Kaladin- Dreamstorm

Kaladin stepped up to the horse. She danced a few steps back, but let him touch the saddle. So he breathed in a little more Stormlight and threw himself at the saddle.

“Damnation! What—” Adolin shouted.

That was all Kaladin heard. His Stormlight-aided leap let him get higher than an ordinary man could probably have managed, but his aim was off. He got hold of the pommel and threw one leg over, but the horse started thrashing.

The beast was incredibly strong, a distinct and powerful contrast to Spray. Kaladin was quite nearly hurled from the seat on the first buck.

With a wild swipe of the hand, Kaladin poured Stormlight onto the saddle and stuck himself in place. That only meant that instead of being tossed from horseback like a limp cloth, he got whipped back and forth like a limp cloth. He somehow managed to get hold of the horse’s mane and, with teeth gritted, did his best to keep from being bounced senseless.

The stable grounds were a blur. The only sounds he could hear were his beating heart and the smashing hooves. The Voidbringer beast moved like a storm itself, but Kaladin was stuck to the saddle as surely as if he’d been nailed there. After what seemed an eternity, the horse—blowing out big, frothy breaths—stilled.

Kaladin’s swimming vision cleared to show a group of bridgemen—keeping their distance—cheering him on. Adolin and Jenet, both mounted, stared at him with what seemed to be a mixture of horror and awe. Kaladin grinned.

Then, in one last, powerful motion, Dreamstorm bucked him free.

He hadn’t realized that the Stormlight in the saddle was exhausted. In a fitting fulfillment of his earlier prediction, Kaladin found himself dazed, lying on his back staring at the sky, having trouble remembering the last few seconds of his life. A number of painspren wiggled out of the ground beside him, little orange hands that grabbed this way and that.

An equine head with unfathomably dark eyes leaned down over Kaladin. The horse snorted at him. The smell was moist and grassy.

“You monster,” Kaladin said. “You waited until I was relaxed, then threw me.”

Words of Radiance Chapter 24