Page 15 of The Winner's Kiss
Chapter 4
Arin slunk forward on his Belly and inched over the patchy grass. The wind shrilled in his ears. It whipped dirt into his eyes. He blinked it away, eyes streaming, and crept to the edge of the cliff. He heard soil crumble beneath his weight. It sifted down the cliffs.
Arin’s pulse thumped hard. He imagined the lip of the cliff giving way. He’d plummet fast.
Quickly, as he’d already done several times that day, Arin dug his elbows into the earth and pulled himself just far enough to look down the cliff. The sea was dizzyingly far below. It foamed white against the rocks.
There were no ships.
No Valorians climbing up the cliffs.
Nothing.
Arin pushed himself away from the edge, rolled onto his back, looked up at the pale sky, and then at the waiting Herrani.
He met their eyes. He shook his head.
Arin had ridden to Etrea, a country estate he’d helped liberate during the Firstwinter Rebellion. The people there were too far from the city and mountains to rely on aqueducts for water; they had wells. They were healthy. Maybe they weren’t born fighters, but Arin would take what he could get. He’d ridden through the village and begged for help. About twenty men and women followed him to the cliffs.
The bare cliffs.
The quiet ones.
Arin looked out again over the empty water and imagined what Roshar must have thought as he’d looked for Arin in the morning light and made his way to the beach without him.
Arin wondered if his disobedience—or would Roshar see it as cowardice?—had cost him the alliance he’d worked so hard to forge.
But on the second day, Arin saw them.
At first, he wasn’t sure it was really happening. He hadn’t seen the arrival of any ships—they must have dropped anchor out of sight, behind the southern edge of the cliffs that bulged out into the water at their base. Arin hadn’t seen the small launches row up to the foot of the cliffs. He only realized what they were (they looked like dark rocks below in the sea) when he saw tiny black figures against the shining white rock.
Arin peered again through his spyglass. The sun beat against his shoulders. He tasted sweat. His stomach tightened against the stiff grass beneath him.
Valorian Rangers were climbing up the cliffs in pairs. One held the rope at the bottom. The other, tied to the rope, moved up, setting pitons and strange pieces of gear into the rocks. The climbers clipped the rope to the gear (each looked somewhat like a horse’s stirrup) so that the rope passed through freely. Then the climbers scaled the cliff as their partners below fed out slack on the ropes.
There weren’t many. A hundred, by Arin’s count.
He watched the climbers reach the end of their ropes. They used their gear to anchor themselves to the cliff wall. Then they pulled up the rope, taking in the slack as their partners below began to climb the same path. When they met at the anchor, they repeated the whole process of climbing up as far as the rope’s length would let them.
For a moment, Arin let himself imagine how they must feel. The wind screaming. Their skin dusted, lips chapped. Their fingers trembling over the rock until they found a hold. Relief when the grip was good. A jolt of fear when their toes slipped on glassy rock. Their feet cut away. They hung, arms blazing in pain. The rope held. Their feet found purchase and dug into the cliff. Hands bloody, mouths dry, they kept climbing.
Arin pushed back from the cliff. He stopped thinking about what the Rangers felt. They had come to steal his country and kill his people. He didn’t need his god to tell him what to do.
He had his small group of armed Herrani fall back and crouch behind nearby bushes that were stunted and twisted by high winds.
Arin waited until the first set of climbers had hauled themselves up over the cliff’s lip. They staked themselves to the ground, then began pulling up the rope as their partners below made the final ascent.
Once the Rangers were nailed to the ground and their hands were full, the Herrani emerged from the bushes.
Arin was the first to fall upon them, to show the other Herrani what to do.
A Ranger turned, brown eyes wide. He was still staked to the ground. Arin’s sword sliced the long, gathered rope in the Valorian’s hands. It zipped away, spun down over the cliff. A scream floated up from below.
Arin cut the Ranger’s anchor and set the point of his sword to the Ranger’s sweat-shiny throat. “The blade, or the rocks below?” Arin asked in Valorian. The words sounded airless, scratched raw by the wind.
The whites of the Valorian’s eyes showed clear around.
After one loud heartbeat, Arin realized the Ranger was too afraid to answer. Arin made the choice for him, and stabbed.
