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Zahel, moving with remarkable spryness, dodged back among the rows of sheets. Kaladin leaped after him, but again managed to lose his quarry. Kaladin turned about, searching the seemingly endless rows of fluttering white sheets. Like dancing flames, pure white.
“Why do you fight, Kaladin Stormblessed?” Zahel’s phantom voice called from somewhere nearby.
Kaladin spun, sword out. “I fight for Alethkar.”
“Ha! You ask me to sponsor you as a swordmaster, then immediately lie to me?”
“I didn’t ask…” Kaladin took a deep breath. “I wear Dalinar’s colors proudly.”
“You fight for him, not because of him,” Zahel called. “Why do you fight?”
Kaladin crept in the direction he thought the sound came from. “I fight to protect my men.”
“Closer,” Zahel said. “But your men are now as safe as they could ever be. They can care for themselves. So why do you keep fighting?”
“Maybe I don’t think they’re safe,” Kaladin said. “Maybe I…”
“… don’t think they can care for themselves?” Zahel asked. “You and old Dalinar. Hens from the same nest.”
A face and figure formed in a nearby sheet, puffing toward Kaladin as if someone were walking through on the other side. He struck immediately, driving his sword through the sheet. It ripped—the point was still sharp enough for that—but didn’t strike anyone beyond.
Syl momentarily became sharp—changing before he could ask—as he swiped to cut the sheet in two. It writhed in the wind, severed down the center.
Zahel came in from Kaladin’s other side, and Kaladin barely turned in time, swinging his Blade. Zahel deflected the strike with his arm, which he’d wrapped with cloth. In his other hand he carried a long scarf that he whipped forward, catching Kaladin’s off hand and wrapping it with shocking tightness, like a coiling whip.
Zahel pulled, yanking Kaladin off balance. Kaladin maintained his feet, barely, and lunged with a one-handed strike. Zahel again deflected the strike with his cloth-wrapped arm. That sort of tactic would never have worked against a real Shardblade, but it could be surprisingly effective against ordinary swords. New recruits were often surprised at how well a nice thick cloth could stop a blade.
Zahel still had Kaladin’s off hand wrapped in the scarf, which he heaved, spinning Kaladin around. Damnation. Kaladin managed to maneuver his Blade and slice the cloth in half—Syl becoming sharp for a moment—then he leaped backward and tried to regain his footing.
Zahel strode calmly to the side, whipping his scarf with a solid crack, then spinning it around like a mace. Kaladin didn’t see any Stormlight coming off the ardent, and he had no reason to believe the man could Surgebind … but the way the cloth had gripped Kaladin’s arm had been uncanny.
Zahel stretched the scarf in his hands—it was longer than Kaladin had expected. “Do you believe in the Almighty, boy?”
“Why does that matter?”
“You ask why faith is relevant when you’re considering joining the ardents—to become a religious advisor?”
“I want to be a teacher of the sword and spear,” Kaladin said. “What does that have to do with the Almighty?”
“All right, then. You ask why God is relevant when you’re considering teaching men to kill?”
Kaladin inched carefully forward, his Blade held before him. “I don’t know what I believe. Navani still follows the Almighty. She burns glyphwards every morning. Dalinar says that the Almighty is dead, but he also claims there’s another true God somewhere in a place beyond Shadesmar. Jasnah says that a being having vast powers doesn’t make them God, and concludes—from the way the world works—that an omnipotent, loving deity cannot exist.”
“I didn’t ask what they believe. I asked what you believe.”
“I’m not confident anyone knows the answers. I figure I’ll let the people who care argue about it, and I’ll keep my head down and focus on my life right now.”
Zahel nodded to him, as if that answer was acceptable. He waved Kaladin forward. Trying to keep his sword form in mind—he’d trained mostly on Smokestance—Kaladin tested forward. He feinted twice, then lunged.
Zahel’s hands became a blur as he pushed the sword to the side with his stretched-out scarf, then twisted his hands around, neatly wrapping the scarf around the sword. That gave him leverage to push the sword farther away as he stepped into Kaladin’s lunge and slid his makeshift wrapping along the length of the Blade, coming in close.
Here, he somehow twisted his cloths around to wrap Kaladin’s wrists as well. Kaladin tried a head-butt, but Zahel stepped into the move and raised one side of the scarf—letting Kaladin’s head go underneath it. With a twirl and a twist, Zahel completely tied Kaladin in the scarf. How long was that thing?
The exchange left Kaladin with not only his hands tied tightly, but a scarf now holding his arms pinned to his sides, Zahel standing behind him. Kaladin couldn’t see what Zahel did next, but it involved sending a loop of scarf up over Kaladin’s head and around his neck. Zahel pulled tight, choking off Kaladin’s air.
I think we’re losing, Syl said. To a guy wielding something he found in Adolin’s sock drawer.
Kaladin grunted, but a part of him was excited. Frustrating as Zahel could be, he was an excellent fighter—and he tested Kaladin in ways he’d never seen before. That was the sort of training he needed in order to beat the Fused.
As Zahel tried to choke him, Kaladin forced himself to remain calm. He changed Syl into a small dagger. A twist of the wrist cut the scarf, which unraveled the entire trap, leaving Kaladin free to spin and slash with his again-dulled knife.
The ardent blocked the knife with his cloth-wrapped arm. He immediately caught Kaladin’s wrist with his other hand, so Kaladin dismissed Syl and summoned her again with his off hand—swinging to make Zahel dodge back.
Zahel snatched a sheet off the fluttering lines, twisting it and wrapping it into a tight length, like a cord.
Kaladin rubbed his neck. “I think … I think I have seen this style before. You fight like Azure does.”
“She fights like me, boy.”
“She’s hunting for you, I think.”
“So Adolin has said. The fool woman will have to get through Cultivation’s Perpendicularity first, so I won’t hold my Breaths waiting for her to arrive.” He waved for Kaladin to come at him again.
Kaladin slipped a throwing knife from his belt, then fell into a sword-and-knife stance. He waved for Zahel to come at him instead. The swordmaster smiled, then threw his sheet at Kaladin. It puffed out, spreading wide as if going for an embrace. By the time Kaladin had cut it down, Zahel was gone, ducking out into the rippling cloth forest.
Kaladin dismissed Syl, then waved toward the ground. She nodded and dived to look under the sheets, searching for Zahel. She pointed in a direction for Kaladin, then dodged between two sheets as a ribbon of light.
Kaladin followed carefully. He thought he caught a glimpse of Zahel through the sheets, a shadow across the cloth.
“Do you believe?” Kaladin asked as he advanced. “In God, or the Almighty or whatever?”
“I don’t have to believe,” the voice drifted back. “I know gods exist. I simply hate them.”
