-cover-to-oathbringer-the-third-book-in-brandon-sandersons-stormlight-archive/
Cover reveal: http://www.tor.com/2017/03/16/revealing-the-cover-to-oathbringer-the-third-book-in-brandon-sandersons-stormlight-archive/
Amazon Blurb:

Spoiler

In Oathbringer, the third volume of the New York Times bestselling Stormlight Archive, humanity faces a new Desolation with the return of the Voidbringers, a foe with numbers as great as their thirst for vengeance.

Dalinar Kholin’s Alethi armies won a fleeting victory at a terrible cost: The enemy Parshendi summoned the violent Everstorm, which now sweeps the world with destruction, and in its passing awakens the once peaceful and subservient parshmen to the horror of their millennia-long enslavement by humans. While on a desperate flight to warn his family of the threat, Kaladin Stormblessed must come to grips with the fact that the newly kindled anger of the parshmen may be wholly justified.

Nestled in the mountains high above the storms, in the tower city of Urithiru, Shallan Davar investigates the wonders of the ancient stronghold of the Knights Radiant and unearths dark secrets lurking in its depths. And Dalinar realizes that his holy mission to unite his homeland of Alethkar was too narrow in scope. Unless all the nations of Roshar can put aside Dalinar’s blood-soaked past and stand together―and unless Dalinar himself can confront that past―even the restoration of the Knights Radiant will not prevent the end of civilization.

 

 

If there is anything else, please post here and let us know!

 

 

Edited July 4, 2017 by ZenBossanova

[iamstick]

Spoiler

 

From Ad Astra reading

Edited May 25, 2017 by iamstick
I am a stick. And now I am a stick that knows how to use the spoiler option.

[Jofwu]

Dang, I was just about to do this myself. @ZenBossanova, feel free to copy everything I have here into your OP, so that people don't have to scroll down looking for it all.

Kaladin Chapter (returning home)
Source: http://www.tor.com/2014/09/30/brandon-sanderson-stormlight-archive-book-3-first-chapter/
Video/Audio: none?

Spoiler

Kaladin trudged through a field of quiet rockbuds, fully aware that he was too late to prevent the disaster. The knowledge slowed him, pressing against his shoulders with an almost physical sensation, like the weight of a bridge he was forced to carry all on his own.

The land around him should have felt familiar. Instead, it seemed wild, overgrown, alien. After so long in the stormlands—those eastern lands that bore the brunt of the storms—he had almost forgotten the sights of a more fertile landscape. Rockbuds grew almost as big as barrels, with vines as thick as his wrist spilling out and lapping water from the pools on the stone. Grass spread in fields and came up to his waist, dappled with glowing lifespren. The grass was vibrant green and slow to pull down into its burrows as he approached.

Kaladin shook his head; the grass back near the Shattered Plains had barely grown as high as his ankle, and had mostly come in yellowish patches on the leeward side of hills. Almost anything could be hiding in these fields. All you’d have to do was crouch down and wait for the grass to sneak back up around you, and you’d have a perfect ambush point. How had he never noticed that during his youth? He’d run through fields like this, playing catch-me with his brother, trying to see who was quick enough to grab handfuls of grass before it hid.

Something caught his eye, and he turned toward it, startling a patch of grass around himself. Kaladin felt drained. Used up. Like a . . . a mighty storm that had lost its fury, and was now just a soft breeze. His dramatic flight had begun with more Stormlight than he had thought he could hold, and a wealth more tucked into his pockets and pack, in the form of gemstones. It ended with this, a limping, exhausted trudge through fields. Perhaps he could have flown all the way to northwestern Alethkar from the Shattered Plains if he’d been more practiced with his powers. As it was—despite bearing a king’s wealth in gemstones—he’d run out of Stormlight somewhere in Aladar’s princedom.

He’d traveled hundreds of miles in half a day. And it still hadn’t been enough. This last bit—not thirty miles to walk—had been excruciating. So slow! He would have passed this distance in an eyeblink before, but he’d been walking for two days. He felt like a man who had been winning a footrace, only to trip and break his legs a handspan from the finish line.

He neared the object he’d seen earlier, and the grass obligingly pulled back before him, revealing a broken wooden churn. For turning sow’s milk into butter. Kaladin rested fingers on the splintered wood; only the wealthy had access to enough milk for this sort of thing, and a churn would have been locked up tight before a storm. He glanced to the side at another chunk of wood peeking out over the tops of the grass, like the hand of a drowning man reaching toward the sky.

Syl zipped down as ribbon of light, passing his head and spinning around the length of wood. He could sense an inquisitiveness to her motions, even though she hadn’t manifested a face yet. Was he mistaken, or was their bond growing stronger? His ability to read her emotions, and she his, improving?

Perhaps it was just familiarity. “It’s the side of a roof,” Kaladin said. “The lip that hangs down on the leeward side of a building.” Probably a storage shed, judging by the debris he’d spotted in the field.

Alethkar wasn’t in the stormlands, but neither was it some soft-skinned, stormless western land. Buildings here were built low and squat, particularly outside of big, sheltered cities. They’d be pointed eastward, toward the storms, and windows would only be on the leeward—the westward—side. Like the grass and the trees, mankind bowed before the storms. The alternative was to be ripped apart, for the Stormfather did not suffer the insolent.

But, then, these objects—ripped free in winds, deposited miles from their origins—had not come free in a highstorm. Another more fell wind had done this deed: a storm that blew the wrong direction.

The mere thought of that a panic rise inside of him, a feeling like he got when watching a hail of arrows fall on himself and his men. The everstorm, as it was called, was so wrong, so unnatural—like a baby born with no face. Some things just should not be.

And, the most troubling part was that the storm itself was not the worst of their problems.

He stood and left the debris behind, continuing on his way. He had changed uniforms before leaving—taking the Oathgate to the Shattered Plains, then streaking into the sky and rushing in desperation toward Alethkar. His old uniform had been bloodied and tattered, though this one wasn’t much better. A spare, generic Kholin uniform, not even of the old Cobalt Guard. It felt wrong to not bear the symbol of Bridge Four. But, then, a lot of things felt wrong to him these days.

I swear I recognize this place, he thought to himself, cresting a hill. A river broke the landscape to his right, but it was a small, impermanent one—it would flow only following a storm. Still, trees sprouted along its banks, hungry for the extra water, and they marked the route. Yes . . . That would be Hobble’s Brook. So if he looked directly west . . .

Hand shading his eyes, he spotted them. Cultivated hills; they stuck out like the balding crowns of elderly men. No grass, no rockbuds. They’d soon be slathered with seed-crem, and lavis polyps would start growing. That hadn’t started yet, most likely. This was supposed to be the Weeping. Rain should be falling right now in a constant, gentle stream.

The everstorm that had blown through early in the morning had swept the clouds along with it, stopping the rain. As much as he despised the Weeping, he was not happy to see those rains go. They should have lasted another seven days, but the wrong-way storm had apparently disrupted them. Another unnatural effect.

Kaladin had been forced to weather the thing in a hollow of rock, cut with his Shardblade. Storms, it had been even more eerie than a highstorm.

He crested a hill, inspecting the landscape. As he did, Syl zipped up in front of him, a ribbon of light. “Your eyes are brown again,” she noted.

It took a few hours without touching Stormlight or summoning his Shardblade. Once he did either thing, his eyes would bleed to a glassy light blue, almost glowing. A few hours later, they’d fade again. Syl found the variation fascinating; Kaladin still hadn’t decided how he felt about it.

“We’re close,” Kaladin said, pointing. “Those fields belong to Hobbleken. We’re maybe two hours from Hearthstone.”

“Then you’ll be home!” Syl said, her ribbon of light spiraling and taking the shape of a young woman in a flowing havah, tight and buttoning above the waist, with safehand covered.

Kaladin grunted, continuing down the slope.

“Do you like the new dress?” Syl asked, wagging her covered safehand.

“Looks strange on you.”

“I’ll have you know I put a ton of thought into it,” Syl said with a huff. “I spent positively hours thinking of just how— Oh! What’s that?” She zipped away, turning into a little stormcloud that came to rest over a lurg clinging to a stone. She inspected the fist-size amphibian on one side, then the other, before squealing in joy and turning into a perfect imitation—only pale white-blue. This startled the thing away, and she giggled, zipping back toward Kaladin as a ribbon of light.

“What were we saying?” she asked, forming into a young woman and resting on his shoulder.

“Nothing important.”

“I’m sure I was scolding you,” Syl said, tapping his shoulder with her fingers in a pensive way. “Regardless, you’re home! Yay! Aren’t you excited?”

He shook his head. She didn’t see it—didn’t realize. Sometimes, for all her curiosity, she could be oblivious.

“But . . . it’s your home . . .” Syl said. She huddled down. “What’s wrong? Why are you feeling like this?”

“The everstorm, Syl,” Kaladin said. “We were supposed to beat it here.” He’d needed to beat it here.

Storms, why hadn’t he been faster? He’d spent much of the day before at a forced march, as fast as he could manage, not even stopping to sleep. Perhaps that was why he felt so drained, like even lifting his arm was a chore.

Being without Stormlight after holding so much was part of it too. He felt like a hogshide tube that had been squeezed and squeezed to get the last drops of antiseptic out, leaving only the husk. Was this what it would be like every time he used a lot of Stormlight, then ran dry?

The arrival of the everstorm in the morning had caused him to collapse, finally, and give in to his fatigue. That had been the ringing of the bell, the notice of failure.

He tried to avoid thinking of what he’d discover in Hearthstone. Surely, someone would have survived, right? The fury of the storm, and then the worse fury after? The murderous rampage of once-servants turned into monsters?

Oh, Stormfather. Why hadn’t he been faster?

He forced himself into a double march again, pack slung over his shoulder. The weight was still heavy, dreadfully so, but he found that he had to know. Had to see.

Someone had to witness what had happened to his home.

The rain started again about an hour out of Hearthstone, so at least the weather patterns hadn’t been completely ruined. Unfortunately, this meant he had to hike the rest of the way wet and accompanied by the constant patter of a light rainfall. Storms, but he hated the Weeping.

“It will be all right, Kaladin,” Syl promised from his shoulder. She’d created an umbrella for herself, and still wore the traditional dress, instead of her usual girlish skirt. “You’ll see.”

Her reassurance did little to budge his sense of dread. If anything, her optimism only highlighted his mood—like a piece of dung on a table surrounded by finery only made it look that much more nasty. It wouldn’t be “all right.” That was just not how his life went.

The sky had darkened by the time he finally crested the last lavis hill and looked down on Hearthstone. He braced himself for the destruction, but even still, it shocked him. Buildings without roofs. Debris strewn about. Some houses had even fallen. He couldn’t see the entire town from his vantage, not in the gloom of the Weeping, but the houses he could make out in the waning light were hollow and ruined.

He stood for a long time as night fell. He didn’t spot a glimmer of light in the town. The place was empty.

Dead.

A piece of him scrunched up inside, huddling into a corner, tired of being whipped so often. He’d embraced his power, he’d taken the path he should. Why hadn’t it been enough?

His eyes immediately sought out his parents’ home near the center of town. But no. Even if he’d been able to see it in the rainy evening gloom, he didn’t want to go there. Not yet. Instead, he rounded toward the northwestern side, where a hill led up to the citylord’s manor. He would start his search here; this was where the parshmen had been kept. When the transformation had come upon them, here was where they would have begun their rampage. He was pretty certain he could run across Roshone’s corpse and not be too heartbroken.

He passed the hollow buildings, accompanied only by the sound of rain in the darkness. He went to fish out a sphere for light, but of course he’d used up all of those. They were dun now, and wouldn’t be refreshed until the next highstorm—weeks away, assuming normal weather patterns. Not something one could assume any longer.

He shivered in the chill and walked a little further out from the city, not wanting to feel the holes of those gaping homes upon him like eyes. Though Hearthstone had once seemed enormous to him—it was a town of some hundred buildings, far larger than the numerous tiny villages surrounding it—there was really nothing remarkable about the place. It was one of dozens of towns like it in Alethkar. The larger towns like this, though still very rural, served as a kind of hub to the farming communities spreading out from it.

And, because of that, it was cursed with the presence of a lighteyed ruler of some import. Citylord Roshone, in this case. A man whose greedy ways had ruined far more than one life.

Moash . . . Kaladin thought. He’d have to face what his friend had done at some point. Now, the betrayal was too fresh, and other wounds would need nurturing first. More immediate wounds.

Kaladin climbed up to Roshone’s manor, a very familiar path. Once, he’d come up this way almost daily. Back when they’d had a different citylord. That life was surreal to remember. A past that almost didn’t belong to him any longer.

“Wow,” Syl said. “Gloomspren.”

Kaladin looked up and noted an unusual spren whipping around him. Long, grey, like a large, tattered streamer of cloth in the wind, it wound around him, fluttering as if in a phantom wind. He’d only seen its like once or twice before.

“Why are they so rare?” Kaladin asked, continuing his hike. The manor was just ahead. “People feel gloomy all the time.”

“Who knows?” Syl said. “Some spren are common. Some are uncommon.” She tapped his shoulder. “I’m pretty sure one of my relatives liked to hunt these things.”

“Hunt them?” Kaladin asked. “Like, try to spot them?”

“No. Like you hunt greatshells. Can’t remember her name . . . Anyway, the hunts were grand things. Quite the endeavor.” Syl cocked her head, oblivious to the fact that rain was falling through her form. “What an odd memory.”

“More seems to be coming back to you.”

“The longer I’m with you,” she said with a nod, “the more it happens. Assuming you don’t try to kill me again.” She gave him a sideways look.

“How often are you going to make me apologize for that?”

“How many times have I done it so far?”

“At least fifty.”

“Liar,” Syl said. “Can’t be more than twenty.” She looked at him expectantly.

“I’m sorry.” He sighed. He needed to be on with it. No more delaying.

Wait. Was that light up ahead?

Kaladin stopped on the path. It was light, coming from the manor house. It flickered unevenly. Candles? Someone, it appeared, had survived. That was good, but also worrisome. What if it was the parshmen—or whatever one called them now that they’d transformed? Voidbringers would probably do.

They could have slaughtered the people of the town, then set up here in the manor. He needed to be careful, though as he approached, he found that he didn’t want to be. He wanted to be reckless, angry, destructive. If he found the creatures that had taken his home from him . . .

It was supposed to have been safe. Far from Kaladin, far from his new life of pain and lost friends. “Be ready,” he mumbled to Syl. She was his Shardblade now, his weapon, like the spren companions of the Knights of old.

“He stepped off the pathway, which was kept free of grass or other plants, and crept through the night toward the lights. The manor was occupied. The light he’d spotted earlier shone from windows that had been shattered in the everstorm, which would have come upon the city not only from the wrong direction, but at a completely unexpected time. No Stormwarden could have predicted this. The shutters would not have been put on windows, and people wouldn’t have known to stay indoors.

The rain muted sound and made it difficult to spot much about the manor other than the broken porch, ruined windows, and shifting light. Someone, or something, was inside, though. Shadows moved in front of the lights. Kaladin reached the side of the building, heart thumping, then rounded toward the northern side. The servants’ entrance would be here, along with the quarters for the parshmen.

The rain muted sounds, making it difficult to pick out specifics, but he did hear an unusual amount of noise coming from inside the manor house. Thumping. Motion. Each sound put him further on edge.

It was now fully night, and he had to feel his way through the gardens up to the building’s side. Fortunately, he remembered this place well. He’d spent much of his youth up at the manor, playing with Laral, the old citylord’s daughter. The parshmen had been housed in a small construction at the side of the manor, built in its shadow, with a single open chamber with shelflike benches inside for sleeping. Kaladin reached it by touch and Syl zipped up in front of him, giving off some miniscule light—enough for him to make out a gaping hole in the side of the building.

Well, that wasn’t a good sign. Kaladin felt around it, rain patting his shoulders and head. The entire side of the building had been ripped out, and the inside was apparently empty. He left it, scouting through the gardens—full of chest-high ridges of cultivated shalebark—looking for some sign of what had happened.

Sounds from behind.

Kaladin spun with a curse as the back entrance of the manor opened. Too far from the parshmen quarters to seek cover there, he dove for a shalebark mound, but it was pitifully small. Light bathed him, cutting through the rain. A lantern.

Kaladin raised one hand—no use hiding—and stretched the other to the side, prepared to summon Syl. Then he hesitated. The person who had stepped from the manor was human, a guardsman in an old helm with spots of rust on it.

The man held up his lantern, pale in the face at having seen Kaladin. “Here now.” The guardsman fumbled with the mace on his belt. “Here now! You there!” He pulled free the weapon and held it out in a quivering hand. “What are you? Deserter? Come here into the light and let me see you.”

Kaladin stood up warily, still tense. Someone, at least, seemed to have survived the Voidbringer assault. Either that, or this was a group investigating the aftermath.

Still, it was the first hopeful sign he’d seen since arriving. He held his hands to the side—he was unarmed save for Syl—and let the guard bully him into the building.

Dalinar Flashback #1 (a battle)
Source: http://www.tor.com/2015/10/23/brandon-sanderson-reveals-a-dalinar-chapter-from-stormlight-archive-book-3/
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNJiQROElck

Spoiler

Rockbuds crunched like skulls beneath Dalinar’s boots as he charged across the burning field. His elites tromped behind him, a handpicked force of soldiers both lighteyed and dark. They weren’t an honor guard. Dalinar didn’t need guards. These were simply the men he considered competent enough not to embarrass him.

Around him, rockbuds smoldered. Moss—dried from the summer heat and long days between storms this time of year—flared up in waves, setting the rockbud shells themselves aflame. Dalinar charged through the smoke, trusting in his padded armor and thick boots to protect him. Flamespren, like tiny people made of fire, danced from one burning patch to the next.

The enemy—pressed by his armies from the north—had pulled back into this town just ahead. Dalinar had held himself back, with difficulty, from entering that initial clash. He’d known the real fighting would take place in the town.

He hadn’t expected the enemy to—in a desperate move—fire this plain, burning their own crops to block the southern approach. Well, no matter. The fires could go to Damnation for all Dalinar cared. He led his men in a charge, and though some were overwhelmed by the smoke or heat, most stayed with him. They’d crash into the enemy from the south, pressing them between his men and the main army.

Hammer and anvil. His favorite kind of tactic: the type that didn’t allow his enemies to get away from him.

As Dalinar burst from the smoky air, he found a few lines of spearmen hastily making ranks on the southern edge of the town. There were remnants of a wall, but that had been torn down in a contest a few years back. Dalinar had forgotten the town’s name, but the location was ideal. A large ridge to the east made a natural break from the storms and had allowed this place to sprawl, almost like a real city.

Dalinar screamed at the enemy soldiers, beating his sword—just a regular longsword—against his shield. He wore a sturdy breastplate and helm along with iron-lined boots. The spearmen ahead of him wavered as his elites roared from the smoke and flame, shouting a bloodthirsty cacophony.

A few of the spearmen dropped weapons and ran. Fearspren, gobs of violet goo, wriggled up en masse around the enemy rank. Dalinar grinned. He didn’t need Shards to intimidate.

He hit the spearmen like a boulder rolling through a grove of saplings, swinging his sword and sending limbs into the air. A good fight was about momentum. Don’t stop. Don’t think. Drive forward and convince your enemies that they’re as good as dead already. That way, they’ll fight you less as you send them to their pyres.

As he waded among them, the spearmen thrust spears frantically—less to try to kill him, more to try to push away this madman. Their ranks collapsed, and many of the men turned their flanks to Dalinar’s men, focused only on him.

Dalinar laughed, slamming aside a pair of spears with his shield, then disemboweling one man with a sword deep in the gut. The man dropped his spear in panic, trying to grab at his entrails, and his allies backed away at the horrific sight. So Dalinar came in swinging, catching the two off balance, killing them with a sword that bore their friend’s blood.

Dalinar’s elites decimated the now-broken line, and the real slaughter began. Dalinar pushed forward, keeping momentum, shearing through the ranks until he reached the back, breathing deeply and wiping ashen sweat from his face. A young spearman fell before him, crying, screaming for his mother as he crawled across the stony ground, trailing blood. Fearspren mixed with orange, sinewy painspren all around.

Dalinar shook his head, picking up a fallen spear and striding past the youth, slamming it down into the boy’s heart as he passed. Men often cried for parents as they died. Didn’t matter how old they were. He’d seen greybeards do it, same as kids like this one. He’s not much younger than I, Dalinar thought. Maybe seventeen. But then, Dalinar had never felt young, regardless of his age.

His elites filled in behind him, having carved the enemy line in two. Dalinar danced, shaking off his bloodied blade, feeling alert, excited, but not yet alive. Where was it?

Come on…

A larger group of soldiers hiked down the street toward him, led by several officers in white and red. Dalinar could see from the way they pulled up, alarmed, that they hadn’t expected their spearmen to fall so quickly.

Dalinar charged. His elites knew to watch, so he was followed by a force of fifty or sixty—the rest had to finish off the unfortunate spearman ranks. Fifty would do. The crowded confines of the town would mean Dalinar shouldn’t need more.

As he neared this newer force, he focused his attention on the one man riding a horse. The fellow wore plate armor obviously meant to re-create Shardplate, though it only of common steel. It lacked the beauty, the power, of true Plate. He still looked like he was the most important person around. Hopefully that would mean he was the best.

The man’s honor guard rushed to engage, and Dalinar felt something stir inside him. Like a thirst, a physical need.

Challenge. He needed a challenge, storm it!

He engaged the first member of the guard, attacking with a swift brutality. Fighting on the battlefield wasn’t like in the dueling arena; Dalinar didn’t dance around the fellow, testing his abilities. Out here, that sort of thing got you stabbed in the back by someone else. Instead, Dalinar slammed his sword down against the enemy, who raised his shield to block. Dalinar hit in a series of quick, powerful strokes, like a drummer pounding out a furious beat. Bam, bam, bam, bam!

The enemy soldier didn’t have an opportunity to mount a counterattack. He clutched his shield over his head, putting Dalinar squarely in control. Dalinar kept hitting as he raised his own shield before him and shoved it against the man, forcing him back until he stumbled. The man’s shield shifted, letting Dalinar’s sword come down at an angle and bite him in the upper arm.

The shield dropped completely. This man didn’t get a chance to cry for his mother.

Dalinar let his elites handle the others; the way was open to the brightlord. Not old enough to be the highprince. Some other important lighteyes? Or…didn’t Dalinar remember something about a son mentioned during Gavilar’s endless planning meetings? Well, this man certainly looked grand on that white mare, watching the battle from within his helm, cape streaming around him.

Dalinar pulled up, swiping his sword eagerly, breathing in and out. The foe raised his sword to his helm in a sign of challenge accepted.

Idiot.

Dalinar raised his shield arm and pointed, counting on at least one of his strikers to have lived and stayed with him. Indeed, Jenin stepped up, unhooked the short bow from his back and—as the brightlord shouted his surprise—shot the horse in the chest.

“Hate shooting horses,” Jenin grumbled as the beast reared in pain. “Like throwing a thousand broams into the storming ocean, Brightlord.”

“I’ll buy you two when we finish this,” Dalinar said as the brightlord fell backward, tumbling off his horse. Dalinar dodged forward around flashing hooves and snorts of pain, seeking out the fallen man. He was pleased to find the enemy rising.

Dalinar came in swinging. The brightlord managed to get his sword up, but Dalinar batted it away, then dropped his own shield completely and came in with a two-handed power swing, intending to knock the lighteyed soldier back down. Fortunately, the man was good enough to recover his stance and intercept the blow with his shield.

They probably heard the subsequent crack all the way in Kholinar. Indeed, it vibrated up Dalinar’s arms.

Momentum. Life was about momentum. Pick a direction and don’t let anything—man or storm—turn you aside. Dalinar battered at the brightlord, driving him backward, furious and persistent. The man withstood it admirably, and managed a surprise feint that caught Dalinar off guard. It let the man get in close to ram Dalinar with his shield.

Dalinar ducked the blow that followed, but the backhand hit him solidly on the side of the head, sending him stumbling. His helm twisted, metal bent by the blow biting into his scalp, drawing blood. He saw double, his vision swimming.

The brightlord, smartly, came in for the kill. Dalinar swung his blade up in a lurching, full-shouldered blow, slapping the brightlord’s weapon out of his hands.

In turn, the brightlord punched Dalinar in the face with a gauntlet—and Dalinar’s nose crunched.

Dalinar fell to his knees, his vision blurry, sword slipping from his fingers. His foe was breathing deeply, cursing between breaths, winded by the short—frantic—contest. He fished at his belt for a knife.

An emotion stirred inside of Dalinar. A fire that filled the pit within. It washed through him and awakened him, bringing clarity. The sounds of his elites fighting the brightlord’s honor guard faded, metal on metal becoming clinks, grunts becoming like a distant humming.

Dalinar grinned. Then the grin became a toothy smile. His vision returned as the brightlord—who had just retrieved his knife—looked up and started, stumbling back. He seemed horrified.

Dalinar roared, spitting blood and throwing himself at the enemy. The swing that came for him seemed pitiful and Dalinar ducked it, throwing his shoulder against his foe and shoving him backward. Something thrummed inside of Dalinar, the pulse of the battle, the rhythm of killing and dying.

The Thrill.

He knocked his opponent off balance, then reached for his sword. Dym, however, hollered his name and tossed him a polearm, with a hook on one side and a broad thin axe on the other. Dalinar seized it from the air and spun, ducking the brightlord’s swing. At the same time, he hooked the man around the ankle with the axehead, then yanked.

The brightlord fell in a clatter of steel. Before Dalinar could attack further, unfortunately, the honor guard became a bother. Two had managed to extricate themselves from Dalinar’s men, and came to the defense of their brightlord.

Dalinar caught their sword strikes on his polearm and twisted it around, backing away and slamming the axehead into one man’s side. Dalinar ripped it free and spun again—smashing the weapon down on the rising brightlord’s head and sending him to his knees—before coming back and barely catching the remaining guard’s sword on the haft of the polearm.

Dalinar pushed upward, holding the polearm in two hands, sweeping the guard’s blade into the air over his head. He stepped forward until he was face to face with the fellow. He could feel the man’s breath.

Dalinar spat blood from his shattered nose into the guard’s eyes, then kicked him in the stomach. He turned toward the brightlord, who had scrambled—again—to his feet and now was trying to flee. Dalinar growled, full of the Thrill, and swung the polearm in one hand, hooking the spike into the brightlord’s side, and yanked, dropping him a third time.

The brightlord rolled. He was greeted by the sight of Dalinar slamming his polearm down with two hands, driving the spike right through his breastplate and into his chest. It made a satisfying crunch, and Dalinar pulled it out bloodied.

The blow seemed a signal of sorts, and the honor guard and other soldiers finally broke before his elites. Dalinar grinned as he watched them go, gloryspren popping up around him like glowing, golden spheres. Damnation, it felt good to best a force larger than your own.

The Thrill, unfortunately, dwindled. He could never seem to hold on to it as long as he wanted. Nearby, the man he’d felled groaned softly. Dalinar stepped over, curious, kicking at the armored chest.

“Why…” the man said from within his helm. “Why us?”

“Don’t know,” Dalinar said, tossing the polearm back to Dym.

“You… You don’t know?” the dying man said.

“My brother chooses,” Dalinar said. “I just go where he points me.” He gestured toward the dying man, and Dym rammed a sword into the hole in the breastplate, finishing the job. The fellow had fought reasonably well; no need to extend his suffering.

Another soldier approached, handing Dalinar his sword. It had a chip in it the size of a thumb right in the blade. Looked like it had bent as well.

“You’re supposed to stick it into the squishy parts, Brightlord,” Dym said, “not pound it against the hard parts.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dalinar said, tossing the sword aside as one of his men selected a replacement from among the fallen of high enough rank to have one.

“You…all right, Brightlord?” Dym asked.

“Never been better,” Dalinar said, then sucked blood up through his broken nose. Hurt like Damnation itself.

His men formed up around him, and Dalinar led the way further down the street. Before too long, he could make out the bulk of the enemy still fighting up ahead, harried by his army.

He halted his men, contemplative.

Thakka, captain of the elites, turned to him. “Orders, sir?”

“Raid those buildings,” Dalinar said, pointing at a line of homes. “Let’s see how well they fight while they see us rounding up their families.”

“The men will want to loot,” Thakka said.

“What is there to loot in a hovel like this?” Dalinar said with a shrug. “Soggy hogshide and old rockbud bowls?” He pulled off his helm to wipe the blood from his face. “They can loot afterward. Right now I need hostages. There are civilians somewhere in this storming town. Find them.”

Thakka nodded, shouting the orders. Dalinar reached for some water. He’d need to meet up with Sadeas, and—

Something slammed into Dalinar’s shoulder. He caught only a brief sight of it, a black blur that hit with the force of a roundhouse kick. It threw him down, and pain flared up from his side.

“An arrow?” he said, blinking as he found himself lying on the ground. A storming arrow sprouted from his right shoulder, with a long, thick shaft. It had gone right through the chain.

“Brightlord!” Thakka said, kneeling, shielding Dalinar with his body. “Kelek! Brightlord, are you—”

“Who in Damnation shot that?” Dalinar demanded.

“Up there,” one of his men said, pointing at the ridge above the town.

“That’s got to be over three hundred yards,” Dalinar said, shoving Thakka aside and standing. “That can’t—”

He was watching, so he was able to jump out of the way of the next arrow, which dropped a mere foot from him, slamming against the stone ground. Dalinar stared at it, then started shouting. “Horses! Where are the storming horses!” Had the fires delayed them?

No, fortunately. A small group of soldiers had guided them more carefully across the fields, but had caught up by now. They came trotting forward as Dalinar’s order was passed, bringing all eleven horses. Dalinar had to dodge another arrow as he seized the reigns of Fullnight, his black gelding, and heaved himself up into the saddle.

He galloped back the way they’d come in, trailed by ten of his best men. There had to be a way up that slope… There! A rocky set of switchbacks, shallow enough that he didn’t mind running Fullnight up them. Dalinar was more worried that by the time he reached the top, his quarry would have escaped.

He eventually burst onto the top of the ridge; an arrow slammed into his left shoulder, going straight through the breastplate, and nearly throwing him from the saddle.

Damnation! He hung on somehow, clenching the reins in one hand, and leaned low, watching ahead as the archer—still a distant figure—stood upon a rocky knob and launched another arrow. And another. Storms, the fellow was quick!

Dalinar jerked Fullnight to one side, then the other, feeling the thrumming sense of the Thrill return, driving away the pain. Hooves made a clatter on stone as another arrow zipped past his face, dangerously close. Ahead, the archer finally seemed to grow alarmed, and leaped from his perch to flee.

Dalinar charged Fullnight over that knob a moment later, jumping the horse after the fleeing archer, who turned out to be a man in his twenties wearing rugged clothing. Dalinar had the option to run him down, but instead galloped Fullnight right past and kicked the archer in the back, sending him sprawling. Dalinar pulled up his horse, then turned it about to pass by the groaning archer, who lay in a heap amid spilled black arrows.

Dalinar’s men caught up as he climbed roughly from the saddle, an arrow sprouting from each shoulder. He seized the archer, who had finally struggled to his feet and was scrambling—dazed—for his belt knife.

Dalinar turned the fellow about, noting the blue tattoo on his cheek. The archer gasped and stared at Dalinar, covered in soot from the fires, his face a mask of blood from the nose and the cut scalp, stuck with not one but two arrows.

“You waited until my helm was off,” Dalinar demanded. “You are an assassin. You were set here specifically to watch for me.”

The man winced as Dalinar gripped him hard—an action that caused pain to flare up Dalinar’s side. The man nodded.

“Amazing,” Dalinar said, letting go of the fellow. “Show me that shot again. How far is that, Thakka? I’m right, aren’t I? Over three hundred yards?”

“Almost four,” Thakka said. “But with a height advantage.”

“Still,” Dalinar said, stepping up to the lip of the ridge. He looked back at the befuddled archer. “Well? Grab your bow!”

“My…bow,” the archer said.

“Are you deaf, man?” Dalinar snapped. “Get it!”

The archer regarded the ten armed elites on horseback, grim-faced and dangerous, before wisely deciding to obey. He picked up his bow and a few arrows, then stepped hesitantly over to Dalinar, giving one glance to the similar shafts that were stuck into him.

“Went right through my storming armor,” Dalinar muttered, shading his eyes. To his right, the armies clashed down below, and his main body of elites had come up to press at the flank. The rearguard had found some civilians and was shoving them into the street.

“Pick a corpse,” Dalinar said, pointing toward an empty square where a skirmish had happened. “Stick an arrow in one, if you can.”

The archer licked his lips, still seeming confused. Finally he took a spyglass off his belt and studied the area. “The one in blue, near the overturned cart.”

Dalinar squinted, then nodded. Nearby, Thakka had climbed off his horse and had slid out his sword, resting it on his shoulder. A not-so-subtle warning. The archer contemplated this, then drew his bow and launched a single black-fletched arrow. It flew true, sticking into the chosen corpse.

“Stormfather,” Dalinar said, lowering his hand. “Thakka, before today, I’d have bet you half the princedom that such a shot wasn’t possible.” He turned to the archer. “What’s your name, assassin?”

The man raised his chin, but didn’t reply.

“Well, either way, welcome to my elites,” Dalinar said. “Someone get the fellow a horse.”

“What?” the archer said. “I tried to kill you!”

“Yes, from a distance,” Dalinar said, letting one of his men help him up onto his horse. “Which shows remarkably good judgment, since the ones I get close to tend to end up very dead. I can make good use of someone with your skills.”

“We’re enemies!”

Dalinar nodded toward the town below, where the beleaguered enemy army was—at long last—surrendering. “Not anymore. Looks like we’re all allies now!”

Dalinar Flashback #2 (dinner party)
Video #1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMFx9hFkDzs
Video #2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4o-dWiwgqI
Transcript: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TgW20NgNsPnMe1nxCxMu7jib2Bf9dZGMjaYgZJfKnM8/edit

Spoiler

A candle flickered on the table, and Dalinar burned the end of his napkin in it, sending a small braid of pungent smoke into the air. Stupid decorative candles. What was the point? Looking pretty? Didn’t they use spheres because they were better than candles in the first place?

At a glare from Gavilar, Dalinar stopped burning his napkin and leaned back, nursing a mug of deep, violet wine. The kind you could smell across the room, potent and flavorful. A feast hall spread before him, dozens of tables set on the floor of the large stone room. The place was far too warm, and sweat prickled on Dalinar’s arms and forehead. Too many candles, maybe. Outside the feast hall a storm raged, like a madman locked away, impotent and ignored.

“But how do you deal with the highstorms, Brightlord?” Toh asked Gavilar. The tall, golden-haired westerner sat with them at the high table.

“Good planning keeps an army from needing to be out during a storm except in rare situations,” Gavilar explained. “Holdings in Alethkar are frequent. If a campaign takes longer than anticipated we can split the army and retreat back to a number of these towns for shelter.”

“And if you’re in the middle of a siege?” Toh asked.

“Sieges?” Gavilar laughed. “These are the stormlands, Brightlord Toh. What is there to besiege?”

“Surely there are cities with fortifications,” Toh said. “Your famed Kholinar has majestic walls, does it not?” The westerner had a thick accent and kept drawing out his “oh” and “ah” sounds. Seemed silly to Dalinar.

“You’re forgetting about soulcasters,” Gavilar said. “Long sieges are pointless. You can’t starve out an army, at least not its soldiers, while there are soulcasters and emeralds to make food. Important cities in Alethkar have stores against this thing. No, here we either break down the walls quickly, or we just seize the high ground above the city and win the battle that way.”

Toh nodded, seemingly fascinated. “Soulcasters,” he said. “We have not these things in Rira or Iri. Fascinating, fascinating. And so many shards here. Perhaps half the world’s wealth of blades and plates, all contained in Vorin nations. One wonders if the Heralds themselves favor you.”

Dalinar took a long pull on his wine. Outside the thunder shook their bunker. The highstorm was in full force now. Inside, however, the servants brought out slabs of pork and [animal] claws for the men, cooked in a savory broth. The women dined elsewhere, including, supposedly, Toh’s sister. Dalinar hadn’t met her yet. The western lighteyes had arrived barely an hour before the storm hit.

The hall was soon clogged with the sounds of people eating and chatting. Dalinar tore into his [animal] claws, cracking them with the bottom of his mug and biting out the meat.

This feast seemed too polite. Where was the music, the laughter, the women? Eating in separate rooms? Life had been different these last few years of conquest. More and more of Gavilar’s time was required by the administration of his kingdom, which was half as big as they wanted it to be, but still demanding.

Politics.

Gavilar and Sadeas didn’t make Dalinar play at it too often, but he still had to sit at feasts like this rather than dining with his men.

He sucked on a claw watching Gavilar talk to the foreigner. Storms, Gavilar actually looked regal with his beard combed like that, glowing gemstones on his fingers. He wore a uniform of the newer style, formal, rigid. Dalinar, instead, wore his skirt-like takama and an open overshirt that exposed his chest.

Sadeas held court with a group of lesser lighteyes at a table across the hall. Every one of that group had been carefully chosen as men with uncertain loyalties. Sadeas would talk, persuade, convince, and listen for signs of rebellion.

Dalinar finished the claws and turned toward his pork, a succulent slab of meat swimming in gravy. The food was better at this feast. He just wished he didn’t feel so useless here. Gavilar made alliances, Sadeas dealt with problems. Those two could treat a feast hall like a battlefield.

Dalinar shook his head, reaching to his side for his knife so he could cut his pork.

Damnation, he’d loaned it to Teleb, hadn’t he? He stared down at the pork, smelling its peppery sauce, and found his mouth watering. He reached to eat with his fingers, then thought to look up. Everyone else was eating primly with utensils, but the servers had forgotten to bring him a knife.

Damnation again.

He said back, wagging his mug for more wine. Nearby, Gavilar and that foreigner continued their chat.

“Your campaign here has been impressive, Brightlord Kholin,” Toh said. “One sees a glint of your ancestor in you, the great sunmaker himself.”

“Hopefully,” Gavilar noted, “my accomplishments won’t be as ephemeral as his.”

“Ephemeral! He reforged Alethkar, Brightlord.”

“Yet his empire didn’t even last a single generation past his death. What kind of legacy is that?”

The storm rumbled. Dalinar tried to catch a servant to request a dinner knife, but they were too busy, scuttling about seeing to the needs of demanding feast goers.

He sighed then stood, stretching, and walked to the door still holding his empty mug. Lost in thought, he threw aside the bar on the door, then shoved open the large wooden construction and stepped outside. A sheet of icy rain washed over his skin, and wind blasted him, strong enough that he stumbled. The highstorm was at its height, lightning smashing down like the vengeful attacks from the Heralds themselves.

Dalinar struck out into the storm, his overshirt whipping around him. Gavilar talked more and more about things like legacy, the kingdom, responsibility. What had happened to the fun of the fight? Of riding into battle laughing?

Thunder crashed and the periodic slices of lightning were barely enough to see by. Still, Dalinar knew his way around well enough. This was a highstorm way stop, a place built to house patrolling armies during storms. Gavilar and he had been positioned at this one for a good four months now, drawing tribute from nearby farms and menacing House [name] from just inside its quarters.

Dalinar selected one bunker in particular and pounded on the door. No response. So he summoned his shardblade, slid the tip through the crack, and sliced the bar inside. He pushed open the door to find a group of armed men with wide, terrified eyes standing in a line, weapons held in nervous grips.

“Teleb,” Dalinar said, “did I loan you my belt knife? My favorite one with the white spine ivory on the grip?”

The tall soldier who stood in the second rank of terrified men gaped at him. “Your knife, Brightlord?”

“I lost the storming thing somewhere,” Dalinar said. “I loaned it to you, didn’t I?”

“I gave it back, sir,” Teleb said. “You used it to pry that splinter out of your [muffled/saddle?], remember?”

“Damnation, you’re right. What did I do with that blasted thing?” Dalinar shook his head, leaving the doorway and striding back out into the storm.

Perhaps the reason he was so worried about Gavilar had more to do with himself than his brother. Four years at war and they’d already secured half the kingdom. Their progress was remarkable, yet these last months had been more about what happened off the battlefield than on it. Even their battles were so calculated these days. It all seemed to be leaving Dalinar behind, like the discarded shell of a cremling after its molting.

An explosive burst of wind drove him against the wall, and he stumbled then stepped backward, driven by instincts he couldn’t define. A large boulder slammed into the wall, then bounced free. Dalinar glanced and saw something glowing in the distance, a gargantuan figure that moved on spindly, luminous legs.

Dalinar stepped back up to the door of the feast hall, gave whatever it was a rude gesture, then pushed open the door, throwing down two servants who had been holding it closed. He strode back in, streaming with water, and hiked up to the high table where he flopped down, still holding his mug.

Wonderful. Now he was wet and he still couldn't eat his pork.

Everyone had gone silent. A sea of eyes stared at him.

“Brother?” Gavilar asked, the only sound in the room. “Is everything alright?”

“Lost my storming knife,” Dalinar said. “Thought I left it in the other bunker.” He raised his mug and took a loud, lazy slurp of rainwater.

“Excuse me, Lord Gavilar,” Toh stammered. “I find myself in need of refreshment.” The golden-haired westerner stood from his place, bowed, and retreated. His face seemed even paler than those folk normally were.

“What’s wrong with him?” Dalinar asked, scooting his chair closer to his brother.

“I assume,” Gavilar said, sounding amused, “that the people he knows don’t casually go for strolls in highstorms.”

“Ah,” Dalinar said, “this is a fortified war camp, with walls and bunkers. We needn’t be scared of a little wind.”

“Toh thinks differently, I assure you.”

“Why are you grinning?”

“Well, brother, you may have just proven in one moment a point that I’ve spent a half hour trying to make politically. Toh wonders if we’re strong enough to protect him.”

“Oohhngh. Is that what the conversation was about?”

“Obliquely, yes.”

“Eh. Glad I could help,” Dalinar said, sucking on the cloth. “What does it take to get one of those fancy servants to get me a storming knife?”

“They’re master servants, Dalinar,” his brother said, making a sign by raising his hand in a particular way. “The sign of need, remember?”

“No.”

“You really need to pay better attention,” Gavilar said. “We aren’t living in huts anymore.”

They’d never lived in huts. They were Kholin. He didn’t like that Gavilar was buying into the story the rest of the kingdom told. The one that claimed his branch of the family had until recently been ruffians from the backwaters of their own princedom.

A gaggle of servants in black and white flocked to Gavilar, and he requested a new dining knife for Dalinar. As the split to run the errand, the doors to the women’s feast hall opened and a figure slipped in.

Dalinar’s breath caught. Navani’s hair glowed with the tiny rubies she’d woven into it, a color matched by her pendant and bracelet. Her face a sultry tan, her hair jet Alethi black, her red lips smiled so knowing and clever, and her figure—a figure to make a man weak for desire.

His brother’s wife.

Dalinar steeled himself and raised his arm in a gesture kind of like the one Gavilar had made.

A serving man stepped up with a springy gait. “Brightlord,” he said. “I see to your desire, of course, though you may wish to know that the sign is off. If you’ll allow me to demonstrate—”

Dalinar made a rude gesture. “Is this one better?”

“Uh…”

“Wine,” Dalinar said, wagging his mug. “Violet. Enough to fill this three times at least.”

“And what vintage would you like, Brightlord?”

He eyed Navani. “Whichever one is closest.”

Navani slipped between tables, followed by the squatter form of Ialai Sadeas. Neither seemed to care that they were the only lighteyed women in the room. “What happened to the emissary?” Navani said as she arrived, sliding between Dalinar and Gavilar as a servant brought her a chair.

“Dalinar scared him off,” Gavilar said.

The scent of her perfume was heady. Dalinar scooted his chair to the side and set his face, firm. Don’t let her know how she made him feel warm, made him live like nothing else but the battle.

Ialai pulled a chair over for herself, and a servant finally brought Dalinar’s wine. He took a long, calming drink straight from the jug.

“We’ve been digging at the sister,” Ialai said, leaning in from Gavilar’s other side. “She’s a touch vapid.”

“A touch?” Navani asked.

“But I’m reasonably sure she’s being honest.”

“The brother seems the same,” Gavilar said, rubbing his chin and inspecting Toh, who had crossed the room toward the bar where a servant was bringing him drinks. “Innocent, wide-eyed. I think he’s honest.”

“He’s a sycophant,” Dalinar said with a grunt.

“He’s a man without a home,” Ialai said. “No loyalties, at the mercy of those who take him in, and he only has one piece he can play to secure his future.”

Shardplates. Taken from his homeland of Rira and brought east, taken as far as he could go from his kinsmen who were reportedly outraged to find such a precious heirloom stolen.

“He doesn’t have the armor with him,” Gavilar said. “He’s at least smart enough not to carry it. He’ll want assurances before giving it to us. Powerful assurances.”

“Look how he stares at Dalinar,” Navani said. “You impressed him.” She cocked her head. “Are you wet?”

Dalinar ran his hand through his hair. Storms, he hadn’t been embarrassed for a moment to look at the crowd in the room, but before her he found himself blushing.

Gavilar laughed. “He went for a stroll.”

“You are kidding,” Ialai said, scooting over as Sadeas tromped up to the high table. The bulbous-faced man settled down on the chair next to her. He dropped a plate on the table, piled with claws and a deep red sauce. Ialai attacked them immediately. She was one of the few women Dalinar knew who liked masculine food.

“What are we discussing?” Sadeas asked, waving away a master servant with a chair, then draping his arm over his wife’s shoulders.

“We are talking about getting Dalinar married,” Ialai said.

“What?” Dalinar almost choked on a mouthful of wine.

“That is the point of this, isn’t it?” Ialai said. “Toh and his sister. They’ll want more than just asylum. They’ll want to be part of things, inject their blood into the royal line, so to speak.”

Dalinar took another long drink.

“You could try water sometime, you know, Dalinar,” Sadeas said.

“I had some rainwater earlier. Everyone stared at me funny.”

Navani smiled at him.

There didn’t seem to be enough wine in the world to prepare him for that gaze behind the smile, so piercing, so measuring.

“This could be what we need,” Gavilar said. “It gives us the appearance of speaking for Alethkar. If people outside of the kingdom start coming to me for refuge and treaties, we might be able to sway the remaining highprinces. We might be able to unite this country, not through further war, but through sheer weight of legitimacy.”

A servant at long last dropped by with a knife. Dalinar took it eagerly, then frowned as the woman walked away.

“What?” Navani asked.

“This little thing?” Dalinar asked, pinching the dainty knife between two fingers and dangling it. “How am I supposed to eat a pork steak with this?”

“You attack it,” Ialai said, making a stabbing motion. “Pretend it’s some thick-necked guy who’s been insulting your biceps.”

“If someone insulted my biceps I wouldn’t attack them,” Dalinar said. “I’d refer them to a physician because obviously something is wrong with their vision.”

Navani laughed, a musical sound.

“Oh, Dalinar,” Sadeas said. “I don’t know if there’s another person on Roshar who could have said  that with a straight face.”

Dalinar grunted then tried to maneuver the little knife into cutting his steak. The meat was growing cold, but still delicious.

“What defeated Sunmaker?” Gavilar suddenly asked.

“Hm?” Ialai said.

“Sunmaker,” Gavilar replied, looking from Navani to Sadeas to Dalinar. “He united Alethkar. Why did he fail to create a lasting empire?”

“His kids were too greedy,” Dalinar said, sawing at the steak. “Or too weak, maybe.”

“No, that’s not it,” Navani said. “They might have united if the Sunmaker himself could have bothered to settle on an heir. It’s his fault.”

“He was off in the west,” Gavilar said. “Leading his army to further glory. Alethkar and Herdaz weren’t enough for him. He wanted the whole world.”

“So it was his ambition,” Sadeas said.

“No, his greed,” Gavilar said quietly. “What’s the point of conquering if you’re not going to ever just sit back and enjoy it? If you’re never going to be satisfied? Shubreth-son-Mashamalan, Sunmaker, even the Hierocracy. They all stretched further and further until they collapse. In all the history of mankind, has any conqueror decided they’d had enough? Has any man just said, you know, this is good, this is what I wanted, then gone home?”

“Right now,” Dalinar said, “what I want is to eat my storming steak.” He held up the little knife, which was bent at the middle.

Navani blinked. “How in the Almighty’s tenth name did you do that?”

“I dunno.”

Gavilar stared with that distant, far-off look in his eyes. “Why are we at war, brother?”

“This again?” Dalinar said. “Look, it’s not so complicated. Can’t you remember how it was back when we started?”

“Remind me.”

“Well,” Dalinar said, wagging his bent knife, “we looked at this place here, this kingdom, and we realized, hey, all these people have stuff. And we figured, hey, maybe we should have that stuff. So we took it.”

“Oh, Dalinar,” Sadeas said, chuckling. “You are a gem.”

“Don’t you ever think about what it meant though?” Gavilar asked. “A kingdom? something grander than yourself?”

“That’s foolishness, Gavilar. When people fight, it’s about their stuff. That’s it.”

“Maybe,” Gavilar said. “Maybe. There’s something I want you to listen to. The codes of war from the old days, back when Alethkar meant something.”

Dalinar nodded absently as the serving staff entered with teas and fruit to close the meal. One tried to take away his steak and he growled at her.

As she backed off, Dalinar caught sight of something. A woman peeking into the room from the other feast hall. She wore a delicate, f

ilmy dress of a pale yellow, matched by her blonde hair.

He leaned forward, curious. She was eighteen, maybe nineteen. She was tall, almost as tall as an Alethi, and small of chest. In fact, there was a certain sense of flimsiness to her, as if she were somehow less real than an Alethi. But that hair, it made her stand out like a candle’s glow in a dark room.

She scampered across the feast hall to her brother, who handed her a drink. She tried to take it with her left hand, which was tied inside a small pouch of yellow cloth. The dress didn’t have sleeves, strangely.

“She kept trying to dine with her safehand,” Navani said, eyebrow cocked.

Ialai leaned down the table toward Dalinar, speaking conspiratorially. “They go around half clothed out in the far west, youmall of chest. In fact, there was a certain sense of flimsiness to her, as if she were somehow less real than an Alethi. But that hair, it made her stand out like a candle’s glow in a dark room.

She scampered across the feast hall to her brother, who handed her a drink. She tried to take it with her left hand, which was tied inside a small pouch of yellow cloth. The dress didn’t have sleeves, strangely.

know. Rirans, Iriali, the Reshi. They aren’t as inhibited as these prim Alethi women. I’d bet she’s quite exotic in the bedroom.”

Dalinar grunted. Then he finally spotted a knife—in the hand behind the back of a server clearing Gavilar’s plates.

Dalinar kicked at his brother’s chair, breaking the leg off and sending Gavilar toppling to the ground. The assassin swung at the same moment, clipping Gavilar’s ear but otherwise missing. The wild swing hit the table, driving the knife into the wood.

Dalinar leapt to his feet, reaching over Gavilar and grabbing the assassin by the neck. He spun the would-be killer around and slammed him down on the ground with a satisfying crunch. Still in motion, Dalinar grabbed the knife from the table and slammed it into the assassin’s chest. Puffing, Dalinar stepped back and wiped the rainwater from his eyes.

Gavilar sprang to his feet, shardblade appearing in his hand. He looked down at the assassin, and then over at Dalinar.

Dalinar kicked at the assassin to be sure he was dead. Then he nodded to himself, righted his chair, and sat down. Then he leaned over and yanked the man’s knife from his chest. “Good blade.”

He washed it off in his wine, then cut off a piece of his steak and shoved it in his mouth. Finally, he thought. “Good pork,” he said around the bite. Across the room, Toh and his sister were staring at Dalinar with looks that mixed awe and horror.

Gavilar settled back down, waving away the guards who belatedly had rushed to help. Navani clutched his arm, obviously shaken by the attack. Again, everyone in the feast hall was gawking at the high table.

Dalinar cut his steak again, shoving another piece into his mouth. What? He wasn’t going to drink the wine he washed the blood into. He wasn’t a barbarian.

“I know I said I wanted you to be free to make your own choice in regard to a bride,” Gavilar said, leaning in, “but…”

“I’ll do it,” Dalinar said, eyes forward. Navani was lost to him. He just needed to storming accept that.

“Those two are timid and careful,” Navani noted. “It might take more time to persuade them.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Gavilar said, looking back at the corpse. “Dalinar is nothing if not persuasive.”

Note: Two more Dalinar flashbacks in "The Thrill"

Prologue: Eshonai
Audio (older, early draft): http://www.17thshard.com/forum/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=14217
Video (newer revision, but incomplete): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNHscNkg2Ws
Transcript: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/57932-oathbringer-prologue-spoilers/?do=findComment&comment=533740

Spoiler

I don't usually write the first chapter before I get to the end of the book, but if I do write the first chapter I usually throw it away and write it again when I finish the book. Very very common for me. So this is one of the newest things I've written for Oathbringer, and therefore it's actually one of the least polished. For those who don't know the Stormlight Archive books, what I do with them is the prologues all happen on the same night. A night several years before the series actually begins, and each of the prologues is a different character's view on what happened that night. And each one kind of reveals a little more of the secrets and things that were going on. And so the first book showed us Szeth from that night, the second book showed us Jasnah. The third book is Eshonai on that night. She's the Parshendi.

Eshonai had always told her sister that she was certain that something wonderful lay over the next hill.

And then, one day, she crossed a knoll and had found humans.

Strange and wonderful creatures who spoke a guttural language with no discernible rhythm. The creatures created beauty all the same. They wore clothing more vibrant than the Listeners could create, more vibrant even than carapace, though they couldn’t grow their own armor, and were so terrified of storms that they hid inside tombs of rock, or wood, even while travelling.

Most remarkably, they had only one form.

It seemed at very first that these creatures, these Alethi, must have forgotten their forms as the Listeners had. That built instant kinship between them. That and the fact they seemed to have adopted another group of Listeners who had somehow lost their forms. They had begun taking care of those Listeners so the poor souls without songs could not hurt themselves.

Oh how innocent those first meetings had been. Eshonai looked at the drummers who gathered their instruments. She had never quite understood what her purpose was to be this night, when the Alethi and Listeners dined to celebrate their contract together. She was a scout, a hunter, but also their foremost expert of the Alethi. She wasn’t one of the Five, but neither was she lowly. She was important tonight, yet not so important she couldn’t be spared for some hands on labour.

She was glad at that. She hummed to the rhythm of awe as she helped them load the drums in the cart behind the chulls.  She had never wished for [authority?].  People with authority couldn’t go chasing the horizon. But if being an expert brought her to this wonderful place, then she would accept it. This wonderful, and terrible place.

She handed the drum to ?Hermo?(a name), feeling dwarfed by the palace structure. A hundred sounds from people working echoed in this cavernous unloading dock on the western side of the palace. It was so large it could accommodate their entire caravan. Two hundred Listeners unpacking here during their first arrival [and/it?] hadn’t filled the place. Indeed most of the Listeners couldn’t attend their feast upstairs, but the Alethi had seen to their ??? anyway, bring?ing mountains of food and drink up from down here.

So wonderful. This palace was what the buildings at the Shattered Plains must have looked like before being weathered by the storms. The sheer engineering prowess of this city, with its clustered buildings and enormous walls had made her revise, yet again, her understanding of these creatures they’d met.

She stepped out of the wagon, looking at the upper reaches of the building, humming to excitement. When she told Venli she was determined to map the world, she had imagined places of natural discovery. Canyons and hills, forests and lakes overgrown with life. And yet all along, this had been out there, waiting just beyond their reach.

And so had more Listeners. A population that was not merely some tribe like in the songs. An enormous, mind-numbing population of people like her own, but silent. And owned by the humans.

“They keep wanting to come help,” ???(a name) said to curiosity, noting where Eshonai had been looking. He shook his head, his beard sparkling with gemstones of ruby that matched the prominent red colors of his skin, which swirled only briefly with touches of black near his chin at the edge of his carapace. They reminded her of ???(a name)’s ???. ???(a name) handed her a drum.

“[Little?] rhythmless ones want to be near us. They sense that something was wrong with their minds, I tell you.”

Eshonai  ??? the drum and set it with the others. A group of parshmen, as they were called, clustered around the outside of their ring of workers. She hesitated, then dropped down and walked over to the parshmen.

“You aren’t needed,” she said to peace, hands out in the air. “We would prefer to handle our own drums.”

The ones without songs looked to her with dull eyes.

“Go,” she said pleading, waving toward the nearby festivities where parshendi? and human servants laughed together despite language barrier. Humans clapped alongside to Listeners singing the old songs.

“Enjoy yourselves. It’s a day for pleasure and parties.”

The parshmen did not move. They seemed to show no interest in this activity, though a few did look towards songs and cocked their heads. She sighed and returned to unloading drums.

“It won’t work,” ???(a name) said to skepticism, resting her arms across the drum. “They just can’t imagine what it’s like to live. They’re pieces of property, [to be both?] bought and sold.”

What to make of this idea? Slaves?

Klade, one of the Five, had gone to the slavers in the city and purchased a person to see if it was truly possible, and it had been depressingly easy. He had even bought parshmen. There had been Alethi there for sale. Apparently parshmen were expensive and were considered quality slaves. The Listeners had been told this, as if for some reason they were supposed to feel proud at that fact.

She hummed to curiosity and nodded to ???(a name), who smiled and hummed to peace. Everyone was used to Eshonai wandering off on little jobs. It wasn't that she was unreliable, well, maybe she was, but at least she was consistently unreliable.

She passed the parshmen and hummed a song to them, the song of hunts, enhanced to the rhythm of excitement. They just looked at her with hollow eyes. They wore slaveform, at least, that was the Listeners had decided to call it. Really, it wasn’t a form at all but a lack of one. They seemed like dullform, but dullforms could hear the rhythms, and these obviously could not. Eshonai herself wore workform instead of warform; the armour of warform could be handy in a hunt, but workform was more ?trained?. She liked the way she thought while in workform.

She wandered away from the parshmen, walking up the steps and entering the palace, trying to take in the ??? of beauty and sheer overwhelming wonder of the building. Beautiful and terrible. People who were bought and sold kept this place clean, but was that what [freed the?] humans to create great works like carvings on the buildings she passed, or the inlaid marble patterns on the floor?

She passed soldiers who wore their metal carapace. Humans hadn’t lost their forms. They only had one. Always in mateform and workform and warform all at once. They wore their emotion on their faces far more than Listeners. Now, Eshonai’s people would laugh and smile and cry, but not like these Alethi, who were perpetually held enslaved to their emotions. Perhaps that’s, where they had gotten the idea.

The lower levels of the palace had an open feel to them, broad hallways and boundaries lit by spheres containing carefully cut gemstones. The main lights sparkled, as opposed to the uncut stones her people tended to wear. Sparkling chandeliers hung above her, broken suns spraying light all around.

She trailed up the steps, holding to a hardwood banister, polished so often that it reflected her face. How interesting it was that Listeners, with their varied faces and skin, should be the ones who could have any form they wished, while the Alethi, who seemed so dull with their  [thin?]  skins, should be the ones so vibrant ??? [emotions?]. Perhaps the simple ways their bodies looked was another reason they sought to ornament everything, from their clothing to the pillars which held up their ceilings.

Could we do this? She thought, humming to irritation, if we had the right form for creating art?

Yet the floors of the palace were more like tunnels, narrow stone corridors, rooms like bunkers dug in a mountainside.

She made her way back to the feast hall, but with diversions, glancing through rooms, making a mental map in her head. She’d been told she could wander if she wished, the palace was open save for places with guards at the doors. So she decided to take it and learn what she could.

Another room of books in here.  A guest room with a bed and furniture in another. An indoor privy with running water, a marvel she still didn’t understand. She poked through a dozen rooms.  As long as she was back in time for music ??? the Five  [with a?]  plan. They were accustomed to her ways, just like everyone else. She was always wandering off, poking at things, peeking into doors…

And finding the king? Eshonai froze, looking into a large room with a big red rug and ??? ??? walls. So must information just lying around, casually ignored. That was the king himself, standing in front of a table pointing at something on it, surrounded by a group of five Alethi  [in?]  uniforms and long dresses, with one old man in robes.

Why wasn’t Gavilar at the feast? Why aren’t there guards at the door? Eshonai attuned to anxiety and pulled back, but not before one of the women inside prodded the King by the arm and pointed towards Eshonai. Anxiety pounding her head she pulled the door close, but a moment later a tall man in uniform stepped out.

“The king would like to see you,” the man said.

She spoke their language pretty well these days, but she pretended not to.

“Sir?” she cocked her head. “Words?”

“Don’t be coy,” the soldier said. “You’re one of the interpreters. Come in.”

Nervous, she let him lead her into the den.

“Thank you Meridas,” Gavilar said. He nodded to the others and they filed out, leaving Eshonai at the door attuning consolation and humming it lightly, even though the humans couldn’t understand what it meant.

“Eshonai,” the king said. “I have something to show you.”

He knew her name? She wasn’t aware that the king had been paying that close attention to them. She spent most of her time speaking to his scribes, trying and failing to explain the rhythms to them.

She stepped further into the room. It was a small warm room holding her arms tightly around her. She didn’t understand this man. It was more than his alien dead way of speaking, more than the fact that she couldn’t anticipate what emotions might be swirling there as warform and mateform protested inside of him. More than any human, this man baffled her. What did he want?

Why had he offered such a favourable treaty? At first it seemed like an accommodation between tribes. That was before she had come here and seen the city and watched its armies patrol the streets. Her people had once been like this, they knew that from the songs. They once had cities of their own and armies [and/in ???]. That, had been long ago.

They were a tribe of lost people, traitors who had abandoned their cause to be free. This man could crush them and take their Shards, the few weapons they passed down from ancient times.

Why did he smile at her like that? What was he hiding inside by not singing to the rhythms to calm her.

“Sit, Eshonai,” the king said. “Oh don’t be frightened ??? ?? scouts, I’ve been wanting to speak with you. Your mastery of our language is unique.”

She sat down on the seat before him. She could see what was on the table, some papers for him to study? He reached down and removed something from a small satchel at his feet. It glowed with red Stormlight, a construction of gemstones and metal crafted in a beautiful design.

“Do you know what this is?” He asked, gently, pushing it towards her.

“No, your majesty.”

“It’s what’s called a fabrial, a device powered by Stormlight that does something handy. This one makes warmth, just a smidge unfortunately, but my wife’s confident the scholars can create one that would heat an entire room. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? No more fires and hearths.”

It seemed lifeless to Eshonai, but she didn’t say so. She hummed to praise, so he wouldn’t keep telling her of this, and handed it back.

“Look closely,” King Gavilar said. “Look deep into it. Can you see what’s moving inside? That’s a spren. That’s how the device works.”

Captive, like in a gemheart, she thought, attuning awe. They built a device to mimic how they applied their forms. [They invested? so much of their limitations?].

“The chasmfiends aren’t your gods, are they?” he asked.

“What?” she asked, attuning to skepticism. “Why ask that?”

It was a strange turn in the conversation.

“Oh it’s just something I’ve been thinking about,” he said, taking back the fabrial.

“The others feel so superior because they think they have it figured out,” he chuckled. “They think you’re savages, but I know the truth. You’re not savages. You’re an [enclave?] of memories. A window into the past.”

He leaned forward, ruby light slipping between his fingers.

“I’m going to help you, Eshonai. You should know, I have discovered how to bring back your gods.”

“No,” she hummed to the rhythm of the terrors. “No!”

“My ancestors,” he said, holding up the fabrial, “They’re the ones who first learned how to do this.” Hold a spren inside a gemstone. With a very special gemstone you can even hold a god.”

“Your majesty,” she said, daring to ?????? He couldn’t feel the rhythms, she didn’t know. “Please, we don’t worship those god any longer. We left them, abandoned them.”

“Ah, but this is for your good, and for ours!” He stood up. “This life we live, a life without honor or victory, cannot persist.  Your gods brought ours, and without them, we have no power. This world is trapped, Eshonai, stuck in a state of dull lifeless transition.”

He looked up at the ceiling. “Unite them. I need a threat.  Only danger will unite them.”

“What?” she said to anxiety. “What are you saying?"

“The parshmen were like you once. We stopped their ability  [to enter the?]  transformation somehow by capturing a spren. A very ancient, very important spren.” He looked to her, his eyes alight. “I’ve seen how I can reverse it.  A new storm that will bring the Heralds out of hiding. A new war.”

“Insanity!” She rose to her feet. “Our gods tried to destroy you!”

“The old words must be spoken again.”

“You can’t…” she trailed off, noticing the map on the table for the first time. An extensive map, showing a land bound by ocean, an incredible drawing that put her own attempts at charting the lands around the Shattered Plains to shame. She stepped to the table and gaped, the rhythm of awe playing in her mind.

This was gorgeous. Even the grand chandeliers and carved walls were nothing by comparison. This was knowledge and beauty fused into one.

“I’m going to be pleased to hear that we are allies in seeking the return of your gods,” Galivar said. She could almost feel the rhythm of reprimand through his dead words.

“I know you’ve been saying you fear them, but why should you fear that which makes you live? My people need to be united and I need an empire that won’t simply turn into infighting once I am gone.”

“And so you seek for war?”

“I seek for an end to something that we apparently never finished. My people were radiant once and your people, the parshmen, were vibrant. Who is served by this drab world where my people fight each other and end in squabbles without light to guide them? And your people are as good as worthless.”

She looked back at the map. “Where… Where is the Shattered Plains? This portion here?”

“That is all Natanatan you gestured to, Eshonai. This little portion here is the Shattered Plains.” He pointed to a spot not much longer or larger than his thumbnail, when the entire map was as large as the table.

It gave her a sudden,  horrifying perspective. This was the world? She thought that traveling to Kholinar had crossed almost as far as the land could go!

She ??? legs weakened, and for some reason she attuned mourning. She dropped back into her seat, unable to stand.

Gavilar removed something from his pocket. A sphere? It was dark, yet somehow still dun, as if it had an aura of blackness, a phantom light that was not light at all, faintly violet, a sphere that seemed to stop the light around it.

He set it on the table before her.

“You can have that,” he said. “I have another. Take it, and remember what your people once were. Wake up, Eshonai. Your people are now little better than parshmen, and you can be so much more.”

He patted her on the shoulder and left out the door. She stared at the terrible light, and knew it for what it was in the songs. The forms of power had been associated with a dark light, a light from the king of gods. A terrible creature that the Listeners escaped. She seized the sphere on the table and left running.

When the drums were set up Eshonai insisted on joining them. It was the only outlet for her anxiety. She beat to the sound of the rhythm in her head, banging as hard as she could, trying with each beat to slap away the things the king had said and the things she had just done. The Five, leaders of the Listeners sat the high table, the remnants of the final course of the meal sitting uneaten.

They intend to bring back our gods, she had said. Close your eyes. Focus on the rhythms. He could do it, he knows so much. Furious beats pulsing in her soul. We have to do something! Klade’s slave was an assassin. She thought he purchased him on a whim, but Klade had claimed the voice speaking in the rhythms had led him to the man. They claimed it was a sign of what they would do, and that the creature had confided his skills [to them?] when pressed.

Long ago they had the courage to do something drastic. They adopted dullform to escape their gods. They sought freedom at any cost.  But then, that cost would be higher. She played drums, she felt the rhythms, she wept softly and didn’t look as the strange assassin wearing white clothing provided by Klade left the room. Just the peace in the music, like her mother always said. Seek the rhythms, seek the songs.

She resisted as the others pulled her away, she wept to leave those beats behind. Wept for her people, who could never face this danger if they had to, wept for the world who would be destroyed if they did not. Wept for the king, whom she had resigned to death. The drums cut off around her, and dying music echoed through the halls.

Interlude #1: Ardent Alista
Source: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/56954-2017-02-17-boskone-54-boston-ma/#comment-511614
Audio: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9fo0ba8ynPxLWpJYjQxVlZVRFk/view
Transcript: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/56954-2017-02-17-boskone-54-boston-ma/?page=4#comment-538486

Spoiler

The Yoksta Monastery was ordinarily a very quiet place. Nestled in the forest atop a hill on the western slopes of the Horneater Peaks, the place was a paradise that few even knew existed. The Peaks themselves blocked the brunt of the storms and usually the monastery felt only rain at the passing of a highstorm. Furious rain, yes, and with some thundering. But none of the terrible destruction one knew in most parts of the world. Alista had to remind herself every passing storm how lucky she was to be here. Ardents in the know often fought half their lives to be transferred here. Away from politics, storms[?], and other annoyances, at Yoksta you could just think. Usually.

“Are you looking at these numbers? Are your eyes for some reason disconnected from your brain?!”

“I saw the numbers. But I’m saying we can’t judge yet. Three instances are not enough.”

“Two data points make a coincidence. Three make a sequence. This is plenty. The Everstorm travels at a constant speed, unlike the highstorm.”

“You can’t possibly say that! One of your data points, so highly touted, is from the original passing of the storm, which happened as an uncommon event.”

Alista slammed her book closed and gathered up her materials. She burst from her reading nook and gave a glare to the two Ardents arguing in the hall outside. They were so involved in their shouting match they didn’t even respond to the glare, though it had been one of her best. Once she’d been able to silence this library with a simple word. Now, the entire place had gone insane.

She bustled from the library, entering a long hallway with sides open to the elements outside. Peaceful trees. Quiet brook. Humid air and mossy vines that popped and stretched as they moved, laying out for the evening. Well, yes, a large swath of trees out there had been flattened by the new storm. But that was no reason for everyone to get upset. The rest of the world could worry. Here, she was just supposed to be able to read.

She started to set her things out at a reading desk here near an open window. The humidity wasn’t good for books, but places where the storms were weak went hand in hand with fecundity. You just had to accept that. Hopefully those new fabrials to draw water from the air would—

“—telling you we have to move!” A voice echoed through the hallway. “Look, the storm is going to ravage these woods. Before long this slope will be barren and the storm will be hitting us full force. The building wasn’t built to withstand that kind of punishment!”

“But the new storm doesn’t have that strong a wind factor, Bedam[?]. It’s not going to blow down the trees. Have you looked at the measurements?”

“I’ve disputed those measurements.”

“But—“

Alista rubbed her temples. Her head was bald like the head of the other Ardents. Her parents still joked that she’d joined the Ardentia simply because she hated bothering with her hair. She tried earplugs, but could hear the arguing through them. So eventually she picked up her things again, and went storming through the monastery.

Maybe the basement. Using a sphere for light, she took the long steps down to the lower level. It wasn’t truly a basement—just another building constructed further down the slopes. The steps were even outside, down a forested slope. The inaccuracy of calling it a basement bothered her, but the term had been used for as long as anyone could remember.

Before arriving at the monastery, she’d had illusions about what it would be like to live among scholars. No bickering. No politicking. Well, she hadn’t found that to be true, but generally people did leave her alone. And so she was lucky to be here. She told herself that again as she entered the basement building. It was basically a zoo.

Dozens of people gathering information from spanreeds, talking to one another, buzzing about talk of this highprince or that king. She stopped in the doorway, took it all in for a moment, then turned on her heel and stalked back out. Now what?

She started up the steps toward the monastery proper, but lingered halfway there. It’s probably the only route to peace, she thought, looking out at the forest. Trying not to think about the dirt, the cremlings, and the fact that something might drip in her head, she strode off into the forest.

She didn’t want to go too far, as who knew what might be out there. She eventually chose a stump without too much moss on it, and settled down, book across her lap, her other materials tucked into her satchel. She could still hear Ardents arguing down below, but they were distant. She opened her book, intent on finally getting something done today. She read.

Wimma[?] sprung away from Brightlord Sterling[?]’s forward advances, tucking her safehand to her breast and lowering her gaze from his comely locks. Such affection as to delight the unsavory mind could surely not satisfy her for an extended period, as though his intentions had at one time been fanciful delights to entertain her leisurely hours, they now seemed to manifest as utter impudence and greatest faults of character.

“What?” Alista exclaimed, reading. “No, you silly girl! He’s finally pronounced his affection for you! Don’t you dare turn away now!”

How could she accept this wanton justification of her once single-minded desires? Should she not instead select the more prudent choice, as advocated by the undeviating will of her uncle. Brightlord Vatam[?] had an endowment of land upon the Highprince’s grace, and would have means to provide far beyond the satisfactions available to a simple officer, no matter how well regarded or what whims had graced his temperament, features, and gentle touch.

Alista gasped. “Brightlord Vatam?! You little whore! Have you forgotten about how he locked away your father?”

“Wimma,” Brightlord Sterling intoned, “it seems I have gravely misjudged your attentions. In this I find myself deposited deep within an embarrassment of folly. I shall be away to the Shattered Plains, and you shall not again suffer the torment of my presence.”

He bowed then, a true gentlemen’s bow, possessing of all the true refinement and deference[?]. It was a supplication beyond what even a monarch could demand, and in it Wimma ascertained the true nature of Brightlord Sterling’s regard. Simple, yet passionate. Respectful indeed. And a move that lent great context to his earlier advance, which now appeared all at once a righteous deviation in otherwise sure armor. A window of full nobility, rather than a model of avarice. As he lifted the door’s latch to forever make his exodus from her life, Wimma surged with unrivaled shame and longing, twisting together not unlike two threads winding in a loom to construct a grand tapestry of desire.

“Wait!” Wimma cried, “Dear Sterling, wait upon my words!”

“Storms right!” Alista muttered. She leaned closer to the book, flipping the page.

Decorum seemed a vain thing to her now, lost upon the sea that was her need to feel Sterling’s touch. She rushed to him, and upon his arm pressed her ensleeved hand, which then she lifted to caress his sturdy jaw.

It was warm out here in the forest. Practically sweltering. Alista put her hand to her lips, reading with wide eyes. Trembling.

Would that the window through that statuesque armor could still be located, and a similar wound within herself might be found to press against his own and offer passage deep within her soul. If only—

“Alista?” a voice asked.

“Yip!” she said, bolting upright, snapping the book closed, spinning toward the sound. “Oh, um, Ardent Gurv[?].”

The young Siln Ardent was a tall gangly and obnoxiously loud man at times. Except, apparently, when sneaking up on colleagues in the forest. He really should feel ashamed for that.

“What is it you were studying?” he asked.

“Important works,” Alista said. Then sat on the book. “Nothing to mind yourself with. What is it you want?”

“Uh…” He looked down at her satchel. “You were the last one to check out the transcriptions from Bedthel[?]’s collection on the Dawnchant? The old version? I just wanted to check your progress.”

Dawnchant, right. They’d been working on that before the storm came and everyone got distracted. Old Navani Kholin in Alethkar had somehow come up with a key for translations. Her story about visions was nonsense most likely—the Kholin family was known for opaque politics. But the key was authentic, letting them slowly work through what the old text had once said.

She started digging through her satchel. She came up with three musty codices and a sheaf of paper, the latter being the work she’d done so far. Annoyingly, he settled down on the ground beside her stump, taking the papers as she offered them. He laid his satchel across his lap and began reading.

“Incredible!” he said a few moments later. “You’ve made way more progress than I have.”

“Everyone else is too busy worrying about that storm.”

“Well, it is threatening to wipe out civilization as we know it.”

“An overreaction. Everyone always overreacts to every little gust of wind.”

“That’s easy for us to say, tucked away in the mountains like this.” He flipped through her pages. “What’s this section? Why take so much care about the origins of the pieces found? Fokuson[?] concluded that these books had all spread from a central location, and so there’s nothing to learn by where they ended up.”

“Fokuson was a bootlicker, not a scholar,” Alista said. “Look, there’s easy proof that the same writing system was once used all across Roshar. I have references to Makabakam, Sela Tales, Alethela. Not just the diaspora of text, but real evidence they wrote naturally in the Dawnchant.”

“Do you suppose they all spoke the same language?”

“Hardly. But Jasnah Kholin’s Relics[?] doesn’t claim that everyone spoke the same language. Only that they wrote it. It’s foolish to assume that everyone used the same language across hundreds of years and dozens of nations. It makes more sense that there was a codified written language, a language of early scholarship just like you’d find in many underscripts written in Alethi now even if the scribe was originally Veden.”

“Ah!” he said, “And then a Desolation hits...”

Alista nodded, showing him a page later in her sheaf of notes. “This in-between weird language is where people started using the Dawnchant script to phonetically transcribe their language. It didn’t work so well.” She flipped two more pages. “After the next Desolation we have the proto-Vorin alphabet emerging and Thaylen a century later. We’ve always wondered what happened to the Dawnchant. Well it seems clear now they lost the knowledge of writing in the Dawnchant because by the days of the Recreance it had already become a dead language for millennia. It was easy to forget because they weren’t speaking it, as they hadn’t been in generations.”

“Brilliant!” Gurv said. He wasn’t so bad, actually, for a Siln. “All of this,” he said, “because of a madman’s ravings.” He pulled a sheaf of his own paper out from his satchel. “We’ve been translating what we can. We’re getting close to really cracking this thing, I think. If what you’ve been doing here is correct, that’s because Khovat[?] isn’t true Dawnchant but a phonetic transcription from another ancient language.”

He glanced aside, then cocked his head. Was he looking at her…? Oh, no it was just the book, which she was still sitting on.

“An Accountability of Virtue,” he grunted. “Good book!”

“You’ve read it?”

“I have a fondness for Alethi epics,” he said absently, flipping through her pages. “She really should have picked Vatam though—Sterling was a flatterer in a cage.”

“Sterling is a noble and upright officer!” She narrowed her eyes. “And you are just trying to get a rise out of me, Ardent Gurv.”

“Maybe.” He flipped through her pages, studying a diagram she had made of various Dawnchant grammars. “I have a copy of the sequel.”

“There’s a sequel?!”

“About her sister.”

“The mousey one?”

“She is elevated to courtly attention, and has to choose between a strapping naval officer, a Thaylen banker, and the king’s Wit.”

“Three men?”

“Sequels always have to be bigger,” he said, then offered her the stack of pages back. “I’ll lend it to you.”

“For what?”

“For help in translating a particularly stubborn section of Dawnchant. I have a patron of mine who has a strict deadline upon its delivery.”

Interlude #2: Soulcaster Kaza
Source: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/58578-ad-astra/?page=4#comment-561711
Audio: https://soundcloud.com/user-254460900/ad-astra-reading-and-qa
Transcript: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/58578-ad-astra/?page=5#comment-563497

Spoiler

The ship, First Dreams, crashed through a wave prompting Kaza to cling tightly to the rigging. Her gloved hands already ached, and she was certain each new wave would toss her overboard. She refused to go down below. This was her destiny. She was not a thing to be carried from place to place. Not any longer. Besides, that dark sky--suddenly stormy even though the sailing had been easy up until an hour ago--was no more disconcerting than her visions.

Another wave sent water crashing across the deck. Sailors scrambled and screamed. Mostly hirelings out of steam, as no rational crew would make this trip. Captain Varsmeb stalked among them while Draws, the helmsmen, kept them on a steady heading. Into the storm. Straight. Into. The Storm.

Kaza held tight, feeling her age as her arms started to weaken. Icy water washed over her, pushing back the hood of her robe, exposing her face and its twisted nature. Most sailors weren’t paying attention, though her cry did bring Varsmeb’s attention. The only Thaylen on board, the captain didn’t much match her image of the people. Thaylens to her were portly little men in vests. Merchants with styled hair who haggled over every last sphere. Varsmeb however was tall as an Alethi, with hands wide enough to palm boulders and forearms large enough to lift them. Over the crashing waves he yelled, “Someone get that soulcaster down below deck!”

“No!” she shouted back at him. “I stay!”

“I didn’t pay a prince’s ransom to bring you,” he said stalking up to her, “only to lose you over the side.”

“I am not a thing to--”

“Captain!” a sailor shouted. “Captain!”

They both looked up as the ship peaked over the tip of a huge wave, then teetered before just kind of falling over the side.

Storms! Kaza’s stomach practically squeezed up into her throat, and she felt her fingers sliding on the ropes. Varsmeb seized her by the side of her robe, holding her tight as they plunged into the water beyond the wave. For a brief terrifying moment they seemed intombed in the chill water. As if the entire ship had sunk.

The wave passed and Kaza found herself in a sodden heap on the floor of the deck, held by the captain.

“Storming fool!” he said to her. “You’re my secret weapon. You drown yourself when you’re not in my pay, understand?”

She nodded limply and then realized with a shock she’d been able to hear him easily. The storm… was gone? Varsmeb stood up straight grinning broadly, his white eyebrows combed back along his long mane of dripping hair. All across the deck sailors who had survived climbed to their feet, dripping wet and staring at the sky. It maintained its overcast gloom, but the winds had fallen completely still. Varsmeb bellowed out a laugh, sweeping back his long curling hair, “What did I tell you men? That new storm came from Aimia. Now it is gone and escaped, leaving the riches of its homeland to be plundered.”

Everyone knew you didn’t linger long around Aimia, though everyone had a different explanation as to why. Some rumors told of a vengeful storm here. One that sought out and destroyed approaching ships. The strange wind they’d encountered, which didn’t match the timing of a highstorm, seemed to support that.

The captain started shouting orders, getting the men back into position. They hadn’t been sailing long, only a short distance out from Liafor, up the Shin coast, then westward toward this northern section of Aimia. They’d soon spotted the large main island, but had not visited it. Everyone knew that was barren and lifeless. The treasures were hidden on the island--supposedly lying in wait to enrich those brave enough approach through winds and treacherous straits.

She cared less for that. What were riches to her? She had come because of another rumor. One spoken only among her kind. Perhaps here, at last, she could find a cure for her condition. Even as she righted herself she felt in her pouch, seeking the comforting touch of her soulcaster. Hers--no matter what the rulers of Liafor claimed. Had they spent their youths caressing it, learning its secrets? Had they spent their middle years in service, stepping with each use closer and closer to oblivion? The common sailors gave Kaza’s face [...] refusing to look her in the eyes. She pulled her hood up, unaccustomed to the eyes of ordinary people. She’d entered the stage where her disfigurements were starkly obvious. Kaza was slowly becoming smoke.

Varsmeb took the helm himself, giving Draws a break. The lanky man stepped down from the poop deck, noticing her by the side of the ship. He grinned at her, which she found curious. She had never spoken to him, but now he sauntered over to her as if he intended to make small talk.

“So…” he said, “up on deck through that? You’ve got guts.”

She hesitated, considering this strange creature then lowered her hood. He didn’t flinch, even though her hair, ears, and now parts of her face were disintegrating. There was a hole in her cheek through which you could see her jaw and teeth. Lines of smoke ringed the hole. The flesh seemed to be burning away. Air passed through when she spoke, altering her voice, and she had to tip her head all the way back to drink anything. Even then some dribbled out. The process was slow. She had a few years left before the soulcasting killed her. [?] And intent on proving nothing was wrong.

“I can’t believe we got through that storm. You think it hunts ships like they say?” He was Liaforan like herself with deep brown skin and dark brown eyes. What did he want? She tried to remember the ordinary passions of human life which she’d begun to forget. Is it sex you want? No, you’re much younger than I am. Hmm… Curious. Are you frightened and wishing for comfort? He started to fidget, playing with the end of a tied off rope.

“Umm… So… I mean, the prince sent you right?”

Ah! So he knew that she was the prince’s cousin.

“You wish to connect yourself to royalty. Well, I came on my own.”

“Surely he let you go.”

“Of course he didn’t. If not for my safety and that of my device.” It was hers. She looked off across the too still ocean. “They locked me up each day. Gave me any comforts they assumed would keep me happy. They realized that at any moment I could literally make the walls and bonds turn to smoke.”

“Does it hurt?”

“It is blissful. I slowly connect to the device and through it to Roshar until one day it will take me fully into its embrace.” She lifted a hand and pulled her black glove off one finger at a time, revealing that it too was disintegrating. Five lines of darkness, one rising from the tip of each finger. She turned it, palm toward him. “I could show you. Feel my touch and you could know. One moment and then you will mingle with the air itself.”

He fled. Excellent.

The captain steered them toward a small island poking out from the placid ocean right where the captain’s map said it would be. It had dozens of names: the Rock of Secrets, the Void’s Playground. So melodramatic. She preferred the old name for the place: Akinah. Supposedly there had once been a grand city here. But who would put a city on an island you couldn’t approach? For jutting out of the ocean were such strange rock formations. They ringed the entire island. Each some forty feet tall, resembling spearheads.

As they drew closer the sea grew choppy again and she felt a bout of nausea. She liked that. It was a human feeling. She again felt for her soulcaster. The nausea mixed with a faint sense of hunger. Food was something she often forgot about these days. As her body needed less of it now. Chewing was annoying with the hole in her cheek. Still, she liked the scents from whatever the cook was stirring up below. Perhaps the meal would calm the men, who seemed agitated to approach the island.

Kaza moved to the front of the ship, near the captain.

“Now you earn your keep soulcaster,” he said. “And I’ll feel justified in calling you all the way out here.”

“I am not a thing to be used,” she said absently. “I am a person. Those spikes of stone. They were soulcast there.” The enormous stone spearheads were too even in a ring about the island. Judging by the currents ahead, some lurked beneath the waters as well, to rip the hulls of approaching vessels.

“Can you destroy them?” The captain asked her.

“No. They are much larger than you indicated.”

“But--”

“I can make a hole in them captain. It is much easier to soulcast an entire object, but I am no ordinary soulcaster. I have begun to see the dark sky and the second sun and the creatures that lurk hidden around the cities of men.”

He shivered visibly. Why should that have frightened him? She’d merely stated facts.

“We need you to transform the tips of a few under the waves,” he said. “And make a hole at least large enough for the dinghies to get through to the island beyond.”

“I will keep my word, but you must remember: I do not serve you. I am here for my own purposes.”

They weighed anchor as close to the spikes as they dared to get. They were even more daunting, and more obviously soulcast, from up close. Each would require several soulcasters in concert, she thought, standing at the crown of the boat as the men ate a hasty meal of stew. The cook was a woman. Reshi from the looks of her, with tattoos all over her face. She forced the captain to eat, claiming that if he went in hungry he’d be distracted. Even Kaza took some, though her tongue no longer tasted food. It all felt like the same mush to her, and she ate with a napkin pressed to her cheek.

The captain drew anticipationspren as he waited--ribbons that waved in the wind--and Kaza could see the beasts beyond, the creatures that accompanied the spren. The ship’s four dinghies were cramped with rowers and officers altogether, but they made space for her at the front. She pulled up her hood, which still hadn’t dried, and sat on her bench. What had the captain been planning to do if the storm hadn’t stopped? Would he seriously have tried to use her in a dinghy to remove the spearheads [?] in the middle of the tempest?

They reached the first of them, and Kaza carefully unwrapped her soulcaster. Releasing a flood of light. Three large gemstones connected by chains with loops for fingers. She pulled it on, with gemstones on the back of the palm. She sighed softly to feel the metal against her skin. Warm. Welcoming. A part of her.

She reached over the side into the chilled water and pressed her hand against the tip of a stone spear. Smooth from years in the ocean. Light from the gemstones lit the water, reflections dancing across her row. She closed her eyes and felt the familiar feeling of being drawn into another world. Of another will reinforcing her own. Something commanding and powerful, drawn by her request for aid. The stone did not wish to change. It was content with its long slumber in the ocean. But yes… Yes, it remembered. It had once been air until someone had locked it into this shape. She could not make it air again, her soulcaster only had one mode--not the full three. She did not know why.

“Smoke,” she whispered to the stone. “Freedom in the air, remember?” She tempted it. Picking at its memories of dancing free. “Yes, freedom.” She nearly gave in herself. How wonderful it would be to no longer fear. To soar into infinity on the air. To be free of mortal pains.

The tip of the stone burst into smoke, sending an explosion of bubbles up around the dinghy. Kaza was shocked back into the real world and a deep piece within her trembled. Terrified. She’d almost gone that time.

Smoke bubbles rattled the dinghy, which nearly upended. She should have warned them. Soldiers muttered, but in the next dinghy over the captain praised her. She removed two more spear tips beneath the waves before finally reaching the wall. Here the spearhead like formations had been grown so close together there was barely a hand between them. It took three tries to get the dinghy close enough. As soon as they got into position some turning of the waves would pull them back away again. Finally, the sailors managed to keep her steady.

She reached out with the soulcaster. Two of the three gems were almost out of stormlight, and glowed just faintly. But she should have enough. She pressed her hand against the spike, then convinced it to become smoke. It was easy this time. She felt the explosion of wind from the transformation. Her soul crying in delight at the smoke, thick and sweet. She breathed it in through the hole in her cheek while sailors coughed. She looked up at the smoke drifting away. How wonderful it would be… No. No.

The island proper loomed beyond that hole. Dark like its stones had been stained by the smoke itself. It had tall rock formations along its center, that looked almost like the walls of a city. The captains dinghy pulled up to her and the captain transferred to her boat. His began to row backward toward the ship.

“What?” she asked. “Why are the others heading back?”

“They claim to not be feeling well,” the captain said. Was he abnormally pale? “Cowards! They won’t have any of the prize then!”

“Gemstones lay just for the plucking here,” Draws added. “Generations of greatshells have died here, leaving their hearts. We’re going to be rich men!”

Well, as long as the secret was here she didn’t care. She settled into her place in the prow of the dinghy as the sailors guided the three small vessels through the gap. The Aimians had known about soulcasters. This is where you’d come to get the devices in the old days. You’d come to the ancient isle of Akinah. If there was some secret of how to avoid death by the device she loved, she would find it here.

Her stomach began acting up again as they rowed. Kaza endured it, though she felt as if she were slipping into another world. That wasn’t an ocean beneath her but deep black glass. And two suns in the sky--one that drew her soul toward it. Her shadow was stretched out the wrong direction.

Splash. She started. One of the sailors had slipped from his boat into the water. She gasped as another slumped to the side, oar falling from his fingers.

“Captain?” She turned to find him with drooping eyes. He slumped, then fell backward unconsious, knocking his head on the back seat of the boat. The other sailors weren’t doing any better. The two dinghies had begun to drift. Not a single sailor seemed to be conscious.

My destiny, Kaza thought. My choice. Not a thing to be carted from place to place and ordered to soulcast. Not a tool. A person.

She shoved aside an unconscious sailor and took the oars herself. It was difficult work. She was unaccustomed to physical labor, and her fingers had trouble gripping. They started to dissolve further. Perhaps a year or two was optimistic for her survival. Still she rode. She fought the waves until she at long last got close enough to hop out into the water and feel the rock beneath her feet. Her robes billowing up around her as she finally thought to check if Varsmeb was alive. None of the sailors in her dinghy were breathing, so she let the boat slip back along the waves. Alone, Kaza fought through the surf and finally on hands and knees crawled up onto the stones of the island. There she collapsed, drowsy. Why was she so sleepy?

She awoke to a small cremling scuttling across the rocks near her. It had a strange shape, with large wings and a head that made it look like an axehound. Its carapace shimmered with dozens of colors. Kaza could remember a time when she had collected cremlings, pinning them to boards and claiming she would become a natural historian. What had happened to that girl? She was transformed by necessity. Given a soulcaster which was always kept in the royal family. Given a charge, and a death sentence. She stirred and the cremling scrambled away. She coughed, then began to crawl towards those rock formations. That city. Dark city of stone. She could barely think as she passed it--a large uncut gemheart among the bleached white carapace leftovers of a dead greatshell. Varsmeb had been right.

She collapsed again near the perimeter of the rock formations. They looked like large, ornate buildings crusted with crem.

“Ah,” a voice said from behind her, “I should have guessed the drug would not affect you as quickly. You are barely human anymore.” Kaza rolled over and found someone approaching on quiet bare feet. The cook? Yes, that was her, with the tattooed face.

“You…,” Kaza croaked, “You poisoned us!”

“After many warnings not to come to this place,” the cook said. “It is rare I must guard it so aggressively. Men must not again discover this place.”

“The gemstones?” Kaza asked, growing more drowsy. “You protect them? Or is it... something else? Something… more.”

“I cannot speak,” the cook said. “Even to sate a dying demand. There are those who can pull secrets from your soul, and the cost would be the ends of worlds. Sleep now soulcaster. This is the most merciful end I can give.”

The cook began to hum. Pieces of her broke off, becoming cremlings. She crumbled into a pile of chittering little insects that moved out of her clothing, leaving them in a heap.

Hallucination? Kaza wondered as she drifted. She was dieing. Well, that was nothing new. The cremlings began to pick at her hand, taking off her soulcaster. No.

She had one last thing to do. With a defiant shout she pressed the rocky ground beneath her and demanded a change. When it became smoke she went with it. Her choice. Her destiny.

Other Stuff:
Brandon's last update on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Stormlight_Archive/comments/5zidxz/oathbringer_spoilers_stormlight_three_update_7/
Cover reveal: http://www.tor.com/2017/03/16/revealing-the-cover-to-oathbringer-the-third-book-in-brandon-sandersons-stormlight-archive/
Amazon Blurb:

Spoiler

In Oathbringer, the third volume of the New York Times bestselling Stormlight Archive, humanity faces a new Desolation with the return of the Voidbringers, a foe with numbers as great as their thirst for vengeance.

Dalinar Kholin’s Alethi armies won a fleeting victory at a terrible cost: The enemy Parshendi summoned the violent Everstorm, which now sweeps the world with destruction, and in its passing awakens the once peaceful and subservient parshmen to the horror of their millennia-long enslavement by humans. While on a desperate flight to warn his family of the threat, Kaladin Stormblessed must come to grips with the fact that the newly kindled anger of the parshmen may be wholly justified.

Nestled in the mountains high above the storms, in the tower city of Urithiru, Shallan Davar investigates the wonders of the ancient stronghold of the Knights Radiant and unearths dark secrets lurking in its depths. And Dalinar realizes that his holy mission to unite his homeland of Alethkar was too narrow in scope. Unless all the nations of Roshar can put aside Dalinar’s blood-soaked past and stand together―and unless Dalinar himself can confront that past―even the restoration of the Knights Radiant will not prevent the end of civilization.

Edit: Appologies, this took multiple edits to get the formatting right!

 

[ZenBossanova]

That is a good idea, @jofwu

I will do that soon! And thanks to you and @iamstick for the posts. 

[+Extesian]

Nice work @jofwu there are one or two there I didn't know about! And @I Am Stick could you please spoiler that transcript? Only because it's so long and on a thread like this it's good to be able to scroll through things easily

[Mestiv]

The topic is pinned now, so there shouldn't be any more problems finding this stuff. If anything new pops up, add it here and @ZenBossanova or a mod should add it to the OP.

[Fulminato]

the text of dalinar #1 flashback is the kaladin fist chapter.

Edited May 25, 2017 by Fulminato

[Steeldancer]

And the new dalinar flashback repeats itself. Wow that was cool though. He's so rough and crazy. Almost uncivilized 

[Pagerunner]

Jasnah scene will not be in Oathbringer. Brandon wrote an entire Jasnah novella that is for "his eyes only," to work out the references to what happened. (Same reason he wrote Szeth's flashbacks for Stormlight 4).

[Jofwu]

Another edit: I'm fairly certain "The Thrill" includes the two Dalinar flashbacks already listed. So there are four total, but only two additional flashbacks in it.

[maxal]

3 hours ago, jofwu said:

Another edit: I'm fairly certain "The Thrill" includes the two Dalinar flashbacks already listed. So there are four total, but only two additional flashbacks in it.

Since I have read the Thrill and both Dalinar's excerpts, I can confirm they are both included within the the Thrill, hence the compilation only adds two new additional flashbacks: 28 and 25 years ago.

I have the transcript for the Adolin's Rhysadium's flashback, but the one person to confirm its source would be @She Who Cannot Be Named.

[ZenBossanova]

12 minutes ago, maxal said:

Since I have read the Thrill and both Dalinar's excerpts, I can confirm they are both included within the the Thrill, hence the compilation only adds two new additional flashbacks: 28 and 25 years ago.

I have the transcript for the Adolin's Rhysadium's flashback, but the one person to confirm its source would be @She Who Cannot Be Named.

Very interesting! 
Is this available for public consumption, or something For your eyes only? 

[maxal]

7 minutes ago, ZenBossanova said:

Very interesting! 
Is this available for public consumption, or something For your eyes only? 

It is available for public consumption: it was read at the Germany signings  The reading is however squeezed in between long German readings. It is very short (just one page) and the one reason I am not making too much noise about it is I still cannot believe Brandon actually wrote a flashback chapter for Adolin...  I also cannot be sure it will make it into the final book, especially since Brando trimmed 100K words from it (and a silly part of me is angsting Brandon has removed the entire Adolin's story arc ).

I am still waiting for Brandon to officially announce he has included it within the book, just as he publicly confirmed having written four additional flashback chapters for Kaladin. The fact he read it makes it kind of official, but... I don't want to get too excited over it just yet.

Edited May 25, 2017 by maxal

[ZenBossanova]

2 hours ago, maxal said:

It is available for public consumption: it was read at the Germany signings  The reading is however squeezed in between long German readings. It is very short (just one page) and the one reason I am not making too much noise about it is I still cannot believe Brandon actually wrote a flashback chapter for Adolin...  I also cannot be sure it will make it into the final book, especially since Brando trimmed 100K words from it (and a silly part of me is angsting Brandon has removed the entire Adolin's story arc ).

I am still waiting for Brandon to officially announce he has included it within the book, just as he publicly confirmed having written four additional flashback chapters for Kaladin. The fact he read it makes it kind of official, but... I don't want to get too excited over it just yet.

Where is that recording at, please? 
I will be sure to put disclaimers around it. 

[maxal]

1 hour ago, ZenBossanova said:

Where is that recording at, please? 
I will be sure to put disclaimers around it. 

I can't find a link to the recording, it doesn't appear as if it were posted, but if it was, it is within this topic:

The Adolin's flashback was extracted by @She Who Cannot Be Named and was posted as follows:

Spoiler

 

He read exactly one page from Oathbringer.

The scents of horses reminded Adolin of his youth, sweat and manure and hay. Good scents, real scents. He'd spent many of these days before he was fully a man on campaign with his father during border skirmishes in Jah Keved.

Adolin had been afraif of the animals back then, though he never admitted it. They were so much faster, so much more intelligent than (Shells?). So alien. Creatures all covered in hair, which made him shiver to touch, with big, glassy eyes.

Those had'nt been even real horses. For all their pedigree breeding, the horses they (brought) on campaign they'd just been regular Shin Thoroughbreds.

Expansive, yes, but by definition therefore not priceless.

Not like the creature before him now.

Brandon: "Not going on here, too many spoilers." That was exactly one page, written in Krakau shortly before he came to Germany.

 

 

That's all we know so far. It isn't much to go by, but it has made many readers quite please as it does open new possibilities for Adolin's character which weren't there before.

 

[ZenBossanova]

Thanks, @maxal

 

[Mason Wheeler]

On 5/24/2017 at 9:16 PM, ZenBossanova said:

“Three men?”

“Sequels always have to be bigger,” he said, then offered her the stack of pages back. “I’ll lend it to you.”

“For what?”

“For help in translating a particularly stubborn section of Dawnchant. I have a patron of mine who has a strict deadline upon its delivery.”

Does this strike anyone else as a little bit meta?

[Ammanas]

I love it when authors do this! I always assume its on purpose whether its the actual truth or not. 

[king of nowhere]

On 30/6/2017 at 10:44 PM, Mason Wheeler said:

Does this strike anyone else as a little bit meta?

brandon loves to insert those little meta musings. hoid makes several of them, and thom merrilyn in the wheel of time has a really good one in the last book.

[Aoibheann]

Here I was wondering who the patron is... 

[Darkness]

22 hours ago, Aoibheann said:

Here I was wondering who the patron is... 

I get the joke, but it's actually a really good question, and I'm fairly convinced it's Taravangian

[iamstick]

Nevermind, nothing to see here -- already included in list

Edited August 10, 2017 by iamstick

[Stark]

Well, this has been confirmed on Tor.com.  Previews start on August 22nd!

 

http://www.tor.com/2017/08/15/brandon-sanderson-oathbringer-serialization-announcement/

[Mason Wheeler]

Nice!  Looking forward to these little tidbits to tide me over until November...

[+Extesian]

Just want to update this still excellent thread with this @ZenBossanova

Quote

PeterAhlstrom Brandon's Personal Assistant • 18h

Brandon never read a second Eshonai chapter. That quote under Eshonai #2 is not from a reading; someone else just made it up in a forum thread in 2014.