She leaned closer to Tvlakv into the firelight. “Do not toy with me, slaver.”

“I wouldn’t dare—”

“You have no idea the storm you have wandered into,” Shallan hissed, holding his eyes. “You have no idea what stakes have been wagered upon my arrival. Take your petty schemes and stuff them in a crevice. Do as I say, and I will see your debts canceled. You will be a free man again.”

“What? How… how did you—”

Shallan stood up, cutting him off. She felt somehow stronger than she had before. More determined. Her insecurities fluttered in the pit of her stomach, but she paid them no heed.

Tvlakv didn’t know she was timid. He didn’t know she had been raised in rural isolation. To him, she was a woman of the court, accomplished at argument and accustomed to being obeyed.

Standing before him, feeling radiant in the glow of the flames—towering above him and his grubby machinations—she saw. Expectation wasn’t just about what people expected of you.

It was about what you expected of yourself.

Tvlakv leaned away from her like a man before a raging bonfire. He shrank back, eyes wide, raising an arm. Shallan realized that she was glowing faintly with the light of spheres. Her dress no longer bore the tears and smudges it had before. It was majestic.

Instinctively, she let the glow from her skin fade, hoping Tvlakv would think it a trick of the firelight. She spun and left him shaking beside the fire as she walked back to the wagon. Darkness was fully upon them, the first moon having yet to rise. As she walked, her feet didn’t hurt nearly as much as they had. Was the knobweed sap doing that much good?

She reached the wagon and began climbing back into the seat, but Bluth chose that moment to crash into camp.

“Put out the fire!” he cried.

Tvlakv looked at him dumbfounded.

Bluth dashed ahead, passing Shallan and reaching the fire, where he grabbed the pot of steaming broth. He turned it over onto the flames, splashing out ashes and steam with a hiss, scattering flamespren, which faded away.

Tvlakv jumped up, looking down as filthy broth—faintly lit by the dying embers—ran past his feet. Shallan, gritting her teeth against the pain, got off the wagon and approached. Tag ran up from the other direction.

“… seem to be several dozen of them,” Bluth was saying in a low voice. “They are well armed, but have no horses or chulls, so they are not rich.”

“What is this?” Shallan demanded.

“Bandits,” Bluth said. “Or mercenaries. Or whatever you want to call them.”

“Nobody polices this area, Brightness,” Tvlakv said. He glanced at her, then looked away quickly, obviously still shaken. “It is truly a wilderness, you see. The presence of the Alethi on the Shattered Plains means many like to come and go. Trading caravans like ours, craftsmen seeking work, lowborn lighteyed sellswords with an eye toward enlisting. Those two conditions—no laws, but plenty of travelers—attract a certain kind of ruffian.”

“Dangerous,” Tag agreed. “These types take what they want. Leave only corpses.”

“Did they see our fire?” Tvlakv asked, wringing his cap in his hands.

“Don’t know,” Bluth said, glancing over his shoulder. Shallan could barely make out his expression in the darkness. “Didn’t want to get close. I snuck up to get a count, then ran back here fast.”

“How can you be sure they’re bandits?” Shallan asked. “They might just be soldiers on their way to the Shattered Plains, as Tvlakv said.”

“They fly no banners, display no sigils,” Bluth said. “But they have good equipment and keep a tight guard. They’re deserters. I’d bet the chulls on it.”

“Bah,” Tvlakv said. “You’d bet my chulls on a hand with the tower, Bluth. But Brightness, for all his terrible gambling sense, I believe the fool is right. We must harness the chulls and depart immediately. The night’s darkness is our ally, and we must make the most of it.”

She nodded. The men moved quickly, even the portly Tvlakv, breaking down camp and hooking up the chulls. The slaves grumbled at not getting their food for the night. Shallan stopped beside their cage, feeling ashamed. Her family had owned slaves—and not just parshmen and ardents. Ordinary slaves. In most cases, they were nothing worse than darkeyes without the right of travel.

These poor souls, however, were sickly and half-starved.

You’re only one step from being in one of those pens yourself, Shallan, she thought with a shiver as Tvlakv passed, hissing curses at the captives. No. He wouldn’t dare put you in there. He’d just kill you.

Bluth had to be reminded again to give her a hand up into the wagon. Tag ushered the parshmen into their wagon, cursing at them for moving so slowly, then climbed into his seat and took up the tail position.

The first moon began to rise, making it lighter than Shallan would have liked. It seemed to her that each crunching footstep of the chulls was as loud as a highstorm’s thunder. They brushed the plants she’d named crustspines, with their branches like tubes of sandstone. Those cracked and shook.

Progress was not quick—chulls never were. As they moved, she picked out lights on a hillside, frighteningly close. Campfires not a ten-minute walk away. A shifting of winds brought the sound of distant voices, of metal on metal, perhaps men sparring.

Tvlakv turned the wagons eastward. Shallan frowned in the night. “Why this way?” she whispered.

“Remember that gully we saw?” Bluth whispered. “Putting it between us and them, in case they hear and come looking.”

Shallan nodded. “What can we do if they catch us?”

“It won’t be good.”

“Couldn’t we bribe our way past them?”

“Deserters ain’t like common bandits,” Bluth said. “These men, they’ve given up everything. Oaths. Families. When you desert, it breaks you. It leaves you willing to do anything, because you’ve already given away everything you could have cared about losing.”

“Wow,” Shallan said, looking over her shoulder.

“I… Yeah, you spend your whole life with a decision like that, you do. You wish any honor were left for you, but know you’ve already given it away.”

He fell silent, and Shallan was too nervous to prod him further. She continued watching those lights on the hillside as the wagons—blessedly—rolled farther and farther into the night, eventually escaping into the darkness.

16. Swordmaster

Nimbleform has a delicate touch.

Gave the gods this form to many,

Tho’ once defied, by the gods they were crushed.

This form craves precision and plenty.

From the Listener Song of Listing, 27th stanza

“You know,” Moash said from Kaladin’s side, “I always thought this place would be…”

“Bigger?” Drehy offered in his lightly accented voice.

“Better,” Moash said, looking around the practice grounds. “It looks just like where darkeyed soldiers practice.”

These sparring grounds were reserved for Dalinar’s lighteyes. In the center, the large open courtyard was filled with a thick layer of sand. A raised wooden walkway ran around the perimeter, stretching between the sand and the narrow surrounding building, which was just one room deep. That narrow building wrapped around the courtyard except at the front, which had a wall with an archway for the entrance, and had a wide roof that extended, giving shade to the wooden walkway. Lighteyed officers stood chatting in the shade or watching men sparring in the sunlight of the yard, and ardents moved this way and that, delivering weapons or drinks.