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*Eighteen years ago.* Szeth is nineteen, eight years in Shin uniform, and unfolding a trap of his own making in a Shin fishing village on the coast. The buildings are stocked with stonewalker loot — barrels of crab-bladder oil, boxes of prized shells — with weapons hidden in the false bottoms. Five of his best men huddle in each house, scrawny on purpose, mud on their faces, waiting to be taken as "slaves" by the raiders gliding in across the still bay. The Shin Farmer has long forbidden true counter-raids; his orders to General Kinal are too passive. Szeth has been told to *show initiative* in protecting his shores. He has chosen to hear in that the words his superiors will not say.

The Voice tells him the plan is good and that he is good. The raiders come ashore, ransack the houses, take the "slaves," and laugh in a tongue the Voice translates: the captain forbids burning the houses, because the oil could rage out of control. Pity — Szeth had thought it mercy. Then a small disaster: a boy in bright green socks, somehow missed by the evacuation, panics behind a shed in the raiders' line of march. Szeth walks into the road, plays the wretch, and lets himself be taken aboard a ship in the boy's place. The raiders find a small stone in his pocket and read it as an Oathstone — *I have encouraged that practice*, the Voice says. *I approve of oaths.*

Distant horns sound. The first of the three ships gushes smoke as his strike teams cut their bonds, kill watchers, and torch the holds. The second begins to smoke beneath Szeth's own feet. He frees himself in the chaos, drops down to the hold, takes a saber from a man Lumo-son-Tumo has just killed, and sends his four fellows over the rail to back the beach. Lumo refuses to leave him; Szeth grabs a stonewalker coat from a corpse and shoves him into the water, then leaps for the third ship — where five of his men have not yet escaped.

He climbs the anchor chain alone, wet and disguised, and finds his soldiers tied to the mast on a deck lit by *profane* gemstone lanterns. Twenty raiders are still aboard. Recognized at once for the wrong skin tone, he draws sword and dances. He becomes death for the first time — *before, I had borrowed that darkness; today I embraced it* — and drops seven men. Then a sword tip jolts out of his stomach. He kneels in his own blood, numb and not quite believing. *Do you know why there are so few true swordmasters, Szeth?* the Voice asks conversationally. *Because the consequences of mistakes are too high.* It offers him a second chance. He whispers yes. The nearest lantern goes out. His strength returns; the wound seals; foreign bacteria in his gut have been killed for him. *Not many men have a chance to live a second time. Remember that.*

He cuts Jathen and his brother Athszen free, kicks weapons across the deck, and fights again — this time with his men at his back. The remaining raiders throw down their swords and beg mercy. The Voice supplies the words: Szeth shows the captain his healed gut and declares himself a Stormrider, one of the legendary immortal Shin warriors of an older age, come now to stop the raids. He stabs not one but two surviving sailors precisely where he was stabbed — slow, painful wounds intended to send the ship racing home with men who will die en route — and tells the captain that for every ship that comes again, he will choose more raiders to die that way. *I am willing to do whatever it takes.*

He climbs into a shore boat and rows in with Jathen's crew, the last two ships burning to coal behind them. His men cheer; the fisherfolk pour beer onto the sand; he stands apart and watches the masts gutter under the surf. Riders come down from the monastery, his father Neturo among them. Neturo hugs him through the blood and asks, with what Szeth hears as horror: *what have you done?* General Kinal calls out: *you went too far — burning their ships? They'll come back with hundreds more.* *I saw to it that they won't, sir.* *You shouldn't have made this decision.* — *But I was told to protect the shores. That was your order. I did exactly as I was told.* — *You took too much upon yourself, son.* — *Stones! How am I to know that?* Kinal sends him to camp. The lights of the burning ships gutter out in the bay. He goes to wait for *greater minds* to decide what should be done with him.