Words of Radiance

“Come on,” she said.

“I . . . have the sense that it would be better not to encourage you.”

“What’s the fun in that?”

“Well, we are about to get hit by a highstorm’s flood.”

“So our clothing will get washed,” she said with a grin. “See! Positive.”

He snorted.

“Ah, that bridgeman grunt dialect again,” she noted.

“That grunt meant,” he said, “that at least if the waters come, it will wash away some of your stench.”

“Ha! Mildly amusing, but no points to you. I already established that you’re the malodorous one. Reuse of jokes is strictly forbidden on pain of getting dunked in a highstorm.”

“All right then,” he said. “It’s a good thing we’re down here because I had guard duty tonight. Now I’m going to miss it. That is practically like getting the day off.”

“To go swimming, no less!”

He smiled.

“I,” she proclaimed, “am glad we are down here because the sun is far too bright up above, and it tends to give me a sunburn unless I wear a hat. It is much better to be down in the dank, dark, smelly, moldy, potentially life-threatening depths. No sunburns. Just monsters.”

“I’m glad to be down here,” he said, “because at least it was me, and not one of my men, who fell.”

She hopped over a puddle, then eyed him. “You’re not very good at this.”

“Sorry. I meant that I’m glad to be down here because when we get out, everyone will cheer me for being a hero for rescuing you.”

“Better,” Shallan said. “Except for the fact that I do believe that I am the one rescuing you.”

He glanced at her map. “Point.”

“I,” she said, “am glad to be down here because I’ve always wondered what it’s like to be a chunk of meat traveling through a digestive system, and these chasms remind me of the intestines.”

“I hope you’re not serious.”

“What?” She looked shocked. “Of course I’m not. Ew.”

“You really do try too hard.”

“It’s what keeps me insane.”

He scrambled up a large pile of debris, then offered a hand to help her. “I,” he said, “am happy to be here because it reminds me of how lucky I am to be free of Sadeas’s army.”

“Ah,” she said, stepping up to the top with him.

“His lighteyes sent us down here to gather,” Kaladin said, sliding down the other side. “And didn’t pay us much at all for the effort.”

“Tragic.”

“You could say,” he told her as she stepped down off the pile, “that we were given only a pittance.”

He grinned at her.

She cocked her head.

“Pit-tance,” he said, gesturing toward the depth of the hole they were in. “You know. We’re in a pit . . .”

“Oh, storms,” she said. “You don’t actually expect that to count. That was terrible!”

“I know. I’m sorry. My mother would be disappointed.”

“She didn’t like wordplay?”

“No, she loved it. She’d just be mad I tried to do it when she wasn’t around to laugh at me.”

Shallan smiled, and they continued on, keeping a brisk pace. “I am glad we’re down here,” she said, “because by now, Adolin will be worried sick about me—so when we get back, he’ll be ecstatic. He might even let me kiss him in public.”

Adolin. Right. That dampened his mood.

“We probably need to stop so I can draw out our map,” Shallan said, frowning at the sky. “And so that you can yell some more for our potential salvation.”

“I suppose,” he said as she settled down to get out her map. He cupped his hands. “Hey, up there? Anyone? We’re down here, and we’re making bad puns. Please save us from ourselves!”

Shallan chuckled.

Kaladin smiled, then started as he actually heard something echoing back. Was that a voice? Or . . . Wait . . .

A trumping sound—like a horn’s call, but overlapping itself. It grew louder, washing over them.

Then an enormous, skittering mass of carapace and claws crashed around the corner.

Chasmfiend.

Kaladin’s mind panicked, but his body simply moved. He snatched Shallan by the arm, hauling her to her feet and pulling her into a run. She shouted, dropping her satchel.

Kaladin pulled her after him and did not look back. He could feel the thing, too close, the walls of the chasm shaking from its pursuit. Bones, twigs, shell, and plants cracked and snapped.

The monster trumped again, a deafening sound.

It was almost upon them. Storms, but it could move. He’d never have imagined something so large being so quick. There was no distracting it this time. It was almost upon them; he could feel it right behind . . .

There.

He whipped Shallan in front of him and thrust her into a fissure in the wall. As a shadow loomed over him, he threw himself into the fissure, shoving Shallan backward. She grunted as he pressed her against some of the refuse of twigs and leaves that had been packed into this crack by floodwaters.

The chasm fell silent. Kaladin could hear only Shallan’s panting and his own heartbeat. They’d left most of their spheres on the ground, where Shallan had been preparing to draw. He still had his spear, his improvised lantern.

Slowly, Kaladin twisted about, putting his back to Shallan. She held him from behind, and he could feel her tremble. Stormfather. He trembled himself. He twisted his spear to give light, peering out at the chasm. This fissure was shallow, and only a few feet stood between him and the opening.

The frail, washed-out light of his diamond spheres twinkled off the wet floor. It illuminated broken frillblooms on the walls and several writhing vines on the ground, severed from their plants. They twisted and flopped, like men arching their backs. The chasmfiend . . . Where was it?

Shallan gasped, arms tightening around his waist. He looked up. There, higher up the crack, a large, inhuman eye watched them. He couldn’t see the bulk of the chasmfiend’s head; just part of the face and jaw, with that terrible glassy green eye. A large claw slammed against the side of the hole, trying to force its way in, but the crack was too small.

The claw dug at the hole, and then the head withdrew. Scraping rock and chitin sounded in the chasm, but the thing didn’t go far before stopping.

Silence. A steady drip somewhere fell into a pool. But otherwise, silence.

“It’s waiting,” Shallan whispered, head near his shoulder.

“You sound proud of it!” Kaladin snapped.

“A little.” She paused. “How long, do you suppose, until . . .”

He looked upward, but couldn’t see the sky. The crack didn’t run all the way up the side of the chasm, and was barely ten or fifteen feet tall. He leaned forward to look at the slot high above, not extending all the way out of the crack, just getting a little closer to the lip so he could see the sky. It was getting dark. Not sunset yet, but getting close.

“Two hours, maybe,” he said. “I—”

A crashing tempest of carapace charged down the chasm. Kaladin jumped back, pressing Shallan against the refuse again as the chasmfiend tried—without success—to get one of its legs into the fissure. The leg was still too large, and though the chasmfiend could shove the tip in toward them—getting close enough to brush Kaladin—it wasn’t enough to hurt them.

That eye returned, reflecting the image of Kaladin and Shallan—tattered and dirtied from their time in the chasm. Kaladin looked less frightened than he felt, staring that thing in the eye, spear held up wardingly. Shallan, rather than looking terrified, seemed fascinated.

Crazy woman.

The chasmfiend withdrew again. It stopped just down the chasm. He could hear it settling down to watch.

“So . . .” Shallan said, “we wait?”

Sweat trickled down the sides of Kaladin’s face. Wait. How long? He could imagine staying in here, like a frightened rockbud trapped in its shell, until the waters came crashing through the chasms.

He’d survived a storm once. Barely, and only then with the aid of Stormlight. In here, it would be far different. The waters would whip them in a surge through the chasms, smashing them into walls, boulders, churning them with the dead until they drowned or were ripped limb from limb . . .

It would be a very, very bad way to die.

His grip tightened on his spear. He waited, sweating, worrying. The chasmfiend didn’t leave. Minutes passed.

Finally, Kaladin made his decision. He moved to step forward.

“What are you doing!” Shallan hissed, sounding terrified. She tried to hold him back.

“When I’m out,” he said, “run the other way.”

“Don’t be stupid!”

“I’ll distract it,” he said. “Once you’re free, I’ll lead it away from you, then escape. We can meet back up.”

“Liar,” she whispered.

He twisted about, meeting her eyes. “You can get back to the warcamps on your own,” he said. “I can’t. You have information that needs to get to Dalinar. I don’t. I have combat training. I might be able to get away from the thing after distracting it. You couldn’t. If we wait here, we both die. Do you need more logic than that?”