Kaladin looked at Lopen, incredulous. “What?”
“See? Now the bit about the hat is only the second most ridiculous piece of advice you’ve ever been given, so you should try it. Women like hats. I have this cousin who makes them. I can ask her. You might not even need the actual hat. Just the spren of the hat. That’ll make it even cheaper.”
“You’re a very special kind of weird, Lopen.”
“Of course I am, gon. There’s only one of me.”
They continued through the empty camp. Storms, the place seemed hollow. They passed empty barrack after empty barrack. Kaladin walked with care, glad for Lopen’s help, but even this was draining. He shouldn’t be moving on the leg. Father’s words, the words of a surgeon, floated up from the depths of his mind.
Torn muscles. Bind the leg, ward against infection, and keep the subject from putting weight on it. Further tearing could lead to a permanent limp, or worse.
“You want to get a palanquin?” Lopen asked.
“Those are for women.”
“Ain’t nothing wrong with being a woman, gancho,” Lopen said. “Some of my relatives are women.”
“Of course they . . .” He trailed off at Lopen’s grin. Storming Herdazian. How much of what he said was to deliberately sound obtuse? Well, Kaladin had heard men telling jokes about how stupid Herdazians were, but Lopen could talk rings around those men. Of course, half of Lopen’s own jokes were about Herdazians. He seemed to find those extra funny.
As they approached the plateaus, the dead silence gave way to the low roar of thousands of people assembled in a limited area. Kaladin and Lopen finally broke free of the barrack rows, emerging onto the natural terrace just above the parade grounds that debouched onto the Shattered Plains. Thousands of soldiers were gathered there. Spearmen in huge blocks, lighteyed archers in thinner ranks, officers prancing on horseback in gleaming armor.
Kaladin gasped softly.
“What?” Lopen asked.
“It’s what I always thought I’d find.”
“What? Today?”
“As a young man in Alethkar,” Kaladin said, unexpectedly emotional. “When I dreamed of the glory of war, this is what I imagined.” He hadn’t pictured the greenvines and barely capable soldiers that Amaram had trained in Alethkar. Neither had he pictured the crude, if effective, brutes of Sadeas’s army—or even the quick strike teams of Dalinar’s plateau runs.
He’d imagined this. A full army, arrayed for a grand march. Spears held high, banners fluttering, drummers and trumpeters, messengers in livery, scribes on horses, even the king’s Soulcasters in their own sectioned-off square, hidden from sight by walls of cloth carried on poles.
Kaladin knew the truth of battle now. Fighting was not about glory, but about men lying on the ground screaming and thrashing, tangled in their own viscera. It was about bridgemen thrown against a wall of arrows, or of Parshendi cut down while they sang.
Yet in this moment, Kaladin let himself dream again. He gave his youthful self—still there deep inside him—the spectacle he’d always imagined. He pretended that these soldiers were about something wonderful, instead of just another pointless slaughter.
“Hey, someone else is actually coming,” Lopen said, pointing. “Look at that.”
By the banners, Dalinar had been joined by only a single highprince: Roion. However, as Lopen pointed out, another force—not quite as large or as well organized—was flowing northward up the wide, open pathway along the eastern rim of the warcamps. At least one other highprince had responded to Dalinar’s call.
“Let’s find Bridge Four,” Kaladin said. “I want to see the men off.”
* * *
“Sebarial?” Dalinar asked. “Sebarial’s troops are joining us?”
Roion grunted, wringing his hands—as if wishing to wash them—as he sat in the saddle. “I guess we should be glad for any support at all.”
“Sebarial,” Dalinar said, dumbfounded. “He wouldn’t even send troops on close plateau runs, where there was no risk of Parshendi. Why would he send men now?”
Roion shook his head and shrugged.
Dalinar turned Gallant and trotted the horse toward the oncoming group, as did Roion. They passed Adolin, who rode just behind with Shallan, side by side, her guards and his following. Renarin was over with the bridgemen, of course.
Shallan was riding one of Adolin’s own horses, a petite gelding over which Sureblood towered. Shallan wore a traveling dress of the kind messenger women preferred, with the front and back slit all the way to the waist. She wore leggings—basically silk trousers, but women preferred other names—underneath.
Behind them rode a large group of Navani’s scholars and cartographers, including Isasik, the ardent who was the royal cartographer. These passed around the map Shallan had drawn, Isasik riding to the side, chin raised, as if pointedly ignoring the praise the women were giving Shallan’s map. Dalinar needed all these scholars, though he wished he didn’t. Each scribe he brought was another life he risked. That was made worse by Navani herself coming. He couldn’t dismiss her argument. If you think it’s safe enough for you to bring the girl, then it’s safe enough for me.
As Dalinar made his way toward Sebarial’s oncoming procession, Amaram rode up, wearing his Shardplate, his golden cloak trailing behind. He had a fine warhorse, the hulking breed used in Shinovar to pull heavy carts. It still looked like a pony beside Gallant.
“Is that Sebarial?” Amaram asked, pointing at the oncoming force.
“Apparently.”
“Should we send him away?”
“Why would we do that?”
“He’s untrustworthy,” Amaram said.
“He keeps his word, so far as I know,” Dalinar said. “That is more than I can say for most.”
“He keeps his word because he never promises anything.”
Dalinar, Roion, and Amaram trotted up to Sebarial, who stepped out of a carriage at the front of the army. A carriage. For a war procession. Well, it wouldn’t slow Dalinar any more than all of these scribes. In fact, he should probably have a few more carriages made ready. It would be nice for Navani to have a way to ride in comfort once the days wore long.
“Sebarial?” Dalinar asked.
“Dalinar!” the plump man said, shading his eyes. “You look surprised.”
“I am.”
“Ha! That’s reason enough to have come. Wouldn’t you say, Palona?”
Dalinar could barely make out the woman sitting in the carriage, wearing an enormous fashionable hat and a sleek gown.
“You brought your mistress?” Dalinar asked.
“Sure. Why not? If we fail out there, I’ll be dead and she’ll be out on her ear. She insisted, anyway. Storming woman.” Sebarial walked up right beside Gallant. “I’ve got a feeling about you, Dalinar old man. I think it’s wise to stay close to you. Something’s going to happen out there on the Plains, and opportunity rises like the dawn.”
Roion sniffed.
“Roion,” Sebarial said, “shouldn’t you be hiding under a table somewhere?”
“Perhaps I should, if only to get away from you.”
Sebarial laughed. “Well said, you old turtle! Maybe this trip won’t be a complete bore. Onward, then! To glory and some such nonsense. If we find riches, remember that I get my part! I got here before Aladar. That has to count for something.”
“Before . . .” Dalinar said with a start. He twisted around, looking back toward the warcamp bordering his own to the north.
There, an army wearing Aladar’s colors of white and dark green spilled out onto the Shattered Plains.
“Now that,” Amaram said, “I really didn’t expect.”
* * *
“We could try a coup,” Ialai said.
Sadeas turned in his saddle toward his wife. Their guards scattered the hills around them, distant enough to be out of earshot as the highprince and his wife enjoyed a gentle “ride through the hills.” In reality, the two of them had wanted a clo
ser look at Sebarial’s expansions out here west of the warcamps, where he was setting up full-scale farming operations.
Ialai rode with eyes forward. “Dalinar will be gone from the camp, and with him Roion, his only supporter. We could seize the Pinnacle, execute the king, and take the throne.”
Sadeas turned his horse, looking eastward over the warcamps. He could just barely make out Dalinar’s army gathering distantly on the Shattered Plains.
A coup. One last step, a slap in the face of old Gavilar. He’d do it. Storm it, he would.
Except for the fact that he didn’t need to.
“Dalinar has committed to this foolish expedition,” Sadeas said. “He’ll be dead soon, surrounded and destroyed on those Plains. We don’t need a coup; if I’d known that he would actually do this, we wouldn’t have even needed your assassin.”
Ialai looked away. Her assassin had failed. She considered it a strong fault on her part, though the plan had been executed with exactness. These things were never certain. Unfortunately, now that they’d tried and failed, they’d need to be careful about . . .
Sadeas turned his horse, frowning as a messenger approached on horseback. The youth was allowed to pass the guards and proffered a letter to Ialai.
She read it, and her disposition darkened.
“You aren’t going to like this,” she said, looking up.
* * *
Dalinar kicked Gallant into motion, tearing across the landscape, startling plants into their dens. He passed his army in a few minutes of hard riding and approached the new force.
Aladar sat on horseback here, surveying his army. He wore a fashionable uniform, black with maroon stripes on the sleeves and a matching stock at the neck. Soldiers swarmed around him. He had one of the largest forces on the Plains—storms, with Dalinar’s numbers reduced, Aladar’s army might be the largest.
He was also one of Sadeas’s greatest supporters.
“How are we going to do this, Dalinar?” Aladar asked as Dalinar trotted up. “Do we all go out on our own, crossing different plateaus but meeting back up, or do we march in an enormous column?”
“Why?” Dalinar asked. “Why have you come?”
“You made such passionate arguments all along, and now you act surprised that someone listened?”
“Not someone. You.”
Aladar pressed his lips to a line, finally turning to meet Dalinar’s eyes. “Roion and Sebarial, the two biggest cowards in our midst, are marching to war. Am I to stay behind and let them seek the fulfillment of the Vengeance Pact without me?”
“The other highprinces seem content to do so.”
“I suspect they are better at lying to themselves than I am.”
Suddenly, all of Aladar’s vehement arguments—at the forefront of the faction against Dalinar—took on a different cast. He was arguing to convince himself, Dalinar thought. He was worried all along that I was right.
“Sadeas will not be pleased,” Dalinar said.
“Sadeas can storm off. He doesn’t own me.” Aladar fiddled with his reins for a moment. “He wants to, though. I can feel it in the deals he forces me to make, the knives he slowly places at everyone’s throats. He’d have us all as his slaves by the end of this.”
“Aladar,” Dalinar said, moving his horse right up alongside the other man’s so the two of them faced each other directly. He held Aladar’s eyes. “Tell me Sadeas didn’t put you up to this. Tell me this isn’t part of another plot to abandon or betray me.”
Aladar smiled. “You think I’d just tell you if it were?”
“I would hear a promise from your own lips.”
“And you’ll trust that promise? How well did that serve you, Dalinar, when Sadeas professed his friendship?”
“A promise, Aladar.”
Aladar met his eyes. “I think the things you say about Alethkar are naive at best, and undoubtedly impossible. Those delusions of yours aren’t a sign of madness, as Sadeas wants us to think—they’re just the dreams of a man who wants desperately to believe in something, something foolish. ‘Honor’ is a word applied to the actions of men from the past who have had their lives scrubbed clean by historians.” He hesitated. “But . . . storm me for a fool, Dalinar, I wish they could be true. I came for myself, not Sadeas. I won’t betray you. Even if Alethkar can’t ever be what you want, we can at least crush the Parshendi and avenge old Gavilar. It’s just the right thing to do.”
Dalinar nodded.
“I could be lying,” Aladar said.
“But you aren’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Honestly? I don’t. But if this is all going to work, I am going to have to trust some of you.” To an extent. He would never put himself in another position like the Tower.
Either way, Aladar’s presence meant this incursion was actually possible. Together, the four of them would likely outnumber the Parshendi—though he wasn’t certain how trustworthy the scribes’ counts of their numbers were.
It was not the grand coalition of all highprinces that Dalinar had wanted, but even with the chasms favoring the Parshendi, this could be enough.
“We march together,” Dalinar said, pointing. “I don’t want us spread out. We keep to plateaus next to one another, or the same plateau when possible. And you’ll need to leave your parshmen behind.”
“That’s an unusual requirement,” Aladar said with a frown.
“We’re marching against their cousins,” Dalinar said. “Best to not risk the possibility of them turning against us.”
“But they’d never . . . Bah, whatever. It can be done.”
Dalinar nodded, extending a hand to Aladar as, behind, Roion and Amaram finally trotted up; Dalinar had outstripped them on Gallant.
“Thank you,” Dalinar said to Aladar.
“You really do believe in all of this, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
Aladar extended his hand, but hesitated. “You realize that I’m stained through and through. I’ve got blood on these hands, Dalinar. I’m not some perfect, honorable knight as you seem to want to pretend.”
“I know you’re not,” Dalinar said, taking the hand. “I’m not either. We will have to do.”
They shared a nod, then Dalinar turned Gallant and began to trot back toward his own army. Roion groaned, complaining about his thighs after having galloped all the way over. The ride today was not going to be pleasant for him.
Amaram fell in beside Dalinar. “First Sebarial, then Aladar? Your trust seems to come cheaply today, Dalinar.”
“Would you have me turn them away?”
“Think how spectacular this victory would be if we did it on our own.”
“I hope we’re above such vainglory, old friend,” Dalinar said. They rode for a time, passing Adolin and Shallan again. Dalinar scanned his force and noticed something. A tall man in blue sat on a stone in the midst of Bridge Four’s bodyguards.
Speaking of fools . . .
“Come with me,” Dalinar said to Amaram.
Amaram let his horse lag behind. “I think I should go see to—”
“Come,” Dalinar said sharply. “I want you to speak to that young man so we can put a stop to the rumors and the things he’s been saying about you. Those don’t do anyone any good.”
“Very well,” Amaram said, catching up.
* * *
Kaladin found himself standing up amid the bridgemen, despite the pain of his leg, as he noticed Adolin and Shallan riding past. He followed the pair with his eyes. Adolin, astride his thick-hooved Ryshadium, and Shallan on a more modestly sized brown animal.
She looked gorgeous. Kaladin was willing to admit it, if only to himself. Brilliant red hair, ready smile. She said something clever; Kaladin could almost hear the words. He waited, hoping that she’d look toward him, meet his eyes across the short distance.
She didn’t. She rode on, and Kaladin felt like an utter fool. A part of him wanted to hate Adolin for holding her attention, but he found tha
t he couldn’t. The truth was, he liked Adolin. And those two were good for one another. They fit.
Perhaps Kaladin could hate that.
He settled back down on a rock, bowing his head. The bridgemen crowded in around him. Hopefully they hadn’t seen Kaladin following Shallan with his eyes, straining to hear her voice. Renarin stood, like a shade, at the back of the group. The bridgemen were coming to accept him, but he still seemed very awkward around them. Of course, he seemed awkward around most people.
I need to talk to him more about his condition, Kaladin thought. Something seemed off to him about that man and his explanation of the epilepsy.
“Why are you here, sir?” Bisig asked, drawing Kaladin’s attention back to the other bridgemen.
“I wanted to see you off,” Kaladin said, sighing. “I assumed you’d be happy to see me.”
“You are like child,” Rock said, wagging a thick finger at Kaladin. “What would you do, great Captain Stormblessed, if you caught one of these men walking about with hurt leg? You would have that man beaten! Once he healed, of course.”
“I thought,” Kaladin noted, “that I was your commander.”
“Nah, can’t be,” Teft said, “because our commander would be smart enough to stay in bed.”
“And eat much stew,” Rock said. “I left you stew to eat while I am gone.”
“You’re going on the expedition?” Kaladin asked, looking up at the large Horneater. “I thought you were just seeing the men off. You aren’t willing to fight. What will you do out there?”
“Someone must fix food for them,” Rock said. “This expedition, it will take days. I will not leave my friends to the mercy of camp chefs. Ha! The food they cook will all be from Soulcast grain and meat. Tastes like crem! Someone must come with proper spices.”
Kaladin looked up at the group of frowning men. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll go back. Storms, I . . .”
Why were the bridgemen parting? Rock looked over his shoulder, then laughed, backing away. “Now we shall see real trouble.”
Behind them, Dalinar Kholin was climbing from his saddle. Kaladin sighed, then waved for Lopen to help him to his feet so he could salute properly. He got upright—earning a glare from Teft—before noticing that Dalinar was not alone.
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